Death

Whatever your work and whatever its worth,
    No matter how strong or clever,
Some one will sneer if you pause to hear,
    And scoff at your best endeavour.
For the target art has a broad expanse,
    And wherever you chance to hit it,
Though close be your aim to the bull's-eye fame,
    There are those who will never admit it.

Though the house applauds while the artist plays,
    And a smiling world adores him,
Somebody is there with an ennuied air
    To say that the acting bores him.
For the tower of art has a lofty spire,
    With many a stair and landing,
And those who climb seem small oft-time
    To one at the bottom standing.

So work along in your chosen niche
    With a steady purpose to nerve you;
Let nothing men say who pass ...

One of the solid margins bears us now
Envelop'd in the mist, that from the stream
Arising, hovers o'er, and saves from fire
Both piers and water. As the Flemings rear
Their mound, 'twixt Ghent and Bruges, to chase back
The ocean, fearing his tumultuous tide
That drives toward them, or the Paduans theirs
Along the Brenta, to defend their towns
And castles, ere the genial warmth be felt
On Chiarentana's top; such were the mounds,
So fram'd, though not in height or bulk to these
Made equal, by the master, whosoe'er
He was, that rais'd them here. We from the wood
Were not so far remov'd, that turning round
I might not have discern'd it, when we met
A troop of spirits, who came beside the pier.

They each one ey'd us, as at eventide
One eyes another under...

He rode along one splendid noon,
When all the hills were lit with Spring,
And through the bushland throbbed a croon
Of every living, hopeful thing.

Between his teeth a rose he bore
As white as milk, and passing there
He tossed it with a laugh. I wore
It as it fell among my hair.

No day a-drip with golden rain,
No heat with drench of wattle scent
Can touch the heart of me again
But with that young, sweet wonder blent.

We wed upon a gusty day,
When baffled fury whipped the sea;
And now I love the swift, wet play
Of wind and rain besetting me.

I took white roses in my hand,
A white rose on my forehead shone,
For we had come to understand
White roses bloomed for us alone.

When scarce a year had gone he sped
To...

"Not to the earth confined,
Ascend to heaven."


Where will they stop, those breathing Powers,
The Spirits of the new-born flowers?
They wander with the breeze, they wind
Where'er the streams a passage find;
Up from their native ground they rise
In mute aerial harmonies;
From humble violet, modest thyme,
Exhaled, the essential odours climb,
As if no space below the sky
Their subtle flight could satisfy:
Heaven will not tax our thoughts with pride
If like ambition be 'their' guide.

Roused by this kindliest of May-showers,
The spirit-quickener of the flowers,
That with moist virtue softly cleaves
The buds, and freshens the young leaves,
The birds pour forth their souls in notes
Of rapture from a thousand throats
Here checked b...

One hour to madness and joy!
O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)

O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
O savage and tender achings!
(I bequeath them to you, my children, I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)

O to be yielded to you, whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me,
in defiance of the world!
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
O to draw you to me - to plant on you for the first time the lips of a determin'd man!

O the puzzle - the thrice-tied knot - the deep and dark pool! O all untied and illumin'd!
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
O to be absolv'd from previous ties and co...

Last night, without a voice, that Vision spake
Fear to my Soul, and sadness which might seem
Wholly dissevered from our present theme;
Yet, my beloved Country! I partake
Of kindred agitations for thy sake;
Thou, too, dost visit oft my midnight dream;
Thy glory meets me with the earliest beam
Of light, which tells that Morning is awake.
If aught impair thy beauty or destroy,
Or but forebode destruction, I deplore
With filial love the sad vicissitude;
If thou hast fallen, and righteous Heaven restore
The prostrate, then my spring-time is renewed,
And sorrow bartered for exceeding joy.

For every one
Beneath the sun,
Where Autumn walks with quiet eyes,
There is a word,
Just overheard
When hill to purple hill replies.

This afternoon,
As warm as June,
With the red apples on the bough,
I set my ear
To hark and hear
The wood-folk talking, you know how.

There comes a "Hush!"
And then a "Tush,"
As tree to scarlet tree responds,
"Babble away!
He'll not betray
The secrets of us vagabonds.

"Are we not all,
Both great and small,
Cousins and kindred in a joy
No school can teach,
No worldling reach,
Nor any wreck of chance destroy?"

And so we are,
However far
We journey ere the journey ends,
One brotherhood
With leaf and bud
And everything that wakes or wends.
<...

Forth from a jutting ridge, around whose base
Winds our deep Vale, two heath-clad Rocks ascend
In fellowship, the loftiest of the pair
Rising to no ambitious height; yet both,
O'er lake and stream, mountain and flowery mead,
Unfolding prospects fair as human eyes
Ever beheld. Up-led with mutual help,
To one or other brow of those twin Peaks
Were two adventurous Sisters wont to climb,
And took no note of the hour while thence they gazed,
The blooming heath their couch, gazed, side by side,
In speechless admiration. I, a witness
And frequent sharer of their calm delight
With thankful heart, to either Eminence
Gave the baptismal name each Sister bore.
Now are they parted, far as Death's cold hand
Hath power to part the Spirits of those who love
As they did l...

Crazed through much child-bearing
The moon is staggering in the sky;
Moon-struck by the despairing
Glances of her wandering eye
We grope, and grope in vain,
For children born of her pain.
Children dazed or dead!
When she in all her virginal pride
First trod on the mountain's head
What stir ran through the countryside
Where every foot obeyed her glance!
What manhood led the dance!
Fly-catchers of the moon,
Our hands are blenched, our fingers seem
But slender needles of bone;
Blenched by that malicious dream
They are spread wide that each
May rend what comes in reach.

