Spirituality

Birds that like vanishing visions go winging,
White, white in the flame of the sunset's burning,
Fly with the wild spray the billows are flinging,
Blend, blend with the nightfall, and fade, unreturning!

Fire of the heaven, whose splendor all-glowing
Soon, soon shall end, and in darkness must perish;
Sea-bird and flame-wreath and foam lightly blowing; -
Soon, soon tho' we lose you, your beauty we cherish.

Visions may vanish, the sweetest, the dearest;
Hush'd, hush'd be the voice of love's echo replying;
Spirits may leave us that clung to us nearest: -
Love, love, only love dwells with us undying!

Show me the noblest Youth of present time,
Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth;
Some God or Hero, from the Olympian clime
Returned, to seek a Consort upon earth;
Or, in no doubtful prospect, let me see
The brightest star of ages yet to be,
And I will mate and match him blissfully.
I will not fetch a Naiad from a flood
Pure as herself, (song lacks not mightier power)
Nor leaf-crowned Dryad from a pathless wood,
Nor Sea-nymph glistening from her coral bower;
Mere Mortals bodied forth in vision still,
Shall with Mount Ida's triple lustre fill
The chaster coverts of a British hill.
"Appear! obey my lyre's command!
Come, like the Graces, hand in hand!
For ye, though not by birth allied,
Are Sisters in the bond of love;
Nor shall the tongue of e...

All day long he kept the sheep:--
    Far and early, from the crowd,
On the hills from steep to steep,
    Where the silence cried aloud;
    And the shadow of the cloud
Wrapt him in a noonday sleep.

Where he dipped the water's cool,
    Filling boyish hands from thence,
Something breathed across the pool
    Stir of sweet enlightenments;
    And he drank, with thirsty sense,
Till his heart was brimmed and full.

Still, the hovering Voice unshed,
    And the Vision unbeheld,
And the mute sky overhead,
    And his longing, still withheld!
    --Even when the two tears welled,
Salt, upon that lonely bread.

Vaguely blessèd in the leaves,
    Dim-companioned in the sun,
Eager mornings, wistful eves,
    Very hunger drew hi...

Art thou a Statist in the van
Of public conflicts trained and bred?
First learn to love one living man;
'Then' may'st thou think upon the dead.

A Lawyer art thou? draw not nigh!
Go, carry to some fitter place
The keenness of that practised eye,
The hardness of that sallow face.

Art thou a Man of purple cheer?
A rosy Man, right plump to see?
Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near,
This grave no cushion is for thee.

Or art thou one of gallant pride,
A Soldier and no man of chaff?
Welcome! but lay thy sword aside,
And lean upon a peasant's staff.

Physician art thou? one, all eyes,
Philosopher! a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanise
Upon his mother's grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
O turn...

Da poi che sotto 'l ciel cosa non vidi.


    When all beneath the ample cope of heaven
I saw, like clouds before the tempest driven,
In sad vicissitude's eternal round,
Awhile I stood in holy horror bound;
And thus at last with self-exploring mind,
Musing, I ask'd, "What basis I could find
To fix my trust?" An inward voice replied,
"Trust to the Almighty: He thy steps shall guide;
He never fails to hear the faithful prayer,
But worldly hope must end in dark despair."
Now, what I am, and what I was, I know;
I see the seasons in procession go
With still increasing speed; while things to come,
Unknown, unthought, amid the growing gloom
Of long futurity, perplex my soul,
While life is posting to its final goal.
Mine is the crime, who ought w...

