Long I followed happy guides,
I could never reach their sides;
Their step is forth, and, ere the day
Breaks up their leaguer, and away.
Keen my sense, my heart was young,
Right good-will my sinews strung,
But no speed of mine avails
To hunt upon their shining trails.
On and away, their hasting feet
Make the morning proud and sweet;
Flowers they strew,--I catch the scent;
Or tone of silver instrument
Leaves on the wind melodious trace;
Yet I could never see their face.
On eastern hills I see their smokes,
Mixed with mist by distant lochs.
I met many travellers
Who the road had surely kept;
They saw not my fine revellers,--
These had crossed them while they slept.
Some had heard their fair report,
In the country or the court.
Fleete...

Each form of beauty's but the new disguise
Of thoughts more beautiful than forms can be;
Sceptics, who search with unanointed eyes,
Never the Earth's wild fairy-dance shall see.

Spare us our Dreams, O God! The dream we dreamed
When we were children and dwelt near the Land
Of Faery, which our Childhood often planned
To reach, beholding where its towers gleamed:
The dream our Youth put seaward with; that streamed
With Love's wild hair, or beckoned with the hand
Of stout Adventure: Then that dream which spanned
Our Manhood's skies with fame; that shone, it seemed,
The one fixed star of purpose, fair and far,
The dream of great achievement, in the heaven
Of our desire, and gave the soul strong wings:
Then that last dream, through which these others are
Made true: The dream that holds us at Life's even,
The mortal hope of far immortal things.

It's easy to fight when everything's right,
And you're mad with the thrill and the glory;
It's easy to cheer when victory's near,
And wallow in fields that are gory.
It's a different song when everything's wrong,
When you're feeling infernally mortal;
When it's ten against one, and hope there is none,
Buck up, little soldier, and chortle:

Carry on! Carry on!
There isn't much punch in your blow.
You're glaring and staring and hitting out blind;
You're muddy and bloody, but never you mind.
Carry on! Carry on!
You haven't the ghost of a show.
It's looking like death, but while you've a breath,
Carry on, my son! Carry on!

And so in the strife of the battle of life
It's easy to fight when you're winning;
It's easy to slave, and starve and be b...

Let Honour speak, for only Honour can
End nobly what in nobleness began.
Nor hate nor anger may, though just their cause,
This strife prolong, if Honour whisper, Pause!
Let Honour speak.
For Honour keeps the ashes of the dead,
Accounts the anguish of all widowhead,
All childlessness, all sacrifice, defeat,
And all our dead have died for, though to live was sweet.
Let Honour speak,
Nor weariness nor weakness murmur, Stay!
Nor for this Now England's To be betray.
All else be dumb, for only Honour can
End nobly what in nobleness began.

Not all the pageant of the setting sun
Should yield the tired eyes of man delight,
No sweet beguiling power had stars at night
To soothe his fainting heart when day is done,
Nor any secret voice of benison
Might nature own, were not each sound and sight
The sign and symbol of the infinite,
The prophecy of things not yet begun.
So had these lips, so early sealed with sleep,
No fruitful word, life no power to move
Our deeper reverence, did we not see
How more than all he said, he was, how, deep
Below this broken life, he ever wove
The finer substance of a life to be.

The President to Kingdoms,
As in the Days of Old;
The King to the Republic,
As it had been foretold.
They could not read the spelling,
They would not hear the call;
They would not brook the telling
Of Writing on the Wall.

I buy my Peace with Slaughter,
With Peace I fashion War;
I drown the land with water,
With land I build the shore.
I walk with Son and Daughter
Where Ocean rolled before.
I build a town where sea was
A tower where tempests roar.

From bays in distant islands,
And rocks in lonely seas,
With unseen Death in silence
I smite mine enemies!
The great Cathedral crashes
Where once a city stood;
I build again on ashes
And breed on clotted blood!

I link the seas together,
And at my sign and ...

I.

O thou so fair in summers gone,
While yet thy fresh and virgin soul
Inform’d the pillar’d Parthenon,
The glittering Capitol;



II.

So fair in southern sunshine bathed,
But scarce of such majestic mien
As here with forehead vapor-swathed
In meadows ever green;



III.

For thou–when Athens reign’d and Rome,
Thy glorious eyes were dimm’d with pain
To mark in many a freeman’s home
The slave, the scourge, the chain;



IV.

O follower of the Vision, still
In motion to the distant gleam
Howe’er blind force and brainless will
May jar thy golden dream



V.

Of Knowledge fusing class with class,
Of civic Hate no more to be,
Of Love to leaven a...

Now first we stand and understand,
And sunder false from true,
And handle boldly with the hand,
And see and shape and do.

Dash back that ocean with a pier,
Strow yonder mountain flat,
A railway there, a tunnel here,
Mix me this Zone with that!

Bring me my horse—my horse? my wings
That I may soar the sky,
For Thought into the outward springs,
I find her with the eye.

O will she, moonlike, sway the main,
And bring or chase the storm,
Who was a shadow in the brain,
And is a living form?

Far as the Future vaults her skies,
From this my vantage ground
To those still-working energies
I spy nor term nor bound.

As we surpass our fathers’ skill,
Our sons will shame our own;
A thousand things are hidden still

Within each living man there doth reside,
In some unrifled chamber of the heart,
A hidden treasure: wayward as thou art
I love thee, man, and bind thee to my side!
By that sweet act I purify my pride
And hasten onward--willing even to part
With pleasant graces: though thy hue is swart,
I bear thee company, thou art my guide!
Even in thy sinning wise beyond thy ken
To thee a subtle debt my soul is owing!
I take an impulse from the worst of men
That lends a wing unto my onward going;
Then let me pay them gladly back again
With prayer and love from Faith and Duty flowing!

