Dear mother, dry those flowing tears,
    They grieve me much to see;
And calm, oh! calm thine anxious fears -
    What dost thou dread for me?
'Tis true that tempests wild oft ride
    Above the stormy main,
But, then, in Him I will confide
    Who doth their bounds ordain.

I go to win renown and fame
    Upon the glorious sea;
But still my heart will be the same -
    I'll ever turn to thee!
See, yonder wait our gallant crew,
    So, weep not, mother dear;
My father was a sailor too -
    What hast thou then to fear?

Is it not better I should seek
    To win the name he bore,
Than waste my youth in pastimes weak
    Upon the tiresome shore?
Then, look not thus so sad and wan,
For yet your son you'll see
Return with w...

        Blest infant of eternity!
    Before the day-star learned to move,
In pomp of fire, along his grand career,
    Glancing the beamy shafts of light

From his rich quiver to the farthest sphere,
        Thou wert alone, oh Love!
    Nestling beneath the wings of ancient Night,
    Whose horrors seemed to smile in shadowing thee.
No form of beauty soothed thine eye,
    As through the dim expanse it wandered wide;
No kindred spirit caught thy sigh,
    As o'er the watery waste it lingering died.

Unfelt the pulse, unknown the power,
    That latent in his heart was sleeping,--
Oh Sympathy! that lonely hour
    Saw Love himself thy absence weeping.

But look, what glory through the darkness beams!
Celestial airs along the water glide:--...

From Recollections of Early Childhood

The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.


I

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.


II

The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there ha...

Among the religious customs of the dervishes is an astronomical dance, in which the dervish imitates the movements of the heavenly bodies, by spinning on his own axis, whilst at the same time he revolves round the Sheikh in the centre, representing the sun; and, as he spins, he sings the Song of Seyd Nimetollah of Kuhistan.

Spin the ball! I reel, I burn,
Nor head from foot can I discern,
Nor my heart from love of mine,
Nor the wine-cup from the wine.
All my doing, all my leaving,
Reaches not to my perceiving;
Lost in whirling spheres I rove,
And know only that I love.

I am seeker of the stone,
Living gem of Solomon;
From the shore of souls arrived,
In the sea of sense I dived;
But what is land, or what is wave,
To me who only jewels crave?
Love is the a...

ARGUMENT OF THE SECOND BOOK.

The separation of the works of imagination from philosophy, the cause of their abuse among the moderns. Prospect of their re-union under the influence of public liberty. Enumeration of accidental pleasures, which increase the effect of objects delightful to the imagination. The pleasures of sense. Particular circumstances of the mind. Discovery of truth. Perception of contrivance and design. Emotion of the passions. All the natural passions partake of a pleasing sensation; with the final cause of this constitution illustrated by an allegorical vision, and exemplified in sorrow, pity, terror, and indignation.

ARGUMENT OF THE SECOND BOOK.

The separation of the works of imagination from philosophy, the cause of their abuse among the moderns. Prospect of their re-union under the influence of public liberty. Enumeration of accidental pleasures, which increase the effect of objects delightful to the imagination. The pleasures of sense. Particular circumstances of the mind. Discovery of truth. Perception of contrivance and design. Emotion of the passions. All the natural passions partake of a pleasing sensation; with the final cause of this constitution illustrated by an allegorical vision, and exemplified in sorrow, pity, terror, and indignation.

Devil's Race-Horse seems to me
Strangest thing I ever saw:
Up in our old maple-tree
They're at home; stand rearingly,
Lean of neck and long of claw.
Strangest thing I ever saw.

"Always praying, "father says,
"For some bug it may devour;
Insect that it grabs and slays,
Fly or moth that comes its ways,
Journeying from flower to flower:
Insect that it may devour."

And my nurse says:" I suppose
Little imps that devil sleep,
Tickle children on the nose,
Pull their hair and pinch their toes,
Ride these things around a heap:
Little imps that devil sleep.

"They're their fly-by-nights, their steeds,
Door-knob eyed and weird of wing,
That they stable in the weeds
Of the garden, where it feeds,
Tiger-like, on everything:

Mine are the night and morning,
The pits of air, the gulf of space,
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
The innumerable days.

I hide in the solar glory,
I am dumb in the pealing song,
I rest on the pitch of the torrent,
In slumber I am strong.

No numbers have counted my tallies,
No tribes my house can fill,
I sit by the shining Fount of Life
And pour the deluge still;

And ever by delicate powers
Gathering along the centuries
From race on race the rarest flowers,
My wreath shall nothing miss.

And many a thousand summers
My gardens ripened well,
And light from meliorating stars
With firmer glory fell.

I wrote the past in characters
Of rock and fire the scroll,
The building in the coral sea,
The pla...

The Two Greetings.

I.

Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
Where all that was to be, in all that was,
Whirl’d for a million æons thro’ the vast
Waste dawn of multitudinous-eddying light—
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
Thro’ all this changing world of changeless law,
And every phase of ever-heightening life,
And nine long months of antenatal gloom,
With this last moon, this crescent—her dark orb
Touch’d with earth’s light—thou comest, darling boy;
Our own; a babe in lineament and limb
Perfect, and prophet of the perfect man;
Whose face and form are hers and mine in one,
Indissolubly married like our love;
Live, and be happy in thyself, and serve
This mortal race thy kin so well, that men
May bless thee as we bless thee,...

When heavy on my tired mind
The world, and worldly things, do weigh,
And some sweet solace I would find,
Into the sky I love to stray,
And, all alone, to wander round
In lone seclusion from the ground.

Ah! Then what solitude is mine -
From grovelling mankind aloof!
Their road is but a thin-drawn line:
Their busy house a scarce-seen roof.
That little stain of red and brown
They boast about! - It is their town!

