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Witnesses | Madison Julius Cawein | I.
You say I do not love you! - Tell me why,
When I have gazed a little on your face,
And then gone forth into the world of men,
A beauty, neither of the Earth or Sky,
A glamour, that transforms each common place,
Attends my spirit then?
II.
You say I do not love you! - Yet I know
When I have heard you speak and dwelt upon
Your words awhile, my heart has gone away
Filled with strange music, very soft and low,
A dim companion, touching with sweet tone
The discords of the day.
III.
You say I do not love you! - Yet it seems,
When I have kissed your hand and said farewell,
A fragrance, sweeter than did flower yet bloom,
Accompanies my soul and fills, with dreams,
The sad and sordid streets, where people dwell,
Dreams of spring's wild perfume.
|
The May Queen | Alfred Lord Tennyson | You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year;
Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day,
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
There's many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;
There's Margaret and Mary, there's Kate and Caroline;
But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say,
So I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,
If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break;
But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay,
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see
But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree?
He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday,
But I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white,
And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light.
They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say,
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
They say he's dying all for love, but that can never be;
They say his heart is breaking, mother'what is that to me?
There's many a bolder lad 'ill woo me any summer day,
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green,
And you'll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen;
For the shepherd lads on every side 'ill come from far away,
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
The honeysuckle round the porch has woven its wavy bowers,
And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers;
And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray,
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass,
And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass;
There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day,
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh and green and still,
And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill,
And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill merrily glance and play,
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear,
To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year;
To-morrow 'ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day,
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
NEW-YEAR'S EVE
If you're waking call me early, call me early, mother dear,
For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year.
It is the last New-year that I shall ever see,
Then you may lay me low i' the mould and think no more of me.
To-night I saw the sun set; he set and left behind
The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind;
And the New-year's coming up, mother, but I shall never see
The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree.
Last May we made a crown of flowers; we had a merry day;
Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May;
And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel copse,
Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops.
There's not a flower on all the hills; the frost is on the pane.
I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again;
I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high;
I long to see a flower so before the day I die.
The building rook'll caw from the windy tall elm-tree,
And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,
And the swallow 'ill come back again with summer o'er the wave,
But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.
Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine,
In the early early morning the summer sun 'ill shine,
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,
When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still.
When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light
You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night;
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.
You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,
And you'll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid.
I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass,
With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.
I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive me now;
You'll kiss me, my own mother, and forgive me ere I go;
Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild;
You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child.
If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;
Tho' you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;
Tho' I cannot speak a work, I shall harken what you say,
And be often, often with you when you think I'm far away.
Good-night, good-night, when I have said good-night for evermore,
And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door,
Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green.
She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been.
She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor.
Let her take 'em, they are hers; I shall never garden more;
But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rosebush that I set
About the parlor-window and the box of mignonette.
Good-night, sweet mother; call me before the day is born.
All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn;
But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year,
So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear.
CONCLUSION
I thought to pass away before, and yet alive I am;
And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb.
How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year!
To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet's here.
O, sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies,
And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that cannot rise,
And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow,
And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go.
It seem'd so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun.
And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be done!
But still I think it can't be long before I find release;
And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace.
O, blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair!
And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there!
O, blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head!
A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed.
He taught me all the mercy, for he show'd me all the sin.
Now, tho' my lamp was lighted late, there's One will let me in;
Nor would I now be well, mother, again, if that could be,
For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me.
I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat,
There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet;
But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine,
And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.
All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call;
It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all;
The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,
And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.
For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear;
I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here;
With all my strength I pray'd for both, and so I felt resign'd,
And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.
I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed,
And then did something speak to me'I know not what was said;
For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind,
And up the valley came again the music on the wind.
But you were sleeping; and I said, 'It's not for them, it's mine.'
And if it come three times, I thought, I take it for a sign.
And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars,
Then seem'd to go right up to heaven and die among the stars.
So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know
The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go.
And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day;
But, Effie, you must comfort her when I am past away.
And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret;
There's many a worthier than I, would make him happy yet.
If I had lived'I cannot tell'I might have been his wife;
But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life.
O, look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow;
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know.
And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine'
Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine.
O, sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done
The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun'
For ever and for ever with those just souls and true'
And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado?
For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home'
And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come'
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast'
And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. |
Dual | Ella Wheeler Wilcox | You say that your nature is double; that life
Seems more and more intricate, complex, and dual,
Because in your bosom there wages the strife
'Twixt an angel of light and a beast that is cruel -
An angel who whispers your spirit has wings,
And a beast who would chain you to temporal things.
I listen with interest to all you have told,
And now let me give you my view of your trouble:
You are to be envied, not pitied; I hold
THAT EVERY STRONG NATURE IS ALWAYS MADE DOUBLE.
The beast has his purpose; he need not be slain:
He should serve the good angel in harness and chain.
The body that never knows carnal desires,
The heart that to passion is always a stranger,
Is merely a furnace with unlighted fires;
It sends forth no warmth while it threatens no danger.
But who wants to shiver in cold safety there?
TOUCH FLAME TO THE FUEL! then watch it with care.
Those wild, fierce emotions that trouble your soul
Are sparks from the great source of passion and power;
Throne reason above them, and give it control,
And turn into blessing this dangerous dower.
By lightnings unguided destruction is hurled,
But chained and directed they gladden the world. |
Flos Aevorum | Richard Le Gallienne | You must mean more than just this hour,
You perfect thing so subtly fair,
Simple and complex as a flower,
Wrought with such planetary care;
How patient the eternal power
That wove the marvel of your hair.
How long the sunlight and the sea
Wove and re-wove this rippling gold
To rhythms of eternity;
And many a flashing thing grew old,
Waiting this miracle to be;
And painted marvels manifold,
Still with his work unsatisfied,
Eager each new effect to try,
The solemn artist cast aside,
Rainbow and shell and butterfly,
As some stern blacksmith scatters wide
The sparks that from his anvil fly.
How many shells, whorl within whorl,
Litter the marges of the sphere
With wrack of unregarded pearl,
To shape that little thing your ear:
Creation, just to make one girl,
Hath travailed with exceeding fear.
The moonlight of forgotten seas
Dwells in your eyes, and on your tongue
The honey of a million bees,
And all the sorrows of all song:
You are the ending of all these,
The world grew old to make you young.
All time hath traveled to this rose;
To the strange making of this face
Came agonies of fires and snows;
And Death and April, nights and days
Unnumbered, unimagined throes,
Find in this flower their meeting place.
Strange artist, to my aching thought
Give answer: all the patient power
That to this perfect ending wrought,
Shall it mean nothing but an hour?
Say not that it is all for nought
Time brings Eternity a flower.
All the words in all the world
Cannot tell you how I love you,
All the little stars that shine
To make a silver crown above you; |
A Rosebud In Lent. | George Augustus Baker, Jr. | You saw her last, the ball-room's belle,
A souffl', lace and roses blent;
Your worldly worship moved her then;
She does not know you now, in Lent.
See her at prayer! Her pleading hands
Bear not one gem of all her store.
Her face is saint-like. Be rebuked
By those pure eyes, and gaze no more
Turn, turn away! But carry hence
The lesson she has dumbly taught
That bright young creature kneeling there
With every feeling, every thought
Absorbed in high and holy dreams
Of new Spring dresses truth to say,
To them the time is sanctified
From Shrove-tide until Easter day.
|
The Falcon And The Capon. | Jean de La Fontaine | [1]
You often hear a sweet seductive call:
If wise, you haste towards it not at all; -
And, if you heed my apologue,
You act like John de Nivelle's dog.[2]
A capon, citizen of Mans,
Was summon'd from a throng
To answer to the village squire,
Before tribunal call'd the fire.
The matter to disguise
The kitchen sheriff wise
Cried, 'Biddy - Biddy - Biddy! - '
But not a moment did he -
This Norman and a half[3] -
The smooth official trust.
'Your bait,' said he, 'is dust,
And I'm too old for chaff.'
Meantime, a falcon, on his perch,
Observed the flight and search.
In man, by instinct or experience,
The capons have so little confidence,
That this was not without much trouble caught,
Though for a splendid supper sought.
To lie, the morrow night,
In brilliant candle-light,
Supinely on a dish
'Midst viands, fowl, and fish,
With all the ease that heart could wish -
This honour, from his master kind,
The fowl would gladly have declined.
Outcried the bird of chase,
As in the weeds he eyed the skulker's face,
'Why, what a stupid, blockhead race! -
Such witless, brainless fools
Might well defy the schools.
For me, I understand
To chase at word
The swiftest bird,
Aloft, o'er sea or land;
At slightest beck,
Returning quick
To perch upon my master's hand.
There, at his window he appears -
He waits thee - hasten - hast no ears?'
'Ah! that I have,' the fowl replied;
'But what from master might betide?
Or cook, with cleaver at his side?
Return you may for such a call,
But let me fly their fatal hall;
And spare your mirth at my expense:
Whate'er I lack, 'tis not the sense
To know that all this sweet-toned breath
Is spent to lure me to my death.
If you had seen upon the spit
As many of the falcons roast
As I have of the capon host,
You would, not thus reproach my wit.' |
Letter From Town: The Almond Tree | D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards) | You promised to send me some violets. Did you forget?
White ones and blue ones from under the orchard hedge?
Sweet dark purple, and white ones mixed for a pledge
Of our early love that hardly has opened yet.
Here there's an almond tree - you have never seen
Such a one in the north - it flowers on the street, and I stand
Every day by the fence to look up for the flowers that expand
At rest in the blue, and wonder at what they mean.
Under the almond tree, the happy lands
Provence, Japan, and Italy repose,
And passing feet are chatter and clapping of those
Who play around us, country girls clapping their hands.
You, my love, the foremost, in a flowered gown,
All your unbearable tenderness, you with the laughter
Startled upon your eyes now so wide with here- after,
You with loose hands of abandonment hanging down. |
You Mustn't Show Weakness | Yehuda Amichai | You mustn't show weakness
and you've got to have a tan.
But sometimes I feel like the thin veils
of Jewish women who faint
at weddings and on Yom Kippur.
You mustn't show weakness
and you've got to make a list
of all the things you can load
in a baby carriage without a baby.
This is the way things stand now:
if I pull out the stopper
after pampering myself in the bath,
I'm afraid that all of Jerusalem, and with it the whole world,
will drain out into the huge darkness.
In the daytime I lay traps for my memories
and at night I work in the Balaam Mills,
turning curse into blessing and blessing into curse.
And don't ever show weakness.
Sometimes I come crashing down inside myself
without anyone noticing. I'm like an ambulance
on two legs, hauling the patient
inside me to Last Aid
with the wailing of cry of a siren,
and people think it's ordinary speech.
|
Rhymes And Rhythms - XV | William Ernest Henley | You played and sang a snatch of song,
A song that all-too well we knew;
But whither had flown the ancient wrong;
And was it really I and you?
O since the end of life's to live
And pay in pence the common debt,
What should it cost us to forgive
Whose daily task is to forget?
You babbled in the well-known voice,
Not new, not new, the words you said.
You touched me off that famous poise,
That old effect, of neck and head.
Dear, was it really you and I?
In truth the riddle's ill to read,
So many are the deaths we die
Before we can be dead indeed.
|
An Epilogue. | John Dryden | You saw our wife was chaste, yet thoroughly tried,
And, without doubt, ye are hugely edified;
For, like our hero, whom we show'd to-day,
You think no woman true, but in a play.
Love once did make a pretty kind of show:
Esteem and kindness in one breast would grow:
But 'twas Heaven knows how many years ago.
Now some small chat, and guinea expectation,
Gets all the pretty creatures in the nation:
In comedy your little selves you meet;
'Tis Covent Garden drawn in Bridges Street.
Smile on our author then, if he has shown
A jolly nut-brown bastard of your own.
Ah! happy you, with ease and with delight,
Who act those follies, Poets toil to write!
The sweating Muse does almost leave the chase;
She puffs, and hardly keeps your Protean vices pace.
Pinch you but in one vice, away you fly
To some new frisk of contrariety.
You roll like snow-balls, gathering as you run,
And get seven devils, when dispossess'd of one.
Your Venus once was a Platonic queen;
Nothing of love beside the face was seen;
But every inch of her you now uncase,
And clap a vizard-mask upon the face.
For sins like these, the zealous of the land,
With little hair, and little or no band,
Declare how circulating pestilences
Watch, every twenty years, to snap offences.
Saturn, even now, takes doctoral degrees;
He'll do your work this summer without fees.
Let all the boxes, Phoebus, find thy grace,
And, ah! preserve the eighteen-penny place!
But for the pit confounders, let 'em go,
And find as little mercy as they show:
The Actors thus, and thus thy Poets pray;
For every critic saved, thou damn'st a play.
|
You Must n't Swim... | Rudyard Kipling | You must n't swim till you're six weeks old,
Or your head will be sunk by your heels;
And summer gales and Killer Whales
Are bad for baby seals.
Are bad for baby seals, dear rat,
As bad as bad can be;
But splash and grow strong,
And you can't be wrong,
Child of the Open Sea! |
Sonet 13 | Michael Drayton | You not alone, when you are still alone,
O God from you that I could priuate be,
Since you one were, I neuer since was one,
Since you in me, my selfe since out of me
Transported from my selfe into your beeing
Though either distant, present yet to eyther,
Senceles with too much ioy, each other seeing,
And onely absent when we are together.
Giue me my selfe, and take your selfe againe,
Deuise some means but how I may forsake you,
So much is mine that doth with you remaine,
That taking what is mine, with me I take you,
You doe bewitch me, O that I could flie
From my selfe you, or from your owne selfe I. |
Kashmiri Song by Juma | Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson) | You never loved me, and yet to save me,
One unforgetable night you gave me
Such chill embraces as the snow-covered heights
Receive from clouds, in northern, Auroral nights.
Such keen communion as the frozen mere
Has with immaculate moonlight, cold and clear.
And all desire,
Like failing fire,
Died slowly, faded surely, and sank to rest
Against the delicate chillness of your breast. |
To... | Alfred Lord Tennyson | AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS
'Cursed be he that moves my bones.'
Shakespeare's Epitaph.
You might have won the Poet's name,
If such be worth the winning now,
And gain'd a laurel for your brow
Of sounder leaf than I can claim;
But you have made the wiser choice,
A life that moves to gracious ends
Thro' troops of unrecording friends,
A deedful life, a silent voice.
And you have miss'd the irreverent doom
Of those that wear the Poet's crown;
Hereafter, neither knave nor clown
Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.
For now the Poet cannot die,
Nor leave his music as of old,
But round him ere he scarce be cold
Begins the scandal and the cry:
'Proclaim the faults he would not show;
Break lock and seal, betray the trust;
Keep nothing sacred, 'tis but just
The many-headed beast should know.'
Ah, shameless! for he did but sing
A song that pleased us from its worth;
No public life was his on earth,
No blazon'd statesman he, nor king.
He gave the people of his best;
His worst he kept, his best he gave.
My Shakespeare's curse on clown and knave
Who will not let his ashes rest!
Who make it seem more sweet to be
The little life of bank and brier,
The bird that pipes his lone desire
And dies unheard within his tree,
Than he that warbles long and loud
And drops at Glory's temple-gates,
For whom the carrion vulture waits
To tear his heart before the crowd! |
Gifts Returned | Walter Savage Landor | "You must give back," her mother said,
To a poor sobbing little maid,
"All the young man has given you,
Hard as it now may seem to do."
"'Tis done already, mother dear!"
Said the sweet girl, "So never fear."
Mother. Are you quite certain? Come, recount
(There was not much) the whole amount.
Girl. The locket; the kid gloves.
Mother. Go on.
Girl. Of the kid gloves I found but one.
Mother. Never mind that. What else? Proceed.
You gave back all his trash?
Girl. Indeed.
Mother. And was there nothing you would save?
Girl. Everything I could give I gave.
Mother. To the last tittle?
Girl. Even to that.
Mother. Freely?
Girl. My heart went pit-a-pat
At giving up ... ah me! ah me!
I cry so I can hardly see ...
All the fond looks and words that past,
And all the kisses, to the last. |
You Never Can Tell | Ella Wheeler Wilcox | You never can tell when you send a word,
Like an arrow shot from a bow
By an archer blind, be it cruel or kind,
Just where it may chance to go.
It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend.
Tipped with its poison or balm,
To a stranger's heart in life's great mart,
It may carry its pain or its calm.
You never can tell when you do an act
Just what the result will be;
But with every deed you are sowing a seed,
Though the harvest you may not see.
Each kindly act is an acorn dropped
In God's productive soil
You may not know, but the tree shall grow,
With shelter for those who toil.
You never can tell what your thoughts will do,
In bringing you hate or love;
For thoughts are things, and their airy wings
Are swifter than carrier doves.
They follow the law of the universe -
Each thing must create its kind,
And they speed o'er the track to bring you back
Whatever went out from your mind.
|
To A Scientific Friend. | Horace Smith | You say 'tis plain that poets feign,
And from the truth depart;
They write with ease what fibs they please,
With artifice, not art;
Dearer to you the simply true--
The fact without the fancy--
Than this false play of colours gay,
So very vague and chancy.
No doubt 'tis well the truth to tell
In scientific coteries;
But I'll be bold to say she's cold,
Excepting to her votaries.
The false disguise of tawdry lies
May hide sweet Nature's face;
But in her form the blood runs warm,
As in the human race;
And in the rose the dew-drop glows,
And, o'er the seas serene,
The sunshine white still breaks in light
Of yellow, blue, and green.
In thousand rays the fancy plays;
The feelings rise and bubble;
The mind receives, the heart believes,
And makes each pleasure double.
Then spare to draw without a flaw,
Nor all too perfect make her,
Lest Nature wear the dull, cold air
Of some demurest Quaker--
Whose mien austere is void of cheer,
Or sense of sins forgiven,
And her sweet face has lost all grace
Of either earth or heaven. |
You Played And Sang A Snatch Of Song | William Ernest Henley | You played and sang a snatch of song,
A song that all-too well we knew;
But whither had flown the ancient wrong;
And was it really I and you?
O, since the end of life's to live
And pay in pence the common debt,
What should it cost us to forgive
Whose daily task is to forget?
You babbled in the well-known voice -
Not new, not new the words you said.
You touched me off that famous poise,
That old effect, of neck and head.
Dear, was it really you and I?
In truth the riddle's ill to read,
So many are the deaths we die
Before we can be dead indeed. |
On the Jellico Spur of the Cumberlands | Madison Julius Cawein | TO J. FOX, JR.
You remember how the mist,
When we climbed to Devil's Den,
Pearly in the mountain glen,
And above us, amethyst,
Throbbed or circled? then away,
Through the wildwoods opposite,
Torn and scattered, morning-lit,
Vanished into dewy gray? -
Vague as in romance we saw,
From the fog, one riven trunk,
Talon-like with branches shrunk,
Thrust a monster dragon claw.
And we climbed for hours through
The dawn-dripping Jellicoes,
To a wooded rock that shows
Undulating leagues of blue
Summits; mountain-chains that lie
Dark with forests; bar on bar,
Ranging their irregular
Purple peaks beneath a sky
Soft as slumber. Range on range
Billow their enormous spines,
Where the rocks and priestly pines
Sit eternal, without change.
We were sons of Nature then:
She had taken us to her,
Signalized by brier and burr,
Something more to her than men:
Pupils of her lofty moods,
From her bloom-anointed looks,
Wisdom of no man-made books
Learned we in those solitudes:
How the seed supplied the flower;
How the sapling held the oak;
How within the vine awoke
The wild impulse still to tower;
How in fantasy or mirth,
Springing from her footsteps there,
Curious fungi everywhere
Bulged, exuded from the earth;
Coral vegetable things,
That the underworld exhaled,
Bulbous, crystal-ribbed and scaled,
Many colored and in rings,
Like the Indian-Pipe that grew
Pink and white in loamy cracks,
Flowers of a natural wax,
She had turned her fancy to. -
On that laureled precipice,
Where the chestnuts dropped their burrs,
Sweet with balsam of the firs,
First we felt her mother kiss
Full of heaven and the wind;
While the forests, wood on wood,
Murmured like a multitude
Giving praise where none hath sinned. -
Freedom met us there; we saw
Freedom giving audience;
In her face the eloquence,
Lightning-like, of love and law:
Round her, with majestic hips,
Lay the giant mountains; there
Near her, cataracts tossed their hair,
God and thunder on their lips. -
Oft an eagle, or a hawk,
Or a scavenger, we knew
Winged through altitudes of blue,
By its shadow on the rock.
