Freedom

I.

Thou sit'st among the sunny silences
Of terraced hills and woodland galleries,
Thou utterance of all calm melodies,
Thou lutanist of Earth's most affluent lute,
Where no false note intrudes
To mar the silent music, branch and root,
Charming the fields ripe, orchards and deep woods,
To song similitudes
Of flower and seed and fruit.

II.

Oft have I seen thee, in some sensuous air,
Bewitch the broad wheat-acres everywhere.,
To imitated gold of thy deep hair:
The peach, by thy red lips' delicious trouble,
Blown into gradual dyes
Of crimson; and beheld thy magic double
Dark-blue with fervid influence of thine eyes
The grapes' rotundities,
Bubble by purple bubble.

III.

Deliberate uttered into life intense,

Fair summer is here, glad summer is here!
O hark! 'tis to you I am singing:
The sun is all gold in a heaven of blue,
The birds in the forest are trilling for you,
The flies 'mid the grasses are winging;
The little brook babbles--its secret is sweet.
The loveliest flowers would circle your feet,--
And you to your work ever clinging!...
Come forth! Nature loves you. Come forth! Do not fear!
Fair summer is here, glad summer is here,
Full measure of happiness bringing.
All creatures drink deep; and they pour wine anew
In the old cup of life, and they wonder at you.
Your portion is waiting since summer began;
Then take it, oh, take it, you laboring man!

'Tis summer today; ay, summer today!
The butterflies light on the flowers.
Delightfully glistens the s...

The park is filled with night and fog,
The veils are drawn about the world,
The drowsy lights along the paths
Are dim and pearled.

Gold and gleaming the empty streets,
Gold and gleaming the misty lake,
The mirrored lights like sunken swords,
Glimmer and shake.

Oh, is it not enough to be
Here with this beauty over me?
My throat should ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.
O, beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love,
With youth, a singing voice, and eyes
To take earth's wonder with surprise?

Why have I put off my pride,
Why am I unsatisfied,
I, for whom the pensive night
Binds her cloudy hair with light,
I, for whom all beauty burns
Like incense in a million urns?
O beauty, are ...

Why, let the stingless critic chide
With all that fume of vacant pride
Which mantles o'er the pendant fool,
Like vapor on a stagnant pool.
Oh! if the song, to feeling true,
Can please the elect, the sacred few,
Whose souls, by Taste and Nature taught,
Thrill with the genuine pulse of thought--
If some fond feeling maid like thee,
The warm-eyed child of Sympathy,
Shall say, while o'er my simple theme
She languishes in Passion's dream,
"He was, indeed, a tender soul--
No critic law, no chill control,
Should ever freeze, by timid art,
The flowings of so fond a heart!"
Yes, soul of Nature! soul of Love!
That, hovering like a snow-winged dove,
Breathed o'er my cradle warblings wild,
And hailed me Passion's warmest child,--
Grant me the tear from...

'Tis the witching hour of night,
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen,
For what listen they?
For a song and for a charm,
See they glisten in alarm,
And the moon is waxing warm
To hear what I shall say.
Moon! keep wide thy golden ears,
Hearken, stars! and hearken, spheres!
Hearken, thou eternal sky!
I sing an infant's lullaby,
A pretty lullaby.
Listen, listen, listen, listen,
Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,
And hear my lullaby!
Though the rushes that will make
Its cradle still are in the lake,
Though the linen that will be
Its swathe, is on the cotton tree,
Though the woollen that will keep
It warm, is on the silly sheep,
Listen, starlight, listen, listen,

Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn,
    Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers,
    And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers.
A poet's face asleep is this grey morn.

Now in the midst of the old world forlorn
    A mystic child is set in these still hours.
    I keep this time, even before the flowers,
Sacred to all the young and the unborn;

To all the miles and miles of unsprung wheat,
    And to the Spring waiting beyond the portal,
    And to the future of my own young art,

And, among all these things, to you, my sweet,
    My friend, to your calm face and the immortal
    Child tarrying all your life-time in your heart.

Po, ben puo' tu portartene la scorza.

TO THE RIVER PO, ON QUITTING LAURA.


