"Sermons in stones."


Who were you once? Could we but guess,
We might perchance more boldly
Define the patient weariness
That sets your lips so coldly;
You "lived," we know, for blame and fame;
But sure, to friend or foeman,
You bore some more distinctive name
Than mere "B. C.,"--and "Roman"?

Your pedestal should help us much.
Thereon your acts, your title,
(Secure from cold Oblivion's touch!)
Had doubtless due recital;
Vain hope!--not even deeds can last!
That stone, of which you're minus,
Maybe with all your virtues past
Endows ... a TIGELLINUS!

We seek it not; we should not find.
But still, it needs no magic
To tell you wore, like most mankind,
Your comic mask and tragic;
And held that things were false and tr...

"Ah me!    O Satan!    Satan!" loud exclaim'd
Plutus, in accent hoarse of wild alarm:
And the kind sage, whom no event surpris'd,
To comfort me thus spake: "Let not thy fear
Harm thee, for power in him, be sure, is none
To hinder down this rock thy safe descent."
Then to that sworn lip turning, "Peace!"    he cried,

"Curs'd wolf! thy fury inward on thyself
Prey, and consume thee!    Through the dark profound
Not without cause he passes.    So 't is will'd
On high, there where the great Archangel pour'd
Heav'n's vengeance on the first adulterer proud."

As sails full spread and bellying with the wind
Drop suddenly collaps'd, if the mast split;
So to the ground down dropp'd the cruel fiend.

Thus we, descending to the fourth steep ledge,
Gain'd o...

A servant of the living God is dead!
His errand hath been well and early done,
And early hath he gone to his reward.
He shall come no more forth, but to his sleep
Hath silently lain down, and so shall rest.

Would ye bewail our brother? He hath gone
To Abraham's bosom. He shall no more thirst,
Nor hunger, but forever in the eye,
Holy and meek, of Jesus, he may look,
Unchided, and untempted, and unstained.
Would ye bewail our brother? He hath gone
To sit down with the prophets by the clear
And crystal waters; he hath gone to list
Isaiah's harp and David's, and to walk
With Enoch, and Elijah, and the host
Of the just men made perfect. He shall bow
At Gabriel's Hallelujah, and unfold
The scroll of the Apocalypse with John,
And talk of Christ with M...

I.

No more for him, where hills look down,
Shall Morning crown
Her rainy brow with blossom bands!
The Morning Hours, whose rosy hands
Drop wildflowers of the breaking skies
Upon the sod 'neath which he lies.
No more for him! No more! No more!

II.

No more for him, where waters sleep,
Shall Evening heap
The long gold of the perfect days!
The Eventide, whose warm hand lays
Great poppies of the afterglow
Upon the turf he rests below.
No more for him! No more! no more!

III.

No more for him, where woodlands loom,
Shall Midnight bloom
The star-flowered acres of the blue!
The Midnight Hours, whose dim hands strew
Dead leaves of darkness, hushed and deep,
Upon the grave where he doth sleep.
No more for hi...

1.
Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
'Which make thee terrible and dear, -
Swift be thy flight!

2.
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand -
Come, long-sought!

3.
When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest, I sighed for thee.

4.
Thy brother Death came, and cried,

Faith is the spirit that makes man's body and blood
Sacred, to crown when life and death have ceased
His heavenward head for high fame's holy feast;
But as one swordstroke swift as wizard's rod
Made Caesar carrion and made Brutus God,
Faith false or true, born patriot or born priest,
Smites into semblance or of man or beast
The soul that feeds on clean or unclean food.
Lo here the faith that lives on its own light,
Visible music; and lo there, the foul
Shape without shape, the harpy throat and howl.
Sword of the spirit of man! arise and smite,
And sheer through throat and claw and maw and tongue
Kill the beast faith that lives on its own dung.

In front the awful Alpine track
Crawls up its rocky stair;
The autumn storm-winds drive the rack,
Close o'er it, in the air.

Behind are the abandoned baths
Mute in their meadows lone;
The leaves are on the valley-paths,
The mists are on the Rhone

The white mists rolling like a sea!
I hear the torrents roar.
Yes, Obermann, all speaks of thee;
I feel thee near once more.

I turn thy leaves! I feel their breath
Once more upon me roll;
That air of languor, cold, and death,
Which brooded o'er thy soul.

Fly hence, poor wretch, whoe'er thou art,
Condemned to cast about,
All shipwreck in thy own weak heart,
For comfort from without!

A fever in these pages burns
Beneath the calm they feign;
A wounded human spir...

Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile!
Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile,
Softening, sweetening, till sweet. and soft
Increase so round this heart of mine, that oft
I could believe your moonbeam-smile has past
The pallid limit, lies, transformed at last
To sunlight and salvation, warms the soul
It sweets, softens! Would you pass that goal,
Gain love’s birth at the limit’s happier verge.
And, where an iridescence lurks, but urge
The hesitating pallor on to prime
Of dawn! true blood-streaked, sun-warmth, action-time,
By heart-pulse ripened to a ruddy glow
Of gold above my clay, I scarce should know
From gold’s self, thus suffused! For gold means love.
What means the sad slow silver smile above
My clay but pity, pardon? at the best,<...

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears; but all hath suffer’d change;
For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us, our looks are strange,
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years’ war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile;
‘T is hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labor unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on ...

