Around its mountain many footpaths wind,
But only one unto its top attains;
Not he who searches closest, takes most pains,
But he who seeks not, that one way may find.

The prophetic tribe with burning eyes
yesterday took to the highway, carrying
children slung on their backs, or offering
proud hunger the breast’s ever-ripe prize.

The men go on foot, with shining weapons,
by the carts where their folk huddle together,
sweeping the heavens, eyes grown heavier
with mournful regret for absent visions.

The cricket, deep in his sandy retreat,
redoubles his call, on seeing their passing feet:
Cybele, who loves them, re-leafs the glades,

makes the rocks gush, the desert bloom,
before these voyagers, thrown wide to whom
is the intimate kingdom of future shades.

Soleasi nel mio cor star bella e viva.

SINCE HER DEATH, NOTHING IS LEFT TO HIM BUT GRIEF.


    She stood within my heart, warm, young, alone,
As in a humble home a lady bright;
By her last flight not merely am I grown
Mortal, but dead, and she an angel quite.
A soul whence every bliss and hope is flown,
Love shorn and naked of its own glad light,
Might melt with pity e'en a heart of stone:
But none there is to tell their grief or write;
These plead within, where deaf is every ear
Except mine own, whose power its griefs so mar
That nought is left me save to suffer here.
Verily we but dust and shadows are!
Verily blind and evil is our will!
Verily human hopes deceive us still!

MACGREGOR.


    'Mid life's bright glow ...

Before Man parted for this earthly strand,
While yet upon the verge of heaven he stood,
God put a heap of letters in his hand,
And bade him make with them what word he could.

And Man has turn’d them many times: made Greece,
Rome, England, France: yes, nor in vain essay’d
Way after way, changes that never cease.
The letters have combin’d: something was made.

But ah, an inextinguishable sense
Haunts him that he has not made what he should.
That he has still, though old, to recommence,
Since he has not yet found the word God would.

And Empire after Empire, at their height
Of sway, have felt this boding sense come on.
Have felt their huge frames not constructed right,
And droop’d, and slowly died upon their throne.

One day, thou say’st, the...

O God, within whose sight
All men have equal right
To worship Thee.
Break every bar that holds
Thy flock in diverse folds!
Thy Will from none withholds
Full liberty.

Lord, set Thy Churches free
From foolish rivalry!
Lord, set us free!
Let all past bitterness
Now and for ever cease,
And all our souls possess
Thy charity!

Lord, set the people free!
Let all men draw to Thee
In unity!
Thy temple courts are wide,
Therein let all abide
In peace, and side by side,
Serve only Thee!

God, grant us now Thy peace!
Bid all dissensions cease!
God, send us peace!
Peace in True Liberty,
Peace in Equality,
Peace and Fraternity,
God, send us peace!

She had been told that God made all the stars
That twinkled up in heaven, and now she stood
Watching the coming of the twilight on,
As if it were a new and perfect world,
And this were its first eve. How beautiful
Must be the work of nature to a child
In its first fresh impression! Laura stood
By the low window, with the silken lash
Of her soft eye upraised, and her sweet mouth
Half parted with the new and strange delight
Of beauty that she could not comprehend,
And had not seen before. The purple folds
Of the low sunset clouds, and the blue sky
That look'd so still and delicate above,
Fill'd her young heart with gladness, and the eve
Stole on with its deep shadows, and she still
Stood looking at the west with that half smile,
As if a pleasant thought wer...

    Hark, in the steeple the dull bell swinging
        Over the furrows ill ploughed by Death!
    Hark the bird-babble, the loud lark singing!
        Hark, from the sky, what the prophet saith!

    Hark, in the pines, the free Wind, complaining--
        Moaning, and murmuring, "Life is bare!"
    Hark, in the organ, the caught Wind, outstraining,
        Jubilant rise in a soaring prayer!

    Toll for the burying, sexton tolling!
        Sing for the second birth, angel Lark!
    Moan, ye poor Pines, with the Past condoling!
        Burst out, brave Organ, and kill the Dark!


II.

    Sit on the ground, and immure thy sorrow;
        I will give freedom to mine in song!
    Haunt thou the tomb, and deny the morrow;
        I wil...

That song again! - its sounds my bosom thrill,
    Breathe of past years, to all their joys allied;
    And, as the notes thro' my sooth'd spirits glide,
    Dear Recollection's choicest sweets distill,
Soft as the Morn's calm dew on yonder hill,
    When slants the Sun upon its grassy side,
    Tinging the brooks that many a mead divide
    With lines of gilded light; and blue, and still,
The distant lake stands gleaming in the vale.
    Sing, yet once more, that well-remember'd strain,
    Which oft made vocal every passing gale
In days long fled, in Pleasure's golden reign,
    The youth of chang'd HONORA! - now it wears
    Her air - her smile - spells of the vanish'd years!

How shall it be with them that day
When God demands of Earth His pay?
With them who make a god of clay
And gold and put all truth away.

Shall not they see the lightning-ray
Of wrath? and hear the trumpet-bray
Of black destruction? while dismay
O'erwhelms them and God's hosts delay?

