Freedom

White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest
    So wonderfully built among the reeds
    Of the lagoon, that fences thee and feeds,
    As sayeth thy old historian and thy guest!
White water-lily, cradled and caressed
    By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds
    Lifting thy golden filaments and seeds,
    Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest!
White phantom city, whose untrodden streets
    Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting
    Shadows of palaces and strips of sky;
I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets
    Seen in mirage, or towers of cloud uplifting
    In air their unsubstantial masonry.

    On London fell a clearer light;
            Caressing pencils of the sun
    Defined the distances, the white
            Houses transfigured one by one,
    The "long, unlovely street" impearled.
    O what a sky has walked the world!

    Most happy year!    And out of town
            The hay was prosperous, and the wheat;
    The silken harvest climbed the down;
            Moon after moon was heavenly-sweet
    Stroking the bread within the sheaves,
    Looking twixt apples and their leaves.

    And while this rose made round her cup,
            The armies died convulsed.    And when
    This chaste young silver sun went up
            Softly, a thousand shattered men,
    One wet corruption, heaped the plain,
    After a league-long ...

Of all the sweet visions that come unto me
Of happy refreshment by land or by sea,
Like oases where in life's desert I roam,
Is nothing so pleasant as Holiday Home.

I climb to the top of the highest of hills
And look to the west with affectionate thrills,
And fancy I stand by the emerald side
Of charming Geneva, like Switzerland's pride.

In distant perspective unruffled it lies,
Except for the packet that paddles and plies,
And puffing its way like a pioneer makes
Its daily go-round o'er this pearl of the lakes.

Untroubled except for the urchins that come
From many a haunt that is never a home,
Instinctive as ducklings to swim and to wade,
Scarce knowing aforetime why water was made.

All placid except for the dip of the oar
Of the ...

It is the hither side, O Hope,
And afternoon; our shadows slope
Backward along the mountain cope.

The early morning was so sweet,
We seemed to climb with winged feet,
Like moving vapors fine and fleet,

Not more elastic poised and swung
Harebell or yellow adder's tongue,
Nor blither any bird that sung.

Thy light foot bent not any stem
Of frailest plant, whose diadem
In passing kissed thy garment's hem.

O Hope! so near me and so bright,
Thy foot above me on the height,
I might not touch thy garments white.

Thy lifted face, so fair, so rapt,
Like sunshine rolled and overlapped
Cliff, slope, and tall peak thunder-capped.

Thy voice to me like silver brooks
Down dropped from secret mountain nooks,
Still drew me...

If to Tradition faith be due,
And echoes from old verse speak true,
Ere the meek Saint, Columba, bore
Glad tidings to Iona's shore,
No common light of nature blessed
The mountain region of the west,
A land where gentle manners ruled
O'er men in dauntless virtues schooled,
That raised, for centuries, a bar
Impervious to the tide of war;
Yet peaceful Arts did entrance gain
Where haughty Force had striven in vain,
And, 'mid the works of skilful hands,
By wanderers brought from foreign lands
And various climes, was not unknown
The clasp that fixed the Roman Gown;
The Fibula, whose shape, I ween,
Still in the Highland Broach is seen,
Worn at the breast of some grave Dame
On road or path, or at the door
Of fern-thatched Hut on heathy moor:
B...

Inside this northern summer’s fold
The fields are full of naked gold,
Broadcast from heaven on lands it loves;
The green veiled air is full of doves;
Soft leaves that sift the sunbeams let
Light on the small warm grasses wet
Fall in short broken kisses sweet,
And break again like waves that beat
Round the sun’s feet.

But I, for all this English mirth
Of golden-shod and dancing days,
And the old green-girt sweet-hearted earth,
Desire what here no spells can raise.
Far hence, with holier heavens above,
The lovely city of my love
Bathes deep in the sun-satiate air
That flows round no fair thing more fair
Her beauty bare.

There the utter sky is holier, there
More pure the intense white height of air,
More clear men’s eyes that mine ...

    I

First, London, for its myriads; for its height,
Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite;
But Paris for the smoothness of the paths
That lead the heart unto the heart's delight. . . .

Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days
When there's no lovelier prize the world displays
Than, having beauty and your twenty years,
You have the means to conquer and the ways,

And coming where the crossroads separate
And down each vista glories and wonders wait,
Crowning each path with pinnacles so fair
You know not which to choose, and hesitate -

Oh, go to Paris. . . . In the midday gloom
Of some old quarter take a little room
That looks off over Paris and its towers
From Saint Gervais round to the Emperor's Tomb, -

So high that you ...

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair -
The bees are stirring - birds are on the wing -
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.

I.

Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns
    Bring autumn's pleasant weather;
The moor-cock springs, on whirring wings,
    Amang the blooming heather:
Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain,
    Delights the weary farmer;
And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night
    To muse upon my charmer.

II.

The partridge loves the fruitful fells;
    The plover loves the mountains;
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells;
    The soaring hern the fountains;
Thro' lofty groves the cushat roves
    The path of man to shun it;
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush,
    The spreading thorn the linnet.

III.

Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find,
    The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine;
 ...

Year after year the artist wrought
    With earnest, loving care,
The music flooding all his soul
    To pour upon the air.

For this no metal was too rare,
    He counted not the cost;
Nor deemed the years in which he toiled
    As labor vainly lost.

When morning flushed with crimson light
    The golden gates of day,
He longed to fill the air with chimes
    Sweet as a matin's lay.

And when the sun was sinking low
    Within the distant West,
He gladly heard the bells he wrought
    Herald the hour of rest.

The music of a thousand harps
    Could never be so dear
As when those solemn chants and thrills
    Fell on his list'ning ear.

