Freedom

FROM "THE TRIUMPH OF MUSIC."


    ... Fresh from bathing in orient fountains,
In wells of rock water and snow,
Comes the Dawn with her pearl-brimming fingers
O'er the thyme and the pines of yon mountain;
Where she steps young blossoms fresh blow....

And sweet as the star-beams in fountains,
And soft as the fall of the dew,
Wet as the hues of the rain-arch,
To me was the Dawn when on mountains
Pearl-capped o'er the hyaline blue,
Saint-fair and pure thro' the blue,
Her spirit in dimples comes dancing,
In dimples of light and of fire,
Planting her footprints in roses
On the floss of the snow-drifts, while glancing
Large on her brow is her tire,
Gemmed with the morning-star's fire.

But sweet as the incense from altars,
And war...

Reader - gentle - if so be
Such still live, and live for me,
Will it please you to be told
What my tenscore pages hold?

Here are verses that in spite
Of myself I needs must write,
Like the wine that oozes first
When the unsqueezed grapes have burst.

Here are angry lines, "too hard!"
Says the soldier, battle-scarred.
Could I smile his scars away
I would blot the bitter lay,

Written with a knitted brow,
Read with placid wonder now.
Throbbed such passion in my heart?
Did his wounds once really smart?

Here are varied strains that sing
All the changes life can bring,
Songs when joyous friends have met,
Songs the mourner's tears have wet.

See the banquet's dead bouquet,
Fair and fragrant in its day;
Do they...

(St. Barbara is the patron saint of artillery and of those in danger of sudden death.)


When the long grey lines came flooding upon Paris in the plain,
We stood and drank of the last free air we never could taste again:
They had led us back from the lost battle, to halt we knew not where
And stilled us; and our gaping guns were dumb with our despair.
The grey tribes flowed for ever from the infinite lifeless lands
And a Norman to a Breton spoke, his chin upon his hands.

"There was an end to Ilium; and an end came to Rome;
And a man plays on a painted stage in the land that he calls home;
Arch after arch of triumph, but floor beyond falling floor,
That lead to a low door at last; and beyond there is no door."

And the Breton to the Norman spoke, like a smal...

Fair flower! that fall'n beneath the angry blast,
Which marks with wither'd sweets its fearful way,
I grieve to see thee on the low earth cast,
While beauty's trembling tints fade fast away.
But who is she, that from the mountain's head
Comes gaily on, cheering the child of earth;
The walks of woe bloom bright beneath her tread,
And nature smiles with renovated mirth?
'Tis Health! she comes, and hark! the vallies ring.
And hark! the echoing hills repeat the sound;
She sheds the new-blown blossoms of the spring,
And all their fragrance floats her footsteps round.
And hark! she whispers in the zephyr's voice,
Lift up thy head, fair flower! rejoice! rejoice!

Now I leave this cottage lowly,

Where my love hath made her home,
And with silent footstep slowly

Through the darksome forest roam,
Luna breaks through oaks and bushes,

Zephyr hastes her steps to meet,
And the waving birch-tree blushes,

Scattering round her incense sweet.

Grateful are the cooling breezes

Of this beauteous summer night,
Here is felt the charm that pleases,

And that gives the soul delight.
Boundless is my joy; yet, Heaven,

Willingly I'd leave to thee
Thousand such nights, were one given

By my maiden loved to me!

    Such wast thou: now in earth below,
    Dust and a skeleton thou art.
    Above thy bones and clay,
    Here vainly placed by loving hands,
    Sole guardian of memory and woe,
    The image of departed beauty stands.
    Mute, motionless, it seems with pensive gaze
    To watch the flight of the departing days.
    That gentle look, that, wheresoe'er it fell,
    As now it seems to fall,
    Held fast the gazer with its magic spell;
    That lip, from which as from some copious urn,
    Redundant pleasure seems to overflow;
    That neck, on which love once so fondly hung;
    That loving hand, whose tender pressure still
    The hand it clasped, with trembling joy would thrill;
    That bosom, whose transparent loveliness
    The color from t...

