The knightly legend of thy shield betrays
    The moral of thy life; a forecast wise,
    And that large honour that deceit defies,
Inspired thy fathers in the elder days,
Who decked thy scutcheon with that sturdy phrase,
    TO BE RATHER THAN SEEM.    As eve's red skies
    Surpass the morning's rosy prophecies,
Thy life to that proud boast its answer pays.
Scorning thy faith and purpose to defend
    The ever-mutable multitude at last
    Will hail the power they did not comprehend, -
Thy fame will broaden through the centuries;
    As, storm and billowy tumult overpast,
    The moon rules calmly o'er the conquered seas.

(P McD)


We waited for him, and the anxious days
    Melted to years and floated slowly by
We spoke of him kind words of lofty praise,
    Of yearning love and tender sympathy.

We laid by what was his with reverent care--
    Started in dreams to greet him coming home--
But hope deferred left no relief but prayer,
    And heart-sore longings breathed in one word--Come.

We never dreamed of murderous ambush laid
    By savage redskins greedy for the prey--
Of him, our darling, in the forest laid
    Alone, alone, ebbing his life away.

He who would not have harmed the meanest thing,
    Who carried gentleness to such excess
That, to the stranger and the suffering,
    His purse meant help, his touch was a caress.

Ah me! tha...

A day is drawing to its fall
I had not dreamed to see;
The first of many to enthrall
My spirit, will it be?
Or is this eve the end of all
Such new delight for me?

I journey home: the pattern grows
Of moonshades on the way:
"Soon the first quarter, I suppose,"
Sky-glancing travellers say;
I realize that it, for those,
Has been a common day.

Have you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told
    Of the limitless realms of the air,--
Have you read it,--the marvellous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,
    Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?

How, erect, at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,
    With his feet on the ladder of light,
That, crowded with angels unnumbered,
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered
    Alone in the desert at night?

The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn, and expire
    With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder
    By music they throb to express.

But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song,
    With ...

Rock and root and fern and flower
They had led him for an hour
To the inmost forest, where,
In a hollow, green with moss,
That the deep ferns trailed across,
Fell a fall, a presence fair,
Syllabling to the air,
Charming with cool sounds the bower.

It was she he used to know
In some land of Long Ago,
Some far land of Yesterday,
Where he listened to her words,
And she lured him, like the birds,
To her lips; and in his way
Danced a bubble or rainbow-ray,
Or a minnow's silvery bow.

Round him now her arms she flung,
And, as dripping there she clung,
In her gaze of green and gold
He beheld a beauty gleam,
And the shadow of a dream,
That to no man hath been told,
Like a Faery tale of old,
Rise up glimmering, ever young.<...

        If night should come and find me at my toil,
        When all Life's day I had, tho' faintly, wrought,
        And shallow furrows, cleft in stony soil
        Were all my labour:    Shall I count it naught

        If only one poor gleaner, weak of hand,
        Shall pick a scanty sheaf where I have sown?
        "Nay, for of thee the Master doth demand
        Thy work:    the harvest rests with Him alone."

I.
Will my tiny spark of being wholly vanish in your deeps and heights?
Must my day be dark by reason, O ye Heavens, of your boundless nights,
Rush of Suns, and roll of systems, and your fiery clash of meteorites?

II.
‘Spirit, nearing yon dark portal at the limit of thy human state,
Fear not thou the hidden purpose of that Power which alone is great,
Nor the myriad world, His shadow, nor the silent Opener of the Gate.’

Persephone, Persephone!
Still I fancy I can see
Thee amid the daffodils.
Golden wealth thy basket fills;
Golden blossoms at thy breast;
Golden hair that shames the West;
Golden sunlight round thy head!
Ah! the golden years have fled;
Thee have reft, and me have left
Here alone, thy loss to mourn.

Persephone, Persephone!
Still I fancy I can see
Her, as white and still she lies:
Death has woo'd and won his prize.
White the blossoms at her breast;
White and still her face at rest;
White the moonbeams round her head.
Ah! the wintry years have fled;
Comfort lent and patience sent,
And my grief is easier borne.

Persephone, Persephone!
Still in dreams thou com'st to me;
Every night art at my side,
Half my bride, and half...

        As Cupid, with his band of sprites,
        In Paphian grove set things to rights,
        And trimmed his bow and tipped his arrows,
        And taught, to play with Lesbia, sparrows,
        Thus Hymen said: "Your blindness makes,
        O Cupid, wonderful mistakes!
        You send me such ill-coupled folks:
        It grieves me, now, to give them yokes.
        An old chap, with his troubles laden,
        You bind to a light-hearted maiden;
        Or join incongruous minds together,
        To squabble for a pin or feather
        Until they sue for a divorce;
        To which the wife assents - of course."

        "It is your fault, and none of mine,"
        Cupid replied. "I hearts combine:
        You trade in settlements and deeds,

    He who by a mother's love
        Made the wandering world his own,
    Every year comes from above,
        Comes the parted to atone,
        Binding Earth to the Father's throne.

