Hope

Oh tell me not of the lands so old
Where the Orient treasures its hills of gold,
And the rivers lie in the sun's bright rays
Forever singing the old world's praise.
Nor proudly boast of the gardens grand
That spring to earth at a king's command;
There are treasures here in the far great West
That rival the hills on the Orient's crest.

Far from the sight of the dusty town
Like a perfect gem in a golden crown,
Lies a beautiful garden vast and fair,
Where the wild birds sing in the evening air,
And the dews fall down in a silent shower
On the fragrant head of each beaming flower;
While far and near o'er the land sun-kissed,
Hangs the roseate veil of the sunset mist.

Under the shade of the western wall
There's a glimmer of roses fair and tall,

We started in the morning, a morning full of glee,
All in the early morning, a goodly company;
And some were full of merriment, and all were kind and dear:
But the others have pursued their way, and left me sitting here.

My feet were not so fleet as theirs, my courage soon was gone,
And so I lagged and fell behind, although they cried "Come on!"
They cheered me and they pitied me, but one by one went by,
For the stronger must outstrip the weak; there is no remedy.

Some never looked behind, but smiled, and swiftly, hand in hand,
Departed with, a strange sweet joy I could not understand;
I know not by what silver streams their roses bud and blow,
Rut I am glad--O very glad--they should be happy so.

And some they went companionless, yet not alone, it seemed;
F...

My harp soon ceases; but I here allege
Its strings are in my heart and tremble there:
My Song's last strain shall be a claim and pledge -
        A claim, a pledge, a prayer!

I stand, as stood, in storied days of old,
Vasco Balboa staring o'er bright seas
When fair Pacific's tide of limpid gold
        Surged up against his knees.

For haughty Spain, her banner in his hand,
He claimed a New World, sea, and plain, and crag -
I claim the Future's Ocean for this land
        And here I plant her flag!

Float out, oh flag, from Freedom's burnished lance!
Float out, oh flag, in Red, and White, and Blue!
The Union's colors and the hues of France
        Commingled on the view!

Float out, oh flag, and all thy splendors wake!
Float out, oh f...

Out of the bosom of the Air,
    Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
    Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
    Silent, and soft, and slow
    Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
    Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
    In the white countenance confession,
    The troubled sky reveals
    The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
    Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
    Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
    Now whispered and revealed
    To wood and field.

The past is like a story
I have listened to in dreams
That vanished in the glory
Of the Morning's early gleams;
And - at my shadow glancing -
I feel a loss of strength,
As the Day of Life advancing
Leaves it shorn of half its length.

But it's all in vain to worry
At the rapid race of Time -
And he flies in such a flurry
When I trip him with a rhyme,
I'll bother him no longer
Than to thank you for the thought
That "my fame is growing stronger
As you really think it ought."

And though I fall below it,
I might know as much of mirth
To live and die a poet
Of unacknowledged worth;
For Fame is but a vagrant -
Though a loyal one and brave,
And his laurels ne'er so fragrant
As when scattered o'er the grave.

    All sights and sounds of every year,
All groups and forms, each leaf and gem,
Are thine, O God, nor need I fear
To speak to Thee of them.

    Too great thy heart is to despise;
Thy day girds centuries about;
From things which we count small, thine eyes
See great things looking out.

    Therefore this prayerful song I sing
May come to Thee in ordered words;
Therefore its sweet sounds need not cling
In terror to their chords.

            *            *            *            *            *

    I know that nothing made is lost;
That not a moon hath ever shone,
That not a cloud my eyes hath crost,
But to my soul hath gone.

    That all the dead years garnered lie
In this gem-casket, my dim soul;
And that thy hand m...

    Small, shapeless drifts of cloud
Sail slowly northward in the soft-hued sky,
    With blur half-tints and rolling summits bright,
By the late sun caressed; slight hazes shroud
    All things afar; shineth each leaf anigh
    With its own warmth and light.


    O'erblown by Southland airs,
The summer landscape basks in utter peace:
    In lazy streams the lazy clouds are seen;
Low hills, broad meadows, and large, clear-cut squares
    Of ripening corn-fields, rippled by the breeze,
    With shifting shade and sheen.


    Hark! and you may not hear
A sound less soothing than the rustle cool
    Of swaying leaves, the steady wiry drone
Of unseen crickets, sudden chirpings clear
    Of happy birds, the tinkle of the pool,
    Chafed ...

All the aim of life is just
    Getting back to God.
Spirit casting off its dust,
    Getting back to God.
Every grief we have to bear
Disappointment, cross, despair
Each is but another stair
    Climbing back to God.

Step by step and mile by mile -
    Getting back to God;
Nothing else is worth the while -
    Getting back to God.
Light and shadow fill each day
Joys and sorrows pass away,
Smile at all, and smiling, say,
    Getting back to God.

Do not wear a mournful face
    Getting back to God;
Scatter sunshine on the place
    Going back to God;
Take what pleasure you can find,
But where'er your paths may wind.
Keep the purpose well in mind, -
    Getting back to God.

