Spirituality

The morn arrived; his footstep quickly scared

The gentle sleep that round my senses clung,
And I, awak'ning, from my cottage fared,

And up the mountain side with light heart sprung;
At every step I felt my gaze ensnared

By new-born flow'rs that full of dew-drops hung;
The youthful day awoke with ecstacy,
And all things quicken'd were, to quicken me.

And as I mounted, from the valley rose

A streaky mist, that upward slowly spread,
Then bent, as though my form it would enclose,

Then, as on pinions, soar'd above my head:
My gaze could now on no fair view repose,

in mournful veil conceal'd, the world seem'd dead;
The clouds soon closed around me, as a tomb,
And I was left alone in twilight gloom.

At once the sun his ...

    'Neath their black yews in solemn state
        The owls are sitting in a row
        Like foreign gods; and even so
    Blink their red eyes; they meditate.

    Quite motionless they hold them thus
        Until at last the day is done,
        And driving down the slanting sun,
    The sad night is victorious.

    They teach the wise who gives them ear
    That in this world he most should fear
        All things which loud or restless be.

    Who, dazzled by a passing shade,
        Follows it, never will be free
    Till the dread penalty be paid.

Oh, children of the tropics,
    Amid our pain and wrong
Have you no other mission
    Than music, dance, and song?

When through the weary ages
    Our dripping tears still fall,
Is this a time to dally
    With pleasure's silken thrall?

Go, muffle all your viols;
    As heroes learn to stand,
With faith in God's great justice
    Nerve every heart and hand.

Dream not of ease nor pleasure,
    Nor honor, wealth, nor fame,
Till from the dust you've lifted
    Our long-dishonored name;

And crowned that name with glory
    By deeds of holy worth,
To shine with light emblazoned,
    The noblest name on earth.

Count life a dismal failure,
    Unblessing and unblest,
That seeks 'mid ease inglorious
   ...

Where Humber pours his rich commercial stream
There dwelt a wretch, who breathed but to blaspheme;
In subterraneous caves his life he led,
Black as the mine in which he wrought for bread.
When on a day, emerging from the deep,
A Sabbath-day (such Sabbaths thousands keep!),
The wages of his weekly toil he bore
To buy a cock—whose blood might win him more;
As if the noblest of the feather’d kind
Were but for battle and for death design’d;
As if the consecrated hours were meant
For sport, to minds on cruelty intent;
It chanced (such chances Providence obey)
He met a fellow-labourer on the way,
Whose heart the same desires had once inflamed;
But now the savage temper was reclaim’d,
Persuasion on his lips had taken place;
For all plead well who plead the cause...

    There are ghosts in the room.
As I sit here alone, from the dark corners there
    They come out of the gloom,
And they stand at my side and they lean on my chair.

    There's the ghost of a Hope
That lighted my days with a fanciful glow.
    In her hand is the rope
That strangled her life out.    Hope was slain long ago.

    But her ghost comes to-night,
With its skeleton face and expressionless eyes,
    And it stands in the light,
And mocks me, and jeers me with sobs and with sighs.

    There's the ghost of a Joy,
A frail, fragile thing, and I prized it too much,
    And the hands that destroy
Clasped it close, and it died at the withering touch.

    There's the ghost of a Love,
Born with joy, reared with hope, died in pain ...

Keen in his blood ran the old mad desire
To right the world's wrongs and champion truth;
Deep in his eyes shone a heaven-lit fire,
And royal and radiant day-dreams of youth!

Gracious was he to both beggar and stranger,
And for a rose tossed from fair finger-tips
He would have ridden hard-pressed through all danger,
The rose on his heart and a song on his lips!

All the king's foes he counted his foemen;
His not to say that a cause could be lost;
Spirits like his faced the enemies' bowmen
On long vanished fields - nor counted the cost.

Wide was his out-look and far was his vision;
Soul-fretting trifles he sent down the wind;
Small griefs gained only his cheerful derision, -
God's weather always was fair to his mind.

But he would comfort a...

I sit once more on breezy shore, at sunset in this glorious June,
I hear the dip of gleaming oar, I list the singers' merry tune.
Beneath my feet the waters beat, and ripple on the polished stones,
The squirrel chatters from his seat; the bag-pipe beetle hums and drones.
The pink and gold in blooming wold, the green hills mirrored in the lake!
The deep, blue waters, zephyr-rolled, along the murmuring pebbles break.
The maples screen the ferns, and lean the leafy lindens o'er the deep;
The sapphire, set in emerald green, lies like an Orient gem asleep.
The crimson west glows like the breast of Rhuddin[CA] when he pipes in May,
As downward droops the sun to rest, and shadows gather on the bay.
In amber sky the swallows fly and sail and circle o'er the deep;
The light-w...

They are flocking from the East
And the West,
They are flocking from the North
And the South,
Every moment setting forth
From realm of snake or lion,
Swamp or sand,
Ice or burning;
Greatest and least,
Palm in hand
And praise in mouth,
They are flocking up the path
To their rest,
Up the path that hath
No returning.

Up the steeps of Zion
They are mounting,
Coming, coming,
Throngs beyond man's counting;
With a sound
Like innumerable bees
Swarming, humming
Where flowering trees
Many-tinted,
Many-scented,
All alike abound
With honey, -
With a swell
Like a blast upswaying unrestrainable
From a shadowed dell
To the hill-tops sunny, -
With a thunder
Like the ocean when in strength

God, God!
With a child’s voice I cry,
Weak, sad, confidingly,
God, God!
Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up
Unto Thy love (as none of ours are), droop
As ours, o’er many a tear!
Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad,
Two little tears suffice to cover all:
Thou knowest, Thou, who art so prodigal
Of beauty, we are oft but stricken deer
Expiring in the woods, that care for none
Of those delightsome flowers they die upon.

