Love in fantastic triumph sate
Whilst bleeding hearts around him flow’d,
For whom fresh pains he did create
And strange tyrannic power he show’d:
From thy bright eyes he took his fires,
Which round about in sport he hurl’d;
But ’twas from mine he took desires
Enough t’ undo the amorous world.

From me he took his sighs and tears,
From thee his pride and cruelty;
From me his languishments and fears,
And every killing dart from thee.
Thus thou and I the god have arm’d
And set him up a deity;
But my poor heart alone is harm’d,
Whilst thine the victor is, and free!

Because I am by nature blind,
I wisely choose to walk behind;
However, to avoid disgrace,
I let no creature see my face.
My words are few, but spoke with sense;
And yet my speaking gives offence:
Or, if to whisper I presume,
The company will fly the room.
By all the world I am opprest:
And my oppression gives them rest.
    Through me, though sore against my will,
Instructors every art instil.
By thousands I am sold and bought,
Who neither get nor lose a groat;
For none, alas! by me can gain,
But those who give me greatest pain.
Shall man presume to be my master,
Who's but my caterer and taster?
Yet, though I always have my will,
I'm but a mere depender still:
An humble hanger-on at best;
Of whom all people make a jest.
    In me ...

The words you said grow faint;
The lamp you lit burns dim;
Yet, still be near your faithless friend
To urge and counsel him.

Still with returning feet
To where life's shadows brood,
With steadfast eyes made clear in death
Haunt his vague solitude.

So he, beguiled with earth,
Yet with its vain things vexed,
Keep even to his own heart unknown
Your memory unperplexed.

Be gentle, O hands of a child;
Be true: like a shadowy sea
In the starry darkness of night
Are your eyes to me.

But words are shallow, and soon
Dreams fade that the heart once knew;
And youth fades out in the mind,
In the dark eyes too.

What can a tired heart say,
Which the wise of the world have made dumb?
Save to the lonely dreams of a child,
'Return again, come!'

Tune - "For a' that, and a' that."


I.

    Is there, for honest poverty,
        That hangs his head, and a' that?
    The coward-slave, we pass him by,
        We dare be poor for a' that!
    For a' that, and a' that,
        Our toils obscure, and a' that;
    The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
        The man's the gowd for a' that!

II.

    What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
        Wear hoddin gray, and a' that;
    Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
        A man's a man, for a' that!
    For a' that, and a' that,
        Their tinsel show, and a' that;
    The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
        Is king o' men for a' that!

III.

    Ye see yon birkie, ca'd - a lord,

Our God he is a castle strong,
A good mail-coat and weapon;
He sets us free from every wrong
That wickedness would heap on.
The ancient wicked foe
He means earnest now;
Force and cunning sly
His horrid policy,--
On earth there's no one like him!

Our strength is vain; do what we can
Our hopes are soon dejected;
But He fights for us, the right man,
By God himself elected.
Ask'st thou who is this?
Jesus Christ it is;
He is the Lord of Hosts
In whom his people boasts;
And he must win the battle.

And did the world with devils swarm
All gaping to devour us,
We fear not from them the least harm;
Success lies sure before us.
This world's prince accurst,
Let him rage his worst,
Only roars about;
His doom it is go...

Light through a little veil is all thy trace
    Of halo, blessed Child!
The sorrow of the world is in thy face,
    fair, undefiled!
    dear and undefiled!

The kneeling boy, with pretty lips apart,
    Half loves, half worships thee;
Baby and sweet, yet separate thou art
    To that simplicity,
    To that young piety!

But Mary's look no hint of anguish stirs;
    Perfect that motherhood;
One day the bitter sword, this day is hers;
    And, God!, how very good!
    gracious God! How good!

For a summer festival at “The Laurels” on the Merrimac.


Once more on yonder laurelled height
The summer flowers have budded;
Once more with summer’s golden light
The vales of home are flooded;
And once more, by the grace of Him
Of every good the Giver,
We sing upon its wooded rim
The praises of our river,

Its pines above, its waves below,
The west-wind down it blowing,
As fair as when the young Brissot
Beheld it seaward flowing,
And bore its memory o’er the deep,
To soothe a martyr’s sadness,
And fresco, in his troubled sleep,
His prison-walls with gladness.

We know the world is rich with streams
Renowned in song and story,
Whose music murmurs through our dreams
Of human love and glory
We know that Arno’s...

Like a bad suitor desperate and trembling
From the mixed sense of being not loved and loving,
Who with feared longing half would know, dissembling
With what he'd wish proved what he fears soon proving,
I look with inner eyes afraid to look,
Yet perplexed into looking, at the worth
This verse may have and wonder, of my book,
To what thoughts shall't in alien hearts give birth.
But, as he who doth love, and, loving, hopes,
Yet, hoping, fears, fears to put proof to proof,
And in his mind for possible proofs gropes,
Delaying the true proof, lest the real thing scoff,
    I daily live, i'th' fame I dream to see,
    But by my thought of others' thought of me.

"Whom have I in heaven but thee?"


'Twere nought to me, yon glorious arch of night,
    Decked with the gorgeous blazonry of heaven,
If, to my faith, amid its splendors bright,
    No vision of the Eternal One were given;
I could but view a dreary, soulless waste -
    A vast expanse of solitude unknown; -
More cheerless for the splendors o'er it cast,
    For all its grandeur more intensely lone.

