Freedom

Obscured the sun, the world is dark;
Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc,
    Send down thy spark.

Let every heart in France be stirred,
By such an all-compelling word
    As thou once heard.

Say to each soul, 'Lo! I am near;
My voice still speaks in accents clear.
    Be still and hear.

'The France I saved can not be lost;
Though tempest-torn and terror-tossed,
    Count not the cost.

'Give as the maid of Domremy
Gave all - gave life itself to see
    Her country free.

'Back of great France my spirit towers
To aid her through the darkest hours
    With God's own powers!'

Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc,
Shine through the night, speak through the dark
    The while we hark.

I.

Take Heart

Take heart again. Joy may be lost awhile.
It is not always Spring.
And even now from some far Summer Isle
Hither the birds may wing.

II.

Touchstones

Hearts, that have cheered us ever, night and day,
With words that helped us on the rugged way,
The hard, long road of life to whom is due
More than the heart can ever hope to pay
Are they not touchstones, soul-transmuting true
All thoughts to gold, refining thus the clay?

III.

Fortune

Fortune may pass us by:
Follow her flying feet.
Love, all we ask, deny:
Never admit defeat.
Take heart again and try.
Never say die.

IV

Be Glad

Be glad, just for to-day!
O heart, be glad!
Cast all your car...

Keen in his blood ran the old mad desire
To right the world's wrongs and champion truth;
Deep in his eyes shone a heaven-lit fire,
And royal and radiant day-dreams of youth!

Gracious was he to both beggar and stranger,
And for a rose tossed from fair finger-tips
He would have ridden hard-pressed through all danger,
The rose on his heart and a song on his lips!

All the king's foes he counted his foemen;
His not to say that a cause could be lost;
Spirits like his faced the enemies' bowmen
On long vanished fields - nor counted the cost.

Wide was his out-look and far was his vision;
Soul-fretting trifles he sent down the wind;
Small griefs gained only his cheerful derision, -
God's weather always was fair to his mind.

But he would comfort a...

Bob Southey! You're a poet, poet laureate,
And representative of all the race.
Although 'tis true that you turned out a Tory at
Last, yours has lately been a common case.
And now my epic renegade, what are ye at
With all the lakers, in and out of place?
A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye
Like four and twenty blackbirds in a pye,

Which pye being opened they began to sing'
(This old song and new simile holds good),
'A dainty dish to set before the King'
Or Regent, who admires such kind of food.
And Coleridge too has lately taken wing,
But like a hawk encumbered with his hood,
Explaining metaphysics to the nation.
I wish he would explain his explanation.

You, Bob, are rather insolent, you know,
At being disappointed in your wish
To superse...

"Yes, let Art go, if it must be
    That with it men must starve -
If Music, Painting, Poetry
    Spring from the wasted hearth!"

Yes, let Art go, till once again
    Through fearless heads and hands
The toil of millions and the pain
    Be passed from out the lands:

Till from the few their plunder falls
    To those who've toiled and earned
But misery's hopeless intervals
    From those who've robbed and spurned.

Yes, let Art go, without a fear,
    Like autumn flowers we burn,
For, with her reawakening year,
    Be sure she will return! -

Return, but greater, nobler yet
    Because her laurel crown
With dew and not with blood is wet,
    And as our queen sit down!

Above the din of commerce, above the clamour and rattle
    Of labour disputing with riches, of Anarchists' threats and groans,
Above the hurry and hustle and roar of that bloodless battle,
    Where men are fighting for riches, I hear the falling of thrones.

I see no savage host, I hear no martial drumming,
    But down in the dust at our feet lie the useless crowns of kings;
And the mighty spirit of Progress is steadily coming, coming,
    And the flag of one republic abroad to the world he flings.

The Universal Republic, where worth, not birth, is royal;
    Where the lowliest born may climb on a self-made ladder to fame;
Where the highest and proudest born, if he be not true and loyal,
    Shall find no masking title to cover and gild his shame.

Not with the...