The sole true Something, This! In Limbo Den
It frightens Ghosts as Ghosts here frighten men
For skimming in the wake it mock'd the care
Of the old Boat-God for his Farthing Fare ;
Tho' Irus' Ghost itself he ne'er frown'd blacker on,
The skin and skin-pent Druggist crost the Acheron,
Styx, and with Puriphlegethon Cocytus,
(The very names, methinks, might thither fright us)
Unchang'd it cross'd, & shall some fated Hour
Be pulveris'd by Demogorgon's power
And given as poison to annilate Souls
Even now It shrinks them! they shrink in as Moles
(Nature's mute Monks, live Mandrakes of the ground)
Creep back from Light, then listen for its Sound;
See but to dread, and dread they know not why
The natural Alien of their negative Eye.

        'Tis a strange pla...

1. Through cycles of darkness the diamond sleeps in its coal-black prison.

2. Purely incrusted in its scaly casket, the breath-tarnished pearl slumbers in mud and ooze.

3. Buried in the bowels of earth, rugged and obscure, lies the ingot of gold.

4. Long hast thou been buried, O Israel, in the bowels of earth; long hast thou slumbered beneath the overwhelming waves; long hast thou slept in the rayless house of darkness.

5. Rejoice and sing, for only thus couldst thou rightly guard the golden knowledge, Truth, the delicate pearl and the adamantine jewel of the Law.

    Is there anything prettier than that -
    to stare into your manifold spaces
    toward the hook & vine
    of cathedral leaps,
    the vaults & crypts
    as go-betweens of an earthy worship,
    the supine female form?

    By quiet pools,
    thrush in the thicket
    with red berry behind its eye,
    miniature sun
    proceeding by the branch
    to undress the bark
    with leaves as
    passionate culprits
    kissing dark.

    Clasped hands
    upward lies the sky
    my masterpiece angel,
    I bite lush meadows,
    tread spongy brooks,
    endear daring small of back,
    crevice taste nape and neck,
    a beatific pilgrim nearing
    a fleshy way-station,
    first charting his co...

As, when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime, or place the stones.
But all admire Inigo Jones:
So, if this pile of scatter'd rhymes
Should be approved in aftertimes;
If it both pleases and endures,
The merit and the praise are yours.
    Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,
When first for thee my harp was strung,
Without one word of Cupid's darts,
Of killing eyes, or bleeding hearts;
With friendship and esteem possest,
I ne'er admitted Love a guest.
    In all the habitudes of life,
The friend, the mistress, and the wife,
Variety we still pursue,
In pleasure seek for something new;
Or else, comparing with the rest,
Take comfort that our own is best;
The best we value by the worst,
As tradesmen s...

(AFTER THE PROCLAMATION IN ROME OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH)

Vicisti, Galilæe.

I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;
Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.
Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep;
For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.
Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of the dove;
But a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or love.
Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold,
A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold?
I am sick of singing: the bays burn deep and chafe: I am fain
To rest a little from praise and grievous pleasure and pain.
For the Gods we know not of, who give us our daily breath,
We kn...

Leonainie - Angels named her;
And they took the light
Of the laughing stars and framed her
In a smile of white;
    And they made her hair of gloomy
    Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy
    Moonshine, and they brought her to me
In the solemn night. - -

In a solemn night of summer,
When my heart of gloom
Blossomed up to greet the comer
Like a rose in bloom;
    All forebodings that distressed me
    I forgot as Joy caressed me -
    (Lying Joy! that caught and pressed me
In the arms of doom!)

Only spake the little lisper
In the Angel-tongue;
Yet I, listening, heard her whisper -
"Songs are only sung
    Here below that they may grieve you -
    Tales but told you to deceive you, -
    So must Leonainie leave you<...

The sun was gone, and the moon was coming
Over the blue Connecticut hills;
The west was rosy, the east was flushed,
And over my head the swallows rushed
This way and that, with changeful wills.

I heard them twitter and watched them dart
Now together and now apart
Like dark petals blown from a tree;
The maples stamped against the west
Were black and stately and full of rest,

And the hazy orange moon grew up
And slowly changed to yellow gold
While the hills were darkened, fold on fold
To a deeper blue than a flower could hold.

