Hope

Queen of the stars! so gentle, so benign,
That ancient Fable did to thee assign,
When darkness creeping o'er thy silver brow
Warned thee these upper regions to forego,
Alternate empire in the shades below
A Bard, who, lately near the wide-spread sea
Traversed by gleaming ships, looked up to thee
With grateful thoughts, doth now thy rising hail
From the close confines of a shadowy vale.
Glory of night, conspicuous yet serene,
Nor less attractive when by glimpses seen
Through cloudy umbrage, well might that fair face,
And all those attributes of modest grace,
In days when Fancy wrought unchecked by fear,
Down to the green earth fetch thee from thy sphere,
To sit in leafy woods by fountains clear!

O still beloved (for thine, meek Power, are charms
That...

All things have power to hold us back.
Our very hopes build up a wall
Of doubt, whose shadow stretches black
        O'er all.

The dreams, that helped us once, become
Dread disappointments, that oppose
Dead eyes to ours, and lips made dumb
        With woes.

The thoughts that opened doors before
Within the mind's house, hide away;
Discouragement hath locked each door
        For aye.

Come, loss, more frequently than gain!
And failure than success! until
The spirit's struggle to attain
        Is still!

I

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
    A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
    Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
    Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
    Far off the noises of the world retreat;
    The loud vociferations of the street
    Become an undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
    And leave my burden at this minster gate,
    Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The tumult of the time disconsolate
    To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
    While the eternal ages watch and wait.


II

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
    This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
    Birds build their nests; while ca...

Thank God for rest, where none molest,
And none can make afraid;
For Peace that sits as Plenty's guest
Beneath the homestead shade!
Bring pike and gun, the sword's red scourge,
The negro's broken chains,
And beat them at the blacksmith's forge
To ploughshares for our plains.
Alike henceforth our hills of snow,
And vales where cotton flowers;
All streams that flow, all winds that blow,
Are Freedom's motive-powers.
Henceforth to Labor's chivalry
Be knightly honors paid;
For nobler than the sword's shall be
The sickle's accolade.
Build up an altar to the Lord,
O grateful hearts of ours!
And shape it of the greenest sward
That ever drank the showers.
Lay all the bloom of gardens there,
And there the orchard fruits;
Bring golden grain ...

Of Prometheus, how undaunted
    On Olympus' shining bastions
His audacious foot he planted,
Myths are told and songs are chanted,
    Full of promptings and suggestions.

Beautiful is the tradition
    Of that flight through heavenly portals,
The old classic superstition
Of the theft and the transmission
    Of the fire of the Immortals!

First the deed of noble daring,
    Born of heavenward aspiration,
Then the fire with mortals sharing,
Then the vulture,--the despairing
    Cry of pain on crags Caucasian.

All is but a symbol painted
    Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer;
Only those are crowned and sainted
Who with grief have been acquainted,
    Making nations nobler, freer.

In their feverish exultations,
    In thei...

Call me not back, O cold and crafty world:
I scorn your thankless thanks and hollow praise.
Wiser than seer or scientist content
To tread no paths beyond these bleating hills,
Here let me lie beneath this dear old elm,
Among the blossoms of the clover-fields,
And listen to the humming of the bees.
Here in those far-off, happy, boyhood years,
When all my world was bounded by these hills,
I dreamed my first dreams underneath this elm.
Dreamed? Aye, and builded castles in the clouds;
Dreamed, and made glad a fond, proud mother's heart,
Now moldering into clay on yonder hill;
Dreamed till my day-dreams paved the world with gold;
Dreamed till my mad dreams made one desolate;
Dreamed O my soul, and was it all a dream?

As I lay dreaming under this old elm,

She is not fair, as some are fair,
Cold as the snow, as sunshine gay:
On her clear brow, come grief what may,
She suffers not too stern an air;
But, grave in silence, sweet in speech,
Loves neither mockery nor disdain;
Gentle to all, to all doth teach
The charm of deeming nothing vain.

