Inspirational

I.

What be those crown’d forms high over the sacred fountain?
Bards, that the mighty Muses have raised to the heights of the mountain,
And over the flight of the Ages! O Goddesses, help me up thither!
Lightning may shrivel the laurel of Cæsar, but mine would not wither.
Steep is the mountain, but you, you will help me to overcome it,
And stand with my head in the zenith, and roll my voice from the summit,
Sounding for ever and ever thro’ Earth and her listening nations,
And mixt with the great sphere-music of stars and of constellations.


II.

What be those two shapes high over the sacred fountain,
Taller than all the Muses, and huger than all the mountain?
On those two known peaks they stand ever spreading and heightening;
Poet, that evergreen laurel i...

WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 1693


Strange to conceive, how the same objects strike
At distant hours the mind with forms so like!
Whether in time, Deduction's broken chain
Meets, and salutes her sister link again;
Or haunted Fancy, by a circling flight,
Comes back with joy to its own seat at night;
Or whether dead Imagination's ghost
Oft hovers where alive it haunted most;
Or if Thought's rolling globe, her circle run,
Turns up old objects to the soul her sun;
Or loves the Muse to walk with conscious pride
O'er the glad scene whence first she rose a bride:
    Be what it will; late near yon whispering stream,
Where her own Temple was her darling theme;
There first the visionary sound was heard,
When to poetic view the Muse appear'd.
Such seem'd her eye...

Here is a world of changing glow,
Where moods roll swiftly far and wide;
Waves sadder than a funeral's pride,
Or bluer than the harebell's blow!

The sunlight makes the black hulls cast
A firefly radiance down the deep;
The inlet gleams, the long clouds sweep,
The sails flit up, the sails drop past.

The far sea-line is hushed and still;
The nearer sea has life and voice;
Each soul may take his fondest choice, -
The silence, or the restless thrill.

O little children of the deep, -
The single sails, the bright, full sails,
Gold in the sun, dark when it fails,
Now you are smiling, then you weep!

O blue of heaven, and bluer sea,
And green of wave, and gold of sky,
And white of sand that stretches by,
Toward east and west, away...

She is not fair, as some are fair,
Cold as the snow, as sunshine gay:
On her clear brow, come grief what may,
She suffers not too stern an air;
But, grave in silence, sweet in speech,
Loves neither mockery nor disdain;
Gentle to all, to all doth teach
The charm of deeming nothing vain.

She join'd me: and we wander'd on;
And I rejoiced, I cared not why,
Deeming it immortality
To walk with such a soul alone.
Primroses pale grew all around,
Violets, and moss, and ivy wild;
Yet, drinking sweetness from the ground,
I was but conscious that she smiled.

The wind blew all her shining hair
From her sweet brows; and she, the while,
Put back her lovely head, to smile
On my enchanted spirit there.
Jonquils and pansies round her head
Gl...

    Write on Life's tablet all things tender, great and good,
    Uncaring that full oft thou art misunderstood.
    Interpretation true is foreign to the throng
    That runs and reads; heed not its praise or blame. Be strong!
    Write on with steady hand, and, smiling, say, "'Tis well!"
    If when thy deeds spell Heaven
    The rabble read out Hell.

View of the Lake of Geneva from the Jura.[1]--Anxious to reach it before the Sun went down.--Obliged to proceed on Foot.--Alps.--Mont Blanc.--Effect of the Scene.


'Twas late--the sun had almost shone
His last and best when I ran on
Anxious to reach that splendid view
Before the daybeams quite withdrew
And feeling as all feel on first
    Approaching scenes where, they are told,
Such glories on their eyes will burst
    As youthful bards in dreams behold.

'Twas distant yet and as I ran
    Full often was my wistful gaze
Turned to the sun who now began
    To call in all his out-posts rays,
And form a denser march of light,
Such as beseems a hero's flight.
Oh, how I wisht for JOSHUA'S power,
To stay the brightness of that hour...

