Freedom

Priests of APOLLO, sacred be the Roome,
For this learn'd Meeting: Let no barbarous Groome,
    How braue soe'r he bee,
    Attempt to enter;
    But of the Muses free,
    None here may venter;
This for the Delphian Prophets is prepar'd:
The prophane Vulgar are from hence debar'd.

And since the Feast so happily begins,
Call vp those faire Nine, with their Violins;
    They are begot by IOVE,
    Then let vs place them,
    Where no Clowne in may shoue,
    That may disgrace them:
But let them neere to young APOLLO sit;
So shall his Foot-pace ouer-flow with Wit.

Where be the Graces, where be those fayre Three?
In any hand they may not absent bee:
    They to the Gods are deare,
    And they can humbly
    Teach vs, our Selues to ...

Fair is the wedded reign of Night and Day.
Each rules a half of earth with different sway,
Exchanging kingdoms, East and West, alway.

Like the round pearl that Egypt drunk in wine,
The sun half sinks i' the brimming, rosy brine:
The wild Night drinks all up: how her eyes shine!

Now the swift sail of straining life is furled,
And through the stillness of my soul is whirled
The throbbing of the hearts of half the world.

I hear the cries that follow Birth and Death.
I hear huge Pestilence draw his vaporous breath:
"Beware, prepare, or else ye die," he saith.

I hear a haggard student turn and sigh:
I hear men begging Heaven to let them die:
And, drowning all, a wild-eyed woman's cry.

So Night takes toll of Wisdom as of Sin.
The studen...

Year of meteors! brooding year!
I would bind in words retrospective, some of your deeds and signs;
I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad;
I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the scaffold in Virginia;
(I was at hand, silent I stood, with teeth shut close, I watch'd;
I stood very near you, old man, when cool and indifferent, but trembling with age and your unheal'd wounds, you mounted the scaffold;)
I would sing in my copious song your census returns of The States,
The tables of population and products, I would sing of your ships and their cargoes,
The proud black ships of Manhattan, arriving, some fill'd with immigrants, some from the isthmus with cargoes of gold;
Songs thereof would I sing, to all that hitherward comes would I welcome give;
And you wou...

Not while I live may I forget
That garden which my spirit trod!
Where dreams were flowers, wild and wet,
And beautiful as God.
Not while I breathe, awake, adream,
Shall live again for me those hours,
When, in its mystery and gleam,
I met her 'mid the flowers.
Eyes, talismanic heliotrope,
Beneath mesmeric lashes, where
The sorceries of love and hope
Had made a shining lair.
And daydawn brows, whereover hung
The twilight of dark locks: wild birds,
Her lips, that spoke the rose's tongue
Of fragrance-voweled words.
I will not tell of cheeks and chin,
That held me as sweet language holds;
Nor of the eloquence within
Her breasts' twin-moonéd molds.
Nor of her body's languorous
Wind-grace, that glanced like starlight through
Her clinging...

I.

Here all the summer could I stay,
For there's Bishop's teign
And King's teign
And Coomb at the clear Teign head
Where close by the stream
You may have your cream
All spread upon barley bread.

II.

There's Arch Brook
And there's Larch Brook
Both turning many a mill,
And cooling the drouth
Of the salmon's mouth
And fattening his silver gill.

III.

There is Wild wood,
A Mild hood
To the sheep on the lea o' the down,
Where the golden furze,
With its green, thin spurs,
Doth catch at the maiden's gown.

IV.

There is Newton Marsh
With its spear grass harsh
A pleasant summer level
Where the maidens sweet
Of the Market Street
Do meet in the dusk to revel.

V....

Unto the house of prayer my spirit yearns,
Unto the sources of her being turns,
To where the sacred light of heaven burns,
She struggles thitherward by day and night.


The splendor of God's glory blinds her eyes,
Up without wings she soareth to the skies,
With silent aspiration seeks to rise,
In dusky evening and in darksome night.


To her the wonders of God's works appear,
She longs with fervor Him to draw anear,
The tidings of His glory reach her ear,
From morn to even, and from night to night.


