With eyes that are narrowed to pierce
To the awful horizons of land,
Through the blaze of hot days, and the fierce
White heat-waves that flow on the sand;
Through the Never Land westward and nor'ward,
Bronzed, bearded, and gaunt on the track,
Low-voiced and hard-knuckled, rides forward
The Christ of the Outer Out-back.

For the cause that will ne'er be relinquished
Despite all the cynics on earth,
In the ranks of the bush undistinguished
By manner or dress, if by birth;
God's preacher, of churches unheeded,
God's vineyard, though barren the sod,
Plain spokesman where spokesman is needed,
Rough link 'twixt the bushman and God.

He works where the hearts of a nation
Are withered in flame from the sky,
Where the sinners work out their salvatio...

Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers
And golden-fruited orange bowers
To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours!
To her who, in our evil time,
Dragged into light the nation's crime
With strength beyond the strength of men,
And, mightier than their swords, her pen!
To her who world-wide entrance gave
To the log-cabin of the slave;
Made all his wrongs and sorrows known,
And all earth's languages his own,
North, South, and East and West, made all
The common air electrical,
Until the o'ercharged bolts of heaven
Blazed down, and every chain was riven!

Welcome from each and all to her
Whose Wooing of the Minister
Revealed the warm heart of the man
Beneath the creed-bound Puritan,
And taught the kinship of the love
Of man below and God abo...

There are, there are
Invisible Great Helpers of the race.
Across unatlased continents of space,
From star to star.
    In answer to some soul's imperious need,
    They speed, they speed.

When the earth-loving young are forced to stand
Upon the border of the Unknown Land,
They come, they come - those angels who have trod
The altitudes of God,
And to the trembling heart
Their strength impart.
    Have you not seen the delicate young maid,
Filled with the joy of life in her fair dawn,
    Look in the face of death, all unafraid,
And smilingly pass on?

This is not human strength; not even faith
    Has such large confidence in such an hour.
    It is a power
Supplied by beings who have conquered death.
    Floating from sphere to s...

Down to the lighthouse pillar
The rolling woodland comes,
Gay with the gold of she-oaks
And the green of the stunted gums,
With the silver-grey of honeysuckle,
With the wasted bracken red,
With a tuft of softest emerald
And a cloud-flecked sky o’erhead.

We climbed by ridge and boulder,
Umber and yellow scarred,
Out to the utmost precipice,
To the point that was ocean-barred,
Till we looked below on the fastness
Of the breeding eagle’s nest,
And Cape Wollomai opened eastward
And the Otway on the west.

Over the mirror of azure
The purple shadows crept,
League upon league of rollers
Landward evermore swept,
And burst upon gleaming basalt,
And foamed in cranny and crack,
And mounted in sheets of silver,
And hurried re...

A yeoman born, with patrimony small,
He held the world at large as his estate;
Found fit advices in the bugle's call
And took his part in iron-tongued debate
Where'er one sword another sword blade notched;
Ne'er was he slain, though often he was scotched,
Now down, now up, but always fronting fate.

At last a figure resolute, and grand
In arms he leaped upon Virginia's strand;
Fitted in many schools his course to steer
He knew the ax, the musketoon, and brand,
How to obey, and better to command;
First of his line he stood - a planted spear
The New World saw the English Pioneer!

We look up to the stars tonight,
    Idolatrous of them,
And dream that Heaven is in sight,
And each a ray of purest light
    From some celestial gem
    In her bright diadem.

Before that lonely home we wait,
    Ah! nevermore to see
Her lovely form within the gate
Where heart and hearthstone desolate
    And vine and shrub and tree
    Seem asking: "Where is she?"

There is the cottage Love had planned -
    Where hope in ashes lies -
A tower beautiful to stand,
Her monument whose gentle hand
    And presence in the skies
    Make home of Paradise.

In wintry bleakness nature glows
    Beneath the stellar ray;
We see the mold, but not the rose,
And meditate if knowledge goes
    Into yon mound of clay,
    W...

This game of life is a dangerous play,
Each human soul must watch alway,
    From the first to the very last.
I care not however strong and pure -
Let no man say he is perfectly sure
    The dangerous reefs are past.

