Friendship

Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives th...

Our journey had advanced;
Our feet were almost come
To that odd fork in Being's road,
Eternity by term.

Our pace took sudden awe,
Our feet reluctant led.
Before were cities, but between,
The forest of the dead.

Retreat was out of hope, --
Behind, a sealed route,
Eternity's white flag before,
And God at every gate.

Dear Sir, Since you in humble wise
    Have made a recantation,
From your low bended knees arise;
    I hate such poor prostration.

'Tis bravery that moves the brave,
    As one nail drives another;
If you from me would mercy have,
    Pray, Sir, be such another.

You that so long maintain'd the field
    With true poetic vigour;
Now you lay down your pen and yield,
    You make a wretched figure.

Submit, but do't with sword in hand,
    And write a panegyric
Upon the man you cannot stand;
    I'll have it done in lyric:

That all the boys I teach may sing
    The achievements of their Chiron;
What conquests my stern looks can bring
    Without the help of iron.

A small goose-quill, yclep'd a pen,
    From m...

When Love in myrtle shades reposed,
His bow and darts behind him slung;
As dewey twilight round him closed,
Lisette these numbers sung:
"O Love! thy sylvan bower
I'll fly while I've the power;
Thy primrose way leads maids where they
Love, honor, and obey!"

"Escape," the boy-god said, "is vain,"
And shook the diamonds from his wings:
"I'll bind thee captive to my train,
Fairest of earthy things!"
"Go, saucy archer, go!
I freedom's value know:
Begon, I pray--to none I'll say
Love, honor, and obey!"

"Speed, arrow, to thy mark!" he cried--
Swift as a ray of light it flew!
Love spread his purple pinions wide,
And faded from her view!
Joy filled that maiden's eyes--
Twin load-stars from the skies!--
And one bright day her li...

Debauch and Death are a fine, healthy pair
Of girls, whose love is prodigal and free.
Their virgin wombs, beneath the rags they wear,
Are barren, though they labour constantly.

To the arch poet, foe of families,
Hell's favourite, a cut-rate whore at court,
Brothels and tombs show in dark galleries
A bed never frequented by remorse.

And coffin, alcove, rich in blasphemy,
As two good sisters would, offer as treats
Terrible pleasures, horrifying sweets.

Debauch, when will your clutches bury me? a rival
Death, will you be coming now
To graft black cypress to her myrtle bough?

This is the mockery of the moving years;
Youth's colour dies, the fervid morning glow
Is gone from off the foreland; slow, slow,
Even slower than the fount of human tears
To empty, the consuming shadow nears
That Time is casting on the worldly show
Of pomp and glory. But falter not; - below
That thought is based a deeper thought that cheers.

Glean thou thy past; that will alone inure
To catch thy heart up from a dark distress;
It were enough to find one deed mature,
Deep-rooted, mighty 'mid the toil and press;
To save one memory of the sweet and pure,
From out life's failure and its bitterness.

    O sovereign Master! who with lonely state
    Dost rule as in some isle's enchanted land,
    On whom soft airs and shadowy spirits wait,
    Whilst scenes of "faerie" bloom at thy command,
    On thy wild shores forgetful could I lie,
    And list, till earth dissolved to thy sweet minstrelsy!

    Called by thy magic from the hoary deep,
    Aërial forms should in bright troops ascend,
    And then a wondrous masque before me sweep;
    Whilst sounds, that the earth owned not, seem to blend
    Their stealing melodies, that when the strain
    Ceased, I should weep, and would so dream again!

    The song hath ceased. Ah! who, pale shade, art thou,
    Sad raving to the rude tempestuous night!
    Sure thou hast had much wrong, so stern thy...

With a bridegroom's joyous bearing,

Mounts Sir Curt his noble beast,
To his mistress' home repairing,

There to hold his wedding feast;
When a threatening foe advances

From a desert, rocky spot;
For the fray they couch their lances,

Not delaying, speaking not.

Long the doubtful fight continues,

Victory then for Curt declares;
Conqueror, though with wearied sinews,

Forward on his road he fares.
When he sees, though strange it may be,

Something 'midst the foliage move;
'Tis a mother, with her baby,

Stealing softly through the grove!

And upon the spot she beckons

"Wherefore, love, this speed so wild?
Of the wealth thy storehouse reckons,

Hast thou nought to give thy child!"

