Courage

Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Far in thy realm withdrawn
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,
And glorious ages gone
Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

Childhood, with all its mirth,
Youth, Manhood, Age, that draws us to the ground,
And last, Man's Life on earth,
Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

Thou hast my better years,
Thou hast my earlier friends, the good, the kind,
Yielded to thee with tears,
The venerable form, the exalted mind.

My spirit yearns to bring
The lost ones back, yearns with desire intense,
And struggles hard to wring
Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.

...

Thou hadst no home, and thou couldst see
In every street the windows' light:
Dragging thy limbs about all night,
No window kept a light for thee.

However much thou wert distressed,
Or tired of moving, and felt sick,
Thy life was on the open deck,
Thou hadst no cabin for thy rest.

Thy barque was helpless 'neath the sky,
No pilot thought thee worth his pains
To guide for love or money gains,
Like phantom ships the rich sailed by.

Thy shadow mocked thee night and day,
Thy life's companion, it alone;
It did not sigh, it did not moan,
But mocked thy moves in every way.

In spite of all, the mind had force,
And, like a stream whose surface flows
The wrong way when a strong wind blows,
It underneath maintained its course.

Tis sweet in boyhood's visionary mood,
When glowing Fancy, innocently gay,
Flings forth, like motes, her bright aërial brood,
To dance and shine in Hope's prolific ray;
'Tis sweet, unweeting how the flight of years
May darkling roll in trials and in tears,
To dress the future in what garb we list,
And shape the thousand joys that never may exist.
But he, sad wight! of all that feverish train,
Fool'd by those phantoms of the wizard brain,
Most wildly dotes, whom young ambition stings
To trust his weight upon poetic wings;
He, downward looking in his airy ride,
Beholds Elysium bloom on every side;
Unearthly bliss each thrilling nerve attunes,
And thus the dreamer with himself communes.
Yes! Earth shall witness, 'ere my star be set,
That partial nature mark'...

Beautiful valley! through whose verdant meads
    Unheard the Garigliano glides along;--
The Liris, nurse of rushes and of reeds,
    The river taciturn of classic song.

The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest,
    Where mediaeval towns are white on all
The hillsides, and where every mountain's crest
    Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall.

There is Alagna, where Pope Boniface
    Was dragged with contumely from his throne;
Sciarra Colonna, was that day's disgrace
    The Pontiff's only, or in part thine own?

There is Ceprano, where a renegade
    Was each Apulian, as great Dante saith,
When Manfred by his men-at-arms betrayed
    Spurred on to Benevento and to death.

There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town,
    Where Juvenal was born, w...

YOUTH.

Pilgrim of life! thy hoary head
    Is bent with age, thine eye
Looks downward to the silent dead,
    Wreck of mortality!--
The friends who flourished in thy day
    Have sought their narrow home;
Their spirits whisper, "Come away!"--


AGE.

    My soul replies, I come.--
I tread the path I trod a child,
    The fields I loved of yore;
The flowers that 'neath my footsteps smiled
    Now meet my gaze no more.
I stand beneath this giant oak!
    It was an aged tree,
Hollowed by time's resistless stroke,
    When life was green with me.
Its lofty head it proudly rears
    To greet the summer sky,
Whilst, bending with the weight of years,
    I feebly totter by.
And hushed are all the thousand songs
...

I

Victors, living, with laureled brow,
And you that sleep beneath the sward!
Your song was poured from cannon throats:
It rang in deep-tongued bugle-notes:
Your triumph came; you won your crown,
The grandeur of a world's renown.
        But, in our later lays,
        Full freighted with your praise,
Fair memory harbors those whose lives, laid down
    In gallant faith and generous heat,
        Gained only sharp defeat.
All are at peace, who once so fiercely warred:
Brother and brother, now, we chant a common chord.


II

    For, if we say God wills,
    Shall we then idly deny Him
    Care of each host in the fight?
    His thunder was here in the hills
    When the guns were loud in July;
    And the flash of the mu...

1.
The waters are flashing,
The white hail is dashing,
The lightnings are glancing,
The hoar-spray is dancing -
Away!

The whirlwind is rolling,
The thunder is tolling,
The forest is swinging,
The minster bells ringing -
Come away!

The Earth is like Ocean,
Wreck-strewn and in motion:
Bird, beast, man and worm
Have crept out of the storm -
Come away!

2.
'Our boat has one sail
And the helmsman is pale; -
A bold pilot I trow,
Who should follow us now,' -
Shouted he -

And she cried: 'Ply the oar!
Put off gaily from shore!' -
As she spoke, bolts of death
Mixed with hail, specked their path
O'er the sea.

And from isle, tower and rock,
The blue beacon-cloud broke,
And though...

Let Honour speak, for only Honour can
End nobly what in nobleness began.
Nor hate nor anger may, though just their cause,
This strife prolong, if Honour whisper, Pause!
Let Honour speak.
For Honour keeps the ashes of the dead,
Accounts the anguish of all widowhead,
All childlessness, all sacrifice, defeat,
And all our dead have died for, though to live was sweet.
Let Honour speak,
Nor weariness nor weakness murmur, Stay!
Nor for this Now England's To be betray.
All else be dumb, for only Honour can
End nobly what in nobleness began.

When fear admits no hope of safety, then
Necessity makes dastards valiant men.

Singing, as if enamour'd, she resum'd
And clos'd the song, with "Blessed they whose sins
Are cover'd." Like the wood-nymphs then, that tripp'd
Singly across the sylvan shadows, one
Eager to view and one to 'scape the sun,
So mov'd she on, against the current, up
The verdant rivage. I, her mincing step
Observing, with as tardy step pursued.

