Two savings of the Holy Scriptures beat
Like pulses in the Church's brow and breast;
And by them we find rest in our unrest
And, heart deep in salt-tears, do yet entreat
God's fellowship as if on heavenly seat.
The first is Jesus wept, whereon is prest
Full many a sobbing face that drops its best
And sweetest waters on the record sweet:
And one is where the Christ, denied and scorned
Looked upon Peter. Oh, to render plain
By help of having loved a little and mourned,
That look of sovran love and sovran pain
Which He, who could not sin yet suffered, turned
On him who could reject but not sustain!

The world is bright with beauty, and its days
Are filled with music; could we only know
True ends from false, and lofty things from low;
Could we but tear away the walls that graze
Our very elbows in life's frosty ways;
Behold the width beyond us with its flow,
Its knowledge and its murmur and its glow,
Where doubt itself is but a golden haze.

Ah brothers, still upon our pathway lies
The shadow of dim weariness and fear,
Yet if we could but lift our earthward eyes
To see, and open our dull ears to hear,
Then should the wonder of this world draw near
And life's innumerable harmonies.

Stay awhile, thou blessed band, be entreated, daughters of heaven!
While the chance-met scholar of Wisdom learneth your sacred names:
He is resting a little from his toil, yet a little on the borders of earth,
And fain would he have you his friends, to bid him glad welcome hereafter.
Who among the glorious art thou, that walkest a Goddess and a Queen,
Thy crown of living stars, and a golden cross thy sceptre?
Who among flowers of loveliness is she, thy seeming herald,
Yet she boasteth not thee nor herself, and her garments are plain in their neatness?
Wherefore is there one among the train, whose eyes are red with weeping.
Yet is her open forehead beaming with the sun of ecstasy?
And who is that blood-stained warrior, with glory sitting on his crest?
And who that solemn sage, calm in ...

By the weak'st means things mighty are o'erthrown.
He's lord of thy life who contemns his own.

Winters know
Easily to shed the snow,
And the untaught Spring is wise
In cowslips and anemonies.
Nature, hating art and pains,
Baulks and baffles plotting brains;
Casualty and Surprise
Are the apples of her eyes;
But she dearly loves the poor,
And, by marvel of her own,
Strikes the loud pretender down.
For Nature listens in the rose
And hearkens in the berry's bell
To help her friends, to plague her foes,
And like wise God she judges well.
Yet doth much her love excel
To the souls that never fell,
To swains that live in happiness
And do well because they please,
Who walk in ways that are unfamed,
And feats achieve before they're named.

Blest land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song,
Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng;
In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,
On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee.

With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore,
Where pilgrim and prophet have lingered before;
With the glide of a spirit, I traverse the sod
Made bright by the steps of the angels of God.

Blue sea of the hills! in my spirit I hear
Thy waters, Genasseret, chime on my ear;
Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat down,
And thy spray on the dust of His sandals was thrown.

Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green,
And the desolate hills of the wild Godarene;
And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see
The gleam of thy waters, oh dark Gallilee!

By the grace of God and the courage
Of the peoples far and wide,
By the toil and sweat of those who lived,
And the blood of those who died,
We have won the fight, we have saved the Right,
For the Lord was on our side.

We have come through the valley of shadows,
We have won to the light again,
We have smitten to earth the evil thing,
And our sons have proved them men.
But not alone by our might have we won,
For the Lord fought in our van.

When the night was at its darkest,
And never a light could we see,--
When earth seemed like to be enslaved
In a monstrous tyranny;--
Then the flaming sword of our Over-Lord
Struck home for liberty.

All the words in the world cannot tell you
What brims in our hearts for you;
For the lives y...

Night of Mid-June, in heavy vapours dying,
Like priestly hands thy holy touch is lying
Upon the world's wide brow;
God-like and grand all nature is commanding
The "peace that passes human understanding";
I, also, feel it now.

What matters it to-night, if one life treasure
I covet, is not mine! Am I to measure
The gifts of Heaven's decree
By my desires? O! life for ever longing
For some far gift, where many gifts are thronging,
God wills, it may not be.

Am I to learn that longing, lifted higher,
Perhaps will catch the gleam of sacred fire
That shows my cross is gold?
That underneath this cross - however lowly,
A jewel rests, white, beautiful and holy,
Whose worth can not be told.

Like to a scene I watched one day in wonder: -
A ...

Filled is Life's goblet to the brim;
And though my eyes with tears are dim,
I see its sparkling bubbles swim,
And chant a melancholy hymn
    With solemn voice and slow.

No purple flowers,--no garlands green,
Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen,
Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,
Like gleams of sunshine, flash between
    Thick leaves of mistletoe.

This goblet, wrought with curious art,
Is filled with waters, that upstart,
When the deep fountains of the heart,
By strong convulsions rent apart,
    Are running all to waste.

And as it mantling passes round,
With fennel is it wreathed and crowned,
Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned
Are in its waters steeped and drowned,
    And give a bitter taste.

Above the lowly ...

Take of English earth as much
As either hand may rightly clutch.
In the taking of it breathe
Prayer for all who lie beneath.
Not the great nor well-bespoke,
But the mere uncounted folk
Of whose life and death is none
Report or lamentation.
Lay that earth upon thy heart,
And thy sickness shall depart!

