Freedom

    Imagination's eyes
    Outreach and distance far
    The vision of the greatest star
    That measures instantaneously -
    Enisled therein as in a sea -
    Its cincture of the system-laden skies.
    Abysses closed about with night
    A tribute yield
    To her retardless sight;
    And Matter's gates disclose the candent ores
    Rock-held in furnaces of planet-cores.
    She penetrates the sun's transplendent shield,
    And through the obstruction of his vestment dire,
    Pierces the centermost sublimity
    Of his terrific heart, whose gurge of fire
    Heaves upward like a monstrous sea,
    And inly riven by Titanic throes,
    Fills all his frame with outward cataract
    Of separate and immingling torrent streams.
    Her eyes e...

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way -- the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire. a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy --
Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato's parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.

III
And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t'other there
And wonder if she stood s...

It is moonlight. Alone in the silence
I ascend my stairs once more,
While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight,
Crash on a white sand shore.
It is moonlight. The garden is silent.
I stand in my room alone.
Across my wall, from the far-off moon,
A rain of fire is thrown . . .

There are houses hanging above the stars,
And stars hung under a sea:
And a wind from the long blue vault of time
Waves my curtain for me . . .

I wait in the dark once more,
Swung between space and space:
Before my mirror I lift my hands
And face my remembered face.

Is it I who stand in a question here,
Asking to know my name? . . .
It is I, yet I know not whither I go,
Nor why, nor whence I came.

It is I, who awoke at dawn
And arose and d...

When Time who steals our years away
    Shall steal our pleasures too,
The memory of the past will stay
    And half our joys renew,
Then, Julia, when thy beauty's flower
    Shall feel the wintry air,
Remembrance will recall the hour
    When thou alone wert fair.
Then talk no more of future gloom;
    Our joys shall always last;
For Hope shall brighten days to come,
    And Memory gild the past.

Come, Chloe, fill the genial bowl,
    I drink to Love and thee:
Thou never canst decay in soul,
    Thou'lt still be young for me.
And as thy; lips the tear-drop chase,
    Which on my cheek they find,
So hope shall steal away the trace
    That sorrow leaves behind.
Then fill the bowl--away with gloom!
    Our joys shall always last;<...

    Over the mountains, under the snow
Lieth a valley cold and low,
'Neath a white, immovable pall,
Desolate, dreary, soulless all,
And soundless, save when the wintry blast
Sweeps with funeral music past.

    Yet was that valley not always so,
For I trod its summer-paths long ago;
And I gathered flowers of fairest dyes
Where now the snow-drift heaviest lies;
And I drank from rills that, with murmurous song,
Wandered in golden light along
Through bowers, whose ever-fragrant air
Was heavy with perfume of flowrets fair, -
Through cool, green meadows where, all day long,
The wild bee droned his voluptuous song;
While over all shone the eye of Love
In the violet-tinted heavens above.

    And through that valley ran veins of gold,
And the...

Then up the orient heights to the zenith that balanced a crescent, -
Up and far up and over, - a warm erubescence liquescent
Rioted roses and rubies; eruptions of opaline gems,
Flung and wide sown, blushed crushed, and crumbled from diadems
Wealth of the kings of the Sylphs; whence, old alchemist, Earth -
Dewed down - by chemistry occult fashions petrified waters of worth. -
Then out of the stain and rash furor, the passionate pulver of stone,
The trembling suffusion that dazzled and awfully shone,
Chamelion-convulsion of color, hilarious ranges of glare -
Like a god who for vengeance ires, nodding battle from every hair,
Fares forth with majesty girdled and clangs with hot heroes for life,
Till the brazen gates boom bursten hells and the walls roar bristling strife, -
Athwart wi...

CALLICLES (front below)


Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame;
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-cloth’d frame.

Not here, O Apollo
Are haunts meet for thee.
But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea,

Where the moon-silver’d inlets
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice!

On the sward at the cliff-top
Lie strewn the white flocks;
On the cliff-side the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.

In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft lull’d by the rills,
Lie wrapt in their blankets,
Asleep on the hills.

What forms are these coming
So white through the gloom:’
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower’d broom?
...

There is not anything more wonderful
Than a great people moving towards the deep
Of an unguessed and unfeared future; nor
Is aught so dear of all held dear before
As the new passion stirring in their veins
When the destroying Dragon wakes from sleep.

Happy is England now, as never yet!
And though the sorrows of the slow days fret
Her faithfullest children, grief itself is proud.
Ev'n the warm beauty of this spring and summer
That turns to bitterness turns then to gladness
Since for this England the beloved ones died.

Happy is England in the brave that die
For wrongs not hers and wrongs so sternly hers;
Happy in those that give, give, and endure
The pain that never the new years may cure;
Happy in all her dark woods, green fields, towns,
Her hi...

Or look'd I back unto the times hence flown
To praise those Muses and dislike our own--
Or did I walk those Pæan-gardens through,
To kick the flowers and scorn their odours too--
I might, and justly, be reputed here
One nicely mad or peevishly severe.
But by Apollo! as I worship wit,
Where I have cause to burn perfumes to it;
So, I confess, 'tis somewhat to do well
In our high art, although we can't excel
Like thee, or dare the buskins to unloose
Of thy brave, bold, and sweet Maronian muse.
But since I'm call'd, rare Denham, to be gone,
Take from thy Herrick this conclusion:
'Tis dignity in others, if they be
Crown'd poets, yet live princes under thee;
The while their wreaths and purple robes do shine
Less by their own gems than those beams of thine.

