Inspirational

It is the hither side, O Hope,
And afternoon; our shadows slope
Backward along the mountain cope.

The early morning was so sweet,
We seemed to climb with winged feet,
Like moving vapors fine and fleet,

Not more elastic poised and swung
Harebell or yellow adder's tongue,
Nor blither any bird that sung.

Thy light foot bent not any stem
Of frailest plant, whose diadem
In passing kissed thy garment's hem.

O Hope! so near me and so bright,
Thy foot above me on the height,
I might not touch thy garments white.

Thy lifted face, so fair, so rapt,
Like sunshine rolled and overlapped
Cliff, slope, and tall peak thunder-capped.

Thy voice to me like silver brooks
Down dropped from secret mountain nooks,
Still drew me...

ON A SUN-PORTRAIT OF HER HUSBAND, SENT BY HIS WIFE TO THEIR FRIEND.

Beautiful eyes, - and shall I see no more
The living thought when it would leap from them,
And play in all its sweetness 'neath their lids?

Here was a man familiar with fair heights
That poets climb. Upon his peace the tears
And troubles of our race deep inroads made,
Yet life was sweet to him; he kept his heart
At home. Who saw his wife might well have thought, -
"God loves this man. He chose a wife for him, -
The true one!" O sweet eyes, that seem to live,
I know so much of you, tell me the rest!
Eyes full of fatherhood and tender care
For small, young children. Is a message here
That you would fain have sent, but had not time?
If such there be, I promise, by long love
And perfec...

Arranging long-locked drawers and shelves
Of cabinets, shut up for years,
What a strange task we've set ourselves!
How still the lonely room appears!
How strange this mass of ancient treasures,
Mementos of past pains and pleasures;
These volumes, clasped with costly stone,
With print all faded, gilding gone;

These fans of leaves from Indian trees,
These crimson shells, from Indian seas,
These tiny portraits, set in rings,
Once, doubtless, deemed such precious things;
Keepsakes bestowed by Love on Faith,
And worn till the receiver's death,
Now stored with cameos, china, shells,
In this old closet's dusty cells.

I scarcely think, for ten long years,
A hand has touched these relics old;
And, coating each, slow-formed, appears
The growth...

Thou who singest through the earth,
    All the earth's wild creatures fly thee,
Everywhere thou marrest mirth.
    Dumbly they defy thee.
There is something they deny thee.

Pines thy fallen nature ever
For the unfallen Nature sweet.
But she shuns thy long endeavour,
    Though her flowers and wheat
Throng and press thy pausing feet.

Though thou tame a bird to love thee,
Press thy face to grass and flowers,
All these things reserve above thee
    Secrets in the bowers,
Secrets in the sun and showers.

Sing thy sorrow, sing thy gladness.
In thy songs must wind and tree
Bear the fictions of thy sadness,
    Thy humanity.
For their truth is not for thee.

Wait, and many a secret nest,
Many a hoarded winter-store

List, ye who pass by Lyulph's Tower
At eve; how softly then
Doth Aira-force, that torrent hoarse,
Speak from the woody glen!
Fit music for a solemn vale!
And holier seems the ground
To him who catches on the gale
The spirit of a mournful tale,
Embodied in the sound.

Not far from that fair site whereon
The Pleasure-house is reared,
As story says, in antique days
A stern-browed house appeared;
Foil to a Jewel rich in light
There set, and guarded well;
Cage for a Bird of plumage bright,
Sweet-voiced, nor wishing for a flight
Beyond her native dell.

To win this bright Bird from her cage,
To make this Gem their own,
Came Barons bold, with store of gold,
And Knights of high renown;
But one She prized, and only one;
Sir ...

[It is scarcely necessary to say that the following fragment is founded upon the beautiful, and well-known tale in the "Arabian Nights," entitled, "The two Sisters who were jealous of their younger Sister;" and the reader need only be reminded that the two brothers of Perizade, Bahman and Perviz, had previously gone in search of the treasures described by the Devotee, and had perished in the attempt,--the fate of the latter having just been intimated to her at the commencement of this episode, by the fixture of the pearls in the magic chaplet, which Perviz had left her for that purpose.]


The days flow'd on, and each day Perizade
At morn and eve told o'er the snowy pearls,
That morn and eve ran swiftly through her hands;
The days flow'd on--one morn the pearls ran not,
And well she knew that Perviz too ...

