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Midnight Mass For The Dying Year. | William Henry Giles Kingston | Yes, the Year is growing old,
And his eye is pale and bleared!
Death, with frosty hand and cold,
Plucks the old man by the beard,
Sorely, - sorely!
The leaves are falling, falling,
Solemnly and slow;
Caw! caw! the rooks are calling,
It is a sound of woe,
A sound of woe!
Through woods and mountain passes
The winds, like anthems, roll;
They are chanting solemn masses,
Singing, "Pray for this poor soul,
Pray, - pray!"
And the hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain,
And patter their doleful prayers; -
But their prayers are all in vain,
All in vain!
There he stands in the foul weather,
The foolish, fond Old Year,
Crowned with wild flowers, and with heather,
Like weak, despised Lear,
A king, - a king!
Then comes the summer-like day,
Bids the old man rejoice!
His joy! his last! Oh, the old man grey
Loveth that ever-soft voice,
Gentle and low.
To the crimson woods he saith -
To the voice gentle and low
Of the soft air, like a daughter's breath -
"Pray do not mock me so!
Do not laugh at me!"
And now the sweet day is dead;
Cold in his arms it lies;
No stain from its breath is spread
Over the glassy skies,
No mist or stain!
Then, too, the Old Year dieth,
And the forests utter a moan,
Like the voice of one who crieth
In the wilderness alone,
"Vex not his ghost!"
Then comes, with an awful roar,
Gathering and sounding on,
The storm-wind from Labrador,
The wind Euroclydon,
The storm-wind!
Howl! howl! and from the forest
Sweep the red leaves away!
Would, the sins that thou abhorrest,
O Soul! could thus decay,
And be swept away!
For there shall come a mightier blast,
There shall be a darker day;
And the stars, from heaven down-cast,
Like red leaves be swept away!
Kyrie, eleyson!
Christe, eleyson! |
Song | Thomas Oldham | Yes, I could love, could softly yield
To passion all my willing breast,
And fondly listen to the voice
That oft invites me to be blest;
That still, when Fancy, lost in bliss,
Stands gazing on the form divine,
So sweetly whispers to my soul,
O make the heavenly Julia thine!
But hush, thou fascinating voice!
Hence visionary extacy!
Yes, I could love, but ah! I fear
She would not deign to smile on me. |
On Miss Fitzgerald And Lord Kerry Planting Two Cedars In The Churchyard Of Bremhill. | William Lisle Bowles | Yes, Pamela, this infant tree
Planted in sacred earth by thee,
Shall strike its root, and pleasant grow
Whilst I am mouldering dust below.
This churchyard turf shall still be green,
When other pastors here are seen,
Who, gazing on that dial gray,
Shall mourn, like me, life's passing ray.
What says its monitory shade?
Thyself so blooming, now shalt fade;
And even that fair and lightsome boy,
Elastic as the step of joy,
The future lord of yon domain,
And all this wide extended plain,
Shall yield to creeping time, when they
Who loved him shall have passed away.
Yet, planted by his youthful hand,
The fellow-cedar still shall stand,
And when it spreads its boughs around,
Shading the consecrated ground,
He may behold its shade, and say
(Himself then haply growing gray),
Yes, I remember, aged tree,
When I was young who planted thee!
But long may time, blithe maiden, spare
Thy beaming eyes and crisped hair,
Thy unaffected converse kind,
Thy gentle and ingenuous mind.
For him when I in dust repose,
May virtue guide him as he grows;
And may he, when no longer young,
Resemble those from whom he sprung!
Then let these trees extend their shade,
Or live or die, or bloom or fade,
Virtue, uninjured and sublime,
Shall lift her brightest wreath, untouched by time.
|
Love Letters of a Violinist. Letter II. Sorrow. | Eric Mackay | Letter II. Sorrow.
I.
Yes, I was mad. I know it. I was mad.
For there is madness in the looks of love;
And he who frights a tender, brooding dove
Is not more base than I, and not so sad;
For I had kill'd the hope that made me glad,
And curs'd, in thought, the sunlight from above.
II.
He was a fool, indeed, who lately tried
To touch the moon, far-shining in the trees,
He clomb the branches with his hands and knees.
And craned his neck to kiss what he espied.
But down he fell, unseemly in his pride,
And told his follies to the fitful breeze.
III.
I was convicted of as strange a thing,
And wild as strange; for, in a hope forlorn,
I fought with Fate. But now the flag is torn
Which like a herald in the days of spring
I held aloft. The birds have ceased to sing
The dear old songs they sang from morn to morn.
IV.
All holy things avoid me. Breezes pass
And will not fan my cheek, as once they did.
The gloaming hies away like one forbid;
And day returns, and shadows on the grass
Fall from the trees; and night and morn amass
No joys for me this side the coffin-lid.
V.
Absolve me, Sweet! Absolve me, or I die;
And give me pardon, if no other boon.
Aye, give me pardon, and the sun and moon,
And all the stars that wander through the sky
Will be thy sponsors, and the gladden'd cry
Of one poor heart will thank thee for it soon.
VI.
And mine Amati - my belov'd one -
The tender sprite who soothes, as best he may,
My fever'd pulse, and makes a roundelay
Of all my fears - e'en he, when all is done,
Will be thy friend, and yield his place to none
To wish thee well, and greet thee day by day.
VII.
For he is human, though, to look at him,
To see his shape, to hear, - as from the throat
Of some bright angel, - his ecstatic note,
A sinful soul might dream of cherubim.
Aye! and he watches when my senses swim,
And I can trace the thoughts that o'er him float.
VIII.
Often, indeed, I tell him more than man
E'er tells to woman in the honied hours
Of tranced night, in cities or in bowers;
And more, perchance, than lovers in the span
Of absent letters may, with scheming, plan
For life's surrender in the fairy towers.
IX.
And he consoles me. There is none I find,
None in the world, so venturesome and wild,
And yet withal, so tender, true, and mild,
As he can be. And those who think him blind
Are much to blame. His ways are ever kind;
And he can plead as softly as a child.
X.
And when he talks to me I feel the touch
Of some sweet hope, a feeling of content
Almost akin to what by joy is meant.
And then I brood on this; for Love is such,
It makes us weep to want it overmuch,
If wayward Fate withhold his full consent.
XI.
Oh, come to me, thou friend of my desire,
My lov'd Amati! At a word of thine
I can be brave, and dash away the brine
From off my cheek, and neutralise the fire
That makes me mad, and use thee as a lyre
To curb the anguish of this soul of mine.
XII.
Wood as thou art, my treasure, with the strings
Fair on thy form, as fits thy parentage,
I cannot deem that in a gilded cage
Thy spirit lives. The bird that in thee sings
Is not a mortal. No! Enthralment flings
Its charms about thee like a poet's rage.
XIII.
Thou hast no sex; but, in an elfish way,
Thou dost entwine in one, as in a troth,
The gleesome thoughts of man and maiden both.
Thy voice is fullest at the flush of day,
But after midnight there is much to say
In weird remembrance of an April oath.
XIV.
And when the moon is seated on the throne
Of some white cloud, with her attendants near -
The wondering stars that hold her name in fear -
Oh! then I know that mine Amati's tone
Is all for me, and that he stands alone,
First of his tribe, belov'd without a peer.
XV.
Yea, this is so, my Lady! A fair form
Made of the garner'd relics of a tree,
In which of old a dryad of the lea
Did live and die. He flourish'd in a storm,
And learnt to warble when the days were warm
And learnt at night the secrets of the sea.
XVI.
And now he is all mine, for my caress
And my strong bow, - an Ariel, as it seems, -
A something sweeter than the sweetest dreams;
A prison'd wizard that has come to bless
And will not curse, though tortured, more or less,
By some remembrance that athwart him streams.
XVII.
It is the thought of April. 'Tis the tie
That made us one; for then the earth was fair
With all things on't, and summer in the air
Tingled for thee and me. A soft reply
Came to thy lips, and I was like to die
To hear thee make such coy confessions there.
XVIII.
It was the dawn of love (or so I thought)
The tender cooing of thy bosom-bird -
The beating heart that flutter'd at a word,
And seem'd for me alone to be so fraught
With wants unutter'd! All my being caught
Glamor thereat, as at a boon conferr'd.
XIX.
And I was lifted, in a minute's space,
As nigh to Heaven as Heaven is nigh to thee,
And in thy wistful glances I could see
Something that seem'd a joy, and in thy face
A splendour fit for angels in the place
Where God has named them all in their degree.
XX.
Ah, none so blest as I, and none so proud,
In that wild moment when a thrill was sent
Right through my soul, as if from thee it went
As flame from fire! But this was disallow'd;
And I shall sooner wear a winter shroud
Than thou revoke my doom of banishment. |
To My Friends. | Friedrich Schiller | Yes, my friends! that happier times have been
Than the present, none can contravene;
That a race once lived of nobler worth;
And if ancient chronicles were dumb,
Countless stones in witness forth would come
From the deepest entrails of the earth.
But this highly-favored race has gone,
Gone forever to the realms of night.
We, we live! The moments are our own,
And the living judge the right.
Brighter zones, my friends, no doubt excel
This, the land wherein we're doomed to dwell,
As the hardy travellers proclaim;
But if Nature has denied us much,
Art is yet responsive to our touch,
And our hearts can kindle at her flame.
If the laurel will not flourish here
If the myrtle is cold winter's prey,
Yet the vine, to crown us, year by year,
Still puts forth its foliage gay.
Of a busier life 'tis well to speak,
Where four worlds their wealth to barter seek,
On the world's great market, Thames' broad stream;
Ships in thousands go there and depart
There are seen the costliest works of art,
And the earth-god, Mammon, reigns supreme
But the sun his image only graves
On the silent streamlet's level plain,
Not upon the torrent's muddy waves,
Swollen by the heavy rain.
Far more blessed than we, in northern states
Dwells the beggar at the angel-gates,
For he sees the peerless city Rome!
Beauty's glorious charms around him lie,
And, a second heaven, up toward the sky
Mounts St. Peter's proud and wondrous dome.
But, with all the charms that splendor grants,
Rome is but the tomb of ages past;
Life but smiles upon the blooming plants
That the seasons round her cast.
Greater actions elsewhere may be rife
Than with us, in our contracted life
But beneath the sun there's naught that's new;
Yet we see the great of every age
Pass before us on the world's wide stage
Thoughtfully and calmly in review
All. in life repeats itself forever,
Young for ay is phantasy alone;
What has happened nowhere, happened never,
That has never older grown! |
The Parallel. | Thomas Moore | Yes, sad one of Sion,[1] if closely resembling,
In shame and in sorrow, thy withered-up heart--
If drinking deep, deep, of the same "cup of trembling"
Could make us thy children, our parent thou art,
Like thee doth our nation lie conquered and broken,
And fallen from her head is the once royal crown;
In her streets, in her halls, Desolation hath spoken,
And "while it is day yet, her sun hath gone down."[2]
Like thine doth her exile, mid dreams of returning,
Die far from the home it were life to behold;
Like thine do her sons, in the day of their mourning,
Remember the bright things that blest them of old.
Ah, well may we call her, like thee "the Forsaken,"[3]
Her boldest are vanquished, her proudest are slaves;
And the harps of her minstrels, when gayest they waken,
Have tones mid their mirth like the wind over graves!
Yet hadst thou thy vengeance--yet came there the morrow,
That shines out, at last, on the longest dark night,
When the sceptre, that smote thee with slavery and sorrow,
Was shivered at once, like a reed, in thy sight.
When that cup, which for others the proud Golden City[4]
Had brimmed full of bitterness, drenched her own lips;
And the world she had trampled on heard, without pity,
The howl in her halls, and the cry from her ships.
When the curse Heaven keeps for the haughty came over
Her merchants rapacious, her rulers unjust,
And, a ruin, at last, for the earthworm to cover,[5]
The Lady of Kingdoms[6] lay low in the dust. |
The Farmstead | Madison Julius Cawein | Yes, I love the homestead. There
In the spring the lilacs blew
Plenteous perfume everywhere;
There in summer gladioles grew
Parallels of scarlet glare.
And the moon-hued primrose cool
Satin-soft and redolent;
Honeysuckles beautiful,
Filling all the air with scent;
Roses red or white as wool.
Roses, glorious and lush,
Rich in tender-tinted dyes,
Like the gay tempestuous rush
Of unnumbered butterflies,
Clustering o'er each bending bush.
Here japonica and box,
And the wayward violets;
Clumps of star-enamelled phlox,
And the myriad flowery jets
Of the twilight four-o'-clocks.
Ah, the beauty of the place!
When the June made one great rose,
Full of musk and mellow grace,
In the garden's humming close,
Of her comely mother face!
Bubble-like, the hollyhocks
Budded, burst, and flaunted wide
Gypsy beauty from their stocks;
Morning glories, bubble-dyed,
Swung in honey-hearted flocks.
Tawny tiger-lilies flung
Doublets slashed with crimson on;
Graceful slave-girls, fair and young,
Like Circassians, in the sun
Alabaster lilies swung.
Ah, the droning of the bee;
In his dusty pantaloons
Tumbling in the fleurs-de-lis;
In the drowsy afternoons
Dreaming in the pink sweet-pea.
Ah, the moaning wildwood-dove!
With its throat of amethyst
Rippled like a shining cove
Which a wind to pearl hath kissed,
Moaning, moaning of its love.
And the insects' gossip thin
From the summer hotness hid
In lone, leafy deeps of green;
Then at eve the katydid
With its hard, unvaried din.
Often from the whispering hills,
Borne from out the golden dusk,
Gold with gold of daffodils,
Thrilled into the garden's musk
The wild wail of whippoorwills.
From the purple-tangled trees,
Like the white, full heart of night,
Solemn with majestic peace,
Swam the big moon, veined with light;
Like some gorgeous golden-fleece.
She was there with me. And who,
In the magic of the hour,
Had not sworn that they could view,
Beading on each blade and flower
Moony blisters of the dew?
And each fairy of our home,
Firefly, its taper lit
In the honey-scented gloam,
Dashing down the dusk with it
Like an instant-flaming foam.
And we heard the calling, calling,
Of the screech-owl in the brake;
Where the trumpet-vine hung, crawling
Down the ledge, into the lake
Heard the sighing streamlet falling.
Then we wandered to the creek
Where the water-lilies, growing
Thick as stars, lay white and weak;
Or against the brooklet's flowing
Bent and bathed a bashful cheek.
And the moonlight, rippling golden,
Fell in virgin aureoles
On their bosoms, half unfolden,
Where, it seemed, the fairies' souls
Dwelt as perfume, unbeholden;
Or lay sleeping, pearly-tented,
Baby-cribbed within each bud,
While the night-wind, piney-scented,
Swooning over field and flood,
Rocked them on the waters dented.
Then the low, melodious bell
Of a sleeping heifer tinkled,
In some berry-briered dell,
As her satin dewlap wrinkled
With the cud that made it swell.
And, returning home, we heard,
In a beech-tree at the gate,
Some brown, dream-behaunted bird,
Singing of its absent mate,
Of the mate that never heard.
And, you see, now I am gray,
Why within the old, old place,
With such memories, I stay;
Fancy out her absent face
Long since passed away.
She was mine yes! still is mine:
And my frosty memory
Reels about her, as with wine
Warmed into young eyes that see
All of her that was divine.
Yes, I loved her, and have grown
Melancholy in that love,
And the memory alone
Of perfection such whereof
She could sanctify each stone.
And where'er the poppies swing
There we walk, as if a bee
Bent them with its airy wing,
Down her garden shadowy
In the hush the evenings bring. |
I See Thee Not | George MacDonald | Yes, Master, when thou comest thou shalt find
A little faith on earth, if I am here!
Thou know'st how oft I turn to thee my mind.
How sad I wait until thy face appear!
Hast thou not ploughed my thorny ground full sore,
And from it gathered many stones and sherds?
Plough, plough and harrow till it needs no more--
Then sow thy mustard-seed, and send thy birds.
I love thee, Lord; and if I yield to fears,
Nor trust with triumph that pale doubt defies,
Remember, Lord, 'tis nigh two thousand years,
And I have never seen thee with mine eyes!
And when I lift them from the wondrous tale,
See, all about me hath so strange a show!
Is that thy river running down the vale?
Is that thy wind that through the pines doth blow?
Could'st thou right verily appear again,
The same who walked the paths of Palestine,
And here in England teach thy trusting men
In church and field and house, with word and sign?
Here are but lilies, sparrows, and the rest!
My hands on some dear proof would light and stay!
But my heart sees John leaning on thy breast,
And sends them forth to do what thou dost say. |
Lines Written By A Death-Bed | Matthew Arnold | Yes, now the longing is o'erpast,
Which, dogg'd by fear and fought by shame,
Shook her weak bosom day and night,
Consum'd her beauty like a flame,
And dimm'd it like the desert blast.
And though the curtains hide her face,
Yet were it lifted to the light
The sweet expression of her brow
Would charm the gazer, till his thought
Eras'd the ravages of time,
Fill'd up the hollow cheek, and brought
A freshness back as of her prime,
So healing is her quiet now.
So perfectly the lines express
A placid, settled loveliness;
Her youngest rival's freshest grace.
But ah, though peace indeed is here,
And ease from shame, and rest from fear;
Though nothing can dismarble now
The smoothness of that limpid brow;
Yet is a calm like this, in truth,
The crowning end of life and youth?
And when this boon rewards the dead,
Are all debts paid, has all been said?
And is the heart of youth so light,
Its step so firm, its eye so bright,
Because on its hot brow there blows
A wind of promise and repose
From the far grave, to which it goes?
Because it has the hope to come,
One day, to harbour in the tomb?
Ah no, the bliss youth dreams is one
For daylight, for the cheerful sun,
For feeling nerves and living breath,
Youth dreams a bliss on this side death.
It dreams a rest, if not more deep,
More grateful than this marble sleep.
It hears a voice within it tell,
'Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well.'
'Tis all perhaps which man acquires:
But 'tis not what our youth desires. |
Wolverine | Emily Pauline Johnson | "Yes, sir, it's quite a story, though you won't believe it's true,
But such things happened often when I lived beyond the Soo."
And the trapper tilted back his chair and filled his pipe anew.
"I ain't thought of it neither fer this many 'n many a day,
Although it used to haunt me in the years that's slid away,
The years I spent a-trappin' for the good old Hudson's Bay.
"Wild? You bet, 'twas wild then, an' few an' far between
The squatters' shacks, for whites was scarce as furs when things is green,
An' only reds an' 'Hudson's' men was all the folk I seen.
"No. Them old Indyans ain't so bad, not if you treat 'em square.
Why, I lived in amongst 'em all the winters I was there,
An' I never lost a copper, an' I never lost a hair.
"But I'd have lost my life the time that you've heard tell about;
I don't think I'd be settin' here, but dead beyond a doubt,
If that there Indyan 'Wolverine' jest hadn't helped me out.
"'Twas freshet time, 'way back, as long as sixty-six or eight,
An' I was comin' to the Post that year a kind of late,
For beaver had been plentiful, and trappin' had been great.
"One day I had been settin' traps along a bit of wood,
An' night was catchin' up to me jest faster 'an it should,
When all at once I heard a sound that curdled up my blood.
"It was the howl of famished wolves - I didn't stop to think
But jest lit out across for home as quick as you could wink,
But when I reached the river's edge I brought up at the brink.
"That mornin' I had crossed the stream straight on a sheet of ice
An' now, God help me! There it was, churned up an' cracked to dice,
The flood went boiling past - I stood like one shut in a vice.
"No way ahead, no path aback, trapped like a rat ashore,
With naught but death to follow, and with naught but death afore;
The howl of hungry wolves aback - ahead, the torrent's roar.
"An' then - a voice, an Indyan voice, that called out clear and clean,
'Take Indyan's horse, I run like deer, wolf can't catch Wolverine.'
I says, 'Thank Heaven.' There stood the chief I'd nicknamed Wolverine.
"I leapt on that there horse, an' then jest like a coward fled,
An' left that Indyan standin' there alone, as good as dead,
With the wolves a-howlin' at his back, the swollen stream ahead.
"I don't know how them Indyans dodge from death the way they do,
You won't believe it, sir, but what I'm tellin' you is true,
But that there chap was 'round next day as sound as me or you.
"He came to get his horse, but not a cent he'd take from me.
Yes, sir, you're right, the Indyans now ain't like they used to be;
We've got 'em sharpened up a bit an' now they'll take a fee.
"No, sir, you're wrong, they ain't no 'dogs.' I'm not through tellin' yet;
You'll take that name right back again, or else jest out you get!
You'll take that name right back when you hear all this yarn, I bet.
"It happened that same autumn, when some Whites was comin' in,
I heard the old Red River carts a-kickin' up a din,
So I went over to their camp to see an English skin.
"They said, 'They'd had an awful scare from Injuns,' an' they swore
That savages had come around the very night before
A-brandishing their tomahawks an' painted up for war.
"But when their plucky Englishmen had put a bit of lead
Right through the heart of one of them, an' rolled him over, dead,
The other cowards said that they had come on peace instead.
"'That they (the Whites) had lost some stores, from off their little pack,
An' that the Red they peppered dead had followed up their track,
Because he'd found the packages an' came to give them back.'
"'Oh!' they said, 'they were quite sorry, but it wasn't like as if
They had killed a decent Whiteman by mistake or in a tiff,
It was only some old Injun dog that lay there stark an' stiff.'
"I said, 'You are the meanest dogs that ever yet I seen,'
Then I rolled the body over as it lay out on the green;
I peered into the face - My God! 'twas poor old Wolverine." |
A Glimpse Of China. Over The Samovar. {69A} | Francis William Lauderdale Adams | (Foo-chow.)
"Yes, I used always to think
That you Russians knew
How to make the good drink
As none others do.
"And I thought moreover,
(Not with the epicures),
You might search the world over
For such women as yours.
"In both these matters now
I perceive I was right,
And I really can't tell you how
Much I delight
"In my third (Thanks, another cup!)
Idea of the fun,
When your country gets up
And follows the sun!
"And just as in Europe, see,
There's a conqueror nation,
So why not in Asia be
A like jubilation?
"Taught as well as organized, {69b}
The eternal Coolie,
From being robbed and despised,
Takes to cutting throats duly!
"But - please, don't be flurried;
For I daresay by then
You'll be comfortably buried,
Ladies and gentlemen!
"No more, thanks! I must be going!
I'm so glad to have made this
Opportunity of knowing
Some more Russian ladies!" |
Lines On The Death Of Sheridan. | Thomas Moore | principibus placuisse viris!
--HORAT.
Yes, grief will have way--but the fast falling tear
Shall be mingled with deep execrations on those
Who could bask in that Spirit's meridian career.
And yet leave it thus lonely and dark at its close:--
Whose vanity flew round him, only while fed
By the odor his fame in its summer-time gave;--
Whose vanity now, with quick scent for the dead,
Like the Ghoul of the East, comes to feed at his grave.
Oh! it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow,
And spirits so mean in the great and high-born;
To think what a long line of titles may follow
The relics of him who died--friendless and lorn!
How proud they can press to the funeral array
Of one whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow:--
How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day,
Whose palls shall be held up by nobles to-morrow!
And Thou too whose life, a sick epicure's dream,
Incoherent and gross, even grosser had past,
Were it not for that cordial and soul-giving beam
Which his friendship and wit o'er thy nothingness cast:--
No! not for the wealth of the land that supplies thee
With millions to heap upon Foppery's shrine;--
No! not for the riches of all who despise thee,
Tho' this would make Europe's whole opulence mine;--
Would I suffer what--even in the heart that thou hast--
All mean as it is--must have consciously burned.
When the pittance, which shame had wrung from thee at last,
And which found all his wants at an end, was returned![1]
"Was this then the fate,"--future ages will say,
When some names shall live but in history's curse;
When Truth will be heard, and these Lords of a day
Be forgotten as fools or remembered as worse;--
"Was this then the fate of that high-gifted man,
"The pride of the palace, the bower and the hall,
"The orator,--dramatist,--minstrel,--who ran
"Thro' each mode of the lyre and was master of all;--
"Whose mind was an essence compounded with art
"From the finest and best of all other men's powers;-
"Who ruled, like a wizard, the world of the heart,
"And could call up its sunshine or bring down its showers;--
"Whose humor, as gay as the firefly's light,
"Played round every subject and shone as it played;--
"Whose wit in the combat, as gentle as bright,
"Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade;--
"Whose eloquence--brightening whatever it tried,
"Whether reason or fancy, the gay or the grave,--
"Was as rapid, as deep and as brilliant a tide,
"As ever bore Freedom aloft on its wave!"
Yes--such was the man and so wretched his fate;--
And thus, sooner or later, shall all have to grieve,
Who waste their morn's dew in the beams of the Great,
And expect 'twill return to refresh them at eve.
In the woods of the North there are insects that prey
On the brain of the elk till his very last sigh;[2]
Oh, Genius! thy patrons, more cruel than they,
First feed on thy brains and then leave thee to die! |
Sonnets Upon The Punishment Of Death - In Series, 1839 - XIII - Conclusion - Yes, Though He Well May Tremble At The Sound | William Wordsworth | Yes, though He well may tremble at the sound
Of his own voice, who from the judgment-seat
Sends the pale Convict to his last retreat
In death; though Listeners shudder all around,
They know the dread requital's source profound;
Nor is, they feel, its wisdom obsolete
(Would that it were!) the sacrifice unmeet
For Christian Faith. But hopeful signs abound;
The social rights of man breathe purer air,
Religion deepens her preventive care;
Then, moved by needless fear of past abuse,
Strike not from Law's firm hand that awful rod,
But leave it thence to drop for lack of use:
Oh, speed the blessed hour, Almighty God! |
The Resemblance. | Thomas Moore | ---- vo cercand' io,
Donna quant' e possibile in altrui
La desiata vostra forma vera.
