Freedom

"Come, sit thee by my side once more,
    'Tis long since thus we' met;
And though our dream of love is o'er,
    Its sweetness lingers yet.
Its transient day has long been past,
    Its flame has ceased to burn, -
But Memory holds its spirit fast,
    Safe in her sacred urn.

"I will not chide thy wanderings,
    Nor ask why thou couldst flee
A heart whose deep affection's springs
    Poured forth such love for thee!
We may not curb the restless mind,
    Nor teach the wayward heart
To love against its will, nor bind
    It with the chains of art.

"I would but tell thee how, in tears
    And bitterness, my soul
Has yearned with dreams, through long, long, years,
    Which it could not control.
And how the thought that clingeth t...

Here pause: the poet claims at least this praise,
That virtuous Liberty hath been the scope
Of his pure song, which did not shrink from hope
In the worst moment of these evil days;
From hope, the paramount 'duty' that Heaven lays,
For its own honour, on man's suffering heart.
Never may from our souls one truth depart,
That an accursed thing it is to gaze
On prosperous tyrants with a dazzled eye;
Nor touched with due abhorrence of 'their' guilt
For whose dire ends tears flow, and blood is spilt,
And justice labours in extremity,
Forget thy weakness, upon which is built,
O wretched man, the throne of tyranny!

Frosty lies the winter-landscape,
    In the twilight golden-green.
Down the Park's deserted alleys,
    Naked elms stand stark and lean.


Dumb the murmur of the fountain,
    Birds have flown from lawn and hill.
But while yonder star's ascendant,
    Love triumphal reigneth still.


See the keen flame throb and tremble,
    Brightening in the darkening night,
Breathing like a thing of passion,
    In the sky's smooth chrysolite.


Not beneath the moon, oh lover,
    Thou shalt gain thy heart's desire.
Speak to-night!    The gods are with thee
    Burning with a kindred fire.

What is there in those distant hills
My fancy longs to see,
That many a mood of joy instils?
Say what can fancy be?

Do old oaks thicken all the woods,
With weeds and brakes as here?
Does common water make the floods,
That's common everywhere?

Is grass the green that clothes the ground?
Are springs the common springs?
Daisies and cowslips dropping round,
Are such the flowers she brings?

*    *    *    *    *

Are cottages of mud and stone,
By valley wood and glen,
And their calm dwellers little known
Men, and but common men,

That drive afield with carts and ploughs?
Such men are common here,
And pastoral maidens milking cows
Are dwelling everywhere.

If so my fancy idly clings
To notions far away,<...

1.
She saw me not - she heard me not - alone
Upon the mountain's dizzy brink she stood;
She spake not, breathed not, moved not - there was thrown
Over her look, the shadow of a mood
Which only clothes the heart in solitude,
A thought of voiceless depth; - she stood alone,
Above, the Heavens were spread; - below, the flood
Was murmuring in its caves; - the wind had blown
Her hair apart, through which her eyes and forehead shone.

2.
A cloud was hanging o'er the western mountains;
Before its blue and moveless depth were flying
Gray mists poured forth from the unresting fountains
Of darkness in the North: - the day was dying: -
Sudden, the sun shone forth, its beams were lying
Like boiling gold on Ocean, strange to see,
And on the shattered vapours, whi...

Not Atlas, with his shoulders bent beneath the weighty world,
Bore such a burden as this man, on whom the Gods have hurled
The evils of old festering lands - yea, hurled them in their might
And left him standing all alone, to set the wrong things right.

It is the way the Fates have done since first Time's race began!
They open up Pandora's box before some chosen man;
And then, aloof, they wait and watch, to see if he will find
And wake the slumbering God that dwells in every mortal's mind.

Erect, our modern Atlas stands, with brave uplifted head,
And there is courage in his eyes, if in his heart be dread.
Not dread of foes, but dread of friends, who may not pull together,
To bring the lurching ship of State safe through the stormy weather.

Oh, never were there w...

