Freedom

Dear fellow-artist, why so free
With every sort of company,
With every Jack and Jill?
Choose your companions from the best;
Who draws a bucket with the rest
Soon topples down the hill.

You may, that mirror for a school,
Be passionate, not bountiful
As common beauties may,
Who were not born to keep in trim
With old Ezekiel’s cherubim
But those of Beaujolet.

I know what wages beauty gives,
How hard a life her servant lives,
Yet praise the winters gone;
There is not a fool can call me friend,
And I may dine at journey’s end
With Landor and with Donne.

Made from a fetter of Bonnivard, the Prisoner of Chillon; the handle of wood from the Frigate Constitution, and bound with a circlet of gold, inset with three precious stones from Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine.

I thought this Pen would arise
From the casket where it lies--
    Of itself would arise and write
My thanks and my surprise.

When you gave it me under the pines,
I dreamed these gems from the mines
    Of Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine
Would glimmer as thoughts in the lines;

That this iron link from the chain
Of Bonnivard might retain
    Some verse of the Poet who sang
Of the prisoner and his pain;

That this wood from the frigate's mast
Might write me a rhyme at last,
    As it used to write on the sky
The song of the sea and the blas...

When I reflect how little I have done,
    And add to that how little I have seen,
Then furthermore how little I have won
    Of joy, or good, how little known, or been:
    I long for other life more full, more keen,
And yearn to change with such as well have run -
    Yet reason mocks me - nay, the soul, I ween,
Granted her choice would dare to change with none;
No, - not to feel, as Blondel when his lay
    Pierced the strong tower, and Richard answered it -
No, - not to do, as Eustace on the day
    He left fair Calais to her weeping lit -
No, - not to be, Columbus, waked from sleep
When his new world rose from the charmèd deep.

Sweet and shrill the crickets hiding in the grasses brown and lean
Pipe their gladness - sweeter, shriller - one would think the world was green.
O the haze is on the hilltops, and the haze is on the lake!
See it fleeing through the valley with the bold wind in its wake!
            Mark the warm October haze!
            Mark the splendor of the days!
And the mingling of the crimson with the sombre brown and grays!

See the bare hills turn their furrows to the shine and to the glow;
If you listen you can hear it, hear a murmur soft and low -
"We are naked," so the fields say, "stripped of all our golden dress."
"Heed it not," October answers, "for I love ye none the less.
            Share my beauty and my cheer
            While we rest together here,
In these sun-fil...

Her only pilot the soft breeze, the boat
Lingers, but Fancy is well satisfied;
With keen-eyed Hope, with Memory, at her side,
And the glad Muse at liberty to note
All that to each is precious, as we float
Gently along; regardless who shall chide
If the heavens smile, and leave us free to glide,
Happy Associates breathing air remote
From trivial cares. But, Fancy and the Muse,
Why have I crowded this small bark with you
And others of your kind, ideal crew!
While here sits One whose brightness owes its hues
To flesh and blood; no Goddess from above,
No fleeting Spirit, but my own true love?

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm
For the country folk to be up and to arm,"

Then he said, "Good night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-w...

In the world's whitest morning
As hoary with hope,
The Builder of Bridges
Was priest and was pope:
And the mitre of mystery
And the canopy his,
Who darkened the chasms
And domed the abyss.

To eastward and westward
Spread wings at his word
The arch with the key-stone
That stoops like a bird;
That rides the wild air
And the daylight cast under;
The highway of danger,
The gateway of wonder.

Of his throne were the thunders
That rivet and fix
Wild weddings of strangers
That meet and not mix;
The town and the cornland;
The bride and the groom:
In the breaking of bridges
Is treason and doom.

But he bade us, who fashion
The road that can fly,
That we build not too heavy
And build not too high:

I.

No more to strip the roses from
The rose-boughs of her porch's place!
I dreamed last night that I was home
Beside a rose her face.

I must have smiled in sleep who knows?
The rose aroma filled the lane;
I saw her white hand's lifted rose
That called me home again.

And yet when I awoke so wan,
An old face wet with icy tears!
Somehow, it seems, sleep had misdrawn
A love gone thirty years.

II.

The clouds roll up and the clouds roll down
Over the roofs of the little town;
Out in the hills where the pike winds by
Fields of clover and bottoms of rye,
You will hear no sound but the barking cough
Of the striped chipmunk where the lane leads off;
You will hear no bird but the sapsuckers
Far off in the forest, tha...

We are what we are made; each following day
Is the Creator of our human mould
Not less than was the first; the all-wise God
Gilds a few points in every several life,
And as each flower upon the fresh hillside,
And every colored petal of each flower,
Is sketched and dyed, each with a new design,
Its spot of purple, and its streak of brown,
So each man's life shall have its proper lights,
And a few joys, a few peculiar charms,
For him round in the melancholy hours
And reconcile him to the common days.
Not many men see beauty in the fogs
Of close low pine-woods in a river town;
Yet unto me not morn's magnificence,
Nor the red rainbow of a summer eve,
Nor Rome, nor joyful Paris, nor the halls
Of rich men blazing hospitable light,
Nor wit, nor eloquence,-...

I had a dream, a varied dream:
    Before my ravished sight
The city of my Lord arose,
    With all its love and light.