PETRARC, Sonett. 14.
Yes, if 'twere any common love,
That led my pliant heart astray,
I grant, there's not a power above
Could wipe the faithless crime away.
But 'twas my doom to err with one
In every look so like to thee
That, underneath yon blessed sun
So fair there are but thou and she
Both born of beauty, at a birth,
She held with thine a kindred sway,
And wore the only shape on earth
That could have lured my soul to stray.
Then blame me not, if false I be,
'Twas love that waked the fond excess;
My heart had been more true to thee,
Had mine eye prized thy beauty less. |
Love Letters of a Violinist. Letter VIII. A Vision. | Eric Mackay | Letter VIII. A Vision.
I.
Yes, I will tell thee what, a week ago,
I dreamt of thee, and all the joy therein
Which I conceiv'd, and all the holy din
Of throbbing music, which appear'd to flow
From room to room, as if to make me know
The power thereof to lead me out of sin.
II.
Methought I saw thee in a ray of light,
This side a grove - a dream within a dream -
With eyes of tender pleading, and the gleam
Of far-off summers in thy tresses bright;
And I did tremble at the gracious sight,
As one who sees a na'ad in a stream.
III.
I follow'd thee. I knew that, in the wood,
Where thus we met, there was a trysting-place.
I follow'd thee, as mortals in a chase
Follow the deer. I knew that it was good
To track thy step, and promptly understood
The fitful blush that flutter'd to thy face.
IV.
I followed thee to where a brook did run
Close to a grot; and there I knelt to thee.
And then a score of birds flew over me, -
Birds which arrived because the day was done,
To sing the Sanctus of the setting sun;
And then I heard thy voice upon the lea.
V.
"Follow!" it cried. I rose and follow'd fast;
And, in my dream, I felt the dream was true,
And that, full soon, Titania, with her crew
Of imps and fays, would meet me on the blast.
But this was hindered; and I quickly passed
Into the valley where the cedars grew.
VI.
And what a scene, O God! and what repose,
And what sad splendour in the burning west:
A languid sun low-dropping to his rest,
And incense rising, as of old it rose,
To do him honour at the daylight's close, -
The birds entranced, and all the winds repress'd.
VII.
I followed thee. I came to where a shrine
Stood in the trees, and where an oaken gate
Swung in the air, so turbulent of late.
I touch'd thy hand; it quiver'd into mine;
And then I look'd into thy face benign,
And saw the smile for which the angels wait.
VIII.
And lo! the moon had sailed into the main
Of that blue sky, as if therein did poise
A silver boat; and then a tuneful noise
Broke from the copse where late a breeze was slain;
And nightingales, in ecstasy of pain,
Did break their hearts with singing the old joys.
IX.
"Is this the spot?" I cried, "is this the spot
Where I must tell thee all my heart's desire?
Is this the time when I must drink the fire,
And eat the snow, and find it fever-hot?
I freeze with heat, and yet I fear it not;
And all my pulses thrill me like a lyre."
X.
A wondrous light was thrown upon thy face;
It was the light within; it was the ray
Of thine own soul. And then a voice did say,
"Glory to God the King, and Jesu's grace
Here and hereafter!" and about the place
A radiance shone surpassing that of day.
XI.
It was thy voice. It was the voice I prize
More than the sound of April in the dales,
More than the songs of larks and nightingales,
And more than the teachings of the worldly-wise.
"Glory to God," it said, "for in the skies,
And here on earth, 'tis He alone prevails."
XII.
And then I asked thee: "Shall I tell thee now
All that I think of, when, by land and sea,
The days and nights illume the world for me?
And how I muse on marriage, as I bow
In God's own places, with a throbbing brow?
And how, at night, I dream of kissing thee?"
XIII.
But thou did'st answer: "First behold this man!
He is thy lord, for love's and lady's sake;
He is thy master, or I much mistake."
And I perceiv'd, hard by, a phantom wan
And wild and kingly, who did, walking, span
The open space that lay beside the brake.
XIV.
It was Beethoven. It was he who came
From monstrous shades, to journey yet awhile
In pleasant nooks, and vainly seek the smile
Of one lov'd woman - she to whom his fame
Had been a glory had she sought the same,
And lov'd a soul so grand, so free from guile.
XV.
It was the Kaiser of the land of song,
The giant-singer who did storm the gates
Of Heaven and Hell, a man to whom the Fates
Were fierce as furies, and who suffer'd wrong
And ached and bore it, and was brave and strong,
But gaunt as ocean when its rage abates.
XVI.
I knew his tread. I knew him by his look
Of pent-up sorrow - by his hair unkempt
And torn attire - and by his smile exempt
From all but pleading. Yet his body shook
With some great joy; and onward he betook
His echoing steps the way that I had dreamt.
XVII.
I bow'd my head. The lordly being pass'd.
He was my king, and I did bow to him.
And when I rais'd mine eyes they were as dim
As tears could make them. And the moon, aghast,
Glared in the sky; and westward came a blast
Which shook the earth like shouts of cherubim.
XVIII.
I held my breath. I could have fled the place,
As men have fled before the wrath of God.
But I beheld my Lady where she trod
The darken'd path; and I did cry apace:
"Help me, my Lady!" and thy lustrous face
Gladden'd the air, and quicken'd all the sod.
XIX.
Then did I hear again that voice of cheer.
"Lovest thou me," it said, "or music best?"
I seized thy hand, I drew thee to my breast,
"Thee, only thee!" I cried. "From year to year,
Thee, only thee - not fame!" And silver-clear,
Thy voice responded: "God will grant the rest."
XX.
I kiss'd thine eyes. I kiss'd them where the blue
Peep'd smiling forth; and proudly as before
I heard the tones that thrill'd me to the core.
"If thou love me," they said, "if thou be true,
Thou shalt have fame, and love, and music too!"
Entranced I kiss'd the lips that I adore. |
The Mother. | Margaret Steele Anderson | Yes, Lord, I know! The child is thine
And in thy house he shall grow up.
Nor know the lash of life, nor cup
Of trembling, as if child of mine.
But ah, forgive me!, is he warm?
And fed? Or does he miss my breast?
Oh, I blaspheme! But can he rest.
And never cry, in Mary's arm? |
Regret. | Victor-Marie Hugo | ("Oui, le bonheur bien vite a pass'.")
[Bk. V. ii., February, 1821.]
Yes, Happiness hath left me soon behind!
Alas! we all pursue its steps! and when
We've sunk to rest within its arms entwined,
Like the Phoenician virgin, wake, and find
Ourselves alone again.
Then, through the distant future's boundless space,
We seek the lost companion of our days:
"Return, return!" we cry, and lo, apace
Pleasure appears! but not to fill the place
Of that we mourn always.
I, should unhallowed Pleasure woo me now,
Will to the wanton sorc'ress say, "Begone!
Respect the cypress on my mournful brow,
Lost Happiness hath left regret - but thou
Leavest remorse, alone."
Yet, haply lest I check the mounting fire,
O friends, that in your revelry appears!
With you I'll breathe the air which ye respire,
And, smiling, hide my melancholy lyre
When it is wet with tears.
Each in his secret heart perchance doth own
Some fond regret 'neath passing smiles concealed; -
Sufferers alike together and alone
Are we; with many a grief to others known,
How many unrevealed!
Alas! for natural tears and simple pains,
For tender recollections, cherished long,
For guileless griefs, which no compunction stains,
We blush; as if we wore these earthly chains
Only for sport and song!
Yes, my blest hours have fled without a trace:
In vain I strove their parting to delay;
Brightly they beamed, then left a cheerless space,
Like an o'erclouded smile, that in the face
Lightens, and fades away.
Fraser's Magazine |
Amelia Garrick | Edgar Lee Masters | Yes, here I lie close to a stunted rose bush
In a forgotten place near the fence
Where the thickets from Siever's woods
Have crept over, growing sparsely.
And you, you are a leader in New York,
The wife of a noted millionaire,
A name in the society columns,
Beautiful, admired, magnified perhaps
By the mirage of distance.
You have succeeded,
I have failed In the eyes of the world.
You are alive, I am dead.
Yet I know that I vanquished your spirit;
And I know that lying here far from you,
Unheard of among your great friends
In the brilliant world where you move,
I am really the unconquerable power over your life
That robs it of complete triumph.
|
That Swamp Of Death. | William McKendree Carleton | Yes, it's straight and true, good Preacher, every word that you have said;
Do not think these tears unmanly - they're the first ones I have shed!
But they kind o' beat and pounded 'gainst my aching heart and brain,
And they would not be let go of, and they gave me extra pain.
I am just a laboring man, sir - work for food and rags and sleep,
And I hardly know the meaning of the life I slave to keep;
But I know when times are cheery, or my heart is made of lead;
I know sorrow when I see it, and - I know my girl is dead!
No, she isn't much to look at - just a plainish bit of clay,
Of the sort of perished children that die 'round here every day;
And how she could break a heart up you'd be slow to understand,
But she held mine, Mr. Preacher, in that little withered hand!
There are lots of prettier children, with a face and form more fine -
Let their parents love and pet them - but this little one was mine!
There was no one else to cling to when we two were torn apart,
And it's death - this amputation of the strong arms of the heart!
I am just an ignorant man, sir, of the kind that digs and delves,
But I've learned that human beings cannot stay in by themselves;
They will reach out after something, be it good or be it bad,
And my heart on hers had settled, and - the girl was all I had!
Yes, it's solid, Mr. Preacher, every word that you have said -
God loves children while they're living, and adopts them when they're dead;
But I cannot help contriving, do the very best I can,
That it wasn't God's mercy took her, but the selfishness of man!
Why, she lay here, faint and gasping, moaning for a bit of air,
Choked and strangled by the foul breath of the chimneys over there;
It climbed through every window, and crept under every door,
And I tried to bar against it, and she only choked the more.
She would lie there, with the old look that poor children somehow get;
She had learned to use her patience, and she did not cry or fret,
But would lift her little face up, so piteous and so fair,
And would whisper, "I am dying for a little breath of air!"
If she'd gone off through the sunlight, 'twouldn't have seemed so hard to me,
Or among the fresh cool breezes that come sweeping from the sea;
But it's nothing less than murder when my darling's every breath
Chokes and strangles with the poison from that chimney swamp of death!
Oh, it's not enough those people own the very ground we tread,
And the shelter that we crouch in, and the tools that earn our bread;
They must place their blotted mortgage on the air and on the sky,
And shut out our little heaven, till our children pine and die!
Oh, the air is pure and wholesome where some babies coo and rest,
And they trim them out with ribbons, and they feed them with the best;
But the love they bear is mockery to the gracious God on high,
If to give those children luxuries some one else's child must die!
Oh, we wear the cheapest clothing, and our meals are scant and brief,
And perhaps those fellows fancy there's a cheaper grade of grief;
But the people all around here, losing children, friends, and mates,
Can inform them that Affliction hasn't any under-rates.
I'm no grumbler at the rulers of "this free and happy land,"
And I don't go 'round explaining things I do not understand;
But I know there's something treacherous in the working of the law,
When we get a dose of poison out of every breath we draw.
I have talked too much, good Preacher, and I hope you won't be vexed,
But I'm going to make a sermon with that white face for a text;
And I'll preach it, and I'll preach it, till I set the people wild
O'er the heartless, reckless grasping of the men who killed my child!
[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.]
Still do I write - day-time and night -
That which I see in my leisurely flight.
What is this sign that is claiming the sight? -
"Lodgings within here, at five cents per night!"
Let me examine this cheap-entered nest,
Pay my five cents, and go in with the rest;
Let me jot down with sly pen, but sincere,
What, in this garret, I see, smell, and hear.
Great, gloomy den! where, on close-clustered shelves,
Shelterless wretches can shelter themselves;
Pestilence-drugged is the murderous air,
Full of the breathings of want and despair!
Horrible place! - where The Crushed Race
Winces 'neath Poverty's dolefullest blight -
Bivouac of suffering, sin, and disgrace:
What can you look for, at five cents per night?
Hustle them in, jostle them in,
Many of nation, and divers of kin;
Sallow, and yellow, and tawny of skin -
Hustle them, bustle them, jostle them in!
Handfuls of withered but suffering clay,
Swept from the East by oppression away;
Baffled adventurers, conquered and pressed
Back from the gates of the glittering West;
Men who with indolence, folly, and guile
Carelessly slighted Prosperity's smile;
Men who have struggled 'gainst Destiny's frown,
Inch after inch, till she hunted them down.
Scores in a tier - pile them up here -
Many of peoples and divers of kin;
Drift of the nations, from far and from near,
Hustle them, bustle them, jostle them in!
Islands of green, mistily seen,
Hover in visions these sleepers between;
Beautiful memories, cozy and clean,
Restfully precious, and sweetly serene.
Womanly kisses have softened the brow
Lying in drunken bewilderment now;
Infantile faces have cuddled for rest
Here on this savage and rag-covered breast.
Lucky the wretch who, in Poverty's ways,
Bears not the burden of "happier days:"
Many a midnight is gloomier yet
By the remembrance of stars that have set!
Echoes of pain, drearily plain,
Come of old melodies sweet and serene;
Images sad to the heart and the brain
Rise out of memories cozy and green.
* * * * *
Hustle them in, bustle them in,
Fetid with squalor, and reeking with gin,
Loaded with misery, folly, and sin -
Hustle them, bustle them, jostle them in!
Few are the sorrows so hopelessly drear
But they have sad representatives here;
Never a crime so complete and confessed
But has come hither for one night of rest.
Seeds that the thorns of diseases may bear
Float on the putrid and smoke-laden air;
Ghosts of destruction are haunting each breath -
Soft-stepping agents, commissioned by Death.
Crowd them in rows, comrades or foes,
Deadened with liquor and deafened with din,
Fugitives out of the frosts and the snows,
Hustle them, bustle them, jostle them in!
* * * * *
Guilt has not pressed unto its breast
All who are taking this dingy unrest:
Innocence often is Misery's guest;
Sorrow may strike at the brightest and best.
You from whom hope, but not feeling, has fled,
This is your refuge from pauperhood's bed;
Timorous lad with a sensitive face,
You have no record of crime and disgrace;
Weary old man with the snow-drifted hair,
Not by your fault are you suffering there,
Never a child of your cherishing nigh -
'Tis not for sin you so drearily die.
Pain, in all lands, smites with two hands -
Guilty and good may encounter the test;
Misery's cord is of different strands;
Sorrow may strike at the brightest and best.
Sympathy's tear, warm and sincere,
Cannot but glisten while lingering near.
Edge not away, sir, in horror of fear,
These are your brothers - this family here!
What if Misfortune had made you forlorn
With her stiletto as well as her scorn?
What if some fiend had been making you sure
With more temptation than flesh could endure?
What if you deep in the slums had been born,
Cradled in villany, christened in scorn?
What if your toys had been tainted with crime?
What if your baby hands dabbled in slime?
Judge them with ruth. Maybe, in truth,
It is not they, but their luck, that is here.
Fancy your growth from a sin-nurtured youth;
Pity their weakness, and give them a tear.
Help them get out; help them keep out!
Labor to teach them what life is about;
Give them a hand unencumbered with doubt;
Feed them and clothe them, but pilot them out!
Mortals depraved, whatsoe'er they have been,
Soonest can mend from assistance within.
Warm them and feed them - they're beasts, even then;
Teach them and love them - they grow into men.
You who 'mid luxuries costly and grand
Decorate homes with munificent hand,
Use, in some measure, your exquisite arts
For the improvement of minds and of hearts.
Lilies must grow up from below,
Where the strong rootlets are twining about;
Goodness and honesty ever must flow
From the heart-centres - to blossom without.
[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]
FEBRUARY 28, 18 - .
Wind in the west; no symptoms of a thaw;
The coldest, bleakest day I ever saw.
And I'm housed up, with nothing much to do
Except to read the papers through and through.
"Died of starvation!" - what does this all mean?
Stores of provisions everywhere are seen.
"Died of starvation!" - here's the place and name
Right in the paper; let us blush for shame!
This city wastes what any one would call
Nine hundred times enough to feed us all;
And yet folks die in garret, hut, and street,
Simply because there isn't enough to eat!
Oh, heavens! there runs a great big Norway rat,
Sleek as a banker, and almost as fat;
He daily breakfasts, dines, and sups, and thrives
On what would save a pair of human lives;
He rears a family with his own fat features,
On food we lock up from our fellow-creatures;
And human beings fall down by the way,
And die for want of food, this very day!
"Frozen to death!" - the worse than useless moth
May feed, this year, on bales and bales of cloth;
Untouched, ten million tons of coal can lie,
While God's own human beings freeze and die!
"Died of starvation!" - waves of golden wheat
All summer dashed and glistened at our feet;
Dull, senseless grain is stored in buildings high,
And God's own human beings starve and die!
I would not rob from rich men what they earn,
But I would have them sweet compassion learn;
Oh, do not Pity's gentle voice defy,
While God's own human beings starve and die!
* * * * *
MARCH 5, 18 - .
Died of starvation! - yes, it has been done;
To-day I've seen a hunger-murdered one,
Who had a perfect right, it seemed to me,
The mistress of a happy home to be;
And yet we found her on a ragged bed,
One white arm underneath a shapely head;
Her long, bright hair was lying, fold on fold,
Like finest threads spun from a bar of gold;
Her face was chiselled after beauty's style,
And want had not hewn out its witching smile;
'Twas like white marble half endowed with breath -
The face of this sweet maiden - starved to death!
Not far from where she lay, so sadly lone,
Her calendar, or "diary," was thrown;
They let me have it when the law had read
This plaintive, girlish message from the dead.
It doesn't look well among these notes to stay,
Of one who feeds on blessings every day;
But I will put it in here, for my heart
To look at when I feel too proud and smart!
|
Lake Mahopac Saturday Night. | George Augustus Baker, Jr. | "Yes, I'm here, I suppose you're delighted:
You'd heard I was not coming down!
Why I've been here a week! 'rather early'
I know, but it's horrid in town
A Boston? Most certainly, thank you.
This music is perfectly sweet;
Of course I like dancing in summer;
It's warm, but I don't mind the heat.
The clumsy thing! Oh! how he hurt me!
I really can't dance any more
Let's walk see, they're forming a Lancers;
These square dances are such a bore.
My cloak oh! I really don't need it
Well, carry it, so, in the folds
I hate it, but Ma made me bring it;
She's frightened to death about colds.
This is rather cooler than dancing.
They're lovely piazzas up here;
Those lanterns look sweet in the bushes,
It's lucky the night is so clear.
I am rather tired in this corner?
Very well, if you like I don't care
But you'll have to sit on the railing
You see there is only one chair.
'So long since you've seen me' oh, ages!
Let's see, why it's ten days ago
'Seems years' oh! of course don't look spooney
It isn't becoming, you know.
How bright the stars seem to-night, don't they?
What was it you said about eyes?
How sweet! why you must be a poet
One never can tell till he tries.
Why can't you be sensible, Harry!
I don't like men's arms on my chair.
Be still! if you don't stop this nonsense
I'll get up and leave you; so there!
Oh! please don't I don't want to hear it
A boy like you talking of love.
'My answer!' Well, sir, you shall have it
Just wait till I get off my glove.
See that? Well, you needn't look tragic,
It's only a solitaire ring,
Of course I am 'proud of it' very
It's rather an elegant thing.
Engaged! yes why, didn't you know it?
I thought the news must have reached here
Why, the wedding will be in October
The 'happy man' Charley Leclear.
Now don't blame me I tried to stop you
But you would go on like a goose;
I'm sorry it happened forget it
Don't think of it don't what's the use?
There's somebody coming don't look so
Get up on the railing again
Can't you seem as if nothing had happened?
I never saw such geese as men!
Ah, Charley, you've found me! A galop?
The 'Bahn frei?' Yes; take my bouquet
And my fan, if you will now I'm ready
You'll excuse me, of course, Mr. Gray."
|
Art. | Francis William Lauderdale Adams | Yes, let Art go, if it must be
That with it men must starve -
If Music, Painting, Poetry
Spring from the wasted hearth.
Pluck out the flower, however fair,
Whose beauty cannot bloom,
(However sweet it be, or rare)
Save from a noisome tomb.
These social manners, charm and ease,
Are hideous to who knows
The degradation, the disease
From which their beauty flows.
So, Poet, must thy singing be;
O Painter, so thy scene;
Musician, so thy melody,
While misery is queen.
Nay, brothers, sing us battle-songs
With clear and ringing rhyme;
Nay, show the world its hateful wrongs,
And bring the better time! |
A Coquette Conquered | Paul Laurence Dunbar | Yes, my ha't 's ez ha'd ez stone--
Go 'way, Sam, an' lemme 'lone.
No; I ain't gwine change my min'--
Ain't gwine ma'y you--nuffin' de kin'.
Phiny loves you true an' deah?
Go ma'y Phiny; whut I keer?
Oh, you need n't mou'n an' cry--
I don't keer how soon you die.
Got a present! Whut you got?
Somef'n fu' de pan er pot!
Huh! yo' sass do sholy beat--
Think I don't git 'nough to eat?
Whut's dat un'neaf yo' coat?
Looks des lak a little shoat.
'T ain't no possum! Bless de Lamb!
Yes, it is, you rascal, Sam!
Gin it to me; whut you say?
Ain't you sma't now! Oh, go 'way!
Possum do look mighty nice,
But you ax too big a price.
Tell me, is you talkin' true,
Dat 's de gal's whut ma'ies you?
Come back, Sam; now whah 's you gwine?
Co'se you knows dat possum's mine! |
Flirtation. | Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon | Yes, leave my side to flirt with Maude,
To gaze into her eyes,
To whisper in her ear sweet words,
And low impassioned sighs;
And though she give you glance for glance,
And smile and scheme and plot,
You cannot raise a jealous thought,
I know you love her not.
Now turn to laughing Lulu,
That Witty, gay coquette,
With her teeth of shining pearl,
Her eyes and hair of jet:
With a mirthful smile imprison
Her hand within your own,
And softly press it - what care I?
You love but me alone.
To Ida's chair you wander,
You're bending o'er her now,
Until your own dark curls have brushed
Against her queenly brow;
In vain she strives to bind you
With fascinating spell;
For if sharply now I suffer,
You suffer too as well.
This fit of gay coquetry
Is meant, ah! well I know
To avenge my quiet flirting
At our ball a night ago,
With that winning, handsome stranger, -
Remember, Harry dear,
'Twas yourself who introduced him,
Yourself who brought him here.
Let us cease this cruel warfare,
Come back to me again!
Ah, what do we reap from flirting
But heartaches, mutual pain?
You'll forgive my past shortcomings -
Be tender as of yore
And we both will make a promise
To henceforth flirt no more. |
Owl, Swan, Cock, Spider, Ass, And Farmer. | John Gay | (To a Mother.)
Yes, I have seen your eyes maternal
Beam, as beam forth the stars eternal,
Intercommuning of your joys -
Sayings and doings of your boys.
Nature, in body and in mind,
Has been to them profusely kind;
It now remains to do your part,
To sow good morals in the heart.
None other, as a mother can,
Can form and educate the man.
Perhaps now you anticipate
In youth unknown each future state.
The Church, the Navy, and the Bar,
I censure not: such choices are
Precarious truly in the event;
Yet ere we give a last assent,
We should remember nor destroy
The latent genius in the boy.
Martial relates - a father once
Wrote thus about his boy, a dunce:
"You know I've stuck at no expense
To train the lad, and rouse his sense;
To me it seems he backward goes
Like to a crab - for aught he knows.
My friend, advise me what to do."
And Martial thus replied in few:
"Make him a grazier or a drover,
And let him dwell in rural clover."
'Tis doubtful if the father heard
This answer - he returned no word.
The urchin, wanting wit, is sent
To school to grow impertinent;
To college next; which left, he blunders
In law, or military thunders;
Or, if by medical degree,
The sexton shares the doctor's fee,
Or, if for orders passed, as full fit,
He only potters from the pulpit,
We see that Nature has been foiled
Of her intent - a tradesman spoiled.
And even so do Ministers
Reward with places human burrs;
For it is very meet and fit
They should reward their kinsman's wit.
Are such times past? Does merit now
In a due course and channel flow?
Distinguished in their posts, do we
Worth and desert rewarded see?
Survey the reverend bench, and spy
If patrons choose by piety?
Is honesty, disgraced and poor,
Distinct from what it was of yore?
And are all offices no longer
Granted unto the rich and stronger?
And are they never held by sparks,
With all the business done by clerks?
Do we, now, never contemplate
Appointments such, in Church and State?
And is there in no post a hobbler,
Who should have been, by right, a cobbler?
Patrons, consider such creations
Expose yourselves and your relations;
You should, as parents to the nation,
Ponder upon such nomination -
And know, whene'er you wield a trust,
Your judgment ever should be just.
An owl of magisterial air,
Of solemn aspect, filled the chair;
And, with the port of human race,
Wore wisdom written on his face.
He from the flippant world retired,
And in a barn himself admired;
And, like an ancient sage, concealed
The follies foppish life revealed.
He pondered o'er black-lettered pages
Of old philosophers and sages -
Of Xenophon, and of the feat
Of the ten thousand in retreat;
Pondered o'er Plutarch and o'er Plato,
On Scipio, Socrates, and Cato.
