Inspirational

When through our bodies our two spirits burn
Escaping, and no more our true eyes turn
Outwards, and no more hands to fond hands yearn;

Then over those poor grassy heaps we'll meet
One morning, tasting still the morning's sweet,
Sensible still of light, dark, rain, cold, heat;

And see 'neath the green dust that dust of gray
Which was our useless bodies laid away,
Mocked still with menace of a Judgment Day.

We then that waiting dust at last will call,
Each to the other's,--"Rise up at last, O small
Ashes that first-love held loveliest of all!

"'Tis Judgment Day, arise!" And they will arise,
The dust will lift, and spine, ribs, neck, head, knees
At the sound remember their old unities,

And stand there, yours with mine, as once they stood<...

Gif a lassie spurn a laddie
Wi' her needless Nays,
Thraves will pet the hapless plaidie
Wi' their loving ways;
So if Kirsty blaw him cauldly
As a winter day,
Bess and Belle will bless him bauldly
Wi' the breath of May.

Prudery still affects the valley,
Shady and alane,
Meeting souls that loveward sally,
Icy as a stane.
On the mountain true Love singeth,
Liberty is there;
Dalliance wingeth, Pleasure springeth,
From her waving hair.

On the peaks abide the pleasures,
Young and sweet and free,
Yoked with Youth's immortal treasures,
Love and Liberty;
So, the hilltops seek while soaring,
Eaglet of Love's sky;
Light adorned and Light adoring,
Bask, and burn and die.

A man, in many a country town, we know,
Professes openly with death to wrestle;
Ent'ring the field against the grimly foe,
Arm'd with a mortar and a pestle.

Yet, some affirm, no enemies they are;
But meet just like prize-fighters, in a Fair,
Who first shake hands before they box,
Then give each other plaguy knocks,
With all the love and kindness of a brother:
So (many a suff'ring Patient saith)
Tho' the Apothecary fights with Death,
Still they're sworn friends to one another.

A member of this Æsculapian line,
Lived at Newcastle upon Tyne:
No man could better gild a pill:
Or make a bill;
Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister;
Or draw a tooth out of your head;
Or chatter scandal by your bed;
Or give a clyster.

Of occupation...

Gloriosa Colonna, in cui s' appoggia.

TO STEFANO COLONNA THE ELDER, INVITING HIM TO THE COUNTRY.


    Glorious Colonna! still the strength and stay
Of our best hopes, and the great Latin name
Whom power could never from the true right way
Seduce by flattery or by terror tame:
No palace, theatres, nor arches here,
But, in their stead, the fir, the beech, and pine
On the green sward, with the fair mountain near
Paced to and fro by poet friend of thine;
Thus unto heaven the soul from earth is caught;
While Philomel, who sweetly to the shade
The livelong night her desolate lot complains,
Fills the soft heart with many an amorous thought:
--Ah! why is so rare good imperfect made
While severed from us still my lord remains.

MACGREGOR.

The book of life to thee is given,
To warn of death, to guide to Heaven.
Wanderer on the wild astray,
Here wilt thou find the King's highway.
Has thy soul suffered, hunger, pain,
Trying to feed on husks in vain?
Here thou wilt find the palace fair,
Where there is bread enough to spare
Thou'lt find where living waters roll,
To satisfy the fainting soul.
Thou hast been thirsty, very sore,
Here come and drink and thirst no more,
Thou'lt find the pearl of greatest price
Hid in the Master's promises.
And so this book to thee is given
To warn of hell, to guide to Heaven.

GRACE HILL, 1842.

(December, 1899)



I - THE TRAGEDY

She sits in the tawny vapour
That the City lanes have uprolled,
Behind whose webby fold on fold
Like a waning taper
The street-lamp glimmers cold.

A messenger's knock cracks smartly,
Flashed news is in her hand
Of meaning it dazes to understand
Though shaped so shortly:
He - has fallen - in the far South Land . . .

II - THE IRONY

'Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker,
The postman nears and goes:
A letter is brought whose lines disclose
By the firelight flicker
His hand, whom the worm now knows:

Fresh - firm - penned in highest feather -
Page-full of his hoped return,
And of home-planned jaunts by brake and burn
In the summer weather,
And of new love ...

There came a whisper down the Bland between the dawn and dark,
Above the tossing of the pines, above the river's flow;
It stirred the boughs of giant gums and stalwart ironbark;
It drifted where the wild ducks played amid the swamps below;
It brought a breath of mountain air from off the hills of pine,
A scent of eucalyptus trees in honey-laden bloom;
And drifting, drifting far away along the southern line
It caught from leaf and grass and fern a subtle strange perfume.

It reached the toiling city folk, but few there were that heard,
The rattle of their busy life had choked the whisper down;
And some but caught a fresh-blown breeze with scent of pine that stirred
A thought of blue hills far away beyond the smoky town;
And others heard the whisper pass, but could not underst...

These summer landscapes clump, and copse, and croft -
Woodland and meadowland here hung aloft,
Gay with limp grass and leafery new and soft,

Seem caught from the immediate season's yield
I saw last noonday shining over the field,
By rapid snatch, while still are uncongealed

The saps that in their live originals climb;
Yester's quick greenage here set forth in mime
Just as it stands, now, at our breathing-time.

