Spare us, Lord, that last, that dreariest ill!
Thy wrath's grim thunder, and thy lightning-scorn
For our iniquity, that we have worn
Soft as a grace, these, if it be thy will,
But not unsouled darkness! Not the chill
Dead air, in which men move a while forlorn
And swiftly fail! Oh, break us, make us mourn
With tears of blood, but let us see thee still!

For we have visioned thee! Once, long ago,
O'er sea and wilderness a cloud of fire.
Thou led'st us forth; 'mid many a shame and woe.
We still have dreamed apocalypse; at last.
Ah, go not out, thou Flame of all the past!
Burn, thou bright Ardor, burn, thou great Desire!

Not for thyself, but for the sake of Song,
Strive to succeed as others have, who gave
Their lives unto her; shaping sure and strong
Her lovely limbs that made them god and slave.

Not for thyself, but for the sake of Art,
Strive to advance beyond the others' best;
Winning a deeper secret from her heart
To hang it moonlike 'mid the starry rest.

Geri, quando talor meco s' adira.

HE APPEASES HER BY HUMILITY, AND EXHORTS A FRIEND TO DO LIKEWISE.


    When my sweet foe, so haughty oft and high,
Moved my brief ire no more my sight can thole,
One comfort is vouchsafed me lest I die,
Through whose sole strength survives my harass'd soul;
Where'er her eyes--all light which would deny
To my sad life--in scorn or anger roll,
Mine with such true humility reply,
Soon their meek glances all her rage control,
Were it not so, methinks I less could brook
To gaze on hers than on Medusa's mien,
Which turn'd to marble all who met her look.
My friend, act thus with thine, for closed I ween
All other aid, and nothing flight avails
Against the wings on which our master sails.

MACGREGOR.

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant norther...

The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean,
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.

Many have Earth's lovers been,
Tried in seas and wars, I ween;
Yet the mightiest have I seen:
Yea, the best saw I.
One that in a field alone
Stood up stiller than a stone
Lest a moth should fly.

Birds had nested in his hair,
On his shoon were mosses rare.
Insect empires flourished there,
Worms in ancient wars;
But his eyes burn like a glass,
Hearing a great sea of grass
Roar towards the stars.

From, them to the human tree
Rose a cry continually,
'Thou art still, our Father, we
Fain would have thee nod.
Make the skies as blood below thee,
Though thou slay us, we shall know thee.
Answer us, O God!

'Show thine ancient flame and thunder,
Split the stillness once asunder,
Lest we whisper, lest we wonder
Art ...

Along the avenue I pass
    Huge piles of wood and stone,
And glance at each amorphous mass,
Whose cumbrous weight has crushed the grass,
    With half resentful groan.

Say I: "O labor, to despoil
    Some lovely forest scene,
Or at the granite stratum toil,
And desecrate whole roods of soil,
    Is vandal-like and mean!

"Than ever to disfigure thus
    Our prairie garden-land,
Let me consort with Cerberus,
Be chained to crags precipitous,
    Or seek an alien strand."

But while this pining, pouting Muse
    The interval ignores,
Deft industry, no time to lose,
Contrives and carries, hoists and hews,
    And symmetry restores.

Behold! of rock and pile and board
    A modern miracle,
My neighbor's dwelling, ...

Somewhere, somewhere in this heart
There lies a jewel from the sea,
Or from a rock, or from the sand,
Or dropped from heaven wondrously.

Oh, burn, my jewel, in my glance!
Oh, shimmer on my lips in prayer!
Light my love's eyes to read my soul,
Which, wrapt in ashes, yet is fair!

When dead I lie, forgotten, deep
Within the earth and sunken past,
Still shall my jewel light my dust, -
The worth God gives us, first and last!

I.

Black-veiled, black-gowned, she rides in bus and train,
    With eyes that fill too listlessly for tears.
Her waxen hands clasp and unclasp again.
    Good News, they cry. She neither sees nor hears.

Good News, perhaps, may crown some far-off king.
    Good News may peal the glory of the state--
Good News may cause the courts of heaven to ring.
    She sees a hand waved at a garden gate.

For her dull ears are tuned to other themes;
    And her dim eyes can never see aright.
She glides--a ghost--through all her April dreams,
    To meet his eyes at dawn, his lips at night.

Wraiths of a truth that others never knew;
And yet--for her--the only truth that's true.


II.

Good News! Good News! There is no way b...

Cradled in ice, and swathed in snows,
    And shining like a Christmas rose,
Wreathed round with white chrysanthemums;
    Heaven in his innocent, brave blue eyes,
    Straight from the primal paradise,
Behold the infant New Year comes!