(For Joyce Kilmer)


When the dreamy night is on, up the Hudson river,
And the sheen of modern taste is dim and far away,
Ghostly men on phantom rafts make the waters shiver,
Laughing in the sibilance of the silver spray.
Yea, and up the woodlands, staunch in moonlit weather,
Go the ghostly horsemen, adventuresome to ride,
White as mist the doublet-braize, bandolier and feather,
Fleet as gallant Robin Hood in an eventide.

Times are gone that knew the craft in the role of rovers,
Fellows of the open, care could never load:
Unalarmed for bed or board, they were leisure's lovers,
Summer bloomed in story on the Hyde Park Road.
Summer was a blossom, but the fruit was autumn,
Fragrant haylofts for a bed, cider-cakes in store,
Warmer was a cup they know, w...

[In an interview with Lawrence Barrett, he said:    "The literature of the New World must look to the West for its poetry."]

Not to the crowded East,
    Where, in a well-worn groove,
Like the harnessed wheel of a great machine,
    The trammelled mind must move -
Where Thought must follow the fashion of Thought,
Or be counted vulgar and set at naught.

Not to the languid South,
    Where the mariners of the brain
Are lured by the Sirens of the Sense,
    And wrecked upon its main -
Where Thought is rocked, on the sweet wind's breath
To a torpid sleep that ends in death.

But to the mighty West,
    That chosen realm of God,
Where Nature reaches her hands to men,
    And Freedom walks abroad -
Where mind is King, and fashion is naught,

    When by a generous Public's kind acclaim,
    That dearest meed is granted, honest fame;
    When here your favour is the actor's lot,
    Nor even the man in private life forgot;
    What breast so dead to heavenly virtue's glow,
    But heaves impassion'd with the grateful throe?

    Poor is the task to please a barbarous throng,
    It needs no Siddons' powers in Southerne's song;
    But here an ancient nation fam'd afar,
    For genius, learning high, as great in war,
    Hail, CALEDONIA, name for ever dear!
    Before whose sons I'm honoured to appear!
    Where every science, every nobler art,
    That can inform the mind, or mend the heart,
    Is known; as grateful nations oft have found
    Far as the rude barbarian marks th...

The woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
Yet still she turns her restless head:
But O, sick children of the world,
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.
Where are now the warring kings,
Word be-mockers? -- By the Rood,
Where are now the watering kings?
An idle word is now their glory,
By the stammering schoolboy said,
Reading some entangled story:
The kings of the old time are dead;
The wandering earth herself may be
Only a sudden flaming word,
In clanging space a moment heard,
Troubling the endless reverie.
Then nowise worship dusty deeds,
Nor s...

I

With nodding plumes, and lightly drest
Like foresters in leaf-green vest,
The Helvetian Mountaineers, on ground
For Tell's dread archery renowned,
Before the target stood, to claim
The guerdon of the steadiest aim.
Loud was the rifle-gun's report
A startling thunder quick and short!
But, flying through the heights around,
Echo prolonged a tell-tale sound
Of hearts and hands alike "prepared
The treasures they enjoy to guard!"
And, if there be a favoured hour
When Heroes are allowed to quit
The tomb, and on the clouds to sit
With tutelary power,
On their Descendants shedding grace
This was the hour, and that the place.

II

But Truth inspired the Bards of old
When of an iron age they told,
Which to unequal laws gav...

[1]From Possibility's dim chaos sprung,
    High o'er its gloom the Aërostatic Power
    Arose! - Exulting Nations hail'd the hour,
    Magnific boast of Science! - Loud they sung
Her victory o'er the element, that hung,
    Pressing to earth the Beings, who now soar
    Aerial heights; - but Wisdom bids explore
    This vaunted skill; - if, tides of air among,
We know to steer our bark. - Here Science finds
    Her buoyant hopes burst, like the bubble vain,
    Type of this art; - guilty, if still she blinds
The sense of Fear; persists thy flame to fan,
    Sky-vaulting Pride, that to the aweless winds
    Throws, for an idle Show, the LIFE OF MAN!

