Identity

Dearer to me, thou pile of dust!
Tho' with the wild flow'r simply crown'd,
Than the vast dome or beauteous bust,
By genius form'd, by wit renown'd.

Wave, thou wild flow'r! for ever wave,
O'er my lov'd relic of delight;
My tears shall bathe her green-rob'd grave
More than the dews of heav'n by night.

Methinks my Delia bids me go,
Says, "Florio, dry that fruitless tear!
Feed not a wild flow'r with thy woe,
Thy long-lov'd Delia is not here.

"No drop of feeling from her eye
Now starts to hear thy sorrows speak;
And, did thy bosom know one joy,
No smile would bloom upon her cheek.

"Pale, wan, and torpid, droops that cheek,
Whereon thy lip impress'd its red;
Those eyes, which Florio taught to speak,
Unnotic'd close amid the dea...

Doubling and doubling with laborious walk,
Who, that has gained at length the wished-for Height,
This brief this simple wayside Call can slight,
And rests not thankful? Whether cheered by talk
With some loved friend, or by the unseen hawk
Whistling to clouds and sky-born streams that shine,
At the sun's outbreak, as with light divine,
Ere they descend to nourish root and stalk
Of valley flowers. Nor, while the limbs repose,
Will we forget that, as the fowl can keep
Absolute stillness, poised aloft in air,
And fishes front, unmoved, the torrent's sweep,
So may the Soul, through powers that Faith bestows,
Win rest, and ease, and peace, with bliss that Angels share.

    Just to be good -
            This is enough - enough!
    O we who find sin's billows wild and rough,
    Do we not feel how more than any gold
    Would be the blameless life we led of old
    While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss?
            Ah! though we miss
            All else but this,
    To be good is enough!

    It is enough -
            Enough - just to be good!
    To lift our hearts where they are understood;
    To let the thirst for worldly power and place
    Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face
    With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.
            Ah! though we miss
            All else but this,
    To be good is enough!

    I.

    Dawn, noon and dewfall!    Bluebird and robin
    Up and at it airly, and the orchard-blossoms bobbin'!
    Peekin' from the winder, half-awake, and wishin'
    I could go to sleep agin as well as go a-fishin'!


    II.

    On the apern o' the dam, legs a-danglin' over,
    Drowsy-like with sound o' worter and the smell o' clover:
    Fish all out a visitin' - 'cept some dratted minnor!
    Yes, and mill shet down at last and hands is gone to dinner.


    III.

    Trompin' home acrost the fields:    Lightnin'-bugs a-blinkin'
    In the wheat like sparks o' things feller keeps a-thinkin': -
    Mother waitin' supper, and the childern there to cherr me!
    And fiddle on the kitchen-wall a-jist a-eechin' fer me!

I'll not weep that thou art going to leave me,
There's nothing lovely here;
And doubly will the dark world grieve me,
While thy heart suffers there.

I'll not weep, because the summer's glory
Must always end in gloom;
And, follow out the happiest story
It closes with a tomb!

And I am weary of the anguish
Increasing winters bear;
Weary to watch the spirit languish
Through years of dead despair.

So, if a tear, when thou art dying,
Should haply fall from me,
It is but that my soul is sighing,
To go and rest with thee.

O let me love my love unto myself alone,
And know my knowledge to the world unknown;
No witness to my vision call,
Beholding, unbeheld of all;
And worship Thee, with Thee withdrawn apart,
Whoe’er, Whate’er Thou art,
Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart.

What is it then to me
If others are inquisitive to see?
Why should I quit my place to go and ask
If other men are working at their task?
Leave my own buried roots to go
And see that brother plants shall grow;
And turn away from Thee, O Thou most Holy Light,
To look if other orbs their orbits keep aright,
Around their proper sun,
Deserting Thee, and being undone.

O let me love my love unto myself alone,
And know my knowledge to the world unknown;
And worship Thee, O hid One...

Behold a pupil of the monkish gown,
The pious Alfred, King to Justice dear!
Lord of the harp and liberating spear;
Mirror of Princes! Indigent Renown
Might range the starry ether for a crown
Equal to 'his' deserts, who, like the year,
Pours forth his bounty, like the day doth cheer,
And awes like night with mercy-tempered frown.
Ease from this noble miser of his time
No moment steals; pain narrows not his cares.
Though small his kingdom as a spark or gem,
Of Alfred boasts remote Jerusalem,
And Christian India, through her widespread clime,
In sacred converse gifts with Alfred shares.

That haunting air had some far strain of it,
That morning rose hath flung it back to met
The wind of spring, the ancient, awful sea.
        Bid me remember it.

And looking back against the look of Love,
I feel the old shame start again and sting;
Such eyes are Love's they will not ask the thing,
        But I remember it!

So this one dream of heaven I dare not dream :
We two in your familiar ways and high.
While you and God forget, and even I
        Cannot remember it!

