The battle will not cease
Till once again on those white steeds ye ride,
O heaven-descended Twins,
Before humanity's bewildered host.
Our javelins
Fly wide,
And idle is our cannon's boast.
Lead us, triumphant Brethren, Love and Peace.
A fairer Golden Fleece
Our more adventurous Argo fain would seek,
But save, O Sons of Jove,
Your blended light go with us, vain employ
It were to rove
This bleak,
Blind waste. To unimagined joy
Guide us, immortal Brethren, Love and Peace.

I have been pondering what our teachers call
    The mystery of Pain; and lo! my thought
    After it's half-blind reaching out has caught
This truth and held it fast. We may not fall
    Beyond our mounting; stung by life's annoy,
    Deeper we feel the mystery of Joy.

Sometimes they steal across us like a breath
    Of Eastern perfume in a darkened room,
    These joys of ours; we grope on through the gloom
Seeking some common thing, and from its sheath
    Unloose, unknowing, some bewildering scent
    Of spice-thronged memories of the Orient.

Sometimes they dart across our turbid sky
    Like a quick flash after a heated day.
    A moment, where the sombrous shadows lay
We see a glory. Though it passed us by
    No earthly power can filch that ...

The sea of the years that endure not
Whose tide shall endure till we die
And know what the seasons assure not,
If death be or life be a lie,
Sways hither the spirit and thither,
A waif in the swing of the sea
Whose wrecks are of memories that wither
As leaves of a tree.
We hear not and hail not with greeting
The sound of the wings of the years,
The storm of the sound of them beating,
That none till it pass from him hears:
But tempest nor calm can imperil
The treasures that fade not or fly;
Change bids them not change and be sterile,
Death bids them not die.
Hearts plighted in youth to the royal
High service of hope and of song,
Sealed fast for endurance as loyal,
And proved of the years as they throng,
Conceive not, believe not, and fear no...

All stupor of surprise hath passed away;
    She sees, with clearer vision than before,
A world far off of light and laughter gay,
    Herself alone and lonely evermore.
Folk come and go, and reach her in no wise,
Mere flitting phantoms to her heavy eyes.


All outward things, that once seemed part of her,
    Fall from her, like the leaves in autumn shed.
She feels as one embalmed in spice and myrrh,
    With the heart eaten out, a long time dead;
Unchanged without, the features and the form;
Within, devoured by the thin red worm.


By her own prowess she must stand or fall,
    This grief is to be conquered day by day.
Who could befriend her? who could make this small,
    Or her strength great? she meets it as she may.
A weary struggle a...

In former times, such as had store of coyne,
In warres at home, or when for conquests bound,
For feare that some their treasures should purloyne,
Gaue it to keepe to spirites within the ground;
And to attend it, them so strongly tide,
Till they return'd, home when they neuer came,
Such as by art to get the same haue tride,
From the strong spirits by no means get the same,
Neerer you come, that further flies away,
Striuing to holde it strongly in the deepe:
Euen as this spirit, so she alone doth play,
With those rich Beauties heauen giues her to keepe:
    Pitty so left, to coldenes of her blood,
    Not to auaile her, nor do others good.

Ill-wrought life we look at as we die!
Mistaken, selfish, meagre, and unmeet;
So graven on the hearts that cruelly
We have deprived of many an hour sweet:
O ill-wrought life we look at as we die!

O day of God we look at as we die!
Grace, like a river flowing toward our feet;
Wide pardon blowing with the breezes by;
Love telling us bright tales of the Complete; -
While listening, hoping, thanking, lo, we die!

"For there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved."


Jesus! the only name that's given,
    Through which salvation we may claim;
This, this alone, we breathe to Heaven,
    For God accepts no other name.

No other name when skies are bright.
    And sunshine glows on field and flower;
No other name when, dark as night,
    The heavy clouds tempestuous lower.

No other name when, drooping low,
    O'erburdened by sin's heavy load,
The contrite spirit pines to know
    The way to hope, to Heaven, to God.

No other name when, like a flood,
    Temptations beat upon the soul;
Faith, breathing that one name to God,
    The raging billows shall control.

In peace or conflict, toil or rest,

--"His candle shined upon my head, and by his light I walked
through darkness."--Job, xxix. 3


On the bird of air blue-breasted
    glint the rays of gold,
And a shadowy fleece above us
    waves the forest old,
Far through rumorous leagues of midnight
    stirred by breezes warm.
See the old ascetic yonder,
    Ah, poor withered form!
Where he crouches wrinkled over
    by unnumbered years
Through the leaves the flakes of moonfire
    fall like phantom tears.
At the dawn a kingly hunter
    passed proud disdain,
Like a rainbow-torrent scattered
    flashed his royal train.
Now the lonely one unheeded
    seeks earth's caverns dim,
Never king or princes will robe them
    radiantly as him.
Mid the deep enfolding darknes...

Whence comes Solace? - Not from seeing
What is doing, suffering, being,
Not from noting Life's conditions,
Nor from heeding Time's monitions;
But in cleaving to the Dream,
And in gazing at the gleam
Whereby gray things golden seem.


Thus do I this heyday, holding
Shadows but as lights unfolding,
As no specious show this moment
With its irised embowment;
But as nothing other than
Part of a benignant plan;
Proof that earth was made for man.

February 1899.

I

The face, which, duly as the sun,
Rose up for me with life begun,
To mark all bright hours of the day
With hourly love, is dimmed away
And yet my days go on, go on.

II

The tongue which, like a stream, could run
Smooth music from the roughest stone,
And every morning with 'Good day'
Make each day good, is hushed away,
And yet my days go on, go on.

