Heartbreak

[1]

Some beast with horns did gore
The lion; and that sovereign dread,
Resolved to suffer so no more,
Straight banish'd from his realm, 'tis said,
All sorts of beasts with horns -
Rams, bulls, goats, stags, and unicorns.
Such brutes all promptly fled.
A hare, the shadow of his ears perceiving,
Could hardly help believing
That some vile spy for horns would take them,
And food for accusation make them.
'Adieu,' said he, 'my neighbour cricket;
I take my foreign ticket.
My ears, should I stay here,
Will turn to horns, I fear;
And were they shorter than a bird's,
I fear the effect of words.'
'These horns!' the cricket answer'd; 'why,
God made them ears who can deny?'
'Yes,' said the coward, 'still they'll make them horns,
A...

The viewless blast flies moaning past,
Away to the forest trees,
Where giant pines and leafless vines
Bend ’neath the wandering breeze!
From ferny streams, unearthly screams
Are heard in the midnight blue;
As afar they roam to the shepherd’s home,
The shrieks of the wild Curlew!
As afar they roam
To the shepherd’s home,
The shrieks of the wild Curlew!

The mists are curled o’er a dark-faced world,
And the shadows sleep around,
Where the clear lagoon reflects the moon
In her hazy glory crowned;
While dingoes howl, and wake the growl
Of the watchdog brave and true;
Whose loud, rough bark shoots up in the dark,
With the song of the lone Curlew!
Whose loud, rough bark
Shoots up in the dark,
With the song of the lone Curlew!

To Chattanooga's vale, where flows the winding Tennessee,
And rugged Lookout sentinels heroic dust of sixty-three--
Where Chickamauga's gory field re-echoed to the cannon's roar,
And shot and shell through serried ranks a bloody pathway tore,
And mountain slope and wood and field were lumined with the blaze
Of musketry from Blue and Gray in those September days--
They come again, the gallant few, survivors of the fray,
Their breasts with hallowed memories filled, but passion passed away!

The fleeting years have silvered o'er the locks of those who live,
And turned to dust the sleeping ones who to their flag did give
The last drop of the crimson tide from ghastly wounds poured out
Amid the conflict's awful din and wild resounding shout;
And yet it seems but yesterday, or lik...

I know in part, but know not all,
The part I know is known;
What know I not I hope with Paul
To know before the throne.
Till then where knowledge fails I trust
The truth God has revealed,
As known by me, forever must
Be like the truth concealed.

I know God is, tho' hid from sight,
And know He cares for me;
In blessing me He takes delight,
And I by faith can see
His skilful hand and loving heart,
In all my life's affairs,
And feel content to know but part
If He knows all my cares.

I know God gave His Son to die
A sacrifice for man,
And live all who on Him rely,
And meet His claims I can,
Yet I know not how in Him meet
The human and divine;
But God He is, and at His feet
I fall, and feel Him mine.

Nor do ...

SENT TO HIM WHEN IN THE TOWER, 1716

These spirited verses, although they have not the affecting pathos of those addressed by Pope to the same great person, during his misfortunes, evince the firmness of Swift's political principles and personal attachment. - Scott. See Moral Essays, Epistle V, Pope's "Works," edit. Elwin and Courthope, iii, 191.


How blest is he who for his country dies,
Since death pursues the coward as he flies!
The youth in vain would fly from Fate's attack;
With trembling knees, and Terror at his back;
Though Fear should lend him pinions like the wind,
Yet swifter Fate will seize him from behind.
    Virtue repulsed, yet knows not to repine;
But shall with unattainted honour shine;
Nor stoops to take the staff, nor lays it down,
Just as the...

Like the Idalian queen,
Her hair about her eyne,
With neck and breast’s ripe apples to be seen,
At first glance of the morn
In Cyprus’ gardens gathering those fair flow’rs
Which of her blood were born,
I saw, but fainting saw, my paramours.
The Graces naked danced about the place,
The winds and trees amazed
With silence on her gazed,
The flowers did smile, like those upon her face;
And as their aspen stalks those fingers band,
That she might read my case,
A hyacinth I wish’d me in her hand.

Love may trace his echoing footsteps, yet we never more shall meet
Rugged Kretschmann, the musician, plodding down a Sydney street,
Never see the low broad figure, massive head and shaggy mane
And the quiet furrowed features, never hear his voice again.

But from many a home there rises many a note that lingering rings
Ever since his cunning fingers touched and drew it from the strings;
All our land is full of noises; happy phantom fields of scent,
Bright with sunlit blossoms, echo birdlike music where he went.

He was old and grey and weary, death and he were long at grips,
Evil whispers hissed behind him, German to the finger-tips,
War’s wild fury snarled about him, so he gently stepped aside,
Loving us and loving Germans, heavy-hearted, and he died.

Crusted she...

Ruined? destroyed?    Ah, no; though blood in rivers ran
Down all her ancient streets; though treasures manifold
Love-wrought, Time-mellowed, and beyond the price of gold
Are lost, yet Belgium's star shines still in God's vast plan.

Rarely have Kings been great, since kingdoms first began;
Rarely have great kings been great men, when all was told.
But, by the lighted torch in mailed hands, behold,
Immortal Belgium's immortal king, and Man.