I don't know somehow it seems sufficient
to see and hear whatever coming and going is,
losing the self to the victory
of stones and trees,
of bending sandpit lakes, crescent
round groves of dwarf pine:

for it is not so much to know the self
as to know it as it is known
by galaxy and cedar cone,
as if birth had never found it
and death could never end it:

the swamp's slow water comes
down Gravelly Run fanning the long
stone-held algal
hair and narrowing roils between
the shoulders of the highway bridge:

holly grows on the banks in the woods there,
and the cedars' gothic-clustered
spires could make
green religion in winter bones:

so I look and reflect, but the air's glass
jail seals each thing in its entity:
...

If this great world of joy and pain
Revolve in one sure track;
If freedom, set, will rise again,
And virtue, flown, come back;
Woe to the purblind crew who fill
The heart with each day's care;
Nor gain, from past or future, skill
To bear, and to forbear!

Whenas ye plaisaunt Aperille shoures have washed and purged awaye
Ye poysons and ye rheums of earth to make a merrie May,
Ye shraddy boscage of ye woods ben full of birds that syng
Right merrilie a madrigal unto ye waking spring,
Ye whiles that when ye face of earth ben washed and wiped ycleane
Her peeping posies blink and stare like they had ben her een;

Then, wit ye well, ye harte of man ben turned to thoughts of love,
And, tho' it ben a lyon erst, it now ben like a dove!
And many a goodly damosel in innocence beguiles
Her owne trewe love with sweet discourse and divers plaisaunt wiles.
In soche a time ye noblesse liege that ben Kyng Arthure hight
Let cry a joust and tournament for evereche errant knyght,
And, lo! from distant Joyous-garde and eche adjacent spot
A co...

"Long since, a dream of heaven I had,
And still the vision haunts me oft;
I see the saints in white robes clad,
The martyrs with their palms aloft;
But hearing still, in middle song,
The ceaseless dissonance of wrong;
And shrinking, with hid faces, from the strain
Of sad, beseeching eyes, full of remorse and pain.

The glad song falters to a wail,
The harping sinks to low lament;
Before the still unlifted veil
I see the crowned foreheads bent,
Making more sweet the heavenly air,
With breathings of unselfish prayer;
And a Voice saith: "O Pity which is pain,
O Love that weeps, fill up my sufferings which remain!

"Shall souls redeemed by me refuse
To share my sorrow in their turn?
Or, sin-forgiven, my gift abuse
Of peace with selfish unc...

    PSALM LXXXIV.


A brackish lake is there with bitter pools
Anigh its margin, brushed by heavy trees.
A piping wind the narrow valley cools,
Fretting the willows and the cypresses.
Gray skies above, and in the gloomy space
An awful presence hath its dwelling-place.


I saw a youth pass down that vale of tears;
His head was circled with a crown of thorn,
His form was bowed as by the weight of years,
His wayworn feet by stones were cut and torn.
His eyes were such as have beheld the sword
Of terror of the angel of the Lord.


He passed, and clouds and shadows and thick haze
Fell and encompassed him. I might not see
What hand upheld him in those dismal ways,
Wherethrough he staggered with his misery.
The creeping mists that t...

Love, strong as Death, is dead.
Come, let us make his bed
Among the dying flowers:
A green turf at his head;
And a stone at his feet,
Whereon we may sit
In the quiet evening hours.

He was born in the Spring,
And died before the harvesting:
On the last warm summer day
He left us; he would not stay
For Autumn twilight cold and grey.
Sit we by his grave, and sing
He is gone away.

To few chords and sad and low
Sing we so:
Be our eyes fixed on the grass
Shadow-veiled as the years pass
While we think of all that was
In the long ago.

Fortune no higher project can devise
Than to sow discord 'mongst the enemies.

A song of the good green grass!
A song no more of the city streets;
A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields.

A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork;
A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk’d maize.

For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for myself,
Now I awhile return to thee, O soil of Autumn fields,
Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,
Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,
Tuning a verse for thee.

O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice!
O harvest of my lands! O boundless summer growths!
O lavish, brown, parturient earth! O infinite, teeming womb!
A verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee.

Ever upon this stage,
Is acted God’s calm, an...

    Fair one! embodiment of Loveliness!
    Angelic beauty beams upon thy countenance,
    And from its image of Lucretian purity
    Thine inborn virtue shines divinely forth.

    Thy sparkling eyes of bright cerulean blue,
    Rich sapphire gems, flash with Arcadian artlessness,
    Impelling Cupid's arrows, passion-fraught,
    Discharged from bow of myrtle 'gainst my heart,
    Which throbs and flutters, quivering from the thrust.

To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin,
But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind.
We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa-aa-aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!

Oh, it's sweet to sweat through stables, sweet to empty kitchen slops,
And it's sweet to hear the tales ...