Hope

The path that winds by wood and stream
Is not the path for me to-day;
The path I take is one of dream,
That leads me down a twilight way.

By towns, where myths have only been;
By streams, no mortal foot hath crossed;
To gardens of hesperian sheen,
By halcyon seas for ever lost.

By forests, moonlight haunts alone,
(Diana with her silvery fawn;)
By fields, whereon the stars are sown,
(The wildflowers gathered of the Dawn.)

To orchards of eternal fruit,
That never mortal hand shall take;
Around whose central tree and root
Is coiled the never-sleeping Snake.

The Dragon, lost in listening, curled
Around the trunk whose fruit is gold:
The ancient wisdom of the world
Guarding the glory never old.

The one desire, that ...

Dark lies the earth, and bright with worlds the sky:
That soft, large, lustrous star, that first outshone,
Still holds us spelled with potent sorcery.


Dilating, shrinking, lightening, it hath won
Our spirit with its strange strong influence,
And sways it as the tides beneath the moon.


What impulse this, o'ermastering heart and sense?
Exalted, thrilled, the freed soul fain would soar
Unto that point of shining prominence,


Craving new fields and some unheard-of shore,
Yea, all the heavens, for her activity,
To mount with daring flight, to hover o'er


Low hills of earth, flat meadows, level sea,
And earthly joy and trouble.    In this hour
Of waning light and sound, of mystery,


Of shadowed love and beauty-veil...

Fools laugh at dreamers, and the dreamers smile
In answer, if they any answer make:
They know that Saxon Alfred could not bake
The oaten cakes, but that he snatched his Isle
Back from the fierce and bloody-handed Dane.

And so, they leave the plodders to their gains -
Quit money changing for the student's lamp,
And tune the harp to gain thereby some camp,
Where what they learn is worth a kingdom's crown;
They fashion bows and arrows to bring down
The mighty truths which sail the upper air;
To them the facts which make the fools despair
Become familiar, and a thousand things
Tell them the secrets they refuse to kings.

There are so many little things that make life beautiful.
I can recall a day in early youth when I was longing for happiness.
Toward the western hills I gazed, watching for its approach.
The hills lay between me and the setting sun, and over them led a highway.
When some traveller crossed the hill, always a fine grey dust rose cloudless against the sky.
The traveller I could not distinguish, but the dust-cloud I could see.

And the dust-cloud seemed formed of hopes and possibilities -each speck an embryo event.
At sunset, when the skies were fair, the dust-cloud grew radiant and shone with visions.
The happiness for which I waited came not to me adown that western slope,
But now I can recall the cloud of golden dust, the sunset, and the highway leading over the hill,
The wonderful hop...

This April sun has wakened into cheer
    The wintry paths of thought, and tinged with gold
    These threadbare leaves of fancy brown and old.
This is for us the wakening of the year
    And May's sweet breath will draw the waiting soul
    To where in distance lies the longed-for goal.

The summer life will still all questioning,
    The leaves will whisper peace, and calm will be
    The wild, vast, blue, illimitable sea.
And we shall hush our murmurings, and bring
    To Nature, green below and blue above,
    A whole life's worshipping, a whole life's love.

We will not speak of sometime fretting fears,
    We will not think of aught that may arise
    In future hours to cloud our golden skies.
Some souls there are who love their woes and tears,

My Lady's rest was calm and deep:
She had been gazing at the moon;
And thus it chanced she fell asleep
One balmy night in June.

Freebooter winds stole richest smells
From roses bursting in the gloom,
And rifled half-blown daffodils,
And lilies of perfume.

These dainty robbers of the South
Found "beauty" sunk in deep repose,
And seized upon her crimson mouth,
Thinking her lips a rose.

The wooing winds made love full fast -
To rouse her up in vain they tried -
They kist and kist her, till, at last,
In ecstasy they died.

Oh, come, Beloved, before my beauty fades,
Pity the sorrow of my loneliness.
I am a Rosebush that the Cypress shades,
No sunbeams find or lighten my distress.