"I will get a new string for my fiddle,
And call to the neighbours to come,
And partners shall dance down the middle
Until the old pewter-wares hum:
And we'll sip the mead, cyder, and rum!"

From the night came the oddest of answers:
A hollow wind, like a bassoon,
And headstones all ranged up as dancers,
And cypresses droning a croon,
And gurgoyles that mouthed to the tune.

I saw the lovely arch
Of Rainbow span the sky,
The gold sun burning
As the rain swept by.

In bright-ringed solitude
The showery foliage shone
One lovely moment,
And the Bow was gone.

    When conquering Summer stalks the street,
        His eyes are eyes of fire,
    The pavement burns beneath his feet,
        Men droop before his ire;
    But yonder, out upon the land,
        His manners are not these:
    He is a courtier mild and bland
        Beneath the maple trees.

    He throws his buckler on the grass,
        Unclasps his sheathèd blade;
    He doffs his helmet and cuirass,
        And lounges in the shade;
    His pennon, fastened to a bough,
        Is fluttering in the breeze:
    He is at home and happy now
        Beneath the maple trees.

    No furious rage disturbs his breast,
        No fever heats his brain;
    Right cheerily he takes his rest,
        And views his glad domain;
    His ...

Give a rouse, then, in the Maytime
For a life that knows no fear!
Turn night-time into daytime
With the sunlight of good cheer!
For it's always fair weather
When good fellows get together,
With a stein on the table and a good song ringing clear.

When the wind comes up from Cuba
And the birds are on the wing,
And our hearts are patting juba
To the banjo of the spring,
Then it's no wonder whether
The boys will get together,
With a stein on the table and a cheer for everything.

For we're all frank-and-twenty
When the spring is in the air;
And we've faith and hope a-plenty,
And we've life and love to spare;
And it's birds of a feather
When we all get together,
With a stein on the table and a heart without a care.

For we k...

This is the song of the parson's son, as he squats in his shack alone,
On the wild, weird nights when the Northern Lights shoot up from the frozen zone,
And it's sixty below, and couched in the snow the hungry huskies moan.

"I'm one of the Arctic brotherhood, I'm an old-time pioneer.
I came with the first - O God! how I've cursed this Yukon - but still I'm here.
I've sweated athirst in its summer heat, I've frozen and starved in its cold;
I've followed my dreams by its thousand streams, I've toiled and moiled for its gold.

"Look at my eyes - been snow-blind twice; look where my foot's half gone;
And that gruesome scar on my left cheek where the frost-fiend bit to the bone.
Each one a brand of this devil's land, where I've played and I've lost the game,
A broken wreck wit...

Of all the sounds despatched abroad,
There's not a charge to me
Like that old measure in the boughs,
That phraseless melody

The wind does, working like a hand
Whose fingers brush the sky,
Then quiver down, with tufts of tune
Permitted gods and me.

When winds go round and round in bands,
And thrum upon the door,
And birds take places overhead,
To bear them orchestra,

I crave him grace, of summer boughs,
If such an outcast be,
He never heard that fleshless chant
Rise solemn in the tree,

As if some caravan of sound
On deserts, in the sky,
Had broken rank,
Then knit, and passed
In seamless company.

'Tis moonlight on Trebarwith Vale,
    And moonlight on an Ogre keen,
Who prowling hungry through the dale
    A lone cottage hath seen.

Small with thin smoke ascending up
    Three casements and a door: -
The Ogre eager is to sup,
    And here seems dainty store.

Sweet as a larder to a mouse,
    So to him staring down,
Seemed the sweet-windowed moonlit house,
    With jasmine overgrown.

He snorted, as the billows snort
    In darkness of the night,
Betwixt his lean locks tawny-swart,
    He glowered on the sight.

Into the garden sweet with peas
    He put his wooden shoe,
And bending back the apple trees
    Crept covetously through;

Then, stooping, with an impious eye
    Stared through the lattice smal...

    1
    Terrorism -
    left-wing nerd (twin
    grapefruits in his hand
    gives it away)
    winging a stiletto shoe,
    spitting on an ashcan
    to bring up a bruise or two.

    2
    Visions are steadier -
    I see in the shimmer
    blue veins to target,
    a silhouette of the rich,
    fur wraps in their Bentleys
    time to bring up tar,
    kick ass in Knightsbridge
    with my holiday bomb blast.

    3
    Bag snatching can be dangerous
    let go if you don't want to be
    dragged over cobbles behind a Vespa.

    4
    The Harrod's sign, "please keep
    moving" meant business.

    5
    Pretoria calls as does Manila.
    Later, perhaps, Jerusalem, Beirut,
    Rawa...

I. Thanksgiving.

Star, on thy Heaven-returning way,
Our message of thanksgiving bear;
To Him who answered with thy ray
The priestless Gentiles’ trembling prayer.

When songs of revel shook the roof,
God, Thou didst cheer the joyless course,
Where we, like Vashti, walked aloof,
Braving the world’s unjust divorce.

How rate we now all griefs and scorn
That filled our youth with bitterness!
We had not known the Christ is born
But that we sought for One to bless!

II. Prayer.

Fence Thou Thy Child, O Merciful,
When hate shall cavil at His worth;
When underlings like Haman rule
Hold Thou the golden sceptre forth.

When envy round Thy Precious One
Its tongues of scorching flame hath curled,
Unwasted let His virtue r...