Between us not an hundred paces trod,
The bank, on each side bending equally,
Gave me to face the orient. Nor our way
Far onward brought us, when to me at once
She turn'd, and cried: "My brother! look and hearken."
And lo! a sudden lustre ran across
Through the great forest on all parts, so bright
I doubted whether lightning were abroad;
But that expiring ever in the spleen,
That doth unfold it, and this during st...

"How shall I be a poet?
How shall I write in rhyme?
You told me once 'the very wish
Partook of the sublime.'
The tell me how! Don't put me off
With your 'another time'!"

The old man smiled to see him,
To hear his sudden sally;
He liked the lad to speak his mind
Enthusiastically;
And thought "There's no hum-drum in him,
Nor any shilly-shally."

"And would you be a poet
Before you've been to school?
Ah, well! I hardly thought you
So absolute a fool.
First learn to be spasmodic,
A very simple rule.

"For first you write a sentence,
And then you chop it small;
Then mix the bits, and sort them out
Just as they chance to fall:
The order of the phrases makes
No difference at all.

'Then, if you'd be impress...

(He.) Never until this night have I been stirred.
The elaborate starlight throws a reflection
On the dark stream,
Till all the eddies gleam;
And thereupon there comes that scream
From terrified, invisible beast or bird:
Image of poignant recollection.

(She.) An image of my heart that is smitten through
Out of all likelihood, or reason,
And when at last,
Youth's bitterness being past,
I had thought that all my days were cast
Amid most lovely places; smitten as though
It had not learned its lesson.

(He.) Why have you laid your hands upon my eyes?
What can have suddenly alarmed you
Whereon 'twere best
My eyes should never rest?
What is there but the slowly fading west,
The river imaging the flashing skies,
All that to this moment c...

The troubles of life are many,
The pleasures of life are few;
When we sat in the sunlight, Annie,
I dreamt that the skies were blue,
When we sat in the sunlight, Annie,
I dreamt that the earth was green;
There is little colour, if any,
’Neath the sunlight now to be seen.

Then the rays of the sunset glinted
Through the blackwoods’ emerald bough
On an emerald sward, rose-tinted,
And spangled, and gemm’d; and now
The rays of the sunset redden
With a sullen and lurid frown,
From the skies that are dark and leaden,
To earth that is dusk and brown.

To right and to left extended
The uplands are blank and drear,
And their neutral tints are blended
With the dead leaves sombre and sere;
The cold grey mist from the still side
Of the l...

Fuscus, whoso to good inclines,
And is a faultless liver,
Nor Moorish spear nor bow need fear,
Nor poison-arrowed quiver.

Ay, though through desert wastes he roam,
Or scale the rugged mountains,
Or rest beside the murmuring tide
Of weird Hydaspan fountains!

Lo, on a time, I gayly paced
The Sabine confines shady,
And sung in glee of Lalage,
My own and dearest lady;

And as I sung, a monster wolf
Slunk through the thicket from me;
But for that song, as I strolled along,
He would have overcome me!

Set me amid those poison mists
Which no fair gale dispelleth,
Or in the plains where silence reigns,
And no thing human dwelleth,--

Still shall I love my Lalage,
Still sing her tender graces;
And while I sing, m...

Set in this stormy Northern sea,
Queen of these restless fields of tide,
England! what shall men say of thee,
Before whose feet the worlds divide?

The earth, a brittle globe of glass,
Lies in the hollow of thy hand,
And through its heart of crystal pass,
Like shadows through a twilight land,

The spears of crimson-suited war,
The long white-crested waves of fight,
And all the deadly fires which are
The torches of the lords of Night.

The yellow leopards, strained and lean,
The treacherous Russian knows so well,
With gaping blackened jaws are seen
Leap through the hail of screaming shell.

The strong sea-lion of England's wars
Hath left his sapphire cave of sea,
To battle with the storm that mars
The stars of England's chival...

We have cried in our despair
That men desert,
For some trivial affair
Or noisy, insolent, sport,
Beauty that we have won
From bitterest hours;
Yet we, had we walked within
Those topless towers
Where Helen walked with her boy,
Had given but as the rest
Of the men and women of Troy,
A word and a jest.

Oppressed with sin and woe,
A burdened heart I bear,
Opposed by many a mighty foe;
But I will not despair.

With this polluted heart,
I dare to come to Thee,
Holy and mighty as Thou art,
For Thou wilt pardon me.

I feel that I am weak,
And prone to every sin;
But Thou who giv'st to those who seek,
Wilt give me strength within.

Far as this earth may be
From yonder starry skies;
Remoter still am I from Thee:
Yet Thou wilt not despise.

I need not fear my foes,
I deed not yield to care;
I need not sink beneath my woes,
For Thou wilt answer prayer.

In my Redeemer's name,
I give myself to Thee;
And, all unworthy as I am,
My God will cherish me.

Lines written after a summer day's excursion.


Fair Nature's priestesses! to whom,
In hieroglyph of bud and bloom,
Her mysteries are told;
Who, wise in lore of wood and mead,
The seasons' pictured scrolls can read,
In lessons manifold!

Thanks for the courtesy, and gay
Good-humor, which on Washing Day
Our ill-timed visit bore;
Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke
The morning dreams of Artichoke,
Along his wooded shore!

Varied as varying Nature's ways,
Sprites of the river, woodland fays,
Or mountain nymphs, ye seem;
Free-limbed Dianas on the green,
Loch Katrine's Ellen, or Undine,
Upon your favorite stream.

The forms of which the poets told,
The fair benignities of old,
Were doubtless such as yo...