Freedom

(A Scholar is musing on his want of success.)


To strive - and fail. Yes, I did strive and fail;
I set mine eyes upon a certain night
To find a certain star - and could not hail
    With them its deep-set light.

Fool that I was! I will rehearse my fault:
I, wingless, thought myself on high to lift
Among the winged - I set these feet that halt
    To run against the swift.

And yet this man, that loved me so, can write -
That loves me, I would say, can let me see;
Or fain would have me think he counts but light
    These Honors lost to me.

    (The letter of his friend.)
"What are they? that old house of yours which gave
Such welcome oft to me, the sunbeams fall
Yet, down the squares of blue and white which pave
  ...

Not my enemies ever invade me - no harm to my pride from them I fear;
But the lovers I recklessly love - lo! how they master me!
Lo! me, ever open and helpless, bereft of my strength!
Utterly abject, grovelling on the ground before them.

Though the torrents from their fountains
Roar down many a craggy steep,
Yet they find among the mountains
Resting-places calm and deep.

Clouds that love through air to hasten,
Ere the storm its fury stills,
Helmet-like themselves will fasten
On the heads of towering hills.

What, if through the frozen centre
Of the Alps the Chamois bound,
Yet he has a home to enter
In some nook of chosen ground:

And the Sea-horse, though the ocean
Yield him no domestic cave,
Slumbers without sense of motion,
Couched upon the rocking wave.

If on windy days the Raven
Gambol like a dancing skiff,
Not the less she loves her haven
In the bosom of the cliff.

The fleet Ostrich, till day closes,
Vagrant over desert sands,
Broo...

Fair Eve, as fair and still
As fairest thought, climbs the high sheltering hill;
As still and fair
As the white cloud asleep in the deep air.

As cool, as fair and cool,
As starlight swimming in a lonely pool;
Subtle and mild
As through her eyes the soul looks of a child.

A linnet sings and sings,
A shrill swift cleaves the air with blackest wings;
White twinkletails
Run frankly in their meadow as day fails.

On such a night, a night
That seems but the full sleep of tired light,
I look and wait
For what I know not, looking long and late.

Is it for a dream I look,
A vision from the Tree of Heaven shook,
As sweetness shaken
From the fresh limes on lonely ways forsaken?

A dream of one, maybe,
Who comes like sud...

        I.

Now Lucifer ignites her taper bright
    To greet the wild-flowered Dawn,
Who leads the tasseled Summer draped with light
    Down heaven's gilded lawn.
Hark to the minstrels of the woods,
Tuning glad harps in haunted solitudes!
    List to the rillet's music soft,
        The tree's hushed song:
    Flushed from her star aloft
Comes blue-eyed Summer stepping meek along.


        II.

And as the lusty lover leads her in,
    Clad in soft blushes red,
With breezy lips her love he tries to win,
    Doth many a tear-drop shed:
While airy sighs, dyed in his heart,
Like Cupid's arrows, flame-tipped o'er her dart,
    He bends his yellow head and craves
        The timid maid
    For one sweet kiss, and laves

    There's no garden like an orchard,
    Nature shows no fairer thing
    Than the apple trees in blossom
    In these late days o' the spring.

    Here the robin redbreast's nesting,
    Here, from golden dawn till night,
    Honey bees are gaily swimming
    In a sea of pink and white.

    Just a sea of fragrant blossoms,
    Steeped in sunshine, drenched in dew,
    Just a fragrant breath which tells you
    Earth is fair again and new.

    Just a breath of subtle sweetness,
    Breath which holds the spice o' youth,
    Holds the promise o' the summer -
    Holds the best o' things, forsooth.

    There's no garden like an orchard,
    Nature shows no fairer thing
    Than the apple trees in blossom
    In these late...

You took my empty dreams
And filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
April and the sun.

The old empty dreams
Where my thoughts would throng
Are far too full of happiness
To even hold a song.

Oh, the empty dreams were dim
And the empty dreams were wide,
They were sweet and shadowy houses
Where my thoughts could hide.

But you took my dreams away
And you made them all come true,
My thoughts have no place now to play,
And nothing now to do.

    To me the winds that die and start,
    And strive in wars that never cease,
    Are dearer than the level peace
    That lies unstirred at summer's heart;

    More dear to me the shadowed wold,
    Where, with report of tempest rife,
    The air intensifies with life,
    Than quiet fields of summer's gold.

    I am the winds' admitted friend:
    They seal our linked fellowships
    With speech of warm or icy lips,
    With touch of west and east that blend.

    And when my spirit listless stands,
    With folded wings that do not live,
    Their own assuageless wings they give
    To lift her from the stirless lands.

            *        *        *        *        *

    Within the place unmanifest
    Where centra...

God bless our native land,
    Land of the newly free,
Oh may she ever stand
    For truth and liberty.

God bless our native land,
    Where sleep our kindred dead,
Let peace at thy command
    Above their graves be shed.

God help our native land,
    Bring surcease to her strife,
And shower from thy hand
    A more abundant life.

God bless our native land,
    Her homes and children bless,
Oh may she ever stand
    For truth and righteousness.

He stood before my heart's closed door,
    And asked to enter in;
But I had barred the passage o'er
    By unbelief and sin.

