Identity

The leaf is faded, and decayed the flower,
The birds have ceased to sing in wayside bower,
The babbling brook is silenced by the cold,
And hill and vale the frost and snow enfold.
The life we see seems hasting to the tomb
Nor sun, nor star, relieves the dismal gloom;
The good man suffers with the base and vile,
And honesty and truth give place to guile.


Things are not always as they seem to be;
The outer surface only man may see.
The summer sleeps beneath the quilt of snow,
Behind the clouds is hid the solar glow,
The babbling brook will burst its icy bands,
And birds will sing, and trees will clap their hands.
The fallen leaf has left a bud behind,
And flowers will bloom of brightest hue and kind;
For when we look beneath the outward crust
Wi...

Se 'l sasso ond' è più chiusa questa valle.

COULD HE BUT SEE THE HOUSE OF LAURA, HIS SIGHS MIGHT REACH HER MORE QUICKLY.


    If, which our valley bars, this wall of stone,
From which its present name we closely trace,
Were by disdainful nature rased, and thrown
Its back to Babel and to Rome its face;
Then had my sighs a better pathway known
To where their hope is yet in life and grace:
They now go singly, yet my voice all own;
And, where I send, not one but finds its place.
There too, as I perceive, such welcome sweet
They ever find, that none returns again,
But still delightedly with her remain.
My grief is from the eyes, each morn to meet--
Not the fair scenes my soul so long'd to see--
Toil for my weary limbs and tears for me.

Gather him to his grave again,
And solemnly and softly lay,
Beneath the verdure of the plain,
The warrior's scattered bones away.
Pay the deep reverence, taught of old,
The homage of man's heart to death;
Nor dare to trifle with the mould
Once hallowed by the Almighty's breath.

The soul hath quickened every part,
That remnant of a martial brow,
Those ribs that held the mighty heart,
That strong arm, strong no longer now.
Spare them, each mouldering relic spare,
Of God's own image; let them rest,
Till not a trace shall speak of where
The awful likeness was impressed.

For he was fresher from the hand
That formed of earth the human face,
And to the elements did stand
In nearer kindred, than our race.
In many a flood to madness toss...

Oh, but life went gayly, gayly,
In the house of Idiedaily!

There were always throats to sing
Down the river-banks with spring,

When the stir of heart's desire
Set the sapling's heart on fire.

Bobolincolns in the meadows,
Leisure in the purple shadows,

Till the poppies without number
Bowed their heads in crimson slumber,

And the twilight came to cover
Every unreluctant lover.

Not a night but some brown maiden
Bettered all the dusk she strayed in,

While the roses in her hair
Bankrupted oblivion there.

Oh, but life went gayly, gayly,
In the house of Idiedaily!

But this hostelry, The Barrow,
With its chambers, bare and narrow,

Mean, ill-windowed, damp, and wormy,
Where the silence...

MARION! why that pensive brow?
What disgust to life hast thou?
Change that discontented air;
Frowns become not one so fair.
'Tis not Love disturbs thy rest,
Love's a stranger to thy breast:
He, in dimpling smiles, appears,
Or mourns in sweetly timid tears;
Or bends the languid eyelid down,
But shuns the cold forbidding 'frown'.
Then resume thy former fire,
Some will love, and all admire!
While that icy aspect chills us,
Nought but cool Indiff'rence thrills us.
Would'st thou wand'ring hearts beguile,
Smile, at least, or seem to smile;
Eyes like thine were never meant
To hide their orbs in dark restraint;
Spite of all thou fain wouldst say,
Still in truant beams they play.
Thy lips - but here my modest Muse
Her impulse chaste must needs ...

What means this gathering multitude,
    Upon thy shores, O, Galilee,
As various as the billows rude
    That sweep thy ever restless sea?
        Can but the mandate of a King
        So varied an assemblage bring?

Behold the noble, rich, and great,
    From Levite, Pharisee and Priest,
Down to the lowest dregs of fate,
    From mightiest even to the least;
        Yes, in this motley throng we find
        The palsied, sick, mute, halt, and blind.

Is this some grand affair of state,
    A coronation, or display,
By some vainglorious potentate,--
    Or can this concourse mark the day
        Of some victorious hero's march
        Homeward, through triumphal arch?

Or, have they come to celebrate
    Some sacred sacerdotal rit...

A Response to "Courage," by Celia Thaxter.


You have said that there is not a fear
Or a doubt that oppresses your soul,
    That your faith is so strong
    That it bears you along,
Ever holding you in its control.

'Tis a comfort to know there is one
Whose allegiance cannot be denied,
    But I fain would enquire,
    (For your faith is far high'r
Than is mine): Have you ever been tried?

Have you sought to aspire to a life
Higher far than the one that is past?
    Have you laboured through years,
    By your hopes crushing fears,
But to meet disappointment at last?

Have the friends who should love you the best,
In your absence forgotten that love,
    And refused to impart
    To your grief-stricken heart

Say thou not sadly, "never," and "no more,"
    But from thy lips banish those falsest words;
While life remains that which was thine before
Again may be thine; in Time's storehouse lie
    Days, hours, and moments, that have unknown hoards
Of joy, as well as sorrow: passing by,
Smiles, come with tears; therefore with hopeful eye
Look thou on dear things, though they turn away,
For thou and they, perchance, some future day
Shall meet again, and the gone bliss return;
For its departure then make thou no mourn,
But with stout heart bid what thou lov'st farewell;
That which the past hath given the future gives as well.