Or a cloud of templed white
Moved, a lazy berg of pearl,
Through the sky's pacific swirl,
Shot with cool cerulean light.
So we dreamed an hour upon
That warm rock the lichens mossed,
While around us foliage tossed
Coins, gold-minted of the sun:
Then arose; and a ravine,
Which a torrent once had worn,
Made our roadway to the corn,
In the valley, deep and green;
And the farm house with its bees,
Where old-fashioned flowers spun
Gay rag-carpets in the sun,
Hid among the apple trees.
Here we watched the twilight fall;
O'er Wolf-Mountain sunset made
A huge rhododendron rayed
Round the sun's cloud-centered ball.
Then through scents of herb and soil,
To the mining-camp we turned,
In the twinkling dusk discerned
With its white-washed homes of toil.
Ah, those nights! - We wandered forth
On some haunted mountain path,
When the moon was late, and rathe
The large stars, sowed south and north,
Splashed with gold the purple skies;
And the milky zodiac,
Rolled athwart the belted black,
Seemed a path to Paradise.
And we walked or lingered till,
In the valley-land beneath,
Like the vapor of a breath
Breathed in frost, arose the still
Architecture of the mist:
And the moon-dawn's necromance
Touched the mist and made it glance
Like a town of amethyst.
Then around us, sharp and brusque,
Night's shrill insects strident strung
Instruments that buzzed and sung
Pixy music of the dusk.
And we seemed to hear soft sighs,
And hushed steps of ghostly things,
Fluttered feet or rustled wings,
Moved before us. Fire-flies,
Gleaming in the tangled glade,
Seemed the eyes of warriors
Stealing under watching stars
To some midnight ambuscade;
To the Indian village there,
Wigwamed with the mist, that slept
By the woodland side, whence crept
Shadowy Shawnees of the air.
When the moon rose, like a cup
Lay the valley, brimmed with wine
Of mesmeric shade and shine,
To the moon's pale face held up.
As she rose from out the mines
Of the eastern darkness, night
Met her, clad in dewy light
'Mid Pine Mountain's sachem pines.
As from clouds in pearly parts
Her serene circumference grew,
Home we turned. And all night through
Dreamed the dreams of happy hearts.
|
Old Love | William Morris | You must be very old, Sir Giles,
I said; he said: Yea, very old!
Whereat the mournfullest of smiles
Creased his dry skin with many a fold.
They hammer'd out my basnet point
Into a round salade, he said,
The basnet being quite out of joint,
Natheless the salade rasps my head.
He gazed at the great fire awhile:
And you are getting old, Sir John;
(He said this with that cunning smile
That was most sad) we both wear on;
Knights come to court and look at me,
With eyebrows up; except my lord,
And my dear lady, none I see
That know the ways of my old sword.
(My lady! at that word no pang
Stopp'd all my blood). But tell me, John,
Is it quite true that Pagans hang
So thick about the east, that on
The eastern sea no Venice flag
Can fly unpaid for? True, I said,
And in such way the miscreants drag
Christ's cross upon the ground, I dread
That Constantine must fall this year.
Within my heart, these things are small;
This is not small, that things outwear
I thought were made for ever, yea, all,
All things go soon or late, I said.
I saw the duke in court next day;
Just as before, his grand great head
Above his gold robes dreaming lay,
Only his face was paler; there
I saw his duchess sit by him;
And she, she was changed more; her hair
Before my eyes that used to swim,
And make me dizzy with great bliss
Once, when I used to watch her sit,
Her hair is bright still, yet it is
As though some dust were thrown on it.
Her eyes are shallower, as though
Some grey glass were behind; her brow
And cheeks the straining bones show through,
Are not so good for kissing now.
Her lips are drier now she is
A great duke's wife these many years,
They will not shudder with a kiss
As once they did, being moist with tears.
Also her hands have lost that way
Of clinging that they used to have;
They look'd quite easy, as they lay
Upon the silken cushions brave
With broidery of the apples green
My Lord Duke bears upon his shield.
Her face, alas! that I have seen
Look fresher than an April field,
This is all gone now; gone also
Her tender walking; when she walks
She is most queenly I well know,
And she is fair still. As the stalks
Of faded summer-lilies are,
So is she grown now unto me
This spring-time, when the flowers star
The meadows, birds sing wonderfully.
I warrant once she used to cling
About his neck, and kiss'd him so,
And then his coming step would ring
Joy-bells for her; some time ago.
Ah! sometimes like an idle dream
That hinders true life overmuch,
Sometimes like a lost heaven, these seem.
This love is not so hard to smutch. |
The Sister's Appeal. A Fragment. | George Pope Morris | You remember--don't you, brother--
In our early years,
The counsels of our poor, dear mother,
And her hopes and fears?
She told us to love one another--
Brother, dry your tears!
We are only two, dear brother,
In his babel wide!
In the churchyard sleeps poor mother,
By our father's side!--
Then let us cherish one another
Till in death we bide. |
A Bushman's Love - A Fragment | Barcroft Boake | You say we bushmen cannot love,
Our lives are too prosaic: hence
We lose or lack that finer sense
That raises some few men above
Their fellows, setting them apart
As vessels of a finer make,
The acme of the potter's art,
Are placed apart upon the shelf.
So he is more than common delf,
And, more than brute in human guise,
Who, seeking, finds his nobler self
Twin-mirrored in a woman's eyes!
Yet these things bring their penalty:
For oft the merest touch will break
These vessels of a finer make;
And throats attuned to noblest key
A draught of air will set awry,
And stifle in an ulcerous sore
The voice that floated to the sky
And silence it for evermore . . .
You say we bushmen cannot love,
That, like our foe, the fire-fiend,
We blaze, until a river-bend,
Nay, less, a pebble-graven groove
Where waters thread, doth bid us stay:
Our passions for a month, a week
Flare out and then they die away,
For separation, like the creek
That stays the bush fire, bars the way.
You say we bushmen cannot love.
Well, have it so! but this I swear,
That she possessed a power to move
The dullest boor to do or dare.
But I, as being somewhat shy,
Became the target for her wit . . .
How oft in wantonness she'd pit
The blazing lances of her eye
And keener rapier of her tongue,
That carelessly made lightning play,
Until to action I was stung,
And, like a dumb beast, stood at bay . . . |
To His Mistress, Objecting To Him Neither Toying Or Talking | Robert Herrick | You say I love not, 'cause I do not play
Still with your curls, and kiss the time away.
You blame me, too, because I can't devise
Some sport, to please those babies in your eyes; -
By Love's religion, I must here confess it,
The most I love, when I the least express it.
Small griefs find tongues; full casks are ever found
To give, if any, yet but little sound.
Deep waters noiseless are; and this we know,
That chiding streams betray small depth below.
So when love speechless is, she doth express
A depth in love, and that depth bottomless.
Now, since my love is tongueless, know me such,
Who speak but little, 'cause I love so much. |
The Drummer Boy | Michael Earls | You never know when war may come,
And that is why I keep a drum:
For if all sudden in the night
From east or west came battle fright,
And you were sound asleep in bed,
And very soon to join the dead,
You then would gladly wish my drum
Would warn you that the war had come.
So that is why on afternoons
I tell the neighborhood my tunes:
Sometimes behind a fortress bench,
Or where the hedges make a trench,
I beat the drum with all my might,
While people look with awful fright,
Just as they would if war had come,
And heard the warning of my drum.
They must be thankful, I am sure,
Because they now may feel secure,
And rest so safe and sound in bed,
Without wild dreams of fearful dread;
For now they hear me all the day,
As round the yard I march and play,
To let them know if war should come
They'll get the warning of my drum. |
The Wallaby Brigade | Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton) | You often have been told of regiments brave and bold,
But we are the bravest in the land;
We're called the Tag-rag Band, and we rally in Queensland,
We are members of the Wallaby Brigade.
Chorus
Tramp, tramp, tramp across the borders,
The swagmen are rolling up, I see.
When the shearing's at an end we'll go fishing in a bend.
Then hurrah! for the Wallaby Brigade.
When you are leaving camp, you must ask some brother tramp
If there are any jobs to be had,
Or what sort of a shop that station is to stop
For a member of the Wallaby Brigade.
Chorus: Tramp, tramp, tramp, &c.
You ask me if they want men, you ask for rations then,
If they don't stump up a warning should be made;
To teach them better sense'why, 'Set fire to their fence'
Is the war cry of the Wallaby Brigade.
Chorus: Tramp, tramp, tramp, &c.
The squatters thought us done when they fenced in all their run,
But a prettier mistake they never made;
You've only to sport your dover and knock a monkey over'
There's cheap mutton for the Wallaby Brigade.
Chorus: Tramp, tramp, tramp, &c.
Now when the shearing's in our harvest will begin,
Our swags for a spell down will be laid;
But when our cheques are drank we will join the Tag-rag rank,
Limeburners in the Wallaby Brigade.
Chorus: Tramp, tramp, tramp, &c. |
Impromptu. | Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny) | You say you're glad I write - oh, say not so!
My fount of song, dear friend, 's a bitter well;
And when the numbers freely from it flow,
'Tis that my heart, and eyes, o'erflow as well.
Castalia, fam'd of yore, - the spring divine,
Apollo's smile upon its current wears:
Moore and Anacreon, found its waves were wine,
To me, it flows a sullen stream of tears. |
Blueberries | Robert Lee Frost | "You ought to have seen what I saw on my way
To the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day:
Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,
Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum
In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!
And all ripe together, not some of them green
And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!"
"I don't know what part of the pasture you mean."
"You know where they cut off the woods, let me see,
It was two years ago, or no!, can it be
No longer than that?, and the following fall
The fire ran and burned it all up but the wall."
"Why, there hasn't been time for the bushes to grow.
That's always the way with the blueberries, though:
There may not have been the ghost of a sign
Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine,
But get the pine out of the way, you may burn
The pasture all over until not a fern
Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick,
And presto, they're up all around you as thick
And hard to explain as a conjuror's trick."
"It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit.
I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot.
And after all really they're ebony skinned:
The blue's but a mist from the breath of the wind,
A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand,
And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned."
"Does Mortenson know what he has, do you think?"
"He may and not care and so leave the chewink
To gather them for him, you know what he is.
He won't make the fact that they're rightfully his
An excuse for keeping us other folk out."
"I wonder you didn't see Loren about."
"The best of it was that I did. Do you know,
I was just getting through what the field had to show
And over the wall and into the road,
When who should come by, with a democrat-load
Of all the young chattering Lorens alive,
But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive."
"He saw you, then? What did he do? Did he frown?"
"He just kept nodding his head up and down.
You know how politely he always goes by.
But he thought a big thought, I could tell by his eye,
Which being expressed, might be this in effect:
'I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect,
To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.'"
"He's a thriftier person than some I could name."
"He seems to be thrifty; and hasn't he need,
With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed?
He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say,
Like birds. They store a great many away.
They eat them the year round, and those they don't eat
They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet."
"Who cares what they say? It's a nice way to live,
Just taking what Nature is willing to give,
Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow."
"I wish you had seen his perpetual bow,
And the air of the youngsters! Not one of them turned,
And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned."
"I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
I met them one day and each had a flower
Stuck into his berries as fresh as a shower;
Some strange kind, they told me it hadn't a name."
"I've told you how once not long after we came,
I almost provoked poor Loren to mirth
By going to him of all people on earth
To ask if he knew any fruit to be had
For the picking. The rascal, he said he'd be glad
To tell if he knew. But the year had been bad.
There had been some berries, but those were all gone.
He didn't say where they had been. He went on:
'I'm sure, I'm sure', as polite as could be.
He spoke to his wife in the door, 'Let me see,
Mame, we don't know any good berrying place?'
It was all he could do to keep a straight face.
"If he thinks all the fruit that grows wild is for him,
He'll find he's mistaken. See here, for a whim,
We'll pick in the Mortensons' pasture this year.
We'll go in the morning, that is, if it's clear,
And the sun shines out warm: the vines must be wet.
It's so long since I picked I almost forget
How we used to pick berries: we took one look round,
Then sank out of sight like trolls underground,
And saw nothing more of each other, or heard,
Unless when you said I was keeping a bird
Away from its nest, and I said it was you.
'Well, one of us is.' For complaining it flew
Around and around us. And then for a while
We picked, till I feared you had wandered a mile,
And I thought I had lost you. I lifted a shout
Too loud for the distance you were, it turned out,
For when you made answer, your voice was as low
As talking, you stood up beside me, you know."
"We sha'n't have the place to ourselves to enjoy,
Not likely, when all the young Lorens deploy.
They'll be there to-morrow, or even to-night.
They won't be too friendly, they may be polite,
To people they look on as having no right
To pick where they're picking. But we won't complain.
You ought to have seen how it looked in the rain,
The fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves,
Like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves." |
Lady Maggie | Christina Georgina Rossetti | You must not call me Maggie, you must not call me Dear,
For I'm Lady of the Manor now stately to see;
And if there comes a babe, as there may some happy year,
'Twill be little lord or lady at my knee.
Oh, but what ails you, my sailor cousin Phil,
That you shake and turn white like a cockcrow ghost?
You're as white as I turned once down by the mill,
When one told me you and ship and crew were lost:
Philip my playfellow, when we were boy and girl
(It was the Miller's Nancy told it to me),
Philip with the merry life in lip and curl,
Philip my playfellow drowned in the sea!
I thought I should have fainted, but I did not faint;
I stood stunned at the moment, scarcely sad,
Till I raised my wail of desolate complaint
For you, my cousin, brother, all I had.
They said I looked so pale - some say so fair -
My lord stopped in passing to soothe me back to life:
I know I missed a ringlet from my hair
Next morning; and now I am his wife.
Look at my gown, Philip, and look at my ring,
I'm all crimson and gold from top to toe:
All day long I sit in the sun and sing,
Where in the sun red roses blush and blow.
And I'm the rose of roses says my lord;
And to him I'm more than the sun in the sky,
While I hold him fast with the golden cord
Of a curl, with the eyelash of an eye.
His mother said 'fie,' and his sisters cried 'shame,'
His highborn ladies cried 'shame' from their place:
They said 'fie' when they only heard my name,
But fell silent when they saw my face.
Am I so fair, Philip? Philip, did you think
I was so fair when we played boy and girl,
Where blue forget-me-nots bloomed on the brink
Of our stream which the mill-wheel sent a whirl?
If I was fair then sure I'm fairer now,
Sitting where a score of servants stand,
With a coronet on high days for my brow
And almost a sceptre for my hand.
You're but a sailor, Philip, weatherbeaten brown,
A stranger on land and at home on the sea,
Coasting as best you may from town to town:
Coasting along do you often think of me?
I'm a great lady in a sheltered bower,
With hands grown white through having nought to do:
Yet sometimes I think of you hour after hour
Till I nigh wish myself a child with you. |
Frederik Hegel | Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson | (See Note 79)
I
DEDICATION
You never came here; but I go
Here often and am met by you.
Each room and road here must renew
The thought of you and your form show
Standing with helpful hand extended,
As when long since in trust and deed
My home you from my foes defended.
...
So often, while I wrote this book,
The light shone from your genial eye;
Then we were one, both you and I
And what in silence being took;
So here and there the book possesses
Your spirit and your heart's fresh faith,
And therefore now your name it blesses.
I love the air, when growing colder
It, clear and high,
The purer sky
Broadens with sense of freedom bolder.
I find in forests joy the keenest
In autumn days
When fancy plays,
And not when they are young and greenest.
I knew a man: in autumn clearness
His even course, -
His heart's fine force
Like autumn sky in soft-hued sheerness.
His memory is, as - when a-swarming
The cold blasts first
Of winter burst -
The gentle flame my room first warming.
When all our outward longings falter,
And summer's mind
Within we find,
Is friendship's feast round autumn's altar.
|
The Moral | Rudyard Kipling | You mustn't groom an Arab with a file.
You hadn't ought to tension-spring a mule.
You couldn't push a brumby fifty mile
And drop him in a boiler-shed to cool.
I'll sling you through six counties in a day.
I'll hike you up a grade of one in ten.
I am Duty, Law and Order under way,
I'm the Mentor of banana-fingered men!
I will make you I know your left hand from your right.
I will teach you not to drink about your biz.
I'm the only temperance advocate in sight!
I am all the Education Act there is! |
Via, Et Veritas, Et Vita | Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell | "You never attained to Him?" "If to attain
Be to abide, then that may be."
"Endless the way, followed with how much pain!"
"The way was He." |
You Never Can Tell | Ella Wheeler Wilcox | You never can tell when you send a word,
Like an arrow shot from a bow
By an archer blind, be it cruel or kind,
Just where it may chance to go!
It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend,
Tipped with its poison or balm;
To a stranger's heart in life's great mart,
It may carry its pain or its calm.
You never can tell when you do an act
Just what the result will be;
But with every deed you are sowing a seed,
Though the harvest you may not see.
Each kindly act is an acorn dropped
In God's productive soil.
You may not know, but the tree shall grow,
With shelter for those who toil.
You never can tell what your thoughts will do,
In bringing you hate or love;
For thoughts are things, and their airy wings
Are swifter than carrier doves.
They follow the law of the universe -
Each thing must create its kind;
And they speed o'er the track to bring you back
WHATEVER WENT OUT FROM YOUR MIND.
|
How Fortunate The Man With None | Bertolt Brecht | From the play "Mother Courage"
You saw sagacious Solomon
You know what came of him,
To him complexities seemed plain.
He cursed the hour that gave birth to him
And saw that everything was vain.
How great and wise was Solomon.
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's wisdom that had brought him to this state.
How fortunate the man with none.
You saw courageous Caesar next
You know what he became.
They deified him in his life
Then had him murdered just the same.
And as they raised the fatal knife
How loud he cried: you too my son!
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's courage that had brought him to that state.
How fortunate the man with none.
You heard of honest Socrates
The man who never lied:
They weren't so grateful as you'd think
Instead the rulers fixed to have him tried
And handed him the poisoned drink.
How honest was the people's noble son.
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's honesty that brought him to that state.
How fortunate the man with none.
Here you can see respectable folk
Keeping to God's own laws.
So far he hasn't taken heed.
You who sit safe and warm indoors
Help to relieve our bitter need.
How virtuously we had begun.
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's fear of god that brought us to that state.
How fortunate the man with none. |
Maggie A Lady. | Christina Georgina Rossetti | You must not call me Maggie, you must not call me Dear,
For I'm Lady of the Manor now stately to see;
And if there comes a babe, as there may some happy year,
'T will be little lord or lady at my knee.
O, but what ails you, my sailor cousin Phil,
That you shake and turn white like a cockcrow ghost?
You're as white as I turned once down by the mill,
When one told me you and ship and crew were lost:
Philip my playfellow, when we were boy and girl
(It was the Miller's Nancy told it to me),
Philip with the merry life in lip and curl,
Philip my playfellow drowned in the sea!
I thought I should have fainted, but I did not faint;
I stood stunned at the moment, scarcely sad,
Till I raised my wail of desolate complaint
For you, my cousin, brother, all I had.
They said I looked so pale, - some say so fair, -
My lord stopped in passing to soothe me back to life:
I know I missed a ringlet from my hair
Next morning; and now I am his wife.
Look at my gown, Philip, and look at my ring,
I'm all crimson and gold from top to toe:
All day long I sit in the sun and sing,
Where in the sun red roses blush and blow.
And I'm the rose of roses says my lord;
And to him I'm more than the sun in the sky,
While I hold him fast with the golden cord
Of a curl, with the eyelash of an eye.
His mother said "fie," and his sisters cried "shame,"
His high-born ladies cried "shame" from their place:
They said "fie" when they only heard my name,
But fell silent when they saw my face.
Am I so fair, Philip? Philip, did you think
I was so fair when we played boy and girl,
Where blue forget-me-nots bloomed on the brink
Of our stream which the mill-wheel sent awhirl?
If I was fair then sure I'm fairer now,
Sitting where a score of servants stand,
With a coronet on high days for my brow
And almost a sceptre for my hand.
You're but a sailor, Philip, weatherbeaten brown,
A stranger on land and at home on the sea,
Coasting as best you may from town to town:
Coasting along do you often think of me?
I'm a great lady in a sheltered bower,
With hands grown white through having naught to do:
Yet sometimes I think of you hour after hour
Till I nigh wish myself a child with you. |
You Remember Ellen. | Thomas Moore | You remember Ellen, our hamlet's pride,
How meekly she blest her humble lot,
When the stranger, William, had made her his bride,
And love was the light of their lowly cot.
