Inspirational

    I.

    Back shining from the pane, the fire
    Seems outside in the snow:
    So love set free from love's desire
    Lights grief of long ago.

    The dark is thinned with snow-sheen fine,
    The earth bedecked with moon;
    Out on the worlds we surely shine
    More radiant than in June!

    In the white garden lies a heap
    As brown as deep-dug mould:
    A hundred partridges that keep
    Each other from the cold.

    My father gives them sheaves of corn,
    For shelter both and food:
    High hope in me was early born,
    My father was so good.


    II.

    The frost weaves ferns and sultry palms
    Across my clouded pane;
    Weaves melodies of ancient psalms
    All through my...

Of home, name and wealth and ambition bereft,
We are children of fortune and luck:
They deny there’s a shred of our characters left,
But they cannot deny us the pluck!
We are vagabond scamps, we are kings over all,
There is little on earth we desire,
We are devils who stand with our backs to the wall,
And who call on the cowards to fire!

There are some of us here who were noble and good,
And who learnt in ingratitude’s schools,
They were born of the selfish and misunderstood,
They were soft, they were ‘smoodgers’ or fools.
With their hands in their pockets to help every friend
In a fix, and they never asked how:
Beware of them you who have money to lend,
For it’s little you’d get from them now.

There are some of us here who were lovers of old,

1.
A pale Dream came to a Lady fair,
And said, A boon, a boon, I pray!
I know the secrets of the air,
And things are lost in the glare of day,
Which I can make the sleeping see,
If they will put their trust in me.

2.
And thou shalt know of things unknown,
If thou wilt let me rest between
The veiny lids, whose fringe is thrown
Over thine eyes so dark and sheen:
And half in hope, and half in fright,
The Lady closed her eyes so bright.

3.
At first all deadly shapes were driven
Tumultuously across her sleep,
And o'er the vast cope of bending heaven
All ghastly-visaged clouds did sweep;
And the Lady ever looked to spy
If the golden sun shone forth on high.

4.
And as towards the east she turned,
She saw aloft in t...

An Ant who in a brook would drink
Fell off the bank. He tried
To swim, and felt his courage sink -
This ocean seemed so wide.
But for a dove who flew above
He would have drowned and died.

The friendly Dove within her beak
A bridge of grass-stem bore:
On this the Ant, though worn and weak.
Contrived to reach the shore
Said he: "The tact of this kind act
I'll cherish evermore."

Behold! A barefoot wretch went by
With slingshot in his hand.
Said he: "You'll make a pigeon pie
That will be kind of grand."
He meant to murder the gentle bird -
Who did not understand.

The Ant then stung him on the heel
(So quick to see the sling).
He turned his head, and missed a meal:
The pigeon pie took wing.
And so the Dove lived on to...

Let's strive to be the best; the gods, we know it,
Pillars and men, hate an indifferent poet.

THE MOTHER'S GHOST

Svend Dyring he rideth adown the glade;
    I myself was young!
There he hath wooed him so winsome a maid;
    Fair words gladden so many a heart.

Together were they for seven years,
And together children six were theirs.

Then came Death abroad through the land,
And blighted the beautiful lily-wand.

Svend Dyring he rideth adown the glade,
And again hath he wooed him another maid,

He hath wooed him a maid and brought home a bride,
But she was bitter and full of pride.

When she came driving into the yard,
There stood the six children weeping so hard.

There stood the small children with sorrowful heart;
From before her feet she thrust them apart.

She gave to them neither ale nor bread;
"...

The search for beauty is the search for God
Who is All Beauty.    He who seeks shall find.
And all along the paths my feet have trod,
I have sought hungrily with heart and mind,
    And open eyes for beauty, everywhere.
    Lo! I have found the world is very fair.
The search for beauty is the search for God.

Beauty was first revealed to me by stars,
    Before I saw it in my mother's eyes,
Or, seeing, sensed it beauty, I was stirred
To awe and wonder by those orbs of light
    All palpitant against empurpled skies.
They spoke a language to my childish heart
Of mystery and splendour, and of space,
Friendly with gracious, unseen presences.
Beauty was first revealed to me by stars.

Sunsets enlarged the meaning of the word.
    There was a window ...

Since thou and I have proven many a time
That all our hope betrays us and deceives,
To that consummate good which never grieves
Uplift thy heart, towards a happier clime.
This life is like a field of flowering thyme,
Amidst the herbs and grass the serpent lives;
If aught unto the sight brief pleasure gives,
'T is but to snare the soul with treacherous lime.
So, wouldst thou keep thy spirit free from cloud,
A tranquil habit to thy latest day,
Follow the few, and not the vulgar crowd.
Yet mayest thou urge, "Brother, the very way
Thou showest us, wherefrom thy footsteps proud
(And never more than now) so oft did stray."

Such fruitless questions may not long beguile
Or plague the fancy 'mid the sculptured shows
Conspicuous yet where Oroonoko flows;
'There' would the Indian answer with a smile
Aimed at the White Man's ignorance, the while,
Of the great waters telling how they rose,
Covered the plains, and, wandering where they chose,
Mounted through every intricate defile,
Triumphant, Inundation wide and deep,
O'er which his Fathers urged, to ridge and steep
Else unapproachable, their buoyant way;
And carved, on mural cliff's undreaded side,
Sun, moon, and stars, and beast of chase or prey;
Whate'er they sought, shunned, loved, or deified!

By night when others soundly slept
And hath at once both ease and Rest,
My waking eyes were open kept
And so to lie I found it best.

I sought him whom my Soul did Love,
With tears I sought him earnestly.
He bow'd his ear down from Above.
In vain I did not seek or cry.