She told the story, and the whole world wept
At wrongs and cruelties it had not known
But for this fearless woman's voice alone.
She spoke to consciences that long had slept:
Her message, Freedom's clear reveille, swept
From heedless hovel to complacent throne.
Command and prophecy were in the tone
And from its sheath the sword of justice leapt.
Around two peoples swelled a fiery wave,
But both came forth transfigured from the flame.
Blest be the hand that dared be strong to save,
And blest be she who in our weakness came--
Prophet and priestess! At one stroke she gave
A race to freedom and herself to fame.

Spring, they say, with his greenery
    Northward marches at last,
        Mustering thorn and elm;
Breezes rumour him conquering,
    Tell how Victory sits
        High on his glancing helm.

Smit with sting of his archery,
    Hardest ashes and oaks
        Burn at the root below:
Primrose, violet, daffodil,
    Start like blood where the shafts
        Light from his golden bow.

Here where winter oppresses us
    Still we listen and doubt,
        Dreading a hope betrayed:
Sore we long to be greeting him,
    Still we linger and doubt
        "What if his march be stayed?"

Folk in thrall to the enemy,
    Vanquished, tilling a soil
        Hateful and hostile grown;
Always wearily, warily,
    Feeding deep in t...

Read at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

No! never such a draught was poured
Since Hebe served with nectar
The bright Olympians and their Lord,
Her over-kind protector, -
Since Father Noah squeezed the grape
And took to such behaving
As would have shamed our grandsire ape
Before the days of shaving, -
No! ne'er was mingled such a draught
In palace, hall, or arbor,
As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed
That night in Boston Harbor!
The Western war-cloud's crimson stained
The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon;
Full many a six-foot grenadier
The flattened grass had measured,
And many a mother many a year
Her tearful memories treasured;
Fast spread the tempest's darkening pall,
The mighty realms were troubled,
The storm...

Dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt


From the Cordilleran Highlands,
From the Height of Land
Far north.
From the Lake of the Woods,
From Rainy Lake,
From Itasca's springs.
From the snow and the ice
Of the mountains,
Breathed on by the sun,
And given life,
Awakened by kisses of fire,
Moving, gliding as brightest hyaline
Down the cliffs,
Down the hills,
Over the stones.
Trickling as rills;
Swiftly running as mountain brooks;
Swirling through runnels of rock;
Curving in spheréd silence
Around the long worn walls of granite gorges;
Storming through chasms;
And flowing for miles in quiet over the Titan basin
To the muddled waters of the mighty river,
Himself obeying the call of the gulf,
And the unfathomed ...

        I saw a King, who spent his life to weave
        Into a nation all his great heart thought,
        Unsatisfied until he should achieve
        The grand ideal that his manhood sought;
        Yet as he saw the end within his reach,
        Death took the sceptre from his failing hand,
        And all men said, "He gave his life to teach
        The task of honour to a sordid land!"
        Within his gates I saw, through all those years,
        One at his humble toil with cheery face,
        Whom (being dead) the children, half in tears,
        Remembered oft, and missed him from his place.
        If he be greater that his people blessed
        Than he the children loved, God knoweth best.

When our two souls have left this mortal clay
And, seeking mine, you think that mine is lost -
Look for me first in that Elysian glade
Where Lesbia is, for whom the birds sing most.

What happy hearts those feathered mortals have,
That sing so sweet when they're wet through in spring!
For in that month of May when leaves are young,
Birds dream of song, and in their sleep they sing.

And when the spring has gone and they are dumb,
Is it not fine to watch them at their play:
Is it not fine to see a bird that tries
To stand upon the end of every spray?

See how they tilt their pretty heads aside:
When women make that move they always please.
What cosy homes birds make in leafy walls
That Nature's love has ruined - and the trees.

Oft have I se...

Those who have laid the harp aside
And turn'd to idler things,
From very restlessness have tried
The loose and dusty strings.
And, catching back some favourite strain,
Run with it o'er the chords again.