Together they toiled through winds and rains,
Till William, at length, in sadness said,
"We must seek our fortune on other plains;"--
Then, sighing, she left her lowly shed.
They roamed a long and a weary way,
Nor much was the maiden's heart at ease,
When now, at close of one stormy day,
They see a proud castle among the trees.
"To-night," said the youth, "we'll shelter there;
"The wind blows cold, the hour is late:"
So he blew the horn with a chieftain's air,
And the Porter bowed, as they past the gate.
"Now, welcome, Lady," exclaimed the youth,--
"This castle is thine, and these dark woods all!"
She believed him crazed, but his words were truth,
For Ellen is Lady of Rosna Hall!
And dearly the Lord of Rosna loves
What William the stranger wooed and wed;
And the light of bliss, in these lordly groves,
Shines pure as it did in the lowly shed. |
Sleeping Beauty. A Parable. | George Augustus Baker, Jr. | You remember the nursery legend
We heard in the early days,
Ere we knew of the world's deception
Or walked in its dusty ways,
And dwelt in a land of the fairies
Where the air was golden haze
Of the maid, o'er whom the Summers
Of youth passed, like a swell
Of melody all unbroken,
Till evil wrought its spell,
And dream-embroidered curtains
Of slumber round her fell.
The wood grew up round her castle,
The centuries o'er it rolled,
Wrapping its slumb'rous turrets
In clinging robes of mould,
And her name became a legend
By Winter fire-sides told.
Till the Prince came over the mountains
In the morning-glow of youth;
The forest sank before him
Like wrong before the truth,
And he passed the dim old portal,
With its warders so uncouth,
Woke with a kiss the Princess,
And broke enchantment's chain,
The sleepy old castle wondered,
In its cobweb-cumbered brain,
At the tide of life and pleasure
That poured through each stony vein.
And so love conquered an evil
Centuries old in might,
Scattering drowsy glamour,
Piercing the murky night,
Leading from thrall and darkness
Beauty, and joy, and light.
|
To Caroline. [1] | George Gordon Byron | 1.
You say you love, and yet your eye
No symptom of that love conveys,
You say you love, yet know not why,
Your cheek no sign of love betrays.
2.
Ah! did that breast with ardour glow,
With me alone it joy could know,
Or feel with me the listless woe,
Which racks my heart when far from thee.
3.
Whene'er we meet my blushes rise,
And mantle through my purpled cheek,
But yet no blush to mine replies,
Nor e'en your eyes your love bespeak.
4.
Your voice alone declares your flame,
And though so sweet it breathes my name,
Our passions still are not the same;
Alas! you cannot love like me.
5.
For e'en your lip seems steep'd in snow,
And though so oft it meets my kiss,
It burns with no responsive glow,
Nor melts like mine in dewy bliss.
6.
Ah! what are words to love like mine,
Though uttered by a voice like thine,
I still in murmurs must repine,
And think that love can ne'er be true,
7.
Which meets me with no joyous sign,
Without a sigh which bids adieu;
How different is my love from thine,
How keen my grief when leaving you.
8.
Your image fills my anxious breast,
Till day declines adown the West,
And when at night, I sink to rest,
In dreams your fancied form I view.
9.
'Tis then your breast, no longer cold,
With equal ardour seems to burn,
While close your arms around me fold,
Your lips my kiss with warmth return.
10.
Ah! would these joyous moments last;
Vain HOPE! the gay delusion's past,
That voice! - ah! no, 'tis but the blast,
Which echoes through the neighbouring grove.
11.
But when awake, your lips I seek,
And clasp enraptur'd all your charms,
So chill's the pressure of your cheek,
I fold a statue in my arms.
12.
If thus, when to my heart embrac'd,
No pleasure in your eyes is trac'd,
You may be prudent, fair, and chaste,
But ah! my girl, you do not love. |
Upon A Free Maid, With A Foul Breath. | Robert Herrick | You say you'll kiss me, and I thank you for it;
But stinking breath, I do as hell abhor it. |
The Phantom Ball | Ella Wheeler Wilcox | You remember the hall on the corner?
To-night as I walked down street
I heard the sound of music,
And the rhythmic beat and beat,
In time to the pulsing measure
Of lightly tripping feet.
And I turned and entered the doorway -
It was years since I had been there -
Years, and life seemed altered:
Pleasure had changed to care.
But again I was hearing the music
And watching the dancers fair.
And then, as I stood and listened,
The music lost its glee;
And instead of the merry waltzers
There were ghosts of the Used-to-be -
Ghosts of the pleasure-seekers
Who once had danced with me.
Oh, 'twas a ghastly picture!
Oh, 'twas a gruesome crowd!
Each bearing a skull on his shoulder,
Each trailing a long white shroud,
As they whirled in the dance together,
And the music shrieked aloud.
As they danced, their dry bones rattled
Like shutters in a blast;
And they stared from eyeless sockets
On me as they circled past;
And the music that kept them whirling
Was a funeral dirge played fast.
Some of them wore their face-cloths,
Others were rotted away.
Some had mould on their garments,
And some seemed dead but a day.
Corpses all, but I knew them
As friends, once blithe and gay.
Beauty and strength and manhood -
And this was the end of it all:
Nothing but phantoms whirling
In a ghastly skeleton ball.
But the music ceased - and they vanished,
And I came away from the hall.
|
Love's Arithmetic | Richard Le Gallienne | You often ask me, love, how much I love you,
Bidding my fancy find
An answer to your mind;
I say: "Past count, as there are stars above you."
You shake your head and say,
"Many and bright are they,
But that is not enough."
Again I try:
"If all the leaves on all the trees
Were counted over,
And all the waves on all the seas,
More times your lover,
Yea! more than twice ten thousand times am I."
"'Tis not enough," again you make reply.
"How many blades of grass," one day I said,
"Are there from here to China? how many bees
Have gathered honey through the centuries?
Tell me how many roses have bloomed red
Since the first rose till this rose in your hair?
How many butterflies are born each year?
How many raindrops are there in a shower?
How many kisses, darling, in an hour?"
Thereat you smiled, and shook your golden head;
"Ah! not enough!" you said.
Then said I: "Dear, it is not in my power
To tell how much, how many ways, my love;
Unnumbered are its ways even as all these,
Nor any depth so deep, nor height above,
May match therewith of any stars or seas."
"I would hear more," you smiled . . .
"Then, love," I said,
"This will I do: unbind me all this gold
Too heavy for your head,
And, one by one, I'll count each shining thread,
And when the tale of all its wealth is told . . ."
"As much as that!" you said -
"Then the full sum of all my love I'll speak,
To the last unit tell the thing you ask . . ."
Thereat the gold, in gleaming torrents shed,
Fell loose adown each cheek,
Hiding you from me; I began my task.
"'Twill last our lives," you said. |
The House Of Dust: Part 03: 02: The Screen Maiden | Conrad Potter Aiken | You read, what is it, then that you are reading?
What music moves so silently in your mind?
Your bright hand turns the page.
I watch you from my window, unsuspected:
You move in an alien land, a silent age . . .
. . . The poet, what was his name? Tokkei, Tokkei,
The poet walked alone in a cold late rain,
And thought his grief was like the crying of sea-birds;
For his lover was dead, he never would love again.
Rain in the dreams of the mind, rain forever,
Rain in the sky of the heart, rain in the willows,
But then he saw this face, this face like flame,
This quiet lady, this portrait by Hiroshigi;
And took it home with him; and with it came
What unexpected changes, subtle as weather!
The dark room, cold as rain,
Grew faintly fragrant, stirred with a stir of April,
Warmed its corners with light again,
And smoke of incense whirled about this portrait,
And the quiet lady there,
So young, so quietly smiling, with calm hands,
Seemed ready to loose her hair,
And smile, and lean from the picture, or say one word,
The word already clear,
Which seemed to rise like light between her eyelids . .
He held his breath to hear,
And smiled for shame, and drank a cup of wine,
And held a candle, and searched her face
Through all the little shadows, to see what secret
Might give so warm a grace . . .
Was it the quiet mouth, restrained a little?
The eyes, half-turned aside?
The jade ring on her wrist, still almost swinging? . . .
The secret was denied,
He chose his favorite pen and drew these verses,
And slept; and as he slept
A dream came into his heart, his lover entered,
And chided him, and wept.
And in the morning, waking, he remembered,
And thought the dream was strange.
Why did his darkened lover rise from the garden?
He turned, and felt a change,
As if a someone hidden smiled and watched him . . .
Yet there was only sunlight there.
Until he saw those young eyes, quietly smiling,
And held his breath to stare,
And could have sworn her cheek had turned, a little . . .
Had slightly turned away . . .
Sunlight dozed on the floor . . . He sat and wondered,
Nor left his room that day.
And that day, and for many days thereafter,
He sat alone, and thought
No lady had ever lived so beautiful
As Hiroshigi wrought . . .
Or if she lived, no matter in what country,
By what far river or hill or lonely sea,
He would look in every face until he found her . . .
There was no other as fair as she.
And before her quiet face he burned soft incense,
And brought her every day
Boughs of the peach, or almond, or snow-white cherry,
And somehow, she seemed to say,
That silent lady, young, and quietly smiling,
That she was happy there;
And sometimes, seeing this, he started to tremble,
And desired to touch her hair,
To lay his palm along her hand, touch faintly
With delicate finger-tips
The ghostly smile that seemed to hover and vanish
Upon her lips . . .
Until he knew he loved this quiet lady;
And night by night a dread
Leered at his dreams, for he knew that Hiroshigi
Was many centuries dead,
And the lady, too, was dead, and all who knew her . .
Dead, and long turned to dust . . .
The thin moon waxed and waned, and left him paler,
The peach leaves flew in a gust,
And he would surely have died; but there one day
A wise man, white with age,
Stared at the portrait, and said, 'This Hiroshigi
Knew more than archimage,
Cunningly drew the body, and called the spirit,
Till partly it entered there . . .
Sometimes, at death, it entered the portrait wholly . .
Do all I say with care,
And she you love may come to you when you call her . . . '
So then this ghost, Tokkei,
Ran in the sun, bought wine of a hundred merchants,
And alone at the end of day
Entered the darkening room, and faced the portrait,
And saw the quiet eyes
Gleaming and young in the dusk, and held the wine-cup,
And knelt, and did not rise,
And said, aloud, 'Lo-san, will you drink this wine?'
Said it three times aloud.
And at the third the faint blue smoke of incense
Rose to the walls in a cloud,
And the lips moved faintly, and the eyes, and the calm hands stirred;
And suddenly, with a sigh,
The quiet lady came slowly down from the portrait,
And stood, while worlds went by,
And lifted her young white hands and took the wine cup;
And the poet trembled, and said,
'Lo-san, will you stay forever?' 'Yes, I will stay.'
'But what when I am dead?'
'When you are dead your spirit will find my spirit,
And then we shall die no more.'
Music came down upon them, and spring returning,
They remembered worlds before,
And years went over the earth, and over the sea,
And lovers were born and spoke and died,
But forever in sunlight went these two immortal,
Tokkei and the quiet bride . . . |
Leaf Doctor | Paul Cameron Brown | You said happiness was a bird
- a hand extended
could bend its perch.
span the perfect wings.
I spoke of swallows.
lived off flies
ebbed when flying.
seldom came to rest. |
To The Artists. | Francis William Lauderdale Adams | You tell me these great lords have raised up Art:
I say they have degraded it. Look you,
When ever did they let the poet sing,
The painter paint, the sculptor hew and cast,
The music raise her heavenly voice, except
To praise them and their wretched rule o'er men?
Behold our English poets that were poor
Since these great lords were rich and held the state:
Behold the glories of the German land,
Poets, musicians, driven, like them, to death
Unless they'd tune their spirits' harps to play
Drawing-room pieces for the chattering fools
Who aped the taste for Art or for a leer.
Go to, no Art was ever noble yet,
Noble and high, the speech of godlike men,
When fetters bound it, be they gold or flowers.
All that is noblest, highest, greatest, best,
Comes from the Galilean peasant's hut, comes from
The Stratford village, the Ayrshire plough, the shop
That gave us Chaucer, the humble Milton's trade -
Bach's, Mozart's, great Beethoven's, - And these are they
Who knew the People, being what they knew!
Go to, if in the future years no strain,
No picture of earth's glory like to what
Your Artists raised for that small clique or this
Of supercilious imbecilities -
O if no better demi-gods of Art
Can rise save those whose barbarous tinsel yet
Makes hideous all the beauty of old homes -
Then let us seek the comforts of despair
In democratic efforts dead and gone:
Weep with Pheideian Athens, sigh an hour
With Raffaelle's Florence, beat the head and breast
O'er Shakspere's England that from Milton's took
In lips the name that leaped from lead and flame
From out her heart against the Spanish guns! |
Tommy Corrigan | Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton) | You talk of riders on the flat, of nerve and pluck and pace,
Not one in fifty has the nerve to ride a steeplechase.
It's right enough, while horses pull and take their faces strong,
To rush a flier to the front and bring the field along;
Bur what about the last half-mile, with horses blown and beat,
When every jump means means all you know to keep him on his feet.
When any slip means sudden death, with wife and child to keep,
It needs some nerve to draw the whip and flog him at the leap,
But Corrigan would ride them out, by danger undismayed,
He never flinched at fence or wall, he never was afraid;
With easy seat and nerve of steel, light hand and smiling face,
He held the rushing horses back, and made the sluggards race.
He gave the shirkers extra heart, he steadied down the rash,
He rode great clumsy boring brutes, and chanced a fatal smash;
He got the rushing Wymlet home that never jumped at all,
But clambered over every fence and clouted every wall.
You should have heard the cheers, my boys, that shook the members' stand
Whenever Tommy Corrigan weighed out to ride Lone Hand.
They were, indeed, a glorious pair, the great upstanding horse,
The gamest jockey on his back that ever faced a course.
Though weight was big and pace was hot and fences stiff and tall,
"You follow Tommy Corrigan" was passed to one and all.
And every man on Ballarat raised all he could command
To put on Tommy Corrigan when riding old Lone Hand.
But now we'll keep his memory green while horsemen come and go;
We may not see his like again where silks and satins glow.
We'll drink to him in silence, boys, he's followed down the track
Where many a good man went before, but never one came back.
And, let us hope, in that far land where the shades of brave men reign,
The gallant Tommy Corrigan will ride Lone Hand again.
|
Atrocities | Siegfried Loraine Sassoon | You told me, in your drunken-boasting mood,
How once you butchered prisoners. That was good!
I'm sure you felt no pity while they stood
Patient and cowed and scared, as prisoners should.
How did you do them in? Come, don't be shy:
You know I love to hear how Germans die,
Downstairs in dug-outs. "Camerad!" they cry;
Then squeal like stoats when bombs begin to fly.
* * * * *
And you? I know your record. You went sick
When orders looked unwholesome: then, with trick
And lie, you wangled home. And here you are,
Still talking big and boozing in a bar.
|
The Song Of Hiawatha - XVI - Pau-Puk-Keewis | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis,
He, the handsome Yenadizze,
Whom the people called the Storm-Fool,
Vexed the village with disturbance;
You shall hear of all his mischief,
And his flight from Hiawatha,
And his wondrous transmigrations,
And the end of his adventures.
On the shores of Gitche Gumee,
On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water
Stood the lodge of Pau-Puk-Keewis.
It was he who in his frenzy
Whirled these drifting sands together,
On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo,
When, among the guests assembled,
He so merrily and madly
Danced at Hiawatha's wedding,
Danced the Beggar's Dance to please them.
Now, in search of new adventures,
From his lodge went Pau-Puk-Keewis,
Came with speed into the village,
Found the young men all assembled
In the lodge of old Iagoo,
Listening to his monstrous stories,
To his wonderful adventures.
He was telling them the story
Of Ojeeg, the Summer-Maker,
How he made a hole in heaven,
How he climbed up into heaven,
And let out the summer-weather,
The perpetual, pleasant Summer;
How the Otter first essayed it;
How the Beaver, Lynx, and Badger
Tried in turn the great achievement,
From the summit of the mountain
Smote their fists against the heavens,
Smote against the sky their foreheads,
Cracked the sky, but could not break it;
How the Wolverine, uprising,
Made him ready for the encounter,
Bent his knees down, like a squirrel,
Drew his arms back, like a cricket.
"Once he leaped," said old Iagoo,
"Once he leaped, and lo! above him
Bent the sky, as ice in rivers
When the waters rise beneath it;
Twice he leaped, and lo! above him
Cracked the sky, as ice in rivers
When the freshet is at highest!
Thrice he leaped, and lo! above him
Broke the shattered sky asunder,
And he disappeared within it,
And Ojeeg, the Fisher Weasel,
With a bound went in behind him!"
"Hark you!" shouted Pau-Puk-Keewis
As he entered at the doorway;
"I am tired of all this talking,
Tired of old Iagoo's stories,
Tired of Hiawatha's wisdom.
Here is something to amuse you,
Better than this endless talking."
Then from out his pouch of wolf-skin
Forth he drew, with solemn manner,
All the game of Bowl and Counters,
Pugasaing, with thirteen pieces.
White on one side were they painted,
And vermilion on the other;
Two Kenabeeks or great serpents,
Two Ininewug or wedge-men,
One great war-club, Pugamaugun,
And one slender fish, the Keego,
Four round pieces, Ozawabeeks,
And three Sheshebwug or ducklings.
All were made of bone and painted,
All except the Ozawabeeks;
These were brass, on one side burnished,
And were black upon the other.
In a wooden bowl he placed them,
Shook and jostled them together,
Threw them on the ground before him,
Thus exclaiming and explaining:
"Red side up are all the pieces,
And one great Kenabeek standing
On the bright side of a brass piece,
On a burnished Ozawabeek;
Thirteen tens and eight are counted."
Then again he shook the pieces,
Shook and jostled them together,
Threw them on the ground before him,
Still exclaiming and explaining:
"White are both the great Kenabeeks,
White the Ininewug, the wedge-men,
Red are all the other pieces;
Five tens and an eight are counted."
Thus he taught the game of hazard,
Thus displayed it and explained it,
Running through its various chances,
Various changes, various meanings:
Twenty curious eyes stared at him,
Full of eagerness stared at him.
"Many games," said old Iagoo,
"Many games of skill and hazard
Have I seen in different nations,
Have I played in different countries.
He who plays with old Iagoo
Must have very nimble fingers;
Though you think yourself so skilful,
I can beat you, Pau-Puk-Keewis,
I can even give you lessons
In your game of Bowl and Counters!"
So they sat and played together,
All the old men and the young men,
Played for dresses, weapons, wampum,
Played till midnight, played till morning,
Played until the Yenadizze,
Till the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis,
Of their treasures had despoiled them,
Of the best of all their dresses,
Shirts of deer-skin, robes of ermine,
Belts of wampum, crests of feathers,
Warlike weapons, pipes and pouches.
Twenty eyes glared wildly at him,
Like the eyes of wolves glared at him.
Said the lucky Pau-Puk-Keewis:
"In my wigwam I am lonely,
In my wanderings and adventures
I have need of a companion,
Fain would have a Meshinauwa,
An attendant and pipe-bearer.
I will venture all these winnings,
All these garments heaped about me,
All this wampum, all these feathers,
On a single throw will venture
All against the young man yonder!"
'T was a youth of sixteen summers,
'T was a nephew of Iagoo;
Face-in-a-Mist, the people called him.
As the fire burns in a pipe-head
Dusky red beneath the ashes,
So beneath his shaggy eyebrows
Glowed the eyes of old Iagoo.
"Ugh!" he answered very fiercely;
"Ugh!" they answered all and each one.
Seized the wooden bowl the old man,
Closely in his bony fingers
Clutched the fatal bowl, Onagon,
Shook it fiercely and with fury,
Made the pieces ring together
As he threw them down before him.
Red were both the great Kenabeeks,
Red the Ininewug, the wedge-men,
Red the Sheshebwug, the ducklings,
Black the four brass Ozawabeeks,
White alone the fish, the Keego;
Only five the pieces counted!
Then the smiling Pau-Puk-Keewis
Shook the bowl and threw the pieces;
Lightly in the air he tossed them,
And they fell about him scattered;
Dark and bright the Ozawabeeks,
Red and white the other pieces,
And upright among the others
One Ininewug was standing,
Even as crafty Pau-Puk-Keewis
Stood alone among the players,
Saying, "Five tens! mine the game is!"
