Inspirational

Should these songs, love, as they fleet,

Chance again to reach thy hand,
At the piano take thy seat,

Where thy friend was wont to stand!

Sweep with finger bold the string,

Then the book one moment see:
But read not! do nought but sing!

And each page thine own will be!

Ah, what grief the song imparts

With its letters, black on white,
That, when breath'd by thee, our hearts

Now can break and now delight!

    ["We have not, alack! an ally to befriend us,
    And the season is ripe to extirpate and end us.
    Let the German touch hands with the Gaul,
    And the fortress of England must fall.

        *        *        *        *        *

    Louder and louder the noise of defiance
    Rings rage from the grave of a trustless alliance,
    And bids us beware, and be warn'd,
    As abhorr'd of all nations and scorn'd."

    A Word for the Nation, by A. C. Swinburne.


I.

    Nay, good Sir Poet, read thy rhymes again,
    And curb the tumults that are born in thee,
    That now thy hand, relentful, may refrain
    To deal the blow that Abel had of Cain.


II.

    Are we not Britons born, when all is said,

For you, I could forget the gay
Delirium of merriment,
And let my laughter die away
In endless silence of content.
    I could forget, for your dear sake,
    The utter emptiness and ache
    Of every loss I ever knew. -
    What could I not forget for you?

I could forget the just deserts
Of mine own sins, and so erase
The tear that burns, the smile that hurts,
And all that mars or masks my face.
    For your fair sake I could forget
    The bonds of life that chafe and fret,
    Nor care if death were false or true. -
    What could I not forget for you?

What could I not forget? Ah me!
One thing, I know, would still abide
Forever in my memory,
Though all of love were lost beside -
    I yet would feel how first the wine
  ...

What time I left my native land,
And bade farewell to my true love,
She laid a flower in my hand
As azure as the sky above.
"Speed thee well! Speed well!"
She softly whispered, "Speed well!
This flower blue
Be token true
Of my true heart's true love for you!"

Its tender hue is bright and pure,
As heav'n through summer clouds doth show,
A pledge though clouds thy way obscure,
It shall not be for ever so.
"Speed thee well! Speed well!"
She softly whisper'd, "Speed well!
This flower blue
Be token true
Of my true heart's true love for you!"

And as I toil through help and harm,
And whilst on alien shores I dwell,
I wear this flower as a charm,
My heart repeats that tender spell:
"Speed thee well! Speed well!"
It softly...

Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,
Therefore for thee the following chants.

Evil sped the battle play
On the Pope Calixtus' day;
Mighty war-smiths, thanes and lords,
In Senlac slept the sleep of swords.
Harold Earl, shot over shield,
Lay along the autumn weald;
Slaughter such was never none
Since the Ethelings England won.
    Thither Lady Githa came,
Weeping sore for grief and shame;
How may she her first-born tell?
Frenchmen stript him where he fell,
Gashed and marred his comely face;
Who can know him in his place?
    Up and spake two brethren wise,
'Youngest hearts have keenest eyes;
Bird which leaves its mother's nest,
Moults its pinions, moults its crest.
Let us call the Swan-neck here,
She that was his leman dear;
She shall know him in this stound;
Foot of wolf, and scent of hound,
Eye of hawk, and...

Down in the valley come meet me to-night,
    And I'll tell you your fortune truly
As ever 'twas told, by the new-moon's light,
    To a young maiden, shining as newly.

But, for the world, let no one be nigh,
    Lest haply the stars should deceive me;
Such secrets between you and me and the sky
    Should never go farther, believe me.

If at that hour the heavens be not dim,
    My science shall call up before you
A male apparition,--the image of him
    Whose destiny 'tis to adore you.

And if to that phantom you'll be kind,
    So fondly around you he'll hover,
You'll hardly, my dear, any difference find
    'Twixt him and a true living lover.

Down at your feet, in the pale moonlight,
    He'll kneel, with a warmth of devotion--

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night,
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

Sweep and sweep and sweep the floor,
    Sweep the dust, pick up the pin;
Make it clean from fire to door,
    Clean for father to come in!

Mother said that God goes sweeping,
    Looking, sweeping with a broom,
All the time that we are sleeping,
    For a shilling in the room:

Did he drop it out of glory,
    Walking far above the birds?
Or did parson make the story
    For the thinking afterwards?

If I were the swept-for shilling
    I would hearken through the gloom;
Roll out fast, and fall down willing
    Right before the sweeping broom!

Love that is dead and buried, yesterday
Out of his grave rose up before my face,
No recognition in his look, no trace
Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and grey.
While I, remembering, found no word to say,
But felt my quickened heart leap in its place;
Caught afterglow thrown back from long set days,
Caught echoes of all music passed away.
Was this indeed to meet? - I mind me yet
In youth we met when hope and love were quick,
We parted with hope dead, but love alive:
I mind me how we parted then heart sick,
Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive: -
Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.

    But he by bawling news about,
    And aptly using brush and clout,
    A justice of the peace became,
    To punish rogues who do the same.

