Freedom

Along the avenue I pass
    Huge piles of wood and stone,
And glance at each amorphous mass,
Whose cumbrous weight has crushed the grass,
    With half resentful groan.

Say I: "O labor, to despoil
    Some lovely forest scene,
Or at the granite stratum toil,
And desecrate whole roods of soil,
    Is vandal-like and mean!

"Than ever to disfigure thus
    Our prairie garden-land,
Let me consort with Cerberus,
Be chained to crags precipitous,
    Or seek an alien strand."

But while this pining, pouting Muse
    The interval ignores,
Deft industry, no time to lose,
Contrives and carries, hoists and hews,
    And symmetry restores.

Behold! of rock and pile and board
    A modern miracle,
My neighbor's dwelling, ...

    We two make home of any place we go;
We two find joy in any kind of weather;
    Or if the earth is clothed in bloom or snow,
    If summer days invite, or bleak winds blow,
What matters it if we two are together?
We two, we two, we make our world, our weather.

    We two make banquets of the plainest fare;
In every cup we find the thrill of pleasure;
    We hide with wreaths the furrowed brow of care,
    And win to smiles the set lips of despair.
For us life always moves with lilting measure;
We two, we two, we make our world, our pleasure.

    We two find youth renewed with every dawn;
Each day holds something of an unknown glory.
    We waste no thought on grief or pleasure gone;
    Tricked out like hope, time leads us on and on,
And thrum...

When hostile elements with rage resound,
And fury blindly fans war's lurid flame,
When in the strife of party quarrel drowned,
The voice of justice no regard can claim,
When crime is free, and impious hands are found
The sacred to pollute, devoid of shame,
And loose the anchor which the state maintains,
No subject there we find for joyous strains.

But when a nation, that its flocks still feeds
With calm content, nor other's wealth desires
Throws off the cruel yoke 'neath which it bleeds,
Yet, e'en in wrath, humanity admires,
And, e'en in triumph, moderation heeds,
That is immortal, and our song requires.
To show thee such an image now is mine;
Thou knowest it well, for all that's great is thine!

Once more, once more into the sunny fields
    Oh, let me stray!
And drink the joy that young existence yields
    In a bright, cloudless day.

Once more let me behold the summer sky,
    With its blue eyes,
And join the wild wind's voice of melody,
    As far and free it flies.

Once more, once more, oh let me stand and hear
    The gushing spring,
As its bright drops fall starlike, fast and clear,
    And in the sunshine sing.

Once more, oh let me list the soft sweet breeze
    At evening mourn:
Let me, oh let me say farewell to these,
    And to my task I gaily will return.

Oh, lovely earth! oh, blessed smiling sky!
    Oh, music of the wood, the wave, the wind!
I do but linger till my ear and eye
    Have traced ye on t...

    1.

    I am one of the wind's stories,
    I am a fancy of the rain, -
    A memory of the high noon's glories,
    The hint the sunset had of pain.

    2.

    They dreamed me as they dreamed all other;
    Hawthorn and I, I and the grass,
    With sister shade and phantom brother
    Across their slumber glide and pass.

    3.

    Twilight is in my blood, my being
    Mingles with trees and ferns and stones;
    Thunder and stars my lips are freeing,
    And there is sea-rack in my bones.

    4.

    Those that have dreamed me shall out-wake me,
    But I go hence with flowers and weeds;
    I am no more to those who make me
    Than other drifting fruit and seeds.

    5.

    An...

What of the days when we two dreamed together?
    Days marvellously fair,
As lightsome as a skyward floating feather
    Sailing on summer air -
Summer, summer, that came drifting through
Fate's hand to me, to you.

What of the days, my dear? I sometimes wonder
    If you too wish this sky
Could be the blue we sailed so softly under,
    In that sun-kissed July;
Sailed in the warm and yellow afternoon,
With hearts in touch and tune.

