Spirituality

Shy in their herding dwell the fallow deer.
They are spirits of wild sense. Nobody near
Comes upon their pastures. There a life they live,
Of sufficient beauty, phantom, fugitive
Treading as in jungles free leopards do,
Printless as evelight, instant as dew.
The great kine are patient, and home-coming sheep
Know our bidding. The fallow deer keep
Delicate and far their counsels wild,
Never to be folded reconciled
To the spoiling hand as the poor flocks are;
Lightfoot, and swift, and unfamiliar,
These you may not hinder, unconfined
Beautiful flocks of the mind.

One night, from bottles, sang the soul of wine:
'0 misfit man, I send you for your good
Out of the glass and wax where I'm confined,
A melody of light and brotherhood!

I know you must, out on the blazing hill,
Suffer and sweat beneath the piercing rays
To grow my life in me, my soul and will;
I'm grateful to you, and I will not play

You false, since I feel joy when I can fall
Into the throat of some old working man,
And his warm belly suits me overall
As resting place more than cold cellars can.

And do you hear the songs that hope believes,
The Sunday music, throbbing from my breast?
Elbows on table, rolling up your sleeves
You praise me, and I'll put your cares to rest;

I'll fire the eyes of your enraptured wife;
I'll grant a forc...

The room is quiet, thoughts alone
People its mute tranquillity;
The yoke put off, the long task done,
I am, as it is bliss to be,
Still and untroubled. Now, I see,
For the first time, how soft the day
O'er waveless water, stirless tree,
Silent and sunny, wings its way.
Now, as I watch that distant hill,
So faint, so blue, so far removed,
Sweet dreams of home my heart may fill,
That home where I am known and loved:
It lies beyond; yon azure brow
Parts me from all Earth holds for me;
And, morn and eve, my yearnings flow
Thitherward tending, changelessly.
My happiest hours, aye! all the time,
I love to keep in memory,
Lapsed among moors, ere life's first prime
Decayed to dark anxiety.

Sometimes, I think a narrow heart
Makes me thus ...

        I.

Mist on the mountain height
Silvery creeping;
Incarnate beads of light
Bloom-cradled sleeping,
Dripped from the brow of Night.


        II.

Shadows, and winds that rise
Over the mountain;
Stars in the spar that lies
Cold in the fountain,
Pale as the quickened skies.


        III.

Sheep in the wattled folds
Dreamily bleating,
Dim on the thistled wolds,
Where, glad with meeting,
Morn the thin Night enfolds.


        IV.

Sleep on the moaning sea
Hushing his trouble;
Rest on the cares that be
Hued in Life's bubble,
Calm on the woes of me....


        V.

Mist from the mountain height
Hurriedly fleeting;
Star in the locks of Nig...

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 rock 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 su...

As he said vanity, so vain say I,
Oh! vanity, O vain all under Sky;
Where is the man can say, lo, I have found
On brittle Earth a Consolation sound?
What is't in honour to be set on high?
No, they like Beasts and Sons of men shall dye,
And whil'st they live, how oft doth turn their fate;
He's now a captive that was King of late.
What is't in wealth, great Treasures to obtain?
No that's but labour, anxious care and pain.
He heaps up riches, and he heaps up sorrow,
It's his to day, but who's his heir to morrow?
What then? Content in pleasures canst thou find,
More vain then all, that's but to grasp the wind.
The sensual senses for a time they please.
Mean while the conscience rage, who shall appease?
What is't in beauty? No that's but a snare,
They're foul ...

It is full summer now, the heart of June;
Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir
Upon the upland meadow where too soon
Rich autumn time, the season's usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.

Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,
That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on
To vex the rose with jealousy, and still
The harebell spreads her azure pavilion,
And like a strayed and wandering reveller
Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June's messenger

The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,
One pale narcissus loiters fearfully
Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid
Of their own loveliness some violets lie
That will not look the gold sun in the face
...

Behold the blossom-bosomed Day again,
With all the star-white Hours in her train,
Laughs out of pearl-lights through a golden ray,
That, leaning on the woodland wildness, blends
A sprinkled amber with the showers that lay
Their oblong emeralds on the leafy ends.
Behold her bend with maiden-braided brows
Above the wildflower, sidewise with its strain
Of dewy happiness, to kiss again
Each drop to death; or, under rainy boughs,
With fingers, fragrant as the woodland rain,
Gather the sparkles from the sycamore,
To set within each core
Of crimson roses girdling her hips,
Where each bud dreams and drips.
Smoothing her blue-black hair, where many a tusk
Of iris flashes, like the falchions' sheen
Of Faery 'round blue banners of its Queen,
Is it a Naiad singi...

Spenser! a jealous honourer of thine,
A forester deep in thy midmost trees,
Did last eve ask my promise to refine
Some English that might strive thine ear to please.
But Elfin Poet 'tis impossible
For an inhabitant of wintry earth
To rise like Phoebus with a golden quill
Fire-wing'd and make a morning in his mirth.
It is impossible to escape from toil
O' the sudden and receive thy spiriting:
The flower must drink the nature of the soil
Before it can put forth its blossoming:
Be with me in the summer days, and I
Will for thine honour and his pleasure try.

EZEKIEL XXXVII.


