Song and Chorus.




Up the Hudson!--Fleetly gliding
    To our haunts among the trees!
Joy the gallant vessel guiding
    With a fresh and cheerful breeze!
Wives and dear ones yearn to meet us--
    (Hearts that love us to the core!)
And with fond expressions greet us
    As we near the welcome shore!


Chorus.


Ho! ye inland seas and islands!--
    (Echo follows where we go!)
Ho! ye headlands, hills, and highlands!
    Ho! ye Undercliffeans, ho!


Up the Hudson!--Rock and river,
    Grove and glen pronounce His praise,
Who, of every "Good the Giver,"
    Leads us through these pleasant ways!--
Care recedes like water-traces
    Of our bark, as on we glide,
Where the hand of nature graces<...

Not always, dear Licinius, is it wise
On the main Sea to ply the daring Oar;
Nor is it safe, from dread of angry Skies,
Closely to press on the insidious Shore.
To no excess discerning Spirits lean,
They feel the blessings of the golden mean;
They will not grovel in the squalid cell,
Nor seek in princely domes, with envied pomp, to dwell.

The pine, that lifts so high her stately boughs,
Writhes in the storms, and bends beneath their might,
Innoxious while the loudest tempest blows
O'er trees, that boast a less-aspiring height.
As the wild fury of the whirlwind pours,
With direst ruin fall the loftiest towers;
And 't is the mountain's summit that, oblique,
From the dense, lurid clouds, the baleful lightnings strike.

A mind well disciplin'd, w...

When midnight came to close the year,
    We sighed to think it thus should take
The hours it gave us--hours as dear
    As sympathy and love could make
Their blessed moments,--every sun
Saw us, my love, more closely one.

But, Cara, when the dawn was nigh
    Which came a new year's light to shed,
That smile we caught from eye to eye
    Told us, those moments were not fled:
Oh, no,--we felt, some future sun
Should see us still more closely one.

Thus may we ever, side by side,
From happy years to happier glide;
And still thus may the passing sigh
    We give to hours, that vanish o'er us,
Be followed by the smiling eye,
    That Hope shall shed on scenes before us!

        Here industry is not in vain,
        For we have bounteous crops of grain,
        And you behold on every field
        Of grass and roots abundant yield,
        But after all the greatest charm
        Is the snug home upon the farm,
        And stone walls now keep cattle warm.

Naples, 1849


Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past,
With fiercer heat than flamed above my head
My heart was hot within me; till at last
My brain was lightened, when my tongue had said
Christ is not risen!

Christ is not risen, no,
He lies and moulders low;
Christ is not risen.

What though the stone were rolled away, and though
The grave found empty there?
If not there, then elsewhere;
If not where Joseph laid Him first, why then
Where other men
Translaid Him after; in some humbler clay
Long ere to-day
Corruption that sad perfect work hath done,
Which here she scarcely, lightly had begun.
The foul engendered worm
Feeds on the flesh of the life-giving form
Of our most Holy and Anointed One.
<...

None, none can tell where I shall be
When the unclean earth covers me;
Only in surety if thou cry
Where my perplexed ashes lie,
Know, 'tis but death's necessity
That keeps my tongue from answering thee.

Even if no more my shadow may
Lean for a moment in thy day;
No more the whole earth lighten, as if,
Thou near, it had nought else to give:
Surely 'tis but Heaven's strategy
To prove death immortality.

Yet should I sleep - and no more dream,
Sad would the last awakening seem,
If my cold heart, with love once hot,
Had thee in sleep remembered not:
How could I wake to find that I
Had slept alone, yet easefully?

Or should in sleep glad visions come:
Sick, in an alien land, for home
Would be my eyes in their bright beam;
Aw...

“The poets pour us wine”
Said the dearest poet I ever knew,
Dearest and greatest and best to me.
You clamor athirst for poetry
We pour. “But when shall a vintage be”
You cry, “strong grape, squeezed gold from screw.
Yet sweet juice, flavored flowery-fine?
That were indeed the wine!”

One pours your cup, stark strength,
Meat for a man; and you eye the pulp
Strained, turbid still, from the viscous blood
Of the snaky bough: and you grumble “Good!
For it swells resolve, breeds hardihood;
Dispatch it, then, in a single gulp!”
So, down, with a wry face, goes at length
The liquor: stuff for strength.

One pours your cup, sheer sweet,
The fragrant fumes of a year condensed:
Suspicion of all that’s ripe or rathe,
From the bud on branch to the g...

("Roses et Papillons.")

[XXVII., Dec. 7, 1834.]


The grave receives us all:
Ye butterflies and roses gay and sweet
Why do ye linger, say?
Will ye not dwell together as is meet?
Somewhere high in the air
Would thy wing seek a home 'mid sunny skies,
In mead or mossy dell -
If there thy odors longest, sweetest rise.

Have where ye will your dwelling,
Or breath or tint whose praise we sing;
Butterfly shining bright,
Full-blown or bursting rosebud, flow'r or wing.
Dwell together ye fair,
'Tis a boon to the loveliest given;
Perchance ye then may choose your home
On the earth or in heaven.

W.C. WESTBROOK

One moment bid the horses wait,
Since tiffin is not laid till three,
Below the upward path and straight
You climbed a year ago with me.
Love came upon us suddenly
And loosed, an idle hour to kill,
A headless, armless armory
That smote us both on Jakko Hill.

