Nature

Give to barrows, trays and pans
Grace and glimmer of romance;
Bring the moonlight into noon
Hid in gleaming piles of stone;
On the city's paved street
Plant gardens lined with lilacs sweet;
Let spouting fountains cool the air,
Singing in the sun-baked square;
Let statue, picture, park and hall,
Ballad, flag and festival,
The past restore, the day adorn,
And make to-morrow a new morn.
So shall the drudge in dusty frock
Spy behind the city clock
Retinues of airy kings,
Skirts of angels, starry wings,
His fathers shining in bright fables,
His children fed at heavenly tables.
'T is the privilege of Art
Thus to play its cheerful part,
Man on earth to acclimate
And bend the exile to his fate,
And, moulded of one element
With the da...

And what of privileged things
mur & frankinscense
or sandlewood    -
yes, teak, ambergris
or skies of indigo blue
-    I cite these gifts,
caravans offered as treasure
Christopher Wren putting
the domes of St. Paul
in place like worn spectacles
over a cherubic face.

The last gargoyle pops in sight
near Notre Dame
such cathedrals are whitened sepulchre
stones in "stately
pleasure domes
decreed".

I see the Taj Mahal
where Mahatma Gandhi might have trod.

The utterance of a tulip
in every parable Christ talked;
rosebuds gleaming milk
on the breath of lilacs
their shields of lilies
shone where Solomon walked.

Song of Songs is none other
than the poet's heart,
water across stones.

Around Sebago's lonely lake
There lingers not a breeze to break
The mirror which its waters make.

The solemn pines along its shore,
The firs which hang its gray rocks o'er,
Are painted on its glassy floor.

The sun looks o'er, with hazy eye,
The snowy mountain-tops which lie
Piled coldly up against the sky.

Dazzling and white! save where the bleak,
Wild winds have bared some splintering peak,
Or snow-slide left its dusky streak.

Yet green are Saco's banks below,
And belts of spruce and cedar show,
Dark fringing round those cones of snow.

The earth hath felt the breath of spring,
Though yet on her deliverer's wing
The lingering frosts of winter cling.

Fresh grasses fringe the meadow-brooks,
And mildly from its s...

My heart is a garden tired with autumn,
Heaped with bending asters and dahlias heavy and dark,
In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April,
The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark;

Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning,
And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain,
The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten soon, forgotten,
After the stillness, will spring come again?

Far above us where a jay
Screams his matins to the day,
Capped with gold and amethyst,
Like a vapour from the forge
Of a giant somewhere hid,
Out of hearing of the clang
Of his hammer, skirts of mist
Slowly up the woody gorge
Lift and hang.

Softly as a cloud we go,
Sky above and sky below,
Down the river, and the dip
Of the paddles scarcely breaks,
With the little silvery drip
Of the water as it shakes
From the blades, the crystal deep
Of the silence of the morn,
Of the forest yet asleep,
And the river reaches borne
In a mirror, purple grey,
Sheer away
To the misty line of light,
Where the forest and the stream
In the shadow meet and plight,
Like a dream.

From amid a stretch of reeds,
Where the lazy...

Bother Bulleys, let us sing
From the dawn till evening! -
For we know not that we go not
When the day's pale pinions fold
Unto those who sang of old.

When I flew to Blackmoor Vale,
Whence the green-gowned faeries hail,
Roosting near them I could hear them
Speak of queenly Nature's ways,
Means, and moods, - well known to fays.

All we creatures, nigh and far
(Said they there), the Mother's are:
Yet she never shows endeavour
To protect from warrings wild
Bird or beast she calls her child.

Busy in her handsome house
Known as Space, she falls a-drowse;
Yet, in seeming, works on dreaming,
While beneath her groping hands
Fiends make havoc in her bands.

How her hussif'ry succeeds
She unknows or she unheeds,
All thi...

Elia, thy reveries and visioned themes
To care's lorn heart a luscious pleasure prove;
Wild as the mystery of delightful dreams,
Soft as the anguish of remembered love:
Like records of past days their memory dances
Mid the cool feelings manhood's reason brings,
As the unearthly visions of romances
Peopled with sweet and uncreated things;--
And yet thy themes thy gentle worth enhances!
Then wake again thy wild harp's tenderest strings,
Sing on, sweet Bard, let fairy loves again
Smile in thy dreams, with angel ecstasies;
Bright over our souls will break the heavenly strain
Through the dull gloom of earth's realities.

Lonely wonder, delight past hoping!
Sky-line broken by stirring trees,
Grey rocks hither and shoreward sloping,
Silent bracken about my knees.

Dusky scrub where the sunlight splashes,
Glimmer of waters barely seen
Here the hope that was dust and ashes
Leaps and flashes in flames of green.

Through the boughs that are still before me,
Misty blue of the harbour hills;
Mighty Spirit of Earth who bore me,
Here the peace of thy love distils.

Fools have harried me; hell has driven,
Bidding me toil for its fading shows:
Back I spring to your arms, forgiven,
Back to the truth that a dreamer knows.

Gold and glory and fleeting pleasure
Pass in dust or as melting cloud:
You can dower with eternal treasure
Heart uplifted and head unbo...

(H. E. B.)


Among my best I put your Book,
O Poet of the breeze and brook!
(That breeze and brook which blows and falls
More soft to those in city walls)
Among my best: and keep it still
Till down the fair grass-girdled hill,
Where slopes my garden-slip, there goes
The wandering wind that wakes the rose,
And scares the cohort that explore
The broad-faced sun-flower o'er and o'er,
Or starts the restless bees that fret
The bindweed and the mignonette.

Then I shall take your Book, and dream
I lie beside some haunted stream;
And watch the crisping waves that pass,
And watch the flicker in the grass;
And wait--and wait--and wait to see
The Nymph ... that never comes to me!