He poured his soul into their chimes,
    And felt his toil repaid;
...

[1]

Were I a pet of fair Calliope,
I would devote the gifts conferr'd on me
To dress in verse old Aesop's lies divine;
For verse, and they, and truth, do well combine;
But, not a favourite on the Muses' hill,
I dare not arrogate the magic skill,
To ornament these charming stories.
A bard might brighten up their glories,
No doubt. I try, - what one more wise must do.
Thus much I have accomplish'd hitherto: -
By help of my translation,
The beasts hold conversation,
In French, as ne'er they did before.
Indeed, to claim a little more,
The plants and trees,[2] with smiling features,
Are turn'd by me to talking creatures.
Who says, that this is not enchanting?
'Ah,' says the critics, 'hear what vaunting!
From one whose work...

My garden blazes brightly with the rose-bush and the peach,
And the koil sings above it, in the siris by the well,
From the creeper-covered trellis comes the squirrel's chattering speech,
And the blue jay screams and flutters where the cheery sat-bhai dwell.
But the rose has lost its fragrance, and the koil's note is strange;
I am sick of endless sunshine, sick of blossom-burdened bough.
Give me back the leafless woodlands where the winds of Springtime range,
Give me back one day in England, for it's Spring in England now!

Through the pines the gusts are booming, o'er the brown fields blowing chill,
From the furrow of the plough share streams the fragrance of the loam,
And the hawk nests on the cliff side and the jackdaw in the hill,
And my heart is back in England 'mid the sigh...

From babyhood I have known the beauty of earth,
I learnt it, I think, in the strange months before birth,
I learnt it passing and passing by each moon
From the harvest month into my natal June.
My mother, the dear, the lovely I hardly knew,
Bearing me must have walked and wandered through
Stubble of silver or gold, as moon or sun
Lit earth in the days when my body was begun.
And then October with leaves splendid and blown
She watched with my little body a little grown,
And winter fell, and into our being passed
Firm frost and icy rivers and the blast
Of winds that on the iron clods of plough
Beat with an unseen charging. Then the bough
Of spring came green, and her glad body stirred
With a son's wombed leaping, and she heard
Songs of the air and woods and wate...

I love a still conservatory
That's full of giant, breathless palms,
Azaleas, clematis and vines,
Whose quietness great Trees becalms
Filling the air with foliage,
A curved and dreamy statuary.

I like to hear a cold, pure rill
Of water trickling low, afar
With sudden little jerks and purls
Into a tank or stoneware jar,
The song of a tiny sleeping bird
Held like a shadow in its trill.

I love the mossy quietness
That grows upon the great stone flags,
The dark tree-ferns, the staghorn ferns,
The prehistoric, antlered stags
That carven stand and stare among
The silent, ferny wilderness.

And are they birds or souls that flit
Among the trees so silently,
And are they fish or ghosts that haunt
The still pools of the rockery! ...

    The teacher was wise and learned, I wis,
    All nonsense she held in scorning,
    But you never can tell what the primmest miss
    Will do of a bright spring morning.

    What this one did was to spread a snare
    For feet of a youth unheeding,
    As March, with a meek and lamb-like air,
    To its very last hour was speeding.

    Oh, he was the dullard of his class,
    For how can a youth get learning
    With his eyes aye fixed on a pretty lass
    And his heart aye filled with yearning?

    "Who finds 'mong the rushes which fringe a pool,"
    She told him, "the first wind blossom,
    May wish what he will" - poor April fool,
    With but one wish in his bosom.

    Her gray eyes danced - on a wild-goose chase
    He'd...

How easily He turns the tides!
Just now the yellow beach was dry,
Just now the gaunt rocks all were bare,
The sun beat hot, and thirstily
Each sea-weed waved its long brown hair,
And bent and languished as in pain;
Then, in a flashing moment's space,
The white foam-feet which spurned the sand
Paused in their joyous outward race,
Wheeled, wavered, turned them to the land,
And, a swift legionary band,
Poured oil the waiting shores again.

How easily He turns the tides!
The fulness of my yesterday
Has vanished like a rapid dream,
And pitiless and far away
The cool, refreshing waters gleam:
Grim rocks of dread and doubt and pain

Rear their dark fronts where once was sea;
But I can smile and wait for Him
Who turns the tides so easily,...

His laurels fresh from song and lay,
Romance, art, science, rich in all,
And young of heart, how dare we say
We keep his seventieth festival?

No sense is here of loss or lack;
Before his sweetness and his light
The dial holds its shadow back,
The charmed hours delay their flight.

His still the keen analysis
Of men and moods, electric wit,
Free play of mirth, and tenderness
To heal the slightest wound from it.

And his the pathos touching all
Life's sins and sorrows and regrets,
Its hopes and fears, its final call
And rest beneath the violets.

His sparkling surface scarce betrays
The thoughtful tide beneath it rolled,
The wisdom of the latter days,
And tender memories of the old.

What shapes and fancies, grave or...

The moments passed as at a play;
I had the wisdom love brings forth;
I had my share of mother-wit,
And yet for all that I could say,
And though I had her praise for it,
A cloud blown from the cut-throat North
Suddenly hid Love's moon away.
Believing every word I said,
I praised her body and her mind
Till pride had made her eyes grow bright,
And pleasure made her cheeks grow red,
And vanity her footfall light,
Yet we, for all that praise, could find
Nothing but darkness overhead.
We sat as silent as a stone,
We knew, though she'd not said a word,
That even the best of love must die,
And had been savagely undone
Were it not that Love upon the cry
Of a most ridiculous little bird
Tore from the clouds his marvellous moon.
Although crowds g...