Wild across the Breton country,
Fabled centuries ago,
Riding from the black sea border,
Came the squadrons of the snow.

Piping dread at every latch-hole,
Moaning death at every sill,
The white Yule came down in vengeance
Upon Ys, and had its will.

Walled and dreamy stood the city,
Wide and dazzling shone the sea,
When the gods set hand to smother
Ys, the pride of Brittany.

Morning drenched her towers in purple;
Light of heart were king and fool;
Fair forebode the merrymaking
Of the seven days of Yule.

Laughed the king, "Once more, my mistress,
Time and place and joy are one!"
Bade the balconies with banners
Match the splendor of the sun;

Eyes of urchins shine with silver,
And with gold the pavement ring;

The ordeal's fatal trumpet sounded,
And sad pale Adelgitha came,
When forth a valiant champion bounded,
And slew the slanderer of her fame.

She wept, delivered from her danger;
But when he knelt to claim her glove
"Seek not!" she cried, "oh, gallant stranger,
For hapless Adelgitha's love.

For he is dead and in a foreign land
Whose arm should now have set me free;
And I must wear the willow garland
For him that's dead, or false to me."

"Nay! say not that his faith is tainted!"
He raised his visor. At the sight
She fell into his arms and fainted;
It was indeed her one true knight!

    To a lustful thirst she came at first
    And gave him her maiden's pride;
    And the first man scattered the flower of her love,
    Then turned to his chosen bride.

    She waned with grief as a fading star,
    And waxed as a shining flame;
    And the second man had her woman's love,
    But the second was playing the game.

    With passion she stirred the man who was third;
    Woe's me! what delicate skill
    She plied to the heart that knew her art
    And fled from her wanton will.

    Now calm and demure, oh fair, oh pure,
    Oh subtle, patient and wise,
    She trod the weary round of life,
    With a sorrow deep in her eyes.

    Now a hero who knew how false, how true
    Was the speech that fell from her lips,

From Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome,
From Mad to Saco river,
For patriarchs of the primal wood
We sought with vain endeavor.

And then we said: "The giants old
Are lost beyond retrieval;
This pygmy growth the axe has spared
Is not the wood primeval.

"Look where we will o'er vale and hill,
How idle are our searches
For broad-girthed maples, wide-limbed oaks,
Centennial pines and birches.

"Their tortured limbs the axe and saw
Have changed to beams and trestles;
They rest in walls, they float on seas,
They rot in sunken vessels.

"This shorn and wasted mountain land
Of underbrush and boulder,
Who thinks to see its full-grown tree
Must live a century older."

At last to us a woodland path,
To open sunset leading,

The Man that hath great griefs I pity not;
’Tis something to be great
In any wise, and hint the larger state,
Though but in shadow of a shade, God wot!

Moreover, while we wait the possible,
This man has touched the fact,
And probed till he has felt the core, where, packed
In pulpy folds, resides the ironic ill.

And while we others sip the obvious sweet,
Lip-licking after-taste
Of glutinous rind, lo! this man hath made haste,
And pressed the sting that holds the central seat.

For thus it is God stings us into life,
Provoking actual souls
From bodily systems, giving us the poles
That are His own, not merely balanced strife.

Nay, the great passions are His veriest thought,
Which whoso can absorb,
Nor, querulous halting, violate t...

Praised be thou, O Jesus Christ,
That a man on earth thou liest!
Born of a maiden--it is true--
In this exults the heavenly crew.
    Kyrioleis.[1]
[Footnote 1: (Greek) kurie elxaeson: Lord, have mercy.]

The Father's only son begot
In the manger has his cot,
In our poor dying flesh and blood
Doth mask itself the eternal Good.
    Kyrioleis.

Whom all the world could not enwrap
Lieth he in Mary's lap;
A little child he now is grown
Who everything upholds alone.
    Kyrioleis.

In him the eternal light breaks through,
Gives the world a glory new;
A great light shines amid the night,
And makes us children of the light.
    Kyrioleis.

The Father's son, so God his name,
A guest into this world he cam...

        The wind was high, the window shook,
        The miser woke with haggard look;
        He stalked along the silent room,
        He shivered at the gleam and gloom,
        Each lock and every corner eyed,
        And then he stood his chest beside;
        He opened it, and stood in rapture
        In sight of gold he held in capture;
        And then, with sudden qualm possessed,
        He wrung his hands and beat his breast:
        "O, had the earth concealed this gold,
        I had perhaps in peace grown old!
        But there is neither gold nor price
        To recompense the pang of vice.
        Bane of all good - delusive cheat,
        To lure a soul on to defeat
        And banish honour from the mind:
        Gold raised the sword m...

(For S. M. E.)



I take my leave, with sorrow, of Him I love so well;
I look my last upon His small and radiant prison-cell;
O happy lamp! to serve Him with never ceasing light!
O happy flame! to tremble forever in His sight!

I leave the holy quiet for the loudly human train,
And my heart that He has breathed upon is filled with lonely pain.
O King, O Friend, O Lover!    What sorer grief can be
In all the reddest depths of Hell than banishment from Thee?

But from my window as I speed across the sleeping land
I see the towns and villages wherein His houses stand.
Above the roofs I see a cross outlined against the night,
And I know that there my Lover dwells in His sacramental might.

Dominions kneel before Him, and Powers kiss His feet,
Y...