Ah Heaven! we would wait and wait
Through Time and to Eternity!
Ah Heaven! we could conquer Fate
With more than Godlike constancy
I cut the date upon a tree,
Here stand the clumsy figures still:
"10-7-85, A.D."
Damp with the mist of Jakko Hill.

What came of high resolve and great,
And until Death fidelity!
Whose horse is waiting at your gate?
Whose 'rickshaw-wheels ride over me?
No Saint's, I swear; and, let me see
To-night what names your programme fill,
We drift a...

Tune - "Blue Bonnets."


I.

    Powers celestial! whose protection
        Ever guards the virtuous fair,
    While in distant climes I wander,
        Let my Mary be your care:
    Let her form sae fair and faultless,
        Fair and faultless as your own,
    Let my Mary's kindred spirit
        Draw your choicest influence down.

II.

    Make the gales you waft around her
        Soft and peaceful as her breast;
    Breathing in the breeze that fans her,
        Soothe her bosom into rest:
    Guardian angels! O protect her,
        When in distant lands I roam;
    To realms unknown while fate exiles me,
        Make her bosom still my home.

I hold it the duty of one who is gifted
    And specially dowered in all men's sight,
To know no rest till his life is lifted
    Fully up to his great gifts' height.

He must mould the man into rare completeness,
    For gems are set only in gold refined.
He must fashion his thoughts into perfect sweetness.
    And cast out folly and pride from his mind.

For he who drinks from a god's gold fountain
    Of art or music or rhythmic song
Must sift from his soul the chaff of malice,
    And weed from his heart the roots of wrong.

Great gifts should be worn, like a crown befitting,
    And not like gems in a beggar's hands!
And the toil must be constant and unremitting
    Which lifts up the king to the crown's demands.

History has to live with what was here,
clutching and close to fumbling all we had,
it is so dull and gruesome how we die,
unlike writing, life never finishes.
Abel was finished; death is not remote,
a flash-in-the-pan electrifies the skeptic,
his cows crowding like skulls against high-voltage wire,
his baby crying all night like a new machine.
As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory,
the beautiful, mist-drunken hunter's moon ascends,
a child could give it a face: two holes, two holes,
my eyes, my mouth, between them a skull's no-nose,
O there's a terrifying innocence in my face
drenched with the silver salvage of the mornfrost.

Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane,
East wind and frost are safely gone;
With zephyr mild and balmy rain
The summer comes serenly on;
Earth, air, and sun and skies combine
To promise all that's kind and fair: -
But thou, O human heart of mine,
Be still, contain thyself, and bear.

December days were brief and chill,
The winds of March were wild and drear,
And, nearing and receding still,
Spring never would, we thought, be here.
The leaves that burst, the suns that shine,
Had, not the less, their certain date: -
And thou, O human heart of mine,
Be still, refrain thyself, and wait.

Mounted on Kyrat strong and fleet,
His chestnut steed with four white feet,
    Roushan Beg, called Kurroglou,
Son of the road and bandit chief,
Seeking refuge and relief,
    Up the mountain pathway flew.

Such was Kyrat's wondrous speed,
Never yet could any steed
    Reach the dust-cloud in his course.
More than maiden, more than wife,
More than gold and next to life
    Roushan the Robber loved his horse.

In the land that lies beyond
Erzeroum and Trebizond,
    Garden-girt his fortress stood;
Plundered khan, or caravan
Journeying north from Koordistan,
    Gave him wealth and wine and food.

Seven hundred and fourscore
Men at arms his livery wore,
    Did his bidding night and day.
Now, through regions all unknown,

When all works that have
From cradle run to grave
From grave to cradle run instead;
When thoughts that a fool
Has wound upon a spool
Are but loose thread, are but loose thread;
When cradle and spool are past
And I mere shade at last
Coagulate of stuff
Transparent like the wind,
I think that I may find
A faithful love, a faithful love.

Valour and Innocence
Have latterly gone hence
To certain death by certain shame attended.
Envy, ah! even to tears!
The fortune of their years
Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended.

Scarce had they lifted up
Life's full and fiery cup,
Than they had set it down untouched before them.
Before their day arose
They beckoned it to close,
Close in confusion and destruction o'er them.

They did not stay to ask
What prize should crown their task,
Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for;
But passed into eclipse,
Her kiss upon their lips,
Even Belphoebe's, whom they gave their lives for!

She put her wedding-gown away
As tenderly as one might close,
With kissing lips and finger-tips,
The petals of a rose
Still held for the Belovèd's sake--
The loveliest that blows.

She put her wedding-gown away--
The quiet place was all astir
With vague perfume that filled the room,
Cedar and lavender,
Yet sweeter still about it clung
The fragrant thoughts of her.

She put her wedding-gown away--
Yet lingered where its whiteness gleamed
As one above a sleeping Love,
Oh, thus it was she seemed,
Reluctant still to turn and go
And leave him as he dreamed.

Come, JENNY, let me sip the dew
That on those coral lips doth play,
One kiss would every care subdue,
And bid my weary soul be gay.

For surely thou wert form'd by love
To bless the suff'rer's parting sigh;
In pity then my griefs remove,
And on that bosom let me die!