    The face of glory and her pleasant voice,
    O fortunate youth, now recognize,
    And how much nobler than effeminate sloth
    Are manhood's tested energies.
    Take heed, O generous champion, take heed,
    If thou thy name by worthy thought or deed,
    From Time's all-sweeping current couldst redeem;
    Take heed, and lift thy heart to high desires!
    The amphitheatre's applause, the public voice,
    Now summon thee to deeds illustrious;
    Exulting in thy lusty youth.
    In thee, to-day, thy country dear
    Beholds her heroes old again appear.

    His hand was ne'er with blood barbaric stained,
    At Marathon,
    Who on the plain of Elis could behold
    The naked athletes, and the wrestlers bold,
    And feel no glow of ...

Oh! I will hold fast to Joy!
I will not let him depart -
He shall close his beautiful rainbow wings
And sing his song in my heart.

And I will live with Delight!
I will know what the children know
When they dance along with the April wind
To find where the catkins grow!

I will dream the old, old dreams,
And look for pixie and fay
In shadowy woods - and out on the hills -
As we did but yesterday.

Love I will keep in my soul -
Ay! even by lock and key!
There is nothing to fear in all of the world
If Love will but stay with me.

No, I will not let Faith go!
I will say with my latest breath -
I know there's a new and radiant road
On the other side of Death.

Through Thy clear spaces, Lord, of old,
Formless and void the dead earth rolled;
Deaf to Thy heaven's sweet music, blind
To the great lights which o'er it shined;
No sound, no ray, no warmth, no breath,
A dumb despair, a wandering death.

To that dark, weltering horror came
Thy spirit, like a subtle flame,
A breath of life electrical,
Awakening and transforming all,
Till beat and thrilled in every part
The pulses of a living heart.

Then knew their bounds the land and sea;
Then smiled the bloom of mead and tree;
From flower to moth, from beast to man,
The quick creative impulse ran;
And earth, with life from thee renewed,
Was in thy holy eyesight good.

As lost and void, as dark and cold
And formless as that earth of old;
A w...

Over the hills, as the pewee flies,
Under the blue of the Southern skies;
Over the hills, where the red-bird wings
Like a scarlet blossom, or sits and sings:

Under the shadow of rock and tree,
Where the warm wind drones with the honey-bee;
And the tall wild-carrots around you sway
Their lace-like flowers of cloudy gray:

By the black-cohosh with its pearly plume
A-nod in the woodland's odorous gloom;
By the old rail-fence, in the elder's shade,
That the myriad hosts of the weeds invade:

Where the butterfly-weed, like a coal of fire,
Blurs orange-red through bush and brier;
Where the pennyroyal and mint smell sweet,
And blackberries tangle the summer heat,

The old road leads; then crosses the creek,
Where the minnow dartles, a silver...

So closed our tale, of which I give you all
The random scheme as wildly as it rose:
The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased
There came a minute's pause, and Walter said,
'I wish she had not yielded!' then to me,
'What, if you drest it up poetically?'
So prayed the men, the women: I gave assent:
Yet how to bind the scattered scheme of seven
Together in one sheaf? What style could suit?
The men required that I should give throughout
The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque,
With which we bantered little Lilia first:
The women--and perhaps they felt their power,
For something in the ballads which they sang,
Or in their silent influence as they sat,
Had ever seemed to wrestle with burlesque,
And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close--
They hated banter, wi...

Himself I read beneath the words he writes ...
I may come back and sing again. - RYAN.


I.

This Bard's to me a whole-souled man
In honesty and might,
For when he sees Wrong in the van
He leaps like any Knight
To horse, and charging on the wrong
Smites it with the great sword of Song.


II.

Beneath the cassock of the Priest
There throbs another heart -
Another - but 'tis not the least -
Which in his Lays takes part,
So that 'mid clash of Swords and Spears
There is no lack of Pity's tears.


III.

This other heart is brave and soft,
As such hearts always are,
And plumes itself, a bird aloft,
When Morning's gates unbar -
Till high it soars above the sod
Bathed in the very light of God.<...