    Thou Po to distant realms this frame mayst bear,
On thy all-powerful, thy impetuous tide;
But the free spirit that within doth bide
Nor for thy might, nor any might doth care:
Not varying here its course, nor shifting there,
Upon the favouring gale it joys to glide;
Plying its wings toward the laurel's pride,
In spite of sails or oars, of sea or air.
Monarch of floods, magnificent and strong,
That meet'st the sun as he leads on the day,
But in the west dost quit a fairer light;
Thy curvèd course this body wafts along;
My spirit on Love's pinions speeds its way,
And to its darling home directs its flight!

NOTT.


    Po, thou upon thy stro...

    I stood upon the Plain,
    That had trembled when the slain,
Hurled their proud, defiant curses at the battle-heated foe,
    When the steed dashed right and left,
    Through the bloody gaps he cleft,
When the bridle-rein was broken, and the rider was laid low.

    What busy feet had trod
    Upon the very sod
Where I marshalled the battalions of my fancy to my aid!
    And I saw the combat dire,
    Heard the quick, incessant fire,
And the cannons' echoes startling the reverberating glade.

    I saw them, one and all,
    The banners of the Gaul
In the thickest of the contest, round the resolute Montcalm;
    The well-attended Wolfe,
    Emerging from the gulf
Of the battle's fiery furnace, like the swelling of a psalm.

    I...

Poets, painters, and puddings; these three
Make up the World as it ought to be.

Poets make faces
And sudden grimaces:
They twit you, and spit you
On words: then admit you
To heaven or hell
By the tales that they tell.

Painters are gay
As young rabbits in May:
They buy jolly mugs,
Bowls, pictures, and jugs:
The things round their necks
Are lively with checks,
(For they like something red
As a frame for the head):
Or they'll curse you with oaths,
That tear holes in your clothes.
(With nothing to mend them
You'd best not offend them.)

Puddings should be
Full of currants, for me:
Boiled in a pail,
Tied in the tail
Of an old bleached shirt:
So hot that they hurt,
So huge that they last
From th...

A new year gleams on us, tearful
And troubled and smiling dim
As the smile on a lip still fearful,
As glances of eyes that swim:
But the bird of my heart makes cheerful
The days that are bright for him.
Child, how may a man’s love merit
The grace you shed as you stand,
The gift that is yours to inherit?
Through you are the bleak days bland;
Your voice is a light to my spirit;
You bring the sun in your hand.
The year’s wing shows not a feather
As yet of the plumes to be;
Yet here in the shrill grey weather
The spring’s self stands at my knee,
And laughs as we commune together,
And lightens the world we see.
The rains are as dews for the christening
Of dawns that the nights benumb:
The spring’s voice answers me listening
For speech of a ...

    Kiss me and comfort my heart
    Maiden honest and fine.
    I am the pilgrim boy
    Lame, but hunting the shrine;

    Fleeing away from the sweets,
    Seeking the dust and rain,
    Sworn to the staff and road,
    Scorning pleasure and pain;

    Nevertheless my mouth
    Would rest like a bird an hour
    And find in your curls a nest
    And find in your breast a bower:

    Nevertheless my eyes
    Would lose themselves in your own,
    Rivers that seek the sea,
    Angels before the throne:

    Kiss me and comfort my heart,
    For love can never be mine:
    Passion, hunger and pain,
    These are the only wine

    Of the pilgrim bound to the road.
    He would rob no man of his own.
    Yo...

Of all the various lots around the ball,
Which fate to man distributes, absolute;
Avert, ye gods! that of the Muse's son,
Curs'd with dire poverty! poor hungry wretch!
What shall he do for life? he cannot work
With manual labour: shall those sacred hands,
That brought the counsels of the gods to light;
Shall that inspired tongue, which every Muse
Has touch'd divine, to charm the sons of men:
These hallow'd organs! these! be prostitute
To the vile service of some fool in power,
All his behests submissive to perform,
Howe'er to him ingrateful? Oh! he scorns
The ignoble thought; with generous disdain,
More eligible deeming it to starve,
Like his fam'd ancestors renown'd in verse,
Than poorly bend to be another's slave,
Than feed and fatten in obscurity.

