Love and Obedience--these the Higher Law
From which Thy worlds have swerved not, singing still
Their primal hymn rejoicing, as at first
The morning stars together. Hast thou heard,
In vast and silent spaces of the sky,
What time the bead-roll of the universe
God calls in heaven, every tiniest star--
From myriad twinkling points--from plummet depths
Of dark too vast for eye and sense to guess,
Send up a little silver answer "I am here."
Even so, the humblest of thy little ones, dear Lord,
May through the darkness hear Thy still small voice,
And answer with quick gladness "Here am I,--
I love Thee,--I obey Thee,--use me too!"

SPAIN.


I.

It is a lie, their Priests, their Pope,
Their Saints, their . . . all they fear or hope
Are lies, and lies, there! through my door
And ceiling, there! and walls and floor,
There, lies, they lie, shall still be hurled
Till spite of them I reach the world!

II.

You think Priests just and holy men!
Before they put me in this den
I was a human creature too,
With flesh and blood like one of you,
A girl that laughed in beauty’s pride
Like lilies in your world outside.

III.

I had a lover, shame avaunt!
This poor wrenched body, grim and gaunt,
Was kissed all over till it burned,
By lips the truest, love e’er turned
His heart’s own tint: one night they kissed
My soul out in a burning mis...

FROM A PROSE TRANSLATION IN SIR WILLIAM JONES' ESSAY ON THE POETRY OF THE EASTERN NATIONS.


Guard thou, my Son, the Helpless and the Poor,
    Nor in the chains of thine own indolence
    Slumber enervate, while the joys of sense
    Engross thee; and thou say'st, "I ask no more." -
Wise Men the Shepherd's slumber will deplore
    When the rapacious Wolf has leapt the fence,
    And ranges thro' the fold. - My Son, dispense
    Those laws, that justice to the Wrong'd restore. -
The Common-Weal shou'd be the first pursuit
    Of the crown'd Warrior, for the royal brows
    The People first enwreath'd. - They are the Root,
The King the Tree. Aloft he spreads his boughs
    Glorious; but learn, impetuous Youth, at length,
    Trees from the Root alone der...

There is a gate, we know full well,
That stands 'twixt Heaven, and Earth, and Hell,
Where many for a passage venture,
Yet very few are fond to enter:
Although 'tis open night and day,
They for that reason shun this way:
Both dukes and lords abhor its wood,
They can't come near it for their blood.
What other way they take to go,
Another time I'll let you know.
Yet commoners with greatest ease
Can find an entrance when they please.
The poorest hither march in state
(Or they can never pass the gate)
Like Roman generals triumphant,
And then they take a turn and jump on't,
If gravest parsons here advance,
They cannot pass before they dance;
There's not a soul that does resort here,
But strips himself to pay the porter.

Being out of heart with government
I took a broken root to fling
Where the proud, wayward squirrel went,
Taking delight that he could spring;
And he, with that low whinnying sound
That is like laughter, sprang again
And so to the other tree at a bound.
Nor the tame will, nor timid brain,
Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb
And threw him up to laugh on the bough;
No government appointed him.

Strange little spring, by channels past our telling,
Gentle, resistless, welling, welling, welling;
Through what blind ways, we know not whence
You darkling come to dance and dimple -
Strange little spring!
Nature hath no such innocence,
And no more secret thing -
So mysterious and so simple;
Earth hath no such fairy daughter
Of all her witchcraft shapes of water.
When all the land with summer burns,
And brazen noon rides hot and high,
And tongues are parched and grasses dry,
Still are you green and hushed with ferns,
And cool as some old sanctuary;
Still are you brimming o'er with dew
And stars that dipped their feet in you.

And I believe when none is by,
Only the young moon in the sky -
The Greeks of old were right about you -
A nai...

Sir John was entombed, and the crypt was closed, and she,
Like a soul that could meet no more the sight of the sun,
Inclined her in weepings and prayings continually,
As his widowed one.

And to pleasure her in her sorrow, and fix his name
As a memory Time's fierce frost should never kill,
She caused to be richly chased a brass to his fame,
Which should link them still;

For she bonded her name with his own on the brazen page,
As if dead and interred there with him, and cold, and numb,
(Omitting the day of her dying and year of her age
Till her end should come;)

And implored good people to pray "Of their Charytie
For these twaine Soules," yea, she who did last remain
Forgoing Heaven's bliss if ever with spouse should she
Again have lain.

...

Where is the waiting-time?
    Where are the fears?
Gone with the winter's rime,
    The bygone years.

O'er life's plain, lone and vast,
    Slow treads the morn,
Night shades have moved and passed,
    Joy's day is born.

The old gentleman, tapping his amber snuff-box
(A heart-shaped snuff-box with a golden clasp)
Stared at the dying fire. "I'd like them all
To understand, when I am gone," he muttered.
"But how to do it delicately! I can't
Apologize. I'll hint at it ... in verse;
And, to be sure that Rosalind reads it through,
I'll make it an appendix to my will!"
--Still cynical, you see. He couldn't help it.
He had seen much, felt much. He snapped the snuff box,
Shook his white periwig, trimmed a long quill pen,
And then began to write, most carefully,
These couplets, in the old heroic style:--

O, had I known in boyhood, only known
The few sad truths that time has made my own,
I had not lost the best that youth can give,
Nay, life itself, in learning how to live....

What tho' no sculptur'd monument proclaim
    Thy fate-yet Albert in my breast I bear
Inshrin'd the sad remembrance; yet thy name
    Will fill my throbbing bosom. When DESPAIR
The child of murdered HOPE, fed on thy heart,
    Loved honored friend, I saw thee sink forlorn
Pierced to the soul by cold Neglect's keen dart,
    And Penury's hard ills, and pitying Scorn,
And the dark spectre of departed JOY
    Inhuman MEMORY. Often on thy grave
Love I the solitary hour to employ
Thinking on other days; and heave the sigh
    Responsive, when I mark the high grass wave
Sad sounding as the cold breeze rustles by.

