Hope

'Tis a little room, my friend;
A baby-walk from end to end;
All the things look sadly real,
This hot noontide's Unideal.
Seek not refuge at the casement,
There's no pasture for amazement
But a house most dim and rusty,
And a street most dry and dusty;
Seldom here more happy vision
Than water-cart's blest apparition,
We'll shut out the staring space,
Draw the curtains in its face.

Close the eyelids of the room,
Fill it with a scarlet gloom:
Lo! the walls on every side
Are transformed and glorified;
Ceiled as with a rosy cloud
Furthest eastward of the crowd,
Blushing faintly at the bliss
Of the Titan's good-night kiss,
Which her westward sisters share,--
Crimson they from breast to hair.
'Tis the faintest lends its dye
To...

The summer winds is sniffin' round the bloomin' locus' trees;
And the clover in the pastur is a big day fer the bees,
And they been a-swiggin' honey, above board and on the sly,
Tel they stutter in theyr buzzin' and stagger as they fly.
The flicker on the fence-rail 'pears to jest spit on his wings
And roll up his feathers, by the sassy way he sings;
And the hoss-fly is a-whettin'-up his forelegs fer biz,
And the off-mare is a-switchin' all of her tale they is.

You can hear the blackbirds jawin' as they foller up the plow -
Oh, theyr bound to git theyr brekfast, and theyr not a-carin' how;
So they quarrel in the furries, and they quarrel on the wing -
But theyr peaceabler in pot-pies than any other thing:
And it's when I git my shotgun drawed up in stiddy rest,
She's a...

Gloomily the clouds are sailing
O'er the dimly moonlit sky;
Dolefully the wind is wailing;
Not another sound is nigh;

Only I can hear it sweeping
Heathclad hill and woodland dale,
And at times the nights's sad weeping
Sounds above its dying wail.

Now the struggling moonbeams glimmer;
Now the shadows deeper fall,
Till the dim light, waxing dimmer,
Scarce reveals yon stately hall.

All beneath its roof are sleeping;
Such a silence reigns around
I can hear the cold rain steeping
Dripping roof and plashy ground.

No: not all are wrapped in slumber;
At yon chamber window stands
One whose years can scarce outnumber
The tears that dew his clasped hands.

From the open casement bending
He surveys the murky skies,

No aimless wanderers, by the fiend Unrest
Goaded from shore to shore;
No schoolmen, turning, in their classic quest,
The leaves of empire o'er.
Simple of faith, and bearing in their hearts
The love of man and God,
Isles of old song, the Moslem's ancient marts,
And Scythia's steppes, they trod.
Where the long shadows of the fir and pine
In the night sun are cast,
And the deep heart of many a Norland mine
Quakes at each riving blast;
Where, in barbaric grandeur, Moskwa stands,
A baptized Scythian queen,
With Europe's arts and Asia's jewelled hands,
The North and East between!
Where still, through vales of Grecian fable, stray
The classic forms of yore,
And beauty smiles, new risen from the spray,
And Dian weeps once more;
Where every tongue i...

At noon, upon the mountain's purple height,
Above the pine-woods and the clouds it shone
No larger than the small white dome of shell
Left by the fledgling wren when wings are born.
By night it joined the company of heaven,
And, with its constant light, became a star.
A needle-point of light, minute, remote,
It sent a subtler message through the abyss,
Held more significance for the seeing eye
Than all the darkness that would blot it out,
Yet could not dwarf it.
                        High in heaven it shone,
Alive with all the thoughts, and hopes, and dreams
Of man's adventurous mind.
                            Up there, I knew
The explorers of the sky, the pioneers
Of science, now made ready to attack
That darkness once again, and win new worlds.

How steep the stairs within Kings' houses are
For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,
And O how salt and bitter is the bread
Which falls from this Hound's table, better far
That I had died in the red ways of war,
Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,
Than to live thus, by all things comraded
Which seek the essence of my soul to mar.

'Curse God and die: what better hope than this?
He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss
Of his gold city, and eternal day'
Nay peace: behind my prison's blinded bars
I do possess what none can take away
My love, and all the glory of the stars.