The figure that thou here seest . . . Tut!
Was it for gentle Shakespeare put?
- B. JORSON. (Adapted.)



I “next poet?” No, my hearties,
I nor am nor fain would be!
Choose your chiefs and pick your parties,
Not one soul revolt to me!
I, forsooth, sow song-sedition?
I, a schism in verse provoke?
I, blown up by bard’s ambition,
Burst, your bubble-king? You joke.

Come, be grave! The sherris mantling
Still about each mouth, mayhap,
Breeds you insight, just a scantling,
Brings me truth out, just a scrap.
Look and tell me! Written, spoken,
Here’s my life-long work: and where
Where’s your warrant or my token
I’m the dead king’s son and heir?

Here’s my work: does work discover,
What was rest from work, my life?

Enough of climbing toil! Ambition treads
Here, as 'mid busier scenes, ground steep and rough,
Or slippery even to peril! and each step,
As we for most uncertain recompence
Mount toward the empire of the fickle clouds,
Each weary step, dwarfing the world below,
Induces, for its old familiar sights,
Unacceptable feelings of contempt,
With wonder mixed that Man could e'er be tied,
In anxious bondage, to such nice array
And formal fellowship of petty things!
Oh! 'tis the 'heart' that magnifies this life,
Making a truth and beauty of her own;
And moss-grown alleys, circumscribing shades,
And gurgling rills, assist her in the work
More efficaciously than realms outspread,
As in a map, before the adventurer's gaze
Ocean and Earth contending for regard.
The ...

I cannot write old verses here,
    Dead things a thousand years away,
When all the life of the young year
    Is in the summer day.

The roses make the world so sweet,
    The bees, the birds have such a tune,
There's such a light and such a heat
    And such a joy this June,

One must expand one's heart with praise,
    And make the memory secure
Of sunshine and the woodland days
    And summer twilights pure.

Oh listen rather! Nature's song
    Comes from the waters, beating tides,
Green-margined rivers, and the throng
    Of streams on mountain-sides.

So fair those water-spirits are,
    Such happy strength their music fills,
Our joy shall be to wander far
    And find them on the hills.

    Do you remember that June day among
    The hills, the high, far-reaching Sussex hills?
    Above, the straggling flocks of fleecy clouds
    That skipped and chased each other merrily
    In God's warm pasturage, the azure sky;
    Below, the hills that stretched their mighty heads
    As though they fain would neighbor with that sky.
    Deep, vivid green, save where the flocks showed white;
    The wise ewes hiding from the glow of noon
    In shady spots, the short-wooled lambs at play,
    And over all the stillness of the hills,
    The sweet and solemn stillness of the hills.

    The shepherds gave us just such looks of mild
    Surprise as did the sheep they shepherded.
    "Ye are not of the hills," so said the looks,
    "Not of our kind, but st...

A blue line to the westward that surely is not cloud;
A green tinge in the waters; a clamorous bird-crowd;
Then far-off foamy edges, and hill-tops timber fringed;
And, perched aloft, a light-house, o’er grey cliffs golden-tinged.

O watchers leaning landward, know ye of nothing more?
And hear ye but the sea-birds? and see ye but the shore?
Nay, look awhile, and listen who bids you welcome there;
The great seas kiss her sandals, the high stars gem her hair!
Behold her in the gateway! high-held in either hand
A blazing beacon, lighted to lead you to the land.

“Now welcome, kindly welcome, who come to me for cheer!
My forts may frown on others, but ye have nought to fear.
The cannon’s flash and thunder are all for joy to-day,
No murmurs meet your coming, none wish to...

    The morning wakes in shadowy mantle gray,
    The darksome woods their glimmering skirts unfold,
    Prone from the cliff the falcon wheels her way,
    And long and loud the bell's slow chime is tolled.

    The reddening light gains fast upon the skies,
    And far away the glistening vapours sail,
    Down the rough steep the accustomed hedger hies,
    And the stream winds in brightness through the vale.

    Mark how those riven rocks on either shore
    Uplift their bleak and furrowed fronts on high;
    How proudly desolate their foreheads hoar,
    That meet the earliest sunbeams of the sky!