O d' ardente virtute ornata e calda.

HE CELEBRATES LAURA'S BEAUTY AND VIRTUE.


    O mind, by ardent virtue graced and warm'd.
To whom my pen so oft pours forth my heart;
Mansion of noble probity, who art
A tower of strength 'gainst all assault full arm'd.
O rose effulgent, in whose foldings, charm'd,
We view with fresh carnation snow take part!
O pleasure whence my wing'd ideas start
To that bless'd vision which no eye, unharm'd,
Created, may approach--thy name, if rhyme
Could bear to Bactra and to Thule's coast,
Nile, Tanaïs, and Calpe should resound,
And dread Olympus.--But a narrower bound
Confines my flight: and thee, our native clime
Between the Alps and Apennine must boast.

CAPEL LOFFT.


    With glowing vir...

One might believe that natural miseries
Had blasted France, and made of it a land
Unfit for men; and that in one great band
Her sons were bursting forth, to dwell at ease.
But 'tis a chosen soil, where sun and breeze
Shed gentle favours: rural works are there,
And ordinary business without care;
Spot rich in all things that can soothe and please!
How piteous then that there should be such dearth
Of knowledge; that whole myriads should unite
To work against themselves such fell despite:
Should come in phrensy and in drunken mirth,
Impatient to put out the only light
Of Liberty that yet remains on earth!

Strike hands, young men!
We know not when
Death or disaster comes,
Mightier than battle-drums
To summon us away.
Death bids us say farewell
To all we love, nor stay
For tears; - and who can tell
How soon misfortune's hand
May smite us where we stand,
Dragging us down, aloof,
Under the swift world's hoof?

Strike hands for faith, and power
To gladden the passing hour;
To wield the sword, or raise a song; -
To press the grape; or crush out wrong.
And strengthen right.
Give me the man of sturdy palm
And vigorous brain;
Hearty, companionable, sane,
'Mid all commotions calm,
Yet filled with quick, enthusiastic fire; -
Give me the man
Whose impulses aspire,
And all his features seem to say, "I can!"

Strike hand...

Let me to-day do something that shall take
    A little sadness from the world's vast store,
And may I be so favoured as to make
    Of joy's too scanty sum a little more
Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed
    Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend;
Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need,
    Or sin by silence when I should defend.
However meagre be my worldly wealth,
    Let me give something that shall aid my. kind -
A word of courage, or a thought of health,
    Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.
Let me to-night look back across the span
    'Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say -
Because of some good act to beast or man -
    "The world is better that I lived to-day."

I.

I hear a song the wet leaves lisp
When Morn comes down the woodland way;
And misty as a thistle-wisp
Her gown gleams windy gray;
A song, that seems to say,
"Awake! 'tis day!"

I hear a sigh, when Day sits down
Beside the sunlight-lulled lagoon;
While on her glistening hair and gown
The rose of rest is strewn;
A sigh, that seems to croon,
"Come sleep! 'tis noon!"

I hear a whisper, when the stars,
Upon some evening-purpled height,
Crown the dead Day with nenuphars
Of dreamy gold and white;
A voice, that seems t' invite,
"Come love! 'tis night!"


II.

Before the rathe song-sparrow sings
Among the hawtrees in the lane,
And to the wind the locust flings
Its early clusters fresh with rain;
B...

A little bird woke singing in the night,
    Dreaming of coming day,
And piped, for very fulness of delight,
    His little roundelay.

Dreaming he heard the wood-lark's carol loud,
    Down calling to his mate,
Like silver rain out of a golden cloud,
    At morning's radiant gate.

And all for joy of his embowering woods,
    And dewy leaves he sung,--
The summer sunshine, and the summer floods
    By forest flowers o'erhung.

Thou shalt not hear those wild and sylvan notes
    When morn's full chorus pours
Rejoicing from a thousand feathered throats,
    And the lark sings and soars,

Oh poet of our glorious land so fair,
    Whose foot is at the door;
Even so my song shall melt into the air,
    And die and be no more.