Inspirational

Beautiful valley! through whose verdant meads
    Unheard the Garigliano glides along;--
The Liris, nurse of rushes and of reeds,
    The river taciturn of classic song.

The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest,
    Where mediaeval towns are white on all
The hillsides, and where every mountain's crest
    Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall.

There is Alagna, where Pope Boniface
    Was dragged with contumely from his throne;
Sciarra Colonna, was that day's disgrace
    The Pontiff's only, or in part thine own?

There is Ceprano, where a renegade
    Was each Apulian, as great Dante saith,
When Manfred by his men-at-arms betrayed
    Spurred on to Benevento and to death.

There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town,
    Where Juvenal was born, w...

They lifted her out of a story
Too sordid and selfish by far,
They left me the innocent glory
Of love that was pure as a star;
They left me all guiltless of “evil”
That would have brought years of distress
When the chance to be man, god or devil,
Was mine, on return from Success.

With a name and a courage uncommon
She had come in the soul striving days,
She had come as a child, girl and woman,
Come only to comfort and praise.
There was never a church that could marry,
For never a court could divorce,
In the season of Hannah and Harry
When the love of my life ran its course.

Her hair was red gold on head Grecian,
But fluffed from the parting away,
And her eyes were the warm grey Venetian
That comes with the dawn of the day.
No Fa...

Urn and sarcophagus erst were with life adorn'd by the heathen

Fauns are dancing around, while with the Bacchanal troop
Chequerd circles they trace; and the goat-footed, puffy-cheekd player

Wildly produceth hoarse tones out of the clamorous horn.
Cymbals and drums resound; we see and we hear, too, the marble.

Fluttering bird! oh how sweet tastes the ripe fruit to thy bill!
Noise there is none to disturb thee, still less to scare away Amor,

Who, in the midst of the throng, learns to delight in his torch.
Thus doth fullness overcome death; and the ashes there cover'd

Seem, in that silent domain, still to be gladdend with life.
Thus may the minstrel's sarcophagus be hereafter surrounded

With such a scroll, which himself richly with life has adorn'd.

There are some souls
Whose lot it is to set their hearts on goals
That adverse Fate controls.

While others win
With little labor through life's dust and din,
And lord-like enter in

Immortal gates;
And, of Success the high-born intimates,
Inherit Fame's estates. . .

Why is't the lot
Of merit oft to struggle and yet not
Attain? to toil for what?

Simply to know
The disappointment, the despair and woe
Of effort here below?

Ambitious still to reach
Those lofty peaks, which men aspiring preach,
For which their souls beseech:

Those heights that swell
Remote, removed, and unattainable,
Pinnacle on pinnacle:

Still yearning to attain
Their far repose, above life's stress and strain,
But all in ...

I.

Ye winds, ye unseen currents of the air,
Softly ye played a few brief hours ago;
Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye tossed the hair
O'er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow;
Ye rolled the round white cloud through depths of blue;
Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew;
Before you the catalpa's blossoms flew,
Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow.


II.

How are ye changed! Ye take the cataract's sound;
Ye take the whirlpool's fury and its might;
The mountain shudders as ye sweep the ground;
The valley woods lie prone beneath your flight.
The clouds before you shoot like eagles past;
The homes of men are rocking in your blast;
Ye lift the roofs like autumn leaves, and cast,
Skyward, the whirling fragments out of sig...

The rage for writing has spread far and wide,
Letters on letters now are multiplied,
And every mortal, who can hold a pen,
Aspires in haste to teach his fellow men.
Paper in wasted reams, and seas of ink.
Prove how they write who never learned to think;
Some who have talents--some who have not sense;
Some who to decency make no pretence;
But, skilled in arts which better men deceive,
They spread the slander which they don't believe.
A township turned to scribblers is a sight!
Venting their malice all in black and white,
And with, apparently, no other aim
Than merely to be foaming out their shame.
--My own, my beautiful, my pride,
I must lament where strangers will deride,
O'er thy degenerate sons whose strife and hate
Will make thee as a desert desolate

        I hear the beat of the unresting tide
    On either shore as swiftly on I glide
    With eager haste the narrow channel o'er,
    Which links the floods behind with those before.
    I hear behind me as I onward glide,
    Faint, farewell voices blending with the tide,
    While from beyond, now near, now far away,
    Come stronger voices chiding each delay;
    And drowning, oft, with wild, discordant burst,
    The melancholy minor of the first

"Farewell! farewell! - ye leave us far behind you!" -
    Tis thus the bright-winged Hours sigh from the Past -
"Ye leave us, and the coming ones will find you
    Still vainly dreaming they will ever last, -
Still trifling with the gifts all fresh and glowing,
    Each in its turn will scatter in your way, ...

When o'er the street the morning peal is flung
From yon tall belfry with the brazen tongue,
Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale,
To each far listener tell a different tale.
The sexton, stooping to the quivering floor
Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar,
Whirls the hot axle, counting, one by one,
Each dull concussion, till his task is done.
Toil's patient daughter, when the welcome note
Clangs through the silence from the steeple's throat,
Streams, a white unit, to the checkered street,
Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet;
The bell, responsive to her secret flame,
With every note repeats her lover's name.
The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane,
Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain,
Hears the stern accents, as they come and go,

The song that once I dreamed about,
The tender, touching thing,
As radiant as the rose without
The love of wind and wing
The perfect verses, to the tune
Of woodland music set,
As beautiful as afternoon,
Remain unwritten yet.

It is too late to write them now
The ancient fire is cold;
No ardent lights illume the brow,
As in the days of old.
I cannot dream the dream again;
But when the happy birds
Are singing in the sunny rain,
I think I hear its words.

