Identity

Would I could talk as the flowers talk
To my soul! and the stars, in their ceaseless walk
Through Heaven! and tell to the high and low
The things that they say, so all might know
The dreams they dream, and have told to me!
As Nature sees would I could see!
Then might I speak with authority!
I stand below and look above,
And see her busy with life and love,
And can tell the world so little thereof.
Oh, for a soul that could feel much less!
Or, feeling more, could so express
The things it feels and their tenderness:
The very essence, the soul of art,
And all the heavens and hells of heart!
Then might I rise to the very peak,
The summit of song, which poets seek,
And speak with a voice as the masters speak.

Deep in the jungle vast and dim,
That knew not a white man's feet,
I smelt the odour of sun-warmed fur,
Musky, savage, and sweet.

Far it was from the huts of men
And the grass where Sambur feed;
I threw a stone at a Kadapu tree
That bled as a man might bleed.

Scent of fur and colour of blood: -
And the long dead instincts rose,
I followed the lure of my season's mate, -
And flew, bare-fanged, at my foes.

*        *        *

Pale days: and a league of laws
Made by the whims of men.
Would I were back with my furry cubs
In the dusk of a jungle den.

[1]

A wolf, whose gettings from the flocks
Began to be but few,
Bethought himself to play the fox
In character quite new.
A shepherd's hat and coat he took,
A cudgel for a crook,
Nor e'en the pipe forgot:
And more to seem what he was not,
Himself upon his hat he wrote,
'I'm Willie, shepherd of these sheep.'
His person thus complete,
His crook in upraised feet,
The impostor Willie stole upon the keep.
The real Willie, on the grass asleep,
Slept there, indeed, profoundly,
His dog and pipe slept, also soundly;
His drowsy sheep around lay.
As for the greatest number,
Much bless'd the hypocrite their slumber,
And hoped to drive away the flock,
Could he the shepherd's voice but mock.
He thought undoubtedly he could.

The number of the vanish'd years
    That mark each famous Grecian reign,
This night, my Telephus, appears
    Thy solemn pleasure to explain;

Or else assiduously to dwell,
    In conscious eloquence elate,
On those who conquer'd, those who fell
    At sacred Troy's devoted gate.

But at what price the cask, so rare,
    Of luscious chian may be ours,
Who shall the tepid baths prepare,
    And who shall strew the blooming flowers;

Beneath what roof we next salute,
    And when shall smile these gloomy skies,
Thy wondrous eloquence is mute,
    Nor here may graver topics rise. -

Fill a bright bumper, - to the Moon!
    She's new! - auspicious be her birth!
One to the Midnight! - 't is our noon
    Of jocund thought, and fes...

Test of the poet is knowledge of love,
For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove;
Never was poet, of late or of yore,
Who was not tremulous with love-lore.

I had the strangest dream last night:
I dreamed the poppies, red and white,
That over-run the flower-bed,
Changed to wee women, white and red,
Who, jeweled with the twinkling wet,
Joined hands and danced a minuet.

And there, beside the garden walk,
I thought a red-rose stood at talk
With a black cricket; and I heard
The cricket say, "You are the bird,
Red-crested, who comes every day
To sing his lyric roundelay."

The rose replied, "Nay! you must know
That bird and I loved long-ago:
I am a princess, he a prince:
And we were parted ever since
The world of science made us don
The new disguises we have on."

And then the rose put off disguise
And stood revealed before my eyes,
A faery princess; and, in black,
His tiny fidd...

So Eden was deserted, and at eve
Into the quiet place God came to grieve.
His face was sad, His hands hung slackly down
Along his robe; too sorrowful to frown
He paced along the grassy paths and through
The silent trees, and where the flowers grew
Tended by Adam. All the birds had gone
Out to the world, and singing was not one
To cheer the lonely God out of His grief,
The silence broken only when a leaf
Tapt lightly on a leaf, or when the wind,
Slow-handed, swayed the bushes to its mind.

And so along the base of a round hill,
Rolling in fern, He bent His way until
He neared the little hut which Adam made,
And saw its dusky rooftree overlaid
With greenest leaves. Here Adam and his spouse
Were wont to nestle in their little house
Snug at the dew-...

A hush is over all the teeming lists,
And there is pause, a breath-space in the strife;
A spirit brave has passed beyond the mists
And vapors that obscure the sun of life.
And Ethiopia, with bosom torn,
Laments the passing of her noblest born.

She weeps for him a mother's burning tears--
She loved him with a mother's deepest love.
He was her champion thro' direful years,
And held her weal all other ends above.
When Bondage held her bleeding in the dust,
He raised her up and whispered, "Hope and Trust."

For her his voice, a fearless clarion, rung
That broke in warning on the ears of men;
For her the strong bow of his power he strung,
And sent his arrows to the very den
Where grim Oppression held his bloody place
And gloated o'er the mis'ries of...

Who said, 'Peacock Pie?'
    The old King to the sparrow:
Who said, 'Crops are ripe?'
    Rust to the harrow:
Who said, 'Where sleeps she now?'
    Where rests she now her head,
Bathed in eve's loveliness'? - -
    That's what I said.

Who said, 'Ay, mum's the word'?
    Sexton to willow:
Who said, 'Green duck for dreams,
    Moss for a pillow'?

Who said, 'All Time's delight
    Hath she for narrow bed;
Life's troubled bubble broken'? - -
    That's what I said.