His looks a serious sweetness wear,
    As if upon that unseen way,
Those baby hands that lightly bear
    Garlands, and festive tokens gay,
    For but a glance,--a touch sufficed,--
Had met and touched the infant Christ!

And lingering on the wing, had heard,
    Sweeter than song of any bird,
Of cherub or of seraphim,
    The notes of that divinest hymn,--
    Glory to God in highest strain,
And peace on earth, good will to men.

Oh, diamond days, so royally set
    In winter's stern and rugged...

To him who longs unto his Christ to go,
Celerity even itself is slow.

Thank God for life: life is not sweet always.
Hands may he heavy-laden, hearts care full,
Unwelcome nights follow unwelcome days,
And dreams divine end in awakenings dull.
Still it is life, anil life is cause for praise.
This ache, this restlessness, this quickening sting,
Prove me no torpid and inanimate thing,
Prove me of Him who is of life the Spring.
I am alive!--and that is beautiful.

Thank God for Love: though Love may hurt and wound
Though set with sharpest thorns its rose may be,
Roses are not of winter, all attuned
Must be the earth, full of soft stir, and free
And warm ere dawns the rose upon its tree.
Fresh currents through my frozen pulses run;
My heart has tasted summer, tasted sun,
And I can thank Thee, Lord, although not one
Of all th...

C.P.R. "NO. 1," WESTBOUND

        I swing to the sunset land -
The world of prairie, the world of plain,
The world of promise and hope and gain,
The world of gold, and the world of grain,
        And the world of the willing hand.

        I carry the brave and bold -
The one who works for the nation's bread,
The one whose past is a thing that's dead,
The one who battles and beats ahead,
        And the one who goes for gold.

        I swing to the "Land to Be,"
I am the power that laid its floors,
I am the guide to its western stores,
I am the key to its golden doors,
        That open alone to me.

C.P.R. "NO. 2," EASTBOUND

        I swing to the land of morn;
The grey old east with its grey old seas,
The land of le...

O little Heart,
So much I see
Thy hidden smart,
So much I long
To sing some song
To comfort thee.

For, little Heart,
Indeed, indeed,
The hour to part
Makes cruel speed;
Yet, dear, think thou
How even now,
With happy haste,
With eager feet,
The hour when we
Again shall meet
Cometh across the waste.

What days await this woman, whose strange feet
Breathe spells, whose presence makes men dream like wine,
Tall, free and slender as the forest pine,
Whose form is moulded music, through whose sweet
Frank eyes I feel the very heart's least beat,
Keen, passionate, full of dreams and fire:
How in the end, and to what man's desire
Shall all this yield, whose lips shall these lips meet?

One thing I know: if he be great and pure,
This love, this fire, this beauty shall endure;
Triumph and hope shall lead him by the palm:
But if not this, some differing thing he be,
That dream shall break in terror; he shall see
The whirlwind ripen, where he sowed the calm.

The Greeks had genius,--'t was a gift
The Muse vouchsafed in glorious measure;
The boon of Fame they made their aim
And prized above all worldly treasure.

But we,--how do we train our youth?
Not in the arts that are immortal,
But in the greed for gains that speed
From him who stands at Death's dark portal.

Ah, when this slavish love of gold
Once binds the soul in greasy fetters,
How prostrate lies,--how droops and dies
The great, the noble cause of letters!

SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON. 1690.


    What Nostradame, with all his art, can guess
    The fate of our approaching Prophetess?
    A play which, like a pérspective set right,
    Presents our vast expenses close to sight;
    But turn the tube, and there we sadly view
    Our distant gains; and those uncertain too:
    A sweeping tax, which on ourselves we raise,
    And all, like you, in hopes of better days;
    When will our losses warn us to be wise?
    Our wealth decreases, and our charges rise.
    Money, the sweet allurer of our hopes,
    Ebbs out in oceans, and comes in by drops;
    We raise new objects to provoke delight,
    But you grow sated ere the second sight.
    False men, e'en so you serve your mistresses:
    They rise three store...

Fera stella (se 'l cielo ha forza in noi).

TO PINE FOR HER IS BETTER THAN TO ENJOY HAPPINESS WITH ANY OTHER.


    Ill-omen'd was that star's malignant gleam
That ruled my hapless birth; and dim the morn
That darted on my infant eyes the beam;
And harsh the wail, that told a man was born;
And hard the sterile earth, which first was worn
Beneath my infant feet; but harder far,
And harsher still, the tyrant maid, whose scorn,
In league with savage Love, inflamed the war
Of all my passions.--Love himself more tame,
With pity soothes my ills; while that cold heart,
Insensible to the devouring flame
Which wastes my vitals, triumphs in my smart.
One thought is comfort--that her scorn to bear,
Excels e'er prosperous love, with other earthly fair.