Identity

It struck me every day
The lightning was as new
As if the cloud that instant slit
And let the fire through.

It burned me in the night,
It blistered in my dream;
It sickened fresh upon my sight
With every morning's beam.

I thought that storm was brief, --
The maddest, quickest by;
But Nature lost the date of this,
And left it in the sky.

Under the great hill sloping bare
To cove and meadow and Common lot,
In his council chamber and oaken chair,
Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott.
A grave, strong man, who knew no peer
In the pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear
Of God, not man, and for good or ill
Held his trust with an iron will.

He had shorn with his sword the cross from out
The flag, and cloven the May-pole down,
Harried the heathen round about,
And whipped the Quakers from town to town.
Earnest and honest, a man at need
To burn like a torch for his own harsh creed,
He kept with the flaming brand of his zeal
The gate of the holy common weal.

His brow was clouded, his eye was stern,
With a look of mingled sorrow and wrath;
"Woe's me!" he murmured: "at every turn
T...

CHORUS OF SPIRITS:

FIRST SPIRIT:
Palace-roof of cloudless nights!
Paradise of golden lights!
Deep, immeasurable, vast,
Which art now, and which wert then
Of the Present and the Past,
Of the eternal Where and When,
Presence-chamber, temple, home,
Ever-canopying dome,
Of acts and ages yet to come!

Glorious shapes have life in thee,
Earth, and all earth's company;
Living globes which ever throng
Thy deep chasms and wildernesses;
And green worlds that glide along;
And swift stars with flashing tresses;
And icy moons most cold and bright,
And mighty suns beyond the night,
Atoms of intensest light.

Even thy name is as a god,
Heaven! for thou art the abode
Of that Power which is the glass
Wherein man his nature see...

O tan-faced prairie-boy!
Before you came to camp, came many a welcome gift;
Praises and presents came, and nourishing food - till at last, among the recruits,
You came, taciturn, with nothing to give - we but look'd on each other,
When lo! more than all the gifts of the world, you gave me.

Ah! weary Priest! with pale hands pressed
On thy throbbing brow of pain,
Baffled in thy life-long quest,
Overworn with toiling vain,
How ill thy troubled musings fit
The holy quiet of a breast
With the Dove of Peace at rest,
Sweetly brooding over it.
Thoughts are thine which have no part
With the meek and pure of heart,
Undisturbed by outward things,
Resting in the heavenly shade,
By the overspreading wings
Of the Blessed Spirit made.
Thoughts of strife and hate and wrong
Sweep thy heated brain along,
Fading hopes for whose success
It were sin to breathe a prayer;
Schemes which Heaven may never bless,
Fears which darken to despair.
Hoary priest! thy dream is done
Of a hundred red tribes won
To the pale of Holy Church;
And the...

Fly me not, though I be gray,
Lady, this I know you'll say;
Better look the roses red,
When with white commingled.
Black your hairs are; mine are white;
This begets the more delight,
When things meet most opposite;
As in pictures we descry
Venus standing Vulcan by.

He faced his canvas (as a seer whose ken
Pierces the crust of this existence through)
And smiled beyond on that his genius knew
Ere mated with his being. Conscious then
Of his high theme alone, he smiled again
Straight back upon himself in many a hue
And tint, and light and shade, which slowly grew
Enfeatured of a fair girl's face, as when
First time she smiles for love's sake with no fear.
So wrought he, witless that behind him leant
A woman, with old features, dim and sear,
And glamoured eyes that felt the brimming tear,
And with a voice, like some sad instrument,
That sighing said, "I'm dead there; love me here!"

"What sound awakened me, I wonder,
For now ‘tis dumb."
"Wheels on the road most like, or thunder:
Lie down; ‘twas not the drum.:

"Toil at sea and two in haven
And trouble far:
Fly, crow, away, and follow, raven,
And all that croaks for war."

"Hark, I heard the bugle crying,
And where am I?
My friends are up and dressed and dying,
And I will dress and die."

"Oh love is rare and trouble plenty
And carrion cheap,
And daylight dear at four-and-twenty:
Lie down again and sleep."

"Reach me my belt and leave your prattle:
Your hour is gone;
But my day is the day of battle,
And that comes dawning on.

"They mow the field of man in season:
Farewell, my fair,
And, call it truth or call it treason,
Farewell ...

As, when a storm hath ceased, the birds regain
Their cheerfulness, and busily retrim
Their nests, or chant a gratulating hymn
To the blue ether and bespangled plain;
Even so, in many a re-constructed fane,
Have the survivors of this Storm renewed
Their holy rites with vocal gratitude:
And solemn ceremonials they ordain
To celebrate their great deliverance;
Most feelingly instructed 'mid their fear
That persecution, blind with rage extreme,
May not the less, through Heaven's mild countenance,
Even in her own despite, both feed and cheer;
For all things are less dreadful than they seem.

