Freedom

Oh, the day has set me dreaming
In a strange, half solemn way
Of the feelings I experienced
On another long past day,--
Of the way my heart made music
When the buds began to blow,
And o' little Lucy Landman
Whom I loved long years ago.

It 's in spring, the poet tells us,
That we turn to thoughts of love,
And our hearts go out a-wooing
With the lapwing and the dove.
But whene'er the soul goes seeking
Its twin-soul, upon the wing,
I 've a notion, backed by mem'ry,
That it's love that makes the spring.

I have heard a robin singing
When the boughs were brown and bare,
And the chilling hand of winter
Scattered jewels through the air.
And in spite of dates and seasons,
It was always spring, I know,
When I loved Lucy Landman<...

As a guest who may not stay
Long and sad farewells to say
Glides with smiling face away,

Of the sweetness and the zest
Of thy happy life possessed
Thou hast left us at thy best.

Warm of heart and clear of brain,
Of thy sun-bright spirit's wane
Thou hast spared us all the pain.

Now that thou hast gone away,
What is left of one to say
Who was open as the day?

What is there to gloss or shun?
Save with kindly voices none
Speak thy name beneath the sun.

Safe thou art on every side,
Friendship nothing finds to hide,
Love's demand is satisfied.

Over manly strength and worth,
At thy desk of toil, or hearth,
Played the lambent light of mirth,

Mirth that lit, but never burned;
All thy blame to pity ...

A book came forth of late, called PETER BELL;
Not negligent the style; the matter? good
As aught that song records of Robin Hood;
Or Roy, renowned through many a Scottish dell;
But some (who brook those hackneyed themes full well,
Nor heat, at Tam o' Shanter's name, their blood)
Waxed wroth, and with foul claws, a harpy brood,
On Bard and Hero clamorously fell.
Heed not, wild Rover once through heath and glen,
Who mad'st at length the better life thy choice,
Heed not such onset! nay, if praise of men
To thee appear not an unmeaning voice,
Lift up that grey-haired forehead, and rejoice
In the just tribute of thy Poet's pen!

The sky is like an envelope,
    One of those blue official things;
And, sealing it, to mock our hope,
    The moon, a silver wafer, clings.
What shall we find when death gives leave
To read - our sentence or reprieve?

I'm holding it down on God's scrap-pile, up on the fag-end of earth;
O'er me a menace of mountains, a river that grits at my feet;
Face to face with my soul-self, weighing my life at its worth;
Wondering what I was made for, here in my last retreat.

Last! Ah, yes, it's the finish. Have ever you heard a man cry?
(Sobs that rake him and rend him, right from the base of the chest.)
That's how I've cried, oh, so often; and now that my tears are dry,
I sit in the desolate quiet and wait for the infinite Rest.

Rest! Well, it's restful a...

Half of my life is gone, and I have let
    The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
    The aspiration of my youth, to build
    Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
    Of restless passions chat would not be stilled,
    But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
    Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half way up the hill, I see the Past
    Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,--
    A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights.--
    And hear above me on the autumnal blast
    The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.

O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless - of cities fill'd with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light - of the objects mean - of the struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all - of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest - with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here - that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

What beck’ning ghost, along the moon-light shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
’Tis she!—but why that bleeding bosom gor’d,
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,
Is it, in heav’n, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a lover’s or a Roman’s part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

Why bade ye else, ye pow’rs! her soul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;
The glorious fault of angels and of gods;
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
Most souls, ’tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull sullen pris’ners in ...

Little linnet, - stop a minnit, -
Let me have a tawk with thee:
Tell me what this life has in it,
Maks thee seem so full o' glee?
Why is pleasure i' full measure,
Thine throo rooasy morn to neet,
Has ta fun some wondrous treasure,
Maks thi be for ivver breet?

-    -    -    -    -

Sang the linnet, - "wait a minnit,
Let me whisper in thine ear;
Life has lots o' pleasure in it,
Though a shadow's oftimes near.
Ivvery shoolder has its burden,
Ivvery heart its weight o' care;
But if bravely yo accept it,
Duty finds some pleasure thear.
Lazy louts dooant know what rest is, -
Those who labor find rest sweet;
Grumling souls ne'er know what best is, -
Blessins wither 'neath ther feet.
Sorrow needs noa invitation, -
Joy is shy a...

I saw pale Dian, sitting by the brink
Of silver falls, the overflow of fountains
From cloudy steeps; and I grew sad to think
Endymion's foot was silent on those mountains.
And he but a hush'd name, that Silence keeps
In dear remembrance, - lonely, and forlorn,
Singing it to herself until she weeps
Tears, that perchance still glisten in the morn: -
And as I mused, in dull imaginings,
There came a flash of garments, and I knew
The awful Muse by her harmonious wings
Charming the air to music as she flew -
Anon there rose an echo through the vale
Gave back Enydmion in a dreamlike tale.

A robin said: The Spring will never come,
And I shall never care to build again.
A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome,
My sap will never stir for sun or rain.
The half Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow,
I neither care to wax nor care to wane.
The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago,
Because earth's rivers cannot fill the main.
When springtime came, red Robin built a nest,
And trilled a lover's song in sheer delight.
Gray hoarfrost vanished, and the Rose with might
Clothed her in leaves and buds of crimson core.
The dim Moon brightened. Ocean sunned his crest,
Dimpled his blue, - yet thirsted evermore.