    Nay, thou comest every day!
        No, thou never didst depart!
    Never hour hast been away!
        Always with us, Lord, thou art,
        Binding, binding heart to heart!

Tho' the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see,
Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me;
In exile thy bosom shall still be my home,
And thine eyes make my climate wherever we room.

To the gloom of some desert or cold rocky shore,
Where the eye of the stranger can haunt us no more,
I will fly with my Coulin, and think the rough wind
Less rude than the foes we leave frowning behind.

And I'll gaze on thy gold hair as graceful it wreathes;
And hang o'er thy soft harp, as wildly it breathes;
Nor dread that the cold-hearted Saxon will tear
One chord from that harp, or one lock from that hair.[1]

Christ of His gentleness
Thirsting and hungering,
Walked in the wilderness;
Soft words of grace He spoke
Unto lost desert-folk
That listened wondering.
He heard the bitterns call
From ruined palace-wall,
Answered them brotherly.
He held communion
With the she-pelican
Of lonely piety.
Basilisk, cockatrice,
Flocked to his homilies,
With mail of dread device,
With monstrous barbéd slings,
With eager dragon-eyes;
Great rats on leather wings
And poor blind broken things,
Foul in their miseries.
And ever with Him went,
Of all His wanderings
Comrade, with ragged coat,
Gaunt ribs, poor innocent,
Bleeding foot, burning throat,
The guileless old scapegoat;
For forty nights and days
Followed in Jesus' ways,
Sure...

[1]


If hoarded gold possest the power
To lengthen life's too fleeting hour,
And purchase from the hand of death
A little span, a moment's breath,
How I would love the precious ore!
And every hour should swell my store;
That when death came, with shadowy pinion,
To waft me to his bleak dominion,
I might, by bribes, my doom delay,
And bid him call some distant day.
But, since not all earth's golden store
Can buy for us one bright hour more,
Why should we vainly mourn our fate,
Or sigh at life's uncertain date?
Nor wealth nor grandeur can illume
The silent midnight of the tomb.
No--give to others hoarded treasures--
Mine be the brilliant round of pleasures--
The goblet rich, the board of friends,
Whose social souls the g...

(See Note 68)

A man in coat of ice arrayed
Stood up once by the Arctic Ocean;
The whole earth shook with proud emotion
And honor to the giant paid.

A king came, to him climbing up,
An Order in his one hand bearing:
"Who great become, this sign are wearing."
- The growling giant said but "Stop!"

The frightened king fell down again,
Began to weep with features ashen:
"My Order is in this rude fashion
Refused by just the greatest men.

"My dear man, take it, 't is but fit,
Of your king's honor be the warder;
On your breast greater grows the Order,
And we who bear it, too, by it." -

The Arctic giant was too good, -
A foible oft ascribed to giants,
Who foolish trust in little clients, -
He took it, - while we mocking...

Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars
Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foil’d,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d:
Then happy I, that love and am belov’d,
Where I may not remove nor be remov’d.

Reason and Folly and Beauty, they say,
Went on a party of pleasure one day:
    Folly played
    Around the maid,
The bells of his cap rung merrily out;
    While Reason took
    To his sermon-book--
Oh! which was the pleasanter no one need doubt,
Which was the pleasanter no one need doubt.

Beauty, who likes to be thought very sage.
Turned for a moment to Reason's dull page,
    Till Folly said,
    "Look here, sweet maid!"--
The sight of his cap brought her back to herself;
    While Reason read
    His leaves of lead,
With no one to mind him, poor sensible elf!
No,--no one to mind him, poor sensible elf!

Then Reason grew jealous of Folly's gay cap;
Had he that on, he her heart might entrap--
    "There it is,"
    Quoth F...

Little leaves and flow'rets too,

Scatter we with gentle hand,
Kind young spring-gods to the view,

Sporting on an airy band.

Zephyr, bear it on the wing,

Twine it round my loved one's dress;
To her glass then let her spring,

Full of eager joyousness.

Roses round her let her see,

She herself a youthful rose.
Grant, dear life, one look to me!

'Twill repay me all my woes,

What this bosom feels, feel thou.

Freely offer me thy hand;
Let the band that joins us now

Be no fragile rosy band!

CHARIOT

My pretty dear Cuz, tho' I've roved the town o'er,
To dispatch in an hour some visits a score;
Though, since first on the wheels, I've been every day
At the 'Change, at a raffling, at church, or a play;
And the fops of the town are pleased with the notion
Of calling your slave the perpetual motion; -
Though oft at your door I have whined [out] my love
As my Knight does grin his at your Lady above;
Yet, ne'er before this, though I used all my care,
I e'er was so happy to meet my dear Chair;
And since we're so near, like birds of a feather,
Let's e'en, as they say, set our horses together.

CHAIR

By your awkward address, you're that thing which should carry,
With one footman behind, our lover Sir Harry.
By your language, I judge, you thi...