Freedom

The day is done, and the darkness
    Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
    From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
    Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
    That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
    That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
    As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
    Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
    And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
    Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
    Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
    The...

    No martyr-blood hath ever flowed in vain! -
No patriot bled, that proved not freedom's gain!
Those tones, which despots heard with fear and dread
From living lips, ring sterner from the dead;
And he who dies, lives, oft, more truly so
Than had he never felt the untimely blow.

    And so with him thus, in an instant, hurled
From earthly hopes and converse with the world.
Each trickling blood-drop shall, with sudden power
Achieve the work of years in one short hour,
And his faint death-sigh more strong arms unite
In stern defence of Freedom and of Right,
Than all he could have said by word or pen,
In a whole life of threescore years and ten!

    Dead! fell assassin! did you think him dead,
When, with unmurmuring lips, he bowed his head,
Wh...

The summer warmth has left the sky,
The summer songs have died away;
And, withered, in the footpaths lie
The fallen leaves, but yesterday
With ruby and with topaz gay.

The grass is browning on the hills;
No pale, belated flowers recall
The astral fringes of the rills,
And drearily the dead vines fall,
Frost-blackened, from the roadside wall.

Yet through the gray and sombre wood,
Against the dusk of fir and pine,
Last of their floral sisterhood,
The hazel’s yellow blossoms shine,
The tawny gold of Afric’s mine!

Small beauty hath my unsung flower,
For spring to own or summer hail;
But, in the season’s saddest hour,
To skies that weep and winds that wail
Its glad surprisals never fail.

O days grown cold! O life grown ol...

PROLOGUE

O Lady Flora, let me speak:
A pleasant hour has passed away
While, dreaming on your damask cheek,
The dewy sister-eyelids lay.
As by the lattice you reclined,
I went thro’ many wayward moods
To see you dreaming–and, behind,
A summer crisp with shining woods.
And I too dream’d, until at last
Across my fancy, brooding warm,
The reflex of a legend past,
And loosely settled into form.
And would you have the thought I had,
And see the vision that I saw,
Then take the broidery-frame, and add
A crimson to the quaint Macaw,
And I will tell it. Turn your face,
Nor look with that too-earnest eye–
The rhymes are dazzled from their place
And order’d words asunder fly.



THE SLEEPING PALACE

I.

Th...

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:
I saw thee every day; and all the while
Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!
So like, so very like, was day to day!
Whene’er I looked, thy Image still was there;
It trembled, but it never passed away.

How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;
No mood, which season takes away, or brings:
I could have fancied that the mighty Deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.

Ah! then , if mine had been the Painter’s hand,
To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet’s dream;

I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile
Amid a world h...

There is a castle on a hill,
    So far into the sky,
That birds that from the valley-beds
    Up to the turrets fly,
Climbing towards the sun can feel
    The clouds go tumbling by.

But always far above the clouds
    The sun is shining there,
It shines for ever on those walls;
    And the great boughs that bear
Harvests of never fading fruit
    Are golden everywhere.

Who journeys to that castled crest
    Finds, with his journey done,
All ages and all colours in
    Cascades of light that run
Over the broad weirs of the air
    For ever from the sun.

Two things are silver: flower of plum
    When April yet is cold;
And willowed floods that of the moon
    Quiet leases hold.
That castle in the sky alone
  ...

"Men and boys, O fathers, brothers,
    Burst these fetters round you bound!
Women, sisters, wives and mothers,
    Lift your faces from the ground!

"O Democracy, O People,
    East and West and North and South,
Rise together, one for ever,
    Strike this Crime upon the mouth!

"Bid them not, the men who loved you,
    Those who fought for you and died,
Scorn you that you broke a small Crime,
    Left a great Crime pass in pride!

"England, France, the played-out countries,
    Let them reek there in their stew,
Let their past rot out their present,
    But the Future is with you!