Why was it that the thunder voice of Fate
Should call thee, studious, from the classic groves,
Where calm-eyed Pallas with still footstep roves,
And charge thee seek the turmoil of the state?
What bade thee hear the voice and rise elate,
Leave home and kindred and thy spicy loaves,
To lead th' unlettered and despised droves
To manhood's home and thunder at the gate?

Far better the slow blaze of Learning's light,
The cool and quiet of her dearer fane,
Than this hot terror of a hopeless fight,
This cold endurance of the final pain,--
Since thou and those who with thee died for right
Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!

Summer gone,
Winter here;
Ways are white,
Skies are clear.
And the sun
A ruddy boy
All day sliding,
While at night
The stars appear
Like skaters gliding
On a mere.

EZEKIEL XXXVII.


The Spirit of God with resistless control,
Like a sunbeam, illumined the depths of my soul,
And visions prophetical burst on my sight,
As he carried me forth in the power of his might.
Around me I saw in a desolate heap
The relics of those who had slept their death-sleep,
In the midst of the valley, all reckless and bare,
Like the hope of my country, lie withering there,--

"Son of man! can these dry bones, long bleached in decay,
Ever feel in their flesh the warm beams of the day;
Can the spirit of life ever enter again
The perishing heaps that now whiten the plain?"
"Lord, thou knowest alone, who their being first gave:
Thy power may be felt in the depths of the grave;
The hand that created again may impart
The rich tide of f...

        "I will to the King,
        And offer him consolation in his trouble,
        For that man there has set his teeth to die,
        And being one that hates obedience,
        Discipline, and orderliness of life,
        I cannot mourn him."
                                W. B. Yeats.



    Patting goodbye, doubtless they told the lad
    He'd always show the Hun a brave man's face;
    Father would sooner him dead than in disgrace,--
    Was proud to see him going, aye, and glad.
    Perhaps his Mother whimpered how she'd fret
    Until he got a nice, safe wound to nurse.
    Sisters would wish girls too could shoot, charge, curse, . . .
    Brothers--would send his favourite cigarette,
    Each week, month after month, they wrote the same...

        As Cupid, with his band of sprites,
        In Paphian grove set things to rights,
        And trimmed his bow and tipped his arrows,
        And taught, to play with Lesbia, sparrows,
        Thus Hymen said: "Your blindness makes,
        O Cupid, wonderful mistakes!
        You send me such ill-coupled folks:
        It grieves me, now, to give them yokes.
        An old chap, with his troubles laden,
        You bind to a light-hearted maiden;
        Or join incongruous minds together,
        To squabble for a pin or feather
        Until they sue for a divorce;
        To which the wife assents - of course."

        "It is your fault, and none of mine,"
        Cupid replied. "I hearts combine:
        You trade in settlements and deeds,

When by Jabbok the patriarch waited
    To learn on the morrow his doom,
And his dubious spirit debated
    In darkness and silence and gloom,
    There descended a Being with whom
He wrestled in agony sore,
    With striving of heart and of brawn,
And not for an instant forbore
    Till the east gave a threat of the dawn;
And then, as the Awful One blessed him,
    To his lips and his spirit there came,
Compelled by the doubts that oppressed him,
The cry that through questioning ages
Has been wrung from the hinds and the sages,
    "Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!"

Most fatal, most futile, of questions!
    Wherever the heart of man beats,
    In the spirit's most sacred retreats,
It comes with its sombre suggestions,
    Unanswered for e...

Near The Outlet Of The Lake Of Thun

"Dem

Andenken

Meines Freundes

Aloys Reding

MDCCCXVIII."



Around a wild and woody hill
A gravelled pathway treading,
We reached a votive Stone that bears
The name of Aloys Reding.

Well judged the Friend who placed it there
For silence and protection;
And haply with a finer care
Of dutiful affection.

The Sun regards it from the West;
And, while in summer glory
He sets, his sinking yields a type
Of that pathetic story:

And oft he tempts the patriot Swiss
Amid the grove to linger;
Till all is dim, save this bright Stone
Touched by his golden finger.

The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
"If only you'd spoken before!
It's excessively awkward to mention it now,
With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!
"We should all of us grieve, as you well may believe,
If you never were met with again,
But surely, my man, when the voyage began,
You might have suggested it then?

"It's excessively awkward to mention it now,
As I think I've already remarked."
And the man they called "Hi!" replied, with a sigh,
"I informed you the day we embarked.

"You may charge me with murder, or want of sense,
(We are all of us weak at times):
But the slightest approach to a false pretence
Was never among my crimes!

"I said it in Hebrew, I said it in Dutch,
I said it in German and Greek:
But I wholl...

    Birch and green holly, boys,
        Birch and green holly.
    If you get beaten, boys,
        'Twill be your own folly.

Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense,
With ill-matched aims the Architect who planned
Albeit labouring for a scanty band
Of white robed Scholars only this immense
And glorious Work of fine intelligence!
Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely-calculated less or more;
So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense
These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering and wandering on as loth to die;
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.