The soul of a nation awaking, -
High visions of daybreak, - I saw;
A people renewed; the forsaking
    Of sin, and the worship of law.

Sing, pine-tree; shout, to the hoarser
Response of the jubilant sea!
Rush, river, foam-flecked like a courser;
    Warn all who are honest and free!

Our birth-star beckons to trial
The faith of the far-fled years,
Ere scorn was our share, and denial,
    Or laughter for patriots' tears.

And Faith shall come forth the finer,
From trampled thickets of fire,
And the orient open diviner
    Before her, the heaven rise higher.

O deep, sweet eyes, but severer
Than steel! See you yet, where he comes -
Our hero? Bend your glance nearer;
Speak, Faith! For, as wakening drums,

Your voice s...

Toward God in heaven spacious
With artless faith a boy looks free,
As toward his mother gracious,
And top of Christmas-tree.
But early in the storm of youth
There wounds him deep the serpent's tooth;
His childhood's faith is doubted
And flouted.

Soon stands in radiant splendor
With bridal wreath his boyhood's dream;
Her loving eyes and tender
The light of heaven's faith stream.
As by his mother's knee of yore
God's name he stammers yet once more,
The rue of tears now paying
And praying.

When now life's conflict stirring
Leads him along through doubtings wild,
Then upward points unerring
Close by his side his child.
With children he a child is still
And whatsoe'er his heart may chill,
Prayer for his son is warming,

Upon time's surging, billowy sea
A ship now slowly disappears,
With freight no human eye can see,
But weighing just one hundred years.

Their sighs, their tears, their weary moans,
Their joy and pleasure, pomp and pride,
Their angry and their gentle tones,
Beneath its waves forever hide.

Yes, sunk within oblivion's waves,
They'll partly live in memory;
To youth, who will their secrets crave,
Mostly exist in history.

Ah, what a truth steps in this strain
They are not lost within time's sea;
Their words and actions live again,
And blight or light eternity!

A new ship comes within our view,
Laden with dreams both sad and blest;
To youth they're tinged with roseate hue;
To weary ones bring longed-for rest.

And still...

All night the thirsty beach has listening lain,
With patience dumb,
Counting the slow, sad moments of her pain;
Now morn has come,
And with the morn the punctual tide again.

I hear the white battalions down the bay
Charge with a cheer;
The sun's gold lances prick them on their way,--
They plunge, they rear,--
Foam-plumed and snowy-pennoned, they are here!

The roused shore, her bright hair backward blown,
Stands on the verge
And waves a smiling welcome, beckoning on
The flying surge,
While round her feet, like doves, the billows crowd and urge.

Her glad lips quaff the salt, familiar wine;
Her spent urns fill;
All hungering creatures know the sound, the sign,--
Quiver and thrill,
With glad expectance crowd and banquet at their wi...

The evil days have come, the poor
Are made a prey;
Bar up the hospitable door,
Put out the fire-lights, point no more
The wanderer's way.
For Pity now is crime; the chain
Which binds our States
Is melted at her hearth in twain,
Is rusted by her tears' soft rain:
Close up her gates.
Our Union, like a glacier stirred
By voice below,
Or bell of kine, or wing of bird,
A beggar's crust, a kindly word
May overthrow!
Poor, whispering tremblers! yet we boast
Our blood and name;
Bursting its century-bolted frost,
Each gray cairn on the Northman's coast
Cries out for shame!
Oh for the open firmament,
The prairie free,
The desert hillside, cavern-rent,
The Pawnee's lodge, the Arab's tent,
The Bushman's tree!
Than web of Persia...

The fervent, pale-faced Mother ere she sleep,
Looks out upon the zigzag-lighted square,
The beautiful bare trees, the blue night-air,
The revelation of the star-strewn deep,
World above world, and heaven over heaven.
Between the tree-tops and the skies, her sight
Rests on a steadfast, ruddy-shining light,
High in the tower, an earthly star of even.
Hers is the faith in saints' and angels' power,
And mediating love - she breathes a prayer
For yon tired watcher in the gray old tower.
He the shrewd, skeptic poet unaware
Feels comforted and stilled, and knows not whence
Falls this unwonted peace on heart and sense.

THE BEQUEST OF THE ANCIENT PERSIAN FAITH.

Brethren, what bequest to you should come
From the lowly poor man, going home,
Whom ye younger ones with patience tended,
Whose last days ye honour'd and defended?

When we oft have seen the monarch ride,
Gold upon him, gold on ev'ry side;
Jewels on him, on his courtiers all,
Thickly strewed as hailstones when they fall,

Have ye e'er known envy at the sight?
And not felt your gaze become more bright,
When the sun was, on the wings of morning,
Darnawend's unnumber'd peaks adorning,

As he, bow-like, rose? How each eye dwelt
On the glorious scene! I felt, I felt,
Thousand times, as life's days fleeted by,
Borne with him, the coming one, on high.

God upon His throne then to proclaim,
...

Yet, when I muse on what life is, I seem
Rather to patience prompted, than that prowl
Prospect of hope which France proclaims so loud,
France, fam’d in all great arts, in none supreme.
Seeing this Vale, this Earth, whereon we dream,
Is on all sides o’ershadow’d by the high
Uno’erleap’d Mountains of Necessity,
Sparing us narrower margin than we deem.
Nor will that day dawn at a human nod,
When, bursting through the network superpos’d
By selfish occupation, plot and plan,
Lust, avarice, envy liberated man,
All difference with his fellow man compos’d,
Shall be left standing face to face with God

To sit and dream in a shady nook
While the phantom clouds roll by;
To con some long-remembered book
When the pulse of youth beats high.

To thrill when the dying sunset glows
Through the heart of a mystic wood,
To drink the sweetness of some wild rose,
And to find the whole world good.

