Inspirational

Where the willow weepeth
    By a fountain lone, -
Where the ivy creepeth
    O'er a mossy stone, -
With pale flowers above her,
    In a quiet dell.
Far from those who love her,
    Slumbers Minniebel.

There thy bed I made thee,
    By that fountain side,
And in anguish laid thee
    Down to rest, my bride!
Tenderest and fairest,
    Who thy worth may tell!
Flower of beauty rarest,
    Saintly Minniebel!

Weary years have borrowed
    From my eye its light,
Time my cheek has furrowed,
    And these locks are white;
But my heart will ever
    Mid its memories dwell,
Fondly thine forever,
    Angel Minniebel!

I saw thee on thy bridal day
When a burning blush came o'er thee,
Though happiness around thee lay,
The world all love before thee:

And in thine eye a kindling light
(Whatever it might be)
Was all on Earth my aching sight
Of Loveliness could see.

That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame
As such it well may pass
Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame
In the breast of him, alas!

Who saw thee on that bridal day,
When that deep blush would come o'er thee,
Though happiness around thee lay,
The world all love before thee.

O Holy Father! just and true
Are all Thy works and words and ways,
And unto Thee alone are due
Thanksgiving and eternal praise!
As children of Thy gracious care,
We veil the eye, we bend the knee,
With broken words of praise and prayer,
Father and God, we come to Thee.
For Thou hast heard, O God of Right,
The sighing of the island slave;
And stretched for him the arm of might,
Not shortened that it could not save.
The laborer sits beneath his vine,
The shackled soul and hand are free;
Thanksgiving! for the work is Thine!
Praise! for the blessing is of Thee!
And oh, we feel Thy presence here,
Thy awful arm in judgment bare!
Thine eye hath seen the bondman's tear;
Thine ear hath heard the bondman's prayer.
Praise! for the pride of man is low,...

The Briarwood.

The fateful slumber floats and flows
About the tangle of the rose;
But lo! the fated hand and heart
To rend the slumberous curse apart!

The Council Room.

The threat of war, the hope of peace,
The Kingdom's peril and increase
Sleep on, and bide the latter day,
When fate shall take her chain away.

The Garden Court.

The maiden pleasance of the land
Knoweth no stir of voice or hand,
No cup the sleeping waters fill,
The restless shuttle lieth still.

The Rosebower.

Here lies the hoarded love, the key
To all the treasure that shall be;
Come fated hand the gift to take,
And smite this sleeping world awake.

Play their offensive and defensive parts,
Till they be hid o'er with a wood of darts.

Hear what God the Lord hath spoken,
“O my people, faint and few,
Comfortless, afflicted, broken,
Fair abodes I build for you;
Thorns of heart-felt tribulation
Shall no more perplex your ways:
You shall name your walls, Salvation,
And your gates shall all be praise.


“There, like streams that feed the garden,
Pleasures without end shall flow;
For the Lord, your faith rewarding,
All his bounty shall bestow;
Still in undisturb’d possession
Peace and righteousness shall reign;
Never shall you feel oppression,
Hear the voice of war again.


“Ye no more your suns descending,
Waning moons no more shall see;
But, your griefs for ever ending,
Find eternal noon in me;
God shall rise, and shining o’er you,
Change to day the g...

("Elle est toute petite.")

[Bk. XXVI.]


She is so little - in her hands a rose:
A stern duenna watches where she goes,
What sees Old Spain's Infanta - the clear shine
Of waters shadowed by the birch and pine.
What lies before? A swan with silver wing,
The wave that murmurs to the branch's swing,
Or the deep garden flowering below?
Fair as an angel frozen into snow,
The royal child looks on, and hardly seems to know.

As in a depth of glory far away,
Down in the green park, a lofty palace lay,
There, drank the deer from many a crystal pond,
And the starred peacock gemmed the shade beyond.
Around that child all nature shone more bright;
Her innocence was as an added light.
Rubies and diamonds strewed the grass she trode,
An...

I'll write no more of love, but now repent
Of all those times that I in it have spent.
I'll write no more of life, but wish 'twas ended,
And that my dust was to the earth commended.

Upon the eyes, the lips, the feet,
On all the passages of sense,
The atoning oil is spread with sweet
Renewal of lost innocence.

The feet, that lately ran so fast
To meet desire, are soothly sealed;
The eyes, that were so often cast
On vanity, are touched and healed.

From troublous sights and sounds set free;
In such a twilight hour of breath,
Shall one retrace his life, or see,
Through shadows, the true face of death?

Vials of mercy! Sacring oils!
I know not where nor when I come,
Nor through what wanderings and toils,
To crave of you Viaticum.

Yet, when the walls of flesh grow weak,
In such an hour, it well may be,
Through mist and darkness, light will break,
And each anointed sense will see.

Dentro un pugno di cervel.


A handful of brain holds me: I consume
        So much that all the books the world contains,
        Cannot allay my furious famine-pains:--
        What feasts were mine! Yet hunger is my doom.
With one world Aristarchus fed my greed;
        This finished, others Metrodorus gave;
        Yet, stirred by restless yearning, still I crave:
        The more I know, the more to learn I need.
Thus I'm an image of that Sire in whom
        All beings are, like fishes in the sea;
        That one true object of the loving mind.
Reasoning may reach Him, like a shaft shot home;
        The Church may guide; but only blest is he
        Who loses self in God, God's self to find.

