Freedom

In days gone by, the poets wrote
    Sweet verses to the ladies fair;
Described the nightingale's clear note,
    Or penned an Ode to Daphne's hair.

To dare all for a woman's smile
    Or breathe one's heart out in a rose--
Such trifles now are out of style,
    The scented manuscript must close.

Yet Villon wrote his roundelays,
    And that sweet singer Horace;
But I will sing of other days
    In praise of Clara Morris.

Youth is but the joy of life,
    Not the eternal moping;
We get no happiness from strife
    Nor yet by blindly groping.

All the world's a stage you know
    The men and women actors;
A little joy, a little woe--
    These are but human factors.

The mellow days still come and go,
    The...

When the wind storms by with a shout, and the stern sea-caves
Exult in the tramp and the roar of onsetting waves,
Then, then, it comes home to the heart that the top of life
Is the passion that burns the blood in the act of strife,
Till you pity the dead down there in their quiet graves.

But to drowse with the fen behind and the fog before,
When the rain-rot spreads and a tame sea mumbles the shore,
Not to adventure, none to fight, no right and no wrong,
Sons of the Sword heart-sick for a stave of your sire's old song,
O you envy the blessed dead that can live no more!

I know not, Time and Space so intervene,
Whether, still waiting with a trust serene,
Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten,
Or, called at last, art now Heaven’s citizen;
But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee,
Like an old friend, all day has been with me.
The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand
Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land
Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet
Keeps green the memory of his early debt.
To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their words
Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords,
Listening with quickened heart and ear intent
To each sharp clause of that stern argument,
I still can hear at times a softer note
Of the old pastoral music round me float,
While through the hot gleam of our civil strife

Day breaks on England down the Kentish hills,
Singing in the silence of the meadow-footing rills,
Day of my dreams, O day!
I saw them march from Dover, long ago,
With a silver cross before them, singing low,
Monks of Rome from their home where the blue seas break in foam,
Augustine with his feet of snow.

Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town,
- Beauty she was statue cold - there's blood upon her gown:
Noon of my dreams, O noon!
Proud and godly kings had built her, long ago,
With her towers and tombs and statues all arow,
With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there,
And the streets where the great men go.

Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales,
When the first star shivers and the last wave pales:
O evening dreams!

I

Between extremities
Man runs his course;
A brand, or flaming breath.
Comes to destroy
All those antinomies
Of day and night;
The body calls it death,
The heart remorse.
But if these be right
What is joy?


II

A tree there is that from its topmost bough
Is half all glittering flame and half all green
Abounding foliage moistened with the dew;
And half is half and yet is all the scene;
And half and half consume what they renew,
And he that Attis' image hangs between
That staring fury and the blind lush leaf
May know not what he knows, but knows not grief


III

Get all the gold and silver that you can,
Satisfy ambition, animate
The trivial days and ram them with the sun,
And yet upon t...

She came and stood in the Old South Church,
A wonder and a sign,
With a look the old-time sibyls wore,
Half-crazed and half-divine.

Save the mournful sackcloth about her wound,
Unclothed as the primal mother,
With limbs that trembled and eyes that blazed
With a fire she dare not smother.

Loose on her shoulders fell her hair,
With sprinkled ashes gray;
She stood in the broad aisle strange and weird
As a soul at the judgment day.

And the minister paused in his sermon's midst,
And the people held their breath,
For these were the words the maiden spoke
Through lips as the lips of death:

"Thus saith the Lord, with equal feet
All men my courts shall tread,
And priest and ruler no more shall eat
My people up like bread!

        I

        IN NEW YORK

        He plays the deuce with my writing time,
        For the penny my sixth-floor neighbor throws;
        He finds me proud of my pondered rhyme,
        And he leaves me--well, God knows
        It takes the shine from a tunester's line
        When a little mate of the deathless Nine
        Pipes up under your nose!

        For listen, there is his voice again,
        Wistful and clear and piercing sweet.
        Where did the boy find such a strain
        To make a dead heart beat?
        And how in the name of care can he bear
        To jet such a fountain into the air
        In this gray gulch of a street?

        Tuscan slopes or the Piedmontese?
        Umbria under the Apennine?

Right in the track where Sherman
Ploughed his red furrow,
Out of the narrow cabin,
Up from the cellar's burrow,
Gathered the little black people,
With freedom newly dowered,
Where, beside their Northern teacher,
Stood the soldier, Howard.
He listened and heard the children
Of the poor and long-enslavëd
Reading the words of Jesus,
Singing the songs of David.
Behold! the dumb lips speaking,
The blind eyes seeing!
Bones of the Prophet's vision
Warmed into being!
Transformed he saw them passing
Their new life's portal!
Almost it seemed the mortal
Put on the immortal.
No more with the beasts of burden,
No more with stone and clod,
But crowned with glory and honor
In the image of God!
There was the human chattel
Its manho...

It is not to be thought of that the flood
Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
Of the world’s praise, from dark antiquity
Hath flow’d, ‘with pomp of waters, unwithstood,’
Roused though it be full often to a mood
Which spurns the check of salutary bands,
That this most famous stream in bogs and sands
Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung
Armoury of the invincible Knights of old:
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.—In everything we are sprung
Of Earth’s first blood, have titles manifold.

For all we have and are,
For all our children's fate,
Stand up and take the war.
The Hun is at the gate!
Our world has passed away,
In wantonness o'erthrown.
There is nothing left to-day
But steel and fire and stone!
Though all we knew depart,
The old Commandments stand:
"In courage keep your heart,
In strength lift up your hand."

