Life

I

Peradventure of old, some bard in Ionian Islands,
    Walking alone by the sea, hearing the wash of the waves,
Learned the secret from them of the beautiful verse elegiac,
    Breathing into his song motion and sound of the sea.

For as the wave of the sea, upheaving in long undulations,
    Plunges loud on the sands, pauses, and turns, and retreats,
So the Hexameter, rising and singing, with cadence sonorous,
    Falls; and in refluent rhythm back the Pentameter flows?

II

Not in his youth alone, but in age, may the heart of the poet
    Bloom into song, as the gorse blossoms in autumn and spring.

III

Not in tenderness wanting, yet rough are the rhymes of our poet;
    Though it be Jacob's voice, Esau's, alas! are the hands.

    Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
        Eat I must, and sleep I will,--and would that night were here!
    But ah!--to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
        Would that it were day again!--with twilight near!

    Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
        This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
    But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through,--
        There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

    Love has gone and left me,--and the neighbors knock and borrow,
        And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,--
    And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
        There's this little street and this little house.

Oh Life! I breathe thee in the breeze,
I feel thee bounding in my veins,
I see thee in these stretching trees,
These flowers, this still rock's mossy stains.

This stream of odours flowing by
From clover-field and clumps of pine,
This music, thrilling all the sky,
From all the morning birds, are thine.

Thou fill'st with joy this little one,
That leaps and shouts beside me here,
Where Isar's clay-white rivulets run
Through the dark woods like frighted deer.

Ah! must thy mighty breath, that wakes
Insect and bird, and flower and tree,
From the low trodden dust, and makes
Their daily gladness, pass from me,

Pass, pulse by pulse, till o'er the ground
These limbs, now strong, shall creep with pain,
And this fair world of sight and so...

When Art goes bounding, lean,
Up hill-tops fired green
To pluck a rose for life.

Life like a broody hen
Cluck-clucks him back again.

But when Art, imbecile,
Sits old and chill
On sidings shaven clean,
And counts his clustering
Dead daisies on a string
With witless laughter....

Then like a new Jill
Toiling up a hill
Life scrambles after.

Not while the fever of the blood is strong,
The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less
With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless
The poet-soul to help and soothe with song.
Not then she bids his trembling lips express
The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain.
Life is his poem then; flesh, sense, and brain
One full-stringed lyre attuned to happiness.
But when the dream is done, the pulses fail,
The day's illusion, with the day's sun set,
He, lonely in the twilight, sees the pale
Divine Consoler, featured like Regret,
Enter and clasp his hand and kiss his brow.
Then his lips ope to sing - as mine do now.

    Everyone is a poet, or so the philosopher said. The world teems
    with poetry in much the sense the universe teems with life.
    A poet or two is squirrelled away in every major office.
    Boiler rooms hum with the tooth and nail, robust imagery of
    working class poets. The neurological desire to express oneself
    transcends even social barriers. Be creative, like a brain surgeon.
    My scalpel runneth over amongst all those cerebral ganglia.

    The mind washed clean, scrubbed down. Words burn holes on the
    paper. Firemen disguised as poets douse the heroic flames.
    Sherpas tightly drawn amidst depths of a Himalayan winter
    weather a torrent of words. Groggy, I search for breath, am given
    oxygen but see writing materials.

    In the future,...

Oh, I am hurt to death, my Love;
The shafts of Fate have pierced my striving heart,
And I am sick and weary of
The endless pain and smart.
My soul is weary of the strife,
And chafes at life, and chafes at life.

Time mocks me with fair promises;
A blooming future grows a barren past,
Like rain my fair full-blossomed trees
Unburden in the blast.
The harvest fails on grain and tree,
Nor comes to me, nor comes to me.

The stream that bears my hopes abreast
Turns ever from my way its pregnant tide.
My laden boat, torn from its rest,
Drifts to the other side.
So all my hopes are set astray,
And drift away, and drift away.

The lark sings to me at the morn,
And near me wings her skyward-soaring flight;
But pleasure dies as soon as ...

A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
    And that is life!

A crust and a corner that love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter when cares come after,
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter;
    And that is life!

I

I am not One who much or oft delight
To season my fireside with personal talk.
Of friends, who live within an easy walk,
Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight:
And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies bright,
Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the stalk,
These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk
Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast-night.
Better than such discourse doth silence long,
Long, barren silence, square with my desire;
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.

II

"Yet life," you say, "is life; we have seen and see,
And with a living pleasure we describe;
And fits of sprightly malice do...

From the first gleam of morning to the gray
Of peaceful evening, lo, a life unrolled!
In woven pictures all its changes told,
Its lights, its shadows, every flitting ray,
Till the long curtain, falling, dims the day,
Steals from the dial's disk the sunlight's gold,
And all the graven hours grow dark and cold
Where late the glowing blaze of noontide lay.
Ah! the warm blood runs wild in youthful veins, -
Let me no longer play with painted fire;
New songs for new-born days! I would not tire
The listening ears that wait for fresher strains
In phrase new-moulded, new-forged rhythmic chains,
With plaintive measures from a worn-out lyre.

