Inspirational

Thin, chisel-fine a cricket chipped
The crystal silence into sound;
And where the branches dreamed and dripped
A grasshopper its dagger stripped
And on the humming darkness ground.

A bat, against the gibbous moon,
Danced, imp-like, with its lone delight;
The glow-worm scrawled a golden rune
Upon the dark; and, emerald-strewn,
The firefly hung with lamps the night.

The flowers said their beads in prayer,
Dew-syllables of sighed perfume;
Or talked of two, soft-standing there,
One like a gladiole, straight and fair,
And one like some rich poppy-bloom.

The mignonette and feverfew
Laid their pale brows together:" See!"
One whispered. "Did their step thrill through
Your roots?"" Like rain."" I touched the two
And a new bud was born i...

Stuck in a bottle on the window-sill,
In the cold gaslight burning gaily red
Against the luminous blue of London night,
These flowers are mine: while somewhere out of sight
In some black-throated alley's stench and heat,
Oblivious of the racket of the street,
A poor old weary woman lies in bed.

Broken with lust and drink, blear-eyed and ill,
Her battered bonnet nodding on her head,
From a dark arch she clutched my sleeve and said:
'I've sold no bunch to-day, nor touched a bite ...
Son, buy six-pennorth; and 't will mean a bed.'

So blazing gaily red
Against the luminous deeps
Of starless London night,
They burn for my delight:
While somewhere, snug in bed,
A worn old woman sleeps.

And yet to-morrow will these blooms be dead
With...

Winter scourges his horses
Through the North,
His hair is bitter snow
On the great wind.
The trees are weeping leaves
Because the nests are dead,
Because the flowers were nests of scent
And the nests had singing petals
And the flowers and nests are dead.

Your voice brings back the songs
Of every nest,
Your eyes bring back the sun
Out of the South,
Violets and roses peep
Where you have laughed the snow away
And kissed the snow away,
And in my heart there is a garden still
For the lost birds.

Song of Daghestan.

Little simple violet,
Glittering with dewy wet,
Hidden by protecting grass
All unheeded we should pass
Were it not the rich perfume,
Leads us on to find the bloom
Which so modestly does dwell,
Sweetly scenting all the dell.

Simple little violet; -
Lessons I shall ne'er forget
By thy modest mien were taught, -
Rich in peace, - with wisdom fraught.
Oft I've laid me down to rest,
With thy blossoms on my breast;
Screen'd from noontide's sunny flood,
By some monarch of the wood.

I have thought and dreamed of thee,
Clad in such simplicity;
Yet so rich in fragrance sweet,
That exhales from thy retreat;
And I've seen the gaudy flower
Blest alone with beauty's dower; -
Have looked, - admired, - then bid them go, -
Violet, ...

When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rime,
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express’d
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

So the days of my tramping are over,
And the days of my riding are done,
I’m about as content as a rover
Will ever be under the sun;
I write, after reading your letter,
My pipe with old memories rife,
And I feel in a mood that had better
Not meet the true eyes of the wife.

You must never admit a suggestion
That old things are good to recall;
You must never consider the question:
‘Was I happier then, after all?’
You must banish the old hope and sorrow
That make the sad pleasures of life,
You must live for To-day and To-morrow
If you want to be just to the wife.

I have changed since the first day I kissed her.
Which is due, Heaven bless her!, to her;
I’m respected and trusted, I’m ‘Mister,’
Addressed by the children as ‘Sir.’
And ...

My spectre around me night and day
Like a wild beast guards my way.
My emanation far within
Weeps incessantly for my sin.

A fathomless and boundless deep,
There we wander, there we weep;
On the hungry craving wind
My spectre follows thee behind.

He scents thy footsteps in the snow,
Wheresoever thou dost go
Through the wintry hail and rain.
When wilt thou return again?

Dost thou not in pride and scorn
Fill with tempests all my morn,
And with jealousies and fears
Fill my pleasant nights with tears?

Seven of my sweet loves thy knife
Has bereaved of their life.
Their marble tombs I built with tears
And with cold and shuddering fears.

Seven more loves weep night and day
Round the tombs where my loves lay,
...

Tune - "Banks of Banna."



I.

    Yestreen I had a pint o' wine,
        A place where body saw na';
    Yestreen lay on this breast o' mine
        The gowden locks of Anna.
    The hungry Jew in wilderness
        Rejoicing o'er his manna,
    Was naething to my hinny bliss
        Upon the lips of Anna.

II.

    Ye monarchs tak the east and west,
        Frae Indus to Savannah!
    Gie me within my straining grasp
        The melting form of Anna.
    There I'll despise imperial charms,
        An empress or sultana,
    While dying raptures in her arms
        I give and take with Anna!

III.

    Awa, thou flaunting god o' day!
        Awa, thou pale Diana!
    Ilk star gae hi...

Come gather round me, Parnellites,
And praise our chosen man;
Stand upright on your legs awhile,
Stand upright while you can,
For soon we lie where he is laid,
And he is underground;
Come fill up all those glasses
And pass the bottle round.

And here's a cogent reason,
And I have many more,
He fought the might of England
And saved the Irish poor,
Whatever good a farmer's got
He brought it all to pass;
And here's another reason,
That parnell loved a lass.

And here's a final reason,
He was of such a kind
Every man that sings a song
Keeps Parnell in his mind.
For Parnell was a proud man,
No prouder trod the ground,
And a proud man's a lovely man,
So pass the bottle round.

The Bishops and the party
That...