Once more we hear the word
That sickened earth of old:
"No law except the Sword
Unsheathed and uncontrolled."
Once more it knits mankind,
Once more the nations go
To meet and break and bind
A crazed and driven foe.

Comfort, content, delight,
The ages' slow-bought gain,
They shrivelled in a night.
Only ourselves remain
To face the naked days
In silent fortitude,
Through per...

Oh, children of the tropics,
    Amid our pain and wrong
Have you no other mission
    Than music, dance, and song?

When through the weary ages
    Our dripping tears still fall,
Is this a time to dally
    With pleasure's silken thrall?

Go, muffle all your viols;
    As heroes learn to stand,
With faith in God's great justice
    Nerve every heart and hand.

Dream not of ease nor pleasure,
    Nor honor, wealth, nor fame,
Till from the dust you've lifted
    Our long-dishonored name;

And crowned that name with glory
    By deeds of holy worth,
To shine with light emblazoned,
    The noblest name on earth.

Count life a dismal failure,
    Unblessing and unblest,
That seeks 'mid ease inglorious
   ...

    'Tis hard, my friend, to write in such an age,
    As damns, not only poets, but the stage.
    That sacred art, by Heaven itself infused,
    Which Moses, David, Solomon have used,
    Is now to be no more: the Muses' foes
    Would sink their Maker's praises into prose.
    Were they content to prune the lavish vine
    Of straggling branches, and improve the wine,
    Who but a madman would his thoughts defend?
    All would submit; for all but fools will mend.
    But when to common sense they give the lie,
    And turn distorted words to blasphemy,
    They give the scandal; and the wise discern,
    Their glosses teach an age, too apt to learn.
    What I have loosely, or profanely, writ,
    Let them to fires, their due desert, commit:
    Nor, when...

Standing here alone,
Let me pause awhile,
Drinking in the light
Ere, with plunge of white limbs prone,
I raise the sparkling flight
Of foam-flakes volatile.

Now, in natural guise,
I woo the deathless breeze,
Through me rushing fleet
The joy of life, in swift surprise:
I grow with growing wheat,
And burgeon with the trees.

Lo! I fetter Time,
So he cannot run;
And in Eden again -
Flash of memory sublime! -
Dwell naked, without stain,
Beneath the dazed sun.

All yields brotherhood;
Each least thing that lives,
Wrought of primal spores,
Deepens this wild sense of good
That, on these shaggy shores,
Return to nature gives.

Oh, that some solitude
Were ours, in woodlands deep,
Where, with lucent ...

Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling;
Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard;
Give me a field where the unmow'd grass grows;
Give me an arbor, give me the trellis'd grape;
Give me fresh corn and wheat give me serene-moving animals, teaching content;
Give me nights perfectly quiet, as on high plateaus west of the Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars;
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers, where I can walk undisturb'd;
Give me for marriage a sweet-breath'd woman, of whom I should never tire;
Give me a perfect child give me, away, aside from the noise of the world, a rural, domestic life;
Give me to warble spontaneous songs, reliev'd, recluse by myself, for my own ears only;
Give me solitude give me Nature give me agai...

So many stones have been thrown at me,
That I'm not frightened of them anymore,
And the pit has become a solid tower,
Tall among tall towers.
I thank the builders,
May care and sadness pass them by.
From here I'll see the sunrise earlier,
Here the sun's last ray rejoices.
And into the windows of my room
The northern breezes often fly.
And from my hand a dove eats grains of wheat...
As for my unfinished page,
The Muse's tawny hand, divinely calm
And delicate, will finish it.

Something is dead . . .
The grace of sunset solitudes, the march
Of the solitary moon, the pomp and power
Of round on round of shining soldier-stars
Patrolling space, the bounties of the sun -
Sovran, tremendous, unimaginable -
The multitudinous friendliness of the sea,
Possess no more - no more.

Something is dead . . .
The Autumn rain-rot deeper and wider soaks
And spreads, the burden of Winter heavier weighs,
His melancholy close and closer yet
Cleaves, and those incantations of the Spring
That made the heart a centre of miracles
Grow formal, and the wonder-working bours
Arise no more - no more.

Something is dead . . .
'Tis time to creep in close about the fire
And tell grey tales of what we were, and dream
Old dreams and faded, an...

In poisonous dens, where traitors hide
Like bats that fear the day,
While all the land our charters claim
Is sweating blood and breathing flame,
Dead to their country's woe and shame,
The recreants whisper STAY!

In peaceful homes, where patriot fires
On Love's own altars glow,
The mother hides her trembling fear,
The wife, the sister, checks a tear,
To breathe the parting word of cheer,
Soldier of Freedom, Go!

In halls where Luxury lies at ease,
And Mammon keeps his state,
Where flatterers fawn and menials crouch,
The dreamer, startled from his couch,
Wrings a few counters from his pouch,
And murmurs faintly WAIT!

In weary camps, on trampled plains
That ring with fife and drum,
The battling host, whose harness gleams
...

Still in thy streets, O Paris! doth the stain
Of blood defy the cleansing autumn rain;
Still breaks the smoke Messina's ruins through,
And Naples mourns that new Bartholomew,
When squalid beggary, for a dole of bread,
At a crowned murderer's beck of license, fed
The yawning trenches with her noble dead;
Still, doomed Vienna, through thy stately halls
The shell goes crashing and the red shot falls,
And, leagued to crush thee, on the Danube's side,
The bearded Croat and Bosniak spearman ride;
Still in that vale where Himalaya's snow
Melts round the cornfields and the vines below,
The Sikh's hot cannon, answering ball for ball,
Flames in the breach of Moultan's shattered wall;
On Chenab's side the vulture seeks the slain,
And Sutlej paints with blood its banks ag...