She thought by heaven's high wall that she did stray
    Till she beheld the everlasting gate:
    And she climbed up to it to long, and wait,
Feel with her hands (for it was night), and lay
Her lips to it with kisses; thus to pray
    That it might open to her desolate.
    And lo! it trembled, lo! her passionate
Crying prevailed. A little little way
It opened: there fell out a thread of light,
    And she saw wingèd wonders move within;
Also she heard sweet talking as they meant
To comfort her. They said, "Who comes to-night
    Shall one day certainly an entrance win;"
Then the gate closed and she awoke content.

            All night a slow soft rain,
A shadowy stranger from a cloudy land,
Sighing and sobbing, with unsteady hand
    Beat at the lattice, ceased, and beat again,
And fled like some wild startled thing pursued
By demons of the night and solitude,
    Returning ever--wistful--timid--fain--
            The intermittent rain.

            And still the sad hours crept
Within uncounted, the while hopes and fears
Swayed our full hearts, and overflowed in tears
    That fell in silence, as she waked or slept,
Still drawing nearer to that unknown shore
Whence foot of mortal cometh nevermore,
    And still the rain was as a pulse that kept
            Time as the slow hours crept.

            The plummet of the night
Sank through the hollow dark t...

I am no priest of crooks nor creeds,
For human wants and human needs
Are more to me than prophets' deeds;
And human tears and human cares
Affect me more than human prayers.

Go, cease your wail, lugubrious saint!
You fret high Heaven with your plaint.
Is this the "Christian's joy" you paint?
Is this the Christian's boasted bliss?
Avails your faith no more than this?

Take up your arms, come out with me,
Let Heav'n alone; humanity
Needs more and Heaven less from thee.
With pity for mankind look 'round;
Help them to rise--and Heaven is found.

I have no life but this,
To lead it here;
Nor any death, but lest
Dispelled from there;

Nor tie to earths to come,
Nor action new,
Except through this extent,
The realm of you.

Twice have I seen God's full reflected grace.
    Once when the wailing of a child at birth
    Proclaimed another soul had come to earth,
That look shone on, and through the mother's face.

And once when silence, absolute and vast,
    Followed the final indrawn mortal breath,
    Sudden upon the countenance of death
That supreme glory of God's grace was cast.

    I

    When the season was dry and the sun was hot
    And the hornet sucked gaunt on the apricot,
    And the ripe peach dropped to its seed a-rot,
        With a lean red wasp that stung and clung;
    When the hollyhocks, ranked in the garden-plot,
    More seed-pods had than blossoms, I wot,
        A weariness weighed on the tongue,
    That the drought of the season begot.


    II

    When the black grape bulged with the juice that burst
    Through its thick blue skin that was cracked with thirst,
    And the round gold pippins, the summer had nursed,
        In the yellowing leaves o' the orchards hung;
    When the reapers, their lips with whistling pursed,
    To their sun-tanned brows in the corn were immersed,
        A li...

Come to me, Love!    Come on the wings of the wind!
    Fly as the ring-dove would fly to his mate!
Leave all your cares and your sorrows behind!
    Leave all the fears of your future to Fate!
Come! and our skies shall be glad with the gold
    That paled into gray when you parted from me.
Come! but remember that, just as of old,
    You must be bound, Love, and I must be free.

Life has lost savour since you and I parted;
    I have been lonely, and you have been sad.
Youth is too brief to be sorrowful-hearted -
    Come! and again let us laugh and be glad.
Lips should not sigh that are fashioned to kiss -
    Breasts should not ache that joy's secrets have found.
Come! but remember, in spite of all this,
    I must be free, Love, while you must be bound.

    In this strange land, this uncouth clime,
    A land unknown to prose or rhyme;
    Where words ne'er crost the muse's heckles,
    Nor limpet in poetic shackles:
    A land that prose did never view it,
    Except when drunk he stacher't thro' it,
    Here, ambush'd by the chimla cheek,
    Hid in an atmosphere of reek,
    I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk,
    I hear it, for in vain I leuk.
    The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel,
    Enhusked by a fog infernal:
    Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,
    I sit and count my sins by chapters;
    For life and spunk like ither Christians,
    I'm dwindled down to mere existence,
    Wi' nae converse but Gallowa' bodies,
    Wi' nae kend face but Jenny Geddes.[1]
    Jenny, my Pegasea...

My Anna, summer laughs in mirth,
And we will of the party be,
And leave the crickets in the hearth
For green fields' merry minstrelsy.

I see thee now with little hand
Catch at each object passing bye,
The happiest thing in all the land
Except the bee and butterfly.

*    *    *    *    *

And limpid brook that leaps along,
Gilt with the summer's burnished gleam,
Will stop thy little tale or song
To gaze upon its crimping stream.

Thou'lt leave my hand with eager speed
The new discovered things to see--
The old pond with its water weed
And danger-daring willow tree,
Who leans an ancient invalid
Oer spots where deepest waters be.

In sudden shout and wild surprise
I hear thy simple wonderment,
As new things meet...