Have you no longing to re-live the dreaming,
    Adrift in my canoe?
To watch my paddle blade all wet and gleaming
    Cleaving the waters through?
To lie wind-blown and wave-caressed, until
Your restless pulse grows still?

Do you not long to listen to the purling
    Of foam athwart the keel?
...

Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing
Under the sky's gray arch;
Smiling, I watch the shaken elm-boughs, knowing
It is the wind of March.

Between the passing and the coming season,
This stormy interlude
Gives to our winter-wearied hearts a reason
For trustful gratitude.

Welcome to waiting ears its harsh forewarning
Of light and warmth to come,
The longed-for joy of Nature's Easter morning,
The earth arisen in bloom.

In the loud tumult winter's strength is breaking;
I listen to the sound,
As to a voice of resurrection, waking
To life the dead, cold ground.

Between these gusts, to the soft lapse I hearken
Of rivulets on their way;
I see these tossed and naked tree-tops darken
With the fresh leaves of May.

I.

Out, out in the open fields,
Where the great, green book of God,
The book that its wisdom yields
To each soul that is not a clod,
Lies wide for the world to read,
I would go; and in flower and weed,
That letter the lines of the grass,
Would read of a better creed
Than that which the town-world has.

II.

Too long in the city streets,
The alleys of grime and sin,
Have I heard the iron beats
Of the heart of toil; whose din
And the throb of whose wild unrest
Have stunned the song in my breast,
Have marred its music and slain
The bird that was once its guest,
And my soul would find it again.

III.

Out there where the great, green book,
Whose leaves are the grass and trees,
Lies open; where each may l...

The days go by, the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
“The days go by! The days go by!”

Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life’s many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms,
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!

Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they,
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?

My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling cons...

The circle is broken, one seat is forsaken,
One bud from the tree of our friendship is shaken;
One heart from among us no longer shall thrill
With joy in our gladness, or grief in our ill.

Weep! lonely and lowly are slumbering now
The light of her glances, the pride of her brow;
Weep! sadly and long shall we listen in vain
To hear the soft tones of her welcome again.

Give our tears to the dead! For humanity's claim
From its silence and darkness is ever the same;
The hope of that world whose existence is bliss
May not stifle the tears of the mourners of this.

For, oh! if one glance the freed spirit can throw
On the scene of its troubled probation below,
Than the pride of the marble, the pomp of the dead,
To that glance will be dearer the tears whic...

Accompanying manuscripts presented to a friend.


'T is said that in the Holy Land
The angels of the place have blessed
The pilgrim's bed of desert sand,
Like Jacob's stone of rest.

That down the hush of Syrian skies
Some sweet-voiced saint at twilight sings
The song whose holy symphonies
Are beat by unseen wings;

Till starting from his sandy bed,
The wayworn wanderer looks to see
The halo of an angel's head
Shine through the tamarisk-tree.

So through the shadows of my way
Thy smile hath fallen soft and clear,
So at the weary close of day
Hath seemed thy voice of cheer.

That pilgrim pressing to his goal
May pause not for the vision's sake,
Yet all fair things within his soul
The thought of it shall w...

It comes not in such wise as she had deemed,
    Else might she still have clung to her despair.
More tender, grateful than she could have dreamed,
    Fond hands passed pitying over brows and hair,
    And gentle words borne softly through the air,
Calming her weary sense and wildered mind,
By welcome, dear communion with her kind.


Ah! she forswore all words as empty lies;
    What speech could help, encourage, or repair?
Yet when she meets these grave, indulgent eyes,
    Fulfilled with pity, simplest words are fair,
    Caressing, meaningless, that do not dare
To compensate or mend, but merely soothe
With hopeful visions after bitter Truth.


One who through conquered trouble had grown wise,
    To read the grief unspoken, unexpressed,

    "Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
    Sweet'ner of life and solder of society!
    I owe thee much!"

Blair.


