How clear she shines! How quietly
I lie beneath her guardian light;
While heaven and earth are whispering me,
"To morrow, wake, but dream to-night."
Yes, Fancy, come, my Fairy love!
These throbbing temples softly kiss;
And bend my lonely couch above,
And bring me rest, and bring me bliss.

The world is going; dark world, adieu!
Grim world, conceal thee till the day;
The heart thou canst not all subdue
Must still resist, if thou delay!

Thy love I will not, will not share;
Thy hatred only wakes a smile;
Thy griefs may wound, thy wrongs may tear,
But, oh, thy lies shall ne'er beguile!
While gazing on the stars that glow
Above me, in that stormless sea,
I long to hope that all the woe
Creation knows, is held in thee!

And this s...

The winds are still; the sea lies all untroubled
    Beneath a cloudless sky; the morn is bright,
Yet, Lord, I feel my need of Thee is doubled;
    Come nearer to me in this blaze of light;
The night must fall, -the storm will burst at length.
    Oh! give me strength.

So well, so well, I know the treacherous seeming
    Of days like this; they are too heavenly fair.
Those waves that laugh like happy children dreaming,
    Are mighty forces brewing some despair
For thoughtless hearts, and ere the hour of need,
    Let mine take heed.

Joy cannot last; it must give place to sorrow
    As certainly as solar systems roll.
I would not wait till that time comes to borrow
    The strength prayer offers to a suffering soul.
Here in the sunlight -yet undimm...

Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus, ut non tantum
recte facere possim, sed nisi recte facere non possim
(Seneca, Letters 130.10)



Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou, who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free;
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth:
Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do thy work, and know it not:
Oh! if through confidence misplaced
They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.

Serene wil...

A train of gay and clouded days
Dappled with joy and grief and praise,
Beauty to fire us, saints to save,
Escort us to a little grave.



No fate, save by the victim's fault, is low,
For God hath writ all dooms magnificent,
So guilt not traverses his tender will.



Around the man who seeks a noble end,
Not angels but divinities attend.



From high to higher forces
The scale of power uprears,
The heroes on their horses,
The gods upon their spheres.



This shining moment is an edifice
Which the Omnipotent cannot rebuild.



Roomy Eternity
Casts her schemes rarely,
And an aeon allows
For each quality and part
Of the multitudinous
And many-chambered heart.

...

How blest thy creature is, O God,
When, with a single eye,
He views the lustre of thy word,
The dayspring from on high!


Through all the storms that veil the skies,
And frown on earthly things,
The Sun of Righteousness he eyes,
With healing on his wings.


Struck by that light, the human heart,
A barren soil no more,
Sends the sweet smell of grace abroad,
Where serpents lurk’d before.[1]


The soul a dreary province once
Of Satan’s dark domain,
Feels a new empire form’d within,
And owns a heavenly reign.


The glorious orb, whose golden beams
The fruitful year control,
Since first, obedient to thy word,
He started from the goal;


Has cheer’d the nations with the joys
His or...

I.

O well for him whose will is strong!
He suffers, but he will not suffer long;
He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong:
For him nor moves the loud world’s random mock,
Nor all Calamity’s hugest waves confound,
Who seems a promontory of rock,
That, compass’d round with turbulent sound,
In middle ocean meets the surging shock,
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown’d.



II.

But ill for him who, bettering not with time,
Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will,
And ever weaker grows thro’ acted crime,
Or seeming-genial venial fault,
Recurring and suggesting still!
He seems as one whose footsteps halt,
Toiling in immeasurable sand,
And o’er a weary sultry land,
Far beneath a blazing vault,
Sown in a wrinkle of the mo...

He sat by the dusty way-side,
    With weary, hopeless mien,
On his furrowed brow the traces
    Of care and want were seen;
With outstretched hand and with bowed-down head
He asked the passers-by for bread.

The palm-tree's feathery foliage
    Around him thickly grew,
And the smiling sky above him
    Wore Syria's sun-bright hue;
But dark alike to that helpless one
Was murky midnight or noon-tide sun.

But voices breaking the silence
    Are heard, fast drawing nigh,
And falls on his ear the clamor
    Of vast crowds moving by:
"What is it?" he asks, with panting breath;
They answer: "Jesus of Nazareth."

What a spell lay in that title,
    Linked with such mem'ries high
Of miracles of mercy,
    Wrought 'neath Judaea'...

Behold a hag whom Life denies a kiss
As he rides questward in knighterrant-wise;
Only when he hath passed her is it his
To know, too late, the Fairy in disguise.

Thy face is far from this our war,
Our call and counter-cry,
I shall not find Thee quick and kind,
Nor know Thee till I die,
Enough for me in dreams to see
And touch Thy garments' hem:
Thy feet have trod so near to
God I may not follow them.
Through wantonness if men profess
They weary of Thy parts,
E'en let them die at blasphemy
And perish with their arts;
But we that love, but we that prove
Thine excellence august,
While we adore discover more
Thee perfect, wise, and just.
Since spoken word Man's Spirit stirred
Beyond his belly-need,
What is is Thine of fair design
In thought and craft and deed;
Each stroke aright of toil and fight,
That was and that shall be,
And hope too high, wherefore we die,
Has birth and worth in Thee...

Smile of the Moon! for I so name
That silent greeting from above;
A gentle flash of light that came
From her whom drooping captives love;
Or art thou of still higher birth?
Thou that didst part the clouds of earth,
My torpor to reprove!

Bright boon of pitying Heaven! alas,
I may not trust thy placid cheer!
Pondering that Time tonight will pass
The threshold of another year;
For years to me are sad and dull;
My very moments are too full
Of hopelessness and fear.