It shall sweeten and make whole
Fevered breath and festered soul.
It shall mightily restrain
Over-busied hand and brain.
It shall ease thy mortal strife
'Gainst the immortal woe of life,
Till thyself, restored, shall prove
By what grace the Heavens do move.

Take of English flowers these,
Spring's full-faced primroses,
Summer's wild wide-hearted rose,
Autumn's wall-flower of the close,
And, thy darkness to illume,
Wint...

    My mother was for woman's rights
    And my father was the rich miller at London Mills.
    I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them.
    When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries
    In order to learn how to reform the world.
    I traveled through many lands. I saw the ruins of Rome
    And the ruins of Athens, And the ruins of Thebes.
    And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis.
    There I was caught up by wings of flame,
    And a voice from heaven said to me:
    "Injustice, Untruth destroyed them.
    Go forth Preach Justice! Preach Truth!"
    And I hastened back to Spoon River
    To say farewell to my mother before beginning my work.
    They all saw a strange light in my eye.
    And by and by, whe...

    The vision fades - dome, pinnacle and tower,
        All the white beauty of the lake-side dream,
        The artist's ideal, the poet's theme
    Vanish away. Yet for no fleeting hour

    Was this proud fabric raised. The crumbling wall
        Entombs not memory's treasure, and we hold
        This truth dear as the miser his loved gold,
    Dome, pinnacle and tower cannot fall.

    No marvel this, that memory holds fast
        Such beauty, passing beauty seen before,
        The grace and charm of every clime and shore,
    Strength of today, the glories of the past,

    All met in one great whole - for not alone
        Man's hand the wonder wrought, but soaring high
        His spirit, like the bird that cleaves the sky,
    Knew naught ...

Murmur of living!
Stir of existence!
Soul of the world!
Make, oh make yourselves felt
To the dying spirit of Youth.
Come, like the breath of the spring.
Leave not a human soul
To grow old in darkness and pain.
Only the living can feel you
But leave us not while we live

I.

I see thy house, but I am blown about,
    A wind-mocked kite, between the earth and sky,
All out of doors--alas! of thy doors out,
    And drenched in dews no summer suns can dry.

For every blast is passion of my own;
    The dews cold sweats of selfish agony;
Dank vapour steams from memories lying prone;
    And all my soul is but a stifled cry.

II.

Lord, thou dost hold my string, else were I driven
    Down to some gulf where I were tossed no more,
No turmoil telling I was not in heaven,
    No billows raving on a blessed shore.

Thou standest on thy door-sill, calm as day,
    And all my throbs and pangs are pulls from thee;
Hold fast the string, lest I should break away
    And outer dark and silence swallow me.
<...

Non più ch' 'l foco il fabbro.


It is with fire that blacksmiths iron subdue
        Unto fair form, the image of their thought:
        Nor without fire hath any artist wrought
        Gold to its utmost purity of hue.
Nay, nor the unmatched phoenix lives anew,
        Unless she burn: if then I am distraught
        By fire, I may to better life be brought
        Like those whom death restores nor years undo.
The fire whereof I speak, is my great cheer;
        Such power it hath to renovate and raise
        Me who was almost numbered with the dead;
And since by nature fire doth find its sphere
        Soaring aloft, and I am all ablaze,
        Heavenward with it my flight must needs be sped.

Look now on that Adventurer who hath paid
His vows to Fortune; who, in cruel slight
Of virtuous hope, of liberty, and right,
Hath followed wheresoe'er a way was made
By the blind Goddess, ruthless, undismayed;
And so hath gained at length a prosperous height,
Round which the elements of worldly might
Beneath his haughty feet, like clouds, are laid.
O joyless power that stands by lawless force!
Curses are 'his' dire portion, scorn, and hate,
Internal darkness and unquiet breath;
And, if old judgments keep their sacred course,
Him from that height shall Heaven precipitate
By violent and ignominious death.

    Sent by Lord Melcombe to Dr. Young, Not Long Before His Lordship's    Death.(68)


Kind companion of my youth,
Lov'd for genius, worth, and truth!
Take what friendship can impart,
Tribute of a feeling heart;
Take the muse's latest spark,(69)
Ere we drop into the dark.
He, who parts and virtue gave,
Bad thee look beyond the grave
Genius soars, and virtue guides;
Above, the love of God presides.
There's a gulf 'twixt us and God;
Let the gloomy path be trod:
Why stand shivering on the shore?
Why not boldly venture o'er?
Where unerring virtue guides,
Let us have the winds and tides:
Safe, through seas of doubts and fears,
Rides the bark which virtue steers.

Flowers preach to us if we will hear: -
The rose saith in the dewy morn:
I am most fair;
Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn.
The poppy saith amid the corn:
Let but my scarlet head appear
And I am held in scorn;
Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.
The lilies say: Behold how we
Preach without words of purity.
The violets whisper from the shade
Which their own leaves have made:
Men scent our fragrance on the air,
Yet take no heed
Of humble lessons we would read.
But not alone the fairest flowers:
The merest grass
Along the roadside where we pass,
Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
Tell of His love who sends the dew,
The rain and sunshine too,
To nourish one small seed.