The smiling face of a happy boy
    With its enchanted key
    Is now unlocking in memory
My store of heartiest joy.

And my lost life again to-day,
    In pleasant colors all aglow,
    From rainbow tints, to pure white snow,
Is a panorama sliding away.

The whistled air of a simple tune
    Eddies and whirls my thoughts around,
    As fairy balloons of thistle-down
Sail through the air of June.

O happy boy with untaught grace!
    What is there in the world to give
    That can buy one hour of the life you live
Or the trivial cause of your smiling face!

I.

I'm just in my glory when the cat I can tease,
Or I'm hunting for bird nests up in the trees,
And I wear out my pants in the seat and the knees;
I'm the pride of my daddy, my mammy's own joy--
A frolicsome, rollicksome, freckle-faced boy!


II.

I can make a top hum, and at marbles, you bet,
I'm the cock of the walk and the king of the "set;"
I'm hearty and healthy--and don't you forget
The dead loads of "goodies" that I can destroy--
I'm a frolicsome, rollicksome, freckle-faced boy!


III.

They send me to school with my satchel and books,
And my pockets bulged out with nails and fish-hooks;
And sometimes while there my teacher she looks
And captures the things that provoke and annoy
From a frolicsome, rollicksome, ...

All to herself a woman never sings
A happy song. Oh no! but it is so
As when the thrush has closed down his wings
Within the wood, and hears his hidden woe
From his own bill fill aisles of leaves, and go
About the wood and come to him again.

Deep in my heart that aches with the repression,
And strives with plenitude of bitter pain,
There lives a thought that clamors for expression,
And spends its undelivered force in vain.

What boots it that some other may have thought it?
The right of thoughts' expression is divine;
The price of pain I pay for it has bought it,
I care not who lays claim to it--'t is mine!

And yet not mine until it be delivered;
The manner of its birth shall prove the test.
Alas, alas, my rock of pride is shivered--
I beat my brow--the thought still unexpressed.

Sweetheart, where all the dancing joys compete
Take now your choice; the world is at your feet,
All turned into a gay and shining pleasance,
And every face has smiles to greet your presence.
    Treading on air,
    Yourself you look more fair;
And the dear Birthday-elves unseen conspire
To flush your cheeks and set your eyes on fire.

Mayhap they whisper what a birthday means
That sets you spinning through your pretty teens.
A slim-grown shape adorned with golden shimmers
Of tossing hair that streams and waves and glimmers,
    Lo, how you run
    In mere excess of fun,
Or change to silence as you stand and hear
Some kind old tale that moves you to a tear.

And, since this is your own bright day, my dear,
Of all the days that gem the sparkling ...

Once musing o'er an old effaced stone,
Longing to know whose dust it did conceal,
I anxious ponder'd o'er what might reveal,
And sought the seeming date with weeds o'ergrown;
But that prov'd fruitless--both the date and name
Had been for ages in oblivion thrown.
The dim remains of sculptur'd ornament
Gave proof sufficient 'twas reward for fame:
This did my searching view so much torment,
That Time I question'd to expose the same;
But soon a check--"And what is it to thee
Whose dust lies here?--since thou wilt quickly be
Forgot like him:--then Time shall bid thee go
To heaven's pure bliss, or hell's tormenting woe."

I had a passion when I was a child
For a most pleasant idleness. In June,
When the thick masses of the leaves were stirr'd
With a just audible murmur, and the streams
Fainted in their cool places to a low
Unnotic'd tinkle, and the reapers hung
Their sickles in the trees and went to sleep,
Then might you find me in an antique chair
Cushion'd with cunning luxury, which stood
In the old study corner, by a nook
Crowded with volumes of the old romance;
And there, the long and quiet summer day,
Lay I with half clos'd eyelids, turning o'er
Leaf after leaf, until the twilight blurr'd
Their singular and time-stain'd characters.
'Twas a forgetful lore, and it is blent
With dreams that in my fitful slumber came,
And is remember'd faintly. But to-day
With the st...

Around me broods the dim, mysterious Night,
    Star-lit and still.
No whisper comes across the Plain,
Asleep beneath the breezes light,
Which scarcely stir the growing grain.
Slow chimes the quiet midnight hour
In some unseen and distant tower,
While round me broods the vague, mysterious Night,
    Star-lit, and cool, and still.

And I must desecrate this silent time
    Of drowsy dreams!
On mighty wings towards the sky,
Towards the stars, I have to climb
And o'er the sleeping country fly,
And such far-echoing clamour make
That all the villages must wake.
So must I desecrate this quiet time
    Of soft and drowsy dreams!

The hour comes ... soon must I say farewell
    To this fair earth.
Then to my little room I go
Where I ...

Heroic deeds in every age
Command the world's esteem;
Each finds a place in history's page,
'Midst gloom a glory beam.

And we full oft revert to this,
To show man's true descent
From Him who is the source of bliss,
Tho' now by passions rent.

But we need not consult the past;
The present bears this fruit:
The hero race will ever last;
The tree is sound at root.

And never has the world excelled
The present in this line;
Our loving Lord has not withheld
From us this trait divine.

And we should not from them withhold
The praise we feel is due
For deeds of love, and actions bold,
For spirit kind and true.

Their worth we now should recognize,
Not chant it o'er their graves;
The hero of the past we prize,