Daily I watch the waning of my bloom.
Ah, piteous fading of a thing so fair!
While Fate, remorseless, weaving at her loom,
Twines furtive silver in my twisted hair.

This noon I watched a tremulous fading rose
Rise on the wind to court a butterfly.
"One speck of pollen, ere my petals close,
Bring me one touch of love before I die!"

But the gay butterfly, who had the power
To grant, refused, flew far across the dell,
And, as he fertilised a younger flower,
The petals of the rose, defrauded, fell.

Such was my fate, thou hast not come to me,
Thine eyes are absent, and thy voice i...

Though flowers have perished at the touch
Of Frost, the early comer,
I hail the season loved so much,
The good St. Martin’s summer.

O gracious morn, with rose-red dawn,
And thin moon curving o’er it!
The old year’s darling, latest born,
More loved than all before it!

How flamed the sunrise through the pines!
How stretched the birchen shadows,
Braiding in long, wind-wavered lines
The westward sloping meadows!

The sweet day, opening as a flower
Unfolds its petals tender,
Renews for us at noontide’s hour
The summer’s tempered splendor.

The birds are hushed; alone the wind,
That through the woodland searches,
The red-oak’s lingering leaves can find,
And yellow plumes of larches.

But still the balsam-breathing pine<...

'The mist is resting on the hill;
The smoke is hanging in the air;
The very clouds are standing still:
A breathless calm broods everywhere.
Thou pilgrim through this vale of tears,
Thou, too, a little moment cease
Thy anxious toil and fluttering fears,
And rest thee, for a while, in peace.'

'I would, but Time keeps working still
And moving on for good or ill:
He will not rest or stay.
In pain or ease, in smiles or tears,
He still keeps adding to my years
And stealing life away.
His footsteps in the ceaseless sound
Of yonder clock I seem to hear,
That through this stillness so profound
Distinctly strikes the vacant ear.
For ever striding on and on,
He pauses not by night or day;
And all my life will soon be gone
As these past year...

Why, when I hear the stormy breath
Of the wild winter wind
Rushing o'er the mountain heath,
Does sadness fill my mind?

For long ago I loved to lie
Upon the pathless moor,
To hear the wild wind rushing by
With never ceasing roar;

Its sound was music then to me;
Its wild and lofty voice
Made by heart beat exultingly
And my whole soul rejoice.

But now, how different is the sound?
It takes another tone,
And howls along the barren ground
With melancholy moan.

Why does the warm light of the sun
No longer cheer my eyes?
And why is all the beauty gone
From rosy morning skies?

Beneath this lone and dreary hill
There is a lovely vale;
The purling of a crystal rill,
The sighing of the gale,

The s...

The first was like a dream through summer heat,
    The second like a tedious numbing swoon,
While the half-frozen pulses lagged to beat
    Beneath a winter moon.

'But,' says my friend, 'what was this thing and where?'
    It was a pleasure-place within my soul;
An earthly paradise supremely fair
    That lured me from the goal.

The first part was a tissue of hugged lies;
    The second was its ruin fraught with pain:
Why raise the fair delusion to the skies
    But to be dashed again?

My castle stood of white transparent glass
    Glittering and frail with many a fretted spire,
But when the summer sunset came to pass
    It kindled into fire.

My pleasaunce was an undulating green,
    Stately with trees whose shadows slept below,...

    I.


A    dream of interlinking hands, of feet
Tireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof,
Of the entangling waltz.    Bright eyebeams meet,
Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof.
Warm perfumes rise; the soft unflickering glow
Of branching lights sets off the changeful charms
Of glancing gems, rich stuffs, dazzling snow
Of necks unkerchieft, and bare, clinging arms.
Hark to the music!    How beneath the strain
Of reckless revelry, vibrates and sobs
One fundamental chord of constant pain,
The pulse-beat of the poet's heart that throbs.
So yearns, though all the dancing waves rejoice,
The troubled sea's disconsolate, deep voice.



    II.


Who shall proclaim the golden fable false
Of Orpheus' miracles?    This subtl...

