Inspirational

Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Peneïan pass,
The vast Akrokeraunian walls,

Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,
With such a pencil, such a pen,
You shadow forth to distant men,
I read and felt that I was there:

And trust me while I turn’d the page,
And track’d you still on classic ground,
I grew in gladness till I found
My spirits in the golden age.

For me the torrent ever pour’d
And glisten’d–here and there alone
The broad-limb’d Gods at random thrown
By fountain-urns;–and Naiads oar’d

A glimmering shoulder under gloom
Of cavern pillars; on the swell
The silver lily heaved and fell;
And many a slope was rich in bloom

From him that on the mountain lea
By da...

Where we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted,
We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted.
By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led
Upward to the wondrous vision: through the star-mists overhead
Flare and flaunt the monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of night
Fall the ghostly froth and fringes of the ocean of the light.
Many coloured shine the vapours: to the moon-eye far away
'Tis the fairy ring of twilight mid the spheres of night and day,
Girdling with a rainbow cincture round the planet where we go,
We and it together fleeting, poised upon the pearl    glow;
We and it and all together flashing through the starry spaces
In a tempest dream of beauty lighting up the place of places.
Half our eyes behold the glory: h...

    Such wast thou: now in earth below,
    Dust and a skeleton thou art.
    Above thy bones and clay,
    Here vainly placed by loving hands,
    Sole guardian of memory and woe,
    The image of departed beauty stands.
    Mute, motionless, it seems with pensive gaze
    To watch the flight of the departing days.
    That gentle look, that, wheresoe'er it fell,
    As now it seems to fall,
    Held fast the gazer with its magic spell;
    That lip, from which as from some copious urn,
    Redundant pleasure seems to overflow;
    That neck, on which love once so fondly hung;
    That loving hand, whose tender pressure still
    The hand it clasped, with trembling joy would thrill;
    That bosom, whose transparent loveliness
    The color from t...

Rail on, Rail on, ye heartless crew!
My strains were never meant for you;
Remorseless Rancour still reveal,
And damn the verse you cannot feel.
Invoke those kindred passions' aid,
Whose baleful stings your breasts pervade;
Crush, if you can, the hopes of youth,
Trampling regardless on the Truth:
Truth's Records you consult in vain,
She will not blast her native strain;
She will assist her votary's cause,
His will at least be her applause,
Your prayer the gentle Power will spurn;
To Fiction's motley altar turn,
Who joyful in the fond address
Her favoured worshippers will bless:
And lo! she holds a magic glass,
Where Images reflected pass,
Bent on your knees the Boon receive -
This will assist you to deceive -
The glittering gift was made for...

Gay visions for thee 'neath hope's pencil have glowed,
Peace dwells in thy bosom, a guileless abode;
Thou hast seen the bright side of existence alone,
And believ'st every spirit as pure as thine own.
May'st thou never awake from these rapturous dreams,
To find that the world is not fair as it seems,
To feel that the few thou hast loved have deceived,
Have forsaken the heart that confided, believed,
And left it as leafless, as bloomless, and waste
As the rose-tree that's stript by the merciless blast.

When the warm sky of childhood was beaming for me,
My days were all joyous, my heart was all glee;
Affection's best ties round my bosom were spun;
No cloud dimmed the lustre of life's morning sun.
If I watched o'er my favorite rose-bud's decay,
And mourned that ...

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old,
This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow,
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

As in the woodland I walk, many a strange thing I learn -
How from the dross and the drift the beautiful things return,
And the fires quenched in October in April reburn;

How foulness grows fair with the stern lustration of sleets and snows,
And rottenness changes back to the breath and the cheek of the rose,
And how gentle the wind that seems wild to each blossom that blows;

How the lost is ever found, and the darkness the door of the light,
And how soft the caress of the hand that to shape must not fear to smite,
And how the dim pearl of the moon is drawn from the gulf of the night;

How, when the great tree falls, with its empire of rustling leaves,
The earth with a thousand hands its sunlit ruin receives,
And out of the wreck of its glory each secret artist weaves...

I

Here am I yet, another twelvemonth spent,
One-third departed of the mortal span,
Carrying on the child into the man,
Nothing into reality. Sails rent,
And rudder broken, reason impotent
Affections all unfixed; so forth I fare
On the mid seas unheedingly, so dare
To do and to be done by, well content.
So was it from the first, so is it yet;
Yea, the first kiss that by these lips was set
On any human lips, methinks was sin
Sin, cowardice, and falsehood; for the will
Into a deed e’en then advanced, wherein
God, unidentified, was thought-of still.

II

Though to the vilest things beneath the moon
For poor Ease’ sake I give away my heart,
And for the moment’s sympathy let part
My sight and sense of truth, Thy precious boon,
My ...

I am jet black, as you may see,
    The son of pitch and gloomy night:
Yet all that know me will agree,
    I'm dead except I live in light.

Sometimes in panegyric high,
    Like lofty Pindar, I can soar;
And raise a virgin to the sky,
    Or sink her to a pocky whore.

My blood this day is very sweet,
    To-morrow of a bitter juice;
Like milk, 'tis cried about the street,
    And so applied to different use.

Most wondrous is my magic power:
    For with one colour I can paint;
I'll make the devil a saint this hour,
    Next make a devil of a saint.

Through distant regions I can fly,
    Provide me but with paper wings;
And fairly show a reason why
    There should be quarrels among kings:

And, after all, you'l...

Ye sacred Nurseries of blooming Youth!
In whose collegiate shelter England's Flowers
Expand, enjoying through their vernal hours
The air of liberty, the light of truth;
Much have ye suffered from Time's gnawing tooth:
Yet, O ye spires of Oxford! domes and towers!
Gardens and groves! your presence overpowers
The soberness of reason; till, in sooth,
Transformed, and rushing on a bold exchange,
I slight my own beloved Cam, to range
Where silver Isis leads my stripling feet;
Pace the long avenue, or glide adown
The stream-like windings of that glorious street
An eager Novice robed in fluttering gown!