    Dear Smith, the sleest, paukie thief,
    That e'er attempted stealth or rief,
    Ye surely hae some warlock-breef
    Owre human hearts;
    For ne'er a bosom yet was prief
    Against your arts.

    For me, I swear by sun an' moon,
    And ev'ry star that blinks aboon,
    Ye've cost me twenty pair o' shoon
    Just gaun to see you;
    And ev'ry ither pair that's done,
    Mair ta'en I'm wi' you.

    That auld capricious carlin, Nature,
    To mak amends for scrimpit stature,
    She's turn'd you aff, a human creature
    On her first plan;
    And in her freaks, on every feature

    Bowing adorers of the gale,
    Ye cowslips delicately pale,
    Upraise your loaded stems;
    Unfold your cups in splendour; speak!
    Who decked you with that ruddy streak
    And gilt your golden gems?

    Violets, sweet tenants of the shade,
    In purple's richest pride arrayed,
    Your errand here fulfil;
    Go, bid the artist's simple stain
    Your lustre imitate--in vain--
    And match your Maker's skill.

    Daisies, ye flowers of lowly birth,
    Embroiderers of the carpet earth,
    That stud the velvet sod,
    Open to Spring's refreshing air,
    In sweetest smiling bloom declare
    Your Maker and your God.

At the time when the stars are grey,
And the gold of the molten moon
Fades, and the twilight is thinned,
And the sun leaps up, and the wind,
A light rose, not of the day,
A stronger light than of noon.

As the light of a face much loved
Was the face of the light that clomb;
As a mother’s whitened with woes
Her adorable head that arose;
As the sound of a God that is moved,
Her voice went forth upon Rome.

At her lips it fluttered and failed
Twice, and sobbed into song,
And sank as a flame sinks under;
Then spake, and the speech was thunder,
And the cheek as he heard it paled
Of the wrongdoer grown grey with the wrong.

“Is it time, is it time appointed,
Angel of time, is it near?
For the spent night aches into day
When th...

For the sake of guilty conscience, and the heart that ticks the time
Of the clockworks of my nature, I desire to say that I'm
A weak and sinful creature, as regards my daily walk
The last five years and better.    It ain't worth while to talk -

I've been too mean to tell it!    I've been so hard, you see,
And full of pride, and - onry - now there's the word for me -
Just onry - and to show you, I'll give my history
With vital points in question, and I think you'll all agree.

I was always stiff and stubborn since I could recollect,
And had an awful temper, and never would reflect;
And always into trouble - I remember once at school
The teacher tried to flog me, and I reversed that rule.

O I was bad I tell you!    And it's a funny move
That a fellow wild as I...

I

Now that the farewell tear is dried,
Heaven prosper thee, be hope thy guide
Hope be thy guide, adventurous Boy;
The wages of thy travel, joy!
Whether for London bound, to trill
Thy mountain notes with simple skill;
Or on thy head to poise a show
Of Images in seemly row;
The graceful form of milk-white Steed,
Or Bird that soared with Ganymede;
Or through our hamlets thou wilt bear
The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled;
And Shakespeare at his side, a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!
Hope be thy guide, adventurous Boy;
The wages of thy travel, joy!

II

But thou, perhaps, (alert as free
Though serving sage philosophy)
Wilt ramble over hill ...

(Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees.)



What light of unremembered skies
Hast thou relumed within our eyes,
Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .
A certain odour on the wind,
Thy hidden face beyond the west,
These things have called us; on a quest
Older than any road we trod,
More endless than desire. . . .
Far God,
Sigh with thy cruel voice, that fills
The soul with longing for dim hills
And faint horizons! For there come
Grey moments of the antient dumb
Sickness of travel, when no song
Can cheer us; but the way seems long;
And one remembers. . . .
Ah! the beat
Of weary unreturning feet,
And songs of pilgrims unreturning! . . .
The fires we left are always burning
O...