Freedom

Red gleams the mountain ridge,
    Slow the stream creeps
Under the old bent bridge,
    And labor sleeps.

There are no restless birds,
    No leaves that stir,
Dusk her gray mantle girds,
    Night's harbinger.

The storm-soul's change and start
    Pause, lull, and cease;
In my unquiet heart
    Is born a peace.

He stands above all worldly schism,
And, gazing over life's abysm
Beholds within the starry range
Of heaven laws of death and change,
That, through his soul's prophetic prism,
Are turned to rainbows wild and strange.

Through nature is his hope made surer
Of that ideal, his allurer,
By whom his life is upward drawn
To mount pale pinnacles of dawn,
'Mid which all that is fairer, purer
Of love and lore it come upon.

An alkahest, that makes gold metal
Of dross, his mind is where one petal
Of one wild-rose will all outweigh
The piled-up facts of everyday
Where commonplaces, there that settle,
Are changed to things of heavenly ray.

He climbs by steps of stars and flowers,
Companioned of the dreaming hours,
And sets his feet in p...

O the precipice Titanic
Of the congregated Fall,
And the angle oceanic
Where the deepening thunders call -
And the Gorge so grim,
And the firmamental rim!
Multitudinously thronging
The waters all converge,
Then they sweep adown in sloping
Solidity of surge.

The Nation, in her impulse
Mysterious as the Tide,
In emotion like an ocean
Moves in power, not in pride;
And is deep in her devotion
As Humanity is wide.

Thou Lord of hosts victorious,
The confluence Thou hast twined;
By a wondrous way and glorious
A passage Thou dost find -
A passage Thou dost find:
Hosanna to the Lord of hosts,
The hosts of human kind.

Stable in its baselessness
When calm is in the air,
The Iris half in tracelessness
Hov...

Running water has a charm all its own; it proffers companionship of which one never tires; it adapts itself to moods; it is the guardian of secrets. It has cool draughts for the thirsty soul as well as for drooping flowers; and they who wander in the garden of God with listening ears learn of its many voices.

When the strain of a working day has left me weary, perhaps troubled and perplexed, I find my way to the river. I step into a boat and pull up stream until the exertion has refreshed me; and then I make fast to the old alder-stump where last year the reed- piper nested, and lie back in the stern and think.

The water laps against the keel as the boat rocks gently in the current; the river flows past, strong and quiet. There are side eddies, of course, and little disturbing whirlpools near the big stones, but they...

The grey gulls drift across the bay
Softly and still as flakes of snow
Against the thinning fog. All day
I sat and watched them come and go;
And now at last the sun was set,
Filling the waves with colored fire
Till each seemed like a jewelled spire
Thrust up from some drowned city. Soon
From peak and cliff and minaret
The city's lights began to wink,
Each like a friendly word. The moon
Began to broaden out her shield,
Spurting with silver. Straight before
The brown hills lay like quiet beasts
Stretched out beside a well-loved door,
And filling earth and sky and field
With the calm heaving of their breasts.

Nothing was gone, nothing was changed,
The smallest wave was unestranged
By all the long ache of the years
Since last I saw them, ...

I am a cloud in the heaven’s height,
The stars are lit for my delight,
Tireless and changeful, swift and free,
I cast my shadow on hill and sea
But why do the pines on the mountain’s crest
Call to me always, “Rest, rest”?

I throw my mantle over the moon
And I blind the sun on his throne at noon,
Nothing can tame me, nothing can bind,
I am a child of the heartless wind
But oh the pines on the mountain’s crest
Whispering always, “Rest, rest.”

        I, at Eleusis, saw the finest sight,
    When early morning's banners were unfurled.
    From high Olympus, gazing on the world,
        The ancient gods once saw it with delight.
        Sad Demeter had in a single night
    Removed her sombre garments! and mine eyes
    Beheld a 'broidered mantle in pale dyes
        Thrown o'er her throbbing bosom. Sweet and clear
        There fell the sound of music on mine ear.
    And from the South came Hermes, he whose lyre
    One time appeased the great Apollo's ire.
        The rescued maid, Persephone, by the hand
        He led to waiting Demeter, and cheer
        And light and beauty once more blessed the land.

With no poetic ardour fir'd
I press the bed where Wilmot lay;
That here he lov'd, or here expir'd,
Begets no numbers grave or gay.

Beneath thy roof, Argyle, are bred
Such thoughts as prompt the brave to lie
Stretch'd out in honour's nobler bed,
Beneath a nobler roof — the sky.

Such flames as high in patriots burn,
Yet stoop to bless a child or wife;
And such as wicked kings may mourn,
When freedom is more dear than life.

    Glory and gain thus mixed distract the thought,
    We owe to honour all, to fortune nought;
    The poet, like the soldier, scorns for pay
    Peruvian gold, but seeks the wreath of bay.
    How is the advocate the poet's peer?
    The poet's glory is complete and clear;
    He far outlives the advocate's renown,
    Patru is e'en by Scarron's name weighed down.
    The bar of Greece and Rome you point me out,
    A bar that trained great men, I do not doubt,
    For then chicane with language void of sense
    Had not deformed the law and eloquence.
    Purge the tribune of all this monstrous growth,
    I mount it, and my soul will sink, though loth,
    Will yield to fortune and will speak in prose.
    But since reform in this so slowly grows,
    Lea...

Three words will I name thee around and about,
From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee;
But they had not their birth in the being without,
And the heart, not the lip, must their oracle be!
And all worth in the man shall forever be o'er
When in those three words he believes no more.