Thought is an unseen net wherein our mind
Is taken and vainly struggles to be free:
Words, that should loose our spirit, do but bind
New fetters on our hoped-for liberty:
And action bears us onward like a stream
Past fabulous shores, scarce seen in our swift course;
Glorious - and yet its headlong currents seem
Backwaters of some nobler purer force.

There are slow curves, more subtle far than thought,
That stoop to carry the grace of a girl's breast;
And hanging flowers, so exquisitely wrought
In airy metal, that they seem possessed
Of souls; and there are distant hills that lift
The shoulder of a goddess towards the light;
And arrowy trees, sudden and sharp and swift,
Piercing the spirit deeply with delight.

Would I might make these miracles my ow...

There was a curious quiet for a space
Directly following: and in the face
Of one rapt listener pulsed the flush and glow
Of the heat-lightning that pent passions throw
Long ere the crash of speech. - He broke the spell -
The host: - The Traveler's story, told so well,
He said, had wakened there within his breast
A yearning, as it were, to know the rest -
That all unwritten sequence that the Lord
Of Righteousness must write with flame and sword,
Some awful session of His patient thought -
Just then it was, his good old mother caught
His blazing eye - so that its fire became
But as an ember - though it burned the same.
It seemed to her, she said, that she had heard
It was the Heavenly Parent never erred,
And not the earthly one that had such...

(TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES)


Strange spell of youth for age, and age for youth,
Affinity between two forms of truth! -
As if the dawn and sunset watched each other,
Like and unlike as children of one mother
And wondering at the likeness. Ardent eyes
Of young men see the prophecy arise
Of what their lives shall be when all is told;
And, in the far-off glow of years called old,
Those other eyes look back to catch a trace
Of what was once their own unshadowed grace.
But here in our dear poet both are blended -
Ripe age begun, yet golden youth not ended; -
Even as his song the willowy scent of spring
Doth blend with autumn's tender mellowing,
And mixes praise with satire, tears with fun,
In strains that ever delicately run;
So musical and wise, page...

By scattered rocks and turbid waters shifting,
By furrowed glade and dell,
To feverish men thy calm, sweet face uplifting,
Thou stayest them to tell

The delicate thought that cannot find expression,
For ruder speech too fair,
That, like thy petals, trembles in possession,
And scatters on the air.

The miner pauses in his rugged labor,
And, leaning on his spade,
Laughingly calls unto his comrade-neighbor
To see thy charms displayed.

But in his eyes a mist unwonted rises,
And for a moment clear
Some sweet home face his foolish thought surprises,
And passes in a tear,

Some boyish vision of his Eastern village,
Of uneventful toil,
Where golden harvests followed quiet tillage
Above a peaceful soil.

One moment only; f...

I.

Since in Athens God stood plain for adoration,
Since the sun beheld his likeness reared in stone,
Since the bronze or gold of human consecration
Gave to Greece her guardian’s form and feature shown,
Never hand of sculptor, never heart of nation,
Found so glorious aim in all these ages flown
As is theirs who rear for all time’s acclamation
Here the likeness of our mightiest and their own.


2.

Theirs and ours and all men’s living who behold him
Crowned with garlands multiform and manifold;
Praise and thanksgiving of all mankind enfold him
Who for all men casts abroad his gifts of gold.
With the gods of song have all men’s tongues enrolled him,
With the helpful gods have all men’s hearts enrolled:
Ours he is who love him, ours whose hear...

The mason's trade        Observe them well,

Resembles life,        And watch them revealing

With all its strife,        How solemn feeling
Is like the stir made        And wonderment swell

By man on earth's face.        The hearts of the brave.

Though weal and woe        The voice of the blest,

The future may hide,        And of spirits on high

Unterrified        Seems loudly to cry:
We onward go        "To do what is best,

In ne'er changing race.        Unceasing endeavour!

A veil of dread        "In silence eterne

Hangs heavier still.        Here chaplets are twin'd,

Deep slumbers fill        That each noble mind
The stars over-head,        Its guerdon may earn.

And the foot-trodden grave.        Then h...

I left my dreary page and sallied forth,
Received the fair inscriptions of the night;
The moon was making amber of the world,
Glittered with silver every cottage pane,
The trees were rich, yet ominous with gloom.
The meadows broad
From ferns and grapes and from the folded flowers
Sent a nocturnal fragrance; harlot flies
Flashed their small fires in air, or held their court
In fairy groves of herds-grass.



He lives not who can refuse me;
All my force saith, Come and use me:
A gleam of sun, a summer rain,
And all the zone is green again.



Seems, though the soft sheen all enchants,
Cheers the rough crag and mournful dell,
As if on such stern forms and haunts
A wintry storm more fitly fell.



Put in, driv...

Swarthy wastelands, wide and woodless, glittering miles and miles away,
Where the south wind seldom wanders and the winters will not stay;
Lurid wastelands, pent in silence, thick with hot and thirsty sighs,
Where the scanty thorn-leaves twinkle with their haggard, hopeless eyes;
Furnaced wastelands, hunched with hillocks, like to stony billows rolled,
Where the naked flats lie swirling, like a sea of darkened gold;
Burning wastelands, glancing upward with a weird and vacant stare,
Where the languid heavens quiver o’er red depths of stirless air!

“Oh, my brother, I am weary of this wildering waste of sand;
In the noontide we can never travel to the promised land!
Lo! the desert broadens round us, glaring wildly in my face,
With long leagues of sunflame on it, oh! the barren, bar...