Happiness

Obedience to the seasons' marshall-rod,
That is a law of God,
Here beauty passes with her gorgeous train,
On paths that range from bud to grain.
O, here the searching eyes
In traffic for the soul's good gain
Earn wealth of rare delight.
Far pathways of surprise,
In color's frumenty bedight,
Lead off from avenues of day
Through miles of pageantries:
And from the starry chancels of the night
And the inscrutable farther skies,
Beyond where trackless comets stray,
Outspreads a world in thought's array.
And lo! the heart's true voices sing
From the exulting reverent breast,
And lips proclaim, with adoration blessed,
Glad Alleluias to the King.

Prompt is our praise unto a jewelled queen
In all her courtly splendor set,
(Fair as those f...

Where the ragged, snow-capped saw tooth
    Cuts the azure of the sky
And watches o'er the lonely land
    As ages wander by;
Where the sentinel pines in grandeur
    Murmur to the glacier stream
As it, ice-gorged, gluts the canyon,
    Never brightened by the gleam
Of sun at brightest noon day,
    Nor moon of Arctic night,
And whose only link with Heaven
    Is the fitful Northern Light.
Where the Whistler shrills in triumph
    And the Big Horn dreams in peace,
Where the Brown Bear skulks to cover
    Up where silence holds the lease;
Where the land is as God left it
    Nor has known the tread of man,
There's a treasure ledge a-waiting--
    Go and find it if you can.

If your heart be steeled to triumph
    Nor beats less at ...

    Thoughts, that have tarried in my mind, and peopled its inner chambers,
The sober children of reason, or desultory train of fancy;
Clear-running wine of conviction, with the scum and the lees of speculation;
Corn from the sheaves of science, with stubble from mine own garner:
Searchings after Truth, that have tracked her secret lodes.
And come up again to the surface-world, with a know-ledge grounded deeper;
Arguments of high scope, that have soared to the key-stone of heaven.
And thence have swooped to their certain mark, as the falcon to its quarry;
The fruits I have gathered of prudence, the ripened harvest of my musings.
These commend I unto thee, docile scholar of Wisdom,
These I give to thy gentle heart, thou lover of the right.
What, though a guilty man renew that hallowed ...

Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been, a most familiar bird,
Taught me my alphabet to say,
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child, with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings,
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away, forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.

The Spring's bright tints no more are seen,
And Summer's ample robe of green
Is russet-gold and brown;
When flowers fall to every breeze
And, shed reluctant from the trees,
The leaves drop down.

A sadness steals about the heart,
--And is it thus from youth we part,
And life's redundant prime?
Must friends like flowers fade away,
And life like Nature know decay,
And bow to time?

And yet such sadness meets rebuke,
From every copse in every nook
Where Autumn's colours glow;
How bright the sky! How full the sheaves!
What mellow glories gild the leaves
Before they go.

Then let us sing the jocund praise,
In this bright air, of these bright days,
When years our friendships crown;
The love that's loveliest when 'tis old--

O memory, take my hand to-day
And lead me thro' the darkened bridge
Washed by the wild Atlantic spray
And spanning many a wind-swept ridge
Of sorrow, grief, of love and joy,
Of youthful hopes and manly fears!
O! let me cross the bridge of years
And see myself again a boy!

The shadows pass- I see the light,
O morning light, how clear and strong!
My native skies are smiling bright,
No more I grope my way along,
It comes, the murmur of the tide
Upon my ear - I hear the cry
Of wandering sea birds as they fly
In trooping squadrons far and near.

The breeze that blows o'er Mullaghmore
I feel against my boyish cheek
The white-walled huts that strew the shore
From Castlegal to old Belleek,
The fisher folk of Donegal,
Kindly of heart...

When I look forth at dawning, pool,
Field, flock, and lonely tree,
All seem to gaze at me
Like chastened children sitting silent in a school;

Their faces dulled, constrained, and worn,
As though the master's ways
Through the long teaching days
Their first terrestrial zest had chilled and overborne.

And on them stirs, in lippings mere
(As if once clear in call,
But now scarce breathed at all) -
"We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here!

"Has some Vast Imbecility,
Mighty to build and blend,
But impotent to tend,
Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry?

"Or come we of an Automaton
Unconscious of our pains? . . .
Or are we live remains
Of Godhead dying downwards, brain and eye now gone?

"Or is it that som...

Hail Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour!
Not dull art Thou as undiscerning Night;
But studious only to remove from sight
Day's mutable distinctions. Ancient Power!
Thus did the waters gleam, the mountains lower,
To the rude Briton, when, in wolf-skin vest
Here roving wild, he laid him down to rest
On the bare rock, or through a leafy bower
Looked ere his eyes were closed. By him was seen
The self-same Vision which we now behold;
At thy meek bidding, shadowy Power! brought forth
These mighty barriers, and the gulf between;
The flood, the stars, a spectacle as old
As the beginning of the heavens and earth!

Songs are like painted window-panes!
In darkness wrapp'd the church remains,
If from the market-place we view it;
Thus sees the ignoramus through it.
No wonder that he deems it tame,
And all his life 'twill be the same.

But let us now inside repair,
And greet the holy Chapel there!
At once the whole seems clear and bright,
Each ornament is bathed in light,
And fraught with meaning to the sight.
God's children! thus your fortune prize,
Be edified, and feast your eyes!

One must have courage as strong
As Sisyphus', lifting this weight!
Though the heart for the work may be great,
Time is fleeting, and Art is so long!

Far from the tombs of the brave
Toward a churchyard obscure and apart,
Like a muffled drum, my heart
Beats a funeral march to the grave.