She join'd me: and we wander'd on;
And I rejoiced, I cared not why,
Deeming it immortality
To walk with such a soul alone.
Primroses pale grew all around,
Violets, and moss, and ivy wild;
Yet, drinking sweetness from the ground,
I was but conscious that she smiled.

The wind blew all her shining hair
From her sweet brows; and she, the while,
Put back her lovely head, to smile
On my enchanted spirit there.
Jonquils and pansies round her head
Gl...

A waxing moon that, crescent yet,
In all its silver beauty set,
And rose no more in the lonesome night
To shed full-orbed its longed-for light.
Then was it dark; on wold and lea,
    In home, in heart, the hours were drear.
Father and mother could no light see,
    And the hearts trembled and there was fear.
- So on the mount, Christ's chosen three,
Unware that glory it did shroud,
Feared when they entered into the cloud.

She was the best part of love's fair
Adornment, life's God-given care,
As if He bade them guard His own,
Who should be soon anear His throne.
Dutiful, happy, and who say
When childhood smiles itself away,
'More fair than morn shall prove the day.'
Sweet souls so nigh to God that rest,
How shall be bettering of your best!<...

On a blank leaf of "poems printed, not published.


Well thought! who would not rather hear
The songs to Love and Friendship sung
Than those which move the stranger's tongue,
And feed his unselected ear?

Our social joys are more than fame;
Life withers in the public look.
Why mount the pillory of a book,
Or barter comfort for a name?

Who in a house of glass would dwell,
With curious eyes at every pane?
To ring him in and out again,
Who wants the public crier's bell?

To see the angel in one's way,
Who wants to play the ass's part,
Bear on his back the wizard Art,
And in his service speak or bray?

And who his manly locks would shave,
And quench the eyes of common sense,
To share the noisy recompense
Th...

How the sumac banners bent, dripping as if with blood,
What a mournful presence brooded upon the slumbrous air;
A mocking-bird screamed noisily in the depth of the silent wood,
And in my heart was crying the raven of despair,
Thrilling my being through with its bitter, bitter cry -
"It were better to die, it were better to die."

For she, my love, my fate, she sat by my side
On a fallen oak, her cheek all flushed with a bashful shame,
Telling me what her innocent heart had hid -
"For was not I her brother, her dear brother, all but in name."
I listened to her low words, but turned my face away -
Away from her eyes' soft light, and the mocking light of the day.

"He was noble and proud," she said, "and had chosen her from all
The haughty ladies, and great; she didn'...

My heart was sad when first we met;
'Yet with a smile, -
A welcome smile I ne'er forget,
Thou didst beguile
My sighs and sorrows;-and a sweet delight
Shed a soft radiance, where erst was night.

I dreamed not we should meet again; -
But fate was kind,
Once more my heart o'er fraught with pain,
To joy inclined.
It seemed thy soul had power to penetrate
My inmost self, changing at will my state.

Then sprang the thought: - Be thou my Queen!
I will be slave;
Make here thy throne and reign supreme,
'Tis all I crave.
Let me within thy soothing influence dwell,
Content to know, with thee all must be well.

I knew not that another claimed
By prior right,
Those charms that had my breast inflamed
With fancies bright.
Ah! the...

Leaden skies and a lonesome shadow
    Where summer has passed with her gorgeous train;
Snow on the mountain, and frost on the meadow -
    A white face pressed to the window pane;
A cold mist falling, a bleak wind calling,
    And oh! but life seems vain.

Rain is better than golden weather,
    When the heart is dulled with a dumb despair.
Dead leaves lie where they walked together,
    The hammock is gone, and the rustic chair.
Let bleak snows cover the whole world over -
    It will never again seem fair.

