Inspirational

'Farewell. What a subject! How sweet
It looks to the careless observer!
So simple; so easy to treat
With tenderness, mark you, and fervour.
Farewell. It's a poem; the song
Of nightingales crying and calling!'
O Reader, you're utterly wrong.
It's not. It's appalling!

And yet when she asked me to send
Some trifle of verse to remind her
Of days that had come to an end,
And one she was leaving behind her,
It looked, as we stood on the shore,
A theme so entirely delightsome
That I, like a lunatic, swore
(Quite calmly) to write some.

I've toiled with unwavering pluck;
I've struggled if ever a man did;
Infringed every postulate, stuck
At nothing, - nay, once, to be candid,
I shifted the cadence - designed
A fresh but unauth...

By chain yet stronger must the Soul be tied:
One duty more, last stage of this ascent,
Brings to thy food, mysterious Sacrament!
The Offspring, haply, at the Parent's side;
But not till They, with all that do abide
In Heaven, have lifted up their hearts to laud
And magnify the glorious name of God,
Fountain of grace, whose Son for sinners died.
Ye, who have duly weighed the summons, pause
No longer; ye, whom to the saving rite
The Altar calls, come early under laws
That can secure for you a path of light
Through gloomiest shade; put on (nor dread its weight)
Armour divine, and conquer in your cause!

1.

Oh! had my Fate been join'd with thine, [1]
As once this pledge appear'd a token,
These follies had not, then, been mine,
For, then, my peace had not been broken.


2.

To thee, these early faults I owe,
To thee, the wise and old reproving:
They know my sins, but do not know
'Twas thine to break the bonds of loving.


3.

For once my soul, like thine, was pure,
And all its rising fires could smother;
But, now, thy vows no more endure,
Bestow'd by thee upon another. [1]


4.

Perhaps, his peace I could destroy,
And spoil the blisses that await him;
Yet let my Rival smile in joy,
For thy dear sake, I cannot hate him.


5.

Ah! since thy angel form ...

Round clouds roll in the arms of the wind,
The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky,
And see, where the budding hazels are thinned,
The wild anemones lie
In undulating shivers beneath the wind.

Over the blue of the waters ply
White ducks, a living flotilla of cloud;
And, look you, floating just thereby,
The blue-gleamed drake stems proud
Like Abraham, whose seed should multiply.

In the lustrous gleam of the water, there
Scramble seven toads across the silk, obscure leaves,
Seven toads that meet in the dusk to share
The darkness that interweaves
The sky and earth and water and live things everywhere.

Look now, through the woods where the beech-green spurts
Like a storm of emerald snow, look, see
A great bay stallion dances, skirts

    O full of candour and compassion,
    Whom love and worship both would praise,
    Love cannot frame nor worship fashion
    The image of your fearless ways!

    How show your noble brow's dark pallor,
    Your chivalrous casque of ebon hair,
    Your eyes' bright strength, your lips' soft valour,
    Your supple shoulders and hands that dare?

    Our souls when naïvely you examine,
    Your sword of innocence, flaming, huge,
    Sweeps over us, and there is famine
    Within the ports of subterfuge.

    You hate contempt and love not laughter;
    With your sharp spear of virgin will
    You harry the wicked strong; but after,
    O huntress who could never kill,

    Should they be trodden down or pierced,
    Swift, swift, yo...

Dear simple girl, those flattering arts,
(From which thou'dst guard frail female hearts,)
Exist but in imagination,
Mere phantoms of thine own creation;
For he who views that witching grace,
That perfect form, that lovely face,
With eyes admiring, oh! believe me,
He never wishes to deceive thee:
Once in thy polish'd mirror glance
Thou'lt there descry that elegance
Which from our sex demands such praises,
But envy in the other raises. -
Then he who tells thee of thy beauty,
Believe me, only does his duty:
Ah! fly not from the candid youth;
It is not flattery, - 'tis truth.

A little bird, with plumage brown,
Beside my window flutters down,
A moment chirps its little strain,
Ten taps upon my window-pane,
And chirps again, and hops along,
To call my notice to its song;
But I work on, nor heed its lay,
Till, in neglect, it flies away.

So birds of peace and hope and love
Come fluttering earthward from above,
To settle on life's window-sills,
And ease our load of earthly ills;
But we, in traffic's rush and din
Too deep engaged to let them in,
With deadened heart and sense plod on,
Nor know our loss till they are gone.

Oh, not more subtly silence strays
    Amongst the winds, between the voices,
Mingling alike with pensive lays,
    And with the music that rejoices,
Than thou art present in my days.

My silence, life returns to thee
    In all the pauses of her breath.
Hush back to rest the melody
    That out of thee awakeneth;
And thou, wake ever, wake for me.

Full, full is life in hidden places,
    For thou art silence unto me.
Full, full is thought in endless spaces.
    Full is my life.    A silent sea
Lies round all shores with long embraces.

Thou art like silence all unvexed
    Though wild words part my soul from thee.
Thou art like silence unperplexed,
    A secret and a mystery
Between one footfall and the next.

Most dear...

The great-hearted servant of whom you were jealous,
sleeping her sleep in the humble grass,
shouldn’t we take her a few flowers?
The dead, the poor dead, have griefs like ours,
and when October sighs, clipper of trees,
round their marble tombs, with its mournful breeze,
they must find the living, ungratefully, wed,
snug in sleep, to the warmth of their bed,
while they, devoured by dark reflection,
without bedfellow, or sweet conversation,
old skeletons riddled with worms, deep frozen,
feel the winter snows trickling round them,
and the years flow by without kin or friend
to replace the wreaths at their railing’s end.