    Lo, all the age is rank with wrong!
        The nations kneel to monstrous might,
        And horrid cries that haunt the night,
    Have hushed the notes of happy song;
    Mankind the deepest truth has missed,
        The best emotions have grown dim;
    We praise the God that dwelt in Christ,
        But crucify the man in him.

    Laws, noble, good, and great at first,
        With plan perverted, bind again
        The regal rights of mind and men
    And prove of tyrants far the worst;
    With blinded eyes is Nature made,
        And knows her constant purpose crossed,
    While crafty Jacob plies his trade
        And Esau finds his blessing lost.

    Earth yields her fruits in ample store;
        Her children all are heirs that ...

The Art of Painting had in the Primitive years looked with the light, not towards it.    Before Tintoretto’s date, however, many painters practised shadows and lights, and turned more or less sunwards; but he set the figure between himself and a full sun.    His work is to be known in Venice by the splendid trick of an occluded sun and a shadow thrown straight at the spectator.

Tintoretto’s thronged "Procession to Calvary" and his "Crucifixion," incidentally named, are two of the greatest of his multitude of works in Venice.

                Master, thy enterprise,
    Magnificent, magnanimous, was well done,
    Which seized, the head of Art, and turned her eyes-
    The simpleton-and made her front the su...

There’s something in a noble boy,
A brave, free-hearted, careless one,
With his unchecked, unbidden joy,
His dread of books and love of fun,
And in his clear and ready smile,
Unshaded by a thought of guile,
And unrepressed by sadness,
Which brings me to my childhood back,
As if I trod its very track,
And felt its very gladness.
And yet it is not in his play,
When every trace of thought is lost,
And not when you would call him gay,
That his bright presence thrills me most.
His shout may ring upon the hill,
His voice be echoed in the hall,
His merry laugh like music trill,
And I unheeding hear it all;
For, like the wrinkles on my brow,
I scarcely notice such things now.
But when, amid the earnest game,
He stops as if he music heard,

The Young King fights in the trenches and the Old King fights in the rear,
Because he is old and feeble, and not for a thought of fear.
The Young King fights for the Future, and the Old King fights for the Past,
The Young King is fighting his first fight and the Old King is fighting his last.

It is ever the same old battle, be the end of it Beer or Blood,
Or whether the rifles rattle, or whether a friend flings mud;
Or a foe to the rescue dashes, and the touch of a stranger thrills,
Or the Truth, or the bayonet flashes; or the Lie, or a bullet kills.

The young man strives to determine which are the truths or lies,
And the old man preaches his sermon, and he takes to his bed and dies;
And the parson is there, and the nurse is (or the bread is there and the wine),
And the so...

    Flag of the free, our sable sires
        Have borne thee oft before
    Into hot battles' hell-lit fires,
        Against the fiercest foe.
    When first he shook his shaggy mein,
        And made the welkin ring,
    Brave Attucks fell upon the Plain,
        Thy stripes first crimsoning!

    Thy might and majesty we hurl,
        Against the bolts of Mars;
    And from thy ample folds unfurl
        Thy field of flaming stars!
    Fond hope to nations in distress,
        Thy starry gleam shall give;
    The stricken in the wilderness
        Shall look to thee and live.

    What matter if where Boreas roars,
        Or where sweet zephyr smiles?
    What matter if where eagle soars,
        Or in the sunlit isles?
    T...

We two stood simply friend-like side by side,
Viewing a twilight country far and wide,
Till she at length broke silence. “How it towers
Yonder, the ruin o’er this vale of ours!
The West’s faint flare behind it so relieves
Its rugged outline, sight perhaps deceives,
Or I could almost fancy that I see
A branch wave plain, belike some wind-sown tree
Chance-rooted where a missing turret was.
What would I give for the perspective glass
At home, to make out if ’tis really so!
Has Ruskin noticed here at Asolo
That certain weed-growths on the ravaged wall
Seem” . . . something that I could not say at all,
My thought being rather, as absorbed she sent
Look onward after look from eyes distent
With longing to reach Heaven’s gate left ajar,
“Oh, fancies that might be...

This rich marble doth inter
The honoured wife of Winchester,
A viscount’s daughter, an earl’s heir,
Besides what her virtues fair
Added to her noble birth,
More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told; alas! too soon,
After so short time of breath,
To house with darkness and with death!
Yet, had the number of her days
Been as complete as was her praise,
Nature and Fate had had no strife
In giving limit to her life.
Her high birth and her graces sweet
Quickly found a lover meet;
The virgin quire for her request
The god that sits at marriage-feast;
He at their invoking came,
But with a scarce well-lighted flame;
And in his garland, as he stood,
Ye might discern a cypress-bud.
Once had the early...

Dear Boy, throw that Icicle down,
And sweep this deep Snow from the door:
Old Winter comes on with a frown;
A terrible frown for the poor.
In a Season so rude and forlorn
How can age, how can infancy bear
The silent neglect and the scorn
Of those who have plenty to spare?

Fresh broach'd is my Cask of old Ale,
Well-tim'd now the frost is set in;
Here's Job come to tell us a tale,
We'll make him at home to a pin.
While my Wife and I bask o'er the fire,
The roll of the Seasons will prove,
That Time may diminish desire,
But cannot extinguish true love.

O the pleasures of neighbourly chat,
If you can but keep scandal away,
To learn what the world has been at,
And what the great Orators say;
Though the Wind through the crevices sing,<...