Freedom

Standing aloof in giant ignorance,
Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades,
As one who sits ashore and longs perchance
To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas.
So thou wast blind; but then the veil was rent,
For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live,
And Neptune made for thee a spumy tent,
And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive;
Aye on the shores of darkness there is light,
And precipices show untrodden green
There is a budding morrow in the midnight,
There is a triple sight in blindness keen;
Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befel
To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell.

Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
For thy song, Lark, is strong;
Up with me, up with me into the clouds!
Singing, singing,
With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find
That spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary
And to-day my heart is weary;
Had I now the wings of a Faery,
Up to thee would I fly.
There is madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine;
Lift me, guide me high and high
To thy banqueting-place in the sky.

Joyous as morning
Thou art laughing and scorning;
Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,
And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth
To be such a traveller as I.
Happy, happy Liver,
With a so...

Enough of thought, philosopher!
Too long hast thou been dreaming
Unlightened, in this chamber drear,
While summer's sun is beaming!
Space-sweeping soul, what sad refrain
Concludes thy musings once again?

"Oh, for the time when I shall sleep
Without identity.
And never care how rain may steep,
Or snow may cover me!
No promised heaven, these wild desires
Could all, or half fulfil;
No threatened hell, with quenchless fires,
Subdue this quenchless will!"

"So said I, and still say the same;
Still, to my death, will say,
Three gods, within this little frame,
Are warring night; and day;
Heaven could not hold them all, and yet
They all are held in me;
And must be mine till I forget
My present entity!
Oh, for the time, when in ...

    Thou whom chance may hither lead,
    Be thou clad in russet weed,
    Be thou deck'd in silken stole,
    Grave these maxims on thy soul.
    Life is but a day at most,
    Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
    Day, how rapid in its flight,
    Day, how few must see the night;
    Hope not sunshine every hour,
    Fear not clouds will always lower.
    Happiness is but a name,
    Make content and ease thy aim.

    Ambition is a meteor gleam;
    Fame, a restless idle dream:
    Pleasures, insects on the wing
    Round Peace, the tenderest flower of Spring;
    Those that sip the dew alone,
    Make the butterflies thy own;
    Those that would the bloom devour,
    Crush the locusts, save the flower.
    For the future be pre...

I see her as though she were standing yet
    In her tower at the end of the town,
When the hot sun mounts and when dusk comes down,
    With her two hands laid on the parapet;
The curve of her throat as she turns this way,
    The bend of her body - I see it all;
And the watching eyes that look day by day
    O'er the flood that runs by the city wall.

The winds by the river would come and go
    On the flame-red gown she was wont to wear,
And the scarlet lilies that crowned her hair,
    And the scarlet lilies that grew below.
I used to lie like a wolf in his lair,
    With a burning heart and a soul in thrall,
Gazing across in a fume of despair
    O'er the flood that runs by the river wall.

I saw when he came with his tiger's eyes,
    That...

They have left you, little Henry, but they have not left you lonely -
    Brothers' hearts so knit together could not, might not separate dwell.
Fain to seek you in the mansions far away - One lingered only
    To bid those behind farewell!

Gentle Boy! - His childlike nature in most guileless form was moulded,
    And it may be that his spirit woke in glory unaware,
Since so calmly he resigned it, with his hands still meekly folded,
    Having said his evening prayer.

Or - if conscious of that summons - "Speak, O Lord, Thy servant heareth" -
    As one said, whose name they gave him, might his willing answer be,
"Here am I" - like him replying - "At Thy gates my soul appeareth,
    For behold Thou calledst me!"

A deep silence - utter silence, on his earthly home...

They were like dreams that in a drowsy hour
A sad old God had dreamed in loneliness of power.
They were like dreams that in his drowsy mind
Rose slowly and then, darkening, made him wise and blind--
So that he saw no more the level sun,
Nor the small solid shadow of unclouded noon.
The dark green heights rose slowly from the green
Of the dark water till the sky was narrowly seen;
Only at night the lifting walls were still,
And stars were bright and calm above each calm dark hill.
... I could not think but that a God grown old
Saw in a dream or waking all this round of bold
And wavelike hills, and knew them but a thought,
Or but a wave uptost and poised awhile then caught
Back to the sea with waves a million more
That rise and pause and break at last upon the shore....

There was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.
All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;
The grass is bright with rain-drops; on the moors
The hare is running races in her mirth;
And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

I was a Traveller then upon the moor;
I saw the hare that raced about with joy;
I heard the woods and distant waters roar;

The mighty conflict, which we call existence,
    Doth wear upon the body and the soul,
Our vital forces wasted in resistance,
    So much there is to conquer and control.

The rock which meets the billows with defiance,
    Undaunted and unshaken day by day,
In spite of its unyielding self-reliance,
    Is by the warfare surely worn away.

And there are depths and heights of strong emotions
    That surge at times within the human breast,
More fierce than all the tides of all the oceans
    Which sweep on ever in divine unrest.

I sometimes think the rock worn with adventures,
    And sad with thoughts of conflicts yet to be,
Must envy the frail reed which no one censures,
    When, overcome, 'tis swallowed by the sea.

This life is all re...

I'll tell thee why this weary world meseemeth
But as the visions light of one who dreameth,
Which pass like clouds, leaving no trace behind;
Why this strange life, so full of sin and folly,
In me awakeneth no melancholy,
Nor leaveth shade, or sadness, on my mind.
'Tis not that with an undiscerning eye
I see the pageant wild go dancing by,
Mistaking that which falsest is, for true;
'Tis not that pleasure hath entwined me,
'Tis not that sorrow hath enshrined me;
I bear no badge of roses or of rue,
But in the inmost chambers of my soul
There is another world, a blessed home,
O'er which no living power holdeth control,
Anigh to which ill things do never come.
There shineth the glad sunlight of clear thought,
With hope, and faith, holding communion high,
...