Twenty eyes glared at him fiercely,
Like the eyes of wolves glared at him,
As he turned and left the wigwam,
Followed by his Meshinauwa,
By the nephew of Iagoo,
By the tall and graceful stripling,
Bearing in his arms the winnings,
Shirts of deer-skin, robes of ermine,
Belts of wampum, pipes and weapons.
"Carry them," said Pau-Puk-Keewis,
Pointing with his fan of feathers,
"To my wigwam far to eastward,
On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo!"
Hot and red with smoke and gambling
Were the eyes of Pau-Puk-Keewis
As he came forth to the freshness
Of the pleasant Summer morning.
All the birds were singing gayly,
All the streamlets flowing swiftly,
And the heart of Pau-Puk-Keewis
Sang with pleasure as the birds sing,
Beat with triumph like the streamlets,
As he wandered through the village,
In the early gray of morning,
With his fan of turkey-feathers,
With his plumes and tufts of swan's down,
Till he reached the farthest wigwam,
Reached the lodge of Hiawatha.
Silent was it and deserted;
No one met him at the doorway,
No one came to bid him welcome;
But the birds were singing round it,
In and out and round the doorway,
Hopping, singing, fluttering, feeding,
And aloft upon the ridge-pole
Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens,
Sat with fiery eyes, and, screaming,
Flapped his wings at Pau-Puk-Keewis.
"All are gone! the lodge is empty!"
Thus it was spake Pau-Puk-Keewis,
In his heart resolving mischief;--
"Gone is wary Hiawatha,
Gone the silly Laughing Water,
Gone Nokomis, the old woman,
And the lodge is left unguarded!"
By the neck he seized the raven,
Whirled it round him like a rattle,
Like a medicine-pouch he shook it,
Strangled Kahgahgee, the raven,
From the ridge-pole of the wigwam
Left its lifeless body hanging,
As an insult to its master,
As a taunt to Hiawatha.
With a stealthy step he entered,
Round the lodge in wild disorder
Threw the household things about him,
Piled together in confusion
Bowls of wood and earthen kettles,
Robes of buffalo and beaver,
Skins of otter, lynx, and ermine,
As an insult to Nokomis,
As a taunt to Minnehaha.
Then departed Pau-Puk-Keewis,
Whistling, singing through the forest,
Whistling gayly to the squirrels,
Who from hollow boughs above him
Dropped their acorn-shells upon him,
Singing gayly to the wood birds,
Who from out the leafy darkness
Answered with a song as merry.
Then he climbed the rocky headlands,
Looking o'er the Gitche Gumee,
Perched himself upon their summit,
Waiting full of mirth and mischief
The return of Hiawatha.
Stretched upon his back he lay there;
Far below him plashed the waters,
Plashed and washed the dreamy waters;
Far above him swam the heavens,
Swam the dizzy, dreamy heavens;
Round him hovered, fluttered, rustled
Hiawatha's mountain chickens,
Flock-wise swept and wheeled about him,
Almost brushed him with their pinions.
And he killed them as he lay there,
Slaughtered them by tens and twenties,
Threw their bodies down the headland,
Threw them on the beach below him,
Till at length Kayoshk, the sea-gull,
Perched upon a crag above them,
Shouted: "It is Pau-Puk-Keewis!
He is slaying us by hundreds!
Send a message to our brother,
Tidings send to Hiawatha!" |
Archibald Lampman. | Jean Blewett | "Poet by the grace of God."
You sing of winter gray and chill,
Of silent stream and frozen lake,
Of naked woods, and winds that wake
To shriek and sob o'er vale and hill.
And straight we breathe the bracing air,
And see stretched out before our eyes
A white world spanned by brooding skies,
And snowflakes drifting everywhere.
You sing of tender things and sweet,
Of field, of brook, of flower, of bush,
The lilt of bird, the sunset flush,
The scarlet poppies in the wheat.
Until we feel the gleam and glow
Of summer pulsing through our veins,
And hear the patter of the rains,
And watch the green things sprout and grow.
You sing of joy, and we do mark
How glad a thing is life, and dear;
Of sorrow, and we seem to hear
The sound of sobbing in the dark.
The subtle power to sway and move,
The stamp of genius strong and true,
This, friend, was heaven's gift to you,
This made you great and won you love.
Your song goes ringing clear and sweet -
Though on earth's bosom, bare and brown,
All willingly you laid you down,
The music is not incomplete.
Sleep on, it is not by the years
We measure life when all is done;
Your rest is earned, your laurels won;
Sleep, softly sleep, we say with tears. |
To E.T.: 1917 | Walter De La Mare | You sleep too well - too far away,
For sorrowing word to soothe or wound;
Your very quiet seems to say
How longed-for a peace you have found.
Else, had not death so lured you on,
You would have grieved - 'twixt joy and fear -
To know how my small loving son
Had wept for you, my dear. |
Love Me Little, Love Me Long. | Robert Herrick | You say, to me-wards your affection's strong;
Pray love me little, so you love me long.
Slowly goes far: the mean is best: desire,
Grown violent, does either die or tire. |
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet XV | Philip Sidney (Sir) | You that do search for euery purling spring
Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flowes,
And euery flower, not sweet perhaps, which growes
Neere thereabouts, into your poesie wring;
Ye that do dictionaries methode bring
Into your rimes, running in rattling rowes;
You that poore Petrarchs long deceased woes
With new-borne sighes and denisen'd wit do sing;
You take wrong wayes; those far-fet helps be such
As do bewray a want of inward tuch,
And sure, at length stol'n goods doe come to light:
But if, both for your loue and skill, your name
You seek to nurse at fullest breasts of Fame,
Stella behold, and then begin to indite. |
The Song Of Hiawatha - V - Hiawatha's Fasting | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | You shall hear how Hiawatha
Prayed and fasted in the forest,
Not for greater skill in hunting,
Not for greater craft in fishing,
Not for triumphs in the battle,
And renown among the warriors,
But for profit of the people,
For advantage of the nations.
First he built a lodge for fasting,
Built a wigwam in the forest,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
In the blithe and pleasant Spring-time,
In the Moon of Leaves he built it,
And, with dreams and visions many,
Seven whole days and nights he fasted.
On the first day of his fasting
Through the leafy woods he wandered;
Saw the deer start from the thicket,
Saw the rabbit in his burrow,
Heard the pheasant, Bena, drumming,
Heard the squirrel, Adjidaumo,
Rattling in his hoard of acorns,
Saw the pigeon, the Omeme,
Building nests among the pine-trees,
And in flocks the wild-goose, Wawa,
Flying to the fen-lands northward,
Whirring, wailing far above him.
"Master of Life!" he cried, desponding,
"Must our lives depend on these things?"
On the next day of his fasting
By the river's brink he wandered,
Through the Muskoday, the meadow,
Saw the wild rice, Mahnomonee,
Saw the blueberry, Meenahga,
And the strawberry, Odahmin,
And the gooseberry, Shahbomin,
And the grape-vine, the Bemahgut,
Trailing o'er the alder-branches,
Filling all the air with fragrance!
"Master of Life!" he cried, desponding,
"Must our lives depend on these things?"
On the third day of his fasting
By the lake he sat and pondered,
By the still, transparent water;
Saw the sturgeon, Nahma, leaping,
Scattering drops like beads of wampum,
Saw the yellow perch, the Sahwa,
Like a sunbeam in the water,
Saw the pike, the Maskenozha,
And the herring, Okahahwis,
And the Shawgashee, the crawfish!
"Master of Life!" he cried, desponding,
"Must our lives depend on these things?"
On the fourth day of his fasting
In his lodge he lay exhausted;
From his couch of leaves and branches
Gazing with half-open eyelids,
Full of shadowy dreams and visions,
On the dizzy, swimming landscape,
On the gleaming of the water,
On the splendor of the sunset.
And he saw a youth approaching,
Dressed in garments green and yellow,
Coming through the purple twilight,
Through the splendor of the sunset;
Plumes of green bent o'er his forehead,
And his hair was soft and golden.
Standing at the open doorway,
Long he looked at Hiawatha,
Looked with pity and compassion
On his wasted form and features,
And, in accents like the sighing
Of the South-Wind in the tree-tops,
Said he, "O my Hiawatha!
All your prayers are heard in heaven,
For you pray not like the others;
Not for greater skill in hunting,
Not for greater craft in fishing,
Not for triumph in the battle,
Nor renown among the warriors,
But for profit of the people,
For advantage of the nations.
"From the Master of Life descending,
I, the friend of man, Mondamin,
Come to warn you and instruct you,
How by struggle and by labor
You shall gain what you have prayed for.
Rise up from your bed of branches,
Rise, O youth, and wrestle with me!"
Faint with famine, Hiawatha
Started from his bed of branches,
From the twilight of his wigwam
Forth into the flush of sunset
Came, and wrestled with Mondamin;
At his touch he felt new courage
Throbbing in his brain and bosom,
Felt new life and hope and vigor
Run through every nerve and fibre.
So they wrestled there together
In the glory of the sunset,
And the more they strove and struggled,
Stronger still grew Hiawatha;
Till the darkness fell around them,
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
From her nest among the pine-trees,
Gave a cry of lamentation,
Gave a scream of pain and famine.
"'T is enough!" then said Mondamin,
Smiling upon Hiawatha,
"But tomorrow, when the sun sets,
I will come again to try you."
And he vanished, and was seen not;
Whether sinking as the rain sinks,
Whether rising as the mists rise,
Hiawatha saw not, knew not,
Only saw that he had vanished,
Leaving him alone and fainting,
With the misty lake below him,
And the reeling stars above him.
On the morrow and the next day,
When the sun through heaven descending,
Like a red and burning cinder
From the hearth of the Great Spirit,
Fell into the western waters,
Came Mondamin for the trial,
For the strife with Hiawatha;
Came as silent as the dew comes,
From the empty air appearing,
Into empty air returning,
Taking shape when earth it touches,
But invisible to all men
In its coming and its going.
Thrice they wrestled there together
In the glory of the sunset,
Till the darkness fell around them,
Till the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
From her nest among the pine-trees,
Uttered her loud cry of famine,
And Mondamin paused to listen.
Tall and beautiful he stood there,
In his garments green and yellow;
To and fro his plumes above him,
Waved and nodded with his breathing,
And the sweat of the encounter
Stood like drops of dew upon him.
And he cried, "O Hiawatha!
Bravely have you wrestled with me,
Thrice have wrestled stoutly with me,
And the Master of Life, who sees us,
He will give to you the triumph!"
Then he smiled, and said: "To-morrow
Is the last day of your conflict,
Is the last day of your fasting.
You will conquer and o'ercome me;
Make a bed for me to lie in,
Where the rain may fall upon me,
Where the sun may come and warm me;
Strip these garments, green and yellow,
Strip this nodding plumage from me,
Lay me in the earth, and make it
Soft and loose and light above me.
"Let no hand disturb my slumber,
Let no weed nor worm molest me,
Let not Kahgahgee, the raven,
Come to haunt me and molest me,
Only come yourself to watch me,
Till I wake, and start, and quicken,
Till I leap into the sunshine."
And thus saying, he departed;
Peacefully slept Hiawatha,
But he heard the Wawonaissa,
Heard the whippoorwill complaining,
Perched upon his lonely wigwam;
Heard the rushing Sebowisha,
Heard the rivulet rippling near him,
Talking to the darksome forest;
Heard the sighing of the branches,
As they lifted and subsided
At the passing of the night-wind,
Heard them, as one hears in slumber
Far-off murmurs, dreamy whispers:
Peacefully slept Hiawatha.
On the morrow came Nokomis,
On the seventh day of his fasting,
Came with food for Hiawatha,
Came imploring and bewailing,
Lest his hunger should o'ercome him,
Lest his fasting should be fatal.
But he tasted not, and touched not,
Only said to her, "Nokomis,
Wait until the sun is setting,
Till the darkness falls around us,
Till the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Crying from the desolate marshes,
Tells us that the day is ended."
Homeward weeping went Nokomis,
Sorrowing for her Hiawatha,
Fearing lest his strength should fail him,
Lest his fasting should be fatal.
He meanwhile sat weary waiting
For the coming of Mondamin,
Till the shadows, pointing eastward,
Lengthened over field and forest,
Till the sun dropped from the heaven,
Floating on the waters westward,
As a red leaf in the Autumn
Falls and floats upon the water,
Falls and sinks into its bosom.
And behold! the young Mondamin,
With his soft and shining tresses,
With his garments green and yellow,
With his long and glossy plumage,
Stood and beckoned at the doorway.
And as one in slumber walking,
Pale and haggard, but undaunted,
From the wigwam Hiawatha
Came and wrestled with Mondamin.
Round about him spun the landscape,
Sky and forest reeled together,
And his strong heart leaped within him,
As the sturgeon leaps and struggles
In a net to break its meshes.
Like a ring of fire around him
Blazed and flared the red horizon,
And a hundred suns seemed looking
At the combat of the wrestlers.
Suddenly upon the greensward
All alone stood Hiawatha,
Panting with his wild exertion,
Palpitating with the struggle;
And before him breathless, lifeless,
Lay the youth, with hair dishevelled,
Plumage torn, and garments tattered,
Dead he lay there in the sunset.
And victorious Hiawatha
Made the grave as he commanded,
Stripped the garments from Mondamin,
Stripped his tattered plumage from him,
Laid him in the earth, and made it
Soft and loose and light above him;
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
From the melancholy moorlands,
Gave a cry of lamentation,
Gave a cry of pain and anguish!
Homeward then went Hiawatha
To the lodge of old Nokomis,
And the seven days of his fasting
Were accomplished and completed.
But the place was not forgotten
Where he wrestled with Mondamin;
Nor forgotten nor neglected
Was the grave where lay Mondamin,
Sleeping in the rain and sunshine,
Where his scattered plumes and garments
Faded in the rain and sunshine.
Day by day did Hiawatha
Go to wait and watch beside it;
Kept the dark mould soft above it,
Kept it clean from weeds and insects,
Drove away, with scoffs and shoutings,
Kahgahgee, the king of ravens.
Till at length a small green feather
From the earth shot slowly upward,
Then another and another,
And before the Summer ended
Stood the maize in all its beauty,
With its shining robes about it,
And its long, soft, yellow tresses;
And in rapture Hiawatha
Cried aloud, "It is Mondamin!
Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin!"
Then he called to old Nokomis
And Iagoo, the great boaster,
Showed them where the maize was growing,
Told them of his wondrous vision,
Of his wrestling and his triumph,
Of this new gift to the nations,
Which should be their food forever.
And still later, when the Autumn
Changed the long, green leaves to yellow,
And the soft and juicy kernels
Grew like wampum hard and yellow,
Then the ripened ears he gathered,
Stripped the withered husks from off them,
As he once had stripped the wrestler,
Gave the first Feast of Mondamin,
And made known unto the people
This new gift of the Great Spirit. |
The Cock And The Bull. | Charles Stuart Calverley | You see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought
Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day -
I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech,
As we curtail the already cur-tail'd cur
(You catch the paronomasia, play 'po' words?)
Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days.
Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern,
And clapt it i' my poke, having given for same
By way o' chop, swop, barter or exchange -
'Chop' was my snickering dandiprat's own term -
One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm.
O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four
Pence, one and fourpence - you are with me, sir? -
What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o' the clock,
One day (and what a roaring day it was
Go shop or sight-see - bar a spit o' rain!)
In February, eighteen sixty nine,
Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei
Hm - hm - how runs the jargon? being on throne.
Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put,
The basis or substratum - what you will -
Of the impending eighty thousand lines.
"Not much in 'em either," quoth perhaps simple Hodge.
But there's a superstructure. Wait a bit.
Mark first the rationale of the thing:
Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed.
That shilling - and for matter o' that, the pence -
I had o' course upo' me - wi' me say -
(Mecum's the Latin, make a note o' that)
When I popp'd pen i' stand, scratch'd ear, wiped snout,
(Let everybody wipe his own himself)
Sniff'd - tch! - at snuffbox; tumbled up, he-heed,
Haw-haw'd (not hee-haw'd, that's another guess thing:)
Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door,
I shoved the timber ope wi' my omoplat;
And in vestibulo, i' the lobby to-wit,
(Iacobi Facciolati's rendering, sir,)
Donn'd galligaskins, antigropeloes,
And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves,
One on and one a-dangle i' my hand,
And ombrifuge (Lord love you!), case o' rain,
I flopp'd forth, 'sbuddikins! on my own ten toes,
(I do assure you there be ten of them),
And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale
To find myself o' the sudden i' front o' the boy.
Put case I hadn't 'em on me, could I ha' bought
This sort-o'-kind-o'-what-you-might-call toy,
This pebble-thing, o' the boy-thing? Q. E. D.
That's proven without aid from mumping Pope,
Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal.
(Isn't it, old Fatchaps? You're in Euclid now.)
So, having the shilling - having i' fact a lot -
And pence and halfpence, ever so many o' them,
I purchased, as I think I said before,
The pebble (lapis, lapidis, -di, -dem, -de -
What nouns 'crease short i' the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?)
O' the boy, a bare-legg'd beggarly son of a gun,
For one-and-fourpence. Here we are again.
Now Law steps in, bigwigg'd, voluminous-jaw'd;
Investigates and re-investigates.
Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head.
Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case.
At first the coin was mine, the chattel his.
But now (by virtue of the said exchange
And barter) vice versa all the coin,
Per juris operationem, vests
I' the boy and his assigns till ding o' doom;
(In saecula saeculo-o-o-orum;
I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.)
To have and hold the same to him and them . . .
Confer some idiot on Conveyancing.
Whereas the pebble and every part thereof,
And all that appertaineth thereunto,
Quodcunque pertinet ad eam rem,
(I fancy, sir, my Latin's rather pat)
Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would or should,
(Subaudi caetera - clap we to the close -
For what's the good of law in a case o' the kind)
Is mine to all intents and purposes.
This settled, I resume the thread o' the tale.
Now for a touch o' the vendor's quality.
He says a gen'lman bought a pebble of him,
(This pebble i' sooth, sir, which I hold i' my hand) -
And paid for't, LIKE a gen'lman, on the nail.
"Did I o'ercharge him a ha'penny? Devil a bit.
Fiddlepin's end! Got out, you blazing ass!
Gabble o' the goose. Don't bugaboo-baby ME!
Go double or quits? Yah! tittup! what's the odds?"
There's the transaction view'd i' the vendor's light.
Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by,
With her three frowsy blowsy brats o' babes,
The scum o' the kennel, cream o' the filth-heap - Faugh!
Aie, aie, aie, aie! ot?t?t?t?toi,
('Stead which we blurt out Hoighty toighty now) -
And the baker and candlestickmaker, and Jack and Gill,
Blear'd Goody this and queasy Gaffer that.
Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first.
He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad
A stone, and pay for it rite, on the square,
And carry it off per saltum, jauntily,
Propria quae maribus, gentleman's property now
(Agreeably to the law explain'd above),
In proprium usum, for his private ends.
The boy he chuck'd a brown i' the air, and bit
I' the face the shilling: heaved a thumping stone
At a lean hen that ran cluck clucking by,
(And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door,)
Then abiit - what's the Ciceronian phrase? -
Excessit, evasit, erupit - off slogs boy;
Off like bird, avi similis - (you observed
The dative? Pretty i' the Mantuan!) - Anglice
Off in three flea skips. Hactenus, so far,
So good, tam bene. Bene, satis, male -,
Where was I with my trope 'bout one in a quag?
I did once hitch the syntax into verse:
Verbum personale, a verb personal,
Concordat - ay, "agrees," old Fatchaps - cum
Nominativo, with its nominative,
Genere, i' point o' gender, numero,
O' number, et persona, and person. Ut,
Instance: Sol ruit, down flops sun, et and,
Montes umbrantur, out flounce mountains. Pah!
Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad.
You see the trick on't though, and can yourself
Continue the discourse ad libitum.
It takes up about eighty thousand lines,
A thing imagination boggles at:
And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands,
Extend from here to Mesopotamy.
|
Epilogue To The Indian Queen. | John Dryden | SPOKEN BY MONTEZUMA.
You see what shifts we are enforced to try,
To help out wit with some variety;
Shows may be found that never yet were seen,
'Tis hard to find such wit as ne'er has been:
You have seen all that this old world can do,
We therefore try the fortune of the new,
And hope it is below your aim to hit
At untaught nature with your practised wit:
Our naked Indians, then, when wits appear,
Would as soon choose to have the Spaniards here.
