("O caresse sublime.")

[April, 1871.]


Upon the grave's cold mouth there ever have caresses clung
For those who died ideally good and grand and pure and young;
Under the scorn of all who clamor: "There is nothing just!"
And bow to dread inquisitor and worship lords of dust;
Let sophists give the lie, hearts droop, and courtiers play the worm,
Our martyrs of Democracy the Truth sublime affirm!
And when all seems inert upon this seething, troublous round,
And when the rashest knows not best to flee ar stand his ground,
When not a single war-cry from the sombre mass will rush,
When o'er the universe is spread by Doubting utter hush,
Then he who searches well within the walls that close immure
Our teachers, leaders, heroes slain because they lived too pur...

I

We cannot choose our sorrows.    One there was
Who, reverent of soul, and strong with trust,
Cried, 'God, though Thou shouldst bow me to the dust,
Yet will I praise thy everlasting laws.
Beggared, my faith would never halt or pause,
But sing Thy glory, feasting on a crust.
Only one boon, one precious boon I must
Demand of Thee, O opulent great Cause.
Let Love stay with me, constant to the end,
Though fame pass by and poverty pursue.'
With freighted hold her life ship onward sailed;
The world gave wealth, and pleasure, and a friend,
Unmarred by envy, and whose heart was true.
But ere the sun reached midday, Love had failed.

II

Then from the depths, in bitterness she cried,
'Hell is on earth, and heaven is but a dream;
And human lif...

When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I’m lost
In wonder, love and praise.

Thy Providence my life sustained,
And all my wants redressed,
While in the silent womb I lay,
And hung upon the breast.

To all my weak complaints and cries
Thy mercy lent an ear,
Ere yet my feeble thoughts had learned
To form themselves in prayer.

Unnumbered comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestowed,
Before my infant heart conceived
From Whom those comforts flowed.

When in the slippery paths of youth
With heedless steps I ran,
Thine arm unseen conveyed me safe,
And led me up to man.

Through hidden dangers, toils, and deaths,
It gently cleared my way;
And through the pleasing snare...

If e'er the sacred poem that hath made
Both heav'n and earth copartners in its toil,
And with lean abstinence, through many a year,
Faded my brow, be destin'd to prevail
Over the cruelty, which bars me forth
Of the fair sheep-fold, where a sleeping lamb
The wolves set on and fain had worried me,
With other voice and fleece of other grain
I shall forthwith return, and, standing up
At my baptismal font, shall claim the wreath
Due to the poet's temples: for I there
First enter'd on the faith which maketh souls
Acceptable to God: and, for its sake,
Peter had then circled my forehead thus.

Next from the squadron, whence had issued forth
The first fruit of Christ's vicars on the earth,
Toward us mov'd a light, at view whereof
My Lady, full of gladness, sp...

The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits,
The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates,
The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar,
Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar.

There stands the cunning workman, the crafty past all praise,
The man who chained the Minotaur, the man who built the Maze.
His young son is beside him and the boy's face is a light,
A light of dawn and wonder and of valor infinite.

Their great vans beat the cloven air, like eagles they mount up,
Motes in the wine of morning, specks in a crystal cup,
And lest his wings should melt apace old Daedalus flies low,
But Icarus beats up, beats up, he goes where lightnings go.

He cares no more for warnings, he rushes throu...

As a weed beneath the ocean,
As a pool beneath a tree
Answers with each breath or motion
An imperious mastery;

So my spirit swift with passion
Finds in every look a sign,
Catching in some wondrous fashion
Every mood that governs thine.

In a moment it will borrow,
Flashing in a gusty train,
Laughter and desire and sorrow
Anger and delight and pain.

There are two mountains hallowed
    By majesty sublime,
Which rear their crests unconquered
    Above the floods of Time.
Uncounted generations
    Have gazed on them with awe, -
The mountain of the Gospel,
    The mountain of the Law.

From Sinai's cloud of darkness
    The vivid lightnings play;
They serve the God of vengeance,
    The Lord who shall repay.
Each fault must bring its penance,
    Each sin the avenging blade,
For God upholds in justice
    The laws that He hath made.

But Calvary stands to ransom
    The earth from utter loss,
In shade than light more glorious,
    The shadow of the Cross.
To heal a sick world's trouble,
    To soothe its woe and pain,
On Calvary's sacred summit
    The Paschal Lam...

Sweet resting place! that long hath been
A boon Elysian 'mid the din
    Of city life, 'mid city smoke;
Where weary ones who toil and spin
Have turned aside as to an inn
    Whose swinging sign a welcome spoke;
Where misanthropes find medicine
In peals of laughter that begin
    With ancient, resurrected joke,
Or ready wit of harlequin;
Where children, free from discipline,
    Take on Diversion's easy yoke.

Fair oasis! to view aright
Its charming paths, its sloping height,
    Its beautiful and broad expanse,
Must one approach in witching night
When, like abodes of airy sprite
    Revealed unto the wondering glance,
O'erflooded with electric light
Than Luna's beams more dazzling bright,
    Illumined nooks the scene enhance;
Whi...

I

Within the mind strong fancies work.
A deep delight the bosom thrills
Oft as I pass along the fork
Of these fraternal hills:
Where, save the rugged road, we find
No appanage of human kind,
Nor hint of man; if stone or rock
Seem not his handywork to mock
By something cognizably shaped;
Mockery or model roughly hewn,
And left as if by earthquake strewn,
Or from the Flood escaped:
Altars for Druid service fit;
(But where no fire was ever lit,
Unless the glow-worm to the skies
Thence offer nightly sacrifice)
Wrinkled Egyptian monument;
Green moss-grown tower; or hoary tent;
Tents of a camp that never shall be razed
On which four thousand years have gazed!