Like one who runs
Fearful at night, he knows not why,
Dreading the loneliness, yet shuns
The highway's casual company;

Wherefore he hastes,
The friendly gloom of ancient trees
Unheeding, and the shining wastes
Lying broad and quiet as the seas;

The beauty of night
Hating for very fear, until
Beyond the bend a lowly light
Beams single from a lowly sill;

And the poor fool,
Flying the sacred, solemn dark,
Leaves gladly the large, cool
Night for that serviceable spark;

And thankful then
To have 'scaped the peril of the way,
Turns not his timid steps again
That night, but waits the common day;--

So I, as weak,
Have fled the great hills of Thy love,
Too faint to hear what Thou dost speak,
Too feeble wi...

The sun was gone, and the moon was coming
Over the blue Connecticut hills;
The west was rosy, the east was flushed,
And over my head the swallows rushed
This way and that, with changeful wills.

I heard them twitter and watched them dart
Now together and now apart
Like dark petals blown from a tree;
The maples stamped against the west
Were black and stately and full of rest,

And the hazy orange moon grew up
And slowly changed to yellow gold
While the hills were darkened, fold on fold
To a deeper blue than a flower could hold.

Down the hill I went, and then
I forgot the ways of men,
For night-scents, heady, and damp and cool
Wakened ecstasy in me
On the brink of a shining pool.

O Beauty, out of many a cup
You have made...

In evening as the sun goes down
She twists and dances mindlessly
Life, in her brash effrontery.
But also, when above the town

The night has risen, charming, vast,
Blessing the hungry with its peace,
Obliterating all disgrace,
The Poet tells himself: 'At last!

My spirit, like my backbone, seems
Intent on finding its repose;
The heart so full of mournful dreams,

I'll stretch out on my weary back
And roll up in your curtains, those
Consoling comforters of black!'

What is a poet's love? -
To write a girl a sonnet,
To get a ring, or some such thing,
And fustianize upon it.

What is a poet's fame? -
Sad hints about his reason,
And sadder praise from garreteers,
To be returned in season.

Where go the poet's lines? -
Answer, ye evening tapers!
Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls,
Speak from your folded papers!

Child of the ploughshare, smile;
Boy of the counter, grieve not,
Though muses round thy trundle-bed
Their broidered tissue weave not.

The poet's future holds
No civic wreath above him;
Nor slated roof, nor varnished chaise,
Nor wife nor child to love him.

Maid of the village inn,
Who workest woe on satin,
(The grass in black, the graves in green,
The epitaph...

Fain would my Muse the flow'ry Treasures sing,
And humble glories of the youthful Spring;
Where opening Roses breathing sweets diffuse,
And soft Carnations show'r their balmy dews;
Where Lilies smile in virgin robes of white,
The thin Undress of superficial Light,
And vary'd Tulips show so dazzling gay,
Blushing in bright diversities of day.
Each painted flow'ret in the lake below
Surveys its beauties, whence its beauties grow;
And pale Narcissus on the bank, in vain
Transformed, gazes on himself again.
Here aged trees Cathedral Walks compose,
And mount the Hill in venerable rows:
There the green Infants in their beds are laid,
The Garden's Hope, and its expected shade.
Here Orange-trees with blooms and pendantis shine,
And vernal honours to their autumn ...

I

There is no picturesqueness and no glory,
    No halo of romance, in war to-day.
    It is a hideous thing; Time would turn grey
With horror, were he not already hoary
At sight of this vile monster, foul and gory.
    Yet while sweet women perish as they pray,
    And new-born babes are slaughtered, who dare say
'Halt!' till Right pens its 'Finis' to the story!
There is no pathway, but the path through blood,
    Out of the horrors of this holocaust.
Hell has let loose its scalding crimson flood,
    And he who stops to argue now is lost.
Not brooms of creeds, not Pacifistic words
Can stem the tide, but swords - uplifted swords!

II

Yet, after Peace has turned the clean white page
    There shall be sorrow on the earth for years;
 ...