III

The heart which, like a staff, was one
For mine to lean and rest upon,
The strongest on the longest day
With steadfast love, is caught away,
And yet my days go on, go on.

IV

And cold before my summer's done,
And deaf in Nature's general tune,
And fallen too low for special fear,
And here, with hope no longer here,
While the tears drop, ...

O thou, whose presence went before
Our fathers in their weary way,
As with Thy chosen moved of yore
The fire by night, the cloud by day!
When from each temple of the free,
A nation's song ascends to Heaven,
Most Holy Father! unto Thee
May not our humble prayer be given?
Thy children all, though hue and form
Are varied in Thine own good will,
With Thy own holy breathings warm,
And fashioned in Thine image still.
We thank Thee, Father! hill and plain
Around us wave their fruits once more,
And clustered vine, and blossomed grain,
Are bending round each cottage door.
And peace is here; and hope and love
Are round us as a mantle thrown,
And unto Thee, supreme above,
The knee of prayer is bowed alone.
But oh, for those this day can bring,
As...

In the world's whitest morning
As hoary with hope,
The Builder of Bridges
Was priest and was pope:
And the mitre of mystery
And the canopy his,
Who darkened the chasms
And domed the abyss.

To eastward and westward
Spread wings at his word
The arch with the key-stone
That stoops like a bird;
That rides the wild air
And the daylight cast under;
The highway of danger,
The gateway of wonder.

Of his throne were the thunders
That rivet and fix
Wild weddings of strangers
That meet and not mix;
The town and the cornland;
The bride and the groom:
In the breaking of bridges
Is treason and doom.

But he bade us, who fashion
The road that can fly,
That we build not too heavy
And build not too high:

First, may the hand of bounty bring
Into the daily offering
Of full provision such a store,
Till that the cook cries: Bring no more.
Upon your hogsheads never fall
A drought of wine, ale, beer, at all;
But, like full clouds, may they from thence
Diffuse their mighty influence.
Next, let the lord and lady here
Enjoy a Christ'ning year by year;
And this good blessing back them still,
T' have boys, and girls too, as they will.
Then from the porch may many a bride
Unto the holy temple ride:
And thence return, short prayers said,
A wife most richly married.
Last, may the bride and bridegroom be
Untouch'd by cold sterility;
But in their springing blood so play,
As that in lusters few they may,
By laughing too, and lying down,
People a city o...

"Can anything avail
Beldame, for my hid grief? -
Listen: I'll tell the tale,
It may bring faint relief! -

"I came where I was not known,
In hope to flee my sin;
And walking forth alone
A young man said, 'Good e'en.'

"In gentle voice and true
He asked to marry me;
'You only - only you
Fulfil my dream!' said he.

"We married o' Monday morn,
In the month of hay and flowers;
My cares were nigh forsworn,
And perfect love was ours.

"But ere the days are long
Untimely fruit will show;
My Love keeps up his song,
Undreaming it is so.

"And I awake in the night,
And think of months gone by,
And of that cause of flight
Hidden from my Love's eye.

"Discovery borders near,
And then! . . . But som...

We give thy natal day to hope,
O Country of our love and prayer!
Thy way is down no fatal slope,
But up to freer sun and air.
Tried as by furnace-fires, and yet
By God's grace only stronger made,
In future tasks before thee set
Thou shalt not lack the old-time aid.
The fathers sleep, but men remain
As wise, as true, and brave as they;
Why count the loss and not the gain?
The best is that we have to-day.
Whate'er of folly, shame, or crime,
Withhin thy mighty bounds transpires,
With speed defying space and time
Comes to us on the accusing wires;
While of thy wealth of noble deeds,
Thy homes of peace, thy votes unsold,
The love that pleads for human needs,
The wrong redressed, but half is told!
We read each felon's chronicle,
His acts, hi...

1855

And what shall be the song to-night,
If song there needs must be?
If every year that brings us here
Must steal an hour from me?
Say, shall it ring a merry peal,
Or heave a mourning sigh
O'er shadows cast, by years long past,
On moments flitting by?

Nay, take the first unbidden line
The idle hour may send,
No studied grace can mend the face
That smiles as friend on friend;
The balsam oozes from the pine,
The sweetness from the rose,
And so, unsought, a kindly thought
Finds language as it flows.

The years rush by in sounding flight,
I hear their ceaseless wings;
Their songs I hear, some far, some near,
And thus the burden rings
"The morn has fled, the noon has past,
The sun will soon be set,
The twilight ...

We walk on starry fields of white
    And do not see the daisies;
For blessings common in our sight
    We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
    To crown our lives with splendor,
And quite ignore our daily store
    Of pleasures sweet and tender.

Our cares are bold and push their way
    Upon our thought and feeling.
They hang about us all the day,
    Our time from pleasure stealing.
So unobtrusive many a joy
    We pass by and forget it,
But worry strives to own our lives
    And conquers if we let it.

There's not a day in all the year
    But holds some hidden pleasure,
And looking back, joys oft appear
    To brim the past's wide measure.
But blessings are like friends, I hold,
    Who love and labo...

Down a warm alley, early in the year,
    Among the woods, with all the sunshine in
    And all the winds outside it, I begin
To think that something gracious will appear,
If anything of grace inhabit here,
    Or there be friendship in the woods to win.
    Might one but find companions more akin
To trees and grass and happy daylight clear,
And in this wood spend one long hour at home!
    The fairies do not love so bright a place,
And angels to the forest never come,
    But I have dreamed of some harmonious race,
The kindred of the shapes that haunt the shore
Of Music's flow and flow for evermore.