Boston Common, December 6, 1882 During The Transit Of Venus

I Love all sights of earth and skies,
From flowers that glow to stars that shine;
The comet and the penny show,
All curious things, above, below,
Hold each in turn my wandering eyes:
I claim the Christian Pagan's line,
Humani nihil, - even so, -
And is not human life divine?
When soft the western breezes blow,
And strolling youths meet sauntering maids,
I love to watch the stirring trades
Beneath the Vallombrosa shades
Our much-enduring elms bestow;
The vender and his rhetoric's flow,
That lambent stream of liquid lies;
The bait he dangles from his line,
The gudgeon and his gold-washed prize.
I halt before the blazoned sign
That bids me linger to admire
The drama time ...

His glory, by whose might all things are mov'd,
Pierces the universe, and in one part
Sheds more resplendence, elsewhere less. In heav'n,
That largeliest of his light partakes, was I,
Witness of things, which to relate again
Surpasseth power of him who comes from thence;
For that, so near approaching its desire
Our intellect is to such depth absorb'd,
That memory cannot follow. Nathless all,
That in my thoughts I of that sacred realm
Could store, shall now be matter of my song.

Benign Apollo! this last labour aid,
And make me such a vessel of thy worth,
As thy own laurel claims of me belov'd.
Thus far hath one of steep Parnassus' brows
Suffic'd me; henceforth there is need of both
For my remaining enterprise Do thou
Enter into my bosom, and there br...

There's a sudden, fierce clang of the knocker, then the sound of a voice in the shaft,
Shrieking words that drum hard on the centres, and the braceman goes suddenly daft:
‘Set the whistle a-blowing like blazes! Billy, run, give old Mackie a call,
Run, you fool! Number Two’s gone to pieces, and Fred Baker is caught in the fall!
Say, hello! there below,any hope, boys, any chances of saving his life?
‘Heave away!’ says the knocker. ‘They’ve started. God be praised, he’s no youngsters or wife!’

Screams the whistle in fearful entreaty, and the wild echo raves on the spur,
And the night, that was still as a sleeper in soft, charmed sleep, is astir
With the fluttering of wings in the wattles, and the vague frightened murmur of birds,
With far cooeys that carry the warning, running feet, inarticu...

Brethren, go! the day is bright'ning
    As the sultry noon steals on,
And the fields, already whit'ning,
    Tell of labor to be done.

There are toilsome days before you,
    Burdens that you may not shun,
Clouds will gather darkly o'er you,
    Reeds will fail you one by one.

Yet go forth to strong endeavor,
    'Neath the shadow of the cross;
He who calls will leave you never, -
    Never let you suffer loss!

Go; the voices of the dying
    Float on every passing breeze;
Tones of wild, imploring crying
    Come from lands beyond the seas!

Go where pain and sorrow languish,
    Go where Sin works strife and woe,
Cleanse Earth's stain, and heal her anguish,
    Jesus calls you - brethren, go!

Let not that day God's friends and servants scare;
The bench is then their place, and not the bar.

    REVISED


    I.

    On the cold and dark Atlantic,
        The night was growing late
    Steamed the maiden ship Titanic
        Crowded with human freight
    She was valued at Ten Million,
        The grandest ever roamed the seas,
    Fitted complete to swim the ocean
        When the rolling billows freeze.


    II.


    She bade farewell to England
        All dressed in robes of white
    Going out to plow the briny deep,
        And was on her western flight;
    She was now so swiftly gliding
        In L Fifty and Fourteen
    When the watchman viewed the monster
        Just a mile from it, ’Twas seen.


    III.

    Warned by a German vessel
        Of an enemy just...

Becalmed upon the sea of Thought,
Still unattained the land it sought,
My mind, with loosely-hanging sails,
Lies waiting the auspicious gales.

On either side, behind, before,
The ocean stretches like a floor,--
A level floor of amethyst,
Crowned by a golden dome of mist.

Blow, breath of inspiration, blow!
Shake and uplift this golden glow!
And fill the canvas of the mind
With wafts of thy celestial wind.

Blow, breath of song! until I feel
The straining sail, the lifting keel,
The life of the awakening sea,
Its motion and its mystery!

The sunlight from the sky is swept,
But, over Snowdon’s summit kept,
One brand of cloud yet burns,
By ghostly hands far out of sight,
Held, glowing, in the even-light,
As Fate still keeps the weapon bright
That lingers and returns.

-    -    -    -    -    -

O day of slaughter! Day of woe!
But once, a thousand years ago,
Such day has Britain seen;
When blushed her hoary hills with shame
At Mona’s sacrifice of flame;
While shrieks from out the burning came
Across the strait between.

Death-helping day! That couldst not find
One weeping cloud to hide behind!
Cursed day whose light was given
For search-mate to the Saxon sword
Through coverts that our rocks afford,
While Edward’s godless minions poured
The blood of the uns...

It is full summer now, the heart of June;
Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir
Upon the upland meadow where too soon
Rich autumn time, the season's usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.

Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,
That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on
To vex the rose with jealousy, and still
The harebell spreads her azure pavilion,
And like a strayed and wandering reveller
Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June's messenger

The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,
One pale narcissus loiters fearfully
Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid
Of their own loveliness some violets lie
That will not look the gold sun in the face
...