To bring unto others joy and mirth,
And keep what friends you can;
To learn that the rarest gift on earth
Is the love of your fellow man.

To hold the respect of those you know,
To scorn dishonest pelf;
To sympathize with another's woe,
And just be true to yourself.

To find that a woman's honest love
In this great world of strife
Gleams steadfast like a star, above
The dark morass of life.

To feel a baby's clinging hand,
To wa...

I went for a walk over the dunes again this morning
to the sea,
then turned right along
the surf
rounded a naked headland
and returned


along the inlet shore:


it was muggy sunny, the wind from the sea steady and high,
crisp in the running sand,
some breakthroughs of sun
but after a bit


continuous overcast:


the walk liberating, I was released from forms,
from the perpendiculars,
straight lines, blocks, boxes, binds
of thought
into the hues, shadings, rises, flowing bends and blends
of sight:


I allow myself eddies of meaning:
yield to a direction of significance
running
like a stream through the geography of my work:
you can find
in my sayings
swerves of action

In the fair days when God
By man as godlike trod,
And each alike was Greek, alike was free,
God’s lightning spared, they said,
Alone the happier head
Whose laurels screened it; fruitless grace for thee,
To whom the high gods gave of right
Their thunders and their laurels and their light.

Sunbeams and bays before
Our master’s servants wore,
For these Apollo left in all men’s lands;
But far from these ere now
And watched with jealous brow
Lay the blind lightnings shut between God’s hands,
And only loosed on slaves and kings
The terror of the tempest of their wings.

Born in those younger years
That shone with storms of spears
And shook in the wind blown from a dead world’s pyre,
When by her back-blown hair
Napoleon caught the fair<...

What end the gods may have ordained for me,
And what for thee,
Seek not to learn, Leuconöe; we may not know.
Chaldean tables cannot bring us rest.
'T is for the best
To bear in patience what may come, or weal or woe.

If for more winters our poor lot is cast,
Or this the last,
Which on the crumbling rocks has dashed Etruscan seas,
Strain clear the wine; this life is short, at best.
Take hope with zest,
And, trusting not To-morrow, snatch To-day for ease!

The human spirits saw I on a day,
Sitting and looking each a different way;
And hardly tasking, subtly questioning,
Another spirit went around the ring
To each and each: and as he ceased his say,
Each after each, I heard them singly sing,
Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low,
We know not, what avails to know?
We know not, wherefore need we know?
This answer gave they still unto his suing,
We know not, let us do as we are doing.
Dost thou not know that these things only seem?
I know not, let me dream my dream.
Are dust and ashes fit to make a treasure?
I know not, let me take my pleasure.
What shall avail the knowledge thou hast sought?
I know not, let me think my thought.
What is the end of strife?
I know not, let me live my life.
How m...

'Tis strange that in a land so strong
So strong and bold in mighty youth,
We have no poet's voice of truth
To sing for us a wondrous song.

Our chiefest singer yet has sung
In wild, sweet notes a passing strain,
All carelessly and sadly flung
To that dull world he thought so vain.

"I care for nothing, good nor bad,
My hopes are gone, my pleasures fled,
I am but sifting sand," he said:
What wonder Gordon's songs were sad!

And yet, not always sad and hard;
In cheerful mood and light of heart
He told the tale of Britomarte,
And wrote the Rhyme of Joyous Garde.

And some have said that Nature's face
To us is always sad; but these
Have never felt the smiling grace
Of waving grass and forest trees
On sunlit plains as wide as...

Oh fly! 'tis dire Suspicion's mien;
And, meditating plagues unseen,
The sorceress hither bends:
Behold her torch in gall imbrued:
Behold—her garment drops with blood
Of lovers and of friends.
Fly far! Already in your eyes
I see a pale suffusion rise;
And soon through every vein,
Soon will her secret venom spread,
And all your heart and all your head
Imbibe the potent stain.
Then many a demon will she raise
To vex your sleep, to haunt your ways;
While gleams of lost delight
Raise the dark tempest of the brain,
As lightning shines across the main
Through whirlwinds and through night.
No more can faith or candor move;
But each ingenuous deed of love,
Which reason would applaud,
Now, smiling o'er her dark distress,
Fancy malignant str...

If the stars fell; night's nameless dreams
Of bliss and blasphemy came true,
If skies were green and snow were gold,
And you loved me as I love you;

O long light hands and curled brown hair,
And eyes where sits a naked soul;
Dare I even then draw near and burn
My fingers in the aureole?

Yes, in the one wise foolish hour
God gives this strange strength to a man.
He can demand, though not deserve,
Where ask he cannot, seize he can.

But once the blood's wild wedding o'er,
Were not dread his, half dark desire,
To see the Christ-child in the cot,
The Virgin Mary by the fire?

That age was older once than now,
In spite of locks untimely shed,
Or silvered on the youthful brow;
That babes make love and children wed.

That sunshine had a heavenly glow,
Which faded with those "good old days"
When winters came with deeper snow,
And autumns with a softer haze.

That - mother, sister, wife, or child -
The "best of women" each has known.
Were school-boys ever half so wild?
How young the grandpapas have grown!

That but for this our souls were free,
And but for that our lives were blest;
That in some season yet to be
Our cares will leave us time to rest.

Whene'er we groan with ache or pain, -
Some common ailment of the race, -
Though doctors think the matter plain, -
That ours is "a peculiar case."

Patience, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray,
But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks;
To do without, take tosses, and obey.
Rare patience roots in these, and, these away,
Nowhere. Natural heart's ivy, Patience masks
Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks
Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day.

We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills
To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills
Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.
And where is he who more and more distils
Delicious kindness? - He is patient. Patience fills
His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.