Inspirational

Lulled by the sound of pastoral bells,
Rude Nature's Pilgrims did we go,
From the dread summit of the Queen
Of mountains, through a deep ravine,
Where, in her holy chapel, dwells
"Our Lady of the Snow."

The sky was blue, the air was mild;
Free were the streams and green the bowers;
As if, to rough assaults unknown,
The genial spot had 'ever' shown
A countenance that as sweetly smiled--
The face of summer-hours.

And we were gay, our hearts at ease;
With pleasure dancing through the frame
We journeyed; all we knew of care--
Our path that straggled here and there;
Of trouble--but the fluttering breeze;
Of Winter--but a name.

If foresight could have rent the veil
Of three short days--but hush--no more!
Calm is the grave, and c...

Looking into his first-born with the love,
Which breathes from both eternal, the first Might
Ineffable, whence eye or mind
Can roam, hath in such order all dispos'd,
As none may see and fail to enjoy. Raise, then,
O reader! to the lofty wheels, with me,
Thy ken directed to the point, whereat
One motion strikes on th' other. There begin
Thy wonder of the mighty Architect,
Who loves his work so inwardly, his eye
Doth ever watch it. See, how thence oblique
Brancheth the circle, where the planets roll
To pour their wished influence on the world;
Whose path not bending thus, in heav'n above
Much virtue would be lost, and here on earth,
All power well nigh extinct: or, from direct
Were its departure distant more or less,
I' th' universal order, great defect

We are as mendicants who wait
Along the roadside in the sun.
Tatters of yesterday and shreds
Of morrow clothe us every one.

And some are dotards, who believe
And glory in the days of old;
While some are dreamers, harping still
Upon an unknown age of gold.

Hopeless or witless! Not one heeds,
As lavish Time comes down the way
And tosses in the suppliant hat
One great new-minted gold To-day.

Ungrateful heart and grudging thanks,
His beggar's wisdom only sees
Housing and bread and beer enough;
He knows no other things than these.

O foolish ones, put by your care!
Where wants are many, joys are few;
And at the wilding springs of peace,
God keeps an open house for you.


But that some Fortunatus' gift
Is lyi...

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
            Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
            Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
            Excelsior!

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said:
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!
And loud that clarion voice replied,
            Excelsior!

"Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy wear...

No new delights to our desire
    The singers of the past can yield.
    I lift mine eyes to hill and field,
And see in them your yet dumb lyre,
    Poets unborn and unrevealed.

Singers to come, what thoughts will start
    To song? what words of yours be sent
    Through man's soul, and with earth be blent?
These worlds of nature and the heart
    Await you like an instrument.

Who knows what musical flocks of words
    Upon these pine-tree tops will light,
    And crown these towers in circling flight
And cross these seas like summer birds,
    And give a voice to the day and night?

Something of you already is ours;
    Some mystic part of you belongs
    To us whose dreams your future throngs,
Who look on hills, and trees, and flo...

The dappled die-away
Cheek and wimpled lip,
The gold-wisp, the airy-grey
Eye, all in fellowship -
This, all this beauty blooming,
This, all this freshness fuming,
Give God while worth consuming.

Both thought and thew now bolder
And told by Nature: Tower;
Head, heart, hand, heel, and shoulder
That beat and breathe in power -
This pride of prime's enjoyment
Take as for tool, not toy meant
And hold at Christ's employment.

The vault and scope and schooling
And mastery in the mind,
In silk-ash kept from cooling,
And ripest under rind -
What life half lifts the latch of,
What hell stalks towards the snatch of,
Your offering, with despatch, of!

I had a dream, a strange, wild dream,
Said a dear voice at early light;
And even yet its shadows seem
To linger in my waking sight.

Earth, green with spring, and fresh with dew,
And bright with morn, before me stood;
And airs just wakened softly blew
On the young blossoms of the wood.

Birds sang within the sprouting shade,
Bees hummed amid the whispering grass,
And children prattled as they played
Beside the rivulet's dimpling glass

Fast climbed the sun: the flowers were flown,
There played no children in the glen;
For some were gone, and some were grown
To blooming dames and bearded men.