In the long run fame finds the deserving man.
    The lucky wight may prosper for a day,
But in good time true merit leads the van
    And vain pretence, unnoticed, goes its way.
There is no Chance, no Destiny, no Fate,
But Fortune smiles on those who work and wait,
    In the long run.

In the long run all godly sorrow pays,
    There is no better thing than righteous pain,
The sleepless nights, the awful thorn-crowned days,
    Bring sure reward to tortured soul and brain.
Unmeaning joys enervate in the end,
But sorrow yields a glorious dividend
    In the long run.

In the long run all hidden things are known,
    The eye of truth will penetrate the night,
And good or ill, thy secret shall be known,
    However well 'tis guarded from the ligh...

Suggested By Hearing Her Voice During Services At Church.

At night, in visions, when my soul drew near
    The shadowy confines of the spirit land,
Wild, wondrous notes of song have met my ear,
    Wrung from their harps by many a seraph's hand;
And forms of light, too, more divinely fair
    Than Mercy's messenger to hearts that mourn,
On wings that made sweet music in the air,
    Have round me, in those hours of bliss, been borne,
And, filled with joy unutterable, I
Have deemed myself a born child of the sky.

And often, too, at sunset's magic hour,
    When musing by some solitary stream,
While thought awoke in its resistless pow'r,
    And restless Fancy wove her brightest dream:
Mysterious tongues, that were not of the earth,
    Have whispere...

Talk not of sad November, when a day
Of warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of noon,
And a wind, borrowed from some morn of June,
Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless spray.

On the unfrosted pool the pillared pines
Lay their long shafts of shadow: the small rill,
Singing a pleasant song of summer still,
A line of silver, down the hill-slope shines.

Hushed the bird-voices and the hum of bees,
In the thin grass the crickets pipe no more;
But still the squirrel hoards his winter store,
And drops his nut-shells from the shag-bark trees.

Softly the dark green hemlocks whisper: high
Above, the spires of yellowing larches show,
Where the woodpecker and home-loving crow
And jay and nut-hatch winter’s threat defy.

O gracious beauty, ever new a...

I

In youth I have known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held, as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light such for his spirit was fit,
And yet that spirit knew, not in the hour
Of its own fervor, what had o’er it power.


II

Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a ferver by the moonbeam that hangs o’er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ever told, or is it of a thought
The unembodied essence, and no more
That with a quickening spell doth o’er us pass
As dew of the night-time, o’er the summer grass?


III
<...

Coldly, sadly descends
The autumn-evening. The field
Strewn with its dank yellow drifts
Of wither'd leaves, and the elms,
Fade into dimness apace,
Silent; hardly a shout
From a few boys late at their play!
The lights come out in the street,
In the school-room windows; but cold,
Solemn, unlighted, austere,
Through the gathering darkness, arise
The chapel-walls, in whose bound
Thou, my father! art laid.

There thou dost lie, in the gloom
Of the autumn evening. But ah!
That word, gloom, to my mind
Brings thee back, in the light
Of thy radiant vigour, again;
In the gloom of November we pass'd
Days not dark at thy side;
Seasons impair'd not the ray
Of thy buoyant cheerfulness clear.
Such thou wast! and I stand
In the autumn e...

One day Ambition, in his endless round,
All filled with vague and nameless longings, found
Slow wasting Genius, who from spot to spot
Went idly grazing, through the Realms of Thought.

Ambition cried, 'Come, wander forth with me;
I like thy face -but cannot stay with thee.'
'I will,' said Genius, 'for I needs must own
I'm getting dull by being much alone.'

'Your hands are cold -come, warm them at my fire,'
Ambition said.    'Now, what is thy desire?'
Quoth Genius, ''Neath the sod of yonder heather
Lie gems untold.    Let's plough them out together.'

They bent like strong young oxen to the plough,
This done, Ambition questioned, 'Whither now?
We'll leave these gems for all the world to see!
New sports and pleasures wait for thee and me.'

...

