Spirituality

(Lyra Messianica, 1864.)


Before the paling of the stars,
    Before the winter morn,
Before the earliest cockcrow
    Jesus Christ was born:
Born in a stable,
    Cradled in a manger,
In the world His hands had made
    Born a stranger.

Priest and king lay fast asleep
    In Jerusalem,
Young and old lay fast asleep
    In crowded Bethlehem:
Saint and Angel, ox and ass,
    Kept a watch together,
Before the Christmas daybreak
    In the winter weather.

Jesus on His Mother's breast
    In the stable cold,
Spotless Lamb of God was He,
    Shepherd of the fold:
Let us kneel with Mary maid,
    With Joseph bent and hoary,
With Saint and Angel, ox and ass,
    To hail the King of Glory.

I could wish you all who love,
That ye could your thoughts remove
From your mistresses, and be
Wisely wanton, like to me,
I could wish you dispossessed
Of that fiend that mars your rest,
And with tapers comes to fright
Your weak senses in the night.
I could wish ye all who fry
Cold as ice, or cool as I;
But if flames best like ye, then,
Much good do 't ye, gentlemen.
I a merry heart will keep,
While you wring your hands and weep.

More towers must yet be built, more towers destroyed,
Great rocks hoisted in air;
And he must seek his bread in high pale sunlight
With gulls about him, and clouds just over his eyes . . .
And so he did not mention his dream of falling
But drank his coffee in silence, and heard in his ears
That horrible whistle of wind, and felt his breath
Sucked out of him, and saw the tower flash by
And the small tree swell beneath him . . .
He patted his boy on the head, and kissed his wife,
Looked quickly around the room, to remember it,
And so went out . . . For once, he forgot his pail.

Something had changed, but it was not the street,
The street was just the same, it was himself.
Puddles flashed in the sun. In the pawn-shop door
The same old black cat winked green ambe...

Heap on more wood! the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
Each age has deem’d the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer:
Even, heathen yet, the savage Dane
At Iol more deep the mead did drain;
High on the beach his galleys drew,
And feasted all his pirate crew;
Then in his low and pine-built hall
Where shields and axes deck’d the wall
They gorged upon the half-dress’d steer;
Caroused in seas of sable beer;
While round, in brutal jest, were thrown
The half-gnaw’d rib, and marrow-bone:
Or listen’d all, in grim delight,
While Scalds yell’d out the joys of fight.
Then forth, in frenzy, would they hie,
While wildly loose their red locks fly,
And dancing round the blazing pile,
They make ...

    No one goes there now:
        For what is left to fetch away
    From the desolate battlements all arow,
        And the lead roof heavy and grey?
Therefore, said fair Yoland of the flowers,
This is the tune of Seven Towers.

    No one walks there now;
        Except in the white moonlight
    The white ghosts walk in a row;
        If one could see it, an awful sight,
Listen! said fair Yoland of the flowers,
This is the tune of Seven Towers.

    But none can see them now,
        Though they sit by the side of the moat,
    Feet half in the water, there in a row,
        Long hair in the wind afloat.
Therefore, said fair Yoland of the flowers,
This is the tune of Seven Towers.

    If any will go to it now,...

Who can forget fair freedom's bird,
That has her genuine praises heard,
    Confirm'd by frequent proof?
The patriot stork is sure to share
The brave Batavian's generous care,
    While breeding on his roof,

In all her early, brightest, days,
When Holland won immortal praise
    Her Spanish tyrant's dread!
She play'd not her heroic part
With spirit, nobler than the heart,
    Of one mild bird she bred.

It was a female Stork, whose mind
Shew'd all the mother, bravely kind,
    In trial's fiercest hour;
This bird had blest her happy lot,
High-nested on a fisher's cot,
    As stedfast as a tower.

Her host, a man benignly mild,
Was happy in a darling child
    Who now had woman's air;
Her face intelligent and sweet,
...

The grass so little has to do, --
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain,

And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything;

And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
And make itself so fine, --
A duchess were too common
For such a noticing.

And even when it dies, to pass
In odors so divine,
As lowly spices gone to sleep,
Or amulets of pine.

And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
And dream the days away, --
The grass so little has to do,
I wish I were the hay!

Midst bitten mead and acre shorn,
The world without is waste and worn,

But here within our orchard-close,
The guerdon of its labour shows.

O valiant Earth, O happy year
That mocks the threat of winter near,

And hangs aloft from tree to tree
The banners of the Spring to be.