'Twas a pretty little maiden
    In a garden gray and old,
Where the apple trees were laden
    With the magic fruit of gold;
But she strayed beyond the portal
    Of the garden of the Sun,
And she flirted with a mortal,
    Which she oughtn't to have done!
For a giant was her father and a goddess was her mother,
She was Merope or Sterope, the one or else the other;
And the man was not the equal, though presentable and rich,
Of Merope or Sterope, I don't remember which!

    Now the giant's daughters seven,
        She among them, if you please,
    Were translated to the heaven
        As the starry Pleiades!
    But amid their constellation
        One alone was always dark,
    For she shrank from observation
        Or censorious remark...

The wind that met her in the park,
Came hurrying to my side
It ran to me, it leapt to me,
And nowhere would abide.

It whispered in my ear a word,
So sweet a word, I swear,
It smelt of honey and the kiss
It'd stolen from her hair.

Then shouted me the flowery way
Whereon she walked with dreams,
And bade me wait and watch her pass
Among the glooms and gleams.

It ran to meet her as she came
And clasped her to its breast;
It kissed her throat, her chin, her mouth,
And laughed its merriest.

Then to my side it leapt again,
And took me by surprise:
The kiss it'd stolen from her lips
It blew into my eyes.

Since then, it seems, I have grown blind
To every face but hers:
It haunts me sleeping or awake,
And ...

    A Poet once the Spartans led to fight,
    And made them conquer in the muse's right;
    So would our poet lead you on this day,
    Showing your tortured fathers in his play.
    To one well born the affront is worse, and more,
    When he's abused and baffled by a boor:
    With an ill grace the Dutch their mischiefs do,
    They've both ill nature and ill manners too.
    Well may they boast themselves an ancient nation,
    For they were bred ere manners were in fashion,
    And their new commonwealth has set them free,
    Only from honour and civility.
    Venetians do not more uncouthly ride,
    Than did their lubber state mankind bestride;
    Their sway became them with as ill a mien,
    As their own paunches swell above their chin:
    Yet is ...

Scarco d' un' importuna.


Freed from a burden sore and grievous band,
        Dear Lord, and from this wearying world untied,
        Like a frail bark I turn me to Thy side,
        As from a fierce storm to a tranquil land.
Thy thorns, Thy nails, and either bleeding hand,
        With Thy mild gentle piteous face, provide
        Promise of help and mercies multiplied,
        And hope that yet my soul secure may stand.
Let not Thy holy eyes be just to see
        My evil past, Thy chastened ears to hear
        And stretch the arm of judgment to my crime:
Let Thy blood only lave and succour me,
        Yielding more perfect pardon, better cheer,
        As older still I grow with lengthening time.

The scent of dittany was hot.
Its smell intensified the heat:
Into his brain it seemed to beat
With memories of a day forgot,
When she walked with him through the wheat,
And noon was heavy with the heat.

Again her eyes gazed into his
With all their maiden tenderness;
Again the fragrance of her dress
Swooned on his senses; and, with bliss,
Again he felt her heart's caress
Full of a timid tenderness.

What of that spray she plucked and gave?
The spray of this wild dittany,
Whose scent brought back to memory
A something lost, beyond the grave.
He knew now what it meant, ah me!
That spray of withered dittany.

How many things he had forgot!
Far, lovely things Life flings away!
And where was she now? Who could say?
The ditta...

    It was long and long ago our love began;
    It is something all unmeasured by time's span:
In an era and a spot, by the Modern World forgot,
    We were lovers, ere God named us, Maid and Man.

    Like the memory of music made by streams,
    All the beauty of that other love life seems;
But I always thought it so, and at last I know, I know,
    We were lovers in the Land of Silver Dreams.

    When the moon was at the full, I found the place;
    Out and out, across the seas of shining space,
On a quest that could not fail, I unfurled my memory's sail
    And cast anchor in the Bay of Love's First Grace.

    At the foot of Aristarchus lies this bay,
    (Oh! the wonder of that mountain far away!)
And the Land of Silver Dreams all about it shines ...

(After seeing the reel called "Oil and Water".)



    Beauty has a throne-room
    In our humorous town,
    Spoiling its hob-goblins,
    Laughing shadows down.
    Rank musicians torture
    Ragtime ballads vile,
    But we walk serenely
    Down the odorous aisle.
    We forgive the squalor
    And the boom and squeal
    For the Great Queen flashes
    From the moving reel.

    Just a prim blonde stranger
    In her early day,
    Hiding brilliant weapons,
    Too averse to play,
    Then she burst upon us
    Dancing through the night.
    Oh, her maiden radiance,
    Veils and roses white.
    With new powers, yet cautious,
    Not too smart or skilled,
    That first flash of dancing
    Wrou...

    Cities drowned in olden time
    Keep, they say, a magic chime
    Rolling up from far below
    When the moon-led waters flow.

    So within me, ocean deep,
    Lies a sunken world asleep.
    Lest its bells forget to ring,
    Memory! set the tide a-swing!