1: This Sonnet was written when the Balloon enthusiasm was at its height.

I am a pilgrim far from home,
    A wanderer like Mars,
And thought my wanderings ne'er should come,
    So fixed behind the bars!

I left my sunny Southern home
    Beneath the silver stars;
A northward path began to roam,
    Not seeking prison bars.

I sought a higher, holier life,
    Which never virtue mars;
But Fate had spun a net of strife
    For me behind the bars!

My mother's lowly thatched-roofed cot
    My nobler senses jars;
And so I seek to aid her lot,
    But not behind the bars!

'Tis said, forsooth, the poet learns
    Through sufferings and wars
To sing the song which deepest burns
    Behind the prison bars!

Thus I resign myself to Fate,
    Regardless of her scars;
For soon she'll op...

Introduction To A Collection Of Poems By different Authors

An usher standing at the door
I show my white rosette;
A smile of welcome, nothing more,
Will pay my trifling debt;
Why should I bid you idly wait
Like lovers at the swinging gate?

Can I forget the wedding guest?
The veteran of the sea?
In vain the listener smites his breast, -
"There was a ship," cries he!
Poor fasting victim, stunned and pale,
He needs must listen to the tale.

He sees the gilded throng within,
The sparkling goblets gleam,
The music and the merry din
Through every window stream,
But there he shivers in the cold
Till all the crazy dream is told.

Not mine the graybeard's glittering eye
That held his captive still
To hold my silent prisone...

Heart, my heart, thou hast found thy home!
From gloom and sorrow thou hast come forth,
Thou who wast foolish, and sought to roam
'Neath the cruel stars of the frozen North.

Thou hast returned to thy dear delights;
The golden glow of the quivering days,
The silver silence of tropical nights,
No more to wander in alien ways.

Here, each star is a well-loved friend;
To me and my heart at the journey's end.

These are my people, and this my land,
I hear the pulse of her secret soul.
This is the life that I understand,
Savage and simple and sane and whole.

Washed in the light of a clear fierce sun, -
Heart, my heart, the journey is done.

See! the painted piece of the skies,
Where the rose-hued opal of sunset lies.
Hear the pass...

    Written At Clare-Hall, Herts. June 1804.

Welcome silence! welcome peace!
O most welcome, holy shade!
Thus I prove as years increase,
My heart and soul for quiet made.
Thus I fix my firm belief
While rapture's gushing tears descend;
That every flower and every leaf
Is moral Truth's unerring friend.

I would not for a world of gold
That Nature's lovely face should tire;
Fountain of blessings yet untold;
Pure source of intellectual fire!
Fancy's fair buds, the germs of song,
Unquicken'd midst the world's rude strife,
Shall sweet retirement render strong,
And morning silence bring to life.

Then tell me not that I shall grow
Forlorn, that fields and woods will cloy;
From Nature and her changes flow
An everlasting tide of joy...

Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill;
Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes!
No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,
Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,
Nor the cropp'd herbage shoot another head.
But when the fields are still,
And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,
And only the white sheep are sometimes seen
Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch'd green.
Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest!
Here, where the reaper was at work of late
In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves
His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,
And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,
Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use
Here will I sit and wait,
While to my ear from uplands far away
The bleating of the folded f...

I

But yesterday
I looked away
O'er happy lands, where sunshine lay
In golden blots
Inlaid with spots
Of shade and wild forget-me-nots.

My head was fair
With flaxen hair,
And fragrant breezes, faint and rare,
And warm with drouth
From out the south,
Blew all my curls across my mouth.

And, cool and sweet,
My naked feet
Found dewy pathways through the wheat;
And out again
Where, down the lane,
The dust was dimpled with the rain.


II

But yesterday: -
Adream, astray,
From morning's red to evening's gray,
O'er dales and hills
Of daffodils
And lorn sweet-fluting whippoorwills.

I knew nor cares
Nor tears nor prayers -
A mortal god, crowned unawares
With sunset - a...