"O America, O first-born
    Of the age that yet shall be
Where all men shall be as one man,
    Noble, faithful, fearless, free! -

"...

To thee, O Albion! be the tribute paid
Which sympathy demands, the patriot tear;
While echo'd forth to thy remotest shade,
Rebellion's menace sounds in every ear.

Though Gallia's vaunts should fill the trembling skies,
'Till nature's undiscover'd regions start
At the rude clamor; yet, shouldst thou despise,
While thy brave subjects own a common heart.

But lo! fresh streaming from the Hibernian[1] height
Her own red torrent wild-eyed faction pours;
While, 'mid her falling ranks, ignobly great,
Loud vengeance raves, and desperation scours.

Denouncing murderous strife, the rebel train
Wave their red ensigns of inhuman hate
O'er every hamlet, every peaceful plain;
Rejecting reason, and despising fate.

Oh! that again our raptur'd ...

In the winter, flowers are springing;
In the winter, woods are green,
Where our banished birds are singing,
Where our summer sun is seen!
Our cold midnights are coeval
With an evening and a morn
Where the forest-gods hold revel,
And the spring is newly born!

While the earth is full of fighting,
While men rise and curse their day,
While the foolish strong are smiting,
And the foolish weak betray--
The true hearts beyond are growing,
The brave spirits work alone,
Where Love's summer-wind is blowing
In a truth-irradiate zone!

While we cannot shape our living
To the beauty of our skies,
While man wants and earth is giving--
Nature calls and man denies--
How the old worlds round Him gather
Where their Maker is their sun!
Ho...

Where is the minstrel's Father-land?
Where the sparks of noble spirits flew,
Where flowery wreaths for beauty grew,
Where strong hearts glowed so glad and true
For all things sacred, good and grand:
There was my Father-land.

How named the minstrel's Father-land?
O'er slaughtered son 'neath tyrants' yokes,
She weepeth now and foreign strokes;
They called her once the Land of Oaks
Land of the Free the German Land:
Thus was called my Father-land.
Why weeps the minstrel's Father-land?
Because while tyrant's tempest hailed
The people's chosen princes quailed,
And all their sacred pledges failed;
Because she could no ear command,
Alas must weep my Father-land.

Whom calls the minstrel's Father-land?
She calls on heaven with wild alarm
...

Sundown--and silence--and deep peace,--
Night's benediction and release;--
The tints of day die out and cease.

This morn I heard the Sabbath bells
Across the breezy upland swells;--
My path lay down the woodland dells.

To-day, I said, the dust of creeds,
The wind of words reach not my needs;--
I worship with the birds and weeds.

From height to height the sunbeam sprung,
The wild vine, touched with vermeil, clung,
The mountain brooklet leapt and sung.

The white lamp of the lily made
A tender light in deepest shade,--
The solitary place was glad.

The very air was tremulous,--
I felt its deep and reverent hush,--
God burned before me in the bush!

And nature prayed with folded palm,
And looks that wear perpetual c...

I wish I were as in the years of old
While yet the blessed daylight made itself
Ruddy thro’ both the roofs of sight, and woke
These eyes, now dull, but then so keen to seek
The meanings ambush’d under all they saw,
The flight of birds, the flame of sacrifice,
What omens may foreshadow fate to man
And woman, and the secret of the Gods.
My son, the Gods, despite of human prayer,
Are slower to forgive than human kings.
The great God, Arês, burns in anger still
Against the guiltless heirs of him from Tyre
Our Cadmus, out of whom thou art, who found
Beside the springs of Dircê, smote, and still’d
Thro’ all its folds the multitudinous beast
The dragon, which our trembling fathers call’d
The God’s own son.
A tale, that told to me,
When but thine age, by age...

Merrily every bosom boundeth,
            Merrily, oh!
Where the song of Freedom soundeth,
            Merrily oh!
    There the warrior's arms
        Shed more splendor;
    There the maiden's charm's
        Shine more tender;
Every joy the land surroundeth,
    Merrily, oh! merrily, oh!

