Life

    Life's a jail where men have common lot.
    Gaunt the one who has, and who has not.
    All our treasures neither less nor more,
    Bread alone comes thro' the guarded door.
    Cards are foolish in this jail, I think,
    Yet they play for shoes, for drabs and drink.
    She, my lawless, sharp-tongued gypsy maid
    Will not scorn with me this jail-bird trade,
    Pets some fox-eyed boy who turns the trick,
    Tho' he win a button or a stick,
    Pencil, garter, ribbon, corset-lace -
    HIS the glory, MINE is the disgrace.

    Sweet, I'd rather lose than win despite
    Love of hearty words and maids polite.
    "Love's a gamble," say you.    I deny.
    Love's a gift.    I love you till I die.
    Gamblers fight like rats.    I will not play.

But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing,
Nor twitter robin-like of love, nor sing
A pretty dalliance with grief - but try
Some metre like a sky,
Wherein to set
Stars that may linger yet
When I, thy master, shall have come to die.
        Twitter and tweet
            Thy carollings
            Of little things,
        Of fair and sweet;
        For it is meet,
            O robin red!
        That little theme
            Hath little song,
            That little head
        Hath little dream,
            And long.
But we have starry business, such a grief
As Autumn's, dead by some forgotten sheaf,
While all the distance echoes of the wain;
Grief as an ocean's for some sudden isle
Of living green that stayed with it a while,

    Would you be glad of heart and good?
    Would you forget life's toil and care?
    Come, lose yourself in this old wood
    When May's soft touch is everywhere.

    The hawthorn trees are white as snow,
    The basswood flaunts its feathery sprays,
    The willows kiss the stream below
    And listen to its flatteries:

    "O willows supple, yellow, green,
    Long have I flowed o'er stock and stone,
    I say with truth I have not seen
    A rarer beauty than your own!"

    The rough-bark hickory, elm, and beech
    With quick'ning thrill and growth are rife;
    Oak, maple, through the heart of each
    There runs a glorious tide of life.

    Fresh leaves, young buds on every hand,
    On trunk and limb a hint of red,
 ...

Till death have broken
Sweet life’s love-token,
Till all be spoken
That shall be said,
What dost thou praying,
O soul, and playing
With song and saying,
Things flown and fled?
For this we know not
That fresh springs flow not
And fresh griefs grow not
When men are dead;
When strange years cover
Lover and lover,
And joys are over
And tears are shed.

If one day’s sorrow
Mar the day’s morrow
If man’s life borrow
And man’s death pay
If souls once taken,
If lives once shaken,
Arise, awaken,
By night, by day
Why with strong crying
And years of sighing,
Living and dying,
Fast ye and pray?
For all your weeping,
Waking and sleeping,
Death comes to reaping
And takes away.

Though t...

Tune - "The winter of life."



I.

    But lately seen in gladsome green,
        The woods rejoiced the day;
    Thro' gentle showers and laughing flowers,
        In double pride were gay:
    But now our joys are fled
        On winter blasts awa!
    Yet maiden May, in rich array,
        Again shall bring them a'.


II.

    But my white pow, nae kindly thowe
        Shall melt the snaws of age;
    My trunk of eild, but buss or bield,
        Sinks in Time's wintry rage.
    Oh! age has weary days,
        And nights o' sleepless pain!
    Thou golden time o' youthfu' prime,
        Why comes thou not again?

Of love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts?
Or all the same as if he had not been?
Not so. Shall Error in the round of time
Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout
For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself
Thro’ madness, hated by the wise, to law
System and empire? Sin itself be found
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?
And only he, this wonder, dead, become
Mere highway dust? or year by year alone
Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself!
If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,
Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,
The staring eye glazed o’er with sapless days,
The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.
B...

There was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.
All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;
The grass is bright with rain-drops; on the moors
The hare is running races in her mirth;
And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

I was a Traveller then upon the moor;
I saw the hare that raced about with joy;
I heard the woods and distant waters roar;

A Poem In Twelve Books


Stop playing, poet! may a brother speak?
’Tis you speak, that’s your error. Song’s our art:
Whereas you please to speak these naked thoughts
Instead of draping them in sighs and sounds.
True thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts fit to treasure up!
But why such long prolusion and display,
Such turning and adjustment of the harp,
And taking it upon your breast at length,
Only to speak dry words across its strings?
Stark-naked thought is in request enough,
Speak prose and holloa it till Europe hears!
The six-foot Swiss tube, braced about with bark,
Which helps the hunter’s voice from Alp to Alp,
Exchange our harp for that, who hinders you?

But here’s your fault; grown men want thought, you think;
Thought’s what they me...

Lady! a Pen (perhaps with thy regard,
Among the Favoured, favoured not the least)
Left, 'mid the Records of this Book inscribed,
Deliberate traces, registers of thought
And feeling, suited to the place and time
That gave them birth: months passed, and still this hand,
That had not been too timid to imprint
Words which the virtues of thy Lord inspired,
Was yet not bold enough to write of Thee.
And why that scrupulous reserve? In sooth
The blameless cause lay in the Theme itself.
Flowers are there many that delight to strive
With the sharp wind, and seem to court the shower,
Yet are by nature careless of the sun
Whether he shine on them or not; and some,
Where'er he moves along the unclouded sky,
Turn a broad front full on his flattering beams:
Others do ra...

Maiden! with the meek, brown eyes,
In whose orbs a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!

Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!

Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!

Gazing, with a timid glance,
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse!

Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.

Then why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?

Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?

Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That ...

Inspiration.

All who have toiled for Art, who've won or lost,
Sat equal priests at her high Pentecost;
Only the chrism and sacrament of flame,
Anointing all, inspired not all the same.


Apportionment.

How often in our search for joy below
Hoping for happiness we chance on woe.

Victory.

They who take courage from their own defeat
Are victors too, no matter how much beat.

Preparation.

How often hope's fair flower blooms richest where
The soul was fertilized with black despair.

Disillusion.

Those unrequited in their love who die
Have never drained life's chief illusion dry.

Success.

Success allures us in the earth and skies:
We seek to win her, but, too amorous,
Mocking, sh...

In paths untrodden,
In the growth by margins of pond-waters,
Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,
From all the standards hitherto publish'd - from the pleasures, profits, eruditions, conformities,
Which too long I was offering to feed my soul;
Clear to me, now, standards not yet publish'd - clear to me that my Soul,
That the Soul of the man I speak for, feeds, rejoices most in comrades;
Here, by myself, away from the clank of the world,
Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic,
No longer abash'd - for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere,
Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest,
Resolv'd to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment,
Projecting them along that substantial life,
Bequeat...

Matlock! amid thy hoary-hanging views,
Thy glens that smile sequestered, and thy nooks
Which yon forsaken crag all dark o'erlooks;
Once more I court the long neglected Muse,
As erst when by the mossy brink and falls
Of solitary Wainsbeck, or the side
Of Clysdale's cliffs, where first her voice she tried,
I strayed a pensive boy. Since then, the thralls
That wait life's upland road have chilled her breast,
And much, as much they might, her wing depressed.
Wan Indolence, resigned, her deadening hand
Laid on her heart, and Fancy her cold wand
Dropped at the frown of fortune; yet once more
I call her, and once more her converse sweet,
'Mid the still limits of this wild retreat,
I woo; if yet delightful as of yore
My heart she may revisit, nor deny
The soothin...

My garden roses long ago
Have perished from the leaf-strewn walks;
Their pale, fair sisters smile no more
Upon the sweet-brier stalks.

Gone with the flower-time of my life,
Spring's violets, summer's blooming pride,
And Nature's winter and my own
Stand, flowerless, side by side.

So might I yesterday have sung;
To-day, in bleak December's noon,
Come sweetest fragrance, shapes, and hues,
The rosy wealth of June!

Bless the young bands that culled the gift,
And bless the hearts that prompted it;
If undeserved it comes, at least
It seems not all unfit.

Of old my Quaker ancestors
Had gifts of forty stripes save one;
To-day as many roses crown
The gray head of their son.

And with them, to my fancy's eye,
The fres...

"Truth lights our minds as sunrise lights the world.
The heart that shuts out truth, excludes the light
That wakes the love of beauty in the soul;
And being foe to these, despises God,
The sole Dispenser of the gracious bliss
That brings us nearer the celestial gate.
They who might feed on rose-leaves of the True,
And grow in loveliness of heart and soul,
Catch at Deception's airy gossamers,
As children clutch at stars.    To some, the world
Is a bleak desert, parched with blinding sand,
With here and there a mirage, fair to view,
But insubstantial as the visions born
Of Folly and Despair.    Could we but know
How nigh we are to the true light of heaven;
In what a world of love we live and breathe;
On what a tide of truth our souls are borne!
Yet we're bu...

See him quake and see him tremble,
    See him gasp for breath.
Nay, dear, he does not dissemble,
    This is really Death.
He is weak, and worn, and wasted,
    Bear him to his bier.
All there is of life he's tasted -
    He has lived a year.

He has passed his day of glory,
    All his blood is cold,
He is wrinkled, thin, and hoary,
    He is very old.
Just a leaf's life in the wild wood,
    Is a love's life, dear.
He has reached his second childhood
    When he's lived a year.

Long ago he lost his reason,
    Lost his trust and faith -
Better far in his first season
    Had he met with death.
Let us have no pomp or splendour,
    No vain pretence here.
As we bury, grave, yet tender,
    Love that's lived a year...

Time sets his footprints on our little Earth,
    And, walk he ne'er so softly, some sweet thing
Falls 'neath each foot-fall, crush'd amid its mirth,
    Tracking the course of Life's short wandering,
With fallen remnants of its mortal part,
    Freeing the soul, but weighing down the heart.

Thou flower of Love! thou little treasury
    Of gentleness, and purity, and grace!
What hidden virtue hath Death reft from thee--
    What unseen essence melted into space?
For now thou liest like a sinless child,
    Whom God hath homeward to his bosom smiled.

The dew-shower fell on thee, the sunbeam play'd,
    As Life is ever made of smiles and tears;
And ofttimes has the breeze of summer sway'd,
    And with its mellow music mock'd thy fears;
But now, O wo...

Farewell, Life! My senses swim,
And the world is growing dim;
Thronging shadows cloud the light,
Like the advent of the night, -
Colder, colder, colder still,
Upward steals a vapor chill -
Strong the earthy odor grows -
I smell the mould above the rose!

Welcome, Life! the Spirit strives!
Strength returns, and hope revives;
Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn
Fly like shadows at the morn, -
O'er the earth there comes a bloom -
Sunny light for sullen gloom,
Warm perfume for vapor cold -
smell the rose above the mould!

February 1845.