Shall not they, clothed in rich array,
Pray God for mercy? and, a-sway,
Heap on their hearts the ashes gray
Of old repentance? Nay! oh, nay!

They shall not know till He shall lay
An earthquake hand upon their way;
And Doomsday, clad in Death's decay,
Sweep down, and they've no time to pray.

If so be a toad be laid
In a sheep's-skin newly flay'd,
And that tied to man, 'twill sever
Him and his affections ever.

    My little boy, with smooth, fair cheeks,
    And dreamy, large, brown eyes,
    Not often, little wisehead, speaks,
    But hearing, weighs and tries.

    "God is not only in the sky,"
    His sister said one day--
    Not older much, but she would cry
    Like Wisdom in the way--

    "He's in this room." His dreamy, clear,
    Large eyes look round for God:
    In vain they search, in vain they peer;
    His wits are all abroad!

    "He is not here, mamma? No, no;
    I do not see him at all!
    He's not the shadows, is he?" So
    His doubtful accents fall--

    Fall on my heart, no babble mere!
    They rouse both love and shame:
    But for earth's loneliness and fear,
    I might be saying the same!

 ...

I come, ye little noisy Crew,
Not long your pastime to prevent;
I heard the blessing which to you
Our common Friend and Father sent.
I kissed his cheek before he died;
And when his breath was fled,
I raised, while kneeling by his side,
His hand:, it dropped like lead.
Your hands, dear Little-ones, do all
That can be done, will never fall
Like his till they are dead.
By night or day blow foul or fair,
Ne'er will the best of all your train
Play with the locks of his white hair,
Or stand between his knees again.
Here did he sit confined for hours;
But he could see the woods and plains,
Could hear the wind and mark the showers
Come streaming down the streaming panes.
Now stretched beneath his grass-green mound
He rests a prisoner of the ground....

Let Webster's lofty face
Ever on thousands shine,
A beacon set that Freedom's race
Might gather omens from that radiant sign.



1854

Why did all manly gifts in Webster fail?
He wrote on Nature's grandest brow, For Sale.

We sit together and talk, or smoke in silence.
You say (but use no words) ‘this night is passing
As other nights when we are dead will pass . . .’
Perhaps I misconstrue you: you mean only,
‘How deathly pale my face looks in that glass . . .’

You say: ‘We sit and talk, of things important . . .
How many others like ourselves, this instant,
Mark the pendulum swinging against the wall?
How many others, laughing, sip their coffee,
Or stare at mirrors, and do not talk at all? . . .

‘This is the moment’ (so you would say, in silence)
When suddenly we have had too much of laughter:
And a freezing stillness falls, no word to say.
Our mouths feel foolish . . . For all the days hereafter
What have we saved, what news, what tune, what play?

‘We see each othe...

Summer, sweet Summer, many-fingered Summer!
We hold thee very dear, as well we may:
It is the kernel of the year to-day--
All hail to thee! thou art a welcome comer!
If every insect were a fairy drummer,
And I a fifer that could deftly play,
We'd give the old Earth such a roundelay
That she would cast all thought of labour from her.--
Ah! what is this upon my window-pane?
Some sulky, drooping cloud comes pouting up,
Stamping its glittering feet along the plain!--
Well, I will let that idle fancy drop!
Oh, how the spouts are bubbling with the rain!
And all the earth shines like a silver cup!

I do love I know not what,
Sometimes this and sometimes that;
All conditions I aim at.

But, as luckless, I have yet
Many shrewd disasters met
To gain her whom I would get.

Therefore now I'll love no more
As I've doted heretofore:
He who must be, shall be poor.

BEING AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG UPON THE SURRENDER OF DUNKIRK TO GENERAL HILL
1712

To the tune of "The King shall enjoy his own again."

Spite of Dutch friends and English foes,
Poor Britain shall have peace at last:
Holland got towns, and we got blows;
    But Dunkirk's ours, we'll hold it fast.
        We have got it in a string,
        And the Whigs may all go swing,
For among good friends I love to be plain;
        All their false deluded hopes
        Will, or ought to end in ropes;
"But the Queen shall enjoy her own again."

Sunderland’s run out of his wits,
    And Dismal double Dismal looks;
Wharton can only swear by fits,
    And strutting Hal is off the hooks;
        Old Godolphin, full of spleen,
        Made false moves, an...

To show to all your kindness, it behoves:
There's none so small but you his aid may need.
I quote two fables for this weighty creed,
Which either of them fully proves.
From underneath the sward
A rat, quite off his guard,
Popp'd out between a lion's paws.
The beast of royal bearing
Show'd what a lion was
The creature's life by sparing -
A kindness well repaid;
For, little as you would have thought
His majesty would ever need his aid,
It proved full soon
A precious boon.
Forth issuing from his forest glen,
T' explore the haunts of men,
In lion net his majesty was caught,
From which his strength and rage
Served not to disengage.
The rat ran up, with grateful glee,
Gnaw'd off a rope, and set him free.

By time and toil we sever<...