"Welcome, mighty chief, once more
Welcome to this grateful shore;
Now no mercenary foe
Aims again the fatal blow,--
Aims at thee the fatal blow.


"Virgins fair and matrons grave,
Those thy conquering arm did save,
Build for thee triumphal bowers;
Strew, ye fair, his way with flowers,--
Strew your hero's way with flowers."

(A Humble Imitation.)

"And birds of calm sit brooding on the charméd wave."

    It is the noon of night,
    And the world's Great Light
Gone out, she widow-like doth carry her:
    The moon hath veiled her face,
    Nor looks on that dread place
Where He lieth dead in sealéd sepulchre;
    And heaven and hades, emptied, lend
Their flocking multitudes to watch and wait the end.

    Tier above tier they rise,
    Their wings new line the skies,
And shed out comforting light among the stars;
    But they of the other place
    The heavenly signs deface,
The gloomy brand of hell their brightness mars;
    Yet high they sit in thronéd state, -
It is the hour of darkness to them dedicate.

    And first and highest set,
...

Wilt pray for me?
    They tell me I have Fame;
I plead with thee,
    Sometimes just fold my name
In beautiful "Hail Marys"!
    And you give me more
    Than all the world besides.
It praises Poets for the well-sung lay;
But ah! it hath forgotten how to pray.
It brings to brows of Poets crowns of Pride;
Some win such crowns and wear;
Give me, instead, a simple little Prayer.

"And there shall be no night there and they
need no candle, and neither light of the sun;
for the Lord God giveth them Light."


Your place is Heaven, a stormless nightless home?
Then we twain never more shall live together
Such days of gladdest thought as here, whilom,
We spent amid the change of earthly weather.

No white young day like hope smiles in yon east,
Or, westering, cleaves wild-omened scarlet glooms;
No frosty breezes wreathe your woods in mist;
No breaker o'er Heaven's glassy ocean booms.

No scents of delvéd dewy soil arise;
No storm-blue pall in state hangs hill or lea;
No nightly seas swirl in grey agonies;
Nor old Earth's sweet decays dye herb or tree.

Do wan gold tints shot on the midnight air
Herald the moon...

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here a-while,
To blush and gently smile;
And go at last.

What, were ye born to be
An hour or half's delight;
And so to bid good-night?
'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth,
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne'er so brave:
And after they have shown their pride,
Like you, a-while; they glide
Into the grave.

From this hour the pledge is given,
    From this hour my soul is thine:
Come what will, from earth or heaven,
    Weal or woe, thy fate be mine.
When the proud and great stood by thee,
    None dared thy rights to spurn;
And if now they're false and fly thee,
    Shall I, too, basely turn?
No;--whate'er the fires that try thee,
    In the same this heart shall burn.

Tho' the sea, where thou embarkest,
    Offers now no friendly shore,
Light may come where all looks darkest,
    Hope hath life when life seems o'er.
And, of those past ages dreaming,
    When glory decked thy brow,
Oft I fondly think, tho' seeming
    So fallen and clouded now,
Thou'lt again break forth, all beaming,--
    None so bright, so blest as thou!

With equal pace as oxen in the yoke,
I with that laden spirit journey'd on
Long as the mild instructor suffer'd me;
But when he bade me quit him, and proceed
(For "here," said he, "behooves with sail and oars
Each man, as best he may, push on his bark"),
Upright, as one dispos'd for speed, I rais'd
My body, still in thought submissive bow'd.

I now my leader's track not loth pursued;
And each had shown how light we far'd along
When thus he warn'd me: "Bend thine eyesight down:
For thou to ease the way shall find it good
To ruminate the bed beneath thy feet."

As in memorial of the buried, drawn
Upon earth-level tombs, the sculptur'd form
Of what was once, appears (at sight whereof
Tears often stream forth by remembrance wak'd,
Whose sacred sting...

O, thy bright eyes must answer now,
When Reason, with a scornful brow,
Is mocking at my overthrow!
O, thy sweet tongue must plead for me,
And tell why I have chosen thee!

Stern Reason is to judgment come,
Arrayed in all her forms of gloom:
Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb?
No, radiant angel, speak and say
Why I did cast the world away;

Why I have presevered to shun
The common paths that others run,
And on a strange road journeyed on,
Heedless alike of wealth and power,
Of Glory's wreath and Pleasure's flower.

These once, indeed, seemed Beings Divine;
And they, perchance, heard vows of mine,
And saw my offerings on their shrine;
But careless gifts are seldom prized,
And mine were worthily despised.

So, with a ready hea...

    I.

    A gentle wind, of western birth
    On some far summer sea,
    Wakes daisies in the wintry earth,
    Wakes hopes in wintry me.

    The sun is low; the paths are wet,
    And dance with frolic hail;
    The trees--their spring-time is not yet--
    Swing sighing in the gale.

    Young gleams of sunshine peep and play;
    Clouds shoulder in between;
    I scarce believe one coming day
    The earth will all be green.

    The north wind blows, and blasts, and raves,
    And flaps his snowy wing:
    Back! toss thy bergs on arctic waves;
    Thou canst not bar our spring.


    II.

    Up comes the primrose, wondering;
    The snowdrop droopeth by;
    The holy spirit of the spring
    ...