But what most roused the bird's conceit,
Was Athens - academic seat -
From which he thought himself descended.
He an academy attended,
And learnt by rote dogmatic rules;
And, with trite sentences for tools,
He opened an academy -
Himself the Magister to be:
And it won fame. The stately swan
There sent her son and heir; her son
Dame Partlet sent; and Mister Spider,
Who in mechanics levelled wider;
And Sir John Asinus, with hopes
On music, metaphors, and tropes.
With years, their education done
And life before them to be run,
The mothers Dr. Owl consulted
On their career - and this resulted:
The swan was to the army sent;
The cock unto the navy went;
The spider went to Court; and Neddy
For Handel's music was made ready.
They played their parts, the public railed:
They, spite of education, failed.
"You blockhead!" said an honest farmer,
Who grew with indignation warmer,
"You are an owl: and are as blind,
As parents, to the youthful mind.
Had you with judgment judged, the swan
Had his career in nautics ran;
The cock had played the soldier's part.
The spider plied the weaver's art;
And for the donkey, dull and crass,
You should have let him be an ass."
|
Yes, The Weary Earth Shall Brighten. | Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule) | Yes, the weary earth shall brighten -
Brighten in the perfect day,
And the fields that now but whiten,
Golden glow beneath the ray!
Slowly swelling in her bosom,
Long the precious seed has lain, -
Soon shall come the perfect blossom,
Soon, the rich, abundant grain!
Long has been the night of weeping,
But the morning dawns at length,
And, the misty heights o'ersweeping,
Lo, the sun comes forth in strength!
Down the slopes of ancient mountains,
Over plain, and vale, and stream,
Flood, and field, and sparkling fountains,
Speeds the warm rejoicing beam!
Think not God can fail His promise!
Think not Christ can be denied!
He shall see His spirit's travail -
He shall yet be satisfied!
Soon the "Harvest home" of angels
Shall resound from shore to shore,
And amid Earth's glad evangels,
Christ shall reign for evermore! |
Lines On Receiving From The Eight Hon. The Lady Frances Shirley[63] A Standish And Two Pens. | Alexander Pope | 1 Yes, I beheld the Athenian queen
Descend in all her sober charms;
'And take,' she said, and smiled serene,
'Take at this hand celestial arms:
2 'Secure the radiant weapons wield;
This golden lance shall guard desert;
And if a vice dares keep the field,
This steel shall stab it to the heart.'
3 Awed, on my bended knees I fell,
Received the weapons of the sky;
And dipp'd them in the sable well,
The fount of fame or infamy.
4 'What well? what weapon?' Flavia cries--
'A standish, steel, and golden pen!
It came from Bertrand's,[64] not the skies;
I gave it you to write again.
5 'But, friend, take heed whom you attack;
You'll bring a house (I mean of peers)
Red, blue, and green, nay, white and black,
L---- and all about your ears.
6 'You'd write as smooth again on glass,
And run, on ivory, so glib,
As not to stick at fool or ass,[65]
Nor stop at flattery or fib.[66]
7 'Athenian queen! and sober charms!
I tell ye, fool, there's nothing in't:
'Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms;[67]
In Dryden's Virgil see the print.[68]
8 'Come, if you'll be a quiet soul,
That dares tell neither truth nor lies,[69]
I'll list you in the harmless roll
Of those that sing of these poor eyes.' |
The Nightingale Unheard | Josephine Preston Peabody | Yes, Nightingale, through all the summer-time
We followed on, from moon to golden moon;
From where Salerno day-dreams in the noon,
And the far rose of P'stum once did climb.
All the white way beside the girdling blue,
Through sun-shrill vines and campanile chime,
We listened;--from the old year to the new.
Brown bird, and where were you?
You, that Ravello lured not, throned on high
And filled with singing out of sun-burned throats!
Nor yet Minore of the flame-sailed boats;
Nor yet--of all bird-song should glorify--
Assisi, Little Portion of the blest,
Assisi, in the bosom of the sky,
Where God's own singer thatched his sunward nest;
That little, heavenliest!
And north and north, to where the hedge-rows are,
That beckon with white looks an endless way;
Where, through the fair wet silverness of May,
A lamb shines out as sudden as a star,
Among the cloudy sheep; and green, and pale,
The may-trees reach and glimmer, near or far,
And the red may-trees wear a shining veil.
--And still, no nightingale!
The one vain longing,--through all journeyings,
The one: in every hushed and hearkening spot,--
All the soft-swarming dark where you were not,
Still longed for! Yes, for sake of dreams and wings,
And wonders, that your own must ever make
To bower you close, with all hearts' treasurings;
And for that speech toward which all hearts do ache;--
Even for Music's sake.
But most, his music whose belov'd name
Forever writ in water of bright tears,
Wins to one grave-side even the Roman years,
That kindle there the hallowed April flame
Of comfort-breathing violets. By that shrine
Of Youth, Love, Death, forevermore the same,
Violets still!--When falls, to leave no sign,
The arch of Constantine.
Most for his sake we dreamed. Tho' not as he,
From that lone spirit, brimmed with human woe,
Your song once shook to surging overflow.
How was it, sovran dweller of the tree,
His cry, still throbbing in the flooded shell
Of silence with remembered melody,
Could draw from you no answer to the spell?
--O Voice, O Philomel?
Long time we wondered (and we knew not why):--
Nor dream, nor prayer, of wayside gladness born,
Nor vineyards waiting, nor reproachful thorn,
Nor yet the nested hill-towns set so high
All the white way beside the girdling blue,--
Nor olives, gray against a golden sky,
Could serve to wake that rapturous voice of you!
But the wise silence knew.
O Nightingale unheard!--Unheard alone,
Throughout that woven music of the days
From the faint sea-rim to the market-place,
And ring of hammers on cathedral stone!--
So be it, better so: that there should fail
For sun-filled ones, one bless'd thing unknown.
To them, be hid forever,--and all hail!
Sing never, Nightingale.
Sing, for the others! Sing; to some pale cheek
Against the window, like a starving flower.
Loose, with your singing, one poor pilgrim hour
Of journey, with some Heart's Desire to seek.
Loose, with your singing, captives such as these
In misery and iron, hearts too meek,
For voyage--voyage over dreamful seas
To lost Hesperides.
Sing not for free-men. Ah, but sing for whom
The walls shut in; and even as eyes that fade,
The windows take no heed of light nor shade,--
The leaves are lost in mutterings of the loom.
Sing near! So in that golden overflowing
They may forget their wasted human bloom;
Pay the devouring days their all, unknowing.--
Reck not of life's bright going!
Sing not for lovers, side by side that hark;
Nor unto parted lovers, save they be
Parted indeed by more than makes the Sea.
Where never hope shall meet--like mounting lark--
Far Joy's uprising; and no memories
Abide to star the music-haunted dark:
To them that sit in darkness, such as these,
Pour down, pour down heart's-ease.
Not in kings' gardens. No; but where there haunt
The world's forgotten, both of men and birds;
The alleys of no hope and of no words,
The hidings where men reap not, though they plant;
But toil and thirst--so dying and so born;--
And toil and thirst to gather to their want,
From the lean waste, beyond the daylight's scorn,
--To gather grapes of thorn!
* * * * *
And for those two, your pilgrims without tears,
Who prayed a largess where there was no dearth,
Forgive it to their human-happy ears:
Forgive it them, brown music of the Earth,
Unknowing,--though the wiser silence knew!
Forgive it to the music of the spheres
That while they walked together so, the Two
Together,--heard not you.
ENVOI
Belov'd, till the day break,
Leave wide the little door;
And bless, to lack and longing,
Our brimming more-and-more.
Is love a scanted portion,
That we should hoard thereof?--
Oh, call unto the deserts,
Belov'd and my Love! |
Jim's Whip | Barcroft Boake | Yes, there it hangs upon the wall
And never gives a sound,
The hand that trimmed its greenhide fall
Is hidden underground,
There, in that patch of sally shade,
Beneath that grassy mound.
I never take it from the wall,
That whip belonged to him,
The man I singled from them all,
He was my husband, Jim;
I see him now, so straight and tall,
So long and lithe of limb.
That whip was with him night and day
When he was on the track;
I've often heard him laugh. and say
That when they heard its crack,
After the breaking of the drought,
The cattle all came back.
And all the time that Jim was here
A-working on the run
I'd hear that whip ring sharp and clear
Just about set of sun
To let me know that he was near
And that his work was done.
I was away that afternoon,
Penning the calves, when, bang!
I heard his whip, 'Twas rather soon,
A thousand echoes rang
And died away among the hills,
As toward the hut I sprang.
I made the tea and waited, but,
Seized by a sudden whim,
I went and sat outside the hut
Watching the light grow dim,
I waited there till after dark,
But not a sign of Jim.
The evening air was damp with dew;
Just as the clock struck ten
His horse came riderless, I knew
What was the matter then.
Why should the Lord have singled out
My Jim from other men?
I took the horse and found him where
He lay beneath the sky
With blood all clotted on his hair;
I felt too dazed to cry,
I held him to me as I prayed
To God that I might die.
But sometimes now I seem to hear,
Just when the air grows chill,
A single whip-crack, sharp and clear,
Re-echo from the hill.
That's Jim, to let me know he's near
And thinking of me still. |
Art. | Francis William Lauderdale Adams | "Yes, let Art go, if it must be
That with it men must starve -
If Music, Painting, Poetry
Spring from the wasted hearth!"
Yes, let Art go, till once again
Through fearless heads and hands
The toil of millions and the pain
Be passed from out the lands:
Till from the few their plunder falls
To those who've toiled and earned
But misery's hopeless intervals
From those who've robbed and spurned.
Yes, let Art go, without a fear,
Like autumn flowers we burn,
For, with her reawakening year,
Be sure she will return! -
Return, but greater, nobler yet
Because her laurel crown
With dew and not with blood is wet,
And as our queen sit down! |
Bitterness | Victoria Mary Sackville-West | Yes, they were kind exceedingly; most mild
Even in indignation, taking by the hand
One that obeyed them mutely, as a child
Submissive to a law he does not understand.
They would not blame the sins his passion wrought.
No, they were tolerant and Christian, saying, 'We
Only deplore ...' saying they only sought
To help him, strengthen him, to show him love; but he
Following them with unrecalcitrant tread,
Quiet, towards their town of kind captivities,
Having slain rebellion, ever turned his head
Over his shoulder, seeking still with his poor eyes
Her motionless figure on the road. The song
Rang still between them, vibrant bell to answering bell,
Full of young glory as a bugle; strong;
Still brave; now breaking like a sea-bird's cry 'Farewell!'
And they, they whispered kindly to him 'Come!
Now we have rescued you. Let your heart heal. Forget!
She was your lawless dark familiar.' Dumb,
He listened, and they thought him acquiescent. Yet,
(Knowing the while that they were very kind)
Remembrance clamoured in him: 'She was wild and free,
Magnificent in giving; she was blind
To gain or loss, and, loving, loved but me, but me!
'Valiant she was, and comradely, and bold;
High-mettled; all her thoughts a challenge, like gay ships
Adventurous, with treasure in the hold.
I met her with the lesson put into my lips,
'Spoke reason to her, and she bowed her head,
Having no argument, and giving up the strife.
She said I should be free. I think she said
That, for the asking, she would give me all her life.'
And still they led him onwards, and he still
Looked back towards her standing there; and they, content,
Cheered him and praised him that he did their will.
The gradual distance hid them, and she turned, and went.
|
Death In A London Lodging | Richard Le Gallienne | 'Yes, Sir, she's gone at last - 'twas only five minutes ago
We heard her sigh from her corner, - she sat in the kitchen, you know:
We were all just busy on breakfast, John cleaning the boots, and I
Had just gone into the larder - but you could have heard that sigh
Right up in the garret, sir, for it seemed to pass one by
Like a puff of wind - may be 'twas her soul, who knows -
And we all looked up and ran to her - just in time to see her head
Was sinking down on her bosom and "she's gone at last," I said.'
So Mrs. Pownceby, meeting on the stairs
Her second-floor lodger, me, bound citywards,
Told of her sister's death, doing her best
To match her face's colour with the news:
While I in listening made a running gloss
Beneath her speech of all she left unsaid.
As - 'in the kitchen,' rather in the way,
Poor thing; 'busy on breakfast,' awkward time,
Indeed, for one must live and lodgers' meals,
You know, must be attended to what comes -
(Or goes, I added for her) yes! indeed.
'"She's gone at last," I said,' and better perhaps,
For what had life for her but suffering?
And then, we're only poor, sir, John and I,
And she indeed was somewhat of a strain:
O! yes, it's for the best for all of us.
And still beneath all else methought I read
'What will the lodgers think, having the dead
Within the house! how inconvenient!'
What did the lodgers think? Well, I replied
In grief's set phrase, but 'the first floor,'
I fancy, frowned at first, as though indeed
Landladies' sisters had no right to die
And taint the air for nervous lodger folk;
Then smoothed his brow out into decency,
And said, 'how sad!' and presently inquired
The day of burial, ending with the hope
His lunch would not be late like yesterday.
The maiden-lady living near the roof
Quoted Isaiah may be, or perhaps Job -
How the Lord gives, and likewise takes away,
And how exceeding blessed is the Lord! -
For she has pious features; while downstairs
Two 'medicals' - both 'decent' lads enough -
Hearkened the story out like gentlemen,
And said the right thing - almost looked it too!
Though all the while within them laughed a sea
Of student mirth, which for full half an hour
They stifled well, but then could hold no more,
As soon their mad piano testified:
While in the kitchen dinner was toward
With hiss and bubble from the cooking stove,
And now a laugh from John ran up the stairs,
And a voice called aloud - of boiling pans.
'So soon,' reflected I, 'the waters of life
Close o'er the sunken head!' Reflected I,
Not that in truth I was more pitiful
To the poor dead than those about me were,
Nay, but a trick of thinking much on Life
And Death i' the piece giveth each little strand
More deep significance - love for the whole
Must make us tender for the parts, methinks,
As in some souls the equal law holds true,
Sorrow for one makes sorrow for the world.
A fallen leaf or a dead flower indeed
Has made me just as sad, or some poor bee
Dead in the early summer - what's the odds?
Death was at '48,' and yet what sign?
Who seemed to know? who could have known that called?
For not a blind was lower than its wont -
'The lodgers would not like them down,' you know -
And in all rooms, save one, the boisterous life
Blazed like the fires within the several grates -
Save one where lay the poor dead silent thing,
A closest chill as who hath sat at night
With love beside the ingle knows the ashes
In the morning.
Death was at '48,'
Yet Life and Love and Sunlight were there too.
I ate and slept, and morning came at length
And brought my Lady's letter to my bed:
Thrice read and thirty kisses, came a thought,
As the sweet morning laughed about the room
Of the poor face downstairs, the sunshine there
Playing about it like a wakeful child
Whose weary mother sleepeth in the dawn,
Pressing soft fingers round about the eyes
To make them open, then with laughing shout
Making a gambol all her body's length
Ah me! poor eyes that never open more!
And mine as blithe to meet the morning's glance
As thirsty lips to close on thirsty lips!
Poor limbs no sun could ever warm again!
And mine so eager for the coming day! |
Midnight Mass For The Dying Year | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Yes, the Year is growing old,
And his eye is pale and bleared!
Death, with frosty hand and cold,
Plucks the old man by the beard,
Sorely, sorely!
The leaves are falling, falling,
Solemnly and slow;
Caw! caw! the rooks are calling,
It is a sound of woe,
A sound of woe!
Through woods and mountain passes
The winds, like anthems, roll;
They are chanting solemn masses,
Singing, "Pray for this poor soul,
Pray, pray!"
And the hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain,
And patter their doleful prayers;
But their prayers are all in vain,
All in vain!
There he stands in the foul weather,
The foolish, fond Old Year,
Crowned with wild flowers and with heather,
Like weak, despised Lear,
A king, a king!
Then comes the summer-like day,
Bids the old man rejoice!
His joy! his last! O, the man gray
Loveth that ever-soft voice,
Gentle and low.
To the crimson woods he saith,
To the voice gentle and low
Of the soft air, like a daughter's breath,
"Pray do not mock me so!
Do not laugh at me!"
And now the sweet day is dead;
Cold in his arms it lies;
No stain from its breath is spread
Over the glassy skies,
No mist or stain!
Then, too, the Old Year dieth,
And the forests utter a moan,
Like the voice of one who crieth
In the wilderness alone,
"Vex not his ghost!"
Then comes, with an awful roar,
Gathering and sounding on,
The storm-wind from Labrador,
The wind Euroclydon,
The storm-wind!
Howl! howl! and from the forest
Sweep the red leaves away!
Would, the sins that thou abhorrest,
O Soul! could thus decay,
And be swept away!
For there shall come a mightier blast,
There shall be a darker day;
And the stars, from heaven down-cast
Like red leaves be swept away!
Kyrie, eleyson!
Christe, eleyson! |
A Reminiscence | Anne Bronte | Yes, thou art gone ! and never more
Thy sunny smile shall gladden me ;
But I may pass the old church door,
And pace the floor that covers thee.
May stand upon the cold, damp stone,
And think that, frozen, lies below
The lightest heart that I have known,
The kindest I shall ever know.
Yet, though I cannot see thee more,
'Tis still a comfort to have seen ;
And though thy transient life is o'er,
'Tis sweet to think that thou hast been ;
To think a soul so near divine,
Within a form so angel fair,
United to a heart like thine,
Has gladdened once our humble sphere. |
Sonnet XCI. | Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) | Dell' empia Babilonia, ond' ' fuggita.
LEAVING ROME, HE DESIRES ONLY PEACE WITH LAURA AND PROSPERITY TO COLONNA.
Yes, out of impious Babylon I'm flown,
Whence flown all shame, whence banish'd is all good,
That nurse of error, and of guilt th' abode,
To lengthen out a life which else were gone:
There as Love prompts, while wandering alone,
I now a garland weave, and now an ode;
With him I commune, and in pensive mood
Hope better times; this only checks my moan.
Nor for the throng, nor fortune do I care,
Nor for myself, nor sublunary things,
No ardour outwardly, or inly springs:
I ask two persons only: let my fair
For me a kind and tender heart maintain;
And be my friend secure in his high post again.
NOTT.
From impious Babylon, where all shame is dead,
And every good is banish'd to far climes,
Nurse of rank errors, centre of worst crimes,
Haply to lengthen life, I too am fled:
Alone, at last alone, and here, as led
At Love's sweet will, I posies weave or rhymes,
Self-parleying, and still on better times
Wrapt in fond thoughts whence only hope is fed.
Cares for the world or fortune I have none,
Nor much for self, nor any common theme:
Nor feel I in me, nor without, great heat.
Two friends alone I ask, and that the one
More merciful and meek to me may seem,
The other well as erst, and firm of feet.
MACGREGOR. |
Yes, Holy Be Thy Resting Place | Emily Bronte | Yes, holy be thy resting place
Wherever thou may'st lie;
The sweetest winds breathe on thy face,
The softest of the sky.
And will not guardian Angles send
Kind dreams and thoughts of love,
Though I no more may watchful bend
Thy longed repose above?
And will not heaven itself bestow
A beam of glory there
That summer's grass more green may grow,
And summer's flowers more fair?
Farewell, farewell, 'tis hard to part
Yet, loved one, it must be:
I would not rend another heart
Not even by blessing thee.
Go! We must break affection's chain,
Forget the hopes of years:
Nay, grieve not - willest thou remain
To waken wilder tears
This herald breeze with thee and me,
Roved in the dawning day:
And thou shouldest be where it shall be
Ere evening, far away. |
Death. | George MacDonald | Yes, there is one who makes us all lay down
Our mushroom vanities, our speculations,
Our well-set theories and calculations,
Our workman's jacket or our monarch's crown!
To him alike the country and the town,
Barbaric hordes or civilized nations,
Men of all names and ranks and occupations,
Squire, parson, lawyer, Jones, or Smith, or Brown!
He stops the carter: the uplifted whip
Falls dreamily among the horses' straw;
He stops the helmsman, and the gallant ship
Holdeth to westward by another law;
No one will see him, no one ever saw,
But he sees all and lets not any slip.
|
The Phoebe-Bird | George Parsons Lathrop | (A REPLY)
Yes, I was wrong about the phoebe-bird.
Two songs it has, and both of them I've heard:
I did not know those strains of joy and sorrow
Came from one throat, or that each note could borrow
Strength from the other, making one more brave
And one as sad as rain-drops on a grave.
But thus it is. Two songs have men and maidens:
One is for hey-day, one is sorrow's cadence.
Our voices vary with the changing seasons
Of life's long year, for deep and natural reasons.
Therefore despair not. Think not you have altered,
If, at some time, the gayer note has faltered.
We are as God has made us. Gladness, pain,
Delight and death, and moods of bliss or bane,
With love and hate, or good and evil - all,
At separate times, in separate accents call;
Yet 't is the same heart-throb within the breast
That gives an impulse to our worst and best.
I doubt not when our earthly cries are ended,
The Listener finds them in one music blended. |
Yes Thou Art Gone | Anne Bronte | Yes, thou art gone! and never more
Thy sunny smile shall gladden me;
But I may pass the old church door,
And pace the floor that covers thee,
May stand upon the cold, damp stone,
And think that, frozen, lies below
The lightest heart that I have known,
The kindest I shall ever know.
Yet, though I cannot see thee more,
'Tis still a comfort to have seen;
And though thy transient life is o'er,
'Tis sweet to think that thou hast been;
To think a soul so near divine,
Within a form, so angel fair,
United to a heart like thine,
Has gladdened once our humble sphere. |
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part III. - XIX - The Liturgy | William Wordsworth | Yes, if the intensities of hope and fear
Attract us still, and passionate exercise
Of lofty thoughts, the way before us lies
Distinct with signs, through which in set career,
As through a zodiac, moves the ritual year
Of England's Church; stupendous mysteries!
Which whoso travels in her bosom eyes,
As he approaches them, with solemn cheer.
Upon that circle traced from sacred story
We only dare to cast a transient glance,
Trusting in hope that Others may advance
With mind intent upon the King of Glory,
From his mild advent till his countenance
Shall dissipate the seas and mountains hoary. |
To Laura In Death. Ballata I. | Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) | Amor, quando fioria.
HIS GRIEF AT SURVIVING HER IS MITIGATED BY THE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT SHE NOW KNOWS HIS HEART.
Yes, Love, at that propitious time
When hope was in its bloomy prime,
And when I vainly fancied nigh
The meed of all my constancy;
Then sudden she, of whom I sought
Compassion, from my sight was caught.
O ruthless Death! O life severe!
The one has sunk me deep in care,
And darken'd cruelly my day,
That shone with hope's enlivening ray:
The other, adverse to my will,
Doth here on earth detain me still;
And interdicts me to pursue
Her, who from all its scenes withdrew:
Yet in my heart resides the fair,
For ever, ever present there;
Who well perceives the ills that wait
Upon my wretched, mortal state.
NOTT.
Yes, Love, while hope still bloom'd with me in pride,
While seem'd of all my faith the guerdon nigh,
She, upon whom for mercy I relied,
Was ravish'd from my doting desolate eye.
O ruthless Death! O life unwelcome! this
Plunged me in deepest woe,
And rudely crush'd my every hope of bliss;
Against my will that keeps me here below,
Who else would yearn to go,
And join the sainted fair who left us late;
Yet present every hour
In my heart's core there wields she her old power,
And knows, whate'er my life, its every state!
MACGREGOR. |
Blossom-time. | Hattie Howard | Yes, it is drawing nigh -
The time of blossoming;
The waiting heart beats stronger
With every breath of Spring,
The days are growing longer;
While happy hours go by
As if on zephyr wing.
A wealth of mellow light
Reflected from the skies
The hill and vale is flooding;
Still in their leafless guise
The Jacqueminots are budding,
Creating new delight
By promise of surprise.
The air is redolent
As ocean breezes are
From spicy islands blowing,
Or groves of Malabar
Where sandal-wood is growing;
Or sweet, diffusive scent,
From fragrant attar-jar.
Just so is loveliness
Renewed from year to year;
And thus emotions tender,
Born of the atmosphere,
Of bloom, and vernal splendor
That words cannot express,
Make Spring forever dear.
Can mortal man behold
So beautiful a scene,
Without the innate feeling
That thus, like dying sheen
The sunset hues revealing,
Glints pure, celestial gold
On fields of living green? |
Yes, It Was The Mountain Echo | William Wordsworth | Yes, it was the mountain Echo,
Solitary, clear, profound,
Answering to the shouting Cuckoo,
Giving to her sound for sound!
Unsolicited reply
To a babbling wanderer sent;
Like her ordinary cry,
Like but oh, how different!
Hears not also mortal Life?
Hear not we, unthinking Creatures!
Slaves of folly, love, or strife
Voices of two different natures?
Have not 'we' too? yes, we have
Answers, and we know not whence;
Echoes from beyond the grave,
Recognised intelligence!
Such rebounds our inward ear
Catches sometimes from afar
Listen, ponder, hold them dear;
For of God, of God they are. |
Gipsies | William Wordsworth | Yet are they here the same unbroken knot
Of human Beings, in the self-same spot!
Men, women, children, yea the frame
Of the whole spectacle the same!
Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light,
Now deep and red, the colouring of night;
That on their Gipsy-faces falls,
Their bed of straw and blanket-walls.
Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours are gone, while I
Have been a traveller under open sky,
Much witnessing of change and cheer,
Yet as I left I find them here!
The weary Sun betook himself to rest;
Then issued Vesper from the fulgent west,
Outshining like a visible God
The glorious path in which he trod.
And now, ascending, after one dark hour
And one night's diminution of her power,
Behold the mighty Moon! this way
She looks as if at them but they
Regard not her: oh better wrong and strife
(By nature transient) than this torpid life;
Life which the very stars reprove
As on their silent tasks they move!
Yet, witness all that stirs in heaven or earth!
In scorn I speak not; they are what their birth
And breeding suffer them to be;
Wild outcasts of society! |
Work. | Emma Lazarus | Yet life is not a vision nor a prayer,
But stubborn work; she may not shun her task.
After the first compassion, none will spare
Her portion and her work achieved, to ask.
She pleads for respite, - she will come ere long
When, resting by the roadside, she is strong.
Nay, for the hurrying throng of passers-by
Will crush her with their onward-rolling stream.
Much must be done before the brief light die;
She may not loiter, rapt in the vain dream.
With unused trembling hands, and faltering feet,
She staggers forth, her lot assigned to meet.
But when she fills her days with duties done,
Strange vigor comes, she is restored to health.
New aims, new interests rise with each new sun,
And life still holds for her unbounded wealth.
All that seemed hard and toilsome now proves small,
And naught may daunt her, - she hath strength for all. |
The Conformers | Thomas Hardy | Yes; we'll wed, my little fay,
And you shall write you mine,
And in a villa chastely gray
We'll house, and sleep, and dine.
But those night-screened, divine,
Stolen trysts of heretofore,
We of choice ecstasies and fine
Shall know no more.
The formal faced cohue
Will then no more upbraid
With smiting smiles and whisperings two
Who have thrown less loves in shade.
We shall no more evade
The searching light of the sun,
Our game of passion will be played,
Our dreaming done.
We shall not go in stealth
To rendezvous unknown,
But friends will ask me of your health,
And you about my own.
When we abide alone,
No leapings each to each,
But syllables in frigid tone
Of household speech.
When down to dust we glide
Men will not say askance,
As now: "How all the country side
Rings with their mad romance!"
But as they graveward glance
Remark: "In them we lose
A worthy pair, who helped advance
Sound parish views." |
Hymn To The Penates. | Robert Southey | Remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.
The words of Agur.
The Title of the following Poem will probably remind the Reader of Akenside's Hymn to the Naiads, but the manner in which I have treated the subject fortunately precludes comparison.
HYMN to the PENATES.
Yet one Song more! one high and solemn strain
Ere PAEAN! on thy temple's ruined wall
I hang the silent harp: there may its strings,
When the rude tempest shakes the aged pile,
Make melancholy music. One Song more!
PENATES! hear me! for to you I hymn
The votive lay. Whether, as sages deem,
Ye dwell in the [1]inmost Heaven, the [2]COUNSELLORS
Of JOVE; or if, SUPREME OF DEITIES,
All things are yours, and in your holy train
JOVE proudly ranks, and JUNO, white arm'd Queen.
And wisest of Immortals, aweful Maid
ATHENIAN PALLAS. Venerable Powers!
Hearken your hymn of praise! tho' from your rites
Estranged, and exiled from your altars long,
I have not ceased to love you, HOUSEHOLD GODS!
In many a long and melancholy hour
Of solitude and sorrow, has my heart
With earnest longings prayed to rest at length
Beside your hallowed hearth--for PEACE is there!
Yes I have loved you long. I call on you
Yourselves to witness with what holy joy,
Shunning the polished mob of human kind,
I have retired to watch your lonely fires
And commune with myself. Delightful hours
That gave mysterious pleasure, made me know
All the recesses of my wayward heart,
Taught me to cherish with devoutest care
Its strange unworldly feelings, taught me too
The best of lessons--to respect myself!
Nor have I ever ceas'd to reverence you
DOMESTIC DEITIES! from the first dawn
Of reason, thro' the adventurous paths of youth
Even to this better day, when on mine ear
The uproar of contending nations sounds,
But like the passing wind--and wakes no pulse
To tumult. When a child--(for still I love
To dwell with fondness on my childish years,
Even as that Persian favorite would retire
From the court's dangerous pageantry and pomp,
To gaze upon his shepherd garb, and weep,
Rememb'ring humble happiness.) When first
A little one, I left my father's home,
I can remember the first grief I felt,
And the first painful smile that cloathed my front
With feelings not its own: sadly at night
I sat me down beside a stranger's hearth;
And when the lingering hour of rest was come,
First wet with tears my pillow. As I grew
In years and knowledge, and the course of Time
Developed the young feelings of my heart,
When most I loved in solitude to rove
Amid the woodland gloom; or where the rocks
Darken'd old Avon's stream, in the ivied cave
Recluse to sit and brood the future song,
Yet not the less, PENATES, loved I then
Your altars, not the less at evening hour
Delighted by the well-trimm'd fire to sit,
Absorbed in many a dear deceitful dream
Of visionary joys: deceitful dreams--
Not wholly vain--for painting purest joys,
They form'd to Fancy's mould her votary's heart.
By Cherwell's sedgey side, and in the meads
Where Isis in her calm clear stream reflects
The willow's bending boughs, at earliest dawn
In the noon-tide hour, and when the night-mists rose,
I have remembered you: and when the noise
Of loud intemperance on my lonely ear
Burst with loud tumult, as recluse I sat,
Pondering on loftiest themes of man redeemed
From servitude, and vice, and wretchedness,
I blest you, HOUSEHOLD GODS! because I loved
Your peaceful altars and serener rites.
Nor did I cease to reverence you, when driven
Amid the jarring crowd, an unfit man
To mingle with the world; still, still my heart
Sighed for your sanctuary, and inly pined;
And loathing human converse, I have strayed
Where o'er the sea-beach chilly howl'd the blast,
And gaz'd upon the world of waves, and wished
That I were far beyond the Atlantic deep,
In woodland haunts--a sojourner with PEACE.
Not idly fabled they the Bards inspired,
Who peopled Earth with Deities. They trod
The wood with reverence where the DRYADS dwelt;
At day's dim dawn or evening's misty hour
They saw the OREADS on their mountain haunts.
And felt their holy influence, nor impure
Of thought--or ever with polluted hands
Touched they without a prayer the NAIAD'S spring;
Yet was their influence transient; such brief awe
Inspiring as the thunder's long loud peal
Strikes to the feeble spirit. HOUSEHOLD GODS,
Not such your empire! in your votaries' breasts
No momentary impulse ye awake--
Nor fleeting like their local energies,
The deep devotion that your fanes impart.
O ye whom YOUTH has wilder'd on your way,
Or VICE with fair-mask'd foulness, or the lure
Of FAME that calls ye to her crowded paths
With FOLLY's rattle, to your HOUSEHOLD GODS
Return! for not in VICE's gay abodes,
Not in the unquiet unsafe halls of FAME
Does HAPPINESS abide! O ye who weep
Much for the many miseries of Mankind,
More for their vices, ye whose honest eyes
Frown on OPPRESSION,--ye whose honest hearts
Beat high when FREEDOM sounds her dread tocsin;--
O ye who quit the path of peaceful life
Crusading for mankind--a spaniel race
That lick the hand that beats them, or tear all
Alike in frenzy--to your HOUSEHOLD GODS
Return, for by their altars VIRTUE dwells
And HAPPINESS with her; for by their fires
TRANQUILLITY in no unsocial mood
Sits silent, listening to the pattering shower;
For, so [3]SUSPICION sleep not at the gate
Of WISDOM,--FALSEHOOD shall not enter there.
As on the height of some huge eminence,
Reach'd with long labour, the way-faring man
Pauses awhile, and gazing o'er the plain
With many a sore step travelled, turns him then
Serious to contemplate the onward road,
And calls to mind the comforts of his home,
And sighs that he has left them, and resolves
To stray no more: I on my way of life
Muse thus PENATES, and with firmest faith
Devote myself to you. I will not quit
To mingle with the mob your calm abodes,
Where, by the evening hearth CONTENTMENT sits
And hears the cricket chirp; where LOVE delights
To dwell, and on your altars lays his torch
That burns with no extinguishable flame.
Hear me ye POWERS benignant! there is one
Must be mine inmate--for I may not chuse
But love him. He is one whom many wrongs
Have sicken'd of the world. There was a time
When he would weep to hear of wickedness
And wonder at the tale; when for the opprest
He felt a brother's pity, to the oppressor
A good man's honest anger. His quick eye
Betray'd each rising feeling, every thought
Leapt to his tongue. When first among mankind
He mingled, by himself he judged of them,
And loved and trusted them, to Wisdom deaf,
And took them to his bosom. FALSEHOOD met
Her unsuspecting victim, fair of front,
And lovely as [4]Apega's sculptured form,
Like that false image caught his warm embrace
And gored his open breast. The reptile race
Clung round his bosom, and with viper folds
Encircling, stung the fool who fostered them.
His mother was SIMPLICITY, his sire
BENEVOLENCE; in earlier days he bore
His father's name; the world who injured him
Call him MISANTHROPY. I may not chuse
But love him, HOUSEHOLD GODS! for we were nurst
In the same school.
PENATES! some there are
Who say, that not in the inmost heaven ye dwell,
Gazing with eye remote on all the ways
Of man, his GUARDIAN GODS; wiselier they deem
A dearer interest to the human race
Links you, yourselves the SPIRITS OF THE DEAD.
No mortal eye may pierce the invisible world,
No light of human reason penetrate
That depth where Truth lies hid. Yet to this faith
My heart with instant sympathy assents;
And I would judge all systems and all faiths
By that best touchstone, from whose test DECEIT
Shrinks like the Arch-Fiend at Ithuriel's spear,
And SOPHISTRY'S gay glittering bubble bursts,
As at the spousals of the Nereid's son,
When that false [5] Florimel, by her prototype
Display'd in rivalry, with all her charms
Dissolved away.
Nor can the halls of Heaven
Give to the human soul such kindred joy,
As hovering o'er its earthly haunts it feels,
When with the breeze it wantons round the brow
Of one beloved on earth; or when at night
In dreams it comes, and brings with it the DAYS
And JOYS that are no more, Or when, perchance
With power permitted to alleviate ill
And fit the sufferer for the coming woe,
Some strange presage the SPIRIT breathes, and fills
The breast with ominous fear, and disciplines
For sorrow, pours into the afflicted heart
The balm of resignation, and inspires
With heavenly hope. Even as a Child delights
To visit day by day the favorite plant
His hand has sown, to mark its gradual growth,
And watch all anxious for the promised flower;
Thus to the blessed spirit, in innocence
And pure affections like a little child,
Sweet will it be to hover o'er the friends
Beloved; then sweetest if, as Duty prompts,
With earthly care we in their breasts have sown
The seeds of Truth and Virtue, holy flowers
Whose odour reacheth Heaven.
When my sick Heart,
(Sick [6] with hope long delayed, than, which no care
Presses the crush'd heart heavier;) from itself
Seeks the best comfort, often have I deemed
That thou didst witness every inmost thought
SEWARD! my dear dead friend! for not in vain,
Oh early summon'd in thy heavenly course!
Was thy brief sojourn here: me didst thou leave
With strengthen'd step to follow the right path
Till we shall meet again. Meantime I soothe
The deep regret of Nature, with belief,
My EDMUND! that thine eye's celestial ken
Pervades me now, marking no mean joy
The movements of the heart that loved thee well!
Such feelings Nature prompts, and hence your rites
DOMESTIC GODS! arose. When for his son
With ceaseless grief Syrophanes bewail'd,
Mourning his age left childless, and his wealth
Heapt for an alien, he with fixed eye
Still on the imaged marble of the dead
Dwelt, pampering sorrow. Thither from his wrath
A safe asylum, fled the offending slave,
And garlanded the statue and implored
His young lost Lord to save: Remembrance then
Softened the father, and he loved to see
The votive wreath renewed, and the rich smoke
Curl from the costly censer slow and sweet.
From Egypt soon the sorrow-soothing rites
Divulging spread; before your [7] idol forms
By every hearth the blinded Pagan knelt,
Pouring his prayers to these, and offering there
Vain sacrifice or impious, and sometimes
With human blood your sanctuary defil'd:
Till the first BRUTUS, tyrant-conquering chief,
Arose; he first the impious rites put down,
He fitliest, who for FREEDOM lived and died,
The friend of humankind. Then did your feasts
Frequent recur and blameless; and when came
The solemn [8] festival, whose happiest rites
Emblem'd EQUALITY, the holiest truth!
Crown'd with gay garlands were your statues seen,
To you the fragrant censer smok'd, to you
The rich libation flow'd: vain sacrifice!
For nor the poppy wreath nor fruits nor wine.
Ye ask, PENATES! nor the altar cleans'd
With many a mystic form; ye ask the heart
Made pure, and by domestic Peace and Love
Hallowed to you.
Hearken your hymn of praise,
PENATES! to your shrines I come for rest,
There only to be found. Often at eve,
Amid my wanderings I have seen far off
The lonely light that spake of comfort there,
It told my heart of many a joy of home,
And my poor heart was sad. When I have gazed
From some high eminence on goodly vales
And cots and villages embower'd below,
The thought would rise that all to me was strange
Amid the scene so fair, nor one small spot
Where my tir'd mind might rest and call it home,
There is a magic in that little word;
It is a mystic circle that surrounds
Comforts and Virtues never known beyond
The hallowed limit. Often has my heart
Ached for that quiet haven; haven'd now,
I think of those in this world's wilderness
Who wander on and find no home of rest
Till to the grave they go! them POVERTY
Hollow-eyed fiend, the child of WEALTH and POWER,
Bad offspring of worse parents, aye afflicts,
Cankering with her foul mildews the chill'd heart--
Them WANT with scorpion scourge drives to the den
Of GUILT--them SLAUGHTER with the price of death
Buys for her raven brood. Oh not on them
GOD OF ETERNAL JUSTICE! not on them
Let fall thy thunder!
HOUSEHOLD DEITIES!
Then only shall be Happiness on earth
When Man shall feel your sacred power, and love
Your tranquil joys; then shall the city stand
A huge void sepulchre, and rising fair
Amid the ruins of the palace pile
The Olive grow, there shall the TREE OF PEACE
Strike its roots deep and flourish. This the state
Shall bless the race redeemed of Man, when WEALTH
And POWER and all their hideous progeny
Shall sink annihilate, and all mankind
Live in the equal brotherhood of LOVE.
Heart-calming hope and sure! for hitherward
Tend all the tumults of the troubled world,
Its woes, its wisdom, and its wickedness
Alike: so he hath will'd whose will is just.
Meantime, all hoping and expecting all
In patient faith, to you, DOMESTIC GODS!
I come, studious of other lore than song,
Of my past years the solace and support:
Yet shall my Heart remember the past years
With honest pride, trusting that not in vain
Lives the pure song of LIBERTY and TRUTH. |
The Study | Oliver Wendell Holmes | Yet in the darksome crypt I left so late,
Whose only altar is its rusted grate, -
Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems,
Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent beams, -
While the dim seasons dragged their shrouded train,
Its paler splendors were not quite in vain.
From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's glow
Streamed through the casement o'er the spectral snow;
Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic will
On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill,
Rent the cracked topsail from its quivering yard,
And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred,
Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone,
Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling cone.
Not all unblest the mild interior scene
When the red curtain spread its falling screen;
O'er some light task the lonely hours were past,
And the long evening only flew too fast;
Or the wide chair its leathern arms would lend
In genial welcome to some easy friend,
Stretched on its bosom with relaxing nerves,
Slow moulding, plastic, to its hollow curves;
Perchance indulging, if of generous creed,
In brave Sir Walter's dream-compelling weed.
Or, happier still, the evening hour would bring
To the round table its expected ring,
And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred, -
Its silver cherubs smiling as they heard, -
Our hearts would open, as at evening's hour
The close-sealed primrose frees its hidden flower.
Such the warm life this dim retreat has known,
Not quite deserted when its guests were flown;
Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set,
Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette,
Ready to answer, never known to ask,
Claiming no service, prompt for every task.
On those dark shelves no housewife hand profanes,
O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns;
A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time,
That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime,
Each knows his place, and each may claim his part
In some quaint corner of his master's heart.
This old Decretal, won from Moss's hoards,
Thick-leaved, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards,
Stands the gray patriarch of the graver rows,
Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its close;
Not daily conned, but glorious still to view,
With glistening letters wrought in red and blue.
There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage,
The Aldine anchor on his opening page;
There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind,
In yon dark tomb by jealous clasps confused,
"Olim e libris" (dare I call it mine?)
Of Yale's grave Head and Killingworth's divine!
In those square sheets the songs of Maro fill
The silvery types of smooth-leaved Baskerville;
High over all, in close, compact array,
Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display.
In lower regions of the sacred space
Range the dense volumes of a humbler race;
There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach,
In spectral pictures, or in crabbed speech;
Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's page,
Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age,
Lully and Geber, and the learned crew
That loved to talk of all they could not do.
Why count the rest, - those names of later days
That many love, and all agree to praise, -
Or point the titles, where a glance may read
The dangerous lines of party or of creed?
Too well, perchance, the chosen list would show
What few may care and none can claim to know.
Each has his features, whose exterior seal
A brush may copy, or a sunbeam steal;
Go to his study, - on the nearest shelf
Stands the mosaic portrait of himself.
What though for months the tranquil dust descends,
Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends,
While the damp offspring of the modern press
Flaunts on my table with its pictured dress;
Not less I love each dull familiar face,
Nor less should miss it from the appointed place;
I snatch the book, along whose burning leaves
His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves,
Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I share,
My old MAGNALIA must be standing there! |
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - XXIII - Continued | William Wordsworth | Yet many a Novice of the cloistral shade,
And many chained by vows, with eager glee
The warrant hail, exulting to be free;
Like ships before whose keels, full long embayed
In polar ice, propitious winds have made
Unlooked-for outlet to an open sea,
Their liquid world, for bold discovery,
In all her quarters temptingly displayed!
Hope guides the young; but when the old must pass
The threshold, whither shall they turn to find
The hospitality, the alms (alas!
Alms may be needed) which that House bestowed?
Can they, in faith and worship, train the mind
To keep this new and questionable road? |
The Soldier | Gerard Manley Hopkins | Yes. Wh' do we 'll, seeing of a soldier, bless him? bless
Our redcoats, our tars? Both these being, the greater part,
But frail clay, nay but foul clay. Here it is: the heart,
Since, proud, it calls the calling manly, gives a guess
That, hopes that, makesbelieve, the men must be no less;
It fancies, feigns, deems, dears the artist after his art;
And fain will find as sterling all as all is smart,
And scarlet wear the spirit of w'r th're express.
Mark Christ our King. He knows war, served this soldiering through;
He of all can handle a rope best. There he bides in bliss
Now, and s'eing somewh're some m'n do all that man can do,
For love he leans forth, needs his neck must fall on, kiss,
And cry 'O Christ-done deed! So God-made-flesh does too:
Were I come o'er again' cries Christ 'it should be this'. |
Goliath And David | Robert von Ranke Graves | (FOR D.C.T., KILLED AT FRICOURT, MARCH, 1916)
Yet once an earlier David took
Smooth pebbles from the brook:
Out between the lines he went
To that one-sided tournament,
A shepherd boy who stood out fine
And young to fight a Philistine
Clad all in brazen mail. He swears
That he's killed lions, he's killed bears,
And those that scorn the God of Zion
Shall perish so like bear or lion.
But ... the historian of that fight
Had not the heart to tell it right.
Striding within javelin range,
Goliath marvels at this strange
Goodly-faced boy so proud of strength.
David's clear eye measures the length;
With hand thrust back, he cramps one knee,
Poises a moment thoughtfully,
And hurls with a long vengeful swing.
The pebble, humming from the sling
Like a wild bee, flies a sure line
For the forehead of the Philistine;
Then ... but there comes a brazen clink,
And quicker than a man can think
Goliath's shield parries each cast.
Clang! clang! and clang! was David's last.
Scorn blazes in the Giant's eye,
Towering unhurt six cubits high.
Says foolish David, "Damn your shield!
And damn my sling! but I'll not yield."
He takes his staff of Mamre oak,
A knotted shepherd-staff that's broke
The skull of many a wolf and fox
Come filching lambs from Jesse's flocks.
Loud laughs Goliath, and that laugh
Can scatter chariots like blown chaff
To rout; but David, calm and brave,
Holds his ground, for God will save.
Steel crosses wood, a flash, and oh!
Shame for beauty's overthrow!
(God's eyes are dim, His ears are shut.)
One cruel backhand sabre-cut
"I'm hit! I'm killed!" young David cries,
Throws blindly forward, chokes ... and dies.
And look, spike-helmeted, grey, grim,
Goliath straddles over him.
|
Time To Be Wise | Walter Savage Landor | Yes; I write verses now and then,
But blunt and flaccid is my pen,
No longer talk'd of by young men
As rather clever;
In the last quarter are my eyes,
You see it by their form and size;
Is it not time then to be wise?
Or now or never.
Fairest that ever sprang from Eve!
While Time allows the short reprieve,
Just look at me! would you believe
'T was once a lover?
I cannot clear the five-bar gate;
But, trying first its timber's state,
Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait
To trundle over.
Through gallopade I cannot swing
The entangling blooms of Beauty's spring:
I cannot say the tender thing,
Be 't true or false,
And am beginning to opine
Those girls are only half divine
Whose waists yon wicked boys entwine
In giddy waltz.
I fear that arm above that shoulder;
I wish them wiser, graver, older,
Sedater, and no harm if colder,
And panting less.
Ah! people were not half so wild
In former days, when, starchly mild,
Upon her high-heel'd Essex smil'd
The brave Queen Bess. |
November. - A Sonnet. | William Cullen Bryant | Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air,
Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run,
Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air. |
To A Ship. - Translations From Horace. | Charles Stuart Calverley | OD. i. 14.
Yet on fresh billows seaward wilt thou ride,
O ship? What dost thou? Seek a hav'n, and there
Rest thee: for lo! thy side
Is oarless all and bare,
And the swift south-west wind hath maimed thy mast,
And thy yards creak, and, every cable lost,
Yield must thy keel at last
On pitiless sea-waves tossed
Too rudely. Goodly canvas is not thine,
Nor gods, to hear thee now, when need is sorest:-
Though thou - a Pontic pine,
Child of a stately forest, -
Boastest high name and empty pedigree,
Pale seamen little trust the gaudy sail:
Stay, unless doomed to be
The plaything of the gale.
Flee - what of late sore burden was to me,
Now a sad memory and a bitter pain, -
Those shining Cyclads flee
That stud the far-off main. |
Yes, Yes, When The Bloom. | Thomas Moore | Yes, yes, when, the bloom of Love's boyhood is o'er,
He'll turn into friendship that feels no decay;
And, tho' Time may take from him the wings he once wore,
The charms that remain will be bright as before,
And he'll lose but his young trick of flying away.
Then let it console thee, if Love should not stay,
That Friendship our last happy moments will crown:
Like the shadows of morning, Love lessens away,
While Friendship, like those at the closing of day,
Will linger and lengthen as life's sun goes down. |
The Faun | Henry John Newbolt, Sir | Yesterday I thought to roam
Idly through the fields of home,
And I came at morning's end
To our brook's familiar bend.
There I raised my eyes, and there,
Shining through an ampler air,
Folded in by hills of blue
Such as Wessex never knew,
Changed as in a waking dream
Flowed the well-remembered stream.
Now a line of wattled pale
Fenced the downland from the vale,
Now the sedge was set with reeds
Fitter for Arcadian meads,
And where I was wont to find
Only things of timid kind,
Now the Genius of the pool
Mocked me from his corner cool.
Eyes he had with malice quick,
Tufted hair and ears a-prick,
And, above a tiny chin,
Lips with laughter wide a-grin.
Therewithal a shaggy flank
In the crystal clear he sank,
And beneath the unruffled tide
A little pair of hooves I spied.
Yet though plainly there he stood,
Creature of the wave and wood,
Under his satyric grace
Something manlike I could trace,
And the eyes that mocked me there
Like a gleam of memory were.
"So," said I at last to him,
Frowning from the river's brim,
"This is where you come to play,
Heedless of the time of day."
"Nay," replied the youthful god,
Leaning on the flowery sod,
"Here there are no clocks, and so
Time can neither come nor go."
"Little goat," said I, "you're late,
And your dinner will not wait:
If to-day you wish to eat,
Trust me, you must find your feet."
"Father," said the little goat,
"Do you know that I can float?
Do you know that I can dive
As deep as any duck alive?
Would you like to see me drop
Out of yonder willow's top?"
Sternly I replied again,
"You may spare your boasting vain;
All that you can do I did
When I was myself a kid."
Laughter followed such as pealed
Through the first unfurrowed field.
"Then what mother says is true,
And your hoof is cloven too!"
Ah!--but that irreverent mirth,
Learnt of the primeval earth,
Surely was with magic fraught
That upon my pulses wrought:
I too felt the air of June
Humming with a merry tune,
I too reckoned, like a boy,
Less of Time and more of Joy:
Till, as homeward I was wending,
I perceived my back unbending,
And before the mile was done
Ran beside my truant son. |
Rhymes On The Road. Extract II. Geneva. | Thomas Moore | FATE OF GENEVA IN THE YEAR 1782.
A FRAGMENT.