Time laughs lightly at youth's sad 'Never,'
    Summer shall come again, smiling once more,
High o'er the cold world the sun shines for ever,
    Hearts that seemed dead are alive at the core.
Oh, but the pain of it -oh, but the gain of it,

I.
Would it were I had been false, not you!
I that am nothing, not you that are all
I, never the worse for a touch or two
On my speckled hide; not you, the pride
Of the day, my swan, that a first fleck’s fall
On her wonder of white must unswan, undo!

II.
I had dipped in life’s struggle and, out again,
Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see,
When I found my swan and the cure was plain;
The dull turned bright as I caught your white
On my bosom: you saved me saved in vain
If you ruined yourself, and all through me!

III.
Yes, all through the speckled beast that I am,
Who taught you to stoop; you gave me yourself,
And bound your soul by the vows that damn:
Since on better thought you break, as you ought,
Vows words, no angel set down,...

Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding
With the eyes of a lover, the face of the sun;
Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding
The green-growing acres with increase begun.

Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying
'Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the field;
Love mingles with love, and no evil is weighing
On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is healed.

From township to township, o'er down and by tillage
Fair, far have we wandered and long was the day;
But now cometh eve at the end of the village,
Where over the grey wall the church riseth grey.

There is wind in the twilight; in the white road before us
The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about;
The moon's rim is rising, a star glitters o'er us,

Did we but know what lurks beyond the NOW;
Could we but see what the dim future hides;
Had we some power occult that would us show
The joy and sorrow which in THEN abides;
Would life be happier, - or less fraught with woe,
Did we but know?

I long, yet fear to pierce those clouds ahead; -
To solve life's secrets, - learn what means this death.
Are fresh joys waiting for the silent dead?
Or do we perish with am fleeting breath?
If not; then whither will the spirit go?
Did we but know.

'Tis all a mist. Reason can naught explain,
We dream and scheme for what to-morrow brings;
We sleep, perchance, and never wake again,
Nor taste life's joys, or suffer sorrow's stings.
Will the soul soar, or will it sink below?
How can we know.

"You must ...

For I must sing of all I feel and know,
Waiting with Memnon passive near the palms,
Until the heavenly light doth dawn and grow
And thrill my silence into mystic psalms;
From unknown realms the wind streams sad or gay,
The trees give voice responsive to its sway.

For I must sing: of mountains, deserts, seas,
Of rivers ever flowing, ever flowing;
Of beasts and birds, of grass and flowers and trees
Forever fading and forever growing;
Of calm and storm, of night and eve and noon,
Of boundless space, and sun and stars and moon;

And of the secret sympathies that bind
All beings to their wondrous dwelling-place;
And of the perfect Unity enshrined
In omnipresence throughout time and space,
Alike informing with its full control
The dust, the stars, th...

Dear friends, left darkling in the long eclipse
That veils the noonday, - you whose finger-tips
A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find
Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind.
This wreath of verse how dare I offer you
To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due?
The hues of all its glowing beds are ours,
Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling flowers?

Nay, those I have I bring you, - at their birth
Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grateful earth;
If my rash boyhood dropped some idle seeds,
And here and there you light on saucy weeds
Among the fairer growths, remember still
Song comes of grace, and not of human will:
We get a jarring note when most we try,
Then strike the chord we know not how or why;
Our stately verse with too aspirin...

Now to those who search the deep,
    Gleam of Hope and Kindly Light,
Once, before you turn to sleep,
    Breathe a message through the night.
Never doubt that they'll receive it.
Send it, once, and you'll believe it.

Wrecks that burn against the stars,
    Decks where death is wallowing green,
Snare the breath among their spars,
    Hear the flickering threads between,
Quick, through all the storms that blind them,
Quick with words that rush to find them.

Think you these aërial wires
    Whisper more than spirits may?
Think you that our strong desires
    Touch no distance when we pray?
Think you that no wings are flying
'Twixt the living and the dying?

Inland, here, upon your knees,
    You shall breathe from ur...