1.
So now my summer-task is ended, Mary,
And I return to thee, mine own heart's home;
As to his Queen some victor Knight of Faery,
Earning bright spoils for her enchanted dome;
Nor thou disdain, that ere my fame become
A star among the stars of mortal night,
If it indeed may cleave its natal gloom,
Its doubtful promise thus I would unite
With thy beloved name, thou Child of love and light.

2.
The toil which stole from thee so many an hour,
Is ended, - and the fruit is at thy feet!
No longer where the woods to frame a bower
With interlaced branches mix and meet,
Or where with sound like many voices sweet,
Waterfalls leap among wild islands green,
Which framed for my lone boat a lone retreat
Of moss-grown trees and weeds, shall I be seen;
Bu...

My Flower Room is such a little place,
Scarce twenty feet by nine; yet in that space
I have met God; yea, many a radiant hour
Have talked with Him, the All-Embracing-Cause,
About His laws.
And He has shown me, in each vine and flower
Such miracles of power
That day by day this Flower Room of mine
Has come to be a shrine.

Fed by the self-same soil and atmosphere
Pale, tender shoots appear
Rising to greet the light in that sweet room.
One speeds to crimson bloom;
One slowly creeps to unassuming grace;
One climbs, one trails;
One drinks the light and moisture;
One exhales.

Up through the earth together, stem by stem
Two plants push swiftly in a floral race;
Till one sends forth a blossom like a gem;
And one gives only fragrance

From an ode "In Commemoration of the Founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony."

The morn that breaks its heart of gold
Above the purple hills;
The eve, that spills
Its nautilus splendor where the sea is rolled;
The night, that leads the vast procession in
Of stars and dreams, -
The beauty that shall never die or pass: -
The winds, that spin
Of rain the misty mantles of the grass,
And thunder raiment of the mountain-streams;
The sunbeams, penciling with gold the dusk
Green cowls of ancient woods;
The shadows, thridding, veiled with musk,
The moon-pathed solitudes,
Call to my Fancy, saying, "Follow! follow!"
Till, following, I see, -
Fair as a cascade in a rainbowed hollow, -
A dream, a shape, take form,
Clad on with every charm, -

They march ahead, those brilliant Eyes in you
A master Angel doubtless magnetized;
They march, those holy twins, my brothers too,
Raising a gem-like flame within my eyes.

From all the snares and deadly sins they save
Me, and they lead my steps in Beauty's way;
They are my servants, yet I am their slave;
This living torch makes all my heart obey.

Fair eyes, you glimmer with the secret rays
Of tapers lit at noon; in growing red
The sun does not put out their mystic blaze;

You sing Awakening, they praise the Dead;
You march and wake with song this soul of mine,
Stars of a flame the sun can not outshine!

Through the world which the Spirit creative and kind
First formed out of chaos, I fly like the wind,
    Until on the strand
    Of its billows I land,
My anchor cast forth where the breeze blows no more,
And Creation's last boundary stands on the shore.
I saw infant stars into being arise,
For thousands of years to roll on through the skies;
    I saw them in play
    Seek their goal far away,
For a moment my fugitive gaze wandered on,
I looked round me, and lo! all those bright stars had flown!

Madly yearning to reach the dark kingdom of night.
I boldly steer on with the speed of the light;
    All misty and drear
    The dim heavens appear,
While embryo systems and seas at their source
Are whirling around the sun-wanderer's course.

Whe...

The hand that fashioned me, tuned my ear
    To chord with the major key,
In the darkest moments of life I hear
Strains of courage, and hope, and cheer
    From choirs that I cannot see.
And the music of life seems so inspired
That it will not let me grow sad or tired.

Yet through and under the major strain,
    I hear with the passing of years,
The mournful minor measure of pain,
Of souls that struggle and toil in vain
    For a goal that never nears.
And the sorrowful cadence of good gone wrong,
Breaks more and more into earth's glad song.

And oft in the dark of the night I wake
    And think of sorrowing lives,
And I long to comfort the hearts that ache,
To sweeten the cup that is bitter to take,
    And to strengthen each soul that st...