Ceas'd is the rain; but heavy drops yet fall
    From the drench'd roof; - yet murmurs the sunk wind
    Round the dim hills; can yet a passage find
    Whistling thro' yon cleft rock, and ruin'd wall.
The swoln and angry torrents heard, appal,
    Tho' distant. - A few stars, emerging kind,
    Shed their green, trembling beams. - With lustre small,
    The moon, her swiftly-passing clouds behind,
Glides o'er that shaded hill. - Now blasts remove
    The shadowing clouds, and on the mountain's brow,
    Full-orb'd, she shines. - Half sunk within its cove
Heaves the lone boat, with gulphing sound; - and lo!
    Bright rolls the settling lake, and brimming rove
    The vale's blue rills, and glitter as they flow.

Cuckoo, are you calling me,
Or is it a voice of wizardry?
In these woodlands I am lost,
From glade to glade of flowers tost.
Seven times I held my way,
And seven times the voice did say,
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could
Issue from this underwood,
Half of green and half of brown,
Unless he laid his senses down.
Only let him chance to see
The snows of the anemone
Heaped above its greenery;
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could
Issue from the master wood.

Magic paths there are that cross;
Some beset with jewelled moss
And boughs all bare; where others run,
Bluebells bathe in mist and sun
Past a clearing filled with clumps
Of primrose round the nutwood stumps;
All as gay as gay can be,
And bordered with dog-mercury,
The wizard flower, t...

The valley rings with mirth and joy;
Among the hills the echoes play
A never never ending song,
To welcome in the May.
The magpie chatters with delight;
The mountain raven's youngling brood
Have left the mother and the nest;
And they go rambling east and west
In search of their own food;
Or through the glittering vapors dart
In very wantonness of heart.

Beneath a rock, upon the grass,
Two boys are sitting in the sun;
Their work, if any work they have,
Is out of mind, or done.
On pipes of sycamore they play
The fragments of a Christmas hymn;
Or with that plant which in our dale
We call stag-horn, or fox's tail,
Their rusty hats they trim:
And thus, as happy as the day,
Those Shepherds wear the time away.

Along the river...

No one talks more than a Poet;
Fain he'd have the people know it.

Praise or blame he ever loves;
None in prose confess an error,
Yet we do so, void of terror,

In the Muses' silent groves.

What I err'd in, what corrected,
What I suffer'd, what effected,

To this wreath as flow'rs belong;
For the aged, and the youthful,
And the vicious, and the truthful,

All are fair when viewed in song.

Is then the final page before me spread,
Nor further outlet left to mind or heart?
Presumptuous Book! too forward to be read,
How can I give thee licence to depart?
One tribute more: unbidden feelings start
Forth from their coverts; slighted objects rise;
My spirit is the scene of such wild art
As on Parnassus rules, when lightning flies,
Visibly leading on the thunder's harmonies.

All that I saw returns upon my view,
All that I heard comes back upon my ear,
All that I felt this moment doth renew;
And where the foot with no unmanly fear
Recoiled--and wings alone could travel--there
I move at ease; and meet contending themes
That press upon me, crossing the career
Of recollections vivid as the dreams
Of midnight, cities, plains, forests, and mighty s...

    (To Edmund Gosse)

    Within mankind's duration, so they say,
    Khephren and Ninus lived but yesterday.
    Asia had no name till man was old
    And long had learned the use of iron and gold;
    And æons had passed, when the first corn was planted,
    Since first the use of syllables was granted.

    Men were on earth while climates slowly swung,
    Fanning wide zones to heat and cold, and long
    Subsidence turned great continents to sea,
    And seas dried up, dried up interminably,
    Age after age; enormous seas were dried
    Amid wastes of land.    And the last monsters died.

    Earth wore another face.    O since that prime
    Man with how many works has sprinkled time!
    Hammering, hewing, digging tunnels, roads;

O why should nature nigardly restraine,
The Sotherne Nations relish not our tongue,
Else should my lines glide on the waues of Rhene,
And crowne the Pirens with my liuing song;
But bounded thus to Scotland get you forth:
Thence take you wing vnto the Orcades,
There let my verse get glory in the North,
Making my sighs to thawe the frozen seas,
And let the Bards within the Irish Ile,
To whom my Muse with fiery wings shall passe,
Call backe the stifneckd rebels from exile,
And molifie the slaughtering Galliglasse:
    And when my flowing numbers they rehearse,
    Let Wolues and Bears be charmed with my verse.

Thou splendid child of southern skies!
    Thy brilliant plumes and graceful form
Are not so precious in mine eyes
    As those gray heralds of the morn,
Which in my own beloved land
    Welcome the azure car of spring,
When budding flowers and leaves expand
    On hawthorn boughs, and sweetly sing.

But thou art suited to the clime,
    The golden clime, that gave thee birth;
Where beauty reigns o'er scenes sublime,
    And fadeless verdure decks the earth;
Where nature faints beneath the blaze
    Of her own gorgeous crown of light,
And exiled eyes, with aching gaze,
    Sigh for the softer shades of night,

That memory to their dreams may bring
    Past scenes, to cheer their sleeping eye,
The dark green woods where linnets sing,
  ...

Adown the track that skirts the shallow stream
I wandered with blank mind; a bypath drew
My aimless steps aside, and, ere I knew,
The forest closed around me like a dream.
The gold-strewn sward, the horizontal gleam
Of the low sun, pouring its splendors through
The far-withdrawing vistas, filled the view,
And everlasting beauty was supreme.

I knew not past or future; 'twas a mood
Transcending time and taking in the whole.
I was both young and old; my lost childhood,
Years yet unlived, were gathered round one goal;
And death was there familiar. Long I stood,
And in eternity renewed my soul.