He came with nail-prints in his hands,
    To set my spirit free;
With wounded feet he trod a path
    To come and sup with me.

He found me poor and brought me gold,
    The fire of love had tried,
And garments whitened by his blood,
    My wretchedness to hide.

The glare of life had dimmed my eyes,
    Its glamour was too bright.
He came with ointment in his hands
    To heal my darkened sight.


He knew my heart was tempest-tossed,
    By care and pain oppressed;
He whispered to my burdened heart,
    Come unto me and rest.

He found me weary, faint and worn,
    On barren moun...

To a good Man of most dear memory
This Stone is sacred. Here he lies apart
From the great city where he first drew breath,
Was reared and taught; and humbly earned his bread,
To the strict labours of the merchant's desk
By duty chained. Not seldom did those tasks
Tease, and the thought of time so spent depress,
His spirit, but the recompense was high;
Firm Independence, Bounty's rightful sire;
Affections, warm as sunshine, free as air;
And when the precious hours of leisure came,
Knowledge and wisdom, gained from converse sweet
With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets
With a keen eye, and overflowing heart:
So genius triumphed over seeming wrong,
And poured out truth in works by thoughtful love
Inspired works potent over smiles and tears.
And as...

    Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
        How I so found it full of pleasing charms?
    Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between:
        Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms:
    Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?
        Or Death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode?
    For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;
        I tremble to approach an angry God,
    And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod.

    Fain would I say, "Forgive my foul offence!"
        Fain promise never more to disobey;
    But, should my Author health again dispense,
        Again I might desert fair virtue's way:
    Again in folly's path might go astray;
        Again exalt the brute and sink the man;
    Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray,

        I.

Fleet swallows soared and darted
'Neath empty vaults of blue;
Thick leaves close clung or parted
To let the sunlight through;
Each wild rose, honey-hearted,
Bowed full of living dew.


        II.

Down deep, fair fields of Heaven,
Beat wafts of air and balm,
From southmost islands driven
And continents of calm;
Bland winds by which were given
Hid hints of rustling palm.


        III.

High birds soared high to hover;
Thick leaves close clung to slip;
Wild rose and snowy clover
Were warm for winds to dip,
And one ungentle lover,
A bee with robber lip.


        IV.

Dart on, O buoyant swallow!
Kiss leaves and willing rose!
Whose musk the sly winds follow,

"Dying?    I am not dying?    Are you mad?
    You think I need to ask for heavenly grace?
I think you are a fiend, who would be glad
    To see me struggle in death's cold embrace.

"But, man, you lie! for I am strong - in truth
    Stronger than I have been in years; and soon
I shall feel young again as in my youth,
    My glorious youth - life's one great priceless boon.

"O youth, youth, youth!    O God! that golden time,
    When proud and glad I laughed the hours away.
Why, there's no sacrifice (perhaps no crime)
    I'd pause at, could it make me young to-day.

"But I'm not old!    I grew - just ill, somehow;
    Grew stiff of limb, and weak, and dim of sight.
It was but sickness.    I am better now,
    Oh, vastly better,...

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Me only cruel immortality
Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms,
Here at the quiet limit of the world,
A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream
The ever-silent spaces of the East,
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.
Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man--
So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,
Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd
To his great heart none other than a God!
I ask'd thee, "Give me immortality."
Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,
Like wealthy men who care not how they give.
But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills,
And be...

I listen to the stillness of you,
My dear, among it all;
I feel your silence touch my words as I talk,
And take them in thrall.

My words fly off a forge
The length of a spark;
I see the night-sky easily sip them
Up in the dark.

The lark sings loud and glad,
Yet I am not loth
That silence should take the song and the bird
And lose them both.

A train goes roaring south,
The steam-flag flying;
I see the stealthy shadow of silence
Alongside going.

And off the forge of the world,
Whirling in the draught of life,
Go sparks of myriad people, filling
The night with strife.

Yet they never change the darkness
Or blench it with noise;
Alone on the perfect silence
The stars are buoys.

Here is a horse to tame
Here is a gun to handle
God knows you can enter the game
If you’ll only pay for the same,
And the price of the game is a candle,
A single flickering candle!

JANUARY (Hunting)
Certes, it is a noble sport,
And men have quitted selle and swum for’t.
But I am of the meeker sort
And I prefer Surtees in comfort.

Reach me my Handley Cross again,
My run, where never danger lurks, is
With Jorrocks and his deathless train,
Pigg, Binjimin, and Artexerxes.

FEBRUARY (Coursing)
Most men harry the world for fun,
Each man seeks it a different way,
But “of all daft devils under the sun,
A greyhound’s the daftest” says Jorrocks J.

MARCH (Racing)
The horse is ridden, the jockey rides,
The backers back,...

As they draw to a close,
Of what underlies the precedent songs of my aims in them;
Of the seed I have sought to plant in them;
Of joy, sweet joy, through many a year, in them;
(For them for them have I lived In them my work is done;)
Of many an aspiration fond of many a dream and plan,
Of you, O mystery great! to place on record faith in you, O death!
To compact you, ye parted, diverse lives!
To put rapport the mountains, and rocks, and streams,
And the winds of the north, and the forests of oak and pine,
With you, O soul of man.