Spirituality

I halted at the margin of the wood,
For tortuous was the path, and overhead
Low branches hung, and roots and fragments rude
Of rock hindered the tardy foot. I led
My timid horse, that started at our tread
And looked about on every side in fear,
Until, arising from the jocund shed,
The voice of laughter broke upon our ear,
And through the chinks the light shone out as we drew near.

I tied the bridle rain about a tree,
And on the ample flatness of a stone
Awhile I lay. 'Tis very sweet to be
In social mirth's domain, unseen, alone,
Sweet to make others' happiness one's own:
And he who views the dance from still recess,
Or reads a love tale in a meadow, prone,
Secures the joy without the weariness.
And fills with love's delight, nor feels its sore distr...

i(Man)
In a cleft that's christened Alt
Under broken stone I halt
At the bottom of a pit
That broad noon has never lit,
And shout a secret to the stone.
All that I have said and done,
Now that I am old and ill,
Turns into a question till
I lie awake night after night
And never get the answers right.
Did that play of mine send out
Certain men the English shot?
Did words of mine put too great strain
On that woman's reeling brain?
Could my spoken words have checked
That whereby a house lay wrecked?
And all seems evil until I
Sleepless would lie down and die.
i(Echo)

Lie down and die.

i(Man)
That were to shirk
The spiritual intellect's great work,
And shirk it in vain. There is no release
In a bodkin or dise...

On the lone waters' shore
    Wander I yet;
Brooding those moments o'er
    I should forget.
'Till the broad foaming surge
    Warns me to fly,
While despair's whispers urge
    To stay and die.
When the night's solemn watch
    Falls on the seas,
'Tis thy voice that I catch
    In the low breeze;
When the moon sheds her light
    On things below,
Beams not her ray so bright,
    Like thy young brow?
Spirit immortal! say,
    When wilt thou come,
To marshal me the way
    To my long home?

The Minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage-eaves;
While, smitten by a lofty moon,
The encircling laurels, thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
That overpowered their natural green.

Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sunk to rest with folded wings:
Keen was the air, but could not freeze,
Nor check, the music of the strings;
So stout and hardy were the band
That scraped the chords with strenuous hand;

And who but listened? till was paid
Respect to every Inmate's claim:
The greeting given, the music played,
In honour of each household name,
Duly pronounced with lusty call,
And "merry Christmas" wished to all!

O Brother! I revere the choice
That took thee from thy native hills;

Am as lovely as a dream in stone,
And this my heart where each finds death in turn,
Inspires the poet with a love as lone
As clay eternal and as taciturn.

Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows,
My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;
I hate all movements that disturb my pose,
I smile not ever, neither do I weep.

Before my monumental attitudes,
That breathe a soul into the plastic arts,
My poets pray in austere studious moods,

For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts,
Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies,
The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.

I am sailing to the leeward,
Where the current runs to seaward
        Soft and slow,
Where the sleeping river grasses
Brush my paddle as it passes
        To and fro.

On the shore the heat is shaking
All the golden sands awaking
        In the cove;
And the quaint sand-piper, winging
O'er the shallows, ceases singing
        When I move.

On the water's idle pillow
Sleeps the overhanging willow,
        Green and cool;
Where the rushes lift their burnished
Oval heads from out the tarnished
        Emerald pool.

Where the very silence slumbers,
Water lilies grow in numbers,
        Pure and pale;
All the morning they have rested,
Amber crowned, and pearly crested,
        Fair and frail.

Here, impo...

1.
So now my summer-task is ended, Mary,
And I return to thee, mine own heart's home;
As to his Queen some victor Knight of Faery,
Earning bright spoils for her enchanted dome;
Nor thou disdain, that ere my fame become
A star among the stars of mortal night,
If it indeed may cleave its natal gloom,
Its doubtful promise thus I would unite
With thy beloved name, thou Child of love and light.

2.
The toil which stole from thee so many an hour,
Is ended, - and the fruit is at thy feet!
No longer where the woods to frame a bower
With interlaced branches mix and meet,
Or where with sound like many voices sweet,
Waterfalls leap among wild islands green,
Which framed for my lone boat a lone retreat
Of moss-grown trees and weeds, shall I be seen;
Bu...

How beautiful your presence, how benign,
Servants of God! who not a thought will share
With the vain world; who, outwardly as bare
As winter trees, yield no fallacious sign
That the firm soul is clothed with fruit divine!
Such Priest, when service worthy of his care
Has called him forth to breathe the common air,
Might seem a saintly Image from its shrine
Descended: happy are the eyes that meet
The Apparition; evil thoughts are stayed
At his approach, and low-bowed necks entreat
A benediction from his voice or hand;
Whence grace, through which the heart can understand,
And vows, that bind the will, in silence made.

As the bright flowers start from their wintry tomb,
I've sprung from the depths of futurity's gloom;
With the glory of Hope on my unshadowed brow,
But a fear at my heart, earth welcomes me now.
I come and bear with me a measureless flow,
Of infinite joy and of infinite woe:
The banquet's light jest and the penitent prayer,
The sweet laugh of gladness, the wail of despair,
The warm words of welcome, and broken farewell,
The strains of rich music, the funeral knell,
The fair bridal wreath, and the robe for the dead,
O how will they meet in the path I shall tread!
O how will they mingle where'er I pass by,
As sunshine and storm in the rainbow on high!

Yet start not, nor shrink from the race I must run;
I've peace and repose for the heart-stricken one,
And s...

The first was like a dream through summer heat,
    The second like a tedious numbing swoon,
While the half-frozen pulses lagged to beat
    Beneath a winter moon.

'But,' says my friend, 'what was this thing and where?'
    It was a pleasure-place within my soul;
An earthly paradise supremely fair
    That lured me from the goal.