For many a rock may lurk near by,
That never is seen when the tide is high -
    Let no man dare to boast,
When the hand is full of trumps -beware,
For that is the time when thought and care
    And nerve are needed most.

As the oldest jockey knows to his cost,
Full many a well-run race is lost
    A brief half length from the wire.
And many a soul that has fought with sin,
And gained each battle, at last gives in
    To sudden, fierce desire.

And vain seems the effort of spur and whip,
Or the hoarse, hot cry of th...

Last night her Form the hours of slumber bless'd
    Whose eyes illumin'd all my youthful years. -
    Spirit of dreams, at thy command appears
    Each airy Shape, that visiting our rest,
Dismays, perplexes, or delights the breast.
    My pensive heart this kind indulgence cheers;
    Bliss, in no waking moment now possess'd,
    Bliss, ask'd of thee with Memory's thrilling tears,
Nightly I cry, how oft, alas! in vain,
    Give, by thy powers, that airy Shapes controul,
    HONORA to my visions! - ah! ordain
Her beauteous lip may wear the smile that stole,
    In years long fled, the sting from every pain!
    Show her sweet face, ah show it to my soul!

June 1780.

FROM ORCUS, HIGH PRIEST OF MEMPHIS, TO DECIUS, THE PRAETORIAN PREFECT.


Rejoice, my friend, rejoice;--the youthful Chief
Of that light Sect which mocks at all belief,
And gay and godless makes the present hour
Its only heaven, is now within our power.
Smooth, impious school!--not all the weapons aimed,
At priestly creeds, since first a creed was framed,
E'er struck so deep as that sly dart they wield,
The Bacchant's pointed spear in laughing flowers concealed.
And oh, 'twere victory to this heart, as sweet
As any thou canst boast--even when the feet
Of thy proud war-steed wade thro' Christian blood,
To wrap this scoffer in Faith's blinding hood,
And bring him tamed and prostrate to implore
The vilest gods even Egypt's saints adore.
What!--do these...

Break, Phantsie, from thy cave of cloud,
And wave thy purple wings,
Now all thy figures are allowed,
And various shapes of things.
Create of airy forms a stream;
It must have blood and nought of phlegm;
And though it be a walking dream,
Yet let it like an odor rise
To all the senses here,
And fall like sleep upon their eyes,
Or music on their ear.
- Ben Jonson.


“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy,” and among these may be placed that marvel and mystery of the seas, the island of St. Brandan. Every school-boy can enumerate and call by name the Canaries, the Fortunate Islands of the ancients; which, according to some ingenious speculative minds, are mere wrecks and remnants of the vast island of Atalantis, mentioned by ...

L' aura gentil che rasserena i poggi.

JOURNEYING TO VISIT LAURA, HE FEELS RENEWED ARDOUR AS HE APPROACHES.


    The gale, that o'er yon hills flings softer blue,
And wakes to life each bud that gems the glade,
I know; its breathings such impression made,
Wafting me fame, but wafting sorrow too:
My wearied soul to soothe, I bid adieu
To those dear Tuscan haunts I first survey'd;
And, to dispel the gloom around me spread,
I seek this day my cheering sun to view,
Whose sweet attraction is so strong, so great,
That Love again compels me to its light;
Then he so dazzles me, that vain were flight.
Not arms to brave, 'tis wings to 'scape, my fate
I ask; but by those beams I'm doom'd to die,
When distant which consume, and which enflame when nigh.

(The Argosy, March 1866.)


I

We met, hand to hand,
    We clasped hands close and fast,
As close as oak and ivy stand;
    But it is past:
    Come day, come night, day comes at last.

We loosed hand from hand,
    We parted face from face;
Each went his way to his own land.
    At his own pace,
    Each went to fill his separate place.

If we should meet one day,
    If both should not forget,
We shall clasp hands the accustomed way,
    As when we met
So long ago, as I remember yet.

II

Where my heart is (wherever that may be)
    Might I but follow!
If you fly thither over heath and lea,
O honey-seeking bee,
    O careless swallow,
Bid some for whom I watch keep watch for me.