SEVEN TIMES ONE. EXULTATION.

There's no dew left on the daisies and clover,
There's no rain left in heaven:
I've said my "seven times" over and over,
Seven times one are seven.

I am old, so old, I can write a letter;
My birthday lessons are done;
The lambs play always, they know no better;
They are only one times one.

O moon! in the night I have seen you sailing
And shining so round and low;
You were bright! ah bright! but your light is failing -
You are nothing now but a bow.

You moon, have you done something wrong in heaven
That God has hidden your face?
I hope if you have you will soon be forgiven,
And shine again in your place.

O velvet bee, you're a dusty fellow,
You've powdered your legs with gold!
O brave mar...

Olor Iscanus queries: “Why should we
Vex at the land’s ridiculous miserie?”
So on his Usk banks, in the blood-red dawn
Of England’s civil strife, did careless Vaughan
Bemock his times. O friends of many years!
Though faith and trust are stronger than our fears,
And the signs promise peace with liberty,
Not thus we trifle with our country’s tears
And sweat of agony. The future’s gain
Is certain as God’s truth; but, meanwhile, pain
Is bitter and tears are salt: our voices take
A sober tone; our very household songs
Are heavy with a nation’s griefs and wrongs;
And innocent mirth is chastened for the sake
Of the brave hearts that nevermore shall beat,
The eyes that smile no more, the unreturning feet

In golden youth when seems the earth
A Summer-land of singing mirth,
When souls are glad and hearts are light,
And not a shadow lurks in sight,
We do not know it, but there lies
Somewhere veiled under evening skies
A garden which we all must see -
The garden of Gethsemane.

With joyous steps we go our ways,
Love lends a halo to our days;
Light sorrows sail like clouds afar,
We laugh, and say how strong we are.
We hurry on; and hurrying, go
Close to the border-land of woe,
That waits for you, and waits for me -
Forever waits Gethsemane.

Down shadowy lanes, across strange streams
Bridged over by our broken dreams;
Behind the misty caps of years,
Beyond the great salt fount of tears,
The garden lies. Strive as you may,
You cann...

I saw a city filled with lust and shame,
Where men, like wolves, slunk through the grim half-light;
And sudden, in the midst of it, there came
One who spoke boldly for the cause of Right.

And speaking, fell before that brutish race
Like some poor wren that shrieking eagles tear,
While brute Dishonour, with her bloodless face
Stood by and smote his lips that moved in prayer.

"Speak not of God! In centuries that word
Hath not been uttered! Our own king are we."
And God stretched forth his finger as He heard
And o'er it cast a thousand leagues of sea.

Since first I met thee, Dear, and long before
    I knew myself beloved, save by the sense
    All women have, a shadowy confidence
Half-fear, that feels its bliss nor asks for more,
    I have learned new desires, known Love's distress
    Sounded the deepest depths of loneliness.

I was a child at heart, and lived alone,
    Dreaming my dreams, as children may, at whiles,
    Between their hours of play, and Earth's broad smiles
Allured my heart, and ocean's marvellous tone
    Woke no strange echoes, and the woods' complain
    Made chants sonorous, stirred no thoughts of pain.

And if, sometimes, dear Nature spoke to me
    In tones mysterious, I had learned so much
    Dwelling beside her daily, that her touch
Made me discerning. Though I migh...

One Morn as through Hyde Park we walk’d.
My friend and I, by chance we talk’d
Of Lessing’s famed Laocoön;
And after we awhile had gone
In Lessing’s track, and tried to see
What painting is, what poetry,
Diverging to another thought,
‘Ah,’ cries my friend, ‘but who hath taught
Why music and the other arts
Oftener perform aright their parts
Than poetry? why she, than they,
Fewer real successes can display?

‘For ’tis so, surely! Even in Greece
Where best the poet framed his piece,
Even in that Phoebus-guarded ground
Pausanias on his travels found
Good poems, if he look’d, more rare
(Though many) than good statues were,
For these, in truth, were everywhere!
Of bards full many a stroke divine
In Dante’s, Petrarch’s, Tasso’s line,
The ...

O Lady, leave thy silken thread
And flowery tapestrie:
There's living roses on the bush,
And blossoms on the tree;
Stoop where thou wilt, thy careless hand
Some random bud will meet;
Thou canst not tread, but thou wilt find
The daisy at thy feet.

'Tis like the birthday of the world,
When earth was born in bloom;
The light is made of many dyes,
The air is all perfume;
There's crimson buds, and white and blue -
The very rainbow showers
Have turn'd to blossoms where they fell,
And sown the earth with flowers.

There's fairy tulips in the east,
The garden of the sun;
The very streams reflect the hues,
And blossom as they run:
While Morn opes like a crimson rose,
Still wet with pearly showers;
Then, lady, leave the silken th...

    The rich, red blood
Doth stain the fair, green grass, and daisies white
    In generous flood ...
This sun-drowsed day for me is darkest night.
O! wreck of splintered wood and twisted wire,
What blind, unmeasured hatred you inspire
Because yours was the power that life to end ...
    Of him, who was my friend!

This morn we lay upon the grass,
And watched the languid hours pass;
A lark, deep in the sky's blue sea,
Sang ecstasies to him and me.

And with the daisies did he play,
As on the waving grass we lay,
And made a little daisy chain
To bring his childhood back again.

And while he watched the clouds above
He drifted into thoughts of love.
He said, "I know why skylarks sing -
Because they love, and it is Spring.