Yes--if there yet live some of those,
Who, when this small Republic rose,
Quick as a startled hive of bees,
Against her leaguering enemies--[1]
When, as the Royal Satrap shook
His well-known fetters at her gates,
Even wives and mothers armed and took
Their stations by their sons and mates;
And on these walls there stood--yet, no,
Shame to the traitors--would have stood
As firm a band as e'er let flow
At Freedom's base their sacred blood;
If those yet live, who on that night
When all were watching, girt for fight,
Stole like the creeping of a pest
From rank to rank, from breast to breast,
Filling the weak, the old with fears,
Turning the heroine's zeal to tears,--
Betraying Honor to that brink,
Where, one step more, and he must sink--
And quenching hopes which tho' the last,
Like meteors on a drowning mast,
Would yet have led to death more bright,
Than life e'er lookt, in all its light!
Till soon, too soon, distrust, alarms
Throughout the embattled thousands ran,
And the high spirit, late in arms,
The zeal that might have workt such charms,
Fell like a broken talisman--
Their gates, that they had sworn should be
The gates of Death, that very dawn,
Gave passage widely, bloodlessly,
To the proud foe--nor sword was drawn,
Nor even one martyred body cast
To stain their footsteps, as they past;
But of the many sworn at night
To do or die, some fled the sight,
Some stood to look with sullen frown,
While some in impotent despair
Broke their bright armor and lay down,
Weeping, upon the fragments there!--
If those, I say, who brought that shame,
That blast upon GENEVA'S name
Be living still--tho' crime so dark
Shall hang up, fixt and unforgiven,
In History's page, the eternal mark
For Scorn to pierce--so help me, Heaven,
I wish the traitorous slaves no worse,
No deeper, deadlier disaster
From all earth's ills no fouler curse
Than to have *********** their master! |
Guilo. | Ella Wheeler Wilcox | Yes, yes! I love thee, Guilo; thee alone.
Why dost thou sigh, and wear that face of sorrow?
The sunshine is to-day's, although it shone
On yesterday, and may shine on to-morrow.
I love but thee, my Guilo! be content;
The greediest heart can claim but present pleasure.
The future is thy God's. The past is spent.
To-day is thine; clasp close the precious treasure.
See how I love thee, Guilo! Lips and eyes
Could never under thy fond gaze dissemble.
I could not feign these passion-laden sighs;
Deceiving thee, my pulses would not tremble.
"So I loved Romney." Hush, thou foolish one -
I should forget him wholly wouldst thou let me;
Or but remember that his day was done
From that supremest hour when first I met thee.
"And Paul?" Well, what of Paul? Paul had blue eyes,
And Romney gray, and thine are darkly tender!
One finds fresh feelings under change of skies -
A new horizon brings a newer splendor.
As I love thee I never loved before;
Believe me, Guilo, for I speak most truly.
What though to Romney and to Paul I swore
The self-same words; my heart now worships newly.
We never feel the same emotion twice:
No two ships ever ploughed the self-same billow;
The waters change with every fall and rise;
So, Guilo, go contented to thy pillow.
|
The Drunkard's Funeral | Vachel Lindsay | "Yes," said the sister with the little pinched face,
The busy little sister with the funny little tract: -
"This is the climax, the grand fifth act.
There rides the proud, at the finish of his race.
There goes the hearse, the mourners cry,
The respectable hearse goes slowly by.
The wife of the dead has money in her purse,
The children are in health, so it might have been worse.
That fellow in the coffin led a life most foul.
A fierce defender of the red bar-tender,
At the church he would rail,
At the preacher he would howl.
He planted every deviltry to see it grow.
He wasted half his income on the lewd and the low.
He would trade engender for the red bar-tender,
He would homage render to the red bar-tender,
And in ultimate surrender to the red bar-tender,
He died of the tremens, as crazy as a loon,
And his friends were glad, when the end came soon.
There goes the hearse, the mourners cry,
The respectable hearse goes slowly by.
And now, good friends, since you see how it ends,
Let each nation-mender flay the red bar-tender, -
Abhor
The transgression
Of the red bar-tender, -
Ruin
The profession
Of the red bar-tender:
Force him into business where his work does good.
Let him learn how to plough, let him learn to chop wood,
Let him learn how to plough, let him learn to chop wood.
"The moral,
The conclusion,
The verdict now you know: -
'The saloon must go,
The saloon must go,
The saloon,
The saloon,
The saloon,
Must go.'"
"You are right, little sister," I said to myself,
"You are right, good sister," I said.
"Though you wear a mussy bonnet
On your little gray head,
You are right, little sister," I said. |
Awful Event. | Thomas Moore | Yes, Winchelsea (I tremble while I pen it),
Winehelsea's Earl hath cut the British Senate--
Hath said to England's Peers, in accent gruff,
"That for ye all"[snapping his fingers] and exit in a huff!
Disastrous news!--like that of old which spread,
From shore to shore, "our mighty Pan is dead,"
O'er the cross benches (cross from being crost)
Sounds the loud wail, "Our Winchelsea is lost!"
Which of ye, Lords, that heard him can forget
The deep impression of that awful threat,
"I quit your house!!"--midst all that histories tell,
I know but one event that's parallel:--
It chanced at Drury Lane, one Easter night,
When the gay gods too blest to be polite
Gods at their ease, like those of learned Lucretius,
Laught, whistled, groaned, uproariously facetious--
A well-drest member of the middle gallery,
Whose "ears polite" disdained such low canaillerie,
Rose in his place--so grand, you'd almost swear
Lord Winchelsea himself stood towering there--
And like that Lord of dignity and nous,
Said, "Silence, fellows, or--I'll leave the house!!"
How brookt the gods this speech? Ah well-a-day,
That speech so fine should be so thrown away!
In vain did this mid-gallery grandee
Assert his own two-shilling dignity--
In vain he menaced to withdraw the ray
Of his own full-price countenance away--
Fun against Dignity is fearful odds,
And as the Lords laugh now, so giggled then the gods! |
Song. | Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny) | Yet once again, but once, before we sever,
Fill we one brimming cup, - it is the last!
And let those lips, now parting, and for ever,
Breathe o'er this pledge, "the memory of the past!"
Joy's fleeting sun is set; and no to-morrow
Smiles on the gloomy path we tread so fast,
Yet, in the bitter cup, o'erfilled with sorrow,
Lives one sweet drop, - the memory of the past.
But one more look from those dear eyes, now shining
Through their warm tears, their loveliest and their last;
But one more strain of hands, in friendship twining,
Now farewell all, save memory of the past. |
A Winter's Tale | D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards) | Yesterday the fields were only grey with scattered snow,
And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge;
Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go
On towards the pines at the hills' white verge.
I cannot see her, since the mist's white scarf
Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky;
But she's waiting, I know, impatient and cold, half
Sobs struggling into her frosty sigh.
Why does she come so promptly, when she must know
That she's only the nearer to the inevitable farewell;
The hill is steep, on the snow my steps are slow -
Why does she come, when she knows what I have to tell? |
To Marguerite, In Returning A Volume Of The Letters Of Ortis | Matthew Arnold | 'Yes: in the sea of life enisl'd,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow,
And then their endless bounds they know.
But when the moon their hollows lights,
And they are swept by balms of spring,
And in their glens, on starry nights,
The nightingales divinely sing;
And lovely notes, from shore to shore,
Across the sounds and channels pour
Oh! then a longing like despair
Is to their farthest caverns sent;
For surely once, they feel, we were
Parts of a single continent!
Now round us spreads the watery plain
Oh might our marges meet again!
Who order'd, that their longing's fire
Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?
Who renders vain their deep desire?
A God, a God their severance rul'd!
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea. |
Death Of A Believer | Rudyard Kipling | Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave.
Yet at the last, though the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the river,
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He called on Allah, and died a Believer! |
A Parting Health - To J. L. Motley | Oliver Wendell Holmes | Yes, we knew we must lose him, - though friendship may claim
To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame;
Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own,
'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has blown.
As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel,
As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel,
As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string,
He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring.
What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom,
Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom,
While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes
That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies!
In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of timid,
Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime,
There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung,
There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue!
Let us hear the proud story which time has bequeathed!
From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed!
Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom,
Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake
On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake,
To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine,
With incense they stole from the rose and the pine.
So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed
When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed:
THE TRUE KNIGHT OF LEARNING, - the world holds him dear, -
Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career! |
In Memory Of Henry A. Bright | Algernon Charles Swinburne | Yet again another, ere his crowning year,
Gone from friends that here may look for him no more.
Never now for him shall hope set wide the door,
Hope that hailed him hither, fain to greet him here.
All the gracious garden-flowers he held so dear,
Oldworld English blossoms, all his homestead store,
Oldworld grief had strewn them round his bier of yore,
Bidding each drop leaf by leaf as tear by tear;
Rarer lutes than mine had borne more tuneful token,
Touched by subtler hands than echoing time can wrong,
Sweet as flowers had strewn his graveward path along.
Now may no such old sweet dirges more be spoken,
Now the flowers whose breath was very song are broken,
Nor may sorrow find again so sweet a song. |
He Discourseth Of A Common Prayer. | Horatio Alger, Jr. | Yet look at the thousands whose every day prayer,
Far more than their own or their neighbor's salvation,
Absorbs every thought, every dream, and all care,
"To eat or to wear, is anything new in creation?" |
Of Trifles. From Proverbial Philosophy | Martin Farquhar Tupper | Yet once more, saith the fool, yet once, and is it not a little one?
Spare me this folly yet an hour, for what is one among so many?
And lie blindeth his conscience with lies, and stupifieth his heart with doubts; '
Whom shall I harm in this matter? and a little ill breedeth much good;
My thoughts, are they not mine own? and they leave no mark behind them;
And if God so pardoneth crime, how should these petty sins affect him? '
So he transgresseth yet again, and falleth by little and little,
Till the ground crumble beneath him, and he sinketh in the gulf despairing.
For there is nothing in the earth so small that it may not produce great things,
And no swerving from a right line, that may not lead eternally astray.
A landmark tree was once a seed; and the dust in the balance maketh a differeuce;
And the cairn is heaped high by each one flinging a pebble;
The dangerous bar in the harbour's mouth is only grains of sand;
And the shoal that hath wrecked a navy is the work of a colony of worms:
Yea, and a despicable gnat may madden the mighty elephant;
And the living rock is worn by the diligent flow of the brook.
Little art thou, O man, and in trifles thou contendest with thine equals.
For atoms must crowd upon atoms, ere crime groweth to be a giant.
What, is thy servant a dog? ' not yet wilt thou grasp the dagger,
Not yet wilt thou laugh with the scoffers, not yet betray the innocent;
But, if thou nourish in thy heart the reveries of injury or passion,
And travel in mental heat the mazy labyrinths of guilt,
And then conceive it possihle, and then reflect on it as done,
And use, by little and little, thyself to regard thyself a villain.
Not long will crime be absent from the voice that doth invoke him to thy heart.
And bitterly wilt thou grieve, that the buds have ripened into poison.
A spark is a molecule of matter, yet may it kindle the world:
Vast is the mighty ocean, but drops have made it vast.
Despise not thou a small thing, either for evil or for good;
For a look may work thy ruin, or a word create thy wealth:
The walking this way or that, the casual stopping or hastening.
Hath saved life, and destroyed it, hath cast down and built up fortunes.
Commit thy trifles unto God, for to him is nothing trivial;
And it is but the littleness of man that seeth no greatness in a trifle.
All things are infinite in parts, and the moral is as the material.
Neither is anything vast, but it is compacted of atoms.
Thou art wise, and shalt find comfort, if thou study thy pleasure in trifles.
For slender joys, often repeated, fall as sunshine on the heart:
Thou art wise, if thou beat off petty troubles, nor suffer their stinging to fret thee;
Thrust not thine hand among the thorns, but with a leathern glove.
Regard nothing lightly which the wisdom of Providence hath ordered;
And therefore, consider all things that happen unto thee or unto others.
The warrior that stood against a host, may be pierced unto death by a needle;
And the saint that feareth not the fire, may perish the victim of a thought:
A mote in the gunner's eye is as bad as a spike in the gun;
And the cable of a furlong is lost through an ill-wrought inch.
The streams of small pleasures fill the lake of happiness:
And the deepest wretchedness of life is continuance of petty pains.
A fool observeth nothing, and seemeth wise unto himself.
A wise man heedeth all things, and in his own eyes is a fool:
He that wondereth at nothing hath no capabilities of bliss:
But he that scrutinizeth trifles hath a store of pleasure to his hand.
If pestilence stalk through the land, ye say, This is God's doing;
Is it not also his doing when an aphis creepeth on a rose-bud? '
If an avalanche roll from its Alp, ye tremble at the will of Providence:
Is not that will concerned when the sear leaves fall from the poplar? '
A thing is great or little only to a mortal's thinking.
But abstracted from the body, all things are alike important:
The Ancient of Days noteth in his book the idle converse of a creature,
And happy and wise is the man to whose thought existeth not a trifle.
Transcribed from the 25th edition "Proverbial Philosophy by Martin Farquhar Tupper" by Mick Puttock, August 2011 (Spelling, punctuation and grammer left mostly unchanged from the 25th edition)
|
Affected Indifference - To The Same; Ode IV | Mark Akenside | Yes; you contemn the perjur'd maid
Who all your favorite hopes betray'd:
Nor, though her heart should home return,
Her tuneful tongue it's falsehood mourn,
Her winning eyes your faith implore,
Would you her hand receive again,
Or once dissemble your disdain,
Or listen to the syren's theme,
Or stoop to love: since now esteem
And confidence, and friendship, is no more.
Yet tell me, Phaedra, tell me why,
When summoning your pride you try
To meet her looks with cool neglect,
Or cross her walk with slight respect,
(For so is falsehood best repaid)
Whence do your cheeks indignant glow?
Why is your struggling tongue so slow?
What means that darkness on your brow?
As if with all her broken vow
You meant the fair apostate to upbraid? |
Lycidas | John Milton | In this Monody the Author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunatly drown'd in his Passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637. And by occasion foretels the ruine of our corrupted Clergy then in their height.
Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear,
I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude,
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not flote upon his watry bear
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of som melodious tear.
Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somwhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,
So may som gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destin'd Urn,
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shrowd.
For we were nurst upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high Lawns appear'd
Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,
We drove a field and both together heard
What time the Gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the Star that rose, at Ev'ning, bright
Toward Heav'ns descent had slop'd his westering wheel.
Mean while the Rural ditties were not mute,
Temper'd to th'Oaten Flute;
Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with clov'n heel,
From the glad sound would not be absent long,
And old Damoetas lov'd to hear our song.
But O the heavy change, now thou art gon,
Now thou art gon, and never must return!
Thee Shepherd, thee the Woods, and desert Caves,
With wilde Thyme and the gadding Vine o'regrown,
And all their echoes mourn.
The Willows, and the Hazle Copses green,
Shall now no more be seen,
Fanning their joyous Leaves to thy soft layes.
As killing as the Canker to the Rose,
Or Taint-worm to the weanling Herds that graze,
Or Frost to Flowers, that their gay wardrop wear,
When first the White thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to Shepherds ear.
Where were ye Nymphs when the remorseless deep
Clos'd o're the head of your lov'd Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep,
Where your old Bards, the famous Druids ly,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wisard stream:
Ay me, I fondly dream!
Had ye bin there ' for what could that have don?
What could the Muse her self that Orpheus bore,
The Muse her self, for her inchanting son
Whom Universal nature did lament,
When by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His goary visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore.
Alas! What boots it with uncessant care
To tend the homely slighted Shepherds trade,
And strictly meditate the thankles Muse,
Were it not better don as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of Noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious dayes:
But the fair Guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze.
Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears,
And slits the thin spun life. But not the praise,
Phoebus repli'd, and touch'd my trembling ears;
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to th'world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreds aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfet witnes of all judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in Heav'n expect thy meed.
O Fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd floud,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd with vocall reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my Oate proceeds,
And listens to the Herald of the Sea
That came in Neptune's plea,
He ask'd the Waves, and ask'd the Fellon winds,
What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain?
And question'd every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beaked Promontory,
They knew not of his story,
And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd,
The Ayr was calm, and on the level brine,
Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd.
It was that fatall and perfidious Bark
Built in th'eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
Next Camus, reverend Sire, went footing slow,
His Mantle hairy, and his Bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe.
Ah; Who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge?
Last came, and last did go,
The Pilot of the Galilean lake,
Two massy Keyes he bore of metals twain,
(The Golden opes, the Iron shuts amain)
He shook his Miter'd locks, and stern bespake,
How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain,
Anow of such as for their bellies sake,
Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold?
Of other care they little reck'ning make,
Then how to scramble at the shearers feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouthes! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A Sheep-hook, or have learn'd ought els the least
That to the faithfull Herdmans art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel Pipes of wretched straw,
The hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim Woolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing sed,
But that two-handed engine at the door,
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Return Alpheus, the dread voice is past,
That shrunk thy streams; Return Sicilian Muse,
And call the Vales, and bid them hither cast
Their Bels, and Flourets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low where the milde whispers use,
Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart Star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enameld eyes,
That on the green terf suck the honied showres,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowres.
Bring the rathe Primrose that forsaken dies.
The tufted Crow-toe, and pale Gessamine,
The white Pink, and the Pansie freakt with jeat,
The glowing Violet.
The Musk-rose, and the well attir'd Woodbine.
With Cowslips wan that hang the pensive hed,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,
Daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
And strew the Laureat Herse where Lycid lies.
For so to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.
Ah me! Whilst thee the shores, and sounding Seas
Wash far away, where ere thy bones are hurl'd
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides.
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou to our moist vows deny'd,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded Mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold;
Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth.
And, O ye Dolphins, waft the haples youth.
Weep no more, woful Shepherds weep no more,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watry floar,
So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled Ore,
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of him that walk'd the waves
Where other groves, and other streams along,
With Nectar pure his oozy Lock's he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptiall Song,
In the blest Kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the Saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet Societies
That sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now Lycidas the Shepherds weep no more;
Hence forth thou art the Genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
Thus sang the uncouth Swain to th'Okes and rills,
While the still morn went out with Sandals gray,
He touch'd the tender stops of various Quills,
With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay:
And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the Western bay;
At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew:
To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new. |
The Gowden Locks Of Anna. | Robert Burns | Tune - "Banks of Banna."
I.
Yestreen I had a pint o' wine,
A place where body saw na';
Yestreen lay on this breast o' mine
The gowden locks of Anna.
The hungry Jew in wilderness
Rejoicing o'er his manna,
Was naething to my hinny bliss
Upon the lips of Anna.
II.
Ye monarchs tak the east and west,
Frae Indus to Savannah!
Gie me within my straining grasp
The melting form of Anna.
There I'll despise imperial charms,
An empress or sultana,
While dying raptures in her arms
I give and take with Anna!
III.
Awa, thou flaunting god o' day!
Awa, thou pale Diana!
Ilk star gae hide thy twinkling ray,
When I'm to meet my Anna.
Come, in thy raven plumage, night!
Sun, moon, and stars withdrawn a';
And bring an angel pen to write
My transports wi' my Anna!
IV.
The kirk an' state may join and tell
To do sic things I maunna:
The kirk and state may gang to hell,
And I'll gae to my Anna.
She is the sunshine of my e'e,
To live but her I canna:
Had I on earth but wishes three,
The first should be my Anna. |
Yes; I write verses now and then, | Walter Savage Landor | Yes; I write verses now and then,
But blunt and flaccid is my pen,
No longer talkt of by young men
As rather clever:
In the last quarter are my eyes,
You see it by their form and size;
Is it not time then to be wise?
Or now or never.
Fairest that ever sprang from Eve!
While Time allows the short reprieve,
Just look at me! would you believe
'Twas once a lover?
I cannot clear the five-bar gate,
But, trying first its timber's state,
Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait
To trundle over.
Thro' gallopade I cannot swing
The entangling blooms of Beauty's spring:
I cannot say the tender thing,
Be 't true or false,
And am beginning to opine
Those girls are only half-divine
Whose waists yon wicked boys entwine
In giddy waltz.
I fear that arm above that shoulder,
I wish them wiser, graver, older,
Sedater, and no harm if colder
And panting less.
Ah! people were not half so wild
In former days, when, starchly mild,
Upon her high-heel'd Essex smiled
The brave Queen Bess. |
To John Ruskin. (After Reading His "Modern Painters.") | Francis William Lauderdale Adams | Yes, you do well to mock us, you
Who knew our bitter woe -
To jeer the false, deny the true
In us blind struggling low,
While, on your pleasant place aloft
With flowers and clouds and streams,
At our black sweat and toil you scoffed
That marred your idle dreams.
"Oh, freedom, what was that to us,"
(You'd shout down to us there),
"Except the freedom foul, vicious,
From all of good and fair?
"Obedience, faith, humility,
To us were empty names." -
The like to you (might we reply)
Whose noisy life proclaims
Presumption, want of human love,
Impatience, filthy breath, {32}
The snob in soul who looks above,
Trampling on what's beneath.
When did you strive, in nobler part,
With love and gentleness,
To help one soul, to win one heart
To joy and hope and peace?
Go to, vain prophet, without faith
In God who maketh new,
With hankerings for this putrid death,
This Flesh-feast of the Few,
This Social Structure of red mud,
This Edifice of slime,
Whose bricks are bones, whose mortar's blood,
Whose pinnacle is Crime! -
Go to, for we who strain our power
For light and warmth and scope,
For wives', for children's happier hour,
Can teach you faith and hope.
Hark to the shout of those who cleared
The Missionary Ridge!
Look on those dead who never feared
The battle's bloody bridge!
Watch the stern swarm at that last breach
March up that came not thence -
And learn Democracy can teach
Divine obedience. {33}
Pass through that South at last brought low
Where loyal freemen live,
And learn Democracy knows how
To utterly forgive.
Come then, and take this free-given bread
Of us who've scarce enough;
Hush your proud lips, bow down your head
And worship human love! |
A Two-Years' Idyll | Thomas Hardy | Yes; such it was;
Just those two seasons unsought,
Sweeping like summertide wind on our ways;
Moving, as straws,
Hearts quick as ours in those days;
Going like wind, too, and rated as nought
Save as the prelude to plays
Soon to come larger, life-fraught:
Yes; such it was.
"Nought" it was called,
Even by ourselves that which springs
Out of the years for all flesh, first or last,
Commonplace, scrawled
Dully on days that go past.
Yet, all the while, it upbore us like wings
Even in hours overcast:
Aye, though this best thing of things,
"Nought" it was called!
What seems it now?
Lost: such beginning was all;
Nothing came after: romance straight forsook
Quickly somehow
Life when we sped from our nook,
Primed for new scenes with designs smart and tall . . .
A preface without any book,
A trumpet uplipped, but no call;
That seems it now. |
The Jubilee Of A Magazine | Thomas Hardy | (To the Editor)
Yes; your up-dated modern page -
All flower-fresh, as it appears -
Can claim a time-tried lineage,
That reaches backward fifty years
(Which, if but short for sleepy squires,
Is much in magazines' careers).
- Here, on your cover, never tires
The sower, reaper, thresher, while
As through the seasons of our sires
Each wills to work in ancient style
With seedlip, sickle, share and flail,
Though modes have since moved many a mile!
The steel-roped plough now rips the vale,
With cog and tooth the sheaves are won,
Wired wheels drum out the wheat like hail;
But if we ask, what has been done
To unify the mortal lot
Since your bright leaves first saw the sun,
Beyond mechanic furtherance what
Advance can rightness, candour, claim?
Truth bends abashed, and answers not.
Despite your volumes' gentle aim
To straighten visions wry and wrong,
Events jar onward much the same!
- Had custom tended to prolong,
As on your golden page engrained,
Old processes of blade and prong,
And best invention been retained
For high crusades to lessen tears
Throughout the race, the world had gained! . . .
But too much, this, for fifty years. |
Ash Wednesday | Alfred Lichtenstein | Yesterday I still went powdered and addicted
Into the many-colored sounding world.
Today everything has long since drowned.
Here is a thing.
There is a thing.
Something seems like this.
Something seems otherwise.
How easily someone blows out
The whole flowering earth.
The sky is cold and blue.
Or the moon is yellow and flat.
A forest has many individual trees.
There's nothing more to cry about.
There's nothing more to scream about.
Where am I - |
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - XX - Monastic Voluptuousness | William Wordsworth | Yet more, round many a Convent's blazing fire
Unhallowed threads of revelry are spun;
There Venus sits disguised like a Nun,
While Bacchus, clothed in semblance of a Friar,
Pours out his choicest beverage high and higher
Sparkling, until it cannot choose but run
Over the bowl, whose silver lip hath won
An instant kiss of masterful desire
To stay the precious waste. Through every brain
The domination of the sprightly juice
Spreads high conceits to madding Fancy dear,
Till the arched roof, with resolute abuse
Of its grave echoes, swells a choral strain,
Whose votive burthen is, "Our Kingdom's Here!" |
Sock It To 'Em | Thomas O'Hagan | "A Canadian lieutenant writes his mother from the front that what he most needs for the winter is good warm socks." - Press Despatch.
Yes, Wilhelm, sure you'll get it,
The storm is o'er your head;
It is bursting in the trenches
And you're just as good as dead.
You put your foot on Belgium
And defied your fate and doom,
And now the whole world hates you
And the cry is "Sock it to 'em!"
True, your Taubchens still are sailing,
But your battleships are not;
They are coop'd up in a corner
Save the submerg'd ones that fought.
You are saving time and fuel,
But you're sad and filled with gloom,
For the very winds are whispering
"Blow hard and sock it to 'em."