I had not seen my son's dear face
(He chose the cloister by God's grace)
    Since it had come to full flower-time.
    I hardly guessed at its perfect prime,
That folded flower of his dear face.

Mine eyes were veiled by mists of tears
When on a day in many years
    One of his Order came.    I thrilled,
    Facing, I thought, that face fulfilled.
I doubted, for my mists of tears.

His blessing be with me for ever!
My hope and doubt were hard to sever.
    --That altered face, those holy weeds.
    I filled his wallet and kissed his beads,
And lost his echoing feet for ever.

If to my son my alms were given
I know not, and I wait for Heaven.
    He did not plead for child of mine,
    But for another Child divine,
And unto Him it...

When treason first began the strife
That crimsoned sea and shore,
The Nation poured her hoarded life
On Freedom's threshing-floor;
From field and prairie, east and west,
From coast and hill and plain,
The sheaves of ripening manhood pressed
Thick as the bearded grain.

Rich was the harvest; souls as true
As ever battle tried;
But fiercer still the conflict grew,
The floor of death more wide;
Ah, who forgets that dreadful day
Whose blot of grief and shame
Four bitter years scarce wash away
In seas of blood and flame?

Vain, vain the Nation's lofty boasts, -
Vain all her sacrifice!
"Give me a man to lead my hosts,
O God in heaven!" she cries.
While Battle whirls his crushing flail,
And plies his winnowing fan, -
Thick flie...

Again mine eyes were fix'd on Beatrice,
And with mine eyes my soul, that in her looks
Found all contentment. Yet no smile she wore
And, "Did I smile," quoth she, "thou wouldst be straight
Like Semele when into ashes turn'd:
For, mounting these eternal palace-stairs,
My beauty, which the loftier it climbs,
As thou hast noted, still doth kindle more,
So shines, that, were no temp'ring interpos'd,
Thy mortal puissance would from its rays
Shrink, as the leaf doth from the thunderbolt.
Into the seventh splendour are we wafted,
That underneath the burning lion's breast
Beams, in this hour, commingled with his might,
Thy mind be with thine eyes: and in them mirror'd
The shape, which in this mirror shall be shown."
Whoso can deem, how fondly I had fed
My sight up...

What touch is like the Spring's?
By dainty fingerings
    Such rare delight to give,
    'Tis luxury to live
Amid florescent things.

Through weary months of snow
When Boreas swept low,
    How many an anxious hour
    We watched one little flower,
And tried to make it grow;

And thrilled with ecstasy
When, half distrustfully,
    A timid bud appeared,
    A tender scion reared
In window greenery.

But lo! Spring's wealth of bloom
And richness of perfume
    Comes as by miracle;
    Then why not possible
Within a curtained room?

Ah, no! that everywhere
The earth is passing fair,
    And strange new life hath caught,
    Is but the marvel wrought
By sunlight, rain, and air.

Hail to you, comrades, who have won,
Where the torn lines of battle run
By tattered town and ruined mead,
The honour that men give with pride
To those who, daffing death aside,
Have done the valorous deed.

And has the war, then, brought to birth,
As flowers that spring from western earth
At summons of the pelting rain,
The courage that can force its way,
And hold the shadowing wings at bay,
And smile at lingering pain?

And is it true that only now
Life lifts from her heroic brow
The smothering shroud of deadly peace,
And laughs to sniff the morning air,
And bids a thousand bonfires flare
The news of her release?

Hell’s throat may swallow down its lie,
For men knew how to live and die
And take the gifts of motley fate,

Oft when pacing thro' the long and dim
Dark gallery of the Past, I pause before
A picture of which this is a copy -
Wretched at best.

How fair she look'd, standing a-tiptoe there,
Pois'd daintily upon her little feet!
The slanting sunset falling thro' the leaves
In golden glory on her smiling face,
Upturn'd towards the blushing roses; while
The breeze that came up from the river's brink,
Shook all their clusters over her fair face;
And sported with her robe, until methought,
That she stood there clad wondrously indeed!
In perfume and in music: for her dress
Made a low, rippling sound, like little waves
That break at midnight on the tawny sands -
While all the evening air of roses whisper'd.
Over her face a rich, warm blush spread slowly,
And sh...