And yet, the soul-awakening gleam,
That struck perchance the farthest cone
Of Scotland's rocky wilds, did seem
To visit me, and me alone;
Me, unapproached by any friend,
Save those who to my sorrow lend
Tears due unto their own.

To night the church-tower bells ...

It is easy to stand in the pulpit, or in the closet to kneel,
    And say:    'God do this; God do that! -
Make the world better; relieve the sorrows of man; for the sake of
Thy Son,
Oh, forgive all sin!'    Then, having planned out God's work, to feel
    Our duty is done.
It is easy to be religious this way -
Easy to pray.

It is harder to stand on the highway, or walk in the crowded mart;
    And say:    'I am He.    I am He.
'Mine the world-burden; mine the sorrows of men; mine the Christ-work
'To forgive my brother's sin,' and then to live the Christ-part and never to shirk.
    It is hard for you and me
To be religious this way,
Day after day.

But God is no longer in heaven; we drove Him out with our prayers,
Drove Him out with our sermons and...

What is it to commune?
It is when soul meets soul, and they embrace
As souls may, stooping from each separate sphere
For a brief moment's space.

What is it to commune?
It is to lay the veil of custom by,
To be all unafraid of truth to talk,
Face to face, eye to eye.

Not face to face, dear Lord;
That is the joy of brighter worlds to be;
And yet, Thy bidden guests about Thy board,
We do commune with Thee.

Behind the white-robed priest
Our eyes, anointed with a sudden grace,
Dare to conjecture of a mighty guest,
A dim beloved Face.

And is it Thou, indeed?
And dost Thou lay Thy glory all away
To visit us, and with Thy grace to feed
Our hungering hearts to-day?

And can a thing so sweet,
And can such heavenly co...

I.
All I believed is true!
I am able yet
All I want, to get
By a method as strange as new:
Dare I trust the same to you?

II.
If at night, when doors are shut,
And the wood-worm picks,
And the death-watch ticks,
And the bar has a flag of smut,
And a cat’s in the water-butt,

III.
And the socket floats and flares,
And the house-beams groan,
And a foot unknown
Is surmised on the garret-stairs,
And the locks slip unawares,

IV.
And the spider, to serve his ends,
By a sudden thread,
Arms and legs outspread,
On the table’s midst descends,
Comes to find, God knows what friends!

V.
If since eve drew in, I say,
I have sat and brought
(So to speak) my thought
To bear on the woman away,

I remember once, when a careless child,
I played on the mossy lea;
The stars looked forth in the shadowy west,
And I stole to my mother's knee,

With a handful of stemless violets, wet
With the drops of gathering dew,
And asked of the wonderful points of light
That shone in the distant blue.

She told me of numberless worlds, that rolled
Through the measureless depths above,
Created by infinite might and power,
Supported by infinite love.

She told of a faith that she called divine,
Of a fairer and happier home;
Of hope unsullied by grief or fear,
And a loftier life to come.

She told of seraphs, on wings of light,
That floated from star to star,
And were sometimes sent on a mission high
To a blighted orb afar.

And...

You, Madam, may, with safety go
Decrees of destiny to know;
For at your birth kind planets reign'd,
And certain happiness ordain'd:
Such charms as yours are only given
To chosen favourites of Heaven.
But such is my uncertain state
'Tis dangerous to try my fate;
For I would only know from art
The future motions of your hert,
And what predestinated doom
Attends my love for years to come,
No secrets else that mortals learn
My cares deserve, or life concern;
But this will so important be
I dread to search the dark decree;
For while the smallest hope remains
Faint joys are mingled with my pains.
Vain distant views my fancy please,
And give some intermitting ease;
But should the stars too plainly show
That you have doom'd my endless wo,

(HORACE, III. 7.)

"Quid fles, Asterie, quem tibi candidi
Primo restituent vere Favonii--
Gygen?"


Come, Laura, patience. Time and Spring
Your absent Arthur back shall bring,
Enriched with many an Indian thing
Once more to woo you;
Him neither wind nor wave can check,
Who, cramped beneath the "Simla's" deck,
Still constant, though with stiffened neck,
Makes verses to you.

Would it were wave and wind alone!
The terrors of the torrid zone,
The indiscriminate cyclone,
A man might parry;
But only faith, or "triple brass,"
Can help the "outward-bound" to pass
Safe through that eastward-faring class
Who sail to marry.

For him fond mothers, stout and fair,
Ascend the tortuous cabin stair
Only to hold around hi...

Is it not sweet to think, hereafter,
    When the Spirit leaves this sphere.
Love, with deathless wing, shall waft her
    To those she long hath mourned for here?

Hearts from which 'twas death to sever.
    Eyes this world can ne'er restore,
There, as warm, as bright as ever,
    Shall meet us and be lost no more.

When wearily we wander, asking
    Of earth and heaven, where are they,
Beneath whose smile we once lay basking,
    Blest and thinking bliss would stay?

Hope still lifts her radiant finger
    Pointing to the eternal Home,
Upon whose portal yet they linger,
    Looking back for us to come.

Alas, alas--doth Hope deceive us?
    Shall friendship--love--shall all those ties
That bind a moment, and then leave us,
...

"What is good for a bootless bene?"
With these dark words begins my Tale;
And their meaning is, whence can comfort spring
When Prayer is of no avail?

"What is good for a bootless bene?"
The Falconer to the Lady said;
And she made answer "ENDLESS SORROW!"
For she knew that her Son was dead.

She knew it by the Falconer's words,
And from the look of the Falconer's eye;
And from the love which was in her soul
For her youthful Romilly.

Young Romilly through Barden woods
Is ranging high and low;
And holds a greyhound in a leash,
To let slip upon buck or doe.

The pair have reached that fearful chasm,
How tempting to bestride!
For lordly Wharf is there pent in
With rocks on either side.

This striding-place is called th...