'Tis true, you have marks enough, the plot, the show,
The poet's scenes, nay, more, the painter's too;
If all this fail, considering the cost,
'Tis a true voyage to the Indies lost:
But if you smile on all, then these designs,
Like the imperfect treasure of our minds,
Will pass for current wheresoe'er they go,
When to your bounteous hands their stamps they owe. |
Proof To No Purpose | Robert Herrick | You see this gentle stream that glides,
Shoved on, by quick-succeeding tides:
Try if this sober stream you can
Follow to th' wider ocean,
And see, if there it keeps unspent
In that congesting element.
Next, from that world of waters, then
By pores and caverns back again
Induct that inadultrate same
Stream to the spring from whence it came.
This with a wonder when ye do,
As easy, and else easier too:
Then ye may recollect the grains
Of my particular remains,
After a thousand lusters hurled,
By roughing winds, around the world. |
Blinded! | William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham) | You that still have your sight,
Remember me!--
I risked my life, I lost my eyes,
That you might see.
Now in the dark I go,
That you have light.
Yours, all the joy of day,
I have but night.
Yours still, the faces dear,
The fields, the sky.
For me--ah me!--there's nought
But this black misery!
In this unending night,
I can but see
What once I saw, and fain
Would see again.
O, midnight of black pain!
Come, Comrade Death,
Come quick, and set me free,
And give me back my eyes again!
* * * * *
Nay then, Christ's vicar,
You who bear our pain,
Ours be it now to see
Your dark days lighted,
And your way made plain. |
Quirl. | Friedrich Schiller | You tell me that you feel surprise
Because Quirl's paper's grown in size;
And yet they're crying through the street
That there's a rise in bread and meat. |
To Lanthe | Walter Savage Landor | You smil'd, you spoke, and I believ'd,
By every word and smile deceiv'd.
Another man would hope no more;
Nor hope I what I hop'd before:
But let not this last wish be vain;
Deceive, deceive me once again! |
The Poet's Simple Faith. | Victor-Marie Hugo | You say, "Where goest thou?" I cannot tell,
And still go on. If but the way be straight,
It cannot go amiss! before me lies
Dawn and the Day; the Night behind me; that
Suffices me; I break the bounds; I see,
And nothing more; believe, and nothing less.
My future is not one of my concerns.
PROF. E. DOWDEN. |
On A Perfumed Lady | Robert Herrick | You say you're sweet: how should we know
Whether that you be sweet or no?
From powders and perfumes keep free;
Then we shall smell how sweet you be! |
John Scofield | Edgar Lee Masters | You see I worked for Arthur Fouche, he said,
Until the year before he died; I knew
That worthless son of his who lived with him,
Born when his mother was past bearing time,
So born a weakling. When he came from college
He married soon and came to mother's hearth,
And brought his bride. I heard the old man say:
"A man should have his own place when he marries,
Not settle in the family nest"; I heard
The old man offer him a place, or offer
To buy a place for him. This baby boy
Ran quick to mother, cried and asked to stay.
What happened then? What always happens. Soon
This son began to edge upon the father,
And take the reins a little, Arthur Fouche
Was growing old. And at the last the son
Controlled the bank account and ran the farms;
And Mrs. Fouche gave up her place at table
To daughter-in-law, no longer served or poured
The coffee - so you see how humble beggars
Become the masters, it is always so.
Now this I know: When this boy came from school
And brought his wife back to the family place,
Old Arthur Fouche had twenty thousand dollars
On saving in the bank, and lots of money
Loaned out on mortgages. But when he died
He owed two thousand dollars at the bank.
Where did the money go? Why, for ten years
When Arthur Fouche and son were partners, I
Saw what went on, and saw this boy buy cattle
When beef was high, sell cattle when it was low,
And lose each year a little. And I saw
This boy buy buggies, autos and machinery,
And lose the money trading. So it was,
This worthless boy had nothing in his head
To run a business, which used up the fortune
Of Arthur Fouche, and strangled Arthur Fouche,
As vines destroy an oak tree. Well, you know
When Arthur Fouche's will was opened up
They found this son was willed most everything -
It's always so. The children who go out,
And make their way get nothing, and the son
Who stays at home by mother gets the swag.
And so this son was willed the family place
And sold it to that chiropractor - left
For California to remake his life,
And died there, after wasting all his life,
His father's fortune, too.
So, now to show you
How age breaks down a mind and dulls a heart,
I'll tell you what I heard:
This Elenor Murray
Was eighteen, just from High School, and one day
She came to see her grandfather and talked.
The old man always said he loved her most
Of all the grandchildren, and Mrs. Fouche
Told me a dozen times she thought as much
Of Elenor Murray as she did of any
Child of her own. Too bad they didn't show
Their love for her.
I was in and out the room
Where Elenor Murray and her grandfather
Were talking on that day, was planing doors
That swelled and wouldn't close. There was no secret
About this talk of theirs that I could see,
And so I listened.
Elenor began:
"If you can help me, grandpa, just a little
I can go through the university.
I can teach school in summer and can save
A little money by denying self.
If you can let me have two hundred dollars,
When school begins each year, divide it up,
If you prefer, and give me half in the fall,
And half in March, perhaps, I can get through.
And when I finish I shall go to work
And pay you back, I want it as a loan,
And do not ask it for a gift." She sat,
And fingered at her dress while asking him,
And Arthur Fouche looked at her. Come to think
He was toward eighty then. At last he said:
"I wish I could do what you ask me, Elenor,
But there are several things. You see, my child,
I have been through this thing of educating
A family of children, lived my life
In that regard, and so have done my part.
I sent your mother to St. Mary's, sent
The rest of them wherever they desired.
And that's what every father owes his children.
And when he does it, he has done his duty.
I'm sorry that your father cannot help you,
And I would help you, though I've done my duty
By those to whom I owed it; but you see
Your uncle and myself are partners buying
And selling cattle, and the business lags.
We do not profit much, and all the money
I have in bank is needed for this business.
We buy the cattle, and we buy the corn,
Then we run short of corn; and now and then
I have to ask the bank to lend us money,
And give my note. Last month I borrowed money!"
And so the old man talked. And as I looked
I saw the tears run down her cheeks. She sat
And looked as if she didn't believe him.
No,
Why should she? For I do not understand
Why in a case like this, a man who's worth,
Say fifty thousand dollars couldn't spare
Two hundred dollars by the year. Let's see:
He might have bought less corn or cattle, gambled
On lucky sales of cattle - there's a way
To do a big thing when you have the eyes
To see how big it is; and as for me,
If money must be lost, I'd rather lose it
On Elenor Murray than on cattle. In fact,
That's where the money went, as I have said.
And Elenor Murray went away and earned
Two terms at college, and this worthless son
Ate up and spent the money. All of them,
The son and Arthur Fouche and Elenor Murray
Are gone to dust, now, like the garden things
That sprout up, fall and rot.
At times it seems
All waste to me, no matter what you do
For self or others, unless you think of turnips
Which can't be much to turnips, but are good
For us who raise them. Here's my story then,
Good wishes to you, Coroner Merival.
* * * * *
Coroner Merival heard that Gottlieb Gerald
Knew Elenor Murray and her family life;
And knew her love for music, how she tried
To play on the piano. On an evening
He went with Winthrop Marion to the place, -
Llewellyn George dropped in to hear, as well -
Where Gottlieb Gerald sold pianos - dreamed,
Read Kant at times, a scholar, but a failure,
His life a waste in business. Gottlieb Gerald
Spoke to them in these words: -
|
A Reply To A Young Lady. | James Barron Hope | "I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done
Than to be one of the twenty to follow my own teaching,"
- Merchant of Venice.
"Do as I tell you, and not as I do."
- Old Saying.
You say, a "moral sign-post" I
Point out the road towards the sky;
And then with glance so very shy
You archly ask me, lady, why
I hesitate myself to go
In the direction which I show?
To answer is an easy task,
If you allow me but to ask
One little question, sweet, of you: -
'Tis this: should sign-posts travel too
What would bewildered pilgrims do -
Celestial pilgrims, such as you? |
You That Were | John Frederick Freeman | You that were
Half my life ere life was mine;
You that on my shape the sign
Set of yours;
You that my young lips did kiss
When your kiss summed up my bliss....
Ah, once more
You to kiss were all my bliss!
You whom I
Could forget--strange, could forget
Even for days (ah, now the fret
Of my grief!);
You who loved me though forgot;
Welcomed still, reproaching not....
Ah, that now
That forgetting were forgot!
You that now
On my shoulder as I go
Put your hand that wounds me so;
You that brush
Yet my lips with that one last
Kiss that bitters all things past....
How shall I
Yet endure that kiss the last?
You that are
Where the feet of my blind grief
Find you not, nor find relief;
You that are
Where my thought flying after you
Broken falls and flies anew,
Now you're gone
My love accusing aches for you.
March 4, 1911. |
My Namesake | John Greenleaf Whittier | Addressed to Francis Greenleaf Allison of Burlington, New Jersey.
You scarcely need my tardy thanks,
Who, self-rewarded, nurse and tend
A green leaf on your own Green Banks
The memory of your friend.
For me, no wreath, bloom-woven, hides
The sobered brow and lessening hair
For aught I know, the myrtled sides
Of Helicon are bare.
Their scallop-shells so many bring
The fabled founts of song to try,
They've drained, for aught I know, the spring
Of Aganippe dry.
Ah well! The wreath the Muses braid
Proves often Folly's cap and bell;
Methinks, my ample beaver's shade
May serve my turn as well.
Let Love's and Friendship's tender debt
Be paid by those I love in life.
Why should the unborn critic whet
For me his scalping-knife?
Why should the stranger peer and pry
One's vacant house of life about,
And drag for curious ear and eye
His faults and follies out?
Why stuff, for fools to gaze upon,
With chaff of words, the garb he wore,
As corn-husks when the ear is gone
Are rustled all the more?
Let kindly Silence close again,
The picture vanish from the eye,
And on the dim and misty main
Let the small ripple die.
Yet not the less I own your claim
To grateful thanks, dear friends of mine.
Hang, if it please you so, my name
Upon your household line.
Let Fame from brazen lips blow wide
Her chosen names, I envy none
A mother's love, a father's pride,
Shall keep alive my own!
Still shall that name as now recall
The young leaf wet with morning dew,
The glory where the sunbeams fall
The breezy woodlands through.
That name shall be a household word,
A spell to waken smile or sigh;
In many an evening prayer be heard
And cradle lullaby.
And thou, dear child, in riper days
When asked the reason of thy name,
Shalt answer: One 't were vain to praise
Or censure bore the same.
"Some blamed him, some believed him good,
The truth lay doubtless 'twixt the two;
He reconciled as best he could
Old faith and fancies new.
"In him the grave and playful mixed,
And wisdom held with folly truce,
And Nature compromised betwixt
Good fellow and recluse.
"He loved his friends, forgave his foes;
And, if his words were harsh at times,
He spared his fellow-men, his blows
Fell only on their crimes.
"He loved the good and wise, but found
His human heart to all akin
Who met him on the common ground
Of suffering and of sin.
"Whate'er his neighbors might endure
Of pain or grief his own became;
For all the ills he could not cure
He held himself to blame.
"His good was mainly an intent,
His evil not of forethought done;
The work he wrought was rarely meant
Or finished as begun.
"Ill served his tides of feeling strong
To turn the common mills of use;
And, over restless wings of song,
His birthright garb hung loose!
"His eye was beauty's powerless slave,
And his the ear which discord pains;
Few guessed beneath his aspect grave
What passions strove in chains.
"He had his share of care and pain,
No holiday was life to him;
Still in the heirloom cup we drain
The bitter drop will swim.
"Yet Heaven was kind, and here a bird
And there a flower beguiled his way;
And, cool, in summer noons, he heard
The fountains plash and play.
"On all his sad or restless moods
The patient peace of Nature stole;
The quiet of the fields and woods
Sank deep into his soul.
"He worshipped as his fathers did,
And kept the faith of childish days,
And, howsoe'er he strayed or slid,
He loved the good old ways.
"The simple tastes, the kindly traits,
The tranquil air, and gentle speech,
The silence of the soul that waits
For more than man to teach.
"The cant of party, school, and sect,
Provoked at times his honest scorn,
And Folly, in its gray respect,
He tossed on satire's horn.
"But still his heart was full of awe
And reverence for all sacred things;
And, brooding over form and law,'
He saw the Spirit's wings!
"Life's mystery wrapt him like a cloud;
He heard far voices mock his own,
The sweep of wings unseen, the loud,
Long roll of waves unknown.
"The arrows of his straining sight
Fell quenched in darkness; priest and sage,
Like lost guides calling left and right,
Perplexed his doubtful age.
"Like childhood, listening for the sound
Of its dropped pebbles in the well,
All vainly down the dark profound
His brief-lined plummet fell.
"So, scattering flowers with pious pains
On old beliefs, of later creeds,
Which claimed a place in Truth's domains,
He asked the title-deeds.
"He saw the old-time's groves and shrines
In the long distance fair and dim;
And heard, like sound of far-off pines,
The century-mellowed hymn!
"He dared not mock the Dervish whirl,
The Brahmin's rite, the Lama's spell;
God knew the heart; Devotion's pearl
Might sanctify the shell.
"While others trod the altar stairs
He faltered like the publican;
And, while they praised as saints, his prayers
Were those of sinful man.
"For, awed by Sinai's Mount of Law,
The trembling faith alone sufficed,
That, through its cloud and flame, he saw
The sweet, sad face of Christ!
"And listening, with his forehead bowed,
Heard the Divine compassion fill
The pauses of the trump and cloud
With whispers small and still.
"The words he spake, the thoughts he penned,
Are mortal as his hand and brain,
But, if they served the Master's end,
He has not lived in vain!"
Heaven make thee better than thy name,
Child of my friends! For thee I crave
What riches never bought, nor fame
To mortal longing gave.
I pray the prayer of Plato old:
God make thee beautiful within,
And let thine eyes the good behold
In everything save sin!
Imagination held in check
To serve, not rule, thy poised mind;
Thy Reason, at the frown or beck
Of Conscience, loose or bind.
No dreamer thou, but real all,
Strong manhood crowning vigorous youth;
Life made by duty epical
And rhythmic with the truth.
So shall that life the fruitage yield
Which trees of healing only give,
And green-leafed in the Eternal field
Of God, forever live |
Satires Of Circumstances In Fifteen Glimpses - VI In The Cemetery | Thomas Hardy | "You see those mothers squabbling there?"
Remarks the man of the cemetery.
One says in tears, ''Tis mine lies here!'
Another, 'Nay, mine, you Pharisee!'
Another, 'How dare you move my flowers
And put your own on this grave of ours!'
But all their children were laid therein
At different times, like sprats in a tin.
"And then the main drain had to cross,
And we moved the lot some nights ago,
And packed them away in the general foss
With hundreds more. But their folks don't know,
And as well cry over a new-laid drain
As anything else, to ease your pain!" |
You Smiled, You Spoke, And I Believed | Walter Savage Landor | You smiled, you spoke, and I believed,
By every word and smile deceived.
Another man would hope no more;
Nor hope I what I hoped before:
But let not this last wish be vain;
Deceive, deceive me once again! |
The Union | Alfred Noyes | (1917)
You that have gathered together the sons of all races,
And welded them into one,
Lifting the torch of your Freedom on hungering faces
That sailed to the setting sun;
You that have made of mankind in your own proud regions
The music of man to be,
How should the old earth sing of you, now, as your legions
Rise to set all men free?
How should the singer that knew the proud vision and loved it,
In the days when not all men knew,
Gaze through his tears, on the light, now the world has approved it;
Or dream, when the dream comes true?
How should he sing when the Spirit of Freedom in thunder
Speaks, and the wine-press is red;
And the sea-winds are loud with the chains that are broken asunder
And nations that rise from the dead?
Flag of the sky, proud flag of that wide communion,
Too mighty for thought to scan;
Flag of the many in one, and that last world-union
That kingdom of God in man;
Ours was a dream, in the night, of that last federation,
But yours is the glory unfurled--
The marshalled nations and stars that shall make one nation
One singing star of the world. |
Out Of Reach? | James Whitcomb Riley | You think them "out of reach," your dead?
Nay, by my own dead, I deny
Your "out of reach." - Be comforted:
'Tis not so far to die.
O by their dear remembered smiles
And outheld hands and welcoming speech,
They wait for us, thousands of miles
This side of "out-of-reach." |
The Spur | William Butler Yeats | You think it horrible that lust and rage
Should dance attention upon my old age;
They were not such a plague when I was young;
What else have I to spur me into song? |
Houses Of Dreams | Sara Teasdale | You took my empty dreams
And filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
April and the sun.
The old empty dreams
Where my thoughts would throng
Are far too full of happiness
To even hold a song.
Oh, the empty dreams were dim
And the empty dreams were wide,
They were sweet and shadowy houses
Where my thoughts could hide.
But you took my dreams away
And you made them all come true,
My thoughts have no place now to play,
And nothing now to do. |
Upon One Who Said She Was Always Young. | Robert Herrick | You say you're young; but when your teeth are told
To be but three, black-ey'd, we'll think you old. |
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - A Prophecy Of Judgment. No. 2. The Doom Of The Impious. | Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni | La scuola inimicissima.
You sect most adverse to the good and true,
Degenerate from your origin divine,
Pastured on lies and shadows by the line
Of Thais, Sinon, Judas, Homer! You,
Thus saith the Spirit, when the retinue
Of saints with Christ returns on earth to shine,
When the fifth angel's vial pours condign
Vengeance with awful ire and torments due,--
You shall be girt with gloom; your lips profane,
Disloyal tongues, and savage teeth shall grind
And gnash with fury fell and anger vain:
In Malebolge your damned souls confined
On fiery marle, for increment of pain,
Shall see the saved rejoice with mirth of mind. |
The Song Of Hiawatha - XI - Hiawatha's Wedding-Feast | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis,
How the handsome Yenadizze
Danced at Hiawatha's wedding;
How the gentle Chibiabos,
He the sweetest of musicians,
Sang his songs of love and longing;
How Iagoo, the great boaster,
He the marvellous story-teller,
Told his tales of strange adventure,
That the feast might be more joyous,
That the time might pass more gayly,
And the guests be more contented.
Sumptuous was the feast Nokomis
Made at Hiawatha's wedding;
All the bowls were made of bass-wood,
White and polished very smoothly,
All the spoons of horn of bison,
Black and polished very smoothly.
She had sent through all the village
Messengers with wands of willow,
As a sign of invitation,
As a token of the feasting;
And the wedding guests assembled,
Clad in all their richest raiment,
Robes of fur and belts of wampum,
Splendid with their paint and plumage,
Beautiful with beads and tassels.
First they ate the sturgeon, Nahma,
And the pike, the Maskenozha,
Caught and cooked by old Nokomis;
Then on pemican they feasted,
Pemican and buffalo marrow,
Haunch of deer and hump of bison,
Yellow cakes of the Mondamin,
And the wild rice of the river.
But the gracious Hiawatha,
And the lovely Laughing Water,
And the careful old Nokomis,
Tasted not the food before them,
Only waited on the others
Only served their guests in silence.
And when all the guests had finished,
Old Nokomis, brisk and busy,
From an ample pouch of otter,
Filled the red-stone pipes for smoking
With tobacco from the South-land,
Mixed with bark of the red willow,
And with herbs and leaves of fragrance.
Then she said, "O Pau-Puk-Keewis,
Dance for us your merry dances,
Dance the Beggar's Dance to please us,
That the feast may be more joyous,
That the time may pass more gayly,
And our guests be more contented!"
Then the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis,
He the idle Yenadizze,
He the merry mischief-maker,
Whom the people called the Storm-Fool,
Rose among the guests assembled.
Skilled was he in sports and pastimes,
In the merry dance of snow-shoes,
In the play of quoits and ball-play;
Skilled was he in games of hazard,
In all games of skill and hazard,
Pugasaing, the Bowl and Counters,
Kuntassoo, the Game of Plum-stones.
Though the warriors called him Faint-Heart,
Called him coward, Shaugodaya,
Idler, gambler, Yenadizze,
Little heeded he their jesting,
Little cared he for their insults,
For the women and the maidens
Loved the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis.
He was dressed in shirt of doeskin,
White and soft, and fringed with ermine,
All inwrought with beads of wampum;
He was dressed in deer-skin leggings,
Fringed with hedgehog quills and ermine,
And in moccasins of buck-skin,
Thick with quills and beads embroidered.