'Twas noon, 'twas summer: I beheld
Woods darkening in the flush of day,
And that bright rivulet spread and swelled,
A mighty stream, wi...

I
Here in the self is all that man can know
Of Beauty, all the wonder, all the power,
All the unearthly colour, all the glow,
Here in the self which withers like a flower;
Here in the self which fades as hours pass,
And droops and dies and rots and is forgotten
Sooner, by ages, than the mirroring glass
In which it sees its glory still unrotten.
Here in the flesh, within the flesh, behind,
Swift in the blood and throbbing on the bone,
Beauty herself, the universal mind,
Eternal April wandering alone;
The God, the holy Ghost, the atoning Lord,
Here in the flesh, the never yet explored.

II
What am I, Life? A thing of watery salt
Held in cohesion by unresting cells
Which work they know not why, which never halt,
Myself unwitting where their ma...

A sound as if from bells of silver,
Or elfin cymbals smitten clear,
Through the frost-pictured panes I hear.

A brightness which outshines the morning,
A splendor brooking no delay,
Beckons and tempts my feet away.

I leave the trodden village highway
For virgin snow-paths glimmering through
A jewelled elm-tree avenue;

Where, keen against the walls of sapphire,
The gleaming tree-bolls, ice-embossed,
Hold up their chandeliers of frost.

I tread in Orient halls enchanted,
I dream the Saga’s dream of caves
Gem-lit beneath the North Sea waves!

I walk the land of Eldorado,
I touch its mimic garden bowers,
Its silver leaves and diamond flowers!

The flora of the mystic mine-world
Around me lifts on crystal stems
Th...

    Auspicious poet, wert thou not my friend,
    How could I envy, what I must commend!
    But since 'tis nature's law, in love and wit,
    That youth should reign, and withering age submit,
    With less regret those laurels I resign,
    Which, dying on my brows, revive on thine.
    With better grace an ancient chief may yield
    The long-contended honours of the field,
    Than venture all his fortune at a cast,
    And fight, like Hannibal, to lose at last.
    Young princes, obstinate to win the prize,
    Though yearly beaten, yearly yet they rise:
    Old monarchs, though successful, still in doubt,
    Catch at a peace, and wisely turn devout.
    Thine be the laurel, then; thy blooming age
    Can best, if any can, support the stage;
    Which so...

Delicious gloom! asylum of repose!
Within your verdant shades, your tranquil bound,
A wretched fugitive[A], oppress'd by woes,
The balm of peace, that long had left him, found.

Ne'er does the trump of war disturb this grove;
Throughout its deep recess the warbling bird
Discourses sweetly of its happy lore,
Or distant sounds of rural joy are heard.

Life's checquer'd scene is softly pictur'd here;
Here the proud moss-rose spreads its transient pride;
Close by, the willow drops a dewy tear,
And gaudy flow'rs the modest lily hide.

Alas! poor Hermit! happy had it been
For thee, if in these shades thy days had past,
If, well contented with the happy scene,
Thou ne'er again had fac'd life's stormy blast!

And Pity oft shall shed the ...

The spirit of the shower,
    Of the sunshine and the breeze,
Of the dewy twilight hour,
Of the bud and opening flower,
    My soul delighted sees.
Stern winter's robe of gray,
    Beneath thy balmy sigh,
Like mist-wreaths melt away,
When the rosy laughing day
    Lifts up his golden eye.--

Spirit of ethereal birth,
    Thy azure banner floats,
In lucid folds, o'er air and earth,
And budding woods pour forth their mirth
    In rapture-breathing notes.
I see upon the fleecy cloud
    The spreading of thy wings;
The hills and vales rejoice aloud,
And Nature, starting from her shroud,
    To meet her bridegroom springs.

Spirit of the rainbow zone,
    Of the fresh and breezy morn,--
Spirit of climes where joy alone
F...

Cherry bloom and green buds bursting
Fleck the azure skies;
In the spring wood, hungering, thirsting,
Faint an Indian lies.

