I. Spirit's House

From naked stones of agony
I will build a house for me;
As a mason all alone
I will raise it, stone by stone,
And every stone where I have bled
Will show a sign of dusky red.
I have not gone the way in vain,
For I have good of all my pain;
My spirit's quiet house will be
Built of naked stones I trod
On roads where I lost sight of God.

II. Mastery

I would not have a god come in
To shield me suddenly from sin,
And set my house of life to rights;
Nor angels with bright burning wings
Ordering my earthly thoughts and things;
Rather my own frail guttering lights
Wind blown and nearly beaten out;
Rather the terror of the nights
And long, sick groping after doubt;
Rather be lost than let my soul
Sl...

Hail native Language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And mad'st imperfect words with childish tripps,
Half unpronounc't, slide through my infant-lipps,
Driving dum silence from the portal dore,
Where he had mutely sate two years before:
Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little Grace can do thee:
Thou needst not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither packt the worst:
And, if it happen as I did forecast,
The daintest dishes shall be serv'd up last.
I pray thee then deny me not thy aide
For this same small neglect that I have made:
But haste thee strait to do me once a Pleasure,
And from thy war...

No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed;
Lay that on your heart,
My young angry dear;
This truth, this hard and precious stone,
Lay it on your hot cheek,
Let it hide your tear.
Hold it like a crystal
When you are alone
And gaze in the depths of the icy stone.
Long, look long and you will be blessed:
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed.

Sing me a song - a song to ease old sorrows,
And dull the edge of care -
A song of Hope to ring through all the morrows
That be my share.

Unlock the doors where joy hath been in hiding,
Though barred they be and strong,
And send black grief far down the wind a-riding -
Sing me a song.

Sing thou thy sky-lark song of sweetest daring,
And April ecstasy,
That I may follow it and go a-faring
To Arcady.

Charm sleep from out the shadows with thy singing,
And when the light turns grey,
Leave me bright dreams until the dawn comes bringing
The rose-edged day.

The wind of March taught thee his springtime madness,
And then in undertone
Whispered the wonder-secret of his gladness
To thee alone.

And thou hast learned from li...

As lords their labourers' hire delay,
Fate quits our toil with hopes to come,
Which, if far short of present pay,
Still, owns a debt and names a sum.

Quit not the pledge, frail sufferer, then,
Although a distant date be given;
Despair is treason towards man,
And blasphemy to Heaven.

So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone,
I with my secret self held communing of mine own.
So in the southern city spake the tongue
Of one that somewhat overwildly sung,
But in a later hour I sat and heard
Another voice that spake another graver word.
Weep not, it bade, whatever hath been said,
Though He be dead, He is not dead.
In the true creed
He is yet risen indeed;
Christ is yet risen.

Weep not beside His tomb,
Ye women unto whom
He was great comfort and yet greater grief;
Nor ye, ye faithful few that wont with Him to roam,
Seek sadly what for Him ye left, go hopeless to your home;
Nor ye despair, ye sharers yet to be of their belief;
Though He be dead, He is not dead,
Nor gone, though fled,
Not lost, though vanished;
Thou...

Only a little scrap of blue
    Preserved with loving care,
But earth has not a brilliant hue
    To me more bright and fair.

Strong drink, like a raging demon,
    Laid on my heart his hand,
When my darling joined with others
    The Loyal Legion * band.

But mystic angels called away
    My loved and precious child,
And o'er life's dark and stormy way
    Swept waves of anguish wild.


This badge of the Loyal Legion
    We placed upon her breast,
As she lay in her little coffin
    Taking her last sweet rest.

To wear that badge as a token
    She earnestly did crave,
So we laid it on her bosom
    To wear it in the grave.

Where sorrow would never reach her
    Nor harsh words smite her ear;...

Consider the lilies. Luke 2:27.


Emblems of Christ our Lord,
Roses and lilies fair,
These flowers in His word,
His glory seem to share.

The lilies of the field,
Sweet teachers of the soul,
Which will their lessons yield
Long as the seasons roll,

They neither toil nor spin,
Exist without a care,
And yet no earthly king can win
A garb so chaste and rare.

Frozen, they burst to life,
To nature's minstrelsy
A resurrection type
Of immortality.

William.


The day is now dawning, love,
Fled is the night--
I go like the morning, love,
Cheerful and bright.
Then adieu, dearest Ellen:
When evening is near,
I'll visit thy dwelling,
For true love is here.


Ellen.


Oh, come where the fountain, love,
Tranquilly flows;
Beneath the green mountain, love,
Seek for repose;
There the days of our childhood,
In love's golden beam,
'Mong the blue-bells and wildwood,
Passed on like a dream.


William.


Oh, linger awhile, love!


Ellen.


            I must away.


William.


Oh, grant me thy smile, love,
'Tis Hope's cheering ray--
With evening expect me.


Ellen.
...

If I should wish hereafter that your heart
Should beat with one fair memory of me,
May Time's hard hand our footsteps guide apart,
But lead yours back one spring-time to the Lea.
Nodding Anemones,
Wind-flowers pale,
Bloom with the budding trees,
Dancing to every breeze,
Mock hopes more fair than these,
Love's vows more frail.

For then the grass we loved grows green again,
And April showers make April woods more fair;
But no sun dries the sad salt tears of pain,
Or brings back summer lights on faded hair,
Nodding Anemones,
Wind-flowers pale,
Bloom with the budding trees,
Dancing to every breeze,
Mock hopes more frail than these,
Love's vows more frail.