    Bound for yon dusky mart,[2] with pennants gay,
    The tall bark, on the winding water's line,
    Between the riven cliffs slow plies he...

I.

Nature, so far as in her lies,
Imitates God, and turns her face
To every land beneath the skies,
Counts nothing that she meets with base,
But lives and loves in every place;



II.

Fills out the homely quickset-screens,
And makes the purple lilac ripe,
Steps from her airy hill, and greens
The swamp, where humm’d the dropping snipe,
With moss and braided marish-pipe;



III.

And on thy heart a finger lays,
Saying, ‘Beat quicker, for the time
Is pleasant, and the woods and ways
Are pleasant, and the beech and lime
Put forth and feel a gladder clime.’



IV.

And murmurs of a deeper voice,
Going before to some far shrine,
Teach that sick heart the stronger choice,

We set no right above hers,
No earthly light nor star,
She hath had many lovers,
But not as lovers are:
They all were gallant fellows
And died all deaths for her,
And never one was jealous
But comrades true they were.

Oh! each one is a brother,
Though all the lands they claim,
For her or for each other
They’ve died all deaths the same
Young, handsome, old and ugly,
Free, married or divorced,
Where springtime bard or Thug lie
Her lover’s feet have crossed.

’Mid buttercups and daisies
With fair girls by their side,
Young poets sang her praises
While day in starlight died.
In smoke and fire and dust, and
With red eyes maniac like,
Those same young poets thrust and,
Wrenched out the reeking pike!

She is as ...

And dwells there in a female heart,
By bounteous Heaven design’d,
The choicest raptures to impart,
To feel the most refined—


Dwells there a wish in such a breast
Its nature to forego,
To smother in ignoble rest
At once both bliss and woe!


Far be the thought, and far the strain,
Which breathes the low desire,
How sweet soe’er the verse complain,
Though Phœbus string the lyre.


Come, then, fair maid (in nature wise),
Who, knowing them, can tell
From generous sympathy what joys
The glowing bosom swell:


In justice to the various powers
Of pleasing, which you share,
Join me, amid your silent hours,
To form the better prayer.


With lenient balm may Oberon hence
To fairy-land be driven...

You say 'tis plain that poets feign,
    And from the truth depart;
They write with ease what fibs they please,
    With artifice, not art;
Dearer to you the simply true--
    The fact without the fancy--
Than this false play of colours gay,
    So very vague and chancy.
No doubt 'tis well the truth to tell
    In scientific coteries;
But I'll be bold to say she's cold,
    Excepting to her votaries.
The false disguise of tawdry lies
    May hide sweet Nature's face;
But in her form the blood runs warm,
    As in the human race;
And in the rose the dew-drop glows,
    And, o'er the seas serene,
The sunshine white still breaks in light
    Of yellow, blue, and green.
In thousand rays the fancy plays;
    The feelings rise and bubble;

Tis sweet in boyhood's visionary mood,
When glowing Fancy, innocently gay,
Flings forth, like motes, her bright aërial brood,
To dance and shine in Hope's prolific ray;
'Tis sweet, unweeting how the flight of years
May darkling roll in trials and in tears,
To dress the future in what garb we list,
And shape the thousand joys that never may exist.
But he, sad wight! of all that feverish train,
Fool'd by those phantoms of the wizard brain,
Most wildly dotes, whom young ambition stings
To trust his weight upon poetic wings;
He, downward looking in his airy ride,
Beholds Elysium bloom on every side;
Unearthly bliss each thrilling nerve attunes,
And thus the dreamer with himself communes.
Yes! Earth shall witness, 'ere my star be set,
That partial nature mark'...

Thank God for dreams! I, desolate and lone,
    In the dark curtained night, did seem to be
The centre where all golden sun-rays shone,
    And, sitting there, held converse sweet with thee.
No shadow lurked between us; all was bright
    And beautiful as in the hours gone by,
I smiled, and was rewarded by the light
    Of olden days soft beaming from thine eye.
Thank God, thank God for dreams!

I thought the birds all listened; for thy voice
    Pulsed through the air, like beat of silver wings.
It made each chamber of my soul rejoice
    And thrilled along my heart's tear-rusted strings.
As some devout and ever-prayerful nun
    Tells her bright beads, and counts them o'er and o'er,
Thy golden words I gathered, one by one,
    And slipped them into memo...