To behold his guardian spirit
Fasts the dusky youth;
Prays that thus he may inherit
Warrior strength and truth.

Weak he grows, the war-path gory
Seems a far delight;
Now he scans the flowers, whose glory
Is not won by fight.

"Hunger kills me; see my arrow
Bloodless lies: I ask,
If life's doom be grave-pit narrow,
Deathless make its task.

"For man's welfare guide my being,
So I shall not die
Like the flow'rets, fading, fleeing,
When the snow is nigh.

"Medicine from the plants we borrow,
Salves from many a leaf;
May they not kill hunger's sorrow,
Give with food relief?"
<...

I would not always reason. The straight path
Wearies us with its never-varying lines,
And we grow melancholy. I would make
Reason my guide, but she should sometimes sit
Patiently by the way-side, while I traced
The mazes of the pleasant wilderness
Around me. She should be my counsellor,
But not my tyrant. For the spirit needs
Impulses from a deeper source than hers,
And there are motions, in the mind of man,
That she must look upon with awe. I bow
Reverently to her dictates, but not less
Hold to the fair illusions of old time,
Illusions that shed brightness over life,
And glory over nature. Look, even now,
Where two bright planets in the twilight meet,
Upon the saffron heaven, the imperial star
Of Jove, and she that from her radiant urn
Pours forth t...

In superbia il valor.


Valour to pride hath turned; grave holiness
        To vile hypocrisy; all gentle ways
        To empty forms; sound sense to idle lays;
        Pure love to heat; beauty to paint and dress:--
Thanks to you, Poets! you who sing the praise
        Of fabled knights, foul fires, lies, nullities;
        Not virtue, nor the wrapped sublimities
        Of God, as bards were wont in those old days.
How far more wondrous than your phantasies
        Are Nature's works, how far more sweet to sing!
        Thus taught, the soul falsehood and truth descries.
That tale alone is worth the pondering,
        Which hath not smothered history in lies,
        And arms the soul against each sinful thing.

The Sky Line.

Like black fangs in a cruel ogre's jaw
    The grim piles lift against the sunset sky;
Down drops the night, and shuts the horrid maw--
    I listen, breathless, but there comes no cry.


Defeat.

He sits and looks into the west
    Where twilight gathers, wan and gray,
A knight who quit the Golden Quest,
    And flung Excalibur away.


To an Amazon.

O! twain in spirit, we shall know
    Thy like no more, so fierce, so mild,
One breast shorn clean to rest the bow,
    One milk-full for thy warrior child.


The Old Mother.

Life is like an old mother whom trouble and toil
Have sufficed the best part of her nature to spoil,
Whom her children, the Passions, so ...

(To M. E. H.)


When you wake in your crib,
You, an inch of experience,
Vaulted about
With the wonder of darkness;
Wailing and striving
To reach from your feebleness
Something you feel
Will be good to and cherish you,
Something you know
And can rest upon blindly:
O then a hand
(Your mother's, your mother's!)
By the fall of its fingers
All knowledge, all power to you,
Out of the dreary,
Discouraging strangenesses
Comes to and masters you,
Takes you, and lovingly
Woos you and soothes you
Back, as you cling to it,
Back to some comforting
Corner of sleep.

So you wake in your bed,
Having lived, having loved:
But the shadows are there,
And the world and its kingdoms
Incredibly faded;
And you...

        I.

O Life! O Death! O God!
Have I not striven?
Have I not known thee, God,
As thy stars know Heaven?
Have I not held thee true,
True as thy deepest,
Sweet and immaculate blue,
Of nights that feel thy dew?
Have I not known thee true,
O God that keepest?


        II.

O God, my father, God!
Didst give me fire
To rise above the clod,
And soar, aspire!
What tho' I strive and strive,
And all my life says live,
The sneerful scorn of men
But beats it down again;
And, O! sun-centered high,
O God! grand poet!
Beneath thy tender sky
Each day new Keatses die,
And thou dost know it!


        III.

They know thee beautiful!
They know thee bitter!
And all their e...