On his head were plumes of swan's down,
On his heels were tails of foxes,
In one hand a fan of feathers,
And a pipe was in the other.
Barred with streaks of red and yellow,
Streaks of blue and bright vermilion,
Shone the face of Pau-Puk-Keewis.
From his forehead fell his tresses,
Smooth, and parted like a woman's,
Shining bright with oil, and plaited,
Hung with braids of scented grasses,
As among the guests assembled,
To the sound of flutes and singing,
To the sound of drums and voices,
Rose the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis,
And began his mystic dances.
First he danced a solemn measure,
Very slow in step and gesture,
In and out among the pine-trees,
Through the shadows and the sunshine,
Treading softly like a panther.
Then more swiftly and still swifter,
Whirling, spinning round in circles,
Leaping o'er the guests assembled,
Eddying round and round the wigwam,
Till the leaves went whirling with him,
Till the dust and wind together
Swept in eddies round about him.
Then along the sandy margin
Of the lake, the Big-Sea-Water,
On he sped with frenzied gestures,
Stamped upon the sand, and tossed it
Wildly in the air around him;
Till the wind became a whirlwind,
Till the sand was blown and sifted
Like great snowdrifts o'er the landscape,
Heaping all the shores with Sand Dunes,
Sand Hills of the Nagow Wudjoo!
Thus the merry Pau-Puk-Keewis
Danced his Beggar's Dance to please them,
And, returning, sat down laughing
There among the guests assembled,
Sat and fanned himself serenely
With his fan of turkey-feathers.
Then they said to Chibiabos,
To the friend of Hiawatha,
To the sweetest of all singers,
To the best of all musicians,
"Sing to us, O Chibiabos!
Songs of love and songs of longing,
That the feast may be more joyous,
That the time may pass more gayly,
And our guests be more contented!"
And the gentle Chibiabos
Sang in accents sweet and tender,
Sang in tones of deep emotion,
Songs of love and songs of longing;
Looking still at Hiawatha,
Looking at fair Laughing Water,
Sang he softly, sang in this wise:
"Onaway! Awake, beloved!
Thou the wild-flower of the forest!
Thou the wild-bird of the prairie!
Thou with eyes so soft and fawn-like!
"If thou only lookest at me,
I am happy, I am happy,
As the lilies of the prairie,
When they feel the dew upon them!
"Sweet thy breath is as the fragrance
Of the wild-flowers in the morning,
As their fragrance is at evening,
In the Moon when leaves are falling.
"Does not all the blood within me
Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee,
As the springs to meet the sunshine,
In the Moon when nights are brightest?
"Onaway! my heart sings to thee,
Sings with joy when thou art near me,
As the sighing, singing branches
In the pleasant Moon of Strawberries!
"When thou art not pleased, beloved,
Then my heart is sad and darkened,
As the shining river darkens
When the clouds drop shadows on it!
"When thou smilest, my beloved,
Then my troubled heart is brightened,
As in sunshine gleam the ripples
That the cold wind makes in rivers.
"Smiles the earth, and smile the waters,
Smile the cloudless skies above us,
But I lose the way of smiling
When thou art no longer near me!
"I myself, myself! behold me!
Blood of my beating heart, behold me!
Oh awake, awake, beloved!
Onaway! awake, beloved!"
Thus the gentle Chibiabos
Sang his song of love and longing;
And Iagoo, the great boaster,
He the marvellous story-teller,
He the friend of old Nokomis,
Jealous of the sweet musician,
Jealous of the applause they gave him,
Saw in all the eyes around him,
Saw in all their looks and gestures,
That the wedding guests assembled
Longed to hear his pleasant stories,
His immeasurable falsehoods.
Very boastful was Iagoo;
Never heard he an adventure
But himself had met a greater;
Never any deed of daring
But himself had done a bolder;
Never any marvellous story
But himself could tell a stranger.
Would you listen to his boasting,
Would you only give him credence,
No one ever shot an arrow
Half so far and high as he had;
Ever caught so many fishes,
Ever killed so many reindeer,
Ever trapped so many beaver!
None could run so fast as he could,
None could dive so deep as he could,
None could swim so far as he could;
None had made so many journeys,
None had seen so many wonders,
As this wonderful Iagoo,
As this marvellous story-teller!
Thus his name became a by-word
And a jest among the people;
And whene'er a boastful hunter
Praised his own address too highly,
Or a warrior, home returning,
Talked too much of his achievements,
All his hearers cried, "Iagoo!
Here's Iagoo come among us!"
He it was who carved the cradle
Of the little Hiawatha,
Carved its framework out of linden,
Bound it strong with reindeer sinews;
He it was who taught him later
How to make his bows and arrows,
How to make the bows of ash-tree,
And the arrows of the oak-tree.
So among the guests assembled
At my Hiawatha's wedding
Sat Iagoo, old and ugly,
Sat the marvellous story-teller.
And they said, "O good Iagoo,
Tell us now a tale of wonder,
Tell us of some strange adventure,
That the feast may be more joyous,
That the time may pass more gayly,
And our guests be more contented!"
And Iagoo answered straightway,
"You shall hear a tale of wonder,
You shall hear the strange adventures
Of Osseo, the Magician,
From the Evening Star descending." |
Ant In Office. | John Gay | You tell me that my verse is rough,
And to do mischief like enough;
Bid me eschew, in honest rhymes,
Follies of countries and crimes.
You ask me if I ever knew
Court chaplains thus lawn sleeves pursue?
I meddle not with gown or lawn;
I, therefore, have no need to fawn.
If they must soothe a patron's ear,
Not I - I was not born to bear;
All base conditions I refuse,
Nor will I so debase the muse.
Though I ne'er flatter nor defame,
Yet would I fain bring guilt to shame;
And I corruption would expose,
Though all corrupted were my foes.
I no man's property invade, -
Corruption 's an unlawful trade;
So bribery also. Politicians
Should be tied down to such conditions;
If they were stinted of their tools,
Less were their train of knaves and fools.
Were such the case, let us review
The dreadful mischiefs to ensue.
Some silver services 'twould stint,
But that would aggrandise the Mint;
Some ministers find less regard,
But bring their servants more reward;
Fewer informers, fewer spies,
But that would swell the year's supplies;
An annual job or two might drop,
We should not miss it 'midst the crop;
Some pensions, haply, be refused,
The Civil List be less abused;
It might the ministry confound,
And yet the State stand safe and sound.
Next, let it well be understood
I only mean my country's good -
I wish all courtiers did the same.
I wish to bar no honest claim;
I wish the nation out of debt;
No private man had cause to fret;
Yet law and public good to be
The pole-stars of the Ministry;
I wish corruption, bribery, pension,
Were things there were no need to mention;
I wish to strike a blow at vice, -
Fall where it may, I am not nice;
Although the Law - the devil take it! -
Can scandalum magnatum make it.
I vent no scandal, neither judge
Another's conscience; on I trudge,
And with my satire take no aim,
Nor knave nor steward name by name.
Yet still you think my fable bears
Allusion unto State affairs.
I grant it does so; but, what then? -
I strike at motives, not at men.
If hands corrupted harm the nation,
I bar no reader's application.
There was an Ant, of flippant tongue,
Who oft the ears of senates wrung;
Whether he knew the thing or no,
Assurance sat upon his brow;
Who gained the post whereto he strained -
The grain-controllership attained.
But then old laws were very strict,
And punished actions derelict.
Accounts were passed by year and year,
The auditors would then appear,
And his controllership of grain
Must his accounts and stock explain.
He put a balance-sheet in - cooked,
An honest emmet o'er it looked,
And said, "The hoard of grain is low;
But the accounts themselves don't show
By any vouchers what the stocks are.
Really, such documents but mocks are."
"Sir," the controller said, "would you
Have us pass everything to view?
Divulge all matters to all eyes,
Proclaim to winds state mysteries?
'Twould lay us open to our foes;
You see all that we dare disclose;
And, on my honour, the expense
Is lavished on the swarm's defence."
They passed the balance-sheet - again
Next year's shewed "deficit of grain;"
And thus again controller pleaded:
"Much secret service has been needed,
For famines threaten: turkey broods
Have been most clamorous for foods.
Turkey invasions have cost dear,
And geese were numerous last year.
Really, these secrets told are ruin,
And tend much to the realm's undoing."
Again, without examination,
They thanked his good administration.
A third and fourth time this recurred,
An auditor would then be heard:
"Are we but tools," he said, "of rogues?
Through us corruption disembogues
Her mighty flood; for every grain
We touch we vouch at least for twain.
Where have they vanished? nay, in bribes.
They have depoverished our tribes."
Then followed an investigation,
And a report unto the nation.
The Ant was punished, and his hoard -
All that remained of it - restored.
|
To A Fish | James Henry Leigh Hunt | You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced,
Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea,
Gulping salt-water everlastingly,
Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced,
And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste;
And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be,--
Some round, some flat, some long, all devilry,
Legless, unloving, infamously chaste:--
O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring wights,
What is't ye do? What life lead? eh, dull goggles?
How do ye vary your vile days and nights?
How pass your Sundays? Are ye still but joggles
In ceaseless wash? Still nought but gapes, and bites,
And drinks, and stares, diversified with boggles? |
The Child And The Sage | Thomas Hardy | You say, O Sage, when weather-checked,
"I have been favoured so
With cloudless skies, I must expect
This dash of rain or snow."
"Since health has been my lot," you say,
"So many months of late,
I must not chafe that one short day
Of sickness mars my state."
You say, "Such bliss has been my share
From Love's unbroken smile,
It is but reason I should bear
A cross therein awhile."
And thus you do not count upon
Continuance of joy;
But, when at ease, expect anon
A burden of annoy.
But, Sage this Earth why not a place
Where no reprisals reign,
Where never a spell of pleasantness
Makes reasonable a pain?
December 21, 1908. |
Love In Spain | Richard Le Gallienne | You shall not dare to drink this cup,
Yet fear this other I hold up -
Sings Love in Spain:
One brimming deep with woman's breath -
This other moon-lit cup is Death;
Drink one, drink twain.
No sippers we of ladies' lips,
Toyers of amorous finger tips,
Are we in Spain.
Terrible like a bright sweet sword,
And little tender is the Lord
Of Love in Spain.
His song a tiger-throated thing, -
A crouch, a cry, a frightened string;
Death the refrain.
Scarlet and lightning are its words,
There is no room in it for birds
And flowers in Spain.
A flash, and mouth is lost on mouth,
And life on life; so in the South
The cup we drain.
We do not dream and hesitate
About its brim; we fear not Fate
That love in Spain.
And ah! come hear the reason why -
There are no girls beneath the sky
Like those of Spain.
All other women scarcely seem
More than pale women in a dream
By ours of Spain.
Ah! who aright shall tell their praise, -
Their subtle, soft, imperious ways,
Their high disdain.
Golden as bars of Spanish gold,
Hot as the sun, as the moon cold,
The girls of Spain.
Their faces as magnolias white,
Their hair the soul of summer night,
Soft as soft rain;
And swift as the steel blade that flies
Into a coward's heart their eyes,
Then soft again.
Under their little languid feet,
That carry such a world of sweet,
My heart lies slain.
Girls North and South, and East and West,
But fairer far than all the rest
The girls of Spain. |
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - LVII | Alfred Edward Housman | You smile upon your friend to-day,
To-day his ills are over;
You hearken to the lover's say,
And happy is the lover.
'Tis late to hearken, late to smile,
But better late than never:
I shall have lived a little while
Before I die for ever. |
To A Maid. | Robert Herrick | You say, you love me! that I thus must prove:
It that you lie, then I will swear you love. |
The Titmouse | Ralph Waldo Emerson | You shall not be overbold
When you deal with arctic cold,
As late I found my lukewarm blood
Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood.
How should I fight? my foeman fine
Has million arms to one of mine:
East, west, for aid I looked in vain,
East, west, north, south, are his domain.
Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home;
Must borrow his winds who there would come.
Up and away for life! be fleet!--
The frost-king ties my fumbling feet,
Sings in my ears, my hands are stones,
Curdles the blood to the marble bones,
Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense,
And hems in life with narrowing fence.
Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,--
The punctual stars will vigil keep,--
Embalmed by purifying cold;
The winds shall sing their dead-march old,
The snow is no ignoble shroud,
The moon thy mourner, and the cloud.
Softly,--but this way fate was pointing,
'T was coming fast to such anointing,
When piped a tiny voice hard by,
Gay and polite, a cheerful cry,
Chic-chic-a-dee-de! saucy note
Out of sound heart and merry throat,
As if it said, 'Good day, good sir!
Fine afternoon, old passenger!
Happy to meet you in these places,
Where January brings few faces.'
This poet, though he live apart,
Moved by his hospitable heart,
Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort,
To do the honors of his court,
As fits a feathered lord of land;
Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand,
Hopped on the bough, then, darting low,
Prints his small impress on the snow,
Shows feats of his gymnastic play,
Head downward, clinging to the spray.
Here was this atom in full breath,
Hurling defiance at vast death;
This scrap of valor just for play
Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray,
As if to shame my weak behavior;
I greeted loud my little savior,
'You pet! what dost here? and what for?
In these woods, thy small Labrador,
At this pinch, wee San Salvador!
What fire burns in that little chest
So frolic, stout and self-possest?
Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine;
Ashes and jet all hues outshine.
Why are not diamonds black and gray,
To ape thy dare-devil array?
And I affirm, the spacious North
Exists to draw thy virtue forth.
I think no virtue goes with size;
The reason of all cowardice
Is, that men are overgrown,
And, to be valiant, must come down
To the titmouse dimension.'
'T is good will makes intelligence,
And I began to catch the sense
Of my bird's song: 'Live out of doors
In the great woods, on prairie floors.
I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea,
I too have a hole in a hollow tree;
And I like less when Summer beats
With stifling beams on these retreats,
Than noontide twilights which snow makes
With tempest of the blinding flakes.
For well the soul, if stout within,
Can arm impregnably the skin;
And polar frost my frame defied,
Made of the air that blows outside.'
With glad remembrance of my debt,
I homeward turn; farewell, my pet!
When here again thy pilgrim comes,
He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs.
Doubt not, so long as earth has bread,
Thou first and foremost shalt be fed;
The Providence that is most large
Takes hearts like thine in special charge,
Helps who for their own need are strong,
And the sky doats on cheerful song.
Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant
O'er all that mass and minster vaunt;
For men mis-hear thy call in Spring,
As 't would accost some frivolous wing,
Crying out of the hazel copse, Phe-be!
And, in winter, Chic-a-dee-dee!
I think old Caesar must have heard
In northern Gaul my dauntless bird,
And, echoed in some frosty wold,
Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold.
And I will write our annals new,
And thank thee for a better clew,
I, who dreamed not when I came here
To find the antidote of fear,
Now hear thee say in Roman key,
Paean! Veni, vidi, vici. |
A Disqualified Jockey's Story | Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton) | You see, the thing was this way, there was me,
That rode Panopply, the Splendor mare,
And Ikey Chambers on the Iron Dook,
And Smith, the half-caste rider on Regret,
And that long bloke from Wagga, him that rode
Veronikew, the Smowy River horse.
Well, none of them had chances, not a chance
Among the lot, unless the rest fell dead
Or wasn't trying, for a blind man's dog
Could see Enchantress was a certain cop,
And all the books was layin' six to four.
They brought her out to show our lot the road,
Or so they said: but, then Gord's truth! you know,
You can believe 'em, though they took an oath
On forty Bibles that they's tell the truth.
But anyhow, an amateur was up
On this Enchantress; and so Ike and me,
We thought that we might frighten him a bit
By asking if he minded riding rough,
"Oh, not at all," says he, "oh, not at all!
I heard at Robbo Park, and if it comes
To bumping I'm your Moses! Strike me blue!"
Says he, "I'll bump you over either rail,
The inside rail or outside, which you choose
Is good enough for me", which settled Ike.
For he was shaky since he near got killed
From being sent a buster on the rail,
When some chap bumped his horse and fetched him down
At Stony Bridge; so Ikey thought it best
To leave this bloke alone, and I agreed.
So all the books was layin' six to four
Against the favourite, and the amateur
Was walking this Enchantress up and down,
And me and Smithy backed him; for we thought
We might as well get something for ourselves,
Because we knew our horses couldn't win.
But Ikey wouldn't back him for a bob;
Because he said he reckoned he was stiff,
And all the books was layin' six to four.
Well, anyhow, before the start the news
Got around that this here amateur was stiff,
And our good stuff was blued, and all the books
Was in it, and the prices lengthened out,
And every book was bustin' of his throat,
And layin' five to one the favourite.
So there was we that couldn't win ourselves,
And this here amateur that wouldn't try,
And all the books was layin' five to one.
So Smithy says to me, "You take a hold
Of that there moke of yours, and round the turn
Come up behind Enchantress with the whip
And let her have it; that long bloke and me
Will wait ahead, and when she comes to us
We'll pass her on and belt her down the straight,
And Ikey'll flog her home, because his boss
Is judge and steward and the Lord knows what,
And so he won't be touched; and, as for us,
We'll swear we only hit her by mistake!"
And all the books was layin' five to one.
Well, off we went, and comin' to the turn
I saw the amateur was holdinig back
And poking into every hole he could
To get her blocked; and so I pulled behind
And drew the whip and dropped it on the mare.
I let her have it twice, and then she shot
Ahead of me, and Smithy opened out
And let her up beside him on the rails,
And kept her there a-beltin' her like smoke
Until she struggled past him, pullin' hard,
And came to Ike; but Ikey drew his whip
And hit her on the nose, and sent her back
And won the race himself, for, after all,
It seems he had a fiver on The Dook
And never told us, so our stuff was lost.
And then they had us up for ridin' foul,
And warned us off the tracks for twelve months each
To get our livin' any way we could;
But Ikey wasn't touched, because his boss
Was judge and steward and the Lord knows what.
But Mister, if you'll lend us half-a-crown,
I know three certain winners at the Park,
Three certain cops as no one knows but me;
And, thank you, Mister, come an' have a beer
(I always like a beer about this time) . . .
Well, so long, Mister, till we meet again.
|
Blind. | James Whitcomb Riley | You think it is a sorry thing
That I am blind. Your pitying
Is welcome to me; yet indeed,
I think I have but little need
Of it. Though you may marvel much
That we, who see by sense of touch
And taste and hearing, see things you
May never look upon; and true
Is it that even in the scent
Of blossoms we find something meant
No eyes have in their faces read,
Or wept to see interpreted.
And you might think it strange if now
I told you you were smiling. How
Do I know that? I hold your hand -
Its language I can understand -
Give both to me, and I will show
You many other things I know.
Listen: We never met before
Till now? - Well, you are something lower
Than five-feet-eight in height; and you
Are slender; and your eyes are blue -
Your mother's eyes - your mother's hair -
Your mother's likeness everywhere
Save in your walk - and that is quite
Your father's; nervous. - Am I right?
I thought so. And you used to sing,
But have neglected everything
Of vocalism - though you may
Still thrum on the guitar, and play
A little on the violin, -
I know that by the callous in
The finger-tips of your left hand -
And, by-the-bye, though nature planned
You as most men, you are, I see,
"Left-handed," too, - the mystery
Is clear, though, - your right arm has been
Broken, to "break" the left one in.
And so, you see, though blind of sight,
I still have ways of seeing quite
Too well for you to sympathize
Excessively, with your good eyes. -
Though once, perhaps, to be sincere,
Within the whole asylum here,
From cupola to basement hall,
I was the blindest of them all!
Let us move further down the walk -
The man here waiting hears my talk,
And is disturbed; besides, he may
Not be quite friendly anyway.
In fact - (this will be far enough;
Sit down) - the man just spoken of
Was once a friend of mine. He came
For treatment here from Burlingame -
A rich though brilliant student there,
Who read his eyes out of repair,
And groped his way up here, where we
Became acquainted, and where he
Met one of our girl-teachers, and,
If you 'll believe me, asked her hand
In marriage, though the girl was blind
As I am - and the girl declined.
Odd, wasn't it? Look, you can see
Him waiting there. Fine, isn't he?
And handsome, eloquently wide
And high of brow, and dignified
With every outward grace, his sight
Restored to him, clear and bright
As day-dawn; waiting, waiting still
For the blind girl that never will
Be wife of his. How do I know?
You will recall a while ago
I told you he and I were friends.