You have sought more spacious realm
In the free and genial sun:
Has your sceptre widened any
With the salvo of each gun?
Your "World-Power" seems to narrow,
And your hope lies in a tomb,
While dark Fate weaves your chaplet
And whispers "Sock it to 'em!"
For Theodore Botrel.
|
Lycidas. | Charles Stuart Calverley | Yet once more, O ye laurels! and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
Begin then, sisters, of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,
So may some gentle muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And, as he passes, turn
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud:
For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the gray fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose, at evening, bright,
Toward Heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Tempered to the oaten flute;
Rough satyrs danced, and fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long,
And old Damaetas loved to hear our song.
But oh, the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes mourn.
The willows, and the hazel copses green,
Shall now no more be seen,
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear
Where were ye, nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep,
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie;
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream:
Ay me! I fondly dream!
Had ye been there, for what could that have done?
What could the muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The muse herself for her enchanting son,
Whom universal nature did lament,
When by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless muse?
Were it not better done as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days,
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears;
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed."
O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my oat proceeds,
And listens to the herald of the sea
That came in Neptune's plea;
He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,
What hard mishap had doomed this gentle swain?
And questioned every gust of rugged wings,
That blows from off each beaked promontory:
They knew not of his story,
And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed,
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge,
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.
"Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, "my dearest pledge?"
Last came, and last did go,
The pilot of the Galilean lake,
Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:
"How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as for their bellies' sake
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make,
Than how to scramble at the shearer's feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest;
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least
That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs!
What reeks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said.
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."
Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past,
That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strow the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
For so to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.
Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where ere thy bones are hurled,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold;
Look homeward, angel now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor;
So sinks the day-star in the ocean-bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of him that walked the waves,
Where other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet societies,
That sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals gray,
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropped into the western bay;
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue,
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
LYCIDAS.
En! iterum laurus, iterum salvete myricae
Pallentes, nullique hederae quae ceditis aevo.
Has venio baccas, quanquam sapor asper acerbis,
Decerptum, quassumque manu folia ipsa proterva,
Maturescentem praevortens improbus annum.
Causa gravis, pia cansa, subest, et amara deum lex;
Nec jam sponte mea vobis rata tempora turbo.
Nam periit Lycidas, periit superante juventa
Imberbis Lycidas, quo non praestantior alter.
Quis cantare super Lycida neget? Ipse quoque artem
Norat Apollineam, versumque imponere versu
Non nullo vitreum fas innatet ille feretrum
Flente, voluteturque arentes corpus ad auras,
Indotatum adeo et lacrymae vocalis egenum.
Quare agite, o sacri fontis queis cura, sorores,
Cui sub inaccessi sella Jovis exit origo:
Incipite, et sonitu graviore impellite chordas.
Lingua procul male prompta loqui, suasorque morarum
Sit pudor: alloquiis ut mollior una secundis
Pieridum faveat, cui mox ego destiner, urnae:
Et gressus praetergrediens convertat, et "Esto"
Dicat "amoena quies atra tibi veste latenti:"
Uno namque jugo duo nutribamur: eosdem
Pavit uterque greges ad fontem et rivulum et umbram.
Tempore nos illo, nemorum convexa priusquam,
Aurora reserante oculos, caepere videri,
Urgebamus equos ad pascua: novimus horam
Aridus audiri solitus qua clangor asili;
Rore recentes greges passi pinguescere noctis
Saepius, albuerat donec quod vespere sidus
Hesperios axes prono inclinasset Olympo.
At pastorales non cessavere camoenae,
Fistula disparibus quas temperat apta cicutis:
Saltabant Satyri informes, nec murmure laeto
Capripedes potuere diu se avertere Fauni;
Damaetasque modos nostros longaevus amabat.
Jamque, relicta tibi, quantum mutata videntur
Rura - relicta tibi, cui non spes ulla regressus!
Te sylvae, teque antra, puer, deserta ferarum,
Incultis obducta thymis ac vite sequaci,
Decessisse gemunt; gemitusque reverberat Echo.
Non salices, non glauca ergo coryleta videbo
Molles ad numeros laetum motare cacumen:-
Quale rosis scabies; quam formidabile vermis
Depulso jam lacte gregi, dum tondet agellos;
Sive quod, indutis verna jam veste, pruinae
Floribus, albet ubi primum paliurus in agris:
Tale fuit nostris, Lycidam periisse, bubulcis.
Qua, Nymphae, latuistis, ubi crudele profundum
Delicias Lycidam vestras sub vortice torsit?
Nam neque vos scopulis tum ludebatis in illis
Quos veteres, Druidae, Vates, illustria servant
Nomina; nec celsae setoso in culmine Monae,
Nec, quos Deva locos magicis amplectitur undis.
Vae mihi! delusos exercent somnia sensus:
Venissetis enim; numquid venisse juvaret?
Numquid Pieris ipsa parens interfuit Orphei,
Pieris ipsa suae sobolis, qui carmine rexit
Corda virum, quem terra olim, quam magna, dolebat,
Tempore quo, dirum auditu strepitante caterva,
Ora secundo amni missa, ac foedata cruore,
Lesbia praecipitans ad litora detulit Hebrus?
Eheu quid prodest noctes instare diesque
Pastorum curas spretas humilesque tuendo,
Nilque relaturam meditari rite Camoenam?
Nonne fuit satius lusus agitare sub umbra,
(Ut mos est aliis,) Amaryllida sive Neaeram
Sectanti, ac tortis digitum impediisse capillis?
Scilcet ingenuum cor Fama, novissimus error
Illa animi majoris, uti calcaribus urget
Spernere delicias ac dedi rebus agendis.
Quanquam - exoptatam jam spes attingere dotem;
Jam nec opinata remur splendescere flamma:-
Caeca sed invisa cum forfice venit Erinnys,
Quae resecet tenui haerentem subtemine vitam.
"At Famam non illa," refert, tangitque trementes
Phoebus Apollo aures. "Fama haud, vulgaris ad instar
Floris, amat terrestre solum, fictosque nitores
Queis inhiat populus, nec cum Rumore patescit.
Vivere dant illi, dant increbrescere late
Puri oculi ac vox summa Jovis, cui sola Potestas.
Fecerit ille semel de facto quoque virorum
Arbitrium: tantum famae manet aethera nactis."
Fons Arethusa! sacro placidus qui laberis alveo,
Frontem vocali praetextus arundine, Minci!
Sensi equidem gravius carmen. Nunc cetera pastor
Exsequor. Adstat enim missus pro rege marino,
Seque rogasse refert fluctus, ventosque rapaces,
Quae sors dura nimis tenerum rapuisset agrestem.
Compellasse refert alarum quicquid ab omni
Spirat, acerba sonans, scopulo, qui cuspidis instar
Prominet in pelagus; fama haud pervenerat illuc.
Haec ultro pater Hippotades responsa ferebat:
"Nulli sunt,nostro palati carcere venti.
Straverat aequor aquas, et sub Jove compta sereno
Lusum exercebat Panope nymphaeque sorores.
Quam Furiae struxere per interlunia, leto
Fetam ac fraude ratem, - malos velarat Erinnys, -
Credas in mala tanta caput mersisse sacratum."
Proximus huic tardum senior se Camus agebat;
Cui setosa chlamys, cui pileus ulva: figuris
Idem intertextus dubiis erat, utque cruentos
Quos perhibent flores, inscriptus margine luctum.
"Nam quis," ait, "praedulce meum me pignus ademit?"
Post hos, qui Galilaea regit per stagna carinas,
Post hos venit iturus: habet manus utraque clavim,
(Queis aperit clauditque) auro ferrove gravatam.
Mitra tegit crines; quassis quibus, acriter infit:
"Scilicet optassem pro te dare corpora leto
Sat multa, o juvenis: quot serpunt ventribus acti,
Vi quot iter faciunt spretis in ovilia muris.
Hic labor, hoc opus est, pecus ut tondente magistro
Praeripiant epulas, trudatur dignior hospes.
Capti oculis, non ore! pedum tractare nec ipsi
Norunt; quotve bonis sunt upilionibus artes.
Sed quid enim refert, quove eat opus, omnia nactis?
Fert ubi mens, tenue ac deductum carmen avenam
Radit stridentem stipulis. Pastore negato
Suspicit aegra pecus: vento gravis ac lue tracta
Tabescit; mox foeda capit contagia vulgus.
Quid dicam, stabulis ut clandestinus oberrans
Expleat ingluviem tristis lupus, indice nullo?
Illa tamen bimanus custodit machina portam,
Stricta, paratque malis plagam non amplius unam."
En, Alphee, redi! Quibus ima cohorruit unda
Voces praeteriere: redux quoque Sicelis omnes
Musa voca valles; huc pendentes hyacinthos
Fac jaciant, teneros huc flores mille colorum.
O nemorum depressa, sonant ubi crebra susurri
Umbrarum, et salientis aquae, Zephyrique protervi;
Queisque virens gremium penetrare Canicula parcit:
Picturata modis jacite huc mihi lumina miris,
Mellitos imbres queis per viridantia rura
Mos haurire, novo quo tellus vere rubescat.
Huc ranunculus, ipse arbos, pallorque ligustri,
Quaeque relicta perit, vixdum matura feratur
Pnimula: quique ebeno distinctus, caetera flavet
Flos, et qui specie nomen detrectat eburna.
Ardenti violae rosa proxima fundat odores;
Serpyllumque placens, et acerbo flexile vultu
Verbascum, ac tristem si quid sibi legit amictum.
Quicquid habes pulcri fundas, amarante: coronent
Narcissi lacrymis calices, sternantque feretrum
Tectus ubi lauro Lycidas jacet: adsit ut oti
Saltem aliquid, ficta ludantur imagine mentes.
Me miserum! Tua nam litus, pelagusque sonorum
Ossa ferunt, queiscunque procul jacteris in oris;
Sive procellosas ultra Symplegadas ingens
Jam subter mare visis, alit quae monstra profundum;
Sive (negavit enim precibus te Jupiter udis)
Cum sene Bellero, veterum qui fabula, dormis,
Qua custoditi montis praegrandis imago
Namancum atque arces longe prospectat Iberas.
Verte retro te, verte deum, mollire precando:
Et vos infaustum juvenem delphines agatis.
Ponite jam lacrymas, sat enim flevistis, agrestes.
Non periit Lycidas, vestri moeroris origo,
Marmorei quanquam fluctus hausere cadentem.
Sic et in aequoreum se condere saepe cubile
Luciferum videas; nec longum tempus, et effert
Demissum caput, igne novo vestitus; et, aurum
Ceu rutilans, in fronte poli splendescit Eoi.
Sic obiit Lycidas, sic assurrexit in altum;
Illo, quem peditem mare sustulit, usus amico.
Nunc campos alios, alia errans stagna secundum,
Rorantesque lavans integro nectare crines,
Audit inauditos nobis cantari Hymenaeos,
Fortunatorum sedes ubi mitis amorem
Laetitiamque affert. Hic illum, quotquot Olympum
Praedulces habitant turbae, venerabilis ordo,
Circumstant: aliaeque canunt, interque canendum
Majestate sua veniunt abeuntque catervae,
Omnes ex oculis lacrymas arcere paratae.
Ergo non Lycidam jam lamentantur agrestes.
Divus eris ripae, puer, hoc ex tempore nobis,
Grande, nec immerito, veniens in munus; opemque
Poscent usque tuam, dubiis quot in aestubus errant.
Haec incultus aquis puer ilicibusque canebat;
Processit dum mane silens talaribus albis.
Multa manu teneris discrimina tentat avenis,
Dorica non studio modulatus carmina segni:
Et jam sol abiens colles extenderat omnes,
Jamque sub Hesperium se praecipitaverat alveum.
Surrexit tandem, glaucumque retraxit amictum;
Cras lucos, reor, ille novos, nova pascua quaeret.
|
Sonnets: Idea LIV | Michael Drayton | Yet read at last the story of my woe,
The dreary abstracts of my endless cares,
With my life's sorrow interlin'd so,
Smoked with my sighs, and blotted with my tears,
The sad memorials of my miseries,
Penned in the grief of mine afflicted ghost,
My life's complaint in doleful elegies,
With so pure love as time could never boast.
Receive the incense which I offer here,
By my strong faith ascending to thy fame,
My zeal, my hope, my vows, my praise, my prayer,
My soul's oblations to thy sacred name;
Which name my Muse to highest heavens shall raise,
By chaste desire, true love, and virtuous praise. |
Epitaph XIII. On Dr Francis Atterbury,[1] Bishop Of Rochester, Who Died In Exile At Paris, 1732. | Alexander Pope | SHE.
Yes, we have lived--one pang, and then we part!
May Heaven, dear father! now have all thy heart.
Yet ah! how once we loved, remember still,
Till you are dust like me.
HE.
Dear shade! I will:
Then mix this dust with thine--O spotless ghost!
O more than fortune, friends, or country lost!
Is there on earth one care, one wish beside?
Yes--Save my country, Heaven!
--He said, and died. |
Yet At The Last | Rudyard Kipling | Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave.
Yet at the last, though the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the river,
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He called upon Allah, and died a Believer! |
The Satires Of Dr John Donne, Dean Of St Paul's,[171] Versified. | Alexander Pope | 'Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili scripta legentes Quaerere, num illius, num rerum dura negarit Versiculos natura magis factos, et euntes Mollius?'
HOR.
Satire II.
Yes; thank my stars! as early as I knew
This town, I had the sense to hate it too:
Yet here, as ev'n in Hell, there must be still
One giant-vice, so excellently ill,
That all beside, one pities, not abhors;
As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.
I grant that poetry's a crying sin;
It brought (no doubt) the Excise and Army in:
Catch'd like the plague, or love, the Lord knows how,
But that the cure is starving, all allow
Yet like the papist's is the poet's state,
Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!
Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give
Himself a dinner, makes an actor live;
The thief condemn'd, in law already dead,
So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read.
Thus as the pipes of some carved organ move,
The gilded puppets dance and mount above.
Heaved by the breath the inspiring bellows blow:
The inspiring bellows lie and pant below.
One sings the fair; but songs no longer move;
No rat is rhymed to death, nor maid to love:
In love's, in nature's spite, the siege they hold,
And scorn the flesh, the devil, and all--but gold.
These write to lords, some mean reward to get,
As needy beggars sing at doors for meat.
Those write because all write, and so have still
Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.
Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet
Is he who makes his meal on others' wit:
'Tis changed, no doubt, from what it was before,
His rank digestion makes it wit no more:
Sense, pass'd through him, no longer is the same;
For food digested takes another name.
I pass o'er all those confessors and martyrs,
Who live like Sutton, or who die like Chartres,
Out-cant old Esdras, or out-drink his heir,
Out-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear;
Wicked as pages, who in early years
Act sins which Prisca's confessor scarce hears.
Ev'n those I pardon, for whose sinful sake
Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make;
Of whose strange crimes no canonist can tell
In what commandment's large contents they dwell.
One, one man only breeds my just offence;
Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave impudence:
Time, that at last matures a clap to pox,
Whose gentle progress makes a calf an ox,
And brings all natural events to pass,
Hath made him an attorney of an ass.
No young divine, new-beneficed, can be
More pert, more proud, more positive than he.
What further could I wish the fop to do,
But turn a wit, and scribble verses too;
Pierce the soft labyrinth of a lady's ear
With rhymes of this per cent, and that per year?
Or court a wife, spread out his wily parts,
Like nets or lime-twigs, for rich widows' hearts:
Call himself barrister to every wench,
And woo in language of the Pleas and Bench?
Language, which Boreas might to Auster hold
More rough than forty Germans when they scold.
Cursed be the wretch, so venal and so vain:
Paltry and proud, as drabs in Drury-lane.
'Tis such a bounty as was never known,
If Peter deigns to help you to your own:
What thanks, what praise, if Peter but supplies,
And what a solemn face, if he denies!
Grave, as when prisoners shake the head and swear
'Twas only suretiship that brought 'em there.
His office keeps your parchment fates entire,
He starves with cold to save them from the fire;
For you he walks the streets through rain or dust,
For not in chariots Peter puts his trust;
For you he sweats and labours at the laws,
Takes God to witness he affects your cause,
And lies to every lord in every thing,
Like a king's favourite, or like a king.
These are the talents that adorn them all,
From wicked Waters ev'n to godly Paul.[172]
Not more of simony beneath black gowns,
Not more of bastardy in heirs to crowns.
In shillings and in pence at first they deal;
And steal so little, few perceive they steal;
Till, like the sea, they compass all the land,
From Scots to Wight, from Mount to Dover strand:
And when rank widows purchase luscious nights,
Or when a duke to Jansen punts at White's,
Or city-heir in mortgage melts away;
Satan himself feels far less joy than they.
Piecemeal they win this acre first, then that,
Glean on, and gather up the whole estate.
Then strongly fencing ill-got wealth by law,
Indentures, covenants, articles they draw,
Large as the fields themselves, and larger far
Than civil codes, with all their glosses, are;
So vast, our new divines, we must confess,
Are fathers of the Church for writing less.
But let them write for you, each rogue impairs
The deeds, and dext'rously omits, ses heires:
No commentator can more slily pass
O'er a learn'd, unintelligible place;
Or, in quotation, shrewd divines leave out
Those words, that would against them clear the doubt.
So Luther thought the Pater-noster long,
When doom'd to say his beads and even-song;
But having cast his cowl, and left those laws,
Adds to Christ's prayer, the Power and Glory clause.
The lands are bought; but where are to be found
Those ancient woods, that shaded all the ground?
We see no new-built palaces aspire,
No kitchens emulate the vestal fire.
Where are those troops of poor, that throng'd of yore
The good old landlord's hospitable door?
Well, I could wish, that still in lordly domes
Some beasts were kill'd, though not whole hecatombs;
That both extremes were banish'd from their walls,
Carthusian fasts, and fulsome Bacchanals;
And all mankind might that just mean observe,
In which none e'er could surfeit, none could starve.
These as good works, 'tis true, we all allow;
But oh! these works are not in fashion now:
Like rich old wardrobes, things extremely rare,
Extremely fine, but what no man will wear.
Thus much I've said, I trust, without offence;
Let no court sycophant pervert my sense,
Nor sly informer watch these words to draw
Within the reach of treason, or the law. |
Rake-Hell Muses | Thomas Hardy | Yes; since she knows not need,
Nor walks in blindness,
I may without unkindness
A true thing tell:
Which would be truth, indeed,
Though worse in speaking,
Were her poor footsteps seeking
A pauper's cell.
I judge, then, better far
She now have sorrow,
Than gladness that to-morrow
Might know its knell. -
It may be men there are
Could make of union
A lifelong sweet communion -
A passioned spell;
But I, to save her name
And bring salvation
By altar-affirmation
And bridal bell;
I, by whose rash unshame
These tears come to her:-
My faith would more undo her
Than my farewell!
Chained to me, year by year
My moody madness
Would wither her old gladness
Like famine fell.
She'll take the ill that's near,
And bear the blaming.
'Twill pass. Full soon her shaming
They'll cease to yell.
Our unborn, first her moan,
Will grow her guerdon,
Until from blot and burden
A joyance swell;
In that therein she'll own
My good part wholly,
My evil staining solely
My own vile vell.
Of the disgrace, may be
"He shunned to share it,
Being false," they'll say. I'll bear it;
Time will dispel
The calumny, and prove
This much about me,
That she lives best without me
Who would live well.
That, this once, not self-love
But good intention
Pleads that against convention
We two rebel.
For, is one moonlight dance,
One midnight passion,
A rock whereon to fashion
Life's citadel?
Prove they their power to prance
Life's miles together
From upper slope to nether
Who trip an ell?
- Years hence, or now apace,
May tongues be calling
News of my further falling
Sinward pell-mell:
Then this great good will grace
Our lives' division,
She's saved from more misprision
Though I plumb hell. |
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode XXIX. | Thomas Moore | Yes--loving is a painful thrill,
And not to love more painful still
But oh, it is the worst of pain,
To love and not be loved again!
Affection now has fled from earth,
Nor fire of genius, noble birth,
Nor heavenly virtue, can beguile,
From beauty's cheek one favoring smile.
Gold is the woman's only theme,
Gold is the woman's only dream.
Oh! never be that wretch forgiven--
Forgive him not, indignant heaven!
Whose grovelling eyes could first adore,
Whose heart could pant for sordid ore.
Since that devoted thirst began,
Man has forgot to feel for man;
The pulse of social life is dead,
And all its fonder feelings fled!
War too has sullied Nature's charms,
For gold provokes the world to arms;
And oh! the worst of all its arts,
It renders asunder loving hearts. |
A Familiar Letter - To Several Correspondents | Oliver Wendell Holmes | Yes, write, if you want to, there's nothing like trying;
Who knows what a treasure your casket may hold?
I'll show you that rhyming's as easy as lying,
If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold.
Here's a book full of words; one can choose as he fancies,
As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool;
Just think! all the poems and plays and romances
Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a pool!
You can wander at will through its syllabled mazes,
And take all you want, - not a copper they cost, -
What is there to hinder your picking out phrases
For an epic as clever as "Paradise Lost"?
Don't mind if the index of sense is at zero,
Use words that run smoothly, whatever they mean;
Leander and Lilian and Lillibullero
Are much the same thing in the rhyming machine.
There are words so delicious their sweetness will smother
That boarding-school flavor of which we 're afraid, -
There is "lush" is a good one, and "swirl" another, -
Put both in one stanza, its fortune is made.
With musical murmurs and rhythmical closes
You can cheat us of smiles when you've nothing to tell;
You hand us a nosegay of milliner's roses,
And we cry with delight, "Oh, how sweet they do smell!"
Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions
For winning the laurels to which you aspire,
By docking the tails of the two prepositions
I' the style o' the bards you so greatly admire.
As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty
For ringing the changes on metrical chimes;
A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty
Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes.
Let me show you a picture - 'tis far from irrelevant -
By a famous old hand in the arts of design;
'T is only a photographed sketch of an elephant, -
The name of the draughtsman was Rembrandt of Rhine.
How easy! no troublesome colors to lay on,
It can't have fatigued him, - no, not in the least, -
A dash here and there with a hap-hazard crayon,
And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, baggy-limbed beast.
Just so with your verse, - 't is as easy as sketching, -
You - can reel off a song without knitting your brow,
As lightly as Rembrandt a drawing or etching;
It is nothing at all, if you only know how.
Well; imagine you've printed your volume of verses:
Your forehead is wreathed with the garland of fame,
Your poems the eloquent school-boy rehearses,
Her album the school-girl presents for your name;
Each morning the post brings you autograph letters;
You'll answer them promptly, - an hour is n't much
For the honor of sharing a page with your betters,
With magistrates, members of Congress, and such.
Of course you're delighted to serve the committees
That come with requests from the country all round,
You would grace the occasion with poems and ditties
When they've got a new schoolhouse, or poor-house, or pound.
With a hymn for the saints and a song for the sinners,
You go and are welcome wherever you please;
You're a privileged guest at all manner of dinners,
You've a seat on the platform among the grandees.
At length your mere presence becomes a sensation,
Your cup of enjoyment is filled to its brim
With the pleasure Horatian of digitmonstration,
As the whisper runs round of "That's he!" or "That Is him!"
But remember, O dealer in phrases sonorous,
So daintily chosen, so tunefully matched,
Though you soar with the wings of the cherubim o'er us,
The ovum was human from which you were hatched.
No will of your own with its puny compulsion
Can summon the spirit that quickens the lyre;
It comes, if at all, like the Sibyl's convulsion
And touches the brain with a finger of fire.
So perhaps, after all, it's as well to be quiet,
If you've nothing you think is worth saying in prose,
As to furnish a meal of their cannibal diet
To the critics, by publishing, as you propose.
But it's all of no use, and I 'm sorry I've written, -
I shall see your thin volume some day on my shelf;
For the rhyming tarantula surely has bitten,
And music must cure you, so pipe it yourself. |
Yesterday And To-Morrow | Paul Laurence Dunbar | Yesterday I held your hand,
Reverently I pressed it,
And its gentle yieldingness
From my soul I blessed it.
But to-day I sit alone,
Sad and sore repining;
Must our gold forever know
Flames for the refining?
Yesterday I walked with you,
Could a day be sweeter?
Life was all a lyric song
Set to tricksy meter.
Ah, to-day is like a dirge,--
Place my arms around you,
Let me feel the same dear joy
As when first I found you.
Let me once retrace my steps,
From these roads unpleasant,
Let my heart and mind and soul
All ignore the present.
Yesterday the iron seared
And to-day means sorrow.
Pause, my soul, arise, arise,
Look where gleams the morrow. |
The Swiss Alps. | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Yesterday brown was still thy head, as the locks of my loved one,
Whose sweet image so dear silently beckons afar.
Silver-grey is the early snow to-day on thy summit,
Through the tempestuous night streaming fast over thy brow.
Youth, alas, throughout life as closely to age is united
As, in some changeable dream, yesterday blends with to-day.
Uri, October 7th, 1797. |
Her Tour. | William McKendree Carleton | Yes, we've been travelling, my dear,
Three months, or such a matter,
And it's a blessing to get clear
Of all the clash and clatter!
Ah! when I look the guide-book through,
And see each queer place in there,
'Tis hard to make it seem quite true
That I myself have been there!
Our voyage? Oh, of course 'twas gay -
Delightful! splendid! glorious!
We spurned the shore - we sped away -
We rode the waves victorious.