Down the hill I went, and then
I forgot the ways of men,
For night-scents, heady, and damp and cool
Wakened ecstasy in me
On the brink of a shining pool.

O Beauty, out of many a cup
You have made...

    A mossy footfall in this wood
        A peal of thunder were,
    Or autumn tempest-shriek, compared
        With the unwhispered stir
    Of massy fluids lift in air,
    To build these leafy pillars fair.

    Lavished at wordless wish or mute
        Command, the chemic wealth
    Upsprings to meet the builders' hands,
        All hushed as dusky stealth.
    Noiseless as love, as silent prayer
    Mysterious, the builders are.


    Ah, sure, these silences are works
        Of God's sabbatic rest,
    A music perfect as the calm
        Of wave's unbroken crest!
    These woven leaves that stilly nod,
    These violets, ope their eyes on God.

    The deep serene that worketh here
        Works, too, 'mid human tears...

"Miss not the occasion: by the forelock take
That subtile Power, the never-halting Time,
Lest a mere moment's putting-off should make
Mischance almost as heavy as a crime."



"Wait, prithee, wait!" this answer Lesbia threw
Forth to her Dove, and took no further heed;
Her eye was busy, while her fingers flew
Across the harp, with soul-engrossing speed;
But from that bondage when her thoughts were freed
She rose, and toward the close-shut casement drew,
Whence the poor unregarded Favourite, true
To old affections, had been heard to plead
With flapping wing for entrance. What a shriek!
Forced from that voice so lately tuned to a strain
Of harmony! a shriek of terror, pain,
And self-reproach! for, from aloft, a Kite
Pounced, and the Dove, which fro...

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!
A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.
If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!
If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!
If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed
By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world
Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;
If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge
Driven by invisible blows,
The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the Hesperides.

Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,
I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,
Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door i...

Introduction To A Collection Of Poems By different Authors

An usher standing at the door
I show my white rosette;
A smile of welcome, nothing more,
Will pay my trifling debt;
Why should I bid you idly wait
Like lovers at the swinging gate?

Can I forget the wedding guest?
The veteran of the sea?
In vain the listener smites his breast, -
"There was a ship," cries he!
Poor fasting victim, stunned and pale,
He needs must listen to the tale.

He sees the gilded throng within,
The sparkling goblets gleam,
The music and the merry din
Through every window stream,
But there he shivers in the cold
Till all the crazy dream is told.

Not mine the graybeard's glittering eye
That held his captive still
To hold my silent prisone...

The day, all fierce with carmine, turns
An Indian face towards Earth and dies;
The west, like some gaunt vase, inurns
Its ashes under smouldering skies,
Athwart whose bowl one red cloud streams,
Strange as a shape some Aztec dreams.

Now shadows mass above the world,
And night comes on with wind and rain;
The mulberry-colored leaves are hurled
Like frantic hands against the pane.
And through the forests, bending low,
Night stalks like some gigantic woe.

In hollows where the thistle shakes
A hoar bloom like a witch's-light,
From weed and flower the rain-wind rakes
Dead sweetness as a wildman might,
From out the leaves, the woods among,
Dig some dead woman, fair and young.

Now let me walk the woodland ways,
Alone! except for thoug...

All things are shadows of thee, Lord;
    The sun himself is but thy shade;
My spirit is the shadow of thy word,
    A thing that thou hast said.

Diamonds are shadows of the sun,
    They gleam as after him they hark:
My soul some arrows of thy light hath won.
    And feebly fights the dark!

All knowledges are broken shades,
    In gulfs of dark a scattered horde:
Together rush the parted glory-grades--
    Then, lo, thy garment, Lord!

My soul, the shadow, still is light
    Because the shadow falls from thee;
I turn, dull candle, to the centre bright,
    And home flit shadowy.

Shine, Lord; shine me thy shadow still;
    The brighter I, the more thy shade!
My motion be thy lovely moveless will!
    My darkness, light del...