We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving,
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,
Fulfilling our foray.

We are wondering why those fellows who are writing cheerful ditties
Of the rosy times out droving, and the dust and death of cities,
Do not leave the dreary office, ask a drover for a billet,
And enjoy ‘the views,’ ‘the campfires,’ and ‘the freedom’ while they fill it.

If it’s fun to travel cattle or to picnic with merinoes,
Well the drover doesn’t see it, few poetic raptures he knows.
As for sleeping on the plains beneath ‘the pale moon’ always seen there,
That is most appreciated by the man who’s never been there.

And the ‘balmy air,’ the horses, and the ‘wondrous constellations,’
The ’possum-rugs, and billies, and the tough and musty rations,
It’s strange they only please the swell in urban streets residing,
Where the trams are always handy if he has a taste for riding....

D' altrui pietoso.


Kind to the world, but to itself unkind,
        A worm is born, that dying noiselessly
        Despoils itself to clothe fair limbs, and be
        In its true worth by death alone divined.
Oh, would that I might die, for her to find
        Raiment in my outworn mortality!
        That, changing like the snake, I might be free
        To cast the slough wherein I dwell confined!
Nay, were it mine, that shaggy fleece that stays,
        Woven and wrought into a vestment fair,
        Around her beauteous bosom in such bliss!
All through the day she'd clasp me! Would I were
        The shoes that bear her burden! When the ways
        Were wet with rain, her feet I then should kiss!

Oh, I am the siren, the siren of the sea,
The sea, the wondrous sea, that lies forevermore before;
I stand a fairy shape upon the shadow of a cliff
Where the water's drowsy ripple laps the phantom of a shore,
And, oh, so fair, so fair am I, I draw all hearts to me,
For I am the siren, the siren of the sea.

All the glory of my golden tresses gleams upon the air,
How it falls about my snowy shoulders, round and bare and white;
My lips are full of love as rounded grapes are full of wine,
And my eyes are large and languid, and full of dewy light;
Oh, I lure the idle landsmen many a league for love of me,
For I am the siren, the siren of the sea.

Sometimes they press so near that my breath is on their cheek,
And their eager hands can almost touch the glowing bowl I be...

Dolci durezze e placide repulse.

HE OWES HIS OWN SALVATION TO THE VIRTUOUS CONDUCT OF LAURA.


    O sweet severity, repulses mild,
With chasten'd love, and tender pity fraught;
Graceful rebukes, that to mad passion taught
Becoming mastery o'er its wishes wild;
Speech dignified, in which, united, smiled
All courtesy, with purity of thought;
Virtue and beauty, that uprooted aught
Of baser temper had my heart defiled:
Eyes, in whose glance man is beatified--
Awful, in pride of virtue, to restrain
Aspiring hopes that justly are denied,
Then prompt the drooping spirit to sustain!
These, beautiful in every change, supplied
Health to my soul, that else were sought in vain.

DACRE.

Before the press scarce one could see
A little-peeping-part of thee;
But since thou'rt printed, thou dost call
To show thy nakedness to all.
My care for thee is now the less,
Having resign'd thy shamefac'dness.
Go with thy faults and fates; yet stay
And take this sentence, then away:
Whom one belov'd will not suffice,
She'll run to all adulteries.

They tell me aw'm a vulgar chap,
An ow't to goa to th' schooil
To leearn to talk like other fowk,
An net be sich a fooil;
But aw've a noashun, do yo see,
Although it may be wrang,
The sweetest music is to me,
Mi own, mi native twang.

An when away throo all mi friends,
I' other taans aw rooam,
Aw find ther's nowt con mak amends
For what aw've left at hooam;
But as aw hurry throo ther streets
Noa matter tho aw'm thrang,
Ha welcome if mi ear but greets
Mi own, mi native twang.

Why some despise it, aw can't tell,
It's plain to understand;
An sure aw am it saands as weel,
Tho' happen net soa grand.
Tell fowk they're courtin, they're enraged,
They call that vulgar slang;
But if aw tell 'em they're engaged,
That's net mi...

It is not a word spoken,
Few words are said;
Nor even a look of the eyes
Nor a bend of the head,

But only a hush of the heart
That has too much to keep,
Only memories waking
That sleep so light a sleep.

That which I learned from the Deity,
that which through lifetime hath helped me,
Meekly and gratefully now, here I suspend in his shrine.

The fitful alternations of the rain,
When the chill wind, languid as with pain
Of its own heavy moisture, here and there
Drives through the gray and beamless atmosphere.