But these young foils so fresh upon each tree,
Soft verdures spread in sprouting novelty,
Are not this summer's, though they feign to be.

Last year their May to Michaelmas term was run,
Last autumn browned and buried every one,
And no more know they sight of any sun.

More discontents I never had
Since I was born, than here;
Where I have been, and still am, sad,
In this dull Devonshire.
Yet justly too I must confess,
I ne'er invented such
Ennobled numbers for the press,
Than where I loath'd so much.

Se sol sei ore.


If Christ was only six hours crucified
        After few years of toil and misery,
        Which for mankind He suffered willingly,
        While heaven was won for ever when He died;
Why should He still be shown on every side,
        Painted and preached, in nought but agony,
        Whose pains were light matched with His victory,
        When the world's power to harm Him was defied?
Why rather speak and write not of the realm
        He rules in heaven, and soon will bring below
        Unto the praise and glory of His name?
Ah foolish crowd! This world's thick vapours whelm
        Your eyes unworthy of that glorious show,
        Blind to His splendour, bent upon His shame.

                    In Flanders fields the poppies grow
                    Between the crosses, row on row
                    That mark our place:    and in the sky
                    The larks still bravely singing, fly
                    Scarce heard amid the guns below.

                    We are the Dead.    Short days ago
                    We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
                    Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
                    In Flanders fields.

                    Take up our quarrel with the foe:
                    To you from failing hands we throw
                    The Torch:    be yours to hold it high!
                    If ye break faith with us who die
                    We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

Those hewers of the clouds, the Winds, that lair
At the four compass-points, are out to-night;
I hear their sandals trample on the height,
I hear their voices trumpet through the air:
Builders of storm, God's workmen, now they bear,
Up the steep stair of sky, on backs of might,
Huge tempest bulks, while, sweat that blinds their sight
The rain is shaken from tumultuous hair:
Now, sweepers of the firmament, they broom,
Like gathered dust, the rolling mists along
Heaven's floors of sapphire; all the beautiful blue
Of skyey corridor and celestial room
Preparing, with large laughter and loud song,
For the white moon and stars to wander through.

Wail! wail! and smite your lyres' sonorous gold,
And beckon naked beauty from the sea
In arms and breasts and hips of godly mold,
Dark, strangling hair carousing to the knee.

In vain! in vain! and dull in unclosed ears
To one loved voice sweet calling o'er the foam,
Which in my heart like some strong hand appears
To gently, firmly draw my vessel home.

    A tremor, a quiver,
        Through her ran
    As over the river
        The dawn began.
    She drew her veil
        Over her eyes,
    And her face grew pale,
        As she watched the sun rise.
    She faded, turned
        To a ghost, was gone,
    As the morning burned
        And the day came on.
    With veiled, sad eye,
        And face still wan,
    She waited nigh
        When the dusk began.
    With her tears of bliss
        The earth was wet,
    And soothed with her kiss,
        When the sun had set.
    And with stately pride
        She sat on the throne
    Of her empire wide
        When the day had gone;
    And her robes she spread
        With their sable hem,
    And crowned her ...

Ther' ain't no use in all this strife,
An' hurryin', pell-mell, right thro' life.
I don't believe in goin' too fast
To see what kind o' road you 've passed.
It ain't no mortal kind o' good,
'N' I would n't hurry ef I could.
I like to jest go joggin' 'long,
To limber up my soul with song;
To stop awhile 'n' chat the men,
'N' drink some cider now an' then.
Do' want no boss a-standin' by
To see me work; I allus try
To do my dooty right straight up,
An' earn what fills my plate an' cup.
An' ez fur boss, I 'll be my own,
I like to jest be let alone;
To plough my strip an' tend my bees,
An' do jest like I doggoned please.
My head's all right, an' my heart's meller,
But I 'm a easy-goin' feller.

In one whole world is but one Phoenix found,
A Phoenix thou, this Phoenix then alone:
By thy rare plume thy kind is easly knowne,
With heauenly colours dide, with natures wonder cround.
Heape thine own vertues, seasoned by their sunne,
On heauenly top of thy diuine desire;
Then with thy beautie set the same on fire,
So by thy death thy life shall be begunne.
Thy selfe, thus burned in this sacred flame,
With thine owne sweetnes al the heauens perfuming,
And stil increasing as thou art consuming,
Shalt spring againe from th' ashes of thy fame;
    And mounting vp shall to the heauens ascend:
    So maist thou liue, past world, past fame, past end.

Sing on, tha bonny burd, sing on, sing on;
Aw connot sing;
A claad hings ovver me, do what aw con
Fresh troubles spring.
Aw wish aw could, like thee, fly far away,
Aw'd leeav mi cares an be a burd to-day.

Mi heart wor once as full o' joy as thine,
But nah it's sad;
Aw thowt all th' happiness i'th' world wor mine,
Sich faith aw had; -
But he who promised aw should be his wife
Has robb'd me o' mi ivvery joy i' life.

Sing on! tha cannot cheer me wi' thi song;
Yet, when aw hear
Thi warblin' voice, 'at rings soa sweet an strong,
Aw feel a tear
Roll daan mi cheek, 'at gives mi heart relief,
A gleam o' comfort, but it's varry brief.

This little darlin, cuddled to mi breast,
It little knows,
When snoozlin' soa quietly at rest,