On must we go: we search dead leaves,
We chase the sunset's saddest flames,
The nameless hues that o'er and o'er
In lawless wedding lost their names.

God of the daybreak! Better be
Black savages; and grin to gird
Our limbs in gaudy rags of red,
The laughing-stock of brute and bird;

And feel again the fierce old feast,
Blue for seven heavens that had sufficed,
A gold like shining hoards, a red
Like roses from the blood of Christ.

HONOR TO LABOR! - it giveth health;
Honor to labor! - it bringeth wealth;
Honor to labor! - our glorious land
Displayeth its triumphs on every hand.
It has smoothed the plains, laid the forests low,
And brightened the vales with the harvest's glow, -
Reared cities vast with their marts of trade,
Where erst undisturbed lay the woodland shade, -
Brought up from the depths of the teeming mine,
Its treasured stores in the light to shine, -
Sent Commerce forth on his tireless wings
In search of all precious and goodly things -
Forth to the ice-bound Northern seas,
And to bright isles fanned by the Southern breeze,
Where the Orange deepens its sunset dyes,
And the Cocoa ripens 'neath glowing skies, -
To the sunny islands of Austral climes, -
To lands undreamt o...

In a great western wind we climbed the hill
And saw the clouds run up, ride high and sink;
And there were shadows running at our feet
Till it seemed the very earth could not be still,
Nor could our hearts be still, nor could we think
Our hearts could ever be still, our thought less fleet
Than the dizzy clouds, less than the flying wind.
Eastward the valley and the dark steep hill
And other hills and valleys lost behind
In mist and light. The hedges were not yet bare
Though the wind picked at them as he went by.
The woods were fire, a fire that dense or clear
Burned steady, but could not burn up the shadows
Rooted where the trees' roots entangled lie,
In darkness; or a flame burned solitary
In the middle of the highest of brown meadows,
Burned solitary and unco...

‘Go, wash thyself in Jordan, go, wash thee and be clean! ‘
Nay, not for any Prophet will I plunge a toe therein!
For the banks of curious Jordan are parcelled into sites,
Commanded and embellished and patrolled by Israelites.

There rise her timeless capitals of Empires daily born,
Whose plinths are laid at midnight, and whose streets are packed at morn;
And here come hired youths and maids that feign to love or sin
In tones like rusty razor-blades to tunes like smitten tin.

And here be merry murtherings, and steeds with fiery hooves;
And furious hordes with guns and swords, and clamberings over rooves;
And horrid tumblings down from Heaven, and flights with wheels and wings;
And always one weak virgin who is chased through all these things.

And here is mock of f...

Hold my hand, little Sister, and nurse my head, whilst I try to remember the word,
What was it?--that the doctor says is now fairly established both in me and my bird.
C-O-N-con, with a con, S-T-A-N-stan, with a stan--No! That's Constantinople, that is
The capital of the country where rhubarb-and-magnesia comes from, and I wish they would keep it in that country, and not send it to this.
C-O-N-con--how my head swims! Now I've got it! C-O-N-V-A-L-E-S-C-E-N-C-E.
Convalescence! And that's what the doctor says is now fairly established both in my blackbird and me.
He says it means that you are better, and that you'll be well by and by.
And so the Sea-captain says, and he says we ought to be friends, because we're both convalescents--at least we're all three convalesc...

("Laissons le glaive à Rome.")

[Bk. III. xvi., October, 1852.]


Pray Rome put up her poniard!
And Sparta sheathe the sword;
Be none too prompt to punish,
And cast indignant word!
Bear back your spectral Brutus
From robber Bonaparte;
Time rarely will refute us
Who doom the hateful heart.

Ye shall be o'ercontented,
My banished mates from home,
But be no rashness vented
Ere time for joy shall come.
No crime can outspeed Justice,
Who, resting, seems delayed -
Full faith accord the angel
Who points the patient blade.

The traitor still may nestle
In balmy bed of state,
But mark the Warder, watching
His guardsman at his gate.
He wears the crown, a monarch -
Of knaves and stony hearts;
But tho...

Chi vuol veder quantunque può Natura.

WHOEVER BEHOLDS HER MUST ADMIT THAT HIS PRAISES CANNOT REACH HER PERFECTION.


    Who wishes to behold the utmost might
Of Heaven and Nature, on her let him gaze,
Sole sun, not only in my partial lays,
But to the dark world, blind to virtue's light!
And let him haste to view; for death in spite
The guilty leaves, and on the virtuous preys;
For this loved angel heaven impatient stays;
And mortal charms are transient as they're bright!
Here shall he see, if timely he arrive,
Virtue and beauty, royalty of mind,
In one bless'd union join'd. Then shall he say
That vainly my weak rhymes to praise her strive,
Whose dazzling beams have struck my genius blind:--
He must for ever weep if he delay!

CHARL...

The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers
Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away,
The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.
Pass me the can, lad; there’s an end of May.

There’s one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot,
One season ruined of our little store.
May will be fine next year as like as not:
Oh ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.

We for a certainty are not the first
Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed
Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.

It is in truth iniquity on high
To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave,
And mar the merriment as you and I
Fare on our long fool’s-errand to the grave.

Iniquity it is; but pass the can.
My lad, n...