    Poems are holy things. Eternal Truth,
    Borrowing the robes of song and lovely grown,
    In them her glory unto man proclaims
    And fills his longing soul. They softly speak
    Of Nature's beauty and the secrets old
    Concealed behind the shadows of the hills,
    And love on angel fingers borne to men,
    Naming them over in so sweet a voice
    That music leads their footsteps in the ways
    Where God has walked; and with a lofty Harp,
    As wondrous as the gentle harps of heaven,
    Uplifts, ennobles, soothes and leads the race
    Unto its last great ultimate of power,
    To words of tenderness and goodly deeds.

To the heart of trusting childhood life is all a gilded way,
Wherein a beam of sunny bliss forever seems to play;
It roams about delightedly through pleasure's roseate bower,
And gaily makes a playmate, too, of every bird and flower;
Holds with the rushing of the winds companionship awhile,
And, on the tempest's darkest brow, discerns a brightening smile,
Converses with the babbling waves, as on their way they wend,
And sees, in everything it meets, the features of a friend.
"To-day" is full of rosy joy, "to-morrow" is not here:
When, for an uncreated hour, was childhood known to fear?
Not until hopes, warm hopes, its heart a treasure-house have made,
Like summer flowers to bloom awhile, like them, alas, to fade;
Cherished too fondly and too long, for ah! the rich parterre,
...

In the rapture of life and of living,
    I lift up my heart and rejoice,
And I thank the great Giver for giving
    The soul of my gladness a voice.
In the glow of the glorious weather,
    In the sweet-scented, sensuous air,
My burdens seem light as a feather -
    They are nothing to bear.

In the strength and the glory of power,
    In the pride and the pleasure of wealth
(For who dares dispute me my dower
    Of talents and youth-time and health?),
I can laugh at the world and its sages -
    I am greater than seers who are sad,
For he is most wise in all ages
    Who knows how to be glad.

I lift up my eyes to Apollo,
    The god of the beautiful days,
And my spirit soars off like a swallow,
    And is lost in the light of its ra...

        Life is too short for any vain regretting;
    Let dead delight bury its dead, I say,
        And let us go upon our way forgetting
    The joys and sorrows of each yesterday
        Between the swift sun's rising and its setting
        We have no time for useless tears or fretting:
    Life is too short.

        Life is too short for any bitter feeling;
    Time is the best avenger if we wait;
        The years speed by, and on their wings bear healing;
    We have no room for anything like hate.
        This solemn truth the low mounds seem revealing
        That thick and fast about our feet are stealing:
    Life is too short.

        Life is too short for aught but high endeavor -
    Too short for spite, but long enough for love.
   ...

In the rapture of life and of living,
    I lift up my heart and rejoice,
And I thank the great Giver for giving
    The soul of my gladness a voice.
In the glow of the glorious weather,
    In the sweet-scented sensuous air,
My burdens seem light as a feather -
    They are nothing to bear.

In the strength and the glory of power,
    In the pride and the pleasure of wealth,
(For who dares dispute me my dower
    Of talents and youth-time and health?)
I can laugh at the world and its sages -
    I am greater than seers who are sad,
For he is most wise in all ages
    Who knows how to be glad.

I lift up my eyes to Apollo,
    The god of the beautiful days,
And my spirit soars off like a swallow
    And is lost in the light of its rays...

Oh, I have dreams.    I sometimes dream of Life
    In the full meaning of that splendid word.
    Its subtle music which few men have heard,
Though all may hear it, sounding through earth's strife.
Its mountain heights by mystic breezes kissed
    Lifting their lovely peaks above the dust;
    Its treasures which no touch of time can rust,
Its emerald seas, its dawns of amethyst,
    Its certain purpose, its serene repose,
    Its usefulness, that finds no hour for woes,
    This is my dream of Life.

Yes, I have dreams.    I ofttimes dream of Love
    As radiant and brilliant as a star.
    As changeless, too, as that fixed light afar
Which glorifies vast worlds of space above.
Strong as the tempest when it holds its breath,
    Before it bursts in fury...

On these green banks, where falls too soon
The shade of Autumn's afternoon,
The south wind blowing soft and sweet,
The water gliding at nay feet,
The distant northern range uplit
By the slant sunshine over it,
With changes of the mountain mist
From tender blush to amethyst,
The valley's stretch of shade and gleam
Fair as in Mirza's Bagdad dream,
With glad young faces smiling near
And merry voices in my ear,
I sit, methinks, as Hafiz might
In Iran's Garden of Delight.
For Persian roses blushing red,
Aster and gentian bloom instead;
For Shiraz wine, this mountain air;
For feast, the blueberries which I share
With one who proffers with stained hands
Her gleanings from yon pasture lands,
Wild fruit that art and culture spoil,
The harvest o...

Our lives seem filled with things of little worth;
A thousand petty cares arise each day
Which bring our soaring thoughts from heaven to earth,
Reminding us that we have feet of clay;
Yet we will not from path of duty stray
If we amidst them all cleave to the right;
Nor great nor small are actions in His sight;
Through lowly vale He shows our feet the way.

Our early dreams may not be realized;
The roseate sky now proves quite commonplace;
The constellations we so highly prized
Have vanished all--nor left the slightest trace
Of former glory in its azure face,
But high o'er all beams out the polar star
To guide us safe through rock and sandy bar;
Life is complete and its cap-stone is grace.