In all that friendship comprehends,
I was his friend, I swear! why now,
Remembering his love, and how
His confidence was all my own,
I hear, in fancy, the low tone
Of his deep voice, so full of pride
And passion, yet so pacified
With his affliction, that it seems
An utterance sent out of dreams
Of saddest melody, withal
So sorrowfully musical
It was, and is, must ever be -
But I'm digressing, pardon me.
I knew not anything of love
In those days, but of that above
All worldly passion, - for my art -
Music, - and that, with all my heart
And soul, blent in a love too great
For words of mine to estimate.
And though among my pupils she
Whose love my friend sought came to me
I only knew her fingers' touch
Because they loitered overmuch
In simple scales, and needs must be
Untangled almost constantly.
But she was bright in other ways,
And quick of thought, with ready plays
Of wit, and with a voice as sweet
To listen to as one might meet
In any oratorio -
And once I gravely told her so, -
And, at my words, her limpid tone
Of laughter faltered to a moan,
And fell from that into a sigh
That quavered all so wearily,
That I, without the tear that crept
Between the keys, had known she wept;
And yet the hand I reached for then
She caught away, and laughed again.
And when that evening I strolled
With my old friend, I, smiling, told
Him I believed the girl and he
Were matched and mated perfectly:
He was so noble; she, so fair
Of speech, and womanly of air;
He, strong, ambitious; she, as mild
And artless even as a child;
And with a nature, I was sure,
As worshipful as it was pure
And sweet, and brimmed with tender things
Beyond his rarest fancyings.
He stopped me solemnly. He knew,
He said, how good, and just, and true
Was all I said of her; but as
For his own virtues, let them pass,
Since they were nothing to the one
That he had set his heart upon;
For but that morning she had turned
Forever from him. Then I learned
That for a month he had delayed
His going from us, with no aid
Of hope to hold him, - meeting still
Her ever firm denial, till
Not even in his new-found sight
He found one comfort or delight.
And as his voice broke there, I felt
The brother-heart within me melt
In warm compassion for his own
That throbbed so utterly alone.
And then a sudden fancy hit
Along my brain; and coupling it
With a belief that I, indeed,
Might help my friend in his great need,
I warmly said that I would go
Myself, if he decided so,
And see her for him - that I knew
My pleadings would be listened to
Most seriously, and that she
Should love him, listening to me.
Go; bless me! And that was the last -
The last time his warm hand shut fast
Within my own - so empty since,
That the remembered finger-prints
I 've kissed a thousand times, and wet
Them with the tears of all regret!
I know not how to rightly tell
How fared my quest, and what befell
Me, coming in the presence of
That blind girl, and her blinder love.
I know but little else than that
Above the chair in which she sat
I leant - reached for, and found her hand,
And held it for a moment, and
Took up the other - held them both -
As might a friend, I will take oath:
Spoke leisurely, as might a man
Praying for no thing other than
He thinks Heaven's justice; - She was blind,
I said, and yet a noble mind
Most truly loved her; one whose fond
Clear-sighted vision looked beyond
The bounds of her infirmity,
And saw the woman, perfectly
Modeled, and wrought out pure and true
And lovable. She quailed, and drew
Her hands away, but closer still
I caught them. "Rack me as you will!"
She cried out sharply - "Call me 'blind' -
Love ever is - I am resigned!
Blind is your friend; as blind as he
Am I - but blindest of the three -
Yea, blind as death - you will not see
My love for you is killing me!"
There is a memory that may
Not ever wholly fade away
From out my heart, so bright and fair
The light of it still glimmers there.
Why, it did seem as though my sight
Flamed back upon me, dazzling white
And godlike. Not one other word
Of hers I listened for or heard,
But I saw songs sung in her eyes
Till they did swoon up drowning-wise,
As my mad lips did strike her own
And we flashed one and one alone!
Ah! was it treachery for me
To kneel there, drinking eagerly
That torrent-flow of words that swept
Out laughingly the tears she wept? -
Sweet words! O sweeter far, maybe,
Than light of day to those that see, -
God knows, who did the rapture send
To me, and hold it from my friend.
And we were married half a year
Ago, - and he is - waiting here,
Heedless of that - or anything,
But just that he is lingering
To say good-bye to her, and bow -
As you may see him doing now, -
For there's her footstep in the hall;
God bless her! - help him! - save us all! |
To A Poet | William Butler Yeats | You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another's said or sung,
'Twere politic to do the like by these;
But have you known a dog to praise his fleas? |
To A Contemner Of The Past | Richard Le Gallienne | You that would break with the Past,
Why with so rude a gesture take your leave?
None hinders, go your way; but wherefore cast
Contempt and boorish scorn
Upon the womb from which even you were born?
Begone in peace! Forbear to flout and grieve,
Vulgar iconoclast,
Those of a faith you cannot comprehend,
To whom the Past is as a lovely friend
Nobly grown old, yet nobly ever young;
The temple and the treasure-house of Time,
With gains immortal stored
Of dream and deed and song,
Since man from chaos first began to climb,
His lonely soul for sword.
O base and trivial tongue
That dares to mock this solemn heritage,
And foul this sacred page!
Sorry the future that hath you for sire!
And happy we who yet
Can bear the golden chimes from tower and spire
In the old heaven set,
And link our hands and hearts with the great dead
That lived with God for friend,
And drew strange sustenance from overhead,
And knew a bright beginning in life's end;
For all their earthly days
Were filled with meaning deeper than the hour.
Leave us our simple faith in star and flower,
And all our simple ways
Of prayer and praise,
And ancient virtues of humility,
Honour and reverence and the bended knee,
Old tenderness and gracious courtesies,
From Time so hardly won:
But you that no more have content in these,
From out our sanctuaries
Begone - and gladly gone! |
Rivulose | A. R. Ammons | You think the ridge hills flowing, breaking
with ups and downs will, though,
building constancy into the black foreground
for each sunset, hold on to you, if dreams
wander, give reality recurrence enough to keep
an image clear, but then you realize, time
going on, that time's residual like the last
ice age's cool still in the rocks, averaged
maybe with the cool of the age before, that
not only are you not being held onto but where
else could time do so well without you,
what is your time where so much time is saved? |
The House Of Dust: Part 03: 07: Porcelain | Conrad Potter Aiken | You see that porcelain ranged there in the window,
Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds,
And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy?
See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges!
They're works of art, minutely seen and felt,
Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure
To spend your blood like this?
Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,
If you stare hard enough, a sort of swimming
Of lights and shadows, ghosts within a crystal,
My brain unfolding! There you'll see me sitting
Day after day, close to a certain window,
Looking down, sometimes, to see the people . . .
Sometimes my wife comes there to speak to me . . .
Sometimes the grey cat waves his tail around me . . .
Goldfish swim in a bowl, glisten in sunlight,
Dilate to a gorgeous size, blow delicate bubbles,
Drowse among dark green weeds. On rainy days,
You'll see a gas-light shedding light behind me,
An eye-shade round my forehead. There I sit,
Twirling the tiny brushes in my paint-cups,
Painting the pale pink rosebuds, minute violets,
Exquisite wreaths of dark green ivy leaves.
On this leaf, goes a dream I dreamed last night
Of two soft-patterned toads, I thought them stones,
Until they hopped! And then a great black spider,
Tarantula, perhaps, a hideous thing,
It crossed the room in one tremendous leap.
Here, as I coil the stems between two leaves,
It is as if, dwindling to atomy size,
I cried the secret between two universes . . .
A friend of mine took hasheesh once, and said
Just as he fell asleep he had a dream,
Though with his eyes wide open,
And felt, or saw, or knew himself a part
Of marvelous slowly-wreathing intricate patterns,
Plane upon plane, depth upon coiling depth,
Amazing leaves, folding one on another,
Voluted grasses, twists and curves and spirals,
All of it darkly moving . . . as for me,
I need no hasheesh for it, it's too easy!
Soon as I shut my eyes I set out walking
In a monstrous jungle of monstrous pale pink roseleaves,
Violets purple as death, dripping with water,
And ivy-leaves as big as clouds above me.
Here, in a simple pattern of separate violets,
With scalloped edges gilded, here you have me
Thinking of something else. My wife, you know,
There's something lacking, force, or will, or passion,
I don't know what it is, and so, sometimes,
When I am tired, or haven't slept three nights,
Or it is cloudy, with low threat of rain,
I get uneasy, just like poplar trees
Ruffling their leaves, and I begin to think
Of poor Pauline, so many years ago,
And that delicious night. Where is she now?
I meant to write, but she has moved, by this time,
And then, besides, she might find out I'm married.
Well, there is more, I'm getting old and timid,
The years have gnawed my will. I've lost my nerve!
I never strike out boldly as I used to,
But sit here, painting violets, and remember
That thrilling night. Photographers, she said,
Asked her to pose for them; her eyes and forehead,
Dark brown eyes, and a smooth and pallid forehead,
Were thought so beautiful. And so they were.
Pauline . . . These violets are like words remembered . . .
Darling! she whispered . . . Darling! . . . Darling! . . . Darling!
Well, I suppose such days can come but once.
Lord, how happy we were! . . .
Here, if you only knew it, is a story,
Here, in these leaves. I stopped my work to tell it,
And then, when I had finished, went on thinking:
A man I saw on a train . . . I was still a boy . . .
Who killed himself by diving against a wall.
Here is a recollection of my wife,
When she was still my sweetheart, years ago.
It's funny how things change, just change, by growing,
Without an effort . . . And here are trivial things,
A chill, an errand forgotten, a cut while shaving;
A friend of mine who tells me he is married . . .
Or is that last so trivial? Well, no matter!
This is the sort of thing you'll see of me,
If you look hard enough. This, in its way,
Is a kind of fame. My life arranged before you
In scrolls of leaves, rosebuds, violets, ivy,
Clustered or wreathed on plate and cup and platter . . .
Sometimes, I say, I'm just like John the Baptist,
You have my head before you . . . on a platter. |
The Pessimist | Gilbert Keith Chesterton | You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go--
I know your hoary question, the riddle that all men know.
You have weighed the stars in a balance, and grasped the skies in a span:
Take, if you must have answer, the word of a common man.
Deep in my life lies buried one love unhealed, unshriven,
One hunger still shall haunt me--yea, in the streets of heaven;
This is the burden, babbler, this is the curse shall cling,
This is the thing I bring you; this is the pleasant thing.
'Gainst you and all your sages, no joy of mine shall strive,
This one dead self shall shatter the men you call alive.
My grief I send to smite you, no pleasure, no belief,
Lord of the battered grievance, what do you know of grief?
I only know the praises to heaven that one man gave,
That he came on earth for an instant, to stand beside a grave,
The peace of a field of battle, where flowers are born of blood.
I only know one evil that makes the whole world good.
Beneath this single sorrow the globe of moon and sphere
Turns to a single jewel, so bright and brittle and dear
That I dread lest God should drop it, to be dashed into stars below.
You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go. |
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet XXVIII | Philip Sidney (Sir) | You that with Allegories curious frame
Of others children changelings vse to make,
With me those pains, for Gods sake, do not take:
I list not dig so deep for brazen fame,
When I say Stella I do meane the same
Princesse of beauty for whose only sake
The raines of Loue I loue, though neuer slake,
And ioy therein, though nations count it shame.
I beg no subiect to vse eloquence,
Nor in hid wayes to guide philosophy:
Looke at my hands for no such quintessence;
But know that I in pure simplicitie
Breathe out the flames which burn within my heart,
Loue onely reading vnto me this arte. |
Valentine's Night | D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards) | You shadow and flame,
You interchange,
You death in the game!
Now I gather you up,
Now I put you back
Like a poppy in its cup.
And so, you are a maid
Again, my darling, but new,
Unafraid.
My love, my blossom, a child
Almost! The flower in the bud
Again, undefiled.
And yet, a woman, knowing
All, good, evil, both
In one blossom blowing. |
You Thought I Was That Type | Anna Akhmatova | You thought I was that type:
That you could forget me,
And that I'd plead and weep
And throw myself under the hooves of a bay mare,
Or that I'd ask the sorcerers
For some magic potion made from roots and send you a terrible gift:
My precious perfumed handkerchief.
Damn you! I will not grant your cursed soul
Vicarious tears or a single glance.
And I swear to you by the garden of the angels,
I swear by the miracle-working icon,
And by the fire and smoke of our nights:
I will never come back to you. |
Table Talk. | William Cowper | A. You told me, I remember, glory, built
On selfish principles, is shame and guilt;
The deeds that men admire as half divine,
Stark naught, because corrupt in their design.
Strange doctrine this! that without scruple tears
The laurel that the very lightning spares;
Brings down the warrior's trophy to the dust,
And eats into his bloody sword like rust.
B. I grant that, men continuing what they are,
Fierce, avaricious, proud, there must be war,
And never meant the rule should be applied
To him that fights with justice on his side.
Let laurels drench'd in pure Parnassian dews
Reward his memory, dear to every muse,
Who, with a courage of unshaken root,
In honour's field advancing his firm foot,
Plants it upon the line that Justice draws,
And will prevail or perish in her cause.
'Tis to the virtues of such men man owes
His portion in the good that Heaven bestows.
And, when recording History displays
Feats of renown, though wrought in ancient days,
Tells of a few stout hearts, that fought and died,
Where duty placed them, at their country's side;
The man that is not moved with what he reads,
That takes not fire at their heroic deeds,
Unworthy of the blessings of the brave,
Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.
But let eternal infamy pursue
The wretch to nought but his ambition true,
Who, for the sake of filling with one blast
The post-horns of all Europe, lays her waste.
Think yourself station'd on a towering rock,
To see a people scatter'd like a flock,
Some royal mastiff panting at their heels,
With all the savage thirst a tiger feels;
Then view him self-proclaim'd in a gazette
Chief monster that has plagued the nations yet.
The globe and sceptre in such hands misplaced,
Those ensigns of dominion how disgraced!
The glass, that bids man mark the fleeting hour,
And Death's own scythe, would better speak his power;
Then grace the bony phantom in their stead
With the king's shoulder-knot and gay cockade;
Clothe the twin brethren in each other's dress,
The same their occupation and success.
A. 'Tis your belief the world was made for man;
Kings do but reason on the self-same plan:
Maintaining yours, you cannot theirs condemn,
Who think, or seem to think, man made for them.
B. Seldom, alas! the power of logic reigns
With much sufficiency in royal brains;
Such reasoning falls like an inverted cone,
Wanting its proper base to stand upon.
Man made for kings! those optics are but dim
That tell you so'say, rather, they for him.
That were indeed a king-ennobling thought,
Could they, or would they, reason as they ought.
The diadem, with mighty projects lined,
To catch renown by ruining mankind,
Is worth, with all its gold and glittering store,
Just what the toy will sell for, and no more.
Oh! bright occasions of dispensing good,
How seldom used, how little understood!
To pour in Virtue's lap her just reward;
Keep Vice restrain'd behind a double guard;
To quell the faction that affronts the throne
By silent magnanimity alone;
To nurse with tender care the thriving arts;
Watch every beam Philosophy imparts;
To give religion her unbridled scope,
Nor judge by statute a believer's hope;
With close fidelity and love unfeign'd
To keep the matrimonial bond unstain'd;
Covetous only of a virtuous praise;
His life a lesson to the land he sways;
To touch the sword with conscientious awe,
Nor draw it but when duty bids him draw;
To sheath it in the peace-restoring close
With joy beyond what victory bestows'
Blest country, where these kingly glories shine!
Blest England, if this happiness be thine!
A. Guard what you say: the patriotic tribe
Will sneer, and charge you with a bribe.'B. A bribe
The worth of his three kingdoms I defy,
To lure me to the baseness of a lie;
And, of all lies (be that one poet's boast),
The lie that flatters I abhor the most.
Those arts be theirs who hate his gentle reign,
But he that loves him has no need to feign.
A. Your smooth eulogium, to one crown address'd,
Seems to imply a censure on the rest.
B. Quevedo, as he tells his sober tale,
Ask'd, when in hell, to see the royal jail;
Approved their method in all other things;
But where, good sir, do you confine your kings?
There'said his guide'the group is in full view.
Indeed!'replied the don'there are but few.
His black interpreter the charge disdain'd'
Few, fellow?'there are all that ever reign'd.
Wit, undistinguishing, is apt to strike
The guilty and not guilty both alike:
I grant the sarcasm is too severe,
And we can readily refute it here;
While Alfred's name, the father of his age,
And the Sixth Edward's grace the historic page.
A. Kings, then, at last have but the lot of all:
By their own conduct they must stand or fall.
B. True. While they live, the courtly laureate pays
His quitrent ode, his peppercorn of praise,
And many a dunce, whose fingers itch to write,
Adds, as he can, his tributary mite:
A subject's faults a subject may proclaim,
A monarch's errors are forbidden game!
Thus, free from censure, overawed by fear,
And praised for virtues that they scorn to wear,
The fleeting forms of majesty engage
Respect, while stalking o'er life's narrow stage:
Then leave their crimes for history to scan,
And ask, with busy scorn, Was this the man?
I pity kings, whom worship waits upon,
Obsequious from the cradle to the throne;
Before whose infant eyes the flatterer bows,
And binds a wreath about their baby brows:
Whom education stiffens into state,
And death awakens from that dream too late.
Oh! if servility with supple knees,
Whose trade it is to smile, to crouch, to please;
If smooth dissimulation skill'd to grace
A devil's purpose with an angel's face;
If smiling peeresses and simpering peers,
Encompassing his throne a few short years;
If the gilt carriage and the pamper'd steed,
That wants no driving, and disdains the lead;
If guards, mechanically form'd in ranks,
Playing, at beat of drum, their martial pranks,
Shouldering and standing as if stuck to stone,
While condescending majesty looks on'
If monarchy consist in such base things,
Sighing, I say again, I pity kings!
To be suspected, thwarted, and withstood,
E'en when he labours for his country's good;
To see a band call'd patriot for no cause,
But that they catch at popular applause,
Careless of all the anxiety he feels,
Hook disappointment on the public wheels;
With all their flippant fluency of tongue,
Most confident, when palpably most wrong'
If this be kingly, then farewell for me
All kingship, and may I be poor and free!
To be the Table Talk of clubs up-stairs,
To which the unwash'd artificer repairs,
To indulge his genius after long fatigue,
By diving into cabinet intrigue'
(For what kings deem a toil, as well they may,
To him is relaxation, and mere play);
To win no praise when well-wrought plans prevail,
But to be rudely censured when they fail;
To doubt the love his favourites may pretend,
And in reality to find no friend;
If he indulge a cultivated taste,
His galleries with the works of art well graced,
To hear it call'd extravagance and waste;'
If these attendants, and if such as these,
Must follow royalty, then welcome ease;
However humble and confined the sphere,
Happy the state that has not these to fear!
A. Thus men, whose thoughts contemplative have dwelt
On situations that they never felt,
Start up sagacious, cover'd with the dust
Of dreaming study and pedantic rust,
And prate and preach about what others prove,
As if the world and they were hand and glove.
Leave kingly backs to cope with kingly cares;
They have their weight to carry, subjects theirs;
Poets, of all men, ever least regret
Increasing taxes and the nation's debt.
Could you contrive the payment, and rehearse
The mighty plan, oracular, in verse,
No bard, howe'er majestic, old or new,
Should claim my fix'd attention more than you.
B. Not Brindley nor Bridgewater would essay
To turn the course of Helicon that way:
Nor would the Nine consent the sacred tide
Should purl amidst the traffic of Cheapside,
Or tinkle in 'Change Alley, to amuse
The leathern ears of stockjobbers and Jews.
A. Vouchsafe, at least, to pitch the key of rhyme
To themes more pertinent, if less sublime.
When ministers and ministerial arts;
Patriots, who love good places at their hearts;
When admirals, extoll'd for standing still,
Or doing nothing with a deal of skill;
Generals, who will not conquer when they may,
Firm friends to peace, to pleasure, and good pay;
When Freedom, wounded almost to despair,
Though discontent alone can find out where'
When themes like these employ the poet's tongue,
I hear as mute as if a syren sung.
Or tell me, if you can, what power maintains
A Briton's scorn of arbitrary chains?
That were a theme might animate the dead,
And move the lips of poets cast in lead.
B. The cause, though worth the search, may yet elude
Conjecture and remark, however shrewd.
They take, perhaps, a well-directed aim,
Who seek it in his climate and his frame.
Liberal in all things else, yet Nature here
With stern severity deals out the year.