I think I hear the echo still
Of long-forgotten tones,
When evening winds are on the hill
And sunset fires the cones;
But only in the hours supreme,
With songs of land and sea,
The lyrics of the leaf and stream,
This echo comes to me.

No longer doth the ear...

        Down, you mongrel, Death!
            Back into your kennel!
        I have stolen breath
            In a stalk of fennel!
        You shall scratch and you shall whine
            Many a night, and you shall worry
            Many a bone, before you bury
        One sweet bone of mine!

        When shall I be dead?
            When my flesh is withered,
        And above my head
            Yellow pollen gathered
        All the empty afternoon?
            When sweet lovers pause and wonder
            Who am I that lie thereunder,
        Hidden from the moon?

        This my personal death?--
            That lungs be failing
        To inhale the breath
            Others are exhaling?
        This my subtle spirit...

Shall Earth no more inspire thee,
Thou lonely dreamer now?
Since passion may not fire thee
Shall nature cease to bow?

Thy mind is ever moving
In regions dark to thee;
Recall its useless roving
Come back and dwell with me

I know my mountain breezes
Enchant annd soothe thee still
I know my sunshine pleases
Despite thy wayward will

When day with evening blending
Sinks from the summer sky,
I've seen thy spirit bending
In fond idolotry

I've watched thee every hour
I know my mighty sway
I know my magic power
To drive thy griefs away

Few hearts to mortal given
On earth so wildly pine
Yet none would ask a Heaven
More like this Earth than thine

Then let my winds caress thee
Thy comrade let...

One Autumn night, in Sudbury town,
Across the meadows bare and brown,
The windows of the wayside inn
Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves
Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves
Their crimson curtains rent and thin.

As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be,
Built in the old Colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality;
A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall.

A region of repose it seems,
A place of slumber and of dreams,
Remote among the wooded hills!
For there no noisy railway speeds,
Its torch-race scattering smoke and...

I never could find a good reason
    Why sorrow unbidden should stay,
And all the bright joys of life's season
    Be driven unheeded away.
Our cares would wake no more emotion,
    Were we to our lot but resigned,
Than pebbles flung into the ocean,
    That leave scarce a ripple behind.

The world has a spirit of beauty,
    Which looks upon all for the best,
And while it discharges its duty,
    To Providence leaves all the rest:
That spirit's the beam of devotion,
    Which lights us through life to its close,
And sets, like the sun in the ocean,
    More beautiful far than it rose.

They sat with hearts untroubled,
    The clear sky sparkled above,
And an ancient wisdom bubbled
    From the lips of a youthful love.

They read in a coloured history
    Of Egypt and of the Nile,
And half it seemed a mystery,
    Familiar, half, the while.

Till living out of the story
    Grew old Egyptian men,
And a shadow looked forth Rory
    And said, "We meet again!"

And over Aileen a maiden
    Looked back through the ages dim:
She laughed, and her eyes were laden
    With an old-time love for him.

In a mist came temples thronging
    With sphinxes seen in a row,
And the rest of the day was a longing
    For their homes of long ago.

"We'd go there if they'd let us,"
    They said with wounded pride:...

Here, where the great hills fall away
To bays of silver sea,
I hold within my hand to-day
A wild thing, strange to me.

Behind me is the deep green dell
Where lives familiar light;
The leaves and flowers I know so well
Are gleaming in my sight.

And yonder is the mountain glen,
Where sings in trees unstirred
By breath of breeze or axe of men
The shining satin-bird.

The old weird cry of plover comes
Across the marshy ways,
And here the hermit hornet hums,
And here the wild bee strays.

No novel life or light I see,
On hill, in dale beneath:
All things around are known to me
Except this bit of heath.

This touching growth hath made me dream
It sends my soul afar
To where the Scottish mountains gleam
Ag...

Our hearts are set on pleasure and on gain.
Fine clothes, fair houses, more and daintier bread;
We have no strivings, and no hunger-pain
For spiritual food; our souls are dead.
So judged I till the day when news was rife
Of fire besieging scholars and their dames,
And bravely one gave up her own fair life
In saving the most helpless from the flames.

Then when I heard the instantaneous cheer
That broke with sobbing undertones from all
The multitude, and watched them drawing near,
Stricken and mute, around her funeral pall
In grief and exultation, I confest
My judgment erred, - we know and love the best.

        Oh, you who read some song that I have sung,
        What know you of the soul from whence it sprung?

        Dost dream the poet ever speaks aloud
        His secret thought unto the listening crowd?

        Go take the murmuring sea-shell from the shore:
        You have its shape, its color and no more.

        It tells not one of those vast mysteries
        That lie beneath the surface of the seas.

        Our songs are shells, cast out by-waves of thought;
        Here, take them at your pleasure; but think not

        You've seen beneath the surface of the waves,
        Where lie our shipwrecks and our coral caves.

Sweet comes the morning
In Nature's adorning,
And bright shines the dew on the buds of the thorn,
Where Mary Ann rambles
Through the sloe trees and brambles;
She's sweeter than wild flowers that open at morn;
She's a rose in the dew;
She's pure and she's true;
She's as gay as the poppy that grows in the corn.

Her eyes they are bright,
Her bosom's snow white,
And her voice is like songs of the birds in the grove.
She's handsome and bonny,
And fairer than any,
And her person and actions are Nature's and love.
She has the bloom of all roses,
She's the breath of sweet posies,
She's as pure as the brood in the nest of the dove.

Of Earth's fairest daughters,
Voiced like falling waters,
She walks down the meadows, than blossoms more fa...