How small their petty quarrels seem!
Poor, crawling multitudes below;
Which, like the ants, in feverish stream
From place to place move to and fro!
Like ants they work: like ants they fight,
Assuming blindly they are right.

Soon their existence I forget,
In joy that on these flashing wings
I cleave the skies - O! let ...

    Iced coffee,
    wedge of toast -
    the sun poking thru
    cranberry glass
    delights exquisite Duchess of Berry,
    her decanters & an hourglass.

    Halo-hello in your fingertips
    I said,
    to a cadaver of light
    boldly striking a tuning fork
    to ring an engagement
    of gold flecks
    by your bed.

    Limoges vase
    for lace and pretty underthings
    for outside the stream
    steals my interest,
    wearing tumbledown silk pyjamas
    and a peek-a-boo smile that points
    thru reed curtains.

    A rustle from her chemise
    and sun parasol parts green boudoir
    draping shiny, black rock.

    The muddle of this earth-time puzzle,
    brief flutter to the eyelid...

FIRST SPEAKER, as David

I.
On the first of the Feast of Feasts,
The Dedication Day,
When the Levites joined the Priests
At the Altar in robed array,
Gave signal to sound and say,

II.
When the thousands, rear and van,
Swarming with one accord
Became as a single man
(Look, gesture, thought and word)
In praising and thanking the Lord,

III.
When the singers lift up their voice,
And the trumpets made endeavour,
Sounding, “In God rejoice!”
Saying, “In Him rejoice
“Whose mercy endureth for ever!”

IV.
Then the Temple filled with a cloud,
Even the House of the Lord;
Porch bent and pillar bowed:
For the presence of the Lord,
In the glory of His cloud,
Had filled the House of the Lord.

    Vain transient World, what charms are thine?
        And what do mortals in thee see,
    That they should worship at thy shrine,
        And sacrifice their all to thee?

    Thy brightest gifts, thy happiest hours
        Fly past on pinions of the wind;
    They fade like blooms upon the flowers,
        And leave a painful want behind.

    Thou art a road, though not of space,
        Which rich and poor alike must tread;
    Thy starting point we cannot trace,
        Thine end - the country of the dead.

    A pathway paved with want and woe,
        With pleasures painful, incomplete;
    Like stones upon the way below,
        Which wound the weary pilgrim's feet.

    Thou'rt hedged with visions of despair,
        With w...

Most Holy Night, that still dost keep
The keys of all the doors of sleep,
To me when my tired eyelids close
Give thou repose.

And let the far lament of them
That chaunt the dead day’s requiem
Make in my ears, who wakeful lie,
Soft lullaby.

Let them that guard the hornàed Moon
By my bedside their memories croon.
So shall I have new dreams and blest
In my brief rest.

Fold thy great wings about my face,
Hide day-dawn from my resting-place,
And cheat me with thy false delight,
Most Holy Night.

Hot blows the wild simoom across the waste,
    The desert waste, amid the dreary sand,
    With fiery breath swift burning up the land,
O'er the scared pilgrim, speeding on in haste,
    Hurling fierce death-drifts with broad-scorching hand.

O weary Wilderness! No shady tree
    To spread its arms around the fainting soul;
    No spring to sparkle in the parchèd bowl;
No refuge in the drear immensity,
Where lies the Past, wreck'd 'neath a sandy sea,
    Where o'er its glories blighting billows roll.

Ho! Sea, yield up thy buried dead again;
    Heave back thy waves, and let the Past arise;
    Restore Time's relics to the startled skies,
Till giant shadows tremble on the plain,
    And awe the heart with old-world mysteries!

Old Menmon! Once ...

Music comes
Sweetly from the trembling string
When wizard fingers sweep
Dreamily, half asleep;
When through remembering reeds
Ancient airs and murmurs creep,
Oboe oboe following,
Flute answering clear high flute,
Voices, voices--falling mute,
And the jarring drums.

At night I heard
First a waking bird
Out of the quiet darkness sing....
Music comes
Strangely to the brain asleep!
And I heard
Soft, wizard fingers sweep
Music from the trembling string,
And through remembering reeds
Ancient airs and murmurs creep;
Oboe oboe following,
Flute calling clear high flute,
Voices faint, falling mute,
And low jarring drums;
Then all those airs
Sweetly jangled--newly strange,
Rich with change....
Was it the wind i...

"And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren and they hated him yet the more.", Genesis xxxvii. 5.



Oh ye who hold the written clue
To all save all unwritten things,
And, half a league behind, pursue
The accomplished Fact with flouts and flings,
Look! To your knee your baby brings
The oldest tale since Earth began,
The answer to your worryings:
"Once on a time there was a Man."

He, single-handed, met and slew
Magicians, Armies, Ogres, Kings.
He lonely 'mid his doubting crew,
"In all the loneliness of wings ",
He fed the flame, he filled the springs,
He locked the ranks, he launched the van
Straight at the grinning Teeth of Things.
"Once on a time there was a Man."

The peace of shocked Foundations flew
Before h...

    I.


Over the lamp-lit street,
Trodden by hurrying feet,
Where mostly pulse and beat
    Life's throbbing veins,
See where the April star,
Blue-bright as sapphires are,
Hangs in deep heavens far,
    Waxes and wanes.


Strangely alive it seems,
Darting keen, dazzling gleams,
Veiling anon its beams,
    Large, clear, and pure.
In the broad western sky
No orb may shine anigh,
No lesser radiancy
    May there endure.


Spring airs are blowing sweet:
Low in the dusky street
Star-beams and eye-beams meet.
    Rapt in his dreams,
All through the crowded mart
Poet with swift-stirred heart,
Passing beneath, must start,
    Thrilled by those gleams.


Naught doth he note anear,