Freedom

These times strike monied worldlings with dismay:
Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air
With words of apprehension and despair:
While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray,
Men unto whom sufficient for the day
And minds not stinted or untilled are given,
Sound, healthy, children of the God of heaven,
Are cheerful as the rising sun in May.
What do we gather hence but firmer faith
That every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope’s perpetual breath;
That virtue and the faculties within
Are vital, and that riches are akin
To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death?

Enough of climbing toil! Ambition treads
Here, as 'mid busier scenes, ground steep and rough,
Or slippery even to peril! and each step,
As we for most uncertain recompence
Mount toward the empire of the fickle clouds,
Each weary step, dwarfing the world below,
Induces, for its old familiar sights,
Unacceptable feelings of contempt,
With wonder mixed that Man could e'er be tied,
In anxious bondage, to such nice array
And formal fellowship of petty things!
Oh! 'tis the 'heart' that magnifies this life,
Making a truth and beauty of her own;
And moss-grown alleys, circumscribing shades,
And gurgling rills, assist her in the work
More efficaciously than realms outspread,
As in a map, before the adventurer's gaze
Ocean and Earth contending for regard.
The ...

    Two infants in their cradles lie,
        Where lullabies of peace
    In gentle strains of tender music die.
        And carols never cease.

    Two urchins o'er the meadow lands
        Are bounding in their plays,
    Where sweet enjoyment with angelic hands
        Winds gladness o'er the days.

    Two boys, where golden fancies bless,
        Repose in sunny beams,
    And muse away the hours of happiness
        On couches made of dreams.

    Two men upon a summer sea
        Are toiling, brave and strong,
    Where pleasures roll their elfin harmony
        And labor ends in song.

    Two gray-haired sages, silvered o'er,
        In life meet once again,
    To name the wondrous happiness they bore
        Amon...

Day! Faster and more fast,
O'er night's brim, day boils at last:
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.
Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.

All service ranks the same with God:
If now, as formerly He trod
Paradise, His presence fills
Our earth, each only as God wills
Can work God's puppets, best and worst,
Are we: there is no last nor first.

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn:
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pea...

Yes, sad one of Sion,[1] if closely resembling,
    In shame and in sorrow, thy withered-up heart--
If drinking deep, deep, of the same "cup of trembling"
    Could make us thy children, our parent thou art,

Like thee doth our nation lie conquered and broken,
    And fallen from her head is the once royal crown;
In her streets, in her halls, Desolation hath spoken,
    And "while it is day yet, her sun hath gone down."[2]

Like thine doth her exile, mid dreams of returning,
    Die far from the home it were life to behold;
Like thine do her sons, in the day of their mourning,
    Remember the bright things that blest them of old.

Ah, well may we call her, like thee "the Forsaken,"[3]
    Her boldest are vanquished, her proude...

I understood the rest too well,
And all their thoughts have come to be
Clear as grey sea-weed in the swell
Of a sunny shallow sea.

But you I never understood,
Your spirit's secret hides like gold
Sunk in a Spanish galleon
Ages ago in waters cold.

Whew! - Tha'rt in a famous hurry!
Awm nooan baan to try to catch thi!
Aw've noa dogs wi' me to worry
Thee poor thing, - aw like to watch thi.
Tha'rt a runner! aw dar back thi,
Why, tha ommost seems to fly!
Did ta think aw meant to tak thi?
Well, awm fond o' rabbit pie.

Aw dooan't want th' world to misen, mun,
Awm nooan like a dog i'th' manger;
Yet still 'twor happen best to run,
For tha'rt th' safest aght o' danger.
An sometimes fowks' inclination
Leads 'em to do what they shouldn't; -
But tha's saved me a temptation, -
Aw've net harmed thi, 'coss aw couldn't.

Aw wish all temptations fled me,
As tha's fled throo me to-day;
For they've oft to trouble led me,
For which aw've had dear to pay.
An a taicher wise aw've faand thi,

Thy face is far from this our war,
Our call and counter-cry,
I shall not find Thee quick and kind,
Nor know Thee till I die,
Enough for me in dreams to see
And touch Thy garments' hem:
Thy feet have trod so near to
God I may not follow them.
Through wantonness if men profess
They weary of Thy parts,
E'en let them die at blasphemy
And perish with their arts;
But we that love, but we that prove
Thine excellence august,
While we adore discover more
Thee perfect, wise, and just.
Since spoken word Man's Spirit stirred
Beyond his belly-need,
What is is Thine of fair design
In thought and craft and deed;
Each stroke aright of toil and fight,
That was and that shall be,
And hope too high, wherefore we die,
Has birth and worth in Thee...

High beyond the granite portal arched across
Like the gateway of some godlike giant’s hold
Sweep and swell the billowy breasts of moor and moss
East and westward, and the dell their slopes enfold
Basks in purple, glows in green, exults in gold
Glens that know the dove and fells that hear the lark
Fill with joy the rapturous island, as an ark
Full of spicery wrought from herb and flower and tree.
None would dream that grief even here may disembark
On the wrathful woful marge of earth and sea.
Rocks emblazoned like the mid shield’s royal boss
Take the sun with all their blossom broad and bold.
None would dream that all this moorland’s glow and gloss
Could be dark as tombs that strike the spirit acold
Even in eyes that opened here, and here behold
Now no sun relume fr...

