Among the dwellers in the silent fields
The natural heart is touched, and public way
And crowded street resound with ballad strains,
Inspired by one whose very name bespeaks
Favour divine, exalting human love;
Whom, since her birth on bleak Northumbria's coast,
Known unto few but prized as far as known,
A single Act endears to high and low
Through the whole land to Manhood, moved in spite
Of the world's freezing cares, to generous Youth,
To Infancy, that lisps her praise to Age
Whose eye reflects it, glistening through a tear
Of tremulous admiration. Such true fame
Awaits her 'now'; but, verily, good deeds
Do not imperishable record find
Save in the rolls of heaven, where hers may live
A theme for angels, when they celebrate
The high-souled virtues which ...

Beneath the surface of a shallow lake,
Where grasses rank and mammoth rushes grow,
And playful fish their bright fins nimbly shake,
Or madly chase each other to and fro,
The larva of the dragon-fly submerged,
In family large, had taken their abode,
And tho' the waves around them daily surged,
Upon the bending grass they safely rode.

Content were they with life as there enjoyed;
To brighter world they never had aspired,
Had they not felt unfilled an aching void,
And heard a whisper of a life attired
In sapphire robes, 'midst gleams of golden light,
Above their present world, so dank and chill,
Where all day long they wing their happy flight
From roses sweet to lovely daffodil.

But some essayed to doubt if it were so.
Who ever had returned to ma...

With a sullen, setting Sun,
It will come!
With the days of Despots done,
It will come!
With a sullen, setting Sun,
With the days of Despots done,
With the wrath of God begun,
It will come!
It will come!

With a ruddy, bloody Moon,
It will come!
With remorseless slaughter soon,
It will come!
With a ruddy, bloody Moon,
With remorseless slaughter soon,
With our Tyrants stripped and strewn,
It will come!
It will come!

With a meteoric glare,
It will come!
With Destruction in the air.
It will come!
With a meteoric glare,
With Destruction in the air,
With the vengeance of Despair,
It will come!
It will come!

With abasement of the proud,
It will come!
With the last King's crimson shroud,...

They left their home of summer ease
Beneath the lowland’s sheltering trees,
To seek, by ways unknown to all,
The promise of the waterfall.

Some vague, faint rumor to the vale
Had crept, perchance a hunter’s tale,
Of its wild mirth of waters lost
On the dark woods through which it tossed.

Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhere
Whirled in mad dance its misty hair;
But who had raised its veil, or seen
The rainbow skirts of that Undine?

They sought it where the mountain brook
Its swift way to the valley took;
Along the rugged slope they clomb,
Their guide a thread of sound and foam.

Height after height they slowly won;
The fiery javelins of the sun
Smote the bare ledge; the tangled shade
With rock and vine their steps delay...

Long through the night hours sorrow was my guest
And would not let my fainting body rest,
Till just ere dawn from out its slow dominions
Flew sleep to wrap me in its dear dusk pinions.
And then it was my mother did appear
Before mine eyes in vision doubly dear;
For in her arms she held my darling one,
My Ursula, just as she used to run
To me at dawn to say her morning prayer,
In her white nightgown, with her curling hair
Framing her rosy face, her eyes about
To laugh, like flowers only halfway out.
        "Art thou still sorrowing, my son?" Thus spoke
My mother. Sighing bitterly, I woke,
Or seemed to wake, and heard her say once more:
        "It is thy weeping brings me to this shore:
Thy lamentations, long uncomforted,
Have reached the hidden chambers ...

There once was a pious young priest,
Who lived almost wholly on yeast;
    "For," he said, "it is plain
    We must all rise again,
And I want to get started, at least."

List, the winds of March are blowing;
Her ground-flowers shrink, afraid of showing
Their meek heads to the nipping air,
Which ye feel not, happy pair!
Sunk into a kindly sleep.
We, meanwhile, our hope will keep;
And if Time leagued with adverse Change
(Too busy fear!) shall cross its range,
Whatsoever check they bring,
Anxious duty hindering,
To like hope our prayers will cling.

Thus, while the ruminating spirit feeds
Upon the events of home as life proceeds,
Affections pure and holy in their source
Gain a fresh impulse, run a livelier course;
Hopes that within the Father's heart prevail,
Are in the experienced Grandsire's slow to fail;
And if the harp pleased his gay youth, it rings
To his grave touch with no unready strings,
While though...

At summer eve, when heaven's aerial bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

I was a grovelling creature once,
And basely cleaved to earth;
I wanted spirit to renounce
The clod that gave me birth.


But God has breathed upon a worm,
And sent me, from above,
Wings such as clothe an angel’s form,
The wings of joy and love.


With these to Pisgah’s top I fly,
And there delighted stand,
To view beneath a shining sky
The spacious promised land.


The Lord of all the vast domain
Has promised it to me;
The length and breadth of all the plain,
As far as faith can see.


How glorious is my privilege!
To thee for help I call;
I stand upon a mountain’s edge,
Oh save me, lest I fall!


Though much exalted in the Lord,
My strength is not my own;
Then let me tremble at h...