Two chieftains watch the battle's tide and listen as it rolls
And only HEAVEN above can tell the tumult of their souls!

Cornwallis saw the British power struck down by one fell blow,
A Gallic spearhead on the lance that laid the Lion low.

But the Father of his Country saw the future all unrolled,
Independence blazed before him written down in text of gold,

Like the Hebrew, on the mountain, looking forward then he saw
The Promised Land of Freedom blooming under Freedom's law;

Saw a great Republic spurring in the lists where Nations ride,
The peer of any Power in her majesty and pride;

Saw that young Republic gazing through her helmet's gilded bars
Toward the West all luminous with th' light of coming stars;

From Atlantic to Pacific saw her banne...

The dappled die-away
Cheek and wimpled lip,
The gold-wisp, the airy-grey
Eye, all in fellowship -
This, all this beauty blooming,
This, all this freshness fuming,
Give God while worth consuming.

Both thought and thew now bolder
And told by Nature: Tower;
Head, heart, hand, heel, and shoulder
That beat and breathe in power -
This pride of prime's enjoyment
Take as for tool, not toy meant
And hold at Christ's employment.

The vault and scope and schooling
And mastery in the mind,
In silk-ash kept from cooling,
And ripest under rind -
What life half lifts the latch of,
What hell stalks towards the snatch of,
Your offering, with despatch, of!

    My wife contrived a fleecy thing
    Her husband to infold,
    For 'tis the pride of woman still
    To cover from the cold:
    My daughter made it a new text
    For a sermon very old.

    The child came trotting to her side,
    Ready with bootless aid:
    "Lily make veckit for papa,"
    The tiny woman said:
    Her mother gave the means and ways,
    And a knot upon her thread.

    "Mamma, mamma!--it won't come through!"
    In meek dismay she cried.
    Her mother cut away the knot,
    And she was satisfied,
    Pulling the long thread through and through,
    In fabricating pride.

    Her mother told me this: I caught
    A glimpse of something more:
    Great meanings often hide behind
    The little wo...

How bland and sweet the greeting of this breeze
To him who flies
From crowded street and red wall's weary gleam,
Till far behind him like a hideous dream
The close dark city lies

Here, while the market murmurs, while men throng
The marble floor
Of Mammon's altar, from the crush and din
Of the world's madness let me gather in
My better thoughts once more.

Oh, once again revive, while on my ear
The cry of Gain
And low hoarse hum of Traffic die away,
Ye blessed memories of my early day
Like sere grass wet with rain!

Once more let God's green earth and sunset air
Old feelings waken;
Through weary years of toil and strife and ill,
Oh, let me feel that my good angel still
Hath not his trust forsaken.

And well do time and p...

"If beyond earthly wont, the flame of love
Illume me, so that I o'ercome thy power
Of vision, marvel not: but learn the cause
In that perfection of the sight, which soon
As apprehending, hasteneth on to reach
The good it apprehends. I well discern,
How in thine intellect already shines
The light eternal, which to view alone
Ne'er fails to kindle love; and if aught else
Your love seduces, 't is but that it shows
Some ill-mark'd vestige of that primal beam.

"This would'st thou know, if failure of the vow
By other service may be so supplied,
As from self-question to assure the soul."

Thus she her words, not heedless of my wish,
Began; and thus, as one who breaks not off
Discourse, continued in her saintly strain.
"Supreme of gifts, which God crea...

When the French soldier from the field returned,
Begrimed with smoke and blood, he felt content,
As from Napoleon he this fact had learned,
That thro' his marshall, medals would be sent,
The name of battlefield each one would bear,
And, also, in large letters, "I was there."

In others' triumphs we may well rejoice,
If in their triumphs good to us redounds;
But in the glory we can have no choice,
And our rejoicings are but empty sounds.
If you would in the victor's glory share,
Be then prepared to add this, "I was there!"

The victor's joy belongs to him alone;
He stood his ground 'midst storms of shot and shell;
Thro' his brave stand the foe has been o'erthrown,
And he alone the victor's tale can tell.
He now lies down to die 'neath glory's glare,

We will be what we could be.    Do not say,
    "It might have been, had not or that, or this."
No fate can keep us from the chosen way;
    He only might, who IS.

We will do what we could do.    Do not dream
    Chance leaves a hero, all uncrowned to grieve.
I hold, all men are greatly what they seem;
    He does, who could achieve.

We will climb where we could climb.    Tell me not
    Of adverse storms that kept thee from the height.
What eagle ever missed the peak he sought?
    He always climbs who might.

I do not like the phrase, "It might have been!"
    It lacks all force, and life's best truths perverts
For I believe we have, and reach, and win,
    Whatever our deserts.

Other harvests there are than those that lie
Glowing and ripe 'neath an autumn sky,
    Awaiting the sickle keen,
Harvests more precious than golden grain,
Waving o'er hillside, valley or plain,
    Than fruits 'mid their leafy screen.

Not alone for the preacher, man of God,
Do those harvests vast enrich the sod,
    For all may the sickle wield;
The first in proud ambition's race,
The last in talent, power or place,
    Will all find work in that field.

Man toiling, lab'ring with fevered strain,
High office or golden prize to gain,
    Rest both weary heart and head,
And think, when thou'lt shudder in death's cold clasp,
How earthly things will elude thy grasp,
    At that harvest work instead!

Lady, with queenly form and brow,