Rapt CONTEMPLATION, bring thy waking dreams
    To this umbrageous vale at noon-tide hour,
    While full of thee seems every bending flower,
    Whose petals tremble o'er the shadow'd streams!
Give thou HONORA's image, when her beams,
    Youth, beauty, kindness, shone; - what time she wore
    That smile, of gentle, yet resistless power
    To sooth each painful Passion's wild extremes.
Here shall no empty, vain Intruder chase,
    With idle converse, thy enchantment warm,
    That brings, in all its interest, all its grace,
The dear, persuasive, visionary Form.
    Can real Life a rival blessing boast
    When thou canst thus restore HONORA early lost?

What do they know of youth, who still are young?
They but the singers of a golden song
Who may not guess its worth or wonder--flung
Like largesse to the throng.
We only,--young no longer,--old so long
Before its harmonies, stand marvelling--
Oh! we who listen--never they who sing.

Not for itself is beauty, but for us
Who gaze upon it with all reverent eyes;
And youth which sheds its glory luminous,
Gives ever in this wise:--
Itself the joy it may not realise.
Only we know, who linger overlong
Youth that is made of beauty and of song.

    This day, Time winds th' exhausted chain,
    To run the twelvemonth's length again:
    I see the old, bald-pated follow,
    With ardent eyes, complexion sallow,
    Adjust the unimpair'd machine,
    To wheel the equal, dull routine.

    The absent lover, minor heir,
    In vain assail him with their prayer;
    Deaf as my friend, he sees them press,
    Nor makes the hour one moment less.
    Will you (the Major's with the hounds,
    The happy tenants share his rounds;
    Coila's fair Rachel's care to-day,
    And blooming Keith's engaged with Gray)
    From housewife cares a minute borrow,
    That grandchild's cap will do to-morrow,
    And join with me a moralizing,
    This day's propitious to be wise in.

    First, what did...

To-night I hunger so,
Beloved one, to know
If you recall and crave again the dream
That haunted our canoe,
And wove its witchcraft through
Our hearts as 'neath the northern night we sailed the northern stream.

Ah! dear, if only we
As yesternight could be
Afloat within that light and lonely shell,
To drift in silence till
Heart-hushed, and lulled and still
The moonlight through the melting air flung forth its fatal spell.

The dusky summer night,
The path of gold and white
The moon had cast across the river's breast,
The shores in shadows clad,
The far-away, half-sad
Sweet singing of the whip-poor-will, all soothed our souls to rest.

You trusted I could feel
My arm as strong as steel,
So still your upturned face, so calm you...

Iron and granite and rust,
In a crumbling garden old,
Where the roses are paler than dust
And the lilies are green with gold,

Under the racing moon,
Inconscious of war or crime,
In a strange and ghostly noon,
It marks the oblivion of time.

The shadow steals through its arc,
Still as a frosted breath,
Fitful, gleaming, and dark
As the cold frustration of death.

But where the shadow may fall,
Whether to hurry or stay,
It matters little at all
To those who come that way.

For this is the dial of them
That have forgotten the world,
No more through the mad day-dream
Of striving and reason hurled.

Their heart as a little child
Only remembers the worth
Of beauty and love and the wild
Dark peace of the el...

I ask not now for gold to gild
With mocking shine a weary frame;
The yearning of the mind is stilled,
I ask not now for Fame.

A rose-cloud, dimly seen above,
Melting in heaven's blue depths away;
Oh, sweet, fond dream of human Love
For thee I may not pray.

But, bowed in lowliness of mind,
I make my humble wishes known;
I only ask a will resigned,
O Father, to Thine own!

To-day, beneath Thy chastening eye
I crave alone for peace and rest,
Submissive in Thy hand to lie,
And feel that it is best.

A marvel seems the Universe,
A miracle our Life and Death;
A mystery which I cannot pierce,
Around, above, beneath.

In vain I task my aching brain,
In vain the sage's thought I scan,
I only feel how weak and vai...

The fairy woman maketh moan,
    "Well-a-day, and well-a-day,
Forsooth I brought thee one rose, one,
    And thou didst cast my rose away."
Hark! Oh hark, she mourneth yet,
    "One good ship - the good ship sailed,
One bright star, at last it set,
    One, one chance, forsooth it failed."

Clear thy dusk hair from thy veiled eyes,
    Show thy face as thee beseems,
For yet is starlight in the skies,
    Weird woman piteous through my dreams.
"Nay," she mourns, "forsooth not now,
    Veiled I sit for evermore,
Rose is shed, and charmèd prow
    Shall not touch the charmèd shore."

There thy sons that were to be,
    Thy small gamesome children play;
There all loves that men foresee
    Straight as wands enrich the way.
Dove-eyed, ...

And after all, and after all,
Our passionate prayers, and sighs, and tears,
Is life a reckless carnival?
And are they lost, our golden years?

Ah, no; ah, no; for, long ago,
Ere time could sear, or care could fret,
There was a youth called Romeo,
There was a maid named Juliet.

The players of the past are gone;
The races rise; the races pass;
And softly over all is drawn
The quiet Curtain of the Grass.

But when the world went wild with Spring,
What days we had! Do you forget?
When I of all the world was King,
And you were my Queen Juliet?

The things that are; the things that seem,
Who shall distinguish shape from show?
The great processional, splendid dream
Of life is all I wish to know.

The gods their faces turn...