Freedom

Often, beneath a street lamp's reddish light,
Where wind torments the glass and flame by night,
Where mankind swarms in stormy turbulence
Within a suburb's muddy labyrinth,

One comes upon a shaking ragman, who
Staggers against the walls, as poets do,
And disregardful of policemen's spies,
Pours from his heart some glorious enterprise.

Swearing his oaths, he dictates laws he's made
To vanquish evil, bring the victims aid,
And there beneath the sky, a canopy,
Grows drunk upon his own sublimity.

Yes, and these men harassed by household strife,
Tortured by age, bruised by the blows of life,
Under their heaps of rubbish burdened down,
The dregs, the vomit of this teeming town,

Appear again, redolent of the jar,
With their companions, bl...

I am thinking of the Springtime
On the farm out in the West,
When my world held nothing for me that I wanted,
(Save a courage all undaunted),
And my foolish little rhymes,
Were but heart beats, rung in chimes,
That I sounded, just to ease my life's unrest.
Yes, I sang them, and I rang them,
Just to ease my youth's unrest.

When I heard the name of London,
In that early day, afar,
In that Springtime of my Country over yonder,
Then I used to sit and wonder
If the day would come to me,
When my ship should cross the sea,
To the land that seemed as distant as a star.
In my dreaming, ever gleaming
Like a distant unknown star.

Now in London in the Springtime,
I am sitting here, your guest.
Nay - I think it is a vision, or a fancy -

I

Swear by what the sages spoke
Round the Mareotic Lake
That the Witch of Atlas knew,
Spoke and set the cocks a-crow.

Swear by those horsemen, by those women
Complexion and form prove superhuman,
That pale, long-visaged company
That air in immortality
Completeness of their passions won;
Now they ride the wintry dawn
Where Ben Bulben sets the scene.

Here s the gist of what they mean.


II

Many times man lives and dies
Between his two eternities,
That of race and that of soul,
And ancient Ireland knew it all.
Whether man die in his bed
Or the rifle knocks him dead,
A brief parting from those dear
Is the worst man has to fear.
Though grave-diggers' toil is long,
Sharp their spades, their muscles...

Under the boughs of spring
She swung in the old rope-swing.

Her cheeks, with their happy blood,
Were pink as the apple-bud.

Her eyes, with their deep delight,
Were glad as the stars of night.

Her curls, with their romp and fun,
Were hoiden as wind and sun.

Her lips, with their laughter shrill,
Were wild as a woodland rill.

Under the boughs of spring
She swung in the old rope-swing.

And I,--who leaned on the fence,
Watching her innocence,

As, under the boughs that bent,
Now high, now low, she went,

In her soul the ecstasies
Of the stars, the brooks, the breeze,--

Had given the rest of my years,
With their blessings, and hopes, and fears,

To have been as she was then;
And, just ...

The wind-swayed daisies, that on every side
Throng the wide fields in whispering companies,
Serene and gently smiling like the eyes
Of tender children long beatified,
The delicate thought-wrapped buttercups that glide
Like sparks of fire above the wavering grass,
And swing and toss with all the airs that pass,
Yet seem so peaceful, so preoccupied;

These are the emblems of pure pleasures flown,
I scarce can think of pleasure without these.
Even to dream of them is to disown
The cold forlorn midwinter reveries,
Lulled with the perfume of old hopes new-blown,
No longer dreams, but dear realities.

A speckled cat and a tame hare
Eat at my hearthstone
And sleep there;
And both look up to me alone
For learning and defence
As I look up to Providence.

I start out of my sleep to think
Some day I may forget
Their food and drink;
Or, the house door left unshut,
The hare may run till it’s found
The horn’s sweet note and the tooth of the hound.

I bear a burden that might well try
Men that do all by rule,
And what can I
That am a wandering witted fool
But pray to God that He ease
My great responsibilities?

II

I slept on my three-legged stool by the fire,
The speckled cat slept on my knee;
We never thought to enquire
Where the brown hare might be,
And whether the door were shut.
Who knows how she drank...

    "Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
    Their homely joys, and destiny obscure:
    Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
    The short and simple annals of the poor."

Gray


I.

        My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend!
            No mercenary bard his homage pays;
        With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end:
            My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise:
        To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
            The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
        The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
            What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
    Ah! tho' his work unknown, far happier there, I ween!

II.

        November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;

The woods we used to walk, my love,
    Are woods no more,
But' villas' now with sounding names -
    All name and door.

The pond, where, early on in March,
    The yellow cup
Of water-lilies made us glad,
    Is now filled up.

But ah! what if they fill or fell
    Each pond, each tree,
What matters it to-day, my love,
    To me - to thee?

The jerry-builder may consume,
    A greedy moth,
God's mantle of the living green,
    I feel no wrath;

Eat up the beauty of the world,
    And gorge his fill
On mead and winding country lane,
    And grassy hill.

I only laugh, for now of these
    I have no care,
Now that to me the fair is foul,
    And foul as fair.

For me, my friend, if not that tears did tremble
In my faint eyes, and that my heart beat fast
With feelings which make rapture pain resemble,
Yet, from thy voice that falsehood starts aghast,
I thank thee - let the tyrant keep
His chains and tears, yea, let him weep
With rage to see thee freshly risen,
Like strength from slumber, from the prison,
In which he vainly hoped the soul to bind
Which on the chains must prey that fetter humankind.

I

It is not early spring and yet
Of bloodroot blooms along the stream,
And blotted banks of violet,
My heart will dream.

Is it because the windflower apes
The beauty that was once her brow,
That the white memory of it shapes
The April now?