Crushed with a burden of woe,
Wrecked in the tempest of sin:
Death came, and two lips murmured low,
"Ah! once I was white as the snow,
In the happy and pure long ago;
But they say God is sweet -- is it so?
Will He let a poor wayward one in --
In where the innocent are?
Ah! justice stands guard at the gate;
Does it mock at a poor sinner's fate?
Alas! I have fallen so far!
Oh, God! Oh, my God! 'tis too late!
I have fallen as falls a lost star:

"The sky does not miss the gone gleam,
But my heart, like the lost star, can dream
Of the sky it has fall'n from. Nay!
I have wandered too far -- far away.
Oh! would that my mother were here;
Is God like a mother? Has He
Any love for a sinner like me?"

Her face wore the wildness of woe --

Tune - "*On a bank of flowers.*"

I.

    On a bank of flowers, in a summer day,
        For summer lightly drest,
    The youthful blooming Nelly lay,
        With love and sleep opprest;
    When Willie wand'ring thro' the wood,
        Who for her favour oft had sued,
    He gaz'd, he wish'd, he fear'd, he blush'd,
        And trembled where he stood.

II.

    Her closed eyes like weapons sheath'd,
        Were seal'd in soft repose;
    Her lips still as she fragrant breath'd,
        It richer dy'd the rose.
    The springing lilies sweetly prest,
        Wild. wanton, kiss'd her rival breast;
    He gaz'd, he wish'd, he fear'd, he blush'd,
        His bosom ill at rest.

III.

    Her robes light waving in the breeze
        Her tender limbs embrace;
    Her lovely form, her native ease,
        All harmony and grace:
    Tumultuou...

Though you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time's bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.

When conquering love did first my heart assail,
Unto mine aid I summoned every sense,
Doubting if that proud tyrant should prevail,
My heart should suffer for mine eyes' offence.
    But he with beauty first corrupted sight,
My hearing bribed with her tongue's harmony,
My taste by her sweet lips drawn with delight,
My smelling won with her breath's spicery,
    But when my touching came to play his part,
The king of senses, greater than the rest,
He yields love up the keys unto my heart,
And tells the others how they should be blest.
    And thus by those of whom I hoped for aid,
    To cruel love my soul was first betrayed.

Change is the order of the universe.
Worlds wax and wane; suns die and stars are born.
Two atoms of cosmic dust unite, cohere
And lo the building of a world begun.
On all things high or low, or great or small
Earth, ocean, mountain, mammoth, midge and man,
On mind and matter lo perpetual change
God's fiat stamped! The very bones of man
Change as he grows from infancy to age.
His loves, his hates, his tastes, his fancies, change.
His blood and brawn demand a change of food;
His mind as well: the sweetest harp of heaven
Were hateful if it played the selfsame tune
Forever, and the fairest flower that gems
The garden, if it bloomed throughout the year,
Would blush unsought. The most delicious fruits
Pall on our palate if we taste too oft,
And Hyblan honey tur...

I cannot tell the story of Dorothy Q. more simply in prose than I have told it in verse, but I can add something to it. Dorothy was the daughter of Judge Edmund Quincy, and the niece of Josiah Quincy, junior, the young patriot and orator who died just before the American Revolution, of which he was one of the most eloquent and effective promoters. The son of the latter, Josiah Quincy, the first mayor of Boston bearing that name, lived to a great age, one of the most useful and honored citizens of his time. The canvas of the painting was so much decayed that it had to be replaced by a new one, in doing which the rapier thrust was of course filled up.

Grandmother's mother: her age, I guess,
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air;
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair;
Lips that...

I Picked a rustic nosegay lately,
And bore it homewards, musing greatly;
When, heated by my hand, I found
The heads all drooping tow'rd the ground.
I plac'd them in a well-cool'd glass,
And what a wonder came to pass
The heads soon raised themselves once more.
The stalks were blooming as before,
And all were in as good a case
As when they left their native place.


*    *    *    *

So felt I, when I wond'ring heard
My song to foreign tongues transferr'd.

O nightingale that on yon blooming spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,
Thou with fresh hopes the Lover’s heart dost fill,
While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill,
Portend success in love. O if Jove’s will
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate
Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh;
As thou from year to year hast sung too late
For my relief, yet had’st no reason why.
Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

From other men he stands apart,
    Wrapped in sublimity of thought
    Where futile fancies enter not;
    With starlike purpose pressing on
    Where Agassiz and Audubon
Labored, and sped that noble art
    Yet in its pristine dawn.

Something to conquer, to achieve,
    Makes life well worth the struggle hard;
    Its petty ills to disregard,
    In high endeavor day by day
    With this incentive - that he may
Somehow mankind the richer leave
    When he has passed away.

Forest and field he treads alone,
    Finding companionship in birds,
    In reptiles, rodents, yea, in herds
    Of drowsy cattle fat and sleek;
    For these to him a language speak
To common multitudes unknown
    As tones of classic Greek.

Unth...

Homeward we turn. Isle of Columba's Cell,
Where Christian piety's soul-cheering spark
(Kindled from Heaven between the light and dark
Of time) shone like the morning-star, farewell!
And fare thee well, to Fancy visible,
Remote St. Kilda, lone and loved sea-mark
For many a voyage made in her swift bark,
When with more hues than in the rainbow dwell
Thou a mysterious intercourse dost hold,
Extracting from clear skies and air serene,
And out of sun-bright waves, a lucid veil,
That thickens, spreads, and, mingling fold with fold,
Makes known, when thou no longer canst be seen,
Thy whereabout, to warn the approaching sail.