My hungry Soul he fill'd with Good;
He in his Bottle put my tears,
My smarting wounds washt in his blood,
And banisht thence my Doubts and fears.

What to my Saviour shall I give
Who freely hath done this for me?
I'll serve him here whilst I shall live
And Loue him to Eternity

When the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,
And the empty realms of darkness and death
Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,
And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame
From the void abyss by myriads came,
In the joy of youth as they darted away,
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rang,
And this was the song the bright ones sang:

"Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,
The fair blue fields that before us lie,
Each sun with the worlds that round him roll,
Each planet, poised on her turning pole;
With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.

"For the source of glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erfl...

With wisdom far beyond her years,
And graver than her wondering peers,
So strong, so mild, combining still
The tender heart and queenly will,
To conscience and to duty true,
So, up from childhood, Mary Grew!

Then in her gracious womanhood
She gave her days to doing good.
She dared the scornful laugh of men,
The hounding mob, the slanderer's pen.
She did the work she found to do,
A Christian heroine, Mary Grew!

The freed slave thanks her; blessing comes
To her from women's weary homes;
The wronged and erring find in her
Their censor mild and comforter.
The world were safe if but a few
Could grow in grace as Mary Grew!

So, New Year's Eve, I sit and say,
By this low wood-fire, ashen gray;
Just wishing, as the night shuts down...

Too oft we hide our Frailties' Blame
Beneath some simple-sounding Name!
So Folks, who in gilt Coaches ride,
Will call Display but Proper Pride;
So Spendthrifts, who their Acres lose,
Curse not their Folly but the Jews;
So Madam, when her Roses faint,
Resorts to ... anything but Paint.

An honest Uncle, who had plied
His Trade of Mercer in Cheapside,
Until his Name on 'Change was found
Good for some Thirty Thousand Pound,
Was burdened with an Heir inclined
To thoughts of quite a different Kind.
His Nephew dreamed of Naught but Verse
From Morn to Night, and, what was worse,
He quitted all at length to follow
That "sneaking, whey-faced God, APOLLO."
In plainer Words, he ran up Bills
At Child's, at Batson's and at Will's;
Discussed the Cla...

In thin clear light unshadowed shapes go by
Small on green fields beneath the hueless sky.
They do not stay for question, do not hear
Any old human speech: their tongue and ear
Seem only thought, for when I spoke they stirred not
And their bright minds conversing my ear heard not.
--Until I slept or, musing, on a heap
Of warm crisp fern lay between sense and sleep
Drowsy, still clinging to a strand of thought
Spider-like frail and all unconscious wrought.
For thinking of that unforgettable thing,
The war, that spreads a loud and shaggy wing
On things most peaceful, simple, happy and bright,
Until the spirit is blind though the eye is light;
Thinking of all that evil, envy, hate,
The cruelty most dark, most desolate;
Thinking of the English dead--"How can you d...

"Child of my love, why wearest thou
That pensive look and thoughtful brow?
Can'st gaze abroad on this world so fair
And yet thy glance be fraught with care?
Roses still bloom in glowing dyes,
Sunshine still fills our summer skies,
Earth is still lovely, nature glad -
Why dost thou look so lone and sad?"

"Ah! mother it once sufficed thy child
To cherish a bird or flow'ret wild;
To see the moonbeams the waters kiss,
Was enough to fill her heart with bliss;
Or o'er the bright woodland stream to bow,
But these things may not suffice her now."

"Perhaps 'tis music thou seekest, child?
Then list the notes of the song birds wild,
The gentle voice of the mountain breeze,
Whispering among the dark pine trees,
The surge sublime of the sounding main,...

Brother of all, with generous hand,
Of thee, pondering on thee, as o'er thy tomb, I and my Soul,
A thought to launch in memory of thee,
A burial verse for thee.

What may we chant, O thou within this tomb?
What tablets, pictures, hang for thee, O millionaire?
--The life thou lived'st we know not,
But that thou walk'dst thy years in barter, 'mid the haunts of brokers;
Nor heroism thine, nor war, nor glory.

Yet lingering, yearning, joining soul with thine,
If not thy past we chant, we chant the future,
Select, adorn the future.


Lo, Soul, the graves of heroes!
The pride of lands--the gratitudes of men,
The statues of the manifold famous dead, Old World and New,
The kings, inventors, generals, poets, (stretch wide thy vision, Soul,)
The exce...

The day and its delights are done;
So all delights and days expire:
Down in the dim, sad West the sun
Is dying like a dying fire.

The fiercest lances of his light
Are spent; I watch him droop and die
Like a great king who falls in fight;
None dared the duel of his eye

Living, but, now his eye is dim,
The eyes of all may stare at him.

How lovely in his strength at morn
He orbed along the burning blue!
The blown gold of his flying hair
Was tangled in green-tressèd trees,
And netted in the river sand
In gleaming links of amber clear;
But all his shining locks are shorn,
His brow of its bright crown is bare,
The golden sceptre leaves his hand,
And deeper, darker, grows the hue
Of the dim purple draperies
And cloudy banner...

By the waters of a river, where the rocks like giants stand,
There a stranger, young and favored, built a home with his own hand.

Hewed the logs and reared the roof-tree, where for years alone he dwelt,
Wanderer from the sunny Southland, and from pangs his heart had felt.

Legend says high-born and wealthy, seeking there in Nature's wilds
To forget a maiden fickle, basking in a rival's smiles.

Where the music of the wild birds, echoed from the cliffs around,
Blended with the voice of waters, flowing past with silvery sound;

Where in Springtime wild flowers blooming shed their incense day and night,
And the rugged cliff-sides wearing robes of dogwood, snowy white;

Where in Summer old trees spreading overhead a leafy roof
Flung their shadows, deep and coolin...