II

Ye plough-shares sparkling on the slopes!
Ye snow-wh...

The fields were bleak and sodden. Not a wing
Or note enlivened the depressing wood,
A soiled and sullen, stubborn snowdrift stood
Beside the roadway. Winds came muttering
Of storms to be, and brought the chilly sting
Of icebergs in their breath. Stalled cattle mooed
Forth plaintive pleadings for the earth's green food.
No gleam, no hint of hope in anything.

The sky was blank and ashen, like the face
Of some poor wretch who drains life's cup too fast.
Yet, swaying to and fro, as if to fling
About chilled Nature its lithe arms of grace,
Smiling with promise in the wintry blast,
The optimistic Willow spoke of spring.

Where is one that, born of woman, altogether can escape
From the lower world within him, moods of tiger, or of ape?
Man as yet is being made, and ere the crowning Age of ages,
Shall not æon after æon pass and touch him into shape?

All about him shadow still, but, while the races flower and fade,
Prophet-eyes may catch a glory slowly gaining on the shade,
Till the peoples all are one, and all their voices blend in choric
Hallelujah to the Maker ‘It is finish’d. Man is made.’

    The softest beams of the stars are born in the farthest skies,
    And fairest rays of the sun where evening shadows rise;
    The sweetest songs of the bird are sung in the darkest days,
    And rarest blooms of the spring are found in the wildest ways.

    The brightest blush of the rose is blown as the petals fade.
    The greenest grass of the earth is grown in the hidden glade;
    The fondest rhyme of the rill is heard in the secret vale,
    And lightest lays of the breeze are borne from the dying gale.

    The highest hopes of the heart in saddest of sorrows grow,
    The purest pleasures of joy arise in the wane of woe;
    The gladdest smiles of the lips are seen in the hours of pain,
    And proudest days of the free are spent by the broken chain.

--[St. John, i. 1-33]


In the mighty Mother's bosom was the Wise
With the mystic Father in aeonian night;
Aye, for ever one with them though it arise
    Going forth to sound its hymn of light.

At its incantation rose the starry fane;
At its magic thronged the myriad race of men;
Life awoke that in the womb so long had lain
    To its cyclic labours once again.

'Tis the soul of fire within the heart of life;
From its fiery fountain spring the will and thought;
All the strength of man for deeds of love or strife,
    Though the darkness comprehend it not.

In the mystery written here
John is but the life, the seer;
Outcast from the life of light,
Inly with reverted sight
Still he scans with eager eyes
The celestial mysterie...

My Horse's feet beside the lake,
Where sweet the unbroken moonbeams lay,
Sent echoes through the night to wake,
Each glistening strand, each heath-fringed bay.

The poplar avenue was pass’d,
And the roofed bridge that spans the stream,
Up the steep street I hurried fast,
Led by thy taper’s starlike beam.

I came! I saw thee rise:, the blood
Poured flushing to thy languid cheek.
Locked in each other’s arms we stood,
In tears, with hearts too full to speak.

Days flew; ah, soon I could discern
A trouble in thine altered air.
Thy hand lay languidly in mine,
Thy cheek was grave, thy speech grew rare.

I blame thee not:, This heart, I know,
To be long lov’d was never fram’d,
For something in its depths doth glow
Too strange, too r...

"When will the grave fling her cold arms around me,
    And earth on her dark bosom pillow my head?
Sorrow and trouble and anguish, have found me,
    Oh that I slumbered in peace with the dead!

"The forests are budding, the fruit-trees in bloom,
    And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
But my soul is bowed down by the spirit of gloom,
    I no longer rejoice as the blossoms expand.

"And April is here with her rich varied skies,
    Where the sunbeams of hope with the tempest contend,
And the bright drops that flow from her deep azure eyes
    On the bosom of nature like diamonds descend.

"She scatters her jewels o'er forest and lea,
    And casts in earth's lap all the wealth of the year;
But the promise she brings wakes no transports in ...

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away. Vain sympathies!
For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish; be it so!
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.

On great cathedral window I have seen
A summer sunset swoon and sink away,
Lost in the splendours of immortal art.
Angels and saints and all the heavenly hosts,
With smiles undimmed by half a thousand years,
From wall and niche have met my lifted gaze.
Sculpture and carving and illumined page,
And the fair, lofty dreams of architects,
That speak of beauty to the centuries -
All these have fed me with divine repasts.
Yet in my mouth is left a bitter taste,
The taste of blood that stained that age of art.

Those glorious windows shine upon the black
And hideous structure of the guillotine;
Beside the haloed countenance of saints
There hangs the multiple and knotted lash.
The Christ of love, benign and beautiful,
Looks at the torture-rack, by hate conce...

Sometimes the silver cord of life
    Is loosed at one brief stroke;
As when the elements at strife,
With Nature's wild contentions rife,
    Uproot the sturdy oak.

Or fell disease, in patience borne,
    Attenuates the frame
Till the meek sufferer, wan and worn,
Of energy and beauty shorn,
    Death's sweet release would claim.

By instant touch or long decay
    Is dissolution wrought;
When, lost to earth, the grave and gay,
The young and old who pass away,
    Abide in hallowed thought.

In dear regard together drawn,
    Affection's debt to pay,
Fond greetings we exchange at dawn
With one who, ere the day be gone,
    Is bruised and lifeless clay.

O thou in manhood's morning-time
    With health and hope elate...