The Muse said, Let us sing a little song
    Wherein no hint of wrong,
No echo of the great world need, or pain,
    Shall mar the strain.
Lock fast the swinging portal of thy heart;
    Keep sympathy apart.
Sing of the sunset, of the dawn, the sea;
    Of any thing or nothing, so there be
No purpose to thy art.
    Yea, let us make, art for Art's sake.
And sing no more unto the hearts of men,
    But for the critic's pen.
With songs that are but words, sweet sounding words,
    Like joyous jargon of the birds.
Tune now thy lyre, O Poet, and sing on.
    Sing of

The Dawn

The Virgin Night, all languorous with dreams
    Of her beloved Darkness, rose in fear,
    Feeling the presence of another near.
Outside her curtained casement...

Let us go far from here!
Here there is sadness in the early year:
Here sorrow waits where joy went laughing late:
The sicklied face of heaven hangs like hate
Above the woodland and the meadowland;
And Spring hath taken fire in her hand
Of frost and made a dead bloom of her face,
Which was a flower of marvel once and grace,
And sweet serenity and stainless glow.
Delay not. Let us go.

Let us go far away
Into the sunrise of a fairer May:
Where all the nights resign them to the moon,
And drug their souls with odor and soft tune,
And tell their dreams in starlight: where the hours
Teach immortality with fadeless flowers;
And all the day the bee weights down the bloom,
And all the night the moth shakes strange perfume,
Like music, from the flower-bel...

I have dreamed sweet dreams of a summer night,
When the moon was walking in cloudless light,
And my soul to the regions of Fancy sprung,
While the spirits of air their soft anthems sung,
Strains wafted down from those heavenly spheres
Which may not be warbled in waking ears;
More sweet than the voice of waters flowing,
Than the breeze over beds of violets blowing,
When it stirs the pines, and sultry day
Fans himself cool with their tremulous play.
On the sleeper's ear those rich notes stealing,
Speak of purer and holier feeling
Than man in his pilgrimage here below,
In the bondage of sin, can ever know.

    I heard in my slumbers the ceaseless roar
Of the sparkling waves, as they met the shore,
Till lulled by the surge of the moon-lit deep,
By the h...

Thou art home at last, my darling one,
    Flushed and tired with thy play,
From morning dawn until setting sun
    Hast thou been at sport away;
And thy steps are weary - hot thy brow,
    Yet thine eyes with joy are bright, -
Ah! I read the riddle, show me now
    The treasures thou graspest tight.

A pretty pebble, a tiny shell,
    A feather by wild bird cast,
Gay flowers gathered in forest dell,
    Already withering fast,
Four speckled eggs in a soft brown nest,
    Thy last and thy greatest prize,
Such the things that fill with joy thy breast,
    With laughing light thine eyes.

Ah! my child, what right have I to smile
    And whisper, too dearly bought,
By wand'ring many a weary mile -
    Dust, heat, and toilsome thought?

O Mystery of life,
That, after all our strife,
    Defeats, mistakes,
Just as, at last, we see
The road to victory,
    The tired heart breaks.

Just as the long years give
Knowledge of how to live,
    Life's end draws near;
As if, that gift being ours,
God needed our new powers
    In worlds elsewhere.

There, if the soul whose wings
Were won in suffering, springs
    To life anew,
Justice would have some room
For hope beyond the tomb,
    And mercy, too.

And since, without this dream
No light, no faintest gleam
    Answers our "why";
But earth and all its race
Must pass and leave no trace
    On that blind sky;

Shall reason close that door
On all we struggled for,
    Seal the soul's do...

Out from the harbour of youth's bay
    There leads the path of pleasure;
With eager steps we walk that way
    To brim joy's largest measure.
But when with morn's departing beam
    Goes youth's last precious minute,
We sigh "'Twas but a fevered dream -
    There's nothing in it."

Then on our vision dawns afar
    The goal of glory, gleaming
Like some great radiant solar star,
    And sets us longing, dreaming.
Forgetting all things left behind,
    We strain each nerve to win it,
But when 'tis ours -alas! we find
    There's nothing in it.