I. Spirit's House

From naked stones of agony
I will build a house for me;
As a mason all alone
I will raise it, stone by stone,
And every stone where I have bled
Will show a sign of dusky red.
I have not gone the way in vain,
For I have good of all my pain;
My spirit's quiet house will be
Built of naked stones I trod
On roads where I lost sight of God.

II. Mastery

I would not have a god come in
To shield me suddenly from sin,
And set my house of life to rights;
Nor angels with bright burning wings
Ordering my earthly thoughts and things;
Rather my own frail guttering lights
Wind blown and nearly beaten out;
Rather the terror of the nights
And long, sick groping after doubt;
Rather be lost than let my soul
Sl...

While far along the eastern sky
I saw the flags of Havoc fly,
As if his forces would assault
The sovereign of the starry vault
And hurl Him back the burning rain
That seared the cities of the plain,
I read as on a crimson page
The words of Israel's sceptred sage: -

For riches make them wings, and they
Do as an eagle fly away.

O vision of that sleepless night,
What hue shall paint the mocking light
That burned and stained the orient skies
Where peaceful morning loves to rise,
As if the sun had lost his way
And dawned to make a second day, -
Above how red with fiery glow,
How dark to those it woke below!

On roof and wall, on dome and spire,
Flashed the false jewels of the fire;
Girt with her belt of glittering panes,<...

I am sorry in the gladness
    Of the joys that crown my days,
For the souls that sit in sadness
    Or walk uninviting ways.

On the radiance of my labour
    That a loving fate bestowed,
Falls the shadow of my neighbour,
    Crushed beneath a thankless load.

As the canticle of pleasure
    From my lovelit altar rolls,
There is one discordant measure,
    As I think of homeless souls.

And I know that grim old story,
    Preached from pulpits, is not so,
For no God could sit in glory
    And see sinners writhe below.

In that great eternal Centre
    Where all human life has birth,
Boundless love and pity enter
    And flow downward to the earth.

And all souls in sin or sorrow
    Are but passing through the...

It comes not in such wise as she had deemed,
    Else might she still have clung to her despair.
More tender, grateful than she could have dreamed,
    Fond hands passed pitying over brows and hair,
    And gentle words borne softly through the air,
Calming her weary sense and wildered mind,
By welcome, dear communion with her kind.


Ah! she forswore all words as empty lies;
    What speech could help, encourage, or repair?
Yet when she meets these grave, indulgent eyes,
    Fulfilled with pity, simplest words are fair,
    Caressing, meaningless, that do not dare
To compensate or mend, but merely soothe
With hopeful visions after bitter Truth.


One who through conquered trouble had grown wise,
    To read the grief unspoken, unexpressed,

Sing me a song - a song to ease old sorrows,
And dull the edge of care -
A song of Hope to ring through all the morrows
That be my share.

Unlock the doors where joy hath been in hiding,
Though barred they be and strong,
And send black grief far down the wind a-riding -
Sing me a song.

Sing thou thy sky-lark song of sweetest daring,
And April ecstasy,
That I may follow it and go a-faring
To Arcady.

Charm sleep from out the shadows with thy singing,
And when the light turns grey,
Leave me bright dreams until the dawn comes bringing
The rose-edged day.

The wind of March taught thee his springtime madness,
And then in undertone
Whispered the wonder-secret of his gladness
To thee alone.

And thou hast learned from li...

I sit alone in the gray,
The snow falls thick and fast,
And never a sound have I heard all day
But the wailing of the blast,
And the hiss and click of the snow, whirling to and fro.

There seems no living thing
Left in the world but I;
My thoughts fly forth on restless wing,
And drift back wearily,
Storm-beaten, buffeted, hopeless, and almost dead.

No one there is to care;
Not one to even know
Of the lonely day and the dull despair
As the hours ebb and flow,
Slow lingering, as fain to lengthen out my pain.

And I think of the monks of old,
Each in his separate cell,
Hearing no sound, except when tolled
The stated convent bell.
How could they live and bear that silence everywhere?

And I think of tumbling seas,
'Nea...