The music of a myriad harps
    Flowed out with sweet accord;
And saints were casting down their crowns
    In homage to our Lord.


My heart leaped up with untold joy,
    Life's toil and pain were o'er;
My weary feet at last had found
    The bright and restful shore.

Just as I reached the gates of light,
    Ready to enter in,
From earth arose a fearful cry
    Of sorrow and of sin.

I turned, and saw behind me surge
    A wild and stormy sea;
And drowning men were reaching out
    Imploring hands to me.

And ev'ry lip was blanched with dread,
    And moaning for relief;
The mus...

Sons of the race whose sires
Aroused the martial flame
    That filled with smiles
    The triune Isles,
Through all their heights of fame!
With hearts as brave as theirs,
With hopes as strong and high,
    We'll ne'er disgrace
    The honoured race
Whose deeds can never die.,
Let but the rash intruder dare
    To touch our darling strand,
        The martial fires
        That thrilled our sires
    Would flame throughout the land.

Our lakes are deep and wide,
Our fields and forests broad;
    With cheerful air
    We'll speed the share,
And break the fruitful sod;
Till blest with rural peace,
Proud of our rustic toil,
    On hill and plain
    True kings we'll reign,
The victors of the soil.
But let the rash...

Rose-colour
Rose Pink am I, the colour gleams and glows
    In many a flower; her lips, those tender doors
By which, in time of love, love's essence flows
    From him to her, are dyed in delicate Rose.
Mine is the earliest Ruby light that pours
    Out of the East, when day's white gates unclose.

On downy peach, and maiden's downier cheek
    I, in a flush of radiant bloom, alight,
Clinging, at sunset, to the shimmering peak
    I veil its snow in floods of Roseate light.

Azure
Mine is the heavenly hue of Azure skies,
    Where the white clouds lie soft as seraphs' wings,
Mine the sweet, shadowed light in innocent eyes,
    Whose lovely looks light only on lovely things.

Mine the Blue Distance, delicate and clear,
    Mine...

I had a guinea golden;
I lost it in the sand,
And though the sum was simple,
And pounds were in the land,
Still had it such a value
Unto my frugal eye,
That when I could not find it
I sat me down to sigh.

I had a crimson robin
Who sang full many a day,
But when the woods were painted
He, too, did fly away.
Time brought me other robins, --
Their ballads were the same, --
Still for my missing troubadour
I kept the 'house at hame.'

I had a star in heaven;
One Pleiad was its name,
And when I was not heeding
It wandered from the same.
And though the skies are crowded,
And all the night ashine,
I do not care about it,
Since none of them are mine.

My story has a moral:
I have a missing friend, --
Ple...

    I come, like Oblivion, to sweep away
The scattered beams from the car of day:
The gems which the evening has lavishly strown
Light up the lamps round my ebon throne.
Slowly I float through the realms of space,
Casting my mantle o'er Nature's face,
Weaving the stars in my raven hair,
As I sail through the shadowy fields of air.
All the wild fancies that thought can bring
Lie hid in the folds of my sable wing:
Terror is mine with his phrensied crew,
Fear with her cheek of marble hue,
And sorrow, that shuns the eye of day,
Pours out to me her plaintive lay.
I am the type of that awful gloom
Which involves the cradle and wraps the tomb;
Chilling the soul with its mystical sway;
Chasing the day-dreams of beauty away;
Till man views the banner by me un...

Tremble, Kings despised of man!
Ye traitors to your Country,
Tremble! Your parricidal plan
At length shall meet its destiny...
We all are soldiers fit to fight,
But if we sink in glory's night
Our mother Earth will give ye new
The brilliant pathway to pursue
Which leads to Death or Victory...

There is a place of grass
With daisies like white pools,
Or shining islands in a sea
Of brightening waves.

Swallows, darting, brush
The waves of gentle green,
As though a wide still lake it were,
Not living grass.

Evening draws over all,
Grass and flowers and sky,
And one rich bird prolongs the sweet
Of day on the edge of dark.

The grass is dim, the stars
Lean down the height of heaven;
And the trees, listening in all their leaves,
Scarce-breathing stand.

Nothing is as it was:
The bird on the bough sings on;
The night, pure from the cloud of day,
Is listening.

I hear a woman singing in my garden,
But I look at the moon in spite of her.

I have no thought of trying to find the singer
Singing in my garden;
I am looking at the moon.

And I think the moon is honouring me
With a long silver look.

I blink
As bats fly black across the ray;
But when I raise my head the silver look
Is still upon me.

The moon delights to make eyes of poets her mirror,
And poets are many as dragon scales
On the moonlit sea.

From the Chinese of Chang Jo Hsu.

I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.
I said, ‘O Soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well.’

A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish’d brass
I chose. The ranged ramparts bright
From level meadow-bases of deep grass
Suddenly scaled the light.

Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf
The rock rose clear, or winding stair.
My soul would live alone unto herself
In her high palace there.

And ‘while the world runs round and round,’ I said,
‘Reign thou apart, a quiet king,
Still as, while Saturn whirls, his steadfast shade
Sleeps on his luminous ring.’

To which my soul made answer readily:
‘Trust me, in bliss I shall abide
In this great mansion, that is built for me,
So royal...