Freedom

Sauntering the pavement, or riding the country by-road--lo! such faces!
Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality;
The spiritual, prescient face--the always welcome, common, benevolent face,
The face of the singing of music--the grand faces of natural lawyers and judges, broad at the back-top;
The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows--the shaved blanch'd faces of orthodox citizens;
The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist's face;
The ugly face of some beautiful Soul, the handsome detested or despised face;
The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of many children;
The face of an amour, the face of veneration;
The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock;
The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face;
A ...

Old homes among the hills! I love their gardens,
Their old rock-fences, that our day inherits;
Their doors, 'round which the great trees stand like wardens;
Their paths, down which the shadows march like spirits;
Broad doors and paths that reach bird-haunted gardens.

I see them gray among their ancient acres,
Severe of front, their gables lichen-sprinkled,--
Like gentle-hearted, solitary Quakers,
Grave and religious, with kind faces wrinkled,--
Serene among their memory-hallowed acres.

Their gardens, banked with roses and with lilies--
Those sweet aristocrats of all the flowers--
Where Springtime mints her gold in daffodillies,
And Autumn coins her marigolds in showers,
And all the hours are toilless as the lilies.

I love their orchards where the ...

When we went hunting the Dragon
In the days when we were young,
We tossed the bright world over our shoulder
As bugle and baldrick slung;
Never was world so wild and fair
As what went by on the wind,
Never such fields of paradise
As the fields we left behind:
    For this is the best of a rest for men
    That men should rise and ride
    Making a flying fairyland
    Of market and country-side,
    Wings on the cottage, wings on the wood,
    Wings upon pot and pan,
    For the hunting of the Dragon
    That is the life of a man.

For men grow weary of fairyland
When the Dragon is a dream,
And tire of the talking bird in the tree,
The singing fish in the stream;
And the wandering stars grow stale, grow stale,
And the wonder is st...

Friend whom I never saw, yet dearest friend,
    Be with me travelling on the byeway now
In April's month and mood: our steps shall bend
    By the shut smithy with its penthouse brow
    Armed round with many a felly and crackt plough:
And we will mark in his white smock the mill
    Standing aloof, long numbed to any wind,
That in his crannies mourns, and craves him still;
    But now there is not any grain to grind,
    And even the master lies too deep for winds to find.

Grieve not at these: for there are mills amain
    With lusty sails that leap and drop away
On further knolls, and lads to fetch the grain.
    The ash-spit wickets on the green betray
    New games begun and old ones put away.
Let us fare on, dead friend, O deathless friend,
    Whe...

Her younger sister, that Speranza hight.

England puts on her purple, and pale, pale
    With too much light, the primrose doth but wait
To meet the hyacinth; then bower and dale
    Shall lose her and each fairy woodland mate.
April forgets them, for their utmost sum
Of gift was silent, and the birds are come.

The world is stirring, many voices blend,
    The English are at work in field and way;
All the good finches on their wives attend,
    And emmets their new towns lay out in clay;
Only the cuckoo-bird only doth say
Her beautiful name, and float at large all day.

Everywhere ring sweet clamours, chirrupping,
    Chirping, that comes before the grasshopper;
The wide woods, flurried with the pulse of spring,
    Shake out their wrink...

We went by ways of bygone days,
Up mountain heights of story,
Where lost in vague, historic haze,
Tradition, crowned with battle-bays,
Sat 'mid her ruins hoary.

Where wing to wing the eagles cling
And torrents have their sources,
War rose with bugle voice to sing
Of wild spear thrust, and broadsword swing,
And rush of men and horses.

Then deep below, where orchards show
A home here, here a steeple,
We heard a simple shepherd go,
Singing, beneath the afterglow,
A love-song of the people.

As in the trees the song did cease,
With matron eyes and holy
Peace, from the cornlands of increase.
And rose-beds of love's victories,
Spake, smiling, of the lowly.