A white mist drifts across the shrouds,
A wild moon in this wintry sky
Gleams like an angry lion's eye
Out of a mane of tawny clouds.

The muffled steersman at the wheel
Is but a shadow in the gloom;
And in the throbbing engine-room
Leap the long rods of polished steel.

The shattered storm has left its trace
Upon this huge and heaving dome,
For the thin threads of yellow foam
Float on the waves like ravelled lace.

AN ODE, IN HONOUR OF ST CECILIA'S DAY.


    'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won
    By Philip's warlike son:
    Aloft in awful state
    The godlike hero sate
    On his imperial throne:
    His valiant peers were placed around;
    Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
    (So should desert in arms be crown'd).
    The lovely Thais, by his side,
    Sate like a blooming Eastern bride
    In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
    Happy, happy, happy pair!
    None but the brave,
    None but the brave,
    None but the brave deserves the fair.

    CHORUS.

    Happy, happy, happy pair!
    None but the brave,
    None but the brave,
    None but the brave deserves the fair.

    Timotheus, plac...

[What the Man of Faith said]


    The dew, the rain and moonlight
    All prove our Father's mind.
    The dew, the rain and moonlight
    Descend to bless mankind.

    Come, let us see that all men
    Have land to catch the rain,
    Have grass to snare the spheres of dew,
    And fields spread for the grain.

    Yea, we would give to each poor man
    Ripe wheat and poppies red, -
    A peaceful place at evening
    With the stars just overhead:

    A net to snare the moonlight,
    A sod spread to the sun,
    A place of toil by daytime,
    Of dreams when toil is done.

An hour before the dawn,
My friend,
You lit your waiting bedside-lamp,
Your breakfast-fire anon,
And outing into the dark and damp
You saddled, and set on.

Thuswise, before the day,
My friend,
You sought her on her surfy shore,
To fetch her thence away
Unto your own new-builded door
For a staunch lifelong stay.

You said: "It seems to be,
My friend,
That I were bringing to my place
The pure brine breeze, the sea,
The mews all her old sky and space,
In bringing her with me!"

But time is prompt to expugn,
My friend,
Such magic-minted conjurings:
The brought breeze fainted soon,
And then the sense of seamews' wings,
And the shore's sibilant tune.

So, it had been more due,
My friend,
Perhaps,...

Thou who wert born of Psyche and of Love
And fondly nurst on Poesy's warm breast
                    Painting, oh, power adored!
                    My country's sons have poured
To thee their orisons; and thou hast blest
Their votive sighs, nor vainly have they strove.

Thou who art wont to soothe the varied pain
That ceaseless throbs at absent lover's heart,
                    Who first bestowed thine aid
                    On the young Rhodian maid [FN#19]
When doomed, from him whose love was life, to part,
From a lone bard accept an humble heartfelt strain.


[FN#19]    I do not positively recollect whether the incident, here described is supposed to have transpired at Rhodes, Corinth, or some other place, and have not, at present, the means for ascertaining....

YOUTH.

Say, sparkling streamlet, whither thou

Art going!
With joyous mien thy waters now

Are flowing.
Why seek the vale so hastily?
Attend for once, and answer me!

MILLSTREAM.

Oh youth, I was a brook indeed;

But lately
My bed they've deepen'd, and my speed

Swell'd greatly,
That I may haste to yonder mill.
And so I'm full and never still.

YOUTH.

The mill thou seekest in a mood

Contented,
And know'st not how my youthful blood

'S tormented.
But doth the miller's daughter fair
Gaze often on thee kindly there?

MILLSTREAM.

She opes the shutters soon as light

Is gleaming;
And comes to bathe her features bright

And beaming.
So ful...

If I might see another Spring
    I'd not plant summer flowers and wait:
I'd have my crocuses at once,
My leafless pink mezereons,
    My chill-veined snowdrops, choicer yet
    My white or azure violet,
Leaf-nested primrose; anything
    To blow at once, not late.

If I might see another Spring
    I'd listen to the daylight birds
That build their nests and pair and sing,
Nor wait for mateless nightingale;
    I'd listen to the lusty herds,
    The ewes with lambs as white as snow,
I'd find out music in the hail
    And all the winds that blow.

If I might see another Spring--
    Oh stinging comment on my past
That all my past results in 'if'--
    If I might see another Spring
I'd laugh to-day, to-day is brief;
I would not...

The happiness that man, whilst prison'd here,

Is wont with heavenly rapture to compare,
The harmony of Truth, from wavering clear,

Of Friendship that is free from doubting care,
The light which in stray thoughts alone can cheer

The wise, the bard alone in visions fair,
In my best hours I found in her all this,
And made mine own, to mine exceeding bliss.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
The thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss o...