Show me the noblest Youth of present time,
Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth;
Some God or Hero, from the Olympian clime
Returned, to seek a Consort upon earth;
Or, in no doubtful prospect, let me see
The brightest star of ages yet to be,
And I will mate and match him blissfully.
I will not fetch a Naiad from a flood
Pure as herself, (song lacks not mightier power)
Nor leaf-crowned Dryad from a pathless wood,
Nor Sea-nymph glistening from her coral bower;
Mere Mortals bodied forth in vision still,
Shall with Mount Ida's triple lustre fill
The chaster coverts of a British hill.
"Appear! obey my lyre's command!
Come, like the Graces, hand in hand!
For ye, though not by birth allied,
Are Sisters in the bond of love;
Nor shall the tongue of e...

Maud Muller on a summer’s day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast,

A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse’s chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And asked a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.

She stooped where ...

Send out the singers,let the room be still;
They have not eased my pain nor brought me sleep.
Close out the sun, for I would have it dark
That I may feel how black the grave will be.
The sun is setting, for the light is red,
And you are outlined in a golden fire,
Like Ursula upon an altar-screen.
Come, leave the light and sit beside my bed,
For I have had enough of saints and prayers.
Strange broken thoughts are beating in my brain,
They come and vanish and again they come.
It is the fever driving out my soul,
And Death stands waiting by the arras there.

Ornella, I will speak, for soon my lips
Shall keep a silence till the end of time.
You have a mouth for loving,listen then:
Keep tryst with Love before Death comes to tryst;
For I, who die, could wi...

Angel of Peace, thou hast wandered too long!
Spread thy white wings to the sunshine of love!
Come while our voices are blended in song, -
Fly to our ark like the storm-beaten dove!
Fly to our ark on the wings of the dove, -
Speed o'er the far-sounding billows of song,
Crowned with thine olive-leaf garland of love, -
Angel of Peace, thou hast waited too long!

Joyous we meet, on this altar of thine
Mingling the gifts we have gathered for thee,
Sweet with the odors of myrtle and pine,
Breeze of the prairie and breath of the sea, -
Meadow and mountain and forest and sea!
Sweet is the fragrance of myrtle and pine,
Sweeter the incense we offer to thee,
Brothers once more round this altar of thine!

Angels of Bethlehem, answer the strain!
Hark! a new ...

Dark days have passed, but you who taught me then
To look upon the world with trustful eyes,
Are not forgotten! Quick to sympathise
With noble thoughts, I’ve dreamt of moments when
Your low voice filled with strains of fairer skies!
Stray breaths of Grecian song that went and came,
Like floating fragrance from some quiet glen
In those far hills which shine with classic fame
Of passioned nymphs and grand-browed god-like men!
I sometimes fear my heart hath lost the same
Sweet sense of harmony; but this I know
That Beauty waits on you where’er you go,
Because she loveth child-like Faith! Her bowers
Are rich for it with glad perennial flowers.

On the far horizon there
Heaps of cloudy darkness rest;
Though the wind is in the air
There is stupor east and west.

For the sky no change is making,
Scarce we know it from the plain;
Droop its eyelids never waking,
Blinded by the misty rain;

Save on high one little spot,
Round the baffled moon a space
Where the tumult ceaseth not:
Wildly goes the midnight race!

And a joy doth rise in me
Upward gazing on the sight,
When I think that others see
In yon clouds a like delight;

How perchance an aged man
Struggling with the wind and rain,
In the moonlight cold and wan
Feels his heart grow young again;

As the cloudy rack goes by,
How the life-blood mantles up
Till the fountain deep and dry
Yields once m...

    Everyone is a poet, or so the philosopher said. The world teems
    with poetry in much the sense the universe teems with life.
    A poet or two is squirrelled away in every major office.
    Boiler rooms hum with the tooth and nail, robust imagery of
    working class poets. The neurological desire to express oneself
    transcends even social barriers. Be creative, like a brain surgeon.
    My scalpel runneth over amongst all those cerebral ganglia.

    The mind washed clean, scrubbed down. Words burn holes on the
    paper. Firemen disguised as poets douse the heroic flames.
    Sherpas tightly drawn amidst depths of a Himalayan winter
    weather a torrent of words. Groggy, I search for breath, am given
    oxygen but see writing materials.

    In the future,...

Hope went by and Peace went by
And would not enter in;
Youth went by and Health went by
And Love that is their kin.

Those within the house shed tears
On their bitter bread;
Some were old and some were mad,
And some were sick a-bed.

Gray Death saw the wretched house
And even he passed by
"They have never lived," he said,
"They can wait to die."

How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods, her wilds, her mountains, the intense
Reply of Hers to Our intelligence! [BYRON, The Island.]

I

In youth have I known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held, as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light, such for his spirit was fit,
And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour
Of its own fervor what had o'er it power.


II

Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ev...

The sun was hid all day by clouds,
    The rain fell softly down;
A cold gray mist hung o'er the earth,
    And veiled the silent town.

Behind the clouds a sunbeam crept
    With restless wings of gold;
The skies above were bright and warm,
    The earth below was cold.

It glanced along the heavy clouds,
    Then sought to glide between;
But ah! they gathered closer still,
    With fierce and angry mien.

The dancing ray grew strangely still,
    Just like some weary bird,
That droops upon a lonely shore,
    And sings its song unheard.

For on the earth the drooping flowers
    Were longing for the light;
And children with their watching eyes
    Could trace no sunbeam's flight.

At last an angel, wand'ring by,