“So she’s here, your unknown Dulcinea, the lady you met on the train,
And you really believe she would know you if you were to meet her again?”

“Of course,” he replied, “she would know me; there never was womankind yet
Forgot the effect she inspired. She excuses, but does not forget.”

“Then you told her your love?” asked the elder. The younger looked up with a smile:
“I sat by her side half an hour what else was I doing the while?

“What, sit by the side of a woman as fair as the sun in the sky,
And look somewhere else lest the dazzle flash back from your own to her eye?

“No, I hold that the speech of the tongue be as frank and as bold as the look,
And I held up herself to herself, that was more than she got from her book.”

“Young blood!” laughed the elder; “no...

Oh that a wind would call
    From the depths of the leafless wood!
Oh that a voice would fall
    On the ear of my solitude!

Far away is the sea,
    With its sound and its spirit tone;
Over it white clouds flee;
    But I am alone, alone.

Straight and steady and tall
    The trees stand on their feet;
Fast by the old stone wall
    The moss grows green and sweet;
But my heart is full of fears,
    For the sun shines far away;
And they look in my face through tears,
    And the light of a dying day.

My heart was glad last night
    As I pressed it with my palm;
Its throb was airy and light
    As it sang some spirit psalm;
But it died away in my breast
    As I wandered forth to-day,--
As a bird sat dead on its ...

Ponder my words, if so that any be
Known guilty here of incivility;
Let what is graceless, discomposed, and rude,
With sweetness, smoothness, softness be endued:
Teach it to blush, to curtsy, lisp, and show
Demure, but yet full of temptation, too.
Numbers ne'er tickle, or but lightly please,
Unless they have some wanton carriages:
This if ye do, each piece will here be good
And graceful made by your neat sisterhood.

'What of vile dust?' the preacher said.
Methought the whole world woke,
The dead stone lived beneath my foot,
And my whole body spoke.

'You, that play tyrant to the dust,
And stamp its wrinkled face,
This patient star that flings you not
Far into homeless space.

'Come down out of your dusty shrine
The living dust to see,
The flowers that at your sermon's end
Stand blazing silently.

'Rich white and blood-red blossom; stones,
Lichens like fire encrust;
A gleam of blue, a glare of gold,
The vision of the dust.

'Pass them all by: till, as you come
Where, at a city's edge,
Under a tree--I know it well--
Under a lattice ledge,

'The sunshine falls on one brown head.
You, too, O cold of clay,
Eater of stones,...

Peace should not come along this foul, earth way.
Peace should not come, until we cleanse the path.
God waited for us; now in awful wrath
He pours the blood of men out day by day
To purify the highroad for her feet.
Why, what would Peace do, in a world where hearts
Are filled with thoughts like poison-pointed darts?
It were not meet, surely it were not meet
For Peace to come, and with her white robes hide
These industries of death - these guns and swords, -
These uniformed, hate-filled, destructive hordes, -
These hideous things, that are each nation's pride.
So long as men believe in armed might
Let arms be brandished.    Let not Peace be sought
Until the race-heart empties out all thought
Of blows and blood, as arguments for Right.
The world has never had en...

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

‘I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .’
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,

Victor in Drama, Victor in Romance,
Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears,
French of the French, and Lord of human tears;
Child-lover; Bard whose fame-lit laurels glance
Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance,
Beyond our strait, their claim to be thy peers;
Weird Titan by thy winter weight of years
As yet unbroken, Stormy voice of France!
Who dost not love our England–so they say;
I know not–England, France, all man to be
Will make one people ere man’s race be run:
And I, desiring that diviner day,
Yield thee full thanks for thy full courtesy
To younger England in the boy my son.

I.
Sound over all waters, reach out from all lands,
The chorus of voices, the clasping of hands;
Sing hymns that were sung by the stars of the morn,
Sing songs of the angels when Jesus was born!
With glad jubilations
Bring hope to the nations!
The dark night is ending and dawn has begun:
Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun,
All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!

II.
Sing the bridal of nations! with chorals of love
Sing out the war-vulture and sing in the dove,
Till the hearts of the peoples keep time in accord,
And the voice of the world is the voice of the Lord!
Clasp hands of the nations
In strong gratulations:
The dark night is ending and dawn has begun;
Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun,
All speech flow to mu...

How oft on Sundays, when I'd time to tramp,
My rambles led me to a gipsy's camp,
Where the real effigy of midnight hags,
With tawny smoked flesh and tatter'd rags,
Uncouth-brimm'd hat, and weather-beaten cloak,
'Neath the wild shelter of a knotty oak,
Along the greensward uniformly pricks
Her pliant bending hazel's arching sticks;
While round-topt bush, or briar-entangled hedge,
Where flag-leaves spring beneath, or ramping sedge,
Keep off the bothering bustle of the wind,
And give the best retreat she hopes to find.
How oft I've bent me o'er her fire and smoke,
To hear her gibberish tale so quaintly spoke,
While the old Sybil forg'd her boding clack,
Twin imps the meanwhile bawling at her back;
Oft on my hand her magic coin's been struck,
And hoping chink...

Men die...
Dreams only change their houses.
They cannot be lined up against a wall
And quietly buried under ground,
And no more heard of...
However deep the pit and heaped the clay -
Like seedlings of old time
Hooding a sacred rose under the ice cap of the world -
Dreams will to light.