"Jove means to settle
Astraea in her seat again,
And let down his golden chain
An age of better metal."
- Ben Johnson 1615


O poet rare and old!
Thy words are prophecies;
Forward the age of gold,
The new Saturnian lies.

The universal prayer
And hope are not in vain;
Rise, brothers! and prepare
The way for Saturn's reign.

Perish shall all which takes
From labor's board and can;
Perish shall all which makes
A spaniel of the man!

Free from its bonds the mind,
The body from the rod;
Broken all chains that bind
The image of our God.

Just men no longer pine
Behind their prison-bars;
Through the rent dungeon shine
The free sun and the stars.

Earth own, at last, untrod
By...

I

Why do I love you, who have never given
My heart encouragement or any cause?
Is it because, as earth is held of heaven,
Your soul holds mine by some mysterious laws?
Perhaps, unseen of me, within your eyes
The answer lies, the answer lies.


II


From your sweet lips no word hath ever fallen
To tell my heart its love is not in vain--
The bee that wooes the flow'r hath honey and pollen
To cheer him on and bring him back again:
But what have I, your other friends above,
To feed my love, to feed my love?


III


Still, still you are my dream and my desire;
Your love is an allurement and a dare
Set for attainment, like a shining spire,
Far, far above me in the starry air:
And gazing upward, 'gainst the...

Oh! give me the night, the dark, dark night,
    The night with never a star.
When the stars are veiled and the moon has sailed
    Beyond the horizon's bar.
When thought grows weary of groping its way
    Through darkness dense and deep,
And buries its head in oblivion's bed,
    Wrapped warm in the mantle of sleep.

For I hate the night, the moon-white night,
    The night with a pallid face,
When a million eyes from the watchful skies
    Peers into each secret place.
For thought awakes and the old wound aches,
    And Sorrow she cannot rest,
But all night long walks to and fro
    Through the aisles of my troubled breast.

And Memory thinks it her royal hour
    When the heavens glitter and shine;
And she fills the cup of the past well ...

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
"This is my own, my native land!"
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

Swift music made of passion's changeful power,
Sweet as the change that leaves the world in flower
When spring laughs winter down to deathward, rang
From grave and gracious lips that smiled and sang
When Massinger, too wise for kings to hear
And learn of him truth, wisdom, faith, or fear,
Gave all his gentler heart to love's light lore,
That grief might brood and scorn breed wrath no more.
Soft, bright, fierce, tender, fitful, truthful, sweet,
A shrine where faith and change might smile and meet,
A soul whose music could but shift its tune
As when the lustrous year turns May to June
And spring subsides in summer, so makes good
Its perfect claim to very womanhood.
The heart that hate of wrong made fire, the hand
Whose touch was fire as keen as shame's own brand

In His blest name, who was His own creation,
Who from all time makes making his vocation;
The name of Him who makes our faith so bright,
Love, confidence, activity, and might;
In that One's name, who, named though oft He be,
Unknown is ever in Reality:
As far as ear can reach, or eyesight dim,
Thou findest but the known resembling Him;
How high so'er thy fiery spirit hovers,
Its simile and type it straight discovers
Onward thou'rt drawn, with feelings light and gay,
Where'er thou goest, smiling is the way;
No more thou numbrest, reckonest no time,
Each step is infinite, each step sublime.

ON THE EVER-LAMENTED LOSS OF THE TWO YEW-TREES IN THE PARISH OF CHILTHORNE, SOMERSET. 1706. IMITATED FROM THE EIGHTH BOOK OF OVID

In ancient times, as story tells,
The saints would often leave their cells,
And stroll about, but hide their quality,
To try good people's hospitality.
    It happen'd on a winter night,
As authors of the legend write,
Two brother hermits, saints by trade,
Taking their tour in masquerade,
Disguis'd in tatter'd habits, went
To a small village down in Kent;
Where, in the strollers' canting strain,
They begg'd from door to door in vain,
Try'd ev'ry tone might pity win;
But not a soul would let them in.
    Our wand'ring saints, in woful state,
Treated at this ungodly rate,
Having thro' all the village past,
To a small c...

Mirando 'l sol de' begli occhi sereno.

THE SWEETS AND BITTERS OF LOVE.


    Marking of those bright eyes the sun serene
Where reigneth Love, who mine obscures and grieves,
My hopeless heart the weary spirit leaves
Once more to gain its paradise terrene;
Then, finding full of bitter-sweet the scene,
And in the world how vast the web it weaves.
A secret sigh for baffled love it heaves,
Whose spurs so sharp, whose curb so hard have been.
By these two contrary and mix'd extremes,
With frozen or with fiery wishes fraught,
To stand 'tween misery and bliss she seems:
Seldom in glad and oft in gloomy thought,
But mostly contrite for its bold emprize,
For of like seed like fruit must ever rise!

MACGREGOR.

There's a feast undated yet:
    Both our true lives hold it fast,-
The first day we ever met.
    What a great day came and passed!
    -Unknown then, but known at last.

And we met: You knew not me,
    Mistress of your joys and fears;
Held my hands that held the key
    Of the treasure of your years,
    Of the fountain of your tears.

For you knew not it was I,
    And I knew not it was you.
We have learnt, as days went by.
    But a flower struck root and grew
    Underground, and no one knew.

Days of days! Unmarked it rose,
    In whose hours we were to meet;
And forgotten passed. Who knows,
    Was earth cold or sunny, Sweet,
    At the coming of your feet?

One mere day, we thought; the measure
    Of such ...