I sing the man of courage tried,
O'errun with ignorance and pride,
Who boldly hunted out disgrace
With canker'd mind, and hideous face;
The first who made (let none deny it)
The libel-vending rogues be quiet.
    The fact was glorious, we must own,
For Hartley was before unknown,
Contemn'd I mean; - for who would chuse
So vile a subject for the Muse?
    'Twas once the noblest of his wishes
To fill his paunch with scraps from dishes,
For which he'd parch before the grate,
Or wind the jack's slow-rising weight,
(Such toils as best his talents fit,)
Or polish shoes, or turn the spit;
But, unexpe...

        (To a Modern Politician.)


        I grant these facts: corruption sways,
        Self-interest does pervert man's ways;
        That bribes do blind; that present crimes
        Do equal those of former times:
        Can I against plain facts engage
        To vindicate the present age?
        I know that bribes in modern palm
        Can nobler energies encalm;
        That where such argument exists
        There itching is in modern fists.
        And hence you hold that politicians
        Should drive their nails on such conditions,
        So they might penetrate sans bending,
        And win your way past comprehending.

        Premising no reflection's meant,
        Unto such doctrine I dissent.
        T...

    Is there no prophylactic against love?
        Can I with drugs not dull the ache one night?
    The rain is heavy and the low clouds move
        Over the empty home of our delight
    And find me in it weeping.    You are far
        And you are now asleep.    The night's so thick,
    Not even one stooping and compassionate star
        Shines on us both disparted.    O be quick,
    Torturing days and heavy, turn your hours
        To minutes, melt yourselves into one day!
    ... The cold rain falls in swift assailing showers,
        Darkness is round me and light far away.
    I'm in our well-known room and you're shut in
    By strange unfriendly walls I've never seen.

I can see the back-log blazing and the sparkles take their flight
Up the cavernous old chimney on a merry Christmas night;
I can see the old folks smiling and the children's cheeks aglow,
And a saucy maiden standing there beneath the mistletoe;
I can hear the laughter mingle with the strains of music sweet
As we tripped the light fantastic with the "many-twinkling feet;"
I can see the moonlight gleaming through the trees upon the snow,
When memory takes me back again to scenes I used to know.

I can see the candles burning bright upon the Christmas tree;
I can see the presents handed round, and hear the shouts of glee,
And from the buried years there comes a-stealing on the heart
A something indefinable which bids the tear-drop start;
I can see the blue smoke curling, throug...

"Come, if thy magic Glass have power
    "To call up forms we sigh to see;
"Show me my, love, in that, rosy bower,
    "Where last she pledged her truth to me."

The Wizard showed him his Lady bright,
    Where lone and pale in her bower she lay;
"True-hearted maid," said the happy Knight,
    "She's thinking of one, who is far away."

But, lo! a page, with looks of joy,
    Brings tidings to the Lady's ear;
"'Tis," said the Knight, "the same bright boy,
    "Who used to guide me to my dear."
The Lady now, from her favorite tree,
    Hath, smiling, plucked a rosy flower:
"Such," he exclaimed, "was the gift that she
    "Each morning sent me from that bower!"

She gives her page the blooming rose,
    With looks that say, "Like lightning, fl...

Why Aesop gave the palm of cunning,
O'er flying animals and running,
To Renard Fox, I cannot tell,
Though I have search'd the subject well.
Hath not Sir Wolf an equal skill
In tricks and artifices shown,
When he would do some life an ill,
Or from his foes defend his own?
I think he hath; and, void of disrespect,
I might, perhaps, my master contradict:
Yet here's a case, in which the burrow-lodger
Was palpably, I own, the brightest dodger.
One night he spied within a well,
Wherein the fullest moonlight fell,
What seem'd to him an ample cheese.
Two balanced buckets took their turns
When drawers thence would fill their urns.
Our fox went down in one of these,
By hunger greatly press'd to sup,
And drew the other empty up.
Convinced at once of h...

The sun has set, and the long grass now
Waves dreamily in the evening wind;
And the wild bird has flown from that old gray stone
In some warm nook a couch to find.

In all the lonely landscape round
I see no light and hear no sound,
Except the wind that far away
Come sighing o'er the healthy sea.

I marked her ruined hues,
Her custom-straitened views,
And asked, "Can there indwell
My Amabel?"

I looked upon her gown,
Once rose, now earthen brown;
The change was like the knell
Of Amabel.

Her step's mechanic ways
Had lost the life of May's;
Her laugh, once sweet in swell,
Spoilt Amabel.

I mused: "Who sings the strain
I sang ere warmth did wane?
Who thinks its numbers spell
His Amabel?" -

Knowing that, though Love cease,
Love's race shows undecrease;
All find in dorp or dell
An Amabel.

- I felt that I could creep
To some housetop, and weep,
That Time the tyrant fell
Ruled Amabel!

I said (the while I sighed
That love like ours had died),
"Fond things I'll no more tell
...