I am no priest of crooks nor creeds,
For human wants and human needs
Are more to me than prophets' deeds;
And human tears and human cares
Affect me more than human prayers.

Go, cease your wail, lugubrious saint!
You fret high Heaven with your plaint.
Is this the "Christian's joy" you paint?
Is this the Christian's boasted bliss?
Avails your faith no more than this?

Take up your arms, come out with me,
Let Heav'n alone; humanity
Needs more and Heaven less from thee.
With pity for mankind look 'round;
Help them to rise--and Heaven is found.

    The Cry of the Little Peoples went up to God in vain;
    The Czech and the Pole, and the Finn, and the Schleswig Dane:

    We ask but a little portion of the green, ambitious earth;
    Only to sow and sing and reap in the land of our birth.

    We ask not coaling stations, nor ports in the China seas,
    We leave to the big child-nations such rivalries as these.

    We have learned the lesson of Time, and we know three things of worth;
    Only to sow and sing and reap in the land of our birth.

    O leave us little margins, waste ends of land and sea,
    A little grass, and a hill or two, and a shadowing tree;

    O leave us our little rivers that sweetly catch the sky,
    To drive our mills, and to carry our wood, and to ripple by.

 ...

A Friendly Address To Mrs. Fry In Newgate.[1]

"Sermons in stones." - As You Like It.
"Out! out! damned spot!" - Macbeth.



I.

I like you, Mrs. Fry! I like your name!
It speaks the very warmth you feel in pressing
In daily act round Charity's great flame -
I like the crisp Browne way you have of dressing,
Good Mrs. Fry! I like the placid claim
You make to Christianity, - professing
Love, and good works - of course you buy of Barton,
Beside the young Fry's bookseller, Friend Darton!


II.

I like, good Mrs. Fry, your brethren mute -
Those serious, solemn gentlemen that sport -
I should have said, that wear, the sober suit
Shap'd like a court dress - but for hea...

Atonement Day--evening pray'r--sadness profound.
The soul-lights, so clear once, are dying around.
The reader is spent, and he barely can speak;
The people are faint, e'en the basso is weak.
The choristers pine for the hour of repose.
Just one--two chants more, and the pray'r book we close!

And now ev'ry Jew's supplication is ended,
And Nilah* approaching, and twilight descended.
The blast of the New Year is blown on the horn,
All go; by the Ark I am standing forlorn,
And thinking: "How shall it be with us anon,
When closed is the temple, and ev'ryone gone!"

I.

I had a vision when the night was late:
A youth came riding toward a palace-gate.
He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,
But that his heavy rider kept him down.
And from the palace came a child of sin,
And took him by the curls, and led him in,
Where sat a company with heated eyes,
Expecting when a fountain should arise:
A sleepy light upon their brows and lips–
As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse,
Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes–
Suffused them, sitting, lying, languid shapes,
By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles of grapes.


II.

Then methought I heard a mellow sound,
Gathering up from all the lower ground;
Narrowing in to where they sat assembled
Low voluptuous music winding trembled...

Up and away through the drifting rain!
Let us ride to the Little Tower again,

Up and away from the council board!
Do on the hauberk, gird on the sword.

The king is blind with gnashing his teeth,
Change gilded scabbard to leather sheath:

Though our arms are wet with the slanting rain,
This is joy to ride to my love again:

I laugh in his face when he bids me yield;
Who knows one field from the other field,

For the grey rain driveth all astray?
Which way through the floods, good carle, I pray

The left side yet! the left side yet!
Till your hand strikes on the bridge parapet.

Yea so: the causeway holdeth good
Under the water? Hard as wood,

Right away to the uplands; speed, good knight!
Seven hours yet before the...

A certain maid, as proud as fair,
A husband thought to find
Exactly to her mind -
Well-form'd and young, genteel in air,
Not cold nor jealous; - mark this well.
Whoe'er would wed this dainty belle
Must have, besides rank, wealth, and wit,
And all good qualities to fit -
A man 'twere difficult to get.
Kind Fate, however, took great care
To grant, if possible, her prayer.
There came a-wooing men of note;
The maiden thought them all,
By half, too mean and small.
'They marry me! the creatures dote: -
Alas! poor souls! their case I pity.'
(Here mark the bearing of the beauty.)
Some were less delicate than witty;
Some had the nose too short or long;
In others something else was wrong;
Which made each in the maiden's eyes
An altogether worthl...

Take up the White man's burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times mad plain.
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden
The savage wars of peace
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden

I walk down the Valley of Silence --
Down the dim, voiceless valley -- alone!
And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me, save God's and my own;
And the hush of my heart is as holy
As hovers where angels have flown!

Long ago was I weary of voices
Whose music my heart could not win;
Long ago was I weary of noises
That fretted my soul with their din;
Long ago was I weary of places
Where I met but the human -- and sin.

I walked in the world with the worldly;
I craved what the world never gave;
And I said:    "In the world each Ideal,
That shines like a star on life's wave,
Is wrecked on the shores of the Real,
And sleeps like a dream in a grave."

And still did I pine for the Perfect,
And still found the False with the True;

Mercy, the wise Athenians held to be
Not an affection, but a deity.