The Spirit of God with resistless control,
Like a sunbeam, illumined the depths of my soul,
And visions prophetical burst on my sight,
As he carried me forth in the power of his might.
Around me I saw in a desolate heap
The relics of those who had slept their death-sleep,
In the midst of the valley, all reckless and bare,
Like the hope of my country, lie withering there,--

"Son of man! can these dry bones, long bleached in decay,
Ever feel in their flesh the warm beams of the day;
Can the spirit of life ever enter again
The perishing heaps that now whiten the plain?"
"Lord, thou knowest alone, who their being first gave:
Thy power may be felt in the depths of the grave;
The hand that created again may impart
The rich tide of f...

Nature is but the outward vestibule
Which God has placed before an unseen shrine,
The Visible is but a fair, bright vale
That winds around the great Invisible;
The Finite -- it is nothing but a smile
That flashes from the face of Infinite;
A smile with shadows on it -- and 'tis sad
Men bask beneath the smile, but oft forget
The loving Face that very smile conceals.
The Changeable is but the broidered robe
Enwrapped about the great Unchangeable;
The Audible is but an echo, faint,
Low whispered from the far Inaudible;
This earth is but an humble acolyte
A-kneeling on the lowest altar-step
Of this creation's temple, at the Mass
Of Supernature, just to ring the bell
At Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus! while the world
Prepares its heart for consecration's hour....

This life is all checkered with pleasures and woes,
    That chase one another like waves of the deep,--
Each brightly or darkly, as onward it flows,
    Reflecting our eyes, as they sparkle or weep.
So closely our whims on our miseries tread,
    That the laugh is awaked ere the tear can be dried;
And, as fast as the rain-drop of Pity is shed.
    The goose-plumage of Folly can turn it aside.
But pledge me the cup--if existence would cloy,
    With hearts ever happy, and heads ever wise,
Be ours the light Sorrow, half-sister to Joy,
    And the light, brilliant Folly that flashes and dies.
When Hylas was sent with his urn to the fount,
    Thro' fields full of light, and with heart full of play,
Light rambled the boy, over meadow and mount,
    And neglected his t...

Where are the Poets, unto whom belong
    The Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sent
    Straight to the mark, and not from bows half bent,
    But with the utmost tension of the thong?
Where are the stately argosies of song,
    Whose rushing keels made music as they went
    Sailing in search of some new continent,
    With all sail set, and steady winds and strong?
Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught
    In schools, some graduate of the field or street,
    Who shall become a master of the art,
An admiral sailing the high seas of thought,
    Fearless and first and steering with his fleet
    For lands not yet laid down in any chart.

Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms;
Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,
The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,
Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden, - drift, or sky, or sun, -
The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast
The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest;
The violet, gazing on the arch of blue
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue;
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould
Naked and shivering with his cup of gold.
Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky
On all her boughs the stately ches...

Life is before ye - and while now ye stand
Eager to spring upon the promised land,
Fair smiles the way, where yet your feet have trod
But few light steps, upon a flowery sod;
Round ye are youth's green bowers, and to your eyes
Th' horizon's line joins earth with the bright skies;
Daring and triumph, pleasure, fame, and joy,
Friendship unwavering, love without alloy,
Brave thoughts of noble deeds, and glory won,
Like angels, beckon ye to venture on.
And if o'er the bright scene some shadows rise,
Far off they seem, at hand the sunshine lies;
The distant clouds, which of ye pause to fear?
Shall not a brightness gild them when more near?
Dismay and doubt ye know not, for the power
Of youth is strong within ye at this hour,
And the great mortal conflict seems to y...

In silence and in darkness memory wakes
Her million sheathèd buds, and breaks
That day-long winter when the light and noise
And hard bleak breath of the outward-looking will
Made barren her tender soil, when every voice
Of her million airy birds was muffled or still.

One bud-sheath breaks:
One sudden voice awakes.

What change grew in our hearts, seeing one night
That moth-winged ship drifting across the bay,
    Her broad sail dimly white
On cloudy waters and hills as vague as they?
Some new thing touched our spirits with distant delight,
Half-seen, half-noticed, as we loitered down,
Talking in whispers, to the little town,
    Down from the narrow hill
    Talking in whispers, for the air so still
Imposed its stillness on our lips, and made

I.

‘Spring-flowers’! While you still delay to take
Your leave of town,
Our elm-tree’s ruddy-hearted blossom-flake
Is fluttering down.



II.

Be truer to your promise. There! I heard
Our cuckoo call.
Be needle to the magnet of your word,
Nor wait, till all



III.

Our vernal bloom from every vale and plain
And garden pass,
And all the gold from each laburnum chain
Drop to the grass.



IV.

Is memory with your Marian gone to rest,
Dead with the dead?
For ere she left us, when we met, you prest
My hand, and said



V.

‘I come with your spring-flowers.’ You came not, my friend;
My birds would sing,
You heard not. Take then this spring-flower...

    Write on Life's tablet all things tender, great and good,
    Uncaring that full oft thou art misunderstood.
    Interpretation true is foreign to the throng
    That runs and reads; heed not its praise or blame. Be strong!
    Write on with steady hand, and, smiling, say, "'Tis well!"
    If when thy deeds spell Heaven
    The rabble read out Hell.