When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
    Little room do I find for pride.

    I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
    Has fallen short or been turned aside.

    But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
    The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist - slack they may be - these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O...

The waves were weary, and they went to sleep;
    The winds were hushed;
    The starlight flushed
The furrowed face of all the mighty deep.

The billows yester eve so dark and wild,
    Wore strangely now
    A calm upon their brow,
Like that which rests upon a cradled child.

The sky was bright, and every single star,
    With gleaming face,
    Was in its place,
And looked upon the sea -- so fair and far.

And all was still -- still as a temple dim,
    When low and faint,
    As murmurs plaint,
Dies the last note of the Vesper hymn.

A bark slept on the sea, and in the bark
    Slept Mary's Son --
    The only One
Whose face is light! where all, all else, is dark.

His brow was heavenward turned, His face was fa...

Thrice hath the spring beheld thy faded fame
Since I exulting grasp'd the tuneful shell:
Eager through endless years to sound thy name,
Proud that my memory with thine should dwell.
How hast thou stain'd the splendor of my choice!
Those godlike forms which hover'd round thy voice,
Laws, freedom, glory, whither are they flown?
What can I now of thee to time report,
Save thy fond country made thy impious sport,
Her fortune and her hope the victims of thy own?
There are with eyes unmov'd and reckless heart
Who saw thee from thy summit fall thus low,
Who deem'd thy arm extended but to dart
The public vengeance on thy private foe.
But, spite of every gloss of envious minds,
The owl-ey'd race whom Virtue's lustre blinds,
Who sagely prove that each man hath his price...

Lean on thyself until thy strength is tried;
Then ask God's help; it will not be denied.

Use thine own sight to see the way to go;
When darkness falls ask God the path to show.

Think for thyself and reason out thy plan;
God has His work and thou hast thine, oh, man.

Exert thy will and use it for control;
God gave thee jurisdiction of thy soul.

All thine immortal powers bring into play;
Think, act, strive, reason, then look up and pray.

The Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken,
And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan
Round fane and altar overthrown and broken,
O'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone.

Blind Faith had martyrs in those old high places,
The Syrian hill grove and the Druid's wood,
With mother's offering, to the Fiend's embraces,
Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood.

Red altars, kindling through that night of error,
Smoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye
Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror,
Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky;

Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting
All heaven above, and blighting earth below,
The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fasting,
And man's oblation was his fear and woe!

Then thr...

Nor scorn the aid which Fancy oft doth lend
The Soul's eternal interests to promote:
Death, darkness, danger, are our natural lot;
And evil Spirits 'may' our walk attend
For aught the wisest know or comprehend;
Then be 'good' Spirits free to breathe a note
Of elevation; let their odours float
Around these Converts; and their glories blend,
The midnight stars outshining, or the blaze
Of the noon-day. Nor doubt that golden cords
Of good works, mingling with the visions, raise
The Soul to purer worlds: and 'who' the line
Shall draw, the limits of the power define,
That even imperfect faith to man affords?

Gold or silver, every day,
Dies to gray.
There are knots in every skein.
Hours of work and hours of play
Fade away
Into one immense Inane.
Shadow and substance, chaff and grain,
Are as vain
As the foam or as the spray.
Life goes crooning, faint and fain,
One refrain:
'If it could be always May!'

Though the earth be green and gay,
Though, they say,
Man the cup of heaven may drain;
Though, his little world to sway,
He display
Hoard on hoard of pith and brain:
Autumn brings a mist and rain
That constrain

Him and his to know decay,
Where undimmed the lights that wane
Would remain,
If it could be always May.

YEA, alas, must turn to NAY,
Flesh to clay.
Chance and Time are ever twain.
Men may sc...

There is a world Life dreams of, long since lost:
Invisible save only to the heart:
That spreads its cloudy islands, without chart,
Above the Earth,'mid oceans none has crossed:
Far Faerylands, that have become a part
Of mortal longings; that, through difficult art,
Man strives to realize to the uttermost.
Could we attain that Land of Faërie
Here in the flesh, what starry certitudes
Of loveliness were ours! what mastery
Of beauty and the dream that still eludes!
What clearer vision! Ours were then the key
To Mystery, that Nature jealously
Locks in her heart of hearts among the woods.

Farther and farther away, alas! at each moment the vessel

Hastens, as onward it glides, cleaving the foam-cover'd flood!
Long is the track plough'd up by the keel where dolphins are sporting,

Following fast in its rear, while it seems flying pursuit.
All forebodes a prosperous voyage; the sailor with calmness

Leans 'gainst the sail, which alone all that is needed performs.
Forward presses the heart of each seamen, like colours and streamers;

Backward one only is seen, mournfully fix'd near the mast,
While on the blue tinged mountains, which fast are receding, he gazeth,

And as they sink in the sea, joy from his bosom departs.
Vanish'd from thee, too, oh Dora, is now the vessel that robs thee

Of thine Alexis, thy friend, ah, thy betrothed as well!

