Spare, generous victor, spare the slave,
Who did unequal war pursue;
That more than triumph he might have,
In being overcome by you.

In the dispute, whate'er I said,
My heart was by my tongue belied;
And in my looks you might have read
How much I argued on your side.

You, far from danger as from fear,
Might have sustain'd an open fight;
For seldom your opinions err,
Your eyes are always in the right.

Why, fair one, would you not rely
On reason's force with beauty's join'd?
Could I their prevalence deny,
I must at once be deaf and blind.

Alas! not hoping to subdue,
I only to the fight aspired:
To keep the beauteous foe in view
Was all the glory I desired.

But she, howe'er of victory sure,
Contemns the wreat...

The sun is lord and god, sublime, serene,
And sovereign on the mountains: earth and air
Lie prone in passion, blind with bliss unseen
By force of sight and might of rapture, fair
As dreams that die and know not what they were.
The lawns, the gorges, and the peaks, are one
Glad glory, thrilled with sense of unison
In strong compulsive silence of the sun.
Flowers dense and keen as midnight stars aflame
And living things of light like flames in flower
That glance and flash as though no hand might tame
Lightnings whose life outshone their stormlit hour
And played and laughed on earth, with all their power
Gone, and with all their joy of life made long
And harmless as the lightning life of song,
Shine sweet like stars when darkness feels them strong.
The deep mild ...

I

Blind

When first the shadows fell, like prison bars,
And darkness spread before me, like a pall,
I cried out for the sun, the earth, the stars,
And beat the air, as madmen beat a wall,
Till, impotent, and broken with despair,
I turned my vision inward.    Lo, a spark -
A light - a torch; and all my world grew bright;
For God's dear eyes were shining through the dark.
Then, bringing to me gifts of recompense,
Came keener hearing, finer taste, and touch;
And that oft unappreciated sense,
Which finds sweet odours, and proclaims them such;
And not until my mortal eyes were blind
Did I perceive how kind the world, how kind.

II

Deaf

I can recall a time, when on mine ears
There fell chaotic sounds of earthly life,
S...

Tune - "Rory Dall's Port."


I.

    Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
    Ae fareweel, and then for ever!
    Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
    Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
    Who shall say that fortune grieves him
    While the star of hope she leaves him?
    Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;
    Dark despair around benights me.

II.

    I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
    Naething could resist my Nancy;
    But to see her, was to love her;
    Love but her, and love for ever.
    Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
    Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
    Never met, or never parted,
    We had ne'er been broken hearted.

III.

    Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!...

A changing medley of insistent sounds,
Like broken airs, played on a Samisen,
Pursues me, as the waves blot out the shore.
The trot of wooden heels; the warning cry
Of patient runners; laughter and strange words
Of children, children, children everywhere:
The clap of reverent hands, before some shrine;
And over all the haunting temple bells,
Waking, in silent chambers of the soul,
Dim memories of long-forgotten lives.

But oh! the sorrow of the undertone;
The wail of hopeless weeping in the dawn
From lips that smiled through gilded bars at night.

Brave little people, of large aims, you bow
Too often, and too low before the Past;
You sit too long in worship of the dead.
Yet have you risen, open eyed, to greet
The great material Present.    Now s...

This field of stones, he said,
May well call forth a sigh;
Beneath them lie the dead,
On them the living lie.

        Asleep the child fell
        When night cast its spell;
        The angels came near
        With laughter and cheer.
Her watch at its waking the mother was keeping:
"How sweet, my dear child, was your smile now while sleeping!"


        To God mother went,
        From home it was rent;
        Asleep the child fell
        'Neath tears' troublous spell.
But soon it heard laughter and mother-words tender;
The angels brought dreams full of childhood's rare splendor.

        It grew with the years,
        Till gone were the tears;
        Asleep the child fell,
        While thoughts cast their spell.
But faithful the angels their vigils were keeping,
The thoughts took and whispered: "Have peace now, while sleeping!"

        Asleep the child fell
        When night cast its spell;
        The angels came near
        With laughter and cheer.
Her watch at its waking the mother was keeping:
"How sweet, my dear child, was your smile now while sleeping!"


        To God mother went,
        From home it was rent;
        Asleep the child fell
        'Neath tears' troublous spell.
But soon it heard laughter and mother-words tender;
The angels brought dreams full of childhood's rare splendor.

        It grew with the years,
        Till gone were the tears;
        Asleep the child fell,
        While thoughts cast their spell.
But faithful the angels their vigils were keeping,
The thoughts took and whispered: "Have peace now, while sleeping!"

Alas! upon some starry height,
The Gods of Excellence to please,
This hand of mine will never smite
The Harp of High Serenities.
Mere minstrel of the street am I,
To whom a careless coin you fling;
But who, beneath the bitter sky,
Blue-lipped, yet insolent of eye,
Can shrill a song of Spring;
A song of merry mansard days,
The cheery chimney-tops among;
Of rolics and of roundelays
When we were young . . . when we were young;
A song of love and lilac nights,
Of wit, of wisdom and of wine;
Of Folly whirling on the Heights,
Of hunger and of hope divine;
Of Blanche, Suzette and Celestine,
And all that gay and tender band
Who shared with us the fat, the lean,
The hazard of Illusion-land;
When scores of Philistines we slew
As mightily wi...