    A man weeps at your ankles,
    climbs the stairs to peek-a-boo
    panties, with finger clasps,
    a Rapunzel lowering your hair,
    the long-matted braids
    a skilful weaver turns to gold.

    An ivy forest in
    a castle impregnated with doors,
    the prince overhears the code
    "let down your hair" and,
    with perilous grasp,
    mounts the stirrup wall,
    foot to clasp,
    searching cloud grey &
    storm blasts for billowy mists
    green within this empress queen.

    Walking plasticine ledge
    in the shower with a mermaid
    soaping her perfumed treasure trove,
    at an intersection within that woman,
    her tulip trees explode -
    faeryland syrupy,
    tasting of apricot and sugar c...

                I

And so I cross into another world
shyly and in homage linger for an invitation
from this unknown that I would trespass on.

I am very glad, and all alone in the world,
all alone, and very glad, in a new world
where I am disembarked at last.

I could cry with joy, because I am in the new world, just ventured in.
I could cry with joy, and quite freely, there is nobody to know.

And whosoever the unknown people of this un- known world may be
they will never understand my weeping for joy to be adventuring among them
because it will still be a gesture of the old world I am making
which they will not understand, because it is quite, quite foreign to them.

                II

I WAS so weary of the world
I was so sick of it...

I wandered o'er the vast green plains of youth,
And searched for Pleasure.    On a distant height
Fame's silhouette stood sharp against the skies.
Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway
I caught the glimmer of a golden goal,
While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love.

Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed at Love
With all the haughty insolence of youth,
As past her bower I strode to seek my goal.
"Now will I climb to glory's dizzy height,"
I said, "for there above the common way
Doth pleasure dwell companioned by the skies."

But when I reached that summit near the skies,
So far from man I seemed, so far from Love -
"Not here," I cried, "doth Pleasure find her way."
Seen from the distant borderland of youth,
Fame smiles upon us from he...

The cuckoo and the coo-dove's ceaseless calling,
    Calling,
Of a meaningless monotony is palling
All my morning's pleasure in the sun-fleck-scattered wood.
May-blossom and blue bird's-eye flowers falling,
    Falling
In a litter through the elm-tree shade are scrawling
Messages of true-love down the dust of the high- road.
I do not like to hear the gentle grieving,
    Grieving
Of the she-dove in the blossom, still believing
Love will yet again return to her and make all good.

When I know that there must ever be deceiving,
    Deceiving
Of the mournful constant heart, that while she's weaving
Her woes, her lover woos and sings within another wood.

Oh, boisterous the cuckoo shouts, forestalling,
    Stalling
A progress down the intricate...

The frozen ground looks gray. 'Twill shut the snow
    Out from its bosom, and the flakes will fall
Softly and lie upon it. The hushed flow
    Of the ice-covered waters, and the call
Of the cold driver to his oxen slow,
    And the complaining of the gust, are all
That I can hear of music - would that I
With the green summer like a leaf might die?
So will a man grow gray, and on his head
    The snow of years lie visibly, and so
Will come a frost when his green years have fled,
    And his chilled pulses sluggishly will flow,
And his deep voice be shaken - would that I
In the green summer of my youth might die!

His master taken from his head,
Elisha saw him go;
And in desponding accents said,
“Ah, what must Israel do?”


But he forgot the Lord who lifts
The beggar to the throne;
Nor knew, that all Elijah’s gifts
Will soon be made his own.


What! when a Paul has run his course,
Or when Apollos dies,
Is Israel left without resource?
And have we no supplies?


Yes, while the dear Redeemer lives
We have a boundless store,
And shall be fed with what he gives,
Who lives for evermore.

While in my simple gospel creed
That "God is Love" so plain I read,
Shall dreams of heathen birth affright
My pathway through the coming night?
Ah, Lord of life, though spectres pale
Fill with their threats the shadowy vale,
With Thee my faltering steps to aid,
How can I dare to be afraid?

Shall mouldering page or fading scroll
Outface the charter of the soul?
Shall priesthood's palsied arm protect
The wrong our human hearts reject,
And smite the lips whose shuddering cry
Proclaims a cruel creed a lie?
The wizard's rope we disallow
Was justice once, - is murder now!

Is there a world of blank despair,
And dwells the Omnipresent there?
Does He behold with smile serene
The shows of that unending scene,
Where sleepless, hopeless ang...

'Let go the Cross' - GERTRUDE RUNSHON.

I heard a strange voice in the distance calling
As from a star an echo might be falling.

It spoke four syllables, concise and brief,
Charged with a God-sent message of relief:

Let go the cross!    Oh, you who cling to sorrow,
Hark to the new command and comfort borrow.

Even as the Master left His cross below
And rose to Paradise, let go, let go.

Forget your wrongs, your troubles and your losses,
For with the tools of thought we build our crosses.

Forget your griefs, all grudges and all fear
And enter Paradise - its gates are near.

Heaven is a realm by loving souls created,
And hell was fashioned by the hearts that hated.

Love, hope and trust; believe all joys are yours,
Life...

The laurel withers on your brow,
victor, weary of the race!
And you, who sit in mighty place,
How heavy is your scepter now!

Flushed with the kiss your lips have known,
"Woman, this is your hour to wake.
And know that flesh and heart may break
When love hath entered on its own.

And you, who knew where angels trod.
And marked the path for duller eyes.
In this lone hour are you still wise?
Do you not quail before your God?

God, to whom the dark is day.
Forget not these, the strong, the right.
The happy souls, for. Lord, at night
They tremble in their tents of clay!