When the burning sun of Summer shines from out a brassy sky,
And has parched and browned the meadows, and the creek's run dry,
O sweet it is to wander there and hear the water sing
It's rippling song of gladness from the
                                            Old
                                                "Bull
                                                    Spring!"

Since Logan and the pioneers first stood upon its bank,
And heard it gurgle from the rock, and of its waters drank,
With ceaseless music in its flow, like silvery chimes that ring,
Has been the song of gladness from the
                                            Old
                                                "Bull
                                                    Spring!"

A...

Far hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave, an ancient, sorrowful mother,
Once a queen - now lean and tatter'd, seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping dishevel'd round her shoulders;
At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,
Long silent - she too long silent - mourning her shrouded hope and heir;
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of love.

Yet a word, ancient mother;
You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead between your knees;
O you need not sit there, veil'd in your old white hair, so dishevel'd;
For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave;
It was an illusion - the heir, the son you love, was not really dead;
The Lord is not dead - he is risen again, young and strong, in anot...

Winter is past--the little bee resumes
Her share of sun and shade, and o'er the lea
Hums her first hymnings to the flowers' perfumes,
And wakes a sense of gratefulness in me:
The little daisy keeps its wonted pace,
Ere March by April gets disarm'd of snow;
A look of joy opes on its smiling face,
Turn'd to that Power that suffers it to blow.
Ah, pleasant time, as pleasing as you be,
One still more pleasing Hope reserves for me;
Where suns, unsetting, one long summer shine,
Flowers endless bloom, where winter ne'er destroys:
O may the good man's righteous end be mine,
That I may witness these unfading joys.

    Lone on the bleaky hills the straying flocks
    Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks;
    Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains,
    The gathering floods burst o'er the distant plains;
    Beneath the blasts the leafless forests groan;
    The hollow caves return a sullen moan.

    Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests and ye caves,
    Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves!
    Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye,
    Sad to your sympathetic scenes I fly;
    Where to the whistling blast and waters' roar
    Pale Scotia's recent wound I may deplore.

    O heavy loss, thy country ill could bear!
    A loss these evil days can ne'er repair!
    Justice, the high vicegerent of her God,
    Her doubtful balance ey'd, and sway'd ...

Here in the velvet stillness
The wide sown fields fall to the faint horizon,
Sleeping in starlight....


A year ago we walked in the jangling city
Together.... forgetful.
One by one we crossed the avenues,
Rivers of light, roaring in tumult,
And came to the narrow, knotted streets.
Thru the tense crowd
We went aloof, ecstatic, walking in wonder,
Unconscious of our motion.
Forever the foreign people with dark, deep-seeing eyes
Passed us and passed.
Lights and foreign words and foreign faces,
I forgot them all;
I only felt alive, defiant of all death and sorrow,
Sure and elated.

That was the gift you gave me....

The streets grew still more tangled,
And led at last to water black and glossy,
Flecked here and there with li...

Silence, whose drowsy eyelids are soft leaves,
    And whose half-sleeping eyes are the blue flowers,
On whose still breast the water-lily heaves,
    For all her speech the whisper of the showers.

Made of all things that in the water sway,
    The quiet reed kissing the arrowhead,
The willows murmuring, all a summer day,
    "Silence" - sweet word, and ne'er so softly said

As here along this path of brooding peace,
    Where all things dream, and nothing else is done
But all such gentle businesses as these
    Of leaves and rippling wind, and setting sun

Turning the stream to a long lane of gold,
    Where the young moon shall walk with feet of pearl,
And, framed in sleeping lilies, fold on fold,
    Gaze at herself, like any mortal girl.

Fresh from the Hall of Bounty sprung, [1]
With glowing heart and ardent eye,
With song and rhyme upon my tongue,
And fairy visions dancing by,
The mid-day sun in all his pow'r
The backward valley painted gay;
Mine was a road without a flower,
Where one small streamlet cross'd the way.