The first mate's mustache was so grand!
The ocean sweet, though stormy
(I was so sick I could not stand,
But papa saw it for me).
At Queenstown we saw land once more -
Ground never looked so pretty!
We took a steam-car near the shore
For some light-sounding city.
A very ordinary stone
We had to kiss at Blarney;
The beggars wouldn't let us alone
That half-day at Killarney!
The Giants' Causeway? 'Tis arranged
With no regard to science;
It must somehow of late have changed -
At least we saw no giants.
Some little funny scrubs of folks
Sold pictures, and were merry;
The men were full of yarns and jokes,
The women barefoot - very.
Old Scotland? Yes, all in our power
We did there to be thorough;
We stopped in Glasgow one whole hour,
Then straight to "Edinborough."
At Abbotsford we made a stay
Of half an hour precisely.
(The ruins all along the way
Were ruined very nicely.)
We "did" a mountain in the rain,
And left the others undone,
Then took the "Flying Scotchman" train.
And came by night to London.
Long tunnels somewhere on the line
Made sound and darkness deeper;
No; English scenery is not fine,
Viewed from a Pullman sleeper.
Oh, Paris! Paris! Paris! 'tis
No wonder, dear, that you go
So far into the ecstasies
About that Victor Hugo!
He paints the city, high and low,
With faithful pen and ready
(I think, my dear, I ought to know -
We drove there two hours steady).
Through Switzerland by train. Yes, I
Enjoyed it, in a measure;
But still the mountains are too high
To see with any pleasure.
Their tops - they made my neck quite stiff,
Just stretching up to view them;
And folks are very foolish if
They clamber clear up to them!
Rome, Venice, Naples, and the Rhine?
We did them - do not doubt it;
This guide-book here is very fine -
'Twill tell you all about it.
We've saved up Asia till next year,
If business gets unravelled;
What! going? Come again; and, dear,
I will not seem so travelled.
* * * * *
WASHINGTON, November 3, 18 - .
We're travelling, and we're here! and what a town!
I own, it picks me up and sets me down!
I thought I had some idea of the place,
And what its corporation lines embrace;
I'd read the county papers every week,
Which seldom failed "From Washington" to speak;
I'd travelled through these streets by photograph,
And, with Imagination for a staff,
Had wandered round, in little trips disjointed,
Even where the artist's brass gun has not pointed;
And so I said, "Though I wouldn't like to miss it,
'Twill be a good deal like a second visit."
But 'tisn't an easy perpetrated scheme
To prophesy how anything will seem.
This city's new to me - I do not doubt it -
As if I'd never heard a word about it!
There's something in these white-clothed buildings' glare,
And something even in the very air,
And in the great variety of faces,
Bearing the ear-marks of a thousand places,
And in that monument that reaches high -
The farthest stone has climbed into the sky,
And in that dome, whose kingly size and height
Contrive, where'er you are, to keep in sight -
From these, and several hundred other things
This nation's lead-horse city at you flings,
You feel as if you'd stepped, through many a mile,
Into another planet for a while!
But men too weary to hold up their heads
Are apt to bless the man[7] who first made beds;
Then, having found one, and reclined within it,
Forget about him in just half a minute.
So I'll let Morpheus (who is at me winking)
Do the remainder of this evening's thinking.
[7] Or woman - let due praise to her be paid;
A bed is never made until 'tis made.
|
The Divinity | Matthew Arnold | 'Yes, write it in the rock!' Saint Bernard said,
'Grave it on brass with adamantine pen!
''Tis God himself becomes apparent, when
'God's wisdom and God's goodness are display'd,
'For God of these his attributes is made.'
Well spake the impetuous Saint, and bore of men
The suffrage captive; now, not one in ten
Recalls the obscure opposer he outweigh'd.
God's wisdom and God's goodness! Ay, but fools
Mis-define these till God knows them no more.
Wisdom and goodness, they are God! what schools
Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore?
This no Saint preaches, and this no Church rules;
'Tis in the desert, now and heretofore. |
To - . | Percy Bysshe Shelley | Yet look on me - take not thine eyes away,
Which feed upon the love within mine own,
Which is indeed but the reflected ray
Of thine own beauty from my spirit thrown.
Yet speak to me - thy voice is as the tone
Of my heart's echo, and I think I hear
That thou yet lovest me; yet thou alone
Like one before a mirror, without care
Of aught but thine own features, imaged there;
And yet I wear out life in watching thee;
A toil so sweet at times, and thou indeed
Art kind when I am sick, and pity me... |
Choose You This Day Whom Ye Will Serve | Oliver Wendell Holmes | Yes, tyrants, you hate us, and fear while you hate
The self-ruling, chain-breaking, throne-shaking State!
The night-birds dread morning, - your instinct is true, -
The day-star of Freedom brings midnight for you!
Why plead with the deaf for the cause of mankind?
The owl hoots at noon that the eagle is blind!
We ask not your reasons, - 't were wasting our time, -
Our life is a menace, our welfare a crime!
We have battles to fight, we have foes to subdue, -
Time waits not for us, and we wait not for you!
The mower mows on, though the adder may writhe
And the copper-head coil round the blade of his scythe!
"No sides in this quarrel," your statesmen may urge,
Of school-house and wages with slave-pen scourge! -
No sides in the quarrel! proclaim it as well
To the angels that fight with the legions of hell!
They kneel in God's temple, the North and the South,
With blood on each weapon and prayers in each mouth.
Whose cry shall be answered? Ye Heavens, attend
The lords of the lash as their voices ascend!
"O Lord, we are shaped in the image of Thee, -
Smite down the base millions that claim to be free,
And lend thy strong arm to the soft-handed race
Who eat not their bread in the sweat of their face!"
So pleads the proud planter. What echoes are these?
The bay of his bloodhound is borne on the breeze,
And, lost in the shriek of his victim's despair,
His voice dies unheard. - Hear the Puritan's prayer!
"O Lord, that didst smother mankind in thy flood,
The sun is as sackcloth, the moon is as blood,
The stars fall to earth as untimely are cast
The figs from the fig-tree that shakes in the blast!
"All nations, all tribes in whose nostrils is breath
Stand gazing at Sin as she travails with Death!
Lord, strangle the monster that struggles to birth,
Or mock us no more with thy 'Kingdom on Earth!'
"If Ammon and Moab must reign in the land
Thou gavest thine Israel, fresh from thy hand,
Call Baal and Ashtaroth out of their graves
To be the new gods for the empire of slaves!"
Whose God will ye serve, O ye rulers of men?
Will ye build you new shrines in the slave-breeder's den?
Or bow with the children of light, as they call
On the Judge of the Earth and the Father of All?
Choose wisely, choose quickly, for time moves apace, -
Each day is an age in the life of our race!
Lord, lead them in love, ere they hasten in fear
From the fast-rising flood that shall girdle the sphere! |
Moral Essays. Epistle I.--To Sir Richard Temple, Lord Cobham. | Alexander Pope | ARGUMENT.
OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTERS OF MEN.
That it is not sufficient for this knowledge to consider man in the abstract: books will not serve the purpose, nor yet our own experience singly, ver. 1. General maxims, unless they be formed upon both, will be but notional, ver. 10. Some peculiarity in every man, characteristic to himself, yet varying from himself, ver. 15. Difficulties arising from our own passions, fancies, faculties, &c., ver. 31. The shortness of life, to observe in, and the uncertainty of the principles of action in men, to observe by, ver. 37, &c. Our own principle of action often hid from ourselves, ver. 41. Some few characters plain, but in general confounded, dissembled, or inconsistent, ver. 51. The same man utterly different in different places and seasons, ver. 71. Unimaginable weaknesses in the greatest, ver. 70, &c. Nothing constant and certain but God and nature, ver. 95. No judging of the motives from the actions; the same actions proceeding from contrary motives, and the same motives influencing contrary actions, ver. 100. II. Yet to form characters, we can only take the strongest actions of a man's life, and try to make them agree: the utter uncertainty of this, from nature itself, and from policy, ver. 120. Characters given according to the rank of men of the world, ver. 135. And some reason for it, ver. 140. Education alters the nature, or at least character of many, ver. 149. Actions, passions, opinions, manners, humours, or principles, all subject to change. No judging by nature, from ver. 158 to 174. III. It only remains to find (if we can) his ruling passion: that will certainly influence all the rest, and can reconcile the seeming or real inconsistency of all his actions, ver. 175. Instanced in the extraordinary character of Clodio, ver. 179. A caution against mistaking second qualities for first, which will destroy all possibility of the knowledge of mankind, ver. 210.
Examples of the strength of the ruling passion, and its continuation to the last breath, ver. 222, &c.
Yes, you despise the man to books confined,
Who from his study rails at human kind;
Though what he learns he speaks, and may advance
Some general maxims, or be right by chance.
The coxcomb bird, so talkative and grave,
That from his cage cries 'Cuckold,' 'Whore,' and 'Knave,'
Though many a passenger he rightly call,
You hold him no philosopher at all.
And yet the fate of all extremes is such,
Men may be read, as well as books, too much.
To observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for the observer's sake;
To written wisdom, as another's, less:
Maxims are drawn from notions, those from guess.
There's some peculiar in each leaf and grain,
Some unmark'd fibre, or some varying vein:
Shall only man be taken in the gross?
Grant but as many sorts of mind as moss.
That each from other differs, first confess;
Next that he varies from himself no less:
Add nature's, custom's, reason's, passion's strife,
And all opinion's colours cast on life.
Our depths who fathoms, or our shallows finds,
Quick whirls, and shifting eddies, of our minds?
On human actions reason though you can,
It may be reason, but it is not man:
His principle of action once explore,
That instant 'tis his principle no more.
Like following life through creatures you dissect,
You lose it in the moment you detect.
Yet more; the difference is as great between
The optics seeing, as the objects seen.
All manners take a tincture from our own;
Or come discolour'd, through our passions shown;
Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies,
Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.
Nor will life's stream for observation stay,
It hurries all too fast to mark their way:
In vain sedate reflections we would make,
When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.
Oft, in the passions' wild rotation toss'd,
Our spring of action to ourselves is lost:
Tired, not determined, to the last we yield,
And what comes then is master of the field.
As the last image of that troubled heap,
When sense subsides, and fancy sports in sleep,
(Though past the recollection of the thought),
Becomes the stuff of which our dream is wrought:
Something as dim to our internal view,
Is thus, perhaps, the cause of most we do.
True, some are open, and to all men known;
Others so very close, they're hid from none;
(So darkness strikes the sense no less than light)
Thus gracious Chandos is beloved at sight;
And every child hates Shylock, though his soul
Still sits at squat, and peeps not from its hole.
At half mankind when generous Manly raves,
All know 'tis virtue, for he thinks them knaves:
When universal homage Umbra pays,
All see 'tis vice, and itch of vulgar praise.
When flattery glares, all hate it in a queen,
While one there is who charms us with his spleen.
But these plain characters we rarely find;
Though strong the bent, yet quick the turns of mind:
Or puzzling contraries confound the whole;
Or affectations quite reverse the soul.
The dull, flat falsehood serves for policy;
And, in the cunning, truth itself's a lie:
Unthought-of frailties cheat us in the wise;
The fool lies hid in inconsistencies.
See the same man, in vigour, in the gout;
Alone, in company; in place, or out;
Early at business, and at hazard late;
Mad at a fox-chase, wise at a debate;
Drunk at a borough, civil at a ball;
Friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall.
Catius is ever moral, ever grave,
Thinks who endures a knave, is next a knave,
Save just at dinner--then prefers, no doubt,
A rogue with venison to a saint without.
Who would not praise Patricio's[1] high desert,
His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart,
His comprehensive head, all interests weigh'd,
All Europe saved, yet Britain not betray'd?
He thanks you not, his pride is in picquet,
Newmarket fame, and judgment at a bet.
What made (says Montaigne, or more sage Charron[2])
Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon?
A perjured prince[3] a leaden saint revere,
A godless regent[4] tremble at a star?
The throne a bigot keep, a genius quit,
Faithless through piety, and duped through wit?
Europe a woman, child, or dotard rule,
And just her wisest monarch made a fool?
Know, God and Nature only are the same:
In man, the judgment shoots at flying game;
A bird of passage! gone as soon as found,
Now in the moon perhaps, now under ground.
II. In vain the sage, with retrospective eye,
Would from the apparent what conclude the why,
Infer the motive from the deed, and show
That what we chanced was what we meant to do.
Behold! if fortune or a mistress frowns,
Some plunge in business, others shave their crowns:
To ease the soul of one oppressive weight,
This quits an empire, that embroils a state:
The same adust complexion has impell'd
Charles[5] to the convent, Philip[6] to the field.
Not always actions show the man: we find
Who does a kindness, is not therefore kind;
Perhaps prosperity becalm'd his breast,
Perhaps the wind just shifted from the east:
Not therefore humble he who seeks retreat,
Pride guides his steps, and bids him shun the great:
Who combats bravely is not therefore brave,
He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave:
Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,
His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies.
But grant that actions best discover man;
Take the most strong, and sort them as you can:
The few that glare, each character must mark,
You balance not the many in the dark.
What will you do with such as disagree?
Suppress them, or miscall them policy?
Must then at once (the character to save)
The plain rough hero turn a crafty knave?
Alas! in truth the man but changed his mind,
Perhaps was sick, in love, or had not dined.
Ask why from Britain C'sar would retreat?
C'sar himself might whisper he was beat.
Why risk the world's great empire for a punk?[7]
C'sar perhaps might answer he was drunk.
But, sage historians! 'tis your task to prove
One action, conduct; one, heroic love.
'Tis from high life high characters are drawn;
A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn;
A judge is just, a chancellor juster still;
A gownman, learn'd; a bishop, what you will;
Wise, if a minister; but, if a king,
More wise, more learn'd, more just, more everything,
Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,
Born where Heaven's influence scarce can penetrate:
In life's low vale, the soil the virtues like,
They please as beauties, here as wonders strike.
Though the same sun with all-diffusive rays
Blush in the rose, and in the diamond blaze,
We prize the stronger effort of his power,
And justly set the gem above the flower.
'Tis education forms the common mind,
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
Boastful and rough, your first son is a squire;
The next a tradesman, meek, and much a liar;
Tom struts a soldier, open, bold, and brave;
Will sneaks a scrivener, an exceeding knave:
Is he a Churchman? then he's fond of power:
A Quaker? sly: A Presbyterian? sour:
A smart free-thinker? all things in an hour.
Ask men's opinions: Scoto now shall tell
How trade increases, and the world goes well;
Strike off his pension, by the setting sun,
And Britain, if not Europe, is undone.
That gay free-thinker, a fine talker once,
What turns him now a stupid silent dunce?
Some god, or spirit he has lately found;
Or chanced to meet a minister that frown'd.
Judge we by nature? Habit can efface,
Interest o'ercome, or policy take place:
By actions? those uncertainty divides:
By passions? these dissimulation hides:
Opinions? they still take a wider range:
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change.
Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times.
III. Search, then, the ruling passion: there, alone,
The wild are constant, and the cunning known;
The fool consistent, and the false sincere;
Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.
This clue once found, unravels all the rest,
The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confess'd.
Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days,
Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise:
Born with whate'er could win it from the wise,
Women and fools must like him or he dies;
Though wondering senates hung on all he spoke,
The club must hail him master of the joke.
Shall parts so various aim at nothing new?
He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot[8] too.
Then turns repentant, and his God adores
With the same spirit that he drinks and whores;
Enough if all around him but admire,
And now the punk applaud, and now the friar.
Thus with each gift of nature and of art,
And wanting nothing but an honest heart;
Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt;
And most contemptible, to shun contempt;
His passion still to covet general praise,
His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways;
A constant bounty which no friend has made;
An angel tongue, which no man can persuade;
A fool, with more of wit than half mankind,
Too rash for thought, for action too refined;
A tyrant to the wife his heart approves;
A rebel to the very king he loves;
He dies, sad outcast of each church and state,
And, harder still! flagitious, yet not great.
Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule
'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool.
Nature well known, no prodigies remain,
Comets are regular, and Wharton plain.
Yet, in this search, the wisest may mistake,
If second qualities for first they take.
When Catiline by rapine swell'd his store;
When C'sar made a noble dame a whore;[9]
In this the lust, in that the avarice
Were means, not ends; ambition was the vice.
That very C'sar, born in Scipio's days,
Had aim'd, like him, by chastity at praise.
Lucullus, when frugality could charm,
Had roasted turnips in the Sabine farm.
In vain the observer eyes the builder's toil,
But quite mistakes the scaffold for the pile.
In this one passion man can strength enjoy,
As fits give vigour, just when they destroy.
Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand,
Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand.
Consistent in our follies and our sins,
Here honest Nature ends as she begins.
Old politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in business to the last;
As weak, as earnest, and as gravely out,
As sober Lanesborough[10] dancing in the gout.
Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace
Has made the father of a nameless race,
Shoved from the wall perhaps, or rudely press'd
By his own son, that passes by unbless'd:
Still to his wench he crawls on knocking knees,
And envies every sparrow that he sees.
A salmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate;
The doctor call'd, declares all help too late:
'Mercy!' cries Helluo, 'mercy on my soul!
Is there no hope? Alas! then bring the jowl.'
The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend,
Still tries to save the hallow'd taper's end,
Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires,
For one puff more, and in that puff expires.
'Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke,'
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa[11] spoke),
'No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace
Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face:
One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead
And, Betty, give this cheek a little red.'
The courtier smooth, who forty years had shined
An humble servant to all human kind,
Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir,
'If--where I'm going--I could serve you, sir?'
'I give and I devise' (old Euclio said,
And sigh'd) 'my lands and tenements to Ned.'
'Your money, sir?' 'My money, sir, what! all?
Why--if I must'--(then wept)--'I give it Paul.'
'The manor, sir?'--'The manor! hold,' (he cried),
'Not that--I cannot part with that'--and died.
And you, brave Cobham! to the latest breath
Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death:
Such in those moments as in all the past,
'Oh, save my country, Heaven!' shall be your last.
VARIATIONS.
After VER. 86, in the former editions--
Triumphant leaders, at an army's head,
Hemm'd round with glories, pilfer cloth or bread:
As meanly plunder as they bravely fought,
Now save a people, and now save a groat.
VER. 129, in the former editions--
Ask why from Britain C'sar made retreat?
C'sar himself would tell you he was beat.
The mighty Czar what moved to wed a punk?
The mighty Czar would tell you he was drunk.
In the former editions, VER. 208--
Nature well known, no miracles remain. |
Th' New Railrooad. (Prose) | John Hartley | Yo've heeard tell abaat th new railrooad aw dar say? It's an age o' steeam is this! Smook nuisance and boilers brustin are ivery-day affairs, an' ivery thing an' ivery body seem to be on at full speed. Aw wonder 'at noabdy invents a man wi a drivin pulley at his back soa's they could speed him up as they do a loom to soa mony picks a minit; th' chap 'at get's a patent for that ul mak a fortune.
But after all, they dooant seem in a varry gurt hurry abaat th' new railroad; but we mun remember Rome wor'nt built in a day, nor a neet nawther, an' soa we mun have patience. They've nobbut been agate two or three year, an' although it's hardly likely at' we shall live to see it finished, happen somedy else will, an' that's a comfort. But bi what aw hear, ther's some fowk at Ovenden fancy it'll be finished befoor soa varry long, an' they've started what they call "a railway trainin class," to taich some oth' young chaps to be railway porters, soa's they'll be ready when th' time comes. They meet in a cottage haase twice a wick to practice, an' they say they're gettin on furst rate. Ther's owd Billy 'at wor once a firer-up for a veal pie shop, an' he's th' president, an he's getten th' asthma soa bad wol if he sturs he puffs war nor a broken winded horse, soa they call him puffin Billy. When they're practisin', they stand o'th' side o'th' oven door i' ther turns, an' when Billy whistles one on 'em oppens it an' shaats aght "Change here for Bradford Beck, Halifax, Hull and t'other shops!" then he bangs it too ageean an shaats "All reight!" an another comes an' does th' same. When they began at th' furst they borrowed a Tom cat o' th' old woman, an' used to put it i' th' oven for a passenger, but one o'th' chaps wor soa fussy, 'at he bang'd th' door too befoor it had getten reight aght, an' chopped its tail clean off. Niver mind if th' owd woman didn't mak a crack - shoo declared shoo'd sue' em for condemnation. Billy tell'd her it ud be a Manx cat after that, but shoo sooin tell'd him shoo wanted nooan sich lik manx; soa they have to tak ther lessons nah withaat passenger. Two on 'em 'at's passed ther examination are studdyin nah for ticket collectors, an' they promise to mak varry gooid uns. When they practise that, they call th' haase door th' furst class, th' cubbord th' second class, an' th' oven door th' third class, an' they start at th' haase door furst, "Gentlemen, your tickets please," then they goa to th' cubbord door, "Tickets," an' then to th' oven door, "Nah then, luk sharp wi' them tickets."
But they'd a sad mishap one neet, for it seems th' owd woman had been bakin, and shoo forgate to mention it, soa when th' furst chap gate hold o' th' oven door hannel he burn'd his fingers, an' becos tother students lafft he sed they'd done it o' purpose; an' it led to a reglar fratch, an' he gate into sich a rage 'at he sed he'd swallow one on em, if he did'nt hold his din, an' it wod'nt be th' furst porter he'd swallow'd nawther! Soa th' taicher tell'd him 'at sich like carryin on wor varry unporterish, an' if he brake th' rules that way he'd have to be taken before th' inspector. But nowt could quieten him till he gate his fingers rubb'd wi sooap an' they gave ovver smartin, soa as th' oven door wor hot they had to practice another pairt. One on 'em borrowed a wheelbarrow, as they could'nt get a luggage lurry, an' they had to wheel it up an' daan th' haase floor i' ther turns, callin aght "By leave!" An' them 'at could manage to run ovver one o' th' tother's tooas, an' goa on as if nowt wor, gate one gooid mark, but him at could run buzz agean a chap an' fell him wor th' next on th' list for a guard. It used to be warm wark boath for him at wor wheelin' an' for tothers, but they wor all on 'em bent o' bein' porters, soa they tew'd at it, detarmined to maister all th' ins an' aghts abaat it. Whether all ther trouble will be thrown away or net aw connot tell, but ther's one gooid thing, it keeps' em aght ov a war turn an' saves th' police a deal o' bother.
But th' owd fowk dooant like th' idea; they see noa use i' bringin sich gurt stinkin things into their district, an' they've detarmined to do all they con to stop it; when a body's been able to live 60 or 70 year withaat sich like nonsense, they see noa reason why they shouldn't be let finish their bit o' time aght quietly. Ther wor one young lad went to ax his gronfayther if he mud join th' class, an' th' owd chap went varry near into a fit, he luk'd at him for a minit, an' then he says,
A'a, Johnny! a'a, Johnny! aw'm sooary for thee!
But come thi ways to me, an' sit o' mi knee.
For it's shockin' to hearken to th' words 'at tha says; -
Ther wor nooan sich like things i' thi gronfayther's days.
When aw wor a lad, lads wor lads, tha knows, then,
But nahdays they owt to be 'shamed o' thersen;
For they smook, an' they drink, an' get other bad ways;
Things wor different once i'thi gronfayther's days.
Aw remember th' furst day aw went coortin' a bit,
An' walked aght thi gronny; - awst niver forget;
For we blushed wol us faces wor all in a blaze; -
It wor nooa sin to blush i' thi gronfayther's days.
Ther's nooa lasses nah, John, 'at's fit to be wed;
They've false teeth i' ther maath, an' false hair o' ther heead:
They're a make-up o' buckram, an' waddin', an' stays,
But a lass wor a lass i' thi gronfayther's days.
At that time a tradesman dealt fairly wi th' poor,
But nah a fair dealer can't keep oppen th' door;
He's a fooil if he fails, he's a scamp if he pays;
Ther wor honest men lived i' thi gronfayther's days.
Ther's chimleys an' factrys i' ivery nook nah,
But ther's varry few left 'at con fodder a caah;
An' ther's telegraff poles all o'th' edge o'th' highways,
Whear grew bonny green trees i' thi gronfayther's days.
We're teld to be thankful for blessin's 'ats sent,
An' aw hooap 'at tha'll allus be blessed wi content:
Tha mun mak th' best tha con o' this world wol tha stays,
But aw wish tha'd been born i' thi gronfayther's days.
|
Puss In The Corner. | Lizzie Lawson | "You are a naughty pussy-cat,
I think it right to mention that,
To all who see your picture here,
'Twas you who broke my Bunny dear.
An hour ago, as you can tell,
I left him here, alive and well;
And now he's dead and, what is more,
You've broke his leg I'm pretty sure.
For you my puss I'll never care,
No never, never, never, there,
And you are in disgrace you know,
And in the corner you must go.
What crying? Then I must cry too
And I can't bear to punish you;
Perhaps my Bunny isn't dead,
Perhaps you've only stunned his head.
And though I'm sure you broke his leg,
It may be mended with a peg,
And though he's very, very, funny,
My Bunny's not a real Bunny,
And I'll forgive and tell you that,
You're my own precious pussy cat." |
Amours De Voyage - Canto III | Arthur Hugh Clough | CANTO III.
Yet to the wondrous St. Peter's, and yet to the solemn Rotonda,
Mingling with heroes and gods, yet to the Vatican Walls,
Yet may we go, and recline, while a whole mighty world seems above us,
Gathered and fixed to all time into one roofing supreme;
Yet may we, thinking on these things, exclude what is meaner around us;
Yet, at the worst of the worst, books and a chamber remain;
Yet may we think, and forget, and possess our souls in resistance.