Maggie, I ken that ye are happ'd in glory
    And nane can gar ye greet;
The joys o' Heaven are evermair afore ye,
    It's licht about yer feet.

I ken nae waefu' thochts can e'er be near ye
    Nor sorrow fash yer mind,
In yon braw place they winna let ye weary
    For him ye left behind.

Thae nichts an' days when dule seems mair nor double
    I'll need to dae my best,
For aye ye took the half o' ilka trouble,
    And noo I'd hae ye rest.

Yer he'rt'll be the same he'rt since yer flittin',
    Gin auld love doesna tire,
Sae dinna look an' see yer lad that's sittin'
    His lane aside the fire.

The sky is keen wi' dancin' stars in plenty,
    The New Year frost is strang;
But, O my lass! because the Auld Year kent ye
    ...

There was a moment when of you
A splendid hope I had to tell,
Believing "Here is one man who
Will serve our waiting country well."

I saw you sedulous and keen,
I heard the burning words you spoke.
It seemed that you were hard and clean,
And rapier sharp your every stroke.

Then came success, and in a night
An impish thing you stood apart,
All empty-handed for the fight,
With worse, alas! an empty heart.

Success had spoiled you, said your friends,
It was not so, for naught was there
To spoil but means to petty ends.
At last men saw you bleak and bare.

In those who give you grudging aid
These days, may we the spirits see
Who for the love of men would raid
The strongholds of iniquity?

Are these the heroes high and ...

The shore-lark soars to his topmost flight,
Sings at the height where morning springs,
What though his voice be lost in the light,
The light comes dropping from his wings.

Mount, my soul, and sing at the height
Of thy clear flight in the light and the air,
Heard or unheard in the night in the light
Sing there! Sing there!

    We act by fits and starts, like drowning men,
    But just peep up, and then pop down again.
    Let those who call us wicked change their sense;
    For never men lived more on Providence.
    Not lottery cavaliers are half so poor,
    Nor broken cits, nor a vacation whore;
    Not courts, nor courtiers living on the rents
    Of the three last ungiving parliaments:
    So wretched, that, if Pharaoh could divine,
    He might have spared his dream of seven lean kine,
    And changed his vision for the Muses Nine.
    The comet that, they say, portends a dearth,
    Was but a vapour drawn from play-house earth:
    Pent there since our last fire, and, Lilly says,
    Foreshows our change of state, and thin third-days.
    'Tis not our want of wit that keeps us...

When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never,
Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God,
Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load
Of death, called life, which us from life doth sever.
Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour,
Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod;
But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod,
Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever.
Love led them on; and Faith, who knew them best
Thy handmaids, clad them oer with purple beams
And azure wings, that up they flew so drest,
And speak the truth of thee on glorious themes
Before the Judge; who henceforth bid thee rest,
And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams.

Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!

Call her once before you go
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
"Margaret! Margaret!"
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother's ear;

Children's voices, wild with pain
Surely she will come again!
Call her once and come away;
This way, this way!
"Mother dear, we cannot stay!
The wild white horses foam and fret."
Margaret! Margaret!

Come, dear children, come away down;
Call no more!
One last look at th...

Child of loud-throated War! the mountain Stream
Roars in thy hearing; but thy hour of rest
Is come, and thou art silent in thy age;
Save when the wind sweeps by and sounds are caught
Ambiguous, neither wholly thine nor theirs.
Oh! there is life that breathes not; Powers there are
That touch each other to the quick in modes
Which the gross world no sense hath to perceive,
No soul to dream of. What art Thou, from care
Cast off, abandoned by thy rugged Sire,
Nor by soft Peace adopted; though, in place
And in dimension, such that thou might'st seem
But a mere footstool to yon sovereign Lord,
Huge Cruachan, (a thing that meaner hills
Might crush, nor know that it had suffered harm;)
Yet he, not loth, in favour of thy claims
To reverence, suspends his own; submittin...

Cities and men, and nations, have passed by,
Like leaves upon an autumn's dreary sky;
Like chaff upon the ocean billow proud,
Like drops of rain on summer's fleecy cloud;
Like flowers of a wilderness,
Vanished into forgetfulness.

O! Nineveh, thou city of young Ashur's pride,
With thy strong towers, and thy bulwarks wide;
Ah! while upon thee splashed the Tigris' waters,
How little thought thy wealth-stored sons and daughters,

That Cyaxerses and his troops should wait
Three long years before thy massive gate;
Then Medes and Persians, by the torches' light,
Should ride triumphantly thy streets by night;
And from creation banish thee,
O! Nineveh. O! Nineveh.

And country of the pride of Mizriam's heart,
With pyramids that speak thy wealth and...

When we who dwell within this province old,
Cloven in twain by the great river's tide,
Gird at inhospitable winter's cold,
And rue the downfall of fair summer's pride;
Or turn our eyes from gazing on the vales
Of lavish verdure and abundant fruit,
To those rough wastes where Nature ever fails,
And tillage spurns a profitless pursuit;

Let us recall that sentence from the hand
Of history's father, laying down his pen, -
Those words of Cyrus, which he made to stand
To all his work as moral and amen;
'Tis not the richest and most fertile land
That always bears the noblest breed of men.[1]


[1] "Although the work seems unfinished, it concludes with a sentence which cannot have been placed casually at the end, viz., that, as the great Cyrus was supposed to ha...