But Memory is not a Muse,
O Wordsworth! though 'tis said
They all descend from her, and use
To haunt her fountain-head:
That other men should work for me
In the rich mines of Poesie,
Pleases me better than the toil
Of smoothing under hardened hand,
With Attic emery and oil,
The shining point for Wisdom's wand,
Like those thou temperest 'mid the rills
Descending from thy native hills.

Without his governance, in vain
Manhood is strong, and Youth is bold
If oftentimes the o'er-piled strain
Clogs in the furnace, and grows cold

Down the world with Marna!
That's the life for me!
Wandering with the wandering wind,
Vagabond and unconfined!
Roving with the roving rain
Its unboundaried domain!
Kith and kin of wander-kind,
Children of the sea!

Petrels of the sea-drift!
Swallows of the lea!
Arabs of the whole wide girth
Of the wind-encircled earth!
In all climes we pitch our tents,
Cronies of the elements,
With the secret lords of birth
Intimate and free.

All the seaboard knows us
From Fundy to the Keys;
Every bend and every creek
Of abundant Chesapeake;
Ardise hills and Newport coves
And the far-off orange groves,
Where Floridian oceans break,
Tropic tiger seas.

Down the world with Marna,
Tarrying there and here!
Just as m...

Sweet evening comes, friend of the criminal,
Like an accomplice with a light footfall;
The sky shuts on itself as though a tomb,
And man turns beast within his restless room.

o evening, night, so wished for by the one
Whose honest, weary arms can say: We've done
Our work today! The night will bring relief
To spirits who consume themselves with grief,
The scholar who is bowed with heavy head,
The broken worker falling into bed.
Meanwhile, corrupting demons of the air
Slowly wake up like men of great affairs,
And, flying, bump our shutters and our eaves.
Against the glimmerings teased by the breeze
Old Prostitution blazes in the streets;
She opens out her nest-of-ants retreat;
Everywhere she clears the secret routes,
A stealthy force preparing for a c...

I

How thick the grass,
    How green the shade -
All for love
    And lovers made.

Wood-lilies white
    As hidden lace -
Open your bodice,
    That's their place.

See how the sun-god
    Overpowers
The summer lying
    Deep in flowers;

With burning kisses
    Of bright gold
Fills her young womb
    With joy untold;

And all the world
    Is lad and lass,
A blue sky
    And a couch of grass.

Summer is here -
    let us drain
It all! it may
    Not come again.


II

How the leaves thicken
    On the boughs,
And the birds make
Their lyric vows.

O the beating, breaking
    Heart of things,
The pulse and passion -
    How it ...

        1.

        WHAT though my words glance sideways from the thing
        Which I would utter in thine ear, my sire!
        Truth in the inward parts thou dost desire--
        Wise hunger, not a fitness fine of speech:
        The little child that clamouring fails to reach
        With upstretched hand the fringe of her attire,
        Yet meets the mother's hand down hurrying.

        2.

        Even when their foolish words they turned on him,
        He did not his disciples send away;
        He knew their hearts were foolish, eyes were dim,
        And therefore by his side needs must they stay.
        Thou will not, Lord, send me away from thee.
        When I am foolish, make thy cock crow grim;
        If that is not enough, turn,...

Late in March, when the days are growing longer
    And sight of early green
Tells of the coming spring and suns grow stronger,
Round the pale willow-catkins there are seen
    The year's first honey-bees
Stealing the nectar: and bee-masters know
This for the first sign of the honey-flow.

Then in the dark hillsides the Cherry-trees
Gleam white with loads of blossom where the gleams
Of piled snow lately hung, and richer streams
The honey. Now, if chilly April days
Delay the Apple-blossom, and the May's
First week come in with sudden summer weather,
The Apple and the Hawthorn bloom together,
And all day long the plundering hordes go round
And every overweighted blossom nods.
But from that gathered essence they compound
Honey more sweet than nectar of ...