'Twere nought to me, this ever-changing scene
    Of earthly beauty, sunshine, and delight -
The wood's deep shadows and the valley's green,
    Morn's tender glow, and sunset's splendors bright -
Nought, if my Father smiled not from the sky,
    The cloud, the flower, the landscape, and the leaf;
My soul would pine 'mid Earth's vain pageantry,
    A...

I would I could weave in
    The colour, the wonder,
The song I conceive in
    My heart while I ponder,

And show how it came like
    The magi of old
Whose chant was a flame like
    The dawn's voice of gold;

Who dreams followed near them
    A murmur of birds,
And ear still could hear them
    Unchanted in words.

In words I can only
    Reveal thee my heart,
Oh, Light of the Lonely,
    The shining impart.

Between the twilight and the dark
The lights danced up before my eyes:
I found no sleep or peace or rest,
But dreams of stars and burning skies.

I knew the faces of the day--
Dream faces, pale, with cloudy hair,
I know you not nor yet your home,
The Fount of Shadowy Beauty, where?

...

[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]


APRIL 25, 18 - .

        RAIN - rain - rain - for three good solid fluid weeks -
        Till the air swims, and all creation leaks!
        And street-cars furnish still less room to spare,
        And hackmen several times have earned their fare.
        The omnibuses lumber through the din,
        And carry clay outside as well as in;
        The elevated trains, with jerky care,
        Haul half-way comfort through the dripping air;
        The gutters gallop past the liquid scene,
        As brisk as meadow brooks, though not so clean;
        What trees the city keeps for comfort's sake,
        Are shedding tears as if their hearts would break;
        And water tries to get, by storming steady,

Misfortune hath constrained me
To leave the lute and poetry,
Nor can I from their easing borrow
        Sleep for my sorrow.

Do I see true, or hath a dream
Flown forth from ivory gates to gleam
In phantom gold, before forsaking
        Its poor cheat, waking?

Oh, mad, mistaken humankind,
'Tis easy triumph for the mind
While yet no ill adventure strikes us
        And naught mislikes us.

In plenty we praise poverty,
'Mid pleasures we hold grief to be
(And even death, ere it shall stifle
        Our breath) a trifle.

But when the grudging spinner scants
Her thread and fate no surcease grants
From grief most deep and need most wearing,
        Less calm our bearing.

Ah, Tully, thou didst flee from Rome
With w...

Lulled by the sound of pastoral bells,
Rude Nature's Pilgrims did we go,
From the dread summit of the Queen
Of mountains, through a deep ravine,
Where, in her holy chapel, dwells
"Our Lady of the Snow."

The sky was blue, the air was mild;
Free were the streams and green the bowers;
As if, to rough assaults unknown,
The genial spot had 'ever' shown
A countenance that as sweetly smiled--
The face of summer-hours.

And we were gay, our hearts at ease;
With pleasure dancing through the frame
We journeyed; all we knew of care--
Our path that straggled here and there;
Of trouble--but the fluttering breeze;
Of Winter--but a name.

If foresight could have rent the veil
Of three short days--but hush--no more!
Calm is the grave, and c...

Not they who soar, but they who plod
Their rugged way, unhelped, to God
Are heroes; they who higher fare,
And, flying, fan the upper air,
Miss all the toil that hugs the sod.
'Tis they whose backs have felt the rod,
Whose feet have pressed the path unshod,
May smile upon defeated care,
Not they who soar.

High up there are no thorns to prod,
Nor boulders lurking 'neath the clod
To turn the keenness of the share,
For flight is ever free and rare;
But heroes they the soil who 've trod,
Not they who soar!

God made her body out of foam and flowers,
And for her hair the dawn and darkness blent;
Then called two planets from their heavenly towers,
And in her face, divinely eloquent,
Gave them a firmament.

God made her heart of rosy ice and fire,
Of snow and flame, that freezes while it burns;
And of a starbeam and a moth's desire
He made her soul, to'ards which my longing turns,
And all my being yearns.

So is my life a prisoner unto passion,
Enslaved of her who gives nor sign nor word;
So in the cage her loveliness doth fashion
Is love endungeoned, like a golden bird
That sings but is not heard.

Could it but once convince her with beseeching!
But once compel her as the sun the South!
Could it but once, fond arms around her reaching,
Upon...

While Anna's peers and early playmates tread,
In freedom, mountain-turf and river's marge;
Or float with music in the festal barge;
Rein the proud steed, or through the dance are led;
Her doom it is to press a weary bed
Till oft her guardian Angel, to some charge
More urgent called, will stretch his wings at large,
And friends too rarely prop the languid head.
Yet, helped by Genius, untired comforter,
The presence even of a stuffed Owl for her
Can cheat the time; sending her fancy out
To ivied castles and to moonlight skies,
Though he can neither stir a plume, nor shout;
Nor veil, with restless film, his staring eyes.

"Yes, let Art go, if it must be
    That with it men must starve -
If Music, Painting, Poetry
    Spring from the wasted hearth!"

Yes, let Art go, till once again
    Through fearless heads and hands
The toil of millions and the pain
    Be passed from out the lands:

Till from the few their plunder falls
    To those who've toiled and earned
But misery's hopeless intervals
    From those who've robbed and spurned.

Yes, let Art go, without a fear,
    Like autumn flowers we burn,
For, with her reawakening year,
    Be sure she will return! -

Return, but greater, nobler yet
    Because her laurel crown
With dew and not with blood is wet,
    And as our queen sit down!