The banner of thy grace did o'er me rest,
Yet was thy worship banished from my breast.
Almighty, thou didst seek me out and test
To try and to instruct me in the night.


I dare not idly on my pillow lie,
With winged fe...

From purest wells of English undefiled
None deeper drank than he, the New World's child,
Who in the language of their farm-fields spoke
The wit and wisdom of New England folk,
Shaming a monstrous wrong. The world-wide laugh
Provoked thereby might well have shaken half
The walls of Slavery down, ere yet the ball
And mine of battle overthrew them all.

A neighbor of mine in the village
Likes to tell how one spring
When she was a girl on the farm, she did
A childlike thing.

One day she asked her father
To give her a garden plot
To plant and tend and reap herself,
And he said, "Why not?"

In casting about for a corner
He thought of an idle bit
Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,
And he said, "Just it."

And he said, "That ought to make you
An ideal one-girl farm,
And give you a chance to put some strength
On your slim-jim arm."

It was not enough of a garden
Her father said, to plow;
So she had to work it all by hand,
But she don't mind now.

She wheeled the dung in a wheelbarrow
Along a stretch of road;
But she always ran away and left
Her ...

Plough, vessel, plough the British main,
Seek the free ocean's wider plain;
Leave English scenes and English skies,
Unbind, dissever English ties;
Bear me to climes remote and strange,
Where altered life, fast-following change,
Hot action, never-ceasing toil,
Shall stir, turn, dig, the spirit's soil;
Fresh roots shall plant, fresh seed shall sow,
Till a new garden there shall grow,
Cleared of the weeds that fill it now,
Mere human love, mere selfish yearning,
Which, cherished, would arrest me yet.
I grasp the plough, there's no returning,
Let me, then, struggle to forget.

But England's shores are yet in view,
And England's skies of tender blue
Are arched above her guardian sea.
I cannot yet Remembrance flee;
I must again, then, firmly face...

Et nunc omnis ager, mine omms parturit arbos;
Nunc frondent sylvæ, nunc formostssimus annus.
Virgil.

Delightful harbinger of joys to come,
Of summer's verdure and a fruitful year,
Who bids thee o'er our northern snow-fields roam,
And make all gladness in thy bright career?
Lo from the Indian Isle thou dost appear,
And dost a thousand pleasures with thee bring:
But why to us art thou so ever dear?
Bearest thou the hope upon thy radiant wing
Of Immortality, O soft, celestial Spring?

Yea, buds and flowers that fade not, they are thine,
And youth-renewing balms; the sear and old
Are young and gladsome at thy touch divine.
Thou breath'st upon the frozen earth behold,
Meadows and vales of grass and floral gold,
Green-covered hills and leafy m...

George Fuller

Haunted of Beauty, like the marvellous youth
Who sang Saint Agnes' Eve! How passing fair
Her shapes took color in thy homestead air!
How on thy canvas even her dreams were truth!
Magician! who from commonest elements
Called up divine ideals, clothed upon
By mystic lights soft blending into one
Womanly grace and child-like innocence.
Teacher I thy lesson was not given in vain.
Beauty is goodness; ugliness is sin;
Art's place is sacred: nothing foul therein
May crawl or tread with bestial feet profane.
If rightly choosing is the painter's test,
Thy choice, O master, ever was the best

The bold young Autumn came riding along
    One day where an elm-tree grew.
"You are fair," he said, as she bent down her head,
    "Too fair for your robe's dull hue.
You are far too young for a garb so old;
    Your beauty needs colour and sheen.
Oh, I would clothe you in scarlet and gold
    Befitting the grace of a queen.

"For one little kiss on your lips, sweet elm,
    For one little kiss, no more,
I would give you, I swear, a robe more fair
    Than ever a princess wore.
One little kiss on those lips, my pet,
    And lo! you shall stand, I say,
Queen of the forest, and, better yet,
    Queen of my heart alway."