I have sought Happiness, but it has been
A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit,
And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit
More fair of outward hue than sweet within.
Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment
Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil,
There only, chastened by fatigue and toil,
I knew what came the nearest to content.
For there at least my troubled flesh was free
From the gadfly Desire that plagued it so;
Discord and Strife were what I used to know,
Heartaches, deception, murderous jealousy;
By War transported far from all of these,
Amid the clash of arms I was at peace.

Among the happy wits this age hath shown
Great, dear, sweet Bartas thou art matchless known;
My ravished Eyes and heart with faltering tongue,
In humble wise have vow'd their service long,
But knowing th' task so great, & strength but small,
Gave o're the work before begun withal,
My dazled sight of late review'd thy lines,
Where Art, and more than Art, in nature shines,
Reflection from their beaming Altitude,
Did thaw my frozen hearts ingratitude;
Which Rayes darting upon some richer ground
Had caused flours and fruits soon to abound;
But barren I, my Dasey here do bring,
A homely flour in this my latter Spring,
If Summer, or my Autumm age do yield,
Flours, fruits in Garden, Orchard, or in Field,
They shall be consecrated in my Verse,
And prostrate o...

The point is turned; the twilight shadow fills
The wheeling stream, the soft receding shore,
And on our ears from deep among the hills
Breaks now the rapid's sudden quickening roar.
Ah yet the same, or have they changed their face,
The fair green fields, and can it still be seen,
The white log cottage near the mountain's base,
So bright and quiet, so home-like and serene?
Ah, well I question, for as five years go,
How many blessings fall, and how much woe.

Aye there they are, nor have they changed their cheer,
The fields, the hut, the leafy mountain brows;
Across the lonely dusk again I hear
The loitering bells, the lowing of the cows,
The bleat of many sheep, the stilly rush
Of the low whispering river, and through all,
Soft human tongues that break the...

Oh, I have dreams.    I sometimes dream of Life
    In the full meaning of that splendid word.
    Its subtle music which few men have heard,
Though all may hear it, sounding through earth's strife.
Its mountain heights by mystic breezes kissed
    Lifting their lovely peaks above the dust;
    Its treasures which no touch of time can rust,
Its emerald seas, its dawns of amethyst,
    Its certain purpose, its serene repose,
    Its usefulness, that finds no hour for woes,
    This is my dream of Life.

Yes, I have dreams.    I ofttimes dream of Love
    As radiant and brilliant as a star.
    As changeless, too, as that fixed light afar
Which glorifies vast worlds of space above.
Strong as the tempest when it holds its breath,
    Before it bursts in fury...

O sun, shine hot on the river;
For the ice is turning an ashen hue,
And the still bright water is looking through,
And the myriad streams are greeting you
With a ballad of life to the giver,
From forest and field and sunny town,
Meeting and running and tripping down,
With laughter and song to the river.

Oh! the din on the boats by the river;
The barges are ringing while day avails,
With sound of hewing and hammering nails,
Planing and painting and swinging pails,
All day in their shrill endeavour;
For the waters brim over their wintry cup,
And the grinding ice is breaking up,
And we must away down the river.

Oh! the hum and the toil of the river;
The ridge of the rapid sprays and skips:
Loud and low by the water's lips,
Tearing the w...

I.

Whatever the path may be, my dear,
Let us follow it far away from here,
Let us follow it back to Yester-Year,
Whatever the path may be:
Again let us dream where the land lies sunny,
And live, like the bees, on our hearts' old honey,
Away from the world that slaves for money
Come, journey the way with me.

II.

However the road may roam, my dear,
Through sun or rain, through green or sere,
Let us follow it back with hearts of cheer,
However the road may roam:
Oh, while we walk it here together,
What care we for wind and weather,
When there on the hills we'll smell the heather,
And see the lights of home!

III.

Whatever the path may seem, my sweet,
Let us take it now with willing feet,
And time our steps to ...

The wonder of the world is o'er:
The magic from the sea is gone:
There is no unimagined shore,
No islet yet to venture on.
The Sacred Hazels' blooms are shed,
The Nuts of Knowledge harvested.

Oh, what is worth this lore of age
If time shall never bring us back
Our battle with the gods to wage
Reeling along the starry track.
The battle rapture here goes by
In warring upon things that die.

Let be the tale of him whose love
Was sighed between white Deirdre's breasts,
It will not lift the heart above
The sodden clay on which it rests.
Love once had power the gods to bring
All rapt on its wild wandering.

We shiver in the falling dew,
And seek a shelter from the storm:
When man these elder brothers knew
He found the mother ...

Alone by the Schuylkill a wanderer roved,
    And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;
But far, very far were the friends that he loved,
    And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh.

Oh Nature, though blessed and bright are thy rays,
    O'er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown,
Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays
    In a smile from the heart that is fondly our own.

Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain
Unblest by the smile he had languished to meet;
Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again,
    Till the threshold of home had been pressed by his feet.

But the lays of his boyhood had stolen to their ear,
And they loved what they knew of so humble a name;
And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear,

1.
The golden gates of Sleep unbar
Where Strength and Beauty, met together,
Kindle their image like a star
In a sea of glassy weather!
Night, with all thy stars look down, -
Darkness, weep thy holiest dew, -
Never smiled the inconstant moon
On a pair so true.
Let eyes not see their own delight; -
Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight
Oft renew.

2.
Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!
Holy stars, permit no wrong!
And return to wake the sleeper,
Dawn, - ere it be long!
O joy! O fear! what will be done
In the absence of the sun!
Come along!