Other harvests there are than those that lie
Glowing and ripe 'neath an autumn sky,
    Awaiting the sickle keen,
Harvests more precious than golden grain,
Waving o'er hillside, valley or plain,
    Than fruits 'mid their leafy screen.

Not alone for the preacher, man of God,
Do those harvests vast enrich the sod,
    For all may the sickle wield;
The first in proud ambition's race,
The last in talent, power or place,
    Will all find work in that field.

Man toiling, lab'ring with fevered strain,
High office or golden prize to gain,
    Rest both weary heart and head,
And think, when thou'lt shudder in death's cold clasp,
How earthly things will elude thy grasp,
    At that harvest work instead!

Lady, with queenly form and brow,

"With a cold and wintry noon-light.
On its roofs and steeples shed,
Shadows weaving with t e sunlight
From the gray sky overhead,
Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies the half-built town outspread.
Through this broad street, restless ever,
Ebbs and flows a human tide,
Wave on wave a living river;
Wealth and fashion side by side;
Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide.
Underneath yon dome, whose coping
Springs above them, vast and tall,
Grave men in the dust are groping.
For the largess, base and small,
Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbs which from its table fall.
Base of heart! They vilely barter
Honor's wealth for party's place;
Step by step on Freedom's charter
Leaving footprints of disgrace;
For to-day's ...

Why each is striving, from of old,
To love more deeply than he can?
Still would be true, yet still grows cold?
Ask of the Powers that sport with man!

They yok’d in him, for endless strife,
A heart of ice, a soul of fire;
And hurl’d him on the Field of Life,
An aimless unallay’d Desire.

You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drouth will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn't reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night...

There is no summit you may not attain,
    No purpose which you may not yet achieve,
    If you will wait serenely and believe.
Each seeming loss is but a step to'rd gain.

Between the mountain-tops lie vale and plain;
    Let nothing make you question, doubt, or grieve;
    Give only good, and good alone receive;
And as you welcome joy, so welcome pain.

That which you most desire awaits your word;
    Throw wide the door and bid it enter in.
Speak, and the strong vibrations shall be stirred;
    Speak, and above earth's loud, unmeaning din
Your silent declarations shall be heard.
    All things are possible to God's own kin.

Yo fowk 'at's some brass to invest,
Luk sharp an mak th' best ov yor chonce!
Aw'll gie yo a tip, - one o'th' best,
Whear ther's profit an safety for once.
Yo needn't be feeard th' bank 'll brust,
Or at onny false 'Jabez' will chait, -
Depend on't its one yo can trust,
For th' balance sheet's sewer to be reight.

Yo've heeard on it oftimes befooar, -
But mooast fowk are apt to forget; -
Yet yo know if yo give to the poor,
At yo're gettin the Lord i' yor debt.
Its as plain as is th' nooas o' yor face,
An its true too, - believe it or net, -
It's a bargain God made i' this case,
An He'll nivver back aght on't, - yo bet.

All th' wealth yo may have can't prevent
Grim Deeath commin to yo some day;
An yo'll have to give up ivvery cent,
When ...

And many there were hurt by that strong boy,
His name, they said, was Pleasure,
And near him stood, glorious beyond measure
Four Ladies who possess all empery
In earth and air and sea,
Nothing that lives from their award is free.
Their names will I declare to thee,
Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear,
And they the regents are
Of the four elements that frame the heart,
And each diversely exercised her art
By force or circumstance or sleight
To prove her dreadful might
Upon that poor domain.
Desire presented her [false] glass, and then
The spirit dwelling there
Was spellbound to embrace what seemed so fair
Within that magic mirror,
And dazed by that bright error,
It would have scorned the [shafts] of the avenger
And death, and penitence, and danger,...

Poor and inadequate the shadow-play
Of gain and loss, of waking and of dream,
Against life’s solemn background needs must seem
At this late hour. Yet, not unthankfully,
I call to mind the fountains by the way,
The breath of flowers, the bird-song on the spray,
Dear friends, sweet human loves, the joy of giving
And of receiving, the great boon of living
In grand historic years when Liberty
Had need of word and work, quick sympathies
For all who fail and suffer, song’s relief,
Nature’s uncloying loveliness; and chief,
The kind restraining hand of Providence,
The inward witness, the assuring sense
Of an Eternal Good which overlies
The sorrow of the world, Love which outlives
All sin and wrong, Compassion which forgives
To the uttermost, and Justice whose cle...

Eternal power of earth and air,
Unseen, yet seen in all around,
Remote, but dwelling everywhere,
Though silent, heard in every sound.

If e'er thine ear in mercy bent
When wretched mortals cried to thee,
And if indeed thy Son was sent
To save lost sinners such as me.

Then hear me now, while kneeling here;
I lift to thee my heart and eye
And all my soul ascends in prayer;
O give me, give me Faith I cry.

Without some glimmering in my heart,
I could not raise this fervent prayer;
But O a stronger light impart,
And in thy mercy fix it there!

While Faith is with me I am blest;
It turns my darkest night to day;
But while I clasp it to my breast
I often feel it slide away.

Then cold and dark my spirit sinks,
To se...