But sleeping lies many a gem
In dark, unfathomed caves,
Far from the probes of men;

And many a flower waves
And wastes its sweet perfumes
In desert solitudes.

Beside me, in the golden light
That slants upon the floor,
She twines the many-colored silks
Her dimpled fingers o'er;
Uplifting now and then her eye,
Or praise or blame in mine to spy.

For her sweet sake I've cast aside
The books I've loved so well,
And given up my being to
Affection's mighty spell;
Ambition's visions vanish all,
Before the music of her call.

The fancy of the past, that lent
To jewels bright and rare
Ascendency at every birth
In this our planet's air,
Hath to October's children given
The opal with its hues of Heaven.

The golden sunlight in the sky,
The red leaf on the plain;
Beneath the opal's changeful light
Hope and Misfortune reign;
And mid gay leaves of wondrous dyes,
My darling first u...

Little Bo-Peep, she has lost her sheep,
    And will not know where to find them;
They are over the height and out of sight,
    Trailing their tails behind them!

Little Bo-Peep woke out of her sleep,
    Jump'd up and set out to find them:
"The silly things! they've got no wings,
    And they've left their trails behind them!

"They've taken their tails, but they've left their trails,
    And so I shall follow and find them!"
For wherever a tail had dragged a trail
    The grass lay bent behind them.

She washed in the brook, and caught up her crook.
    And after her sheep did run
Along the trail that went up the dale
    Across the grass in the sun.

She ran with a will, and she came to a hill
    That went up steep like a spire;

No ripple stirs the water,
No song-bird wakes the grove,
Calm noon-tide sways his sceptre,
And hushes even love.

On earth the sun-god bending
Poureth his wondrous store;
The soft-tongued tide, advancing,
Laps the unconscious shore.

The long, low isle of marsh-land
Stretches in weary waste,
By sloping sand-banks guarded,
By winding weeds embraced.

Comes clearly from the open
The plash of distant oars, -
Over the rocky headland
The snow-white sea-gull soars.

I see as if through dream-clouds,
I hear from far away.
The scorched air breathes its opiate,
The drowsy fancies stay;

I have no hopes or longings,
I scarce can feel your kiss, -
For thought, and joy and worship,
Another hour than this!

The valiant girls - of them I sing -
Who daily to their business go,
Happy as larks, and fresh as spring;
They are the bravest things I know.
At eight, from out my lazy tower,
I watch the snow, and shake my head;
But yonder petticoated flower
Braves it alone, with aery tread;
Nor wind, nor rain, nor ice-fanged storm,
Frightens that valiant little form.

Strange! she that sweetens all the air,
The New York sister of the rose,
To a grim office should repair,
With picture-hat and silken hose,
And strange it is to see her there,
With powder on her little nose;
And yet how business-like is she,
With pad and pencil on her knee.

Changed are the times - no stranger sign,
If you but think the matter over,
Than she, the delicate, the divin...

"Succinctae sacra Dianae".
- OVID

I

There the ragged sunlight lay
Tawny on thick ferns and gray
On dark waters: dimmer,
Lone and deep, the cypress grove
Bowered mystery and wove
Braided lights, like those that love
On the pearl plumes of a dove
Faint to gleam and glimmer.

II

There centennial pine and oak
Into stormy cadence broke:
Hollow rocks gloomed, slanting,
Echoing in dim arcade,
Looming with long moss, that made
Twilight streaks in tatters laid:
Where the wild hart, hunt-affrayed,
Plunged the water, panting.

III

Poppies of a sleepy gold
Mooned the gray-green darkness rolled
Down its vistas, making
Wisp-like blurs of flame. And pale
Stole the dim deer down the vale:

Come, peace of mind, delightful guest!
Return, and make thy downy nest
Once more in this sad heart:
Nor riches I nor power pursue,
Nor hold forbidden joys in view;
We therefore need not part.


Where wilt thou dwell, if not with me,
From avarice and ambition free,
And pleasure’s fatal wiles?
For whom, alas! dost thou prepare
The sweets that I was wont to share,
The banquet of thy smiles?


The great, the gay, shall they partake
The heaven that thou alone canst make?
And wilt thou quit the stream
That murmurs through the dewy mead,
The grove and the sequester’d shed,
To be a guest with them?


For thee I panted, thee I prized,
For thee I gladly sacrificed
Whate’er I loved before;
And shall I see thee start ...

Oft when pacing thro' the long and dim
Dark gallery of the Past, I pause before
A picture of which this is a copy -
Wretched at best.

How fair she look'd, standing a-tiptoe there,
Pois'd daintily upon her little feet!
The slanting sunset falling thro' the leaves
In golden glory on her smiling face,
Upturn'd towards the blushing roses; while
The breeze that came up from the river's brink,
Shook all their clusters over her fair face;
And sported with her robe, until methought,
That she stood there clad wondrously indeed!
In perfume and in music: for her dress
Made a low, rippling sound, like little waves
That break at midnight on the tawny sands -
While all the evening air of roses whisper'd.
Over her face a rich, warm blush spread slowly,
And sh...

When I tell a tale of virtue and of injured innocence,
Then my publishers and lawyers are the densest of the dense:
With the blank face of an image and the nod of keep-it-dark
And a wink of mighty meaning at their confidential clerk.

(When, Oh! tell me when shall poets cease to be misunderstood?
When, Oh! When? shall people reckon rhymers can be any good?
Do their work and pay their debts and drink their pint of beer, and then,
Look in woman’s eyes and leave them, just like ordinary men?)

“Is there literary friendship ’twix the sexes? don’t you think?”
And they wink their idiotic and exasperating wink.
“Can’t we kiss a clever woman without wanting any more?”
And their clock-work nod is only more decided than before.

But if I should hint that there’s a little wom...