Them sudden flight had scatter'd over the plain,
Turn'd tow'rds the mountain, whither reason's voice
Drives us; I to my faithful company
Adhering, left it not. For how of him
Depriv'd, might I have sped, or who beside
Would o'er the mountainous tract have led my steps
He with the bitter pang of self-remorse
Seem'd smitten. O clear conscience and upright
How doth a little fling wound thee sore!

Soon as his feet desisted (slack'ning pace),
From haste, that mars all decency of act,
My mind, that in itself before was wrapt,
Its thoughts expanded, as with joy restor'd:
And full against the steep ascent I set
My face, where highest to heav'n its top o'erflows.

The sun, that flar'd behind, with ruddy beam
Before my form was broken; for in me
His rays...

[Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1864.]


Where spells were wrought he sat alone,
The wizard touching minds of men
Through far-swung avenues of power,
And proudly held the magic pen.

By the dark wall a white Shape gleams,
By morning's light a Shadow falls!
Is it a servant of his brain,
Or Power that to his power calls?

By morning's light the Shadow looms,
And watches with relentless eyes;
In night-gloom holds the glimmering lamp,
While the pen ever slower flies.

By the dark wall it beckons still,
By evening light it darkly stays;
The wizard looks, and his great life
Thrills with the sense of finished days.

A Shape so ghost-like by the sun,
With smiles that chill as dusks descend!
The glancing wizard, stern and pale,
A...

Those tapers which we set upon the grave
In fun'ral pomp, but this importance have:
That souls departed are not put out quite;
But as they walked here in their vestures white,
So live in heaven in everlasting light.

We repeat, the aim of the IRA has always been the liberation of our homeland. Any who aid or abet the enemy must fall full prey to force of arms. (The Republican Proclamation)

Somewhere in the distance a dog kept at his baying. A long mournful whelping that seemed torn from the damp night's very throat. Sean could not help but hear it; so deeply did the dog's vocal cords implant sound upon human ears. He could not help but think of the provos warning nuzzled like that dog's steady cry over and over into the fabric of one's memory swift as searing iron.

"Aid or abet," he murmured softly to himself, "a long distance is covered by such a comment."

His Catholic heritage did him no justice in resolving the torment. By birth, name even appearance and occupation - all such persuasions meant he should embrace what...

I.

With plumes to which the dewdrops cling,
Wide waves the morn her golden wing;
With countless variegated beams
The empurpled orient glows and gleams;
A gorgeous mass of crimson clouds
The mountain's soaring summit shrouds;
Along the wave the blue mist creeps,
    The towering forest trees are stirred
By the low wind that o'er them sweeps,
    And with the matin song of bird,
    The hum of early bee is heard,
Hailing with his shrill, tiny horn,
The coming of the bright-eyed morn;
And, with the day-beam's earliest dawn,
    Her couch the fair Mazelli quits,
And gaily, fleetly as a fawn,
    Along the wildwood paths she flits,
Hieing from leafy bower to bower,
Culling from each its bud and flower,
Of brightest hue and sweetest breath,...

    "More than half my life long
Did they weigh me falsely, to my bitter wrong,
But they all have shrunk away into the silence
    Like a lost song.

    "And the day has dawned and come
For forgiveness, when the past may hold it dumb
On the once reverberate words of hatred uttered
    Half in delirium . . .

    "With folded lips and hands
They lie and wait what next the Will commands,
And doubtless think, if think they can: 'Let discord
    Sink with Life's sands!'

    "By these late years their names,
Their virtues, their hereditary claims,
May be as near defacement at their grave-place
    As are their fames."

    Such thoughts bechanced to seize
A traveller's mind a man of memories -
As he set foot within the western city

In old-world nursery vacant now of children,
With posied walls, familiar, fair, demure,
And facing southward o'er romantic streets,
Sits yet and gossips winter's dark away
One gloomy, vast, glossy, and wise, and sly:
And at her side a cherried country cousin.
Her tongue claps ever like a ram's sweet bell;
There's not a name but calls a tale to mind -
Some marrowy patty of farce or melodram;
There's not a soldier but hath babes in view;
There's not on earth what minds not of the midwife:
"O, widowhood that left me still espoused!"
Beauty she sighs o'er, and she sighs o'er gold;
Gold will buy all things, even a sweet husband,
Else only Heaven is left and - farewell youth!
Yet, strangely, in that money-haunted head,
The sad, gemmed crucifix and incense blue
...

Smile of the Moon! for I so name
That silent greeting from above;
A gentle flash of light that came
From her whom drooping captives love;
Or art thou of still higher birth?
Thou that didst part the clouds of earth,
My torpor to reprove!

Bright boon of pitying Heaven! alas,
I may not trust thy placid cheer!
Pondering that Time tonight will pass
The threshold of another year;
For years to me are sad and dull;
My very moments are too full
Of hopelessness and fear.

And yet, the soul-awakening gleam,
That struck perchance the farthest cone
Of Scotland's rocky wilds, did seem
To visit me, and me alone;
Me, unapproached by any friend,
Save those who to my sorrow lend
Tears due unto their own.

To night the church-tower bells ...

The thoughts that rain their steady glow
Like stars on life’s cold sea,
Which others know, or say they know
They never shone for me.

Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit’s sky,
But they will not remain.
They light me once, they hurry by,
And never come again.