[Footnote 1: On a sultry afternoon, late in the summer of 1802, Euston-Hall lay in my way to Thetford, which place I did not reach until the evening, on a visit to my sister: the lines lose much of their interest except they could be read on the spot, or at least at a coresponding season of the year.]

What was it rous'd my soul to love?
What made the simple brook so dear?
It glided like the weary dove,
And never brook seem'd half so clear.
Cool pass'd the current o'er my feet,
...

O dear my Country, beautiful and dear,
Love cloth not darken sight.
God looketh through Love's eyes, whose vision clear
Beholds more flaws than keenest Hate hath known.
Nor is Love's judgment gentle, but austere;
The heart of Love must break ere it condone
One stain upon the white.

There comes an hour when on the parent turns
The challenge of the child;
The bridal passion for perfection burns;
Life gives her last allegiance to the best;
Each sweet idolatry the spirit spurns,
Once more enfranchised for its starry quest
Of beauty undefiled.

Love must be one with honor; yet to-day
Love liveth by a sign;
Allows no lasting compromise with clay,
But tends the mounting miracle of gold,
Content with service till the bud make way
To the rejoi...

    With kindly thought I'd give, Oh Censorinus,
        Bowls and bronze vases pleasing to each friend;
    Tripods I'd offer, prizes of brave Grecians,
        And not the worst of gifts to you I'd send
    Were I, forsooth, rich in such artist's treasure
        As Scopas and Parrhasius could convey,
    This one in stone, and that in liquid color,
        Skilled here a man, - a god there to portray.
    But mine no power like this, nor does your spirit
        Or your affairs need luxuries so choice.
    Songs we can give, and on the gift set value,
        Songs we can give, and you in songs rejoice.
    Not marble carved with popular inscriptions
        Whereby the spirit and the life return
    After their death unto our upright leaders,
        Nor Hannib...

Midway upon the lawn it stands,
    So picturesque and pretty;
Upreared by patient artist hands,
    Admired of all the city;
The very arbor of my dream,
    A covert cool and airy,
So leaf-embowered as to seem
    The dwelling of a fairy.

It is the place to lie supine
    Within a hammock swinging,
To watch the sunset, red as wine,
    To hear the crickets singing;
And while the insect world around
    Is buzzing - by the million -
No wingèd thing above the ground
    Intrudes in this pavilion.

It is the place, at day's decline,
    To tell the old, old story
Behind the dark Madeira vine,
    Behind the morning glory;
To confiscate the rustic seat
    And barter stolen kisses,
For honey must be twice as sweet
   ...

Should poverty, modest and clean,
E'er please, when presented to view,
Should cabin on brown heath, or green,
Disclose aught engaging to you,
Should Erin's wild harp soothe the ear
When touched by such fingers as mine,
Then kindly attentive draw near,
And candidly ponder each line.

One day, when December's keen breath
Arrested the sweet running rill,
And Nature seemed frozen in death,
I thoughtfully strolled o'er the hill:
The mustering clouds wore a frown,
The mountains were covered with snow,
And Winter his mantle of brown
Had spread o'er the landscape below.

Thick rattling the footsteps were heard
Of peasants far down in the vale;
From lakes, bogs, and marshes debarred,
The wild-fowl, aloft on the gale,
Loud gabbling and scre...

SPOKEN BY MR HART.


    Poets, your subjects have their parts assign'd
    To unbend, and to divert their sovereign's mind:
    When tired with following nature, you think fit
    To seek repose in the cool shades of wit,
    And, from the sweet retreat, with joy survey
    What rests, and what is conquer'd, of the way.
    Here, free yourselves from envy, care, and strife
    You view the various turns of human life:
    Safe in our scene, through dangerous courts you go,
    And, undebauch'd, the vice of cities know.
    Your theories are here to practice brought,
    As in mechanic operations wrought;
    And man, the little world, before you set,
    As once the sphere[1] of crystal show'd the great.
    Blest, sure, are you above all mort...