Because the wild-rose wears the blush
That once made sweet her maidenhood,
Its thought makes June of barren bush
And empty wood?

And then I think how young she died -
Straight, barren Death stalks down the trees,
The hard-eyed Hours by his side,
That kill and freeze.

II

When orchards are in bloom again
My heart will bound, my blood will beat,
To hear the redbird so repeat,
On boughs of rosy stain,
His blithe, loud song, - like some far strain
From out the...

Thee have I seen in some waste Arden old,
A white-browed maiden by a foaming stream,
With eyes profound and looks like threaded gold,
And features like a dream.

Upon thy wrist the jessied falcon fleet,
A silver poniard chased with imageries
Hung at a buckled belt, while at thy feet
The gasping heron dies.

Have fancied thee in some quaint ruined keep
A maiden in chaste samite, and her mien
Like that of loved ones visiting our sleep,
Or of a fairy queen.

She, where the cushioned ivy dangling hoar
Disturbs the quiet of her sable hair,
Pores o'er a volume of romantic lore,
Or hums an olden air.

Or a fair Bradamant both brave and just,
Intense with steel, her proud face lit with scorn,
At heathen castles, demons' dens of lust,

    Small is the new-born plant scarce seen
    Amid the soft encircling green,
        Where yonder budding acorn rears,
    Just o'er the waving grass, its tender head:
        Slow pass along the train of years,
    And on the growing plant, their dews and showers they shed.
        Anon it rears aloft its giant form,
        And spreads its broad-brown arms to meet the storm.
    Beneath its boughs far shadowing o'er the plain,
From summer suns, repair the grateful village train.

        Nor BEDFORD will my friend survey
    The book of Nature with unheeding eye;
        For never beams the rising orb of day,
        For never dimly dies the refluent ray,
    But as the moralizer marks the sky,
He broods with strange delight upon futurity.

    ...

I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once fair and stately palace,
Radiant palace, reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion,
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.

II.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
(This, all this, was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away.

III.
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.<...

TO COLONEL FRANCIS EDWARD YOUNGHUSBAND

    Across the Western World, the Arabian Sea,
    The Hundred Kingdoms and the Rivers Three,
    Beyond the rampart of Himalayan snows,
    And up the road that only Rumour knows,
    Unchecked, old friend, from Devon to Thibet,
    Friendship and Memory dog your footsteps yet.

    Let not the scornful ask me what avails
    So small a pack to follow mighty trails:
    Long since I saw what difference must be
    Between a stream like you, a ditch like me.
    This drains a garden and a homely field
    Which scarce at times a living current yield;
    The other from the high lands of his birth
    Plunges through rocks and spurns the pastoral earth,
    Then settling silent to his deeper course
    Draws in ...

I

Over the broken world, the dark gone by,
Horror of outcast darkness torn with wars;
And timeless agony
Of the white fire, heaped high by blinded Stars,
Unfaltering, unaghast;--
Out of the midmost Fire
At last,--at last,--
Cry! ...
O darkness' one desire,--
O darkness, have you heard?--
Black Chaos, blindly striving towards the Word?
--The Cry!

Behold thy conqueror, Death!
Behold, behold from whom
It flutters forth, that triumph of First-Breath,
Victorious one that can but breathe and cling,--
This pulsing flower,--this weaker than a wing,
Halcyon thing!--
Cradled above unfathomable doom.


II

Under my feet, O Death,
Under my trembling feet!
Back, through the gates of hell, now give me way.
I...

The sun is couched, the sea-fowl gone to rest,
And the wild storm hath somewhere found a nest;
Air slumbers—wave with wave no longer strives,
Only a heaving of the deep survives,
A tell-tale motion! soon will it be laid,
And by the tide alone the water swayed.
Stealthy withdrawings, interminglings mild
Of light with shade in beauty reconciled,
Such is the prospect far as sight can range,
The soothing recompence, the welcome change.
Where, now, the ships that drove before the blast,
Threatened by angry breakers as they passed;
And by a train of flying clouds bemocked;
Or, in the hollow surge, at anchor rocked
As on a bed of death? Some lodge in peace,
Saved by His care who bade the tempest cease;
And some, too heedless of past danger, court
Fresh gales to ...

"Who but hails the sight with pleasure
When the wings of genius rise,
Their ability to measure
With great enterprise;
But in man was ne'er such daring
As yon Hawk exhibits, pairing
His brave spirit with the war in
The stormy skies!

"Mark him, how his power he uses,
Lays it by, at will resumes!
Mark, ere for his haunt he chooses
Clouds and utter glooms!
There, he wheels in downward mazes;
Sunward now his flight he raises,
Catches fire, as seems, and blazes
With uninjured plumes!"

ANSWER

"Stranger, 'tis no act of courage
Which aloft thou dost discern;
No bold 'bird' gone forth to forage
'Mid the tempest stern;
But such mockery as the nations
See, when public perturbations
Lift men from their native stations

My heart was sad when first we met;
'Yet with a smile, -
A welcome smile I ne'er forget,
Thou didst beguile
My sighs and sorrows;-and a sweet delight
Shed a soft radiance, where erst was night.

I dreamed not we should meet again; -
But fate was kind,
Once more my heart o'er fraught with pain,
To joy inclined.
It seemed thy soul had power to penetrate
My inmost self, changing at will my state.

Then sprang the thought: - Be thou my Queen!
I will be slave;
Make here thy throne and reign supreme,
'Tis all I crave.
Let me within thy soothing influence dwell,
Content to know, with thee all must be well.

I knew not that another claimed
By prior right,
Those charms that had my breast inflamed
With fancies bright.
Ah! the...