She tossed her head, but he took the kiss -
    'Tis the way of lovers bold -
And a gorgeous dress for that sweet caress

Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain
Somewhere in ear-shot for the story’s end,
Old Dublin merchant ‘free of ten and four’
Or trading out of Galway into Spain;
And country scholar, Robert Emmet’s friend,
A hundred-year-old memory to the poor;
Traders or soldiers who have left me blood
That has not passed through any huxter’s loin,
Pardon, and you that did not weigh the cost,
Old Butlers when you took to horse and stood
Beside the brackish waters of the Boyne
Till your bad master blenched and all was lost;
You merchant skipper that leaped overboard
After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay,
You most of all, silent and fierce old man
Because you were the spectacle that stirred
My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say
‘Only the wastful virtues earn the sun’;
...

When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?
No, rather smile away despair;
For those have been more sad than I,
With burthens more than I could bear;
Aye, gone rejoicing under care
Where I had sunk in black despair.

When pain disturbs my peace and rest,
Am I a hopeless grief to keep,
When some have slept on torture's breast
And smiled as in the sweetest sleep,
Aye, peace on thorns, in faith forgiven,
And pillowed on the hope of heaven?

Though low and poor and broken down,
Am I to think myself distrest?
No, rather laugh where others frown
And think my being truly blest;
For others I can daily see
More worthy riches worse than me.

Aye, once a stranger blest the earth
Who never caused a heart to mourn,
Whose very voice gave sorrow m...

The Young King fights in the trenches and the Old King fights in the rear,
Because he is old and feeble, and not for a thought of fear.
The Young King fights for the Future, and the Old King fights for the Past,
The Young King is fighting his first fight and the Old King is fighting his last.

It is ever the same old battle, be the end of it Beer or Blood,
Or whether the rifles rattle, or whether a friend flings mud;
Or a foe to the rescue dashes, and the touch of a stranger thrills,
Or the Truth, or the bayonet flashes; or the Lie, or a bullet kills.

The young man strives to determine which are the truths or lies,
And the old man preaches his sermon, and he takes to his bed and dies;
And the parson is there, and the nurse is (or the bread is there and the wine),
And the so...

There late was One within whose subtle being,
As light and wind within some delicate cloud
That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky,
Genius and death contended. None may know
The sweetness of the joy which made his breath
Fail, like the trances of the summer air,
When, with the Lady of his love, who then
First knew the unreserve of mingled being,
He walked along the pathway of a field
Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o'er,
But to the west was open to the sky.
There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold
Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points
Of the far level grass and nodding flowers
And the old dandelion's hoary beard,
And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay
On the brown massy woods - and in the east
The broad and burning moon linger...

You who have gone gathering
Cornflowers and meadowsweet,
Heard the hazels glancing down
On September eves,
Seen the homeward rooks on wing
Over fields of golden wheat,
And the silver cups that crown
Water-lily leaves;

You who know the tenderness
Of old men at eve-tide,
Coming from the hedgerows,
Coming from the plough,
And the wandering caress
Of winds upon the woodside,
When the crying yaffle goes
Underneath the bough;

You who mark the flowing
Of sap upon the May-time,
And the waters welling
From the watershed,
You who count the growing
Of harvest and hay-time,
Knowing these the telling
Of your daily bread;

You who cherish courtesy
With your fellows at your gate,
And about your hearthstone si...

So thou hast the art, good dame, thou swearest,
    To keep Time's perishing touch at bay
From the roseate splendour of the cheek so tender,
    And the silver threads from the gold away;
And the tell-tale years that have hurried by us
    Shall tiptoe back, and, with kind good-will,
They shall take their traces from off our faces,
    If we will trust to thy magic skill.

Thou speakest fairly; but if I listen
    And buy thy secret and prove its truth,
Hast thou the potion and magic lotion
    To give me also the heart of youth?
With the cheek of rose and the eye of beauty,
    And the lustrous locks of life's lost prime,
Wilt thou bring thronging each hope and longing
    That made the glory of that dead Time?

When the sap in the trees sets...