The first part was a tissue of hugged lies;
    The second was its ruin fraught with pain:
Why raise the fair delusion to the skies
    But to be dashed again?

My castle stood of white transparent glass
    Glittering and frail with many a fretted spire,
But when the summer sunset came to pass
    It kindled into fire.

My pleasaunce was an undulating green,
    Stately with trees whose shadows slept below,...

O, holy Spirit of the Hazel, hearken now,
Though shining suns and silver moons burn on the bough,
And though the fruit of stars by many myriads gleam,
Yet in the undergrowth below, still in thy dream,
Lighting the labyrinthine maze and monstrous gloom
Are many gem-winged flowers with gay and delicate bloom;
And in the shade, hearken, O Dreamer of the Tree,
One wild rose blossom of thy spirit breathed on me
With lovely and still light, a little sister flower
To those that whitely on the tall moon branches tower,
Lord of the Hazel now, oh hearken while I pray,
This wild rose blossom of thy spirit fades away.

If, when in cheerless wanderings, dull and cold,
A sense of human kindliness hath found us,
We seem to have around us
An atmosphere all gold,
’Midst darkest shades a halo rich of shine,
An element, that while the bleak wind bloweth,
On the rich heart bestoweth
Imbreathed draughts of wine;
Heaven guide, the cup be not, as chance may be,
To some vain mate given up as soon as tasted!
No, nor on thee be wasted,
Thou trifler, Poesy!
Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely, ere
Youth fly, with life’s real tempest would be coping:
The fruit of dreamy hoping
Is, waking, blank despair.

DAKRTSI DIOISO POTMON 'APOTMON.

Oh! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees: -
Such lovely ministers to meet
Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.

With mountain winds, and babbling springs,
And moonlight seas, that are the voice
Of these inexplicable things,
Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice
When they did answer thee; but they
Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.

And thou hast sought in starry eyes
Beams that were never meant for thine,
Another's wealth: - tame sacrifice
To a fond faith! still dost thou pine?
Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,
Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?

Ah! wherefore...

Draped in shadows stands the mountain
Against the eastern sky,
Above it the fair summer moon
Looks downward tenderly;
And Venus in the glowing west,
Opens her languid eye.

Now the winds breathe softer music,
Half a song, and half a sigh;
While twilight wraps her purple veil
Around us silently,
And our thoughts appear like pictures,
Pictures shaded wondrously.

Quiet landscapes, sweet and lonely,
Silvery sea, and shadowy glade,
Forest lakes by man forsaken,
Where the white fawn's steps are stayed;
And contadinos straying
'Neath the Pantheon's solemn shade.

And we see the wave bridged over
By the moonlight's mystic link,
Desert wells by tall palms shaded,
Where dusky camels drink;
While dark-eyed Arab maidens
F...

Now it is nearly time when, quivering on its stem,
Each flower, like a censer, sprinkles out its scent;
Sounds and perfumes are mingling in the evening air;
Waltz of a mournfulness and languid vertigo!

Each flower, like a censer, sprinkles out its scent,
The violin is trembling like a grieving heart,
Waltz of a mournfulness and languid vertigo!
The sad and lovely sky spreads like an altar-cloth;

The violin is trembling like a grieving heart,
A tender heart, that hates non-being, vast and black!
The sad and lovely sky spreads like an altar-cloth;
The sun is drowning in its dark, congealing blood.

A tender heart that hates non-being, vast and black
Assembles every glowing vestige of the past!
The sun is drowning in its dark, congealing blood...
In m...

I

Swear by what the sages spoke
Round the Mareotic Lake
That the Witch of Atlas knew,
Spoke and set the cocks a-crow.

Swear by those horsemen, by those women
Complexion and form prove superhuman,
That pale, long-visaged company
That air in immortality
Completeness of their passions won;
Now they ride the wintry dawn
Where Ben Bulben sets the scene.

Here s the gist of what they mean.


II

Many times man lives and dies
Between his two eternities,
That of race and that of soul,
And ancient Ireland knew it all.
Whether man die in his bed
Or the rifle knocks him dead,
A brief parting from those dear
Is the worst man has to fear.
Though grave-diggers' toil is long,
Sharp their spades, their muscles...

    Little bird, is that thy sphere,
Yonder threat'ning cloud so near?
Sunbeams blaze along its brow,
Yet what darkness reigns below!
There the sullen thunder mutt'ring,
Wrathful sounds is sternly utt'ring; -
There the red-eyed lightning gleameth,
Where no more the sunlight beameth,
And the strong wind, fiercely waking,
Wings of fearful might is taking; -
Creature of the calmer air,
Wherefore art thou soaring there?

    Wert thou weary of the vale,
With its blossom-scented gale? -
Weary of thy breezy bowers? -
Weary of thy wild-wood flowers? -
Weary of thy wind-rocked nest
In the bright, green willow's breast? -
Didst thou sigh, on daring wing,
Up in heaven's blue depths to sing? -
Claim with storms companionship,
And in clouds t...

Anzi tre di creata era alma in parte.

THE HISTORY OF HIS LOVE; AND PRAYER FOR HELP.


    Life's three first stages train'd my soul in part
To place its care on objects high and new,
And to disparage what men often prize,
But, left alone, and of her fatal course
As yet uncertain, frolicsome, and free,
She enter'd at spring-time a lovely wood.

A tender flower there was, born in that wood
The day before, whose root was in a part
High and impervious e'en to spirit free;
For many snares were there of forms so new,
And such desire impell'd my sanguine course,
That to lose freedom were to gain a prize.

Dear, sweet, yet perilous and painful prize!
Which quickly drew me to that verdant wood,
Doom'd to mislead me midway in life's cour...