If some night, when the logs whistle and flare,
seeing her sitting calm, in that chair,
if on a December night, cold and blue,
I might...

Break, Phantsie, from thy cave of cloud,
And wave thy purple wings,
Now all thy figures are allowed,
And various shapes of things.
Create of airy forms a stream;
It must have blood and nought of phlegm;
And though it be a walking dream,
Yet let it like an odor rise
To all the senses here,
And fall like sleep upon their eyes,
Or music on their ear.
- Ben Jonson.


“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy,” and among these may be placed that marvel and mystery of the seas, the island of St. Brandan. Every school-boy can enumerate and call by name the Canaries, the Fortunate Islands of the ancients; which, according to some ingenious speculative minds, are mere wrecks and remnants of the vast island of Atalantis, mentioned by ...

As the author was discharging his Pistols in a Garden, Two Ladies passing near the spot were alarmed by the sound of a Bullet hissing near them, to one of whom the following stanzas were addressed the next morning. [2]


1.

Doubtless, sweet girl! the hissing lead,
Wafting destruction o'er thy charms
And hurtling o'er [3] thy lovely head,
Has fill'd that breast with fond alarms.


2.

Surely some envious Demon's force,
Vex'd to behold such beauty here,
Impell'd the bullet's viewless course,
Diverted from its first career.


3.

Yes! in that nearly fatal hour,
The ball obey'd some hell-born guide;
But Heaven, with interposing power,
In pity turn'd the death aside.


4.

Yet, ...

    A mossy footfall in this wood
        A peal of thunder were,
    Or autumn tempest-shriek, compared
        With the unwhispered stir
    Of massy fluids lift in air,
    To build these leafy pillars fair.

    Lavished at wordless wish or mute
        Command, the chemic wealth
    Upsprings to meet the builders' hands,
        All hushed as dusky stealth.
    Noiseless as love, as silent prayer
    Mysterious, the builders are.


    Ah, sure, these silences are works
        Of God's sabbatic rest,
    A music perfect as the calm
        Of wave's unbroken crest!
    These woven leaves that stilly nod,
    These violets, ope their eyes on God.

    The deep serene that worketh here
        Works, too, 'mid human tears...

When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
    And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
    And gather in the aftermath.

Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
    Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mired with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
    In the silence and the gloom.

The hoar-frost hisses 'neath the feet,
And the worm-fence's straggling length,
Smote by the morning's slanted strength,
Sparkles one rib of virgin sleet.

To withered fields the crisp breeze talks,
And silently and sadly lifts
The bronz'd leaves from the beech and drifts
Them wadded down the woodland walks.

Reluctantly and one by one
The worthless leaves sift slowly down,
And thro' the mournful vistas blown
Drop rustling, and their rest is won.

Where stands the brook beneath its fall,
Thin-scaled with ice the pool is bound,
And on the pebbles scattered 'round
The ooze is frozen; one and all

White as rare crystals shining fair.
There stirs no life: the faded wood
Mourns sighing, and the solitude
Seems shaken with a mighty c...

I.

He makes a roadway of the crumbling fence,
Or on the fallen tree, brown as a leaf
Fall stripes with russet, gambols down the dense
Green twilight of the woods. We see not whence
He comes, nor whither (in a time so brief)
He vanishes swift carrier of some Fay,
Some pixy steed that haunts our child-belief
A goblin glimpse upon some wildwood way.

II.

What harlequin mood of nature qualified
Him so with happiness? and limbed him with
Such young activity as winds, that ride
The ripples, have, dancing on every side?
As sunbeams know, that urge the sap and pith
Through hearts of trees? yet made him to delight,
Gnome-like, in darkness, like a moonlight myth,
Lairing in labyrinths of the under night.

III.

Here, by a rock, ...

        From pacing, pacing without hope or quest
        He leaned against his window-bars to rest
        And smelt the breeze that crept up from the west.

        It came with sundown noises from the moors,
        Of milking time and loud-voiced rural chores,
        Of lumbering wagons and of closing doors.

        He caught a whiff of furrowed upland sweet,
        And certain scents stole up across the street
        That told him fireflies winked among the wheat.

        Over the dusk hill woke a new moon's light,
        Shadowed the woods and made the waters white,
        And watched above the quiet tents of night.

        Alas, that the old Mother should not know
        How ached his heart to be entreated so,
        Who heard her ca...

Out of my heart, one day, I wrote a song,
With my heart's blood imbued,
Instinct with passion, tremulously strong,
With grief subdued;
Breathing a fortitude
Pain-bought.
And one who claimed much love for what I wrought,
Read and considered it,
And spoke:
"Ay, brother,--'t is well writ,
But where's the joke?"

White roses, like a mist
Upon a terraced height,
And 'mid the roses, opal, moonbeam-kissed,
A fountain falling white.

And as the full moon flows,
Orbed fire, into a cloud,
There is a fragrant sound as if a rose
Had sighed its soul aloud.

There is a whisper pale,
As if a rose awoke,
And, having heard in sleep the nightingale,
Still dreaming of it spoke.

Now, as from some vast shell
A giant pearl rolls white,
From the dividing cloud, that winds compel,
The moon sweeps, big and bright.

Moon-mists and pale perfumes,
Wind-wafted through the dusk:
There is a sound as if unfolding blooms
Voiced their sweet thoughts in musk.

A spirit is abroad
Of music and of sleep:
The moon and mists have made for it a road<...