Ah, but away from the stir, shouting, and gossip of war,
Where, upon Apennine slope, with the chestnut the oak-trees immingle,
Where, amid odorous copse bridle-paths wander and wind,
Where, under mulberry-branches, the diligent rivulet sparkles,
Or amid cotton and maize peasants their water-works ply,
Where, over fig-tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated,
Garden on garden upreared, balconies step to the sky,
Ah, that I were far away from the crowd and the streets of the city,
Under the vine-trellis laid, my beloved, with thee!
I. MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER, on the way to Florence.
Why doesn't Mr. Claude come with us? you ask, We don't know.
You should know better than we. He talked of the Vatican marbles;
But I can't wholly believe that this was the actual reason,
He was so ready before, when we asked him to come and escort us.
Certainly he is odd, my dear Miss Roper. To change so
Suddenly, just for a whim, was not quite fair to the party,
Not quite right. I declare, I really almost am offended:
I, his great friend, as you say, have doubtless a title to be so.
Not that I greatly regret it, for dear Georgina distinctly
Wishes for nothing so much as to show her adroitness. But, oh, my
Pen will not write any more; let us say nothing further about it.
. . . . .
Yes, my dear Miss Roper, I certainly called him repulsive;
So I think him, but cannot be sure I have used the expression
Quite as your pupil should; yet he does most truly repel me.
Was it to you I made use of the word? or who was it told you?
Yes, repulsive; observe, it is but when he talks of ideas
That he is quite unaffected, and free, and expansive, and easy;.
I could pronounce him simply a cold intellectual being.
When does he make advances? He thinks that women should woo him;
Yet, if a girl should do so, would be but alarmed and disgusted.
She that should love him must look for small love in return, like the ivy
On the stone wall, must expect but a rigid and niggard support, and
E'en to get that must go searching all round with her humble embraces.
II. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE, from Rome.
Tell me, my friend, do you think that the grain would sprout in the furrow,
Did it not truly accept as its summum and ultimum bonum
That mere common and may-be indifferent soil it is set in?
Would it have force to develop and open its young cotyledons,
Could it compare, and reflect, and examine one thing with another?
Would it endure to accomplish the round of its natural functions,
Were it endowed with a sense of the general scheme of existence?
While from Marseilles in the steamer we voyage to Civita Vecchia,
Vexed in the squally seas we lay by Capraja and Elba,
Standing, uplifted, alone on the heaving poop of the vessel,
Looking around on the waste of the rushing incurious billows,
'This is Nature,' I said: 'we are born as it were from her waters;
Over her billows that buffet and beat us, her offspring uncaredfor,
Casting one single regard of a painful victorious knowledge,
Into her billows that buffet and beat us we sink and are swallowed.'
This was the sense in my soul, as I swayed with the poop of the steamer;
And as unthinking I sat in the hall of the famed Ariadne,
Lo, it looked at me there from the face of a Triton in marble.
It is the simpler thought, and I can believe it the truer.
Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages.
III. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Farewell, Politics, utterly! What can I do? I cannot
Fight, you know; and to talk I am wholly ashamed. And although I
Gnash my teeth when I look in your French or your English papers,
What is the good of that? Will swearing, I wonder, mend matters?
Cursing and scolding repel the assailants? No, it is idle;
No, whatever befalls, I will hide, will ignore or forget it.
Let the tail shift for itself; I will bury my head. And what's the
Roman Republic to me, or I to the Roman Republic?
Why not fight? In the first place, I haven't so much as a musket;
In the next, if I had, I shouldn't know how I should use it;
In the third, just at, present I'm studying ancient marbles;
In the fourth, I consider I owe my life to my country;
In the fifth I forget, but four good reasons are ample.
Meantime, pray let 'em fight, and be killed. I delight in devotion.
So that I 'list not, hurrah for the glorious army of martyrs!
Sanguis martyrum semen Ecclesi'; though it would seem this
Church is indeed of the purely Invisible, Kingdom-come kind:
Militant here on earth! Triumphant, of course, then, elsewhere!
Ah, good Heaven, but I would I were out far away from the pother!
IV. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Not, as we read in the words of the olden-time inspiration,
Are there two several trees in the place we are set to abide in;
But on the apex most high of the Tree of Life in the Garden,
Budding, unfolding, and falling, decaying and flowering ever,
Flowering is set and decaying the transient blossom of Knowledge,
Flowering alone, and decaying, the needless unfruitful blossom.
Or as the cypress-spires by the fair-flowing stream Hellespontine,
Which from the mythical tomb of the godlike Protesilaus
Rose sympathetic in grief to his love-lorn Laodamia,
Evermore growing, and, when in their growth to the prospect attaining,
Over the low sea-banks, of the fatal Ilian city,
Withering still at the sight which still they upgrow to encounter.
Ah, but ye that extrude from the ocean your helpless faces,
Ye over stormy seas leading long and dreary processions,
Ye, too, brood of the wind, whose coming is whence we discern not,
Making your nest on the wave, and your bed on the crested billow,
Skimming rough waters, and crowding wet sands that the tide shall return to,
Cormorants, ducks, and gulls, fill ye my imagination!
Let us not talk of growth; we are still in our Aqueous Ages.
V. MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER, from Florence.
Dearest Miss Roper, Alas! we are all at Florence quite safe, and
You, we hear, are shut up! indeed, it is sadly distressing!
We were most lucky, they say, to get off when we did from the troubles.
Now you are really besieged; they tell us it soon will be over;
Only I hope and trust without any fight in the city.
Do you see Mr. Claude? I thought he might do something for you.
I am quite sure on occasion he really would wish to be useful.
What is he doing? I wonder; still studying Vatican marbles?
Letters, I hope, pass through. We trust your brother is better.
VI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Juxtaposition, in fine; and what is juxtaposition?
Look you, we travel along in the railway-carriage or steamer,
And, pour passer le temps, till the tedious journey be ended,
Lay aside paper or book, to talk with the girl that is next one;
And, pour passer le temps, with the terminus all but in prospect,
Talk of eternal ties and marriages made in heaven.
Ah, did we really accept with a perfect heart the illusion!
Ah, did we really believe that the Present indeed is the Only!
Or through all transmutation, all shock and convulsion of passion,
Feel we could carry undimmed, unextinguished, the light of our knowledge!
But for his funeral train which the bridegroom sees in the distance,
Would he so joyfully, think you, fall in with the marriage procession?
But for that final discharge, would he dare to enlist in that service?
But for that certain release, ever sign to that perilous contract?
But for that exit secure, ever bend to that treacherous doorway?
Ah, but the bride, meantime, do you think she sees it as he does?
But for the steady fore-sense of a freer and larger existence,
Think you that man could consent to be circumscribed here into action?
But for assurance within of a limitless ocean divine, o'er
Whose great tranquil depths unconscious the wind-tost surface
Breaks into ripples of trouble that come and change and endure not,
But that in this, of a truth, we have our being, and know it,
Think you we men could submit to live and move as we do here?
Ah, but the women, God bless them! they don't think at all about it.
Yet we must eat and drink, as you say. And as limited beings
Scarcely can hope to attain upon earth to an Actual Abstract,
Leaving to God contemplation, to His hands knowledge confiding,
Sure that in us if it perish, in Him it abideth and dies not,
Let us in His sight accomplish our petty particular doings,
Yes, and contented sit down to the victual that He has provided.
Allah is great, no doubt, and juxtaposition his prophet.
Ah, but the women, alas! they don't look at it in that way.
Juxtaposition is great; but, my friend, I fear me, the maiden
Hardly would thank or acknowledge the lover that sought to obtain her,
Not as the thing he would wish, but the thing he must even put up with,
Hardly would tender her hand to the wooer that candidly told her
That she is but for a space, an ad-interim solace and pleasure,
That in the end she shall yield to a perfect and absolute something,
Which I then for myself shall behold, and not another,
Which, amid fondest endearments, meantime I forget not, forsake not.
Ah, ye feminine souls, so loving and so exacting,
Since we cannot escape, must we even submit to deceive you?
Since, so cruel is truth, sincerity shocks and revolts you,
Will you have us your slaves to lie to you, flatter and leave you?
VII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Juxtaposition is great, but, you tell me, affinity greater.
Ah, my friend, there are many affinities, greater and lesser,
Stronger and weaker; and each, by the favour of juxtaposition,
Potent, efficient, in force, for a time; but none, let me tell you,
Save by the law of the land and the ruinous force of the will, ah,
None, I fear me, at last quite sure to be final and perfect.
Lo, as I pace in the street, from the peasant girl to the princess,
Homo sum, nihil human a me alienum puto,
Vir sum, nihil f'minei, and e'en to the uttermost circle,
All that is Nature's is I, and I all things that are Nature's.
Yes, as I walk, I behold, in a luminous, large intuition,
That I can be and become anything that I meet with or look at
I am the ox in the dray, the ass with the garden stuff panniers;
I am the dog in the doorway, the kitten that plays in the window,
On sunny slab of the ruin the furtive and fugitive lizard,
Swallow above me that twitters, and fly that is buzzing about me;
Yea, and detect, as I go, by a faint, but a faithful assurance,
E'en from the stones of the street, as from rocks or trees of the forest,
Something of kindred, a common, though latent vitality, greets me;
And, to escape from our strivings, mistakings, misgrowths, and perversions,
Fain could demand to return to that perfect and primitive silence,
Fain be enfolded and fixed, as of old, in their rigid embraces.
VIII. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
And as I walk on my way, I behold them consorting and coupling;
Faithful it seemeth, and fond, very fond, very probably faithful,
All as I go on my way, with a pleasure sincere and unmingled.
Life is beautiful, Eustace, entrancing, enchanting to look at;
As are the streets of a city we pace while the carriage is changing,
As a chamber filled-in with harmonious, exquisite pictures,
Even so beautiful Earth; and could we eliminate only
This vile hungering impulse, this demon within us of craving,
Life were beatitude, living a perfect divine satisfaction.
IX. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters:
So let me offer a single and celibatarian phrase, a
Tribute to those whom perhaps you do not believe I can honour.
But, from the tumult escaping, 'tis pleasant, of drumming and shouting,
Hither, oblivious awhile, to withdraw, of the fact or the falsehood,
And amid placid regards and mildly courteous greetings
Yield to the calm and composure and gentle abstraction that reign o'er
Mild monastic faces in quiet collegiate cloisters:
Terrible word, Obligation! You should not, Eustace, you should not,
No, you should not have used it. But, oh, great Heavens, I repel it!
Oh, I cancel, reject, disavow, and repudiate wholly
Every debt in this kind, disclaim every claim, and dishonour,
Yea, my own heart's own writing, my soul's own signature! Ah, no!
I will be free in this; you shall not, none shall, bind me.
No, my friend, if you wish to be told, it was this above all things,
This that charmed me, ah, yes, even this, that she held me to nothing.
No, I could talk as I pleased; come close; fasten ties, as I fancied;
Bind and engage myself deep; and lo, on the following morning
It was all e'en as before, like losings in games played for nothing.
Yes, when I came, with mean fears in my soul, with a semi-performance
At the first step breaking down in its pitiful role of evasion,
When to shuffle I came, to compromise, not meet, engagements,
Lo, with her calm eyes there she met me and knew nothing of it,
Stood unexpecting, unconscious. She spoke not of obligations,
Knew not of debt ah, no, I believe you, for excellent reasons.
X. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Hang this thinking, at last! what good is it? oh, and what evil!
Oh, what mischief and pain! like a clock in a sick man's chamber,
Ticking and ticking, and still through each covert of slumber pursuing.
What shall I do to thee, O thou Preserver of men? Have compassion;
Be favourable, and hear! Take from me this regal knowledge;
Let me, contented and mute, with the beasts of the fields, my brothers,
Tranquilly, happily lie, and eat grass, like Nebuchadnezzar!
XI. CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Tibur is beautiful, too, and the orchard slopes, and the Anio
Falling, falling yet, to the ancient lyrical cadence;
Tibur and Anio's tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever,
With the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian fountain,
Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace:
So not seeing I sang; so seeing and listening say I,
Here as I sit by the stream, as I gaze at the cell of the Sibyl,
Here with Albunea's home and the grove of Tiburnus beside me;1
Tivoli beautiful is, and musical, O Teverone,
Dashing from mountain to plain, thy parted impetuous waters!
Tivoli's waters and rocks; and fair unto Monte Gennaro
(Haunt even yet, I must think, as I wander and gaze, of the shadows,
Faded and pale, yet immortal, of Faunus, the Nymphs, and the Graces),
Fair in itself, and yet fairer with human completing creations,
Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace:
So not seeing I sang; so now Nor seeing, nor hearing,
Neither by waterfall lulled, nor folded in sylvan embraces,
Neither by cell of the Sibyl, nor stepping the Monte Gennaro,
Seated on Anio's bank, nor sipping Bandusian waters,
But on Montorio's height, looking down on the tile-clad streets, the
Cupolas, crosses, and domes, the bushes and kitchen-gardens,
Which, by the grace of the Tibur, proclaim themselves Rome of the Romans,
But on Montorio's height, looking forth to the vapoury mountains,
Cheating the prisoner Hope with illusions of vision and fancy,
But on Montorio's height, with these weary soldiers by me,
Waiting till Oudinot enter, to reinstate Pope and Tourist.
XII. MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER.
Dear Miss Ropers It seems, George Vernon, before we left Rome, said
Something to Mr. Claude about what they call his attentions.
Susan, two nights ago, for the first time, heard this from Georgina.
It is so disagreeable and so annoying to think of!
If it could only be known, though we never may meet him again, that
It was all George's doing, and we were entirely unconscious,
It would extremely relieve Your ever affectionate Mary.
P.S. (1)
Here is your letter arrived this moment, just as I wanted.
So you have seen him, indeed, and guessed, how dreadfully clever!
What did he really say? and what was your answer exactly?
Charming! but wait for a moment, I haven't read through the letter.
P.S. (2)
Ah, my dearest Miss Roper, do just as you fancy about it.
If you think it sincerer to tell him I know of it, do so.
Though I should most extremely dislike it, I know I could manage.
It is the simplest thing, but surely wholly uncalled for.
Do as you please; you know I trust implicitly to you.
Say whatever is right and needful for ending the matter.
Only don't tell Mr. Claude, what I will tell you as a secret,
That I should like very well to show him myself I forget it.
P.S. (3)
I am to say that the wedding is finally settled for Tuesday.
Ah, my dear Miss Roper, you surely, surely can manage
Not to let it appear that I know of that odious matter.
It would be pleasanter far for myself to treat it exactly
As if it had not occurred; and I do not think he would like it.
I must remember to add, that as soon as the wedding is over
We shall be off, I believe, in a hurry, and travel to Milan;
There to meet friends of Papa's, I am told, at the Croce di Malta;
Then I cannot say whither, but not at present to England.
XIII CLAUDE TO EUSTACE.
Yes, on Montorio's height for a last farewell of the city,
So it appears; though then I was quite uncertain about it.
So, however, it was. And now to explain the proceeding.
I was to go, as I told you, I think, with the people to Florence.
Only the day before, the foolish family Vernon
Made some uneasy remarks, as we walked to our lodging together,
As to intentions, forsooth, and so forth. I was astounded,
Horrified quite; and obtaining just then, as it happened, an offer
(No common favour) of seeing the great Ludovisi collection,
Why, I made this a pretence, and wrote that they must excuse me.
How could I go? Great Heavens! to conduct a permitted flirtation
Under those vulgar eyes, the observed of such observers!
Well, but I now, by a series of fine diplomatic inquiries,
Find from a sort of relation, a good and sensible woman,
Who is remaining at Rome with a brother too ill for removal,
That it was wholly unsanctioned, unknown, not, I think, by Georgina
She, however, ere this, and that is the best of the story,
She and the Vernon, thank Heaven, are wedded and gone honeymooning.
So on Montorio's height for a last farewell of the city.
Tibur I have not seen, nor the lakes that of old I had dreamt of;
Tibur I shall not see, nor Anio's waters, nor deep en-
Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace;
Tibur I shall not see; but something better I shall see.
Twice I have tried before, and failed in getting the horses;
Twice I have tried and failed: this time it shall not be a failure.
Therefore farewell, ye hills, and ye, ye envineyarded ruins!
Therefore farewell, ye walls, palaces, pillars, and domes!
Therefore farewell, far seen, ye peaks of the mythic Albano,
Seen from Montorio's height, Tibur and 'sula's hills!
Ah, could we once, ere we go, could we stand, while, to ocean descending,
Sinks o'er the yellow dark plain slowly the yellow broad sun,
Stand, from the forest emerging at sunset, at once in the champaign,
Open, but studded with trees, chestnuts umbrageous and old,
E'en in those fair open fields that incurve to thy beautiful hollow,
Nemi, imbedded in wood, Nemi, interned in the hill!
Therefore farewell, ye plains, and ye hills, and the City Eternal!
Therefore farewell! We depart, but to behold you again!
|
Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours | Walt Whitman | Yet, yet, ye downcast hours, I know ye also;
Weights of lead, how ye clog and cling at my ankles!
Earth to a chamber of mourning turns, I hear the o'erweening, mocking voice,
Matter is conqueror, matter, triumphant only, continues onward.
Despairing cries float ceaselessly toward me,
The call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarm'd, uncertain,
The Sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me,
Come tell me where I am speeding, tell me my destination.
I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you,
I approach, hear, behold, the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes, your mute inquiry,
Whither I go from the bed I recline on, come tell me:
Old age, alarm'd, uncertain, A young woman's voice, appealing to me for comfort;
A young man's voice, Shall I not escape? |
The Man Of The Nation. | Francis William Lauderdale Adams | Yonder the band is playing
And the fine young people walk.
They are envying each other and talking
Their pretty empty talk.
There, in the shade on the outskirts,
Stretched on the grass, I see
A man with a slouch hat, smoking.
That is the man for me!
That is the Man of the Nation;
He works and much endures.
When all the rest is rotten,
He rises and cuts and cures.
He's the soldier of the Crimea,
Fighting to honour fools;
He's the grappler and strangler of Lee
Lord of the terrible tools.
He's in all the conquered nations
That have won their own at last,
And in all that yet shall win it.
And the world by him goes past!
O strong sly world, this nameless
Still, much-enduring Man,
Is the hand of God that shall clutch you
For all you have done, or can! |
The Landscape | Edgar Lee Masters | You and your landscape! There it lies
Stripped, resuming its disguise,
Clothed in dreams, made bare again,
Symbol infinite of pain,
Rapture, magic, mystery
Of vanished days and days to be.
There's its sea of tidal grass
Over which the south winds pass,
And the sun-set's Tuscan gold
Which the distant windows hold
For an instant like a sphere
Bursting ere it disappear.
There's the dark green woods which throve
In the spell of Leese's Grove.
And the winding of the road;
And the hill o'er which the sky
Stretched its pallied vacancy
Ere the dawn or evening glowed.
And the wonder of the town
Somewhere from the hill-top down
Nestling under hills and woods
And the meadow's solitudes.
* * * * *
And your paper knight of old
Secrets of the landscape told.
And the hedge-rows where the pond
Took the blue of heavens beyond
The hastening clouds of gusty March.
There you saw their wrinkled arch
Where the East wind cracks his whips
Round the little pond and clips
Main-sails from your toppled ships. ...
Landscape that in youth you knew
Past and present, earth and you!
All the legends and the tales
Of the uplands, of the vales;
Sounds of cattle and the cries
Of ploughmen and of travelers
Were its soul's interpreters.
And here the lame were always lame.
Always gray the gray of head.
And the dead were always dead
Ere the landscape had become
Your cradle, as it was their tomb.
* * * * *
And when the thunder storms would waken
Of the dream your soul was not forsaken:
In the room where the dormer windows look -
There were your knight and the tattered book.
With colors of the forest green
Gabled roofs and the demesne
Of faery kingdoms and faery time
Storied in pre-natal rhyme. ...
Past the orchards, in the plain
The cattle fed on in the rain.
And the storm-beaten horseman sped
Rain blinded and with bended head.
And John the ploughman comes and goes
In labor wet, with steaming clothes.
This is your landscape, but you see
Not terror and not destiny
Behind its loved, maternal face,
Its power to change, or fade, replace
Its wonder with a deeper dream,
Unfolding to a vaster theme.
From time eternal was this earth?
No less this landscape with your birth
Arose, nor leaves you, nor decay
Finds till the twilight of your day.
It bore you, moulds you to its plan.
It ends with you as it began,
But bears the seed of future years
Of higher raptures, dumber tears.
* * * * *
For soon you lose the landscape through
Absence, sorrow, eyes grown true
To the naked limbs which show
Buds that never more may blow.
Now you know the lame were straight
Ere you knew them, and the fate
Of the old is yet to die.
Now you know the dead who lie
In the graves you saw where first
The landscape on your vision burst,
Were not always dead, and now
Shadows rest upon the brow
Of the souls as young as you.
Some are gone, though years are few
Since you roamed with them the hills.
So the landscape changes, wills
All the changes, did it try
Its promises to justify?...
* * * * *
For you return and find it bare:
There is no heaven of golden air.
Your eyes around the horizon rove,
A clump of trees is Leese's Grove.
And what's the hedgerow, what's the pond?
A wallow where the vagabond
Beast will not drink, and where the arch
Of heaven in the days of March
Refrains to look. A blinding rain
Beats the once gilded window pane.
John, the poor wretch, is gone, but bread
Tempts other feet that path to tread
Between the barn and house, and brave
The March rain and the winds that rave. ...
O, landscape I am one who stands
Returned with pale and broken hands
Glad for the day that I have known,
And finds the deserted doorway strown
With shoulder blade and spinal bone.
And you who nourished me and bred
I find the spirit from you fled.
You gave me dreams,'twas at your breast
My soul's beginning rose and pressed
My steps afar at last and shaped
A world elusive, which escaped
Whatever love or thought could find
Beyond the tireless wings of mind.
Yet grown by you, and feeding on
Your strength as mother, you are gone
When I return from living, trace
My steps to see how I began,
And deeply search your mother face
To know your inner self, the place
For which you bore me, sent me forth
To wander, south or east or north. ...
Now the familiar landscape lies
With breathless breast and hollow eyes.
It knows me not, as I know not
Its secret, spirit, all forgot
Its kindred look is, as I stand
A stranger in an unknown land.
* * * * *
Are we not earth-born, formed of dust
Which seeks again its love and trust
In an old landscape, after change
In hearts grown weary, wrecked and strange?
What though we struggled to emerge
Dividual, footed for the urge
Of further self-discoveries, though
In the mid-years we cease to know,
Through disenchanted eyes, the spell
That clothed it like a miracle -
Yet at the last our steps return
Its deeper mysteries to learn.
It has been always us, it must
Clasp to itself our kindred dust.
We cannot free ourselves from it.
Near or afar we must submit
To what is in us, what was grown
Out of the landscape's soil, the known
And unknown powers of soil and soul.
As bodies yield to the control
Of the earth's center, and so bend
In age, so hearts toward the end
Bend down with lips so long athirst
To waters which were known at first -
The little spring at Leese's Grove
Was your first love, is your last love!
* * * * *
When those we knew in youth have crept
Under the landscape, which has kept
Nothing we saw with youthful eyes;
Ere God is formed in the empty skies,
I wonder not our steps are pressed
Toward the mystery of their rest.
That is the hope at bud which kneels
Where ancestors the tomb conceals.
Age no less than youth would lean
Upon some love. For what is seen
No more of father, mother, friend,
For hands of flesh lost, eyes grown blind
In death, a something which assures,
Comforts, allays our fears, endures.
Just as the landscape and our home
In childhood made of heaven's dome,
And all the farthest ways of earth
A place as sheltered as the hearth.
* * * * *
Is it not written at the last day
Heaven and earth shall roll away?
Yes, as my landscape passed through death,
Lay like a corpse, and with new breath
Became instinct with fire and light -
So shall it roll up in my sight,
Pass from the realm of finite sense,
Become a thing of spirit, whence
I shall pass too, its child in faith
Of dreams it gave me, which nor death
Nor change can wreck, but still reveal
In change a Something vast, more real
Than sunsets, meadows, green-wood trees,
Or even faery presences.
A Something which the earth and air
Transmutes but keeps them what they were;
Clear films of beauty grown more thin
As we approach and enter in.
Until we reach the scene that made
Our landscape just a thing of shade.
|
Conversation | Charles Baudelaire | You are a pink and lovely autumn sky!
But sadness in me rises like the sea,
And leaves in ebbing only bitter clay
On my sad lip, the smart of memory.
Your hand slides up my fainting breast at will;
But, love, it only finds a ravaged pit
Pillaged by woman's savage tooth and nail.
My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it.
It is a palace sullied by the rout;
They drink, they pull each others hair, they kill!
A perfume swims around your naked throat! ...
O Beauty, scourge of souls, you want it still!
You with hot eyes that flash in fiery feasts,
Burn up these meagre scraps spared by the beasts! |
Uhland's "Chapel" | Eugene Field | Yonder stands the hillside chapel
Mid the evergreens and rocks,
All day long it hears the song
Of the shepherd to his flocks.
Then the chapel bell goes tolling--
Knelling for a soul that's sped;
Silent and sad the shepherd lad
Hears the requiem for the dead.
Shepherd, singers of the valley,
Voiceless now, speed on before;
Soon shall knell that chapel bell
For the songs you'll sing no more. |