Man is made free! Man by birthright is free,
Though the tyrant may deem him but born for his tool.
Whatever the shout of the rabble may be
Whatever the ranting misuse of the fool
Still fear not the slave, when he breaks from his chain,
For the man made a freeman grows safe in his gain.

And virtue is more than a shade or a sound,
And man may her voice, in this being, obey;
And though ever he slip on the stony ground,
Yet ever again to the godlike way,
To the s...

Up the streets of Aberdeen,
By the kirk and college green,
Rode the Laird of Ury;
Close behind him, close beside,
Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,
Pressed the mob in fury.

Flouted him the drunken churl,
Jeered at him the serving-girl,
Prompt to please her master;
And the begging carlin, late
Fed and clothed at Ury’s gate,
Cursed him as he passed her.

Yet, with calm and stately mien,
Up the streets of Aberdeen
Came he slowly riding;
And, to all he saw and heard,
Answering not with bitter word,
Turning not for chiding.

Came a troop with broadswords swinging,
Bits and bridles sharply ringing,
Loose and free and froward;
Quoth the foremost, “Ride him down!
Push him! prick him! through the town
Drive the Quaker cowar...

(Tirol, 1874)
(See Note 61)

Dishonored by the higher, but loved by all the low, -
Say, is it not the pathway that the new has to go?
By those who ought to guard it betrayed, oh yes, betrayed, -
Say, is it not thus truth ever progress has made?

Some summer day beginning, a murmur in the grain,
It grows to be a roaring through the forests amain,
Until the sea shall bear it with thunder-trumpets' tone,
Where nothing, nothing's heard but it alone, it alone.

With Northern allies warring we take the Northern
For God and for our freedom - is the watchword we bring.
That God, who gave us country and language, and all,
We find Him in our doing, if we hear and heed His call.

That doing we will forward, we many, although weak,
'Gainst all in fearless f...

If ever sea-maid, from her coral cave,
Beneath the hum of the great surge, has loved
To pass delighted from her green abode,
And, seated on a summer bank, to sing
No earthly music; in a spot like this,
The bard might feign he heard her, as she dried
Her golden hair, yet dripping from the main,
In the slant sunbeam.
So the pensive bard
Might image, warmed by this enchanting scene,
The ideal form; but though such things are not,
He who has ever felt a thought refined;
He who has wandered on the sea of life,
Forming delightful visions of a home
Of beauty and repose; he who has loved,
With filial warmth his country, will not pass
Without a look of more than tenderness
On all the scene; from where the pensile birch
Bends on the bank, amid the clustered gr...

"Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone
Wi' the auld moone in hir arme."
'Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, Percy's Reliques.'


Once I could hail (howe'er serene the sky)
The Moon re-entering her monthly round,
No faculty yet given me to espy
The dusky Shape within her arms imbound,
That thin memento of effulgence lost
Which some have named her Predecessor's ghost.

Young, like the Crescent that above me shone,
Nought I perceived within it dull or dim;
All that appeared was suitable to One
Whose fancy had a thousand fields to skim;
To expectations spreading with wild growth,
And hope that kept with me her plighted troth.

I saw (ambition quickening at the view)
A silver boat launched on a boundless flood;
A pearly crest, like Dian's when...

Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?

Is it thy will Love that I love so well
That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot
Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?

Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,
And sell ambition at the common mart,
And let dull failure be my vestiture,
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.

Perchance it may be better so at least
I have not made my heart a heart of stone,
Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.

Many a man hath done so; sought to fence
In straitened bonds the ...

Soft stealing through the shade, and skirting swift
The walls of Paradise, through night's dark rift
Lilith fled far; nor stopped lest deadly snare
Or peril by the wayside lurked.
The air
Grew chill. Loud beat her heart, as through the wind
Echoed, unseen, pursuing feet, behind.

Adown the pathway of the mist she passed,
And reached a weird, strange land at last.
When morning flecked the dappled sky with red,
And odors sweet from waking flowers were shed,
Lilith beheld a plain, outstretching wide,
With distant mountains seamed.
Afar, a silvery tide
The blue shore kissed.    And in that tropic glow
Dim islands shone, palm-fringed, and low.
In nearer space, like scarlet arrows flew
Strange birds, or 'mong the reedy fens, or through
Tall trees, of ...

Heap high the farmer’s wintry hoard!
Heap high the golden corn!
No richer gift has Autumn poured
From out her lavish horn!

Let other lands, exulting, glean
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,
The cluster from the vine;

We better love the hardy gift
Our rugged vales bestow,
To cheer us when the storm shall drift
Our harvest-fields with snow.

Through vales of grass and meads of flowers
Our ploughs their furrows made,
While on the hills the sun and showers
Of changeful April played.

We dropped the seed o’er hill and plain
Beneath the sun of May,
And frightened from our sprouting grain
The robber crows away.

All through the long, bright days of June
Its leaves grew green and fair,
A...

We will be what we could be.    Do not say,
    "It might have been, had not or that, or this."
No fate can keep us from the chosen way;
    He only might, who IS.

We will do what we could do.    Do not dream
    Chance leaves a hero, all uncrowned to grieve.
I hold, all men are greatly what they seem;
    He does, who could achieve.

We will climb where we could climb.    Tell me not
    Of adverse storms that kept thee from the height.
What eagle ever missed the peak he sought?
    He always climbs who might.

I do not like the phrase, "It might have been!"
    It lacks all force, and life's best truths perverts
For I believe we have, and reach, and win,
    Whatever our deserts.