O blissful Mouth which breathed the mournful breath
We name our souls, self-spoilt! by that strong passion
Which paled Thee once with sighs, by that strong death
Which made Thee once unbreathing, from the wrack
Themselves have called around them, call them back,
Back to Thee in continuous aspiration!
For here, O ...

Si è debile il filo a cui s' attene.

HE GRIEVES IN ABSENCE FROM LAURA.


    The thread on which my weary life depends
So fragile is and weak,
If none kind succour lends,
Soon 'neath the painful burden will it break;
Since doom'd to take my sad farewell of her,
In whom begins and ends
My bliss, one hope, to stir
My sinking spirit from its black despair,
Whispers, "Though lost awhile
That form so dear and fair,
Sad soul! the trial bear,
For thee e'en yet the sun may brightly shine,
And days more happy smile,
Once more the lost loved treasure may be thine."
This thought awhile sustains me, but again
To fail me and forsake in worse excess of pain.

Time flies apace: the silent hours and swift
So urge his journey on,

In the fair morning of his life,
    When his pure heart lay in his breast,
    Panting, with all that wild unrest
To plunge into the great world's strife

That fills young hearts with mad desire,
    He saw a sunset. Red and gold
    The burning billows surged and rolled,
And upward tossed their caps of fire.

He looked. And as he looked, the sight
    Sent from his soul through breast and brain
    Such intense joy, it hurt like pain.
His heart seemed bursting with delight.

So near the Unknown seemed, so close
    He might have grasped it with his hand.
    He felt his inmost soul expand,
As sunlight will expand a rose.

One day he heard a singing strain -
    A human voice, in bird-like trills.
    He paused, and little raptur...

We have not heard the music of the spheres,
The song of star to star, but there are sounds
More deep than human joy and human tears,
That Nature uses in her common rounds;
The fall of streams, the cry of winds that strain
The oak, the roaring of the sea's surge, might
Of thunder breaking afar off, or rain
That falls by minutes in the summer night.
These are the voices of earth's secret soul,
Uttering the mystery from which she came.
To him who hears them grief beyond control,
Or joy inscrutable without a name,
Wakes in his heart thoughts bedded there, impearled,
Before the birth and making of the world.

Evening comes with moonshine and silky darkness.
The roads become weary.    The narrow world widens.
Winds of opium move in and out of the field.
I widen my eyes like silver wings.
I feel as though my body were the whole earth.
The city lights up: thousands of street lamps sway.
Now the sky also piously enkindles its candlelight.
...    Huge above everything my human face wanders -

Chiare, fresche e dolci acque.

TO THE FOUNTAIN OF VAUOLUSE--CONTEMPLATIONS OF DEATH.


    Ye limpid brooks, by whose clear streams
My goddess laid her tender limbs!
Ye gentle boughs, whose friendly shade
Gave shelter to the lovely maid!
Ye herbs and flowers, so sweetly press'd
By her soft rising snowy breast!
Ye Zephyrs mild, that breathed around
The place where Love my heart did wound!
Now at my summons all appear,
And to my dying words give ear.

If then my destiny requires,
And Heaven with my fate conspires,
That Love these eyes should weeping close,
Here let me find a soft repose.
So Death will less my soul affright,
And, free from dread, my weary spright
Naked alone will dare t' essay
The still unknown, though b...

A little dog disturbed my trust in Heaven.
I praised most faithfully
All the great things that be,
Man’s pain and pleasure even,
I said though hard this weighing
Of pains and tears and praying
He will reward most just.

I said your bitter weeping man or maid,
Your tears or laughter
Shall gain a just Hereafter;
Meet you the will of God then unafraid,
Gird you to your trials for God’s abode
Is open for all sorrow;
Live for the great to-morrow.
There passed me on the road

A little dog with hungry eyes, and sad
Thin flesh all shivering,
All sore and quivering,
Whining beneath the fell disease he had.
I hurried home and praised God as before
For thus affording
To man rewarding,
The dog was whining outside my door.

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.

    The storm hath passed;
    I hear the birds rejoice; the hen,
    Returned into the road again,
    Her cheerful notes repeats. The sky serene
    Is, in the west, upon the mountain seen:
    The country smiles; bright runs the silver stream.
    Each heart is cheered; on every side revive
    The sounds, the labors of the busy hive.
    The workman gazes at the watery sky,
    As standing at the door he sings,
    His work in hand; the little wife goes forth,
    And in her pail the gathered rain-drops brings;
    The vendor of his wares, from lane to lane,
    Begins his daily cry again.
    The sun returns, and with his smile illumes
    The villas on the neighboring hills;
    Through open terraces and balconies,
    The genial light pervades the ...

And, not in vain embodied to the sight,
Religion finds even in the stern retreat
Of feudal sway her own appropriate seat;
From the collegiate pomps on Windsor's height
Down to the humbler altar, which the Knight
And his retainers of the embattled hall
Seek in domestic oratory small,
For prayer in stillness, or the chanted rite;
Then chiefly dear, when foes are planted round,
Who teach the intrepid guardians of the place
Hourly exposed to death, with famine worn,
And suffering under many a perilous wound
How sad would be their durance, if forlorn
Of offices dispensing heavenly grace!