Wearily every bosom pineth,
            Wearily, oh!
Where the bond of slavery twineth
            Wearily, oh
    There the warrior's dart
        Hath no fleetness;
    There the maiden's heart
        Hath no sweetness--
Every flower of life declineth,
    Wearily, oh! wearily, oh!

Cheerily then from hill and valley,
            Cheerily, oh!
Like your native fountain sally,
            Cheerily, oh!
    If a glorious d...

Come to me, O ye children!
    For I hear you at your play,
And the questions that perplexed me
    Have vanished quite away.

Ye open the eastern windows,
    That look towards the sun,
Where thoughts are singing swallows
    And the brooks of morning run.

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
    In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,
But in mine is the wind of Autumn
    And the first fall of the snow.

Ah! what would the world be to us
    If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
    Worse than the dark before.

What the leaves are to the forest,
    With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
    Have been hardened into wood,--

That to the world are childre...

    Lo, all the age is rank with wrong!
        The nations kneel to monstrous might,
        And horrid cries that haunt the night,
    Have hushed the notes of happy song;
    Mankind the deepest truth has missed,
        The best emotions have grown dim;
    We praise the God that dwelt in Christ,
        But crucify the man in him.

    Laws, noble, good, and great at first,
        With plan perverted, bind again
        The regal rights of mind and men
    And prove of tyrants far the worst;
    With blinded eyes is Nature made,
        And knows her constant purpose crossed,
    While crafty Jacob plies his trade
        And Esau finds his blessing lost.

    Earth yields her fruits in ample store;
        Her children all are heirs that ...

Non ha tanti animali il mar fra l' onde.

HE DESPAIRS OF ESCAPE FROM THE TORMENTS BY WHICH HE IS SURROUNDED.


    Nor Ocean holds such swarms amid his waves,
Not overhead, where circles the pale moon,
Were stars so numerous ever seen by night,
Nor dwell so many birds among the woods,
Nor plants so many clothe the field or hill,
As holds my tost heart busy thoughts each eve.

Each day I hope that this my latest eve
Shall part from my quick clay the sad salt waves,
And leave me in last sleep on some cold hill;
So many torments man beneath the moon
Ne'er bore as I have borne; this know the woods
Through which I wander lonely day and night.

For never have I had a tranquil night,
But ceaseless sighs instead from morn till eve,
Sinc...

Love, we have heard together
    The North Sea sing his tune,
And felt the wind's wild feather
    Brush past our cheeks at noon,
And seen the cloudy weather
    Made wondrous with the moon.

Where loveliness is rarest,
    'Tis also prized the most:
The moonlight shone her fairest
    Along that level coast
Where sands and dunes the barest,
    Of beauty seldom boast,

Far from that bleak and rude land
    An exile I remain
Fixed in a fair and good land,
    A valley and a plain
Rich in fat fields and woodland,
    And watered well with rain.

Last night the full moon's splendour
    Shone down on Taunton Dene,
And pasture fresh and tender,
    And coppice dusky green,
The heavenly light did render
    In one ...

    I

Deep in the sloping forest that surrounds
The head of a green valley that I know,
Spread the fair gardens and ancestral grounds
Of Bellinglise, the beautiful chateau.
Through shady groves and fields of unmown grass,
It was my joy to come at dusk and see,
Filling a little pond's untroubled glass,
Its antique towers and mouldering masonry.
Oh, should I fall to-morrow, lay me here,
That o'er my tomb, with each reviving year,
Wood-flowers may blossom and the wood-doves croon;
And lovers by that unrecorded place,
Passing, may pause, and cling a little space,
Close-bosomed, at the rising of the moon.


    II

Here, where in happier times the huntsman's horn
Echoing from far made sweet midsummer eves,
Now serried cannon thunder n...