Call not the royal Swede unfortunate,
Who never did to Fortune bend the knee;
Who slighted fear; rejected steadfastly
Temptation; and whose kingly name and state
Have "perished by his choice, and not his fate!"
Hence lives He, to his inner self endeared;
And hence, wherever virtue is revered,
He sits a more exalted Potentate,
Throned in the hearts of men. Should Heaven ordain
That this great Servant of a righteous cause
Must still have sad or vexing thoughts to endure,
Yet may a sympathising spirit pause,
Admonished by these truths, and quench all pain
In thankful joy and gratulation pure.

Far, far away is mirth withdrawn
'Tis three long hours before the morn
And I watch lonely, drearily
So come thou shade commune with me

Deserted one! thy corpse lies cold
And mingled with a foreign mould
Year after year the grass grows green
Above the dust where thou hast been.

I will not name thy blighted name
Tarnished by unforgotton shame
Though not because my bosom torn
Joins the mad world in all its scorn

Thy phantom face is dark with woe
Tears have left ghastly traces there,
Those ceaseless tears! I wish their flow
Could quench thy wild despair.

They deluge my heart like the rain
On cursed Gomorrah's howling plain
Yet when I hear thy foes deride
I must cling closely to thy side

Our mutual foes, they will n...

Because God put His adamantine fate
Between my sullen heart and its desire,
I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate,
Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire.
Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy,
But Love was as a flame about my feet;
Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; and beat
Thrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry.

All the great courts were quiet in the sun,
And full of vacant echoes: moss had grown
Over the glassy pavement, and begun
To creep within the dusty council-halls.
An idle wind blew round an empty throne
And stirred the heavy curtains on the walls.

A Sequel


I saw again the spirits on a day,
Where on the earth in mournful case they lay;
Five porches were there, and a pool, and round,
Huddling in blankets, strewn upon the ground,
Tied-up and bandaged, weary, sore and spent,
The maimed and halt, diseased and impotent.

For a great angel came, ’twas said, and stirred
The pool at certain seasons, and the word
Was, with this people of the sick, that they
Who in the waters here their limbs should lay
Before the motion on the surface ceased
Should of their torment straightway be released.
So with shrunk bodies and with heads down-dropt,
Stretched on the steps, and at the pillars propt,
Watching by day and listening through the night,
They filled the place, a miserable sight.

And I beh...

I have long enough been working down in my cellar,
    Working spade and pick, boring-chisel and drill;
I long for wider spaces, airy, clear-dark, and stellar:
    Successless labour never the love of it did fill.

More profit surely lies in a holy, pure quiescence,
    In a setting forth of cups to catch the heavenly rain,
In a yielding of the being to the ever waiting presence,
    In a lifting of the eyes upward, homeward again!

Up to my garret, its storm-windows and skylights!
    There I'll lay me on the floor, and patient let the sun,
The moon and the stars, the blueness and the twilights
    Do what their pleasure is, and wait till they have done.

But, lo, I hear a waving on the roof of great pinions!
    'Tis the labour of a windmill, broad-spreading...

The little and the great are joined in one
By God's great force.    The wondrous golden sun
Is linked unto the glow-worm's tiny spark;
The eagle soars to heaven in his flight;
And in those realms of space, all bathed in light,
Soar none except the eagle and the lark.

Beyond the path of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled,
Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled,
Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world.

They are purged of pride because they died, they know the worth of their bays,
They sit at wine with the Maidens Nine and the Gods of the Elder Days,
It is their will to serve or be still as fitteth our Father's praise.

'Tis theirs to sweep through the ringing deep where Azrael's outposts are,
Or buffet a path through the Pit's red wrath when God goes out to war,
Or hang with the reckless Seraphim on the rein of a red-maned star.

They take their mirth in the joy of the Earth, they dare not grieve for her pain,
They know of toil and the end of toil, they know God's law is plain,...

Take the harp, but very softly for our brother touch the strings:
Wind and wood shall help to wail him, waves and mournful mountain-springs.
Take the harp, but very softly, for the friend who grew so old
Through the hours we would not hear of nights we would not fain behold!
Other voices, sweeter voices, shall lament him year by year,
Though the morning finds us lonely, though we sit and marvel here:
Marvel much while Summer cometh, trammelled with November wheat,
Gold about her forehead gleaming, green and gold about her feet;
Yea, and while the land is dark with plover, gull, and gloomy glede,
Where the cold, swift songs of Winter fill the interlucent reed.

Yet, my harp and oh, my fathers! never look for Sorrow’s lay,
Making life a mighty darkness in the patient noon of day;