We turn our sad, reluctant gaze
    Upon the path of duty;
Its barren, uninviting ways
    Are void of bloom and beauty.
Yet in that road, though dark and cold,
    It seems as we begin...

The sea of the years that endure not
Whose tide shall endure till we die
And know what the seasons assure not,
If death be or life be a lie,
Sways hither the spirit and thither,
A waif in the swing of the sea
Whose wrecks are of memories that wither
As leaves of a tree.
We hear not and hail not with greeting
The sound of the wings of the years,
The storm of the sound of them beating,
That none till it pass from him hears:
But tempest nor calm can imperil
The treasures that fade not or fly;
Change bids them not change and be sterile,
Death bids them not die.
Hearts plighted in youth to the royal
High service of hope and of song,
Sealed fast for endurance as loyal,
And proved of the years as they throng,
Conceive not, believe not, and fear no...

Here, pent about by office walls
And barren eyes all day,
’Tis sweet to think of waterfalls
Two hundred miles away!

I would not ask you, friends, to brook
An old, old truth from me,
If I could shut a Poet’s book
Which haunts me like the Sea!

He saith to me, this Poet saith,
So many things of light,
That I have found a fourfold faith,
And gained a twofold sight.

He telleth me, this Poet tells,
How much of God is seen
Amongst the deep-mossed English dells,
And miles of gleaming green.

From many a black Gethsemane,
He leads my bleeding feet
To where I hear the Morning Sea
Round shining spaces beat!

To where I feel the wind, which brings
A sound of running creeks,
And blows those dark, unpleasant things,<...

Evening is coming, the sun waxes red,
Radiant colors from heaven are beaming
Life's lustrous longings in infinite streaming; -
Glory in death o'er the mountains is spread.
Cupolas burn, but the fog in far masses
Over the bluish-black fields softly passes,
Rolling as whilom oblivion pale;
Hid is yon valley 'neath thousand years' veil.
    Evening so red and warm
    Glows as the people swarm,
    Notes of the cornet flare,
    Flowers and brown eyes fair.
Great men of old stand in marble erected,
Waiting, scarce known and neglected.

Vespers are ringing, through roseate air
Nebulous floating of tone-sacrifices,
Twilight in churches now broadens and rises,
Incense and word fill the evening with prayer.
Over the Sabines the flame-belt is knotted,

The sun is couched, the sea-fowl gone to rest,
And the wild storm hath somewhere found a nest;
Air slumbers—wave with wave no longer strives,
Only a heaving of the deep survives,
A tell-tale motion! soon will it be laid,
And by the tide alone the water swayed.
Stealthy withdrawings, interminglings mild
Of light with shade in beauty reconciled,
Such is the prospect far as sight can range,
The soothing recompence, the welcome change.
Where, now, the ships that drove before the blast,
Threatened by angry breakers as they passed;
And by a train of flying clouds bemocked;
Or, in the hollow surge, at anchor rocked
As on a bed of death? Some lodge in peace,
Saved by His care who bade the tempest cease;
And some, too heedless of past danger, court
Fresh gales to ...

In golden youth when seems the earth
A Summer-land of singing mirth,
When souls are glad and hearts are light,
And not a shadow lurks in sight,
We do not know it, but there lies
Somewhere veiled under evening skies
A garden which we all must see -
The garden of Gethsemane.

With joyous steps we go our ways,
Love lends a halo to our days;
Light sorrows sail like clouds afar,
We laugh, and say how strong we are.
We hurry on; and hurrying, go
Close to the border-land of woe,
That waits for you, and waits for me -
Forever waits Gethsemane.

Down shadowy lanes, across strange streams
Bridged over by our broken dreams;
Behind the misty caps of years,
Beyond the great salt fount of tears,
The garden lies. Strive as you may,
You cann...

When tossed on time's tempestuous tide,
    By angry storms resistless driven,
One hope can bid our fears subside -
    It is the hope of rest in Heaven.

With trusting heart we lift our eyes
    Above the dark clouds, tempest-driven,
And view, beyond those troubled skies,
    The peaceful, stormless rest of Heaven.

No more to shed the exile's tears, -
    No more the heart by anguish riven, -
No longer bent 'neath toilful years, -
    How sweet will be the rest of Heaven