Winter invades the spring, and often pours
A chilling flood on summer's drooping flowers;
Unwelcome vapours quench autumnal beams,
Ungenial blasts attending curl the streams:
The peasants urge their harvest, ply the fork
With double toil, and shiver at their work:
Thus with a rigour, for his good design'd,
She rears her favourite man of all mankind.
His form robust, and of elastic tone,
Proportion'd well, half muscle and half bone,
Supplies with warm activity and force
A mind well lodged, and masculine of course.
Hence Liberty, sweet Liberty inspires
And keeps alive his fierce but noble fires.
Patient of constitutional control,
He bears it with meek manliness of soul;
But, if authority grow wanton, woe
To him that treads upon his free-born toe!
One step beyond the boundary of the laws,
Fires him at once in Freedom's glorious cause.
Thus proud Prerogative, not much revered,
Is seldom felt, though sometimes seen and heard;
And in his cage, like parrot fine and gay,
Is kept to strut, look big, and talk away.
Born in a climate softer far than ours,
Nor form'd like us, with such Herculean powers,
The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk,
Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk,
Is always happy, reign whoever may,
And laughs the sense of misery far away:
He drinks his simple beverage with a gust;
And, feasting on an onion and a crust,
We never feel the alacrity and joy
With which he shouts and carols, Vive le Roi!
Fill'd with as much true merriment and glee
As if he heard his king say'Slave, be free.
Thus happiness depends, as Nature shews,
Less on exterior things than most suppose.
Vigilant over all that he has made,
Kind Providence attends with gracious aid;
Bids equity throughout his works prevail,
And weighs the nations in an even scale;
He can encourage slavery to a smile,
And fill with discontent a British isle.
A. Freeman and slave, then, if the case be such,
Stand on a level; and you prove too much:
If all men indiscriminately share
His fostering power, and tutelary care,
As well be yoked by Despotism's hand,
As dwell at large in Britain's charter'd land.
B. No. Freedom has a thousand charms to shew,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
The mind attains beneath her happy reign
The growth that Nature meant she should attain;
The varied fields of science, ever new,
Opening and wider opening on her view,
She ventures onward with a prosperous force,
While no base fear impedes her in her course:
Religion, richest favour of the skies,
Stands most reveal'd before the freeman's eyes;
No shades of superstition blot the day,
Liberty chases all that gloom away.
The soul, emancipated, unoppress'd,
Free to prove all things and hold fast the best,
Learns much; and to a thousand list'ning minds
Communicates with joy the good she finds;
Courage in arms, and ever prompt to shew
His manly forehead to the fiercest foe;
Glorious in war, but for the sake of peace,
His spirits rising as his toils increase,
Guards well what arts and industry have won,
And Freedom claims him for her first-born son.
Slaves fight for what were better cast away'
The chain that binds them, and a tyrant's sway;
But they that fight for freedom undertake
The noblest cause mankind can have at stake:
Religion, virtue, truth, whate'er we call
A blessing'freedom is the pledge of all.
O Liberty! the prisoner's pleasing dream,
The poet's muse, his passion, and his theme;
Genius is thine, and thou art Fancy's nurse;
Lost without thee the ennobling powers of verse;
Heroic song from thy free touch acquires
Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires.
Place me where Winter breathes his keenest air,
And I will sing, if Liberty be there;
And I will sing at Liberty's dear feet,
In Afric's torrid clime, or India's fiercest heat.
A. Sing where you please; in such a cause I grant
An English poet's privilege to rant;
But is not freedom'at least, is not ours
Too apt to play the wanton with her powers,
Grow freakish, and o'erleaping every mound,
Spread anarchy and terror all around?
B. Agreed. But would you sell or slay your horse
For bounding and curveting in his course?
Or if, when ridden with a careless rein,
He break away, and seek the distant plain?
No. His high mettle, under good control,
Gives him Olympic speed, and shoots him to the goal.
Let Discipline employ her wholesome arts;
Let magistrates alert perform their parts,
Not skulk or put on a prudential mask,
As if their duty were a desperate task;
Let active laws apply the needful curb,
To guard the peace that riot would disturb;
And Liberty, preserved from wild excess,
Shall raise no feuds for armies to suppress.
When Tumult lately burst his prison-door,
And set plebeian thousands in a roar;
When he usurp'd authority's just place,
And dared to look his master in the face;
When the rude rabble's watchword was'Destroy,
And blazing London seem'd a second Troy;
Liberty blush'd, and hung her drooping head,
Beheld their progress with the deepest dread;
Blush'd that effects like these she should produce,
Worse than the deeds of galley-slaves broke loose.
She loses in such storms her very name,
And fierce licentiousness should bear the blame.
Incomparable gem! thy worth untold:
Cheap, though blood-bought, and thrown away when sold;
May no foes ravish thee, and no false friend
Betray thee, while professing to defend!
Prize it, ye ministers; ye monarchs, spare;
Ye patriots, guard it with a miser's care.
A. Patriots, alas! the few that have been found,
Where most they flourish, upon English ground,
The country's need have scantily supplied,
And the last left the scene when Chatham died.
B. Not so'the virtue still adorns our age,
Though the chief actor died upon the stage.
In him Demosthenes was heard again;
Liberty taught him her Athenian strain;
She clothed him with authority and awe,
Spoke from his lips, and in his looks gave law.
His speech, his form, his action, full of grace,
And all his country beaming in his face,
He stood, as some inimitable hand
Would strive to make a Paul or Tully stand.
No sycophant or slave, that dared oppose
Her sacred cause, but trembled when he rose;
And every venal stickler for the yoke
Felt himself crush'd at the first word he spoke.
Such men are raised to station and command,
When Providence means mercy to a land.
He speaks, and they appear; to him they owe
Skill to direct, and strength to strike the blow;
To manage with address, to seize with power
The crisis of a dark decisive hour.
So Gideon earn'd a victory not his own;
Subserviency his praise, and that alone.
Poor England! thou art a devoted deer,
Beset with every ill but that of fear.
The nations hunt; all mark thee for a prey;
They swarm around thee, and thou stand'st at bay:
Undaunted still, though wearied and perplex'd,
Once Chatham saved thee; but who saves thee next?
Alas! the tide of pleasure sweeps along
All that should be the boast of British song.
'Tis not the wreath that once adorn'd thy brow,
The prize of happier times, will serve thee now.
Our ancestry, a gallant Christian race,
Patterns of every virtue, every grace,
Confess'd a God; they kneel'd before they fought,
And praised him in the victories he wrought.
Now from the dust of ancient days bring forth
Their sober zeal, integrity, and worth;
Courage, ungraced by these, affronts the skies,
Is but the fire without the sacrifice.
The stream that feeds the wellspring of the heart
Not more invigorates life's noblest part,
Than virtue quickens with a warmth divine
The powers that sin has brought to a decline.
A. The inestimable estimate of Brown
Rose like a paper-kite, and charm'd the town;
But measures, plann'd and executed well,
Shifted the wind that raised it, and it fell.
He trod the very selfsame ground you tread,
And victory refuted all he said.
B. And yet his judgment was not framed amiss;
Its error, if it err'd, was merely this'
He thought the dying hour already come,
And a complete recovery struck him dumb.
But that effeminacy, folly, lust,
Enervate and enfeeble, and needs must;
And that a nation shamefully debased
Will be despised and trampled on at last,
Unless sweet penitence her powers renew,
Is truth, if history itself be true.
There is a time, and justice marks the date,
For long forbearing clemency to wait;
That hour elapsed, the incurable revolt
Is punish'd, and down comes the thunderbolt.
If Mercy then put by the threatening blow,
Must she perform the same kind office now?
May she! and if offended Heaven be still
Accessible, and prayer prevail, she will.
'Tis not, however, insolence and noise,
The tempest of tumultuary joys,
Nor is it yet despondence and dismay
Will win her visits or engage her stay;
Prayer only, and the penitential tear,
Can call her smiling down, and fix her here.
But when a country (one that I could name)
In prostitution sinks the sense of shame;
When infamous venality, grown bold,
Writes on his bosom, To be let or sold;
When perjury, that Heaven-defying vice,
Sells oaths by tale, and at the lowest price,
Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made,
To turn a penny in the way of trade;
When avarice starves (and never hides his face)
Two or three millions of the human race,
And not a tongue inquires how, where, or when,
Though conscience will have twinges now and then
When profanation of the sacred cause
In all its parts, times, ministry, and laws,
Bespeaks a land, once Christian, fallen and lost,
In all that wars against that title most;
What follows next let cities of great name,
And regions long since desolate proclaim.
Nineveh, Babylon, and ancient Rome,
Speak to the present times and times to come;
They cry aloud in every careless ear,
Stop, while ye may; suspend your mad career;
O learn, from our example and our fate,
Learn wisdom and repentance ere too late!
Not only Vice disposes and prepares
The mind that slumbers sweetly in her snares,
To stoop to tyranny's usurp'd command,
And bend her polish'd neck beneath his hand
(A dire effect by one of Nature's laws
Unchangeably connected with its cause);
But Providence himself will intervene,
To throw his dark displeasure o'er the scene.
All are his instruments; each form of war,
What burns at home, or threatens from afar,
Nature in arms, her elements at strife,
The storms that overset the joys of life,
Are but his rods to scourge a guilty land,
And waste it at the bidding of his hand.
He gives the word, and mutiny soon roars
In all her gates, and shakes her distant shores;
The standards of all nations are unfurl'd;
She has one foe, and that one foe the world.
And if he doom that people with a frown,
And mark them with a seal of wrath press'd down,
Obduracy takes place; callous and tough,
The reprobated race grows judgment-proof:
Earth shakes beneath them, and Heaven roars above,
But nothing scares them from the course they love.
To the lascivious pipe and wanton song,
That charm down fear, they frolic it along,
With mad rapidity and unconcern,
Down to the gulf from which is no return.
They trust in navies, and their navies fail'
God's curse can cast away ten thousand sail!
They trust in armies, and their courage dies;
In wisdom, wealth, in fortune, and in lies;
But all they trust in withers, as it must,
When He commands in whom they place no trust.
Vengeance at last pours down upon their coast
A long despised, but now victorious, host;
Tyranny sends the chain that must abridge
The noble sweep of all their privilege;
Gives liberty the last, the mortal, shock;
Slips the slave's collar on, and snaps the lock.
A. Such lofty strains embellish what you teach,
Mean you to prophesy, or but to preach?
B. I know the mind that feels indeed the fire
The Muse imparts, and can command the lyre,
Acts with a force, and kindles with a zeal,
Whate'er the theme, that others never feel.
If human woes her soft attention claim,
A tender sympathy pervades the frame,
She pours a sensibility divine
Along the nerve of every feeling line.
But if a deed not tamely to be borne
Fire indignation and a sense of scorn,
The strings are swept with such a power, so loud,
The storm of music shakes the astonish'd crowd.
So, when remote futurity is brought
Before the keen inquiry of her thought,
A terrible sagacity informs
The poet's heart; he looks to distant storms;
He hears the thunder ere the tempest lowers!
And, arm'd with strength surpassing human powers,
Seizes events as yet unknown to man,
And darts his soul into the dawning plan.
Hence, in a Roman mouth, the graceful name
Of prophet and of poet was the same;
Hence British poets too the priesthood shared,
And every hallow'd druid was a bard.
But no prophetic fires to me belong;
I play with syllables, and sport in song.
A. At Westminster, where little poets strive
To set a distich upon six and five,
Where Discipline helps opening buds of sense
And makes his pupils proud with silver pence,
I was a poet too; but modern taste
Is so refined, and delicate, and chaste,
That verse, whatever fire the fancy warms,
Without a creamy smoothness has no charms.
Thus all success depending on an ear,
And thinking I might purchase it too dear,
If sentiment were sacrificed to sound,
And truth cut short to make a period round,
I judged a man of sense could scarce do worse
Than caper in the morris-dance of verse.
B. Thus reputation is a spur to wit,
And some wits flag through fear of losing it.
Give me the line that ploughs its stately course,
Like a proud swan, conquering the stream by force;
That, like some cottage beauty, strikes the heart,
Quite unindebted to the tricks of art.
When labour and when dulness, club in hand,
Like the two figures at St. Dunstan's stand,
Beating alternately, in measured time,
The clockwork tintinnabulum of rhyme,
Exact and regular the sounds will be;
But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me.
From him who rears a poem lank and long,
To him who strains his all into a song;
Perhaps some bonny Caledonian air,
All birks and braes, though he was never there;
Or, having whelp'd a prologue with great pains,
Feels himself spent, and fumbles for his brains;
A prologue interdash'd with many a stroke'
An art contrived to advertise a joke,
So that the jest is clearly to be seen,
Not in the words'but in the gap between;
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
To dally much with subject mean and low
Proves that the mind is weak, or makes it so.
Neglected talents rust into decay,
And every effort ends in pushpin play.
The man that means success should soar above
A soldier's feather, or a lady's glove;
Else, summoning the muse to such a theme,
The fruit of all her labour is whipp'd cream.
As if an eagle flew aloft, and then'
Stoop'd from its highest pitch to pounce a wren.
As if the poet, purposing to wed,
Should carve himself a wife in gingerbread.
Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd,
And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard;
To carry nature lengths unknown before,
To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.
Thus genius rose and set at order'd times,
And shot a day-spring into distant climes,
Ennobling every region that he chose;
He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose;
And, tedious years of Gothic darkness pass'd,
Emerged all splendour in our isle at last.
Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main,
Then shew far off their shining plumes again.
A. Is genius only found in epic lays?
Prove this, and forfeit all pretence to praise.
Make their heroic powers your own at once,
Or candidly confess yourself a dunce.
B. These were the chief; each interval of night
Was graced with many an undulating light
In less illustrious bards his beauty shone
A meteor, or a star; in these, the sun.
The nightingale may claim the topmost bough,
While the poor grasshopper must chirp below.
Like him unnoticed, I, and such as I,
Spread little wings, and rather skip than fly;
Perch'd on the meagre produce of the land,
An ell or two of prospect we command;
But never peep beyond the thorny bound,
Or oaken fence, that hems the paddock round.
In Eden, ere yet innocence of heart
Had faded, poetry was not an art;
Language, above all teaching, or if taught,
Only by gratitude and glowing thought,
Elegant as simplicity, and warm
As ecstacy, unmanacled by form,
Not prompted, as in our degenerate days,
By low ambition and the thirst of praise,
Was natural as is the flowing stream,
And yet magnificent'a God the theme!
That theme on earth exhausted, though above
'Tis found as everlasting as his love,
Man lavish'd all his thoughts on human things'
The feats of heroes and the wrath of kings;
But still, while virtue kindled his delight,
The song was moral, and so far was right.
'Twas thus till luxury seduced the mind
To joys less innocent, as less refined;
Then Genius danced a bacchanal; he crown'd
The brimming goblet, seized the thyrsus, bound
His brows with ivy, rush'd into the field
Of wild imagination, and there reel'd,
The victim of his own lascivious fires,
And, dizzy with delight, profaned the sacred wires:
Anacreon, Horace, play'd in Greece and Rome
This bedlam part; and others nearer home.
When Cromwell fought for power, and while he reign'd
The proud protector of the power he gain'd,
Religion, harsh, intolerant, austere,
Parent of manners like herself severe,
Drew a rough copy of the Christian face,
Without the smile, the sweetness, or the grace;
The dark and sullen humour of the time
Judged every effort of the muse a crime;
Verse, in the finest mould of fancy cast,
Was lumber in an age so void of taste.
But when the second Charles assumed the sway,
And arts revived beneath a softer day,
Then, like a bow long forced into a curve,
The mind, released from too constrain'd a nerve,
Flew to its first position with a spring,
That made the vaulted roofs of pleasure ring.
His court, the dissolute and hateful school
Of wantonness, where vice was taught by rule,
Swarm'd with a scribbling herd, as deep inlaid
With brutal lust as ever Circe made.
From these a long succession, in the rage
Of rank obscenity, debauch'd their age:
Nor ceased till, ever anxious to redress
The abuses of her sacred charge, the press,
The Muse instructed a well-nurtured train
Of abler votaries to cleanse the stain,
And claim the palm for purity of song,
That lewdness had usurp'd and worn so long.
Then decent pleasantry and sterling sense,
That neither gave nor would endure offence,
Whipp'd out of sight, with satire just and keen,
The puppy pack that had defiled the scene.
In front of these came Addison. In him
Humour in holiday and sightly trim,
Sublimity and Attic taste combined,
To polish, furnish, and delight the mind.
Then Pope, as harmony itself exact,
In verse well-disciplined, complete, compact,
Gave virtue and morality a grace,
That, quite eclipsing pleasure's painted face,
Levied a tax of wonder and applause,
E'en on the fools that trampled on their laws.
But he (his musical finesse was such,
So nice his ear, so delicate his touch)
Made poetry a mere mechanic art;
And every warbler has his tune by heart.
Nature imparting her satiric gift,
Her serious mirth, to Arbuthnot and Swift,
With droll sobriety they raised a smile
At folly's cost, themselves unmoved the while.
That constellation set, the world in vain
Must hope to look upon their like again.
A. Are we then left?'B. Not wholly in the dark;
Wit now and then, struck smartly, shews a spark,
Sufficient to redeem the modern race
From total night and absolute disgrace.
While servile trick and imitative knack
Confine the million in the beaten track,
Perhaps some courser, who disdains the road,
Snuffs up the wind, and flings himself abroad.
Contemporaries all surpass'd, see one;
Short his career indeed, but ably run;
Churchill, himself unconscious of his powers,
In penury consumed his idle hours;
And, like a scatter'd seed at random sown,
Was left to spring by vigour of his own.
Lifted at length, by dignity of thought
And dint of genius, to an affluent lot,
He laid his head in luxury's soft lap,
And took, too often, there his easy nap.
If brighter beams than all he threw not forth,
'Twas negligence in him, not want of worth.
Surly and slovenly, and bold and coarse,
Too proud for art, and trusting in mere force,
Spendthrift alike of money and of wit,
Always at speed, and never drawing bit,
He struck the lyre in such a careless mood,
And so disdain'd the rules he understood,
The laurel seem'd to wait on his command;
He snatch'd it rudely from the muses' hand.
Nature, exerting an unwearied power,
Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower;
Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads
The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads;
She fills profuse ten thousand little throats
With music, modulating all their notes;
And charms the woodland scenes and wilds unknown,
With artless airs and concerts of her own;
But seldom (as if fearful of expense)
Vouchsafes to man a poet's just pretence'
Fervency, freedom, fluency of thought,
Harmony, strength, words exquisitely sought;
Fancy, that from the bow that spans the sky
Brings colours, dipp'd in heaven, that never die;
A soul exalted above earth, a mind
Skill'd in the characters that form mankind;
And, as the sun, in rising beauty dress'd,
Looks to the westward from the dappled east,
And marks, whatever clouds may interpose,
Ere yet his race begins, its glorious close;
An eye like his to catch the distant goal;
Or, ere the wheels of verse begin to roll,
Like his to shed illuminating rays
On every scene and subject it surveys;
Thus graced, the man asserts a poet's name,
And the world cheerfully admits the claim.
Pity Religion has so seldom found
A skilful guide into poetic ground!
The flowers would spring where'er she deign'd to stray,
And every muse attend her in her way.
Virtue indeed meets many a rhyming friend,
And many a compliment politely penn'd;
But, unattired in that becoming vest
Religion weaves for her, and half undress'd,
Stands in the desert shivering and forlorn,
A wintry figure, like a wither'd thorn.
The shelves are full, all other themes are sped;
Hackney'd and worn to the last flimsy thread,
Satire has long since done his best; and curst
And loathsome ribaldry has done his worst;
Fancy has sported all her powers away
In tales, in trifles, and in children's play;
And 'tis the sad complaint, and almost true,
Whate'er we write, we bring forth nothing new.
'Twere new indeed to see a bard all fire,
Touch'd with a coal from heaven, assume the lyre.
And tell the world, still kindling as he sung,
With more than mortal music on his tongue,
That He, who died below, and reigns above,
Inspires the song, and that his name is Love.
For, after all, if merely to beguile,
By flowing numbers and a flowery style,
The tedium that the lazy rich endure,
Which now and then sweet poetry may cure;
Or, if to see the name of idol self,
Stamp'd on the well-bound quarto, grace the shelf,
To float a bubble on the breath of fame,
Prompt his endeavour and engage his aim,
Debased to servile purposes of pride,
How are the powers of genius misapplied!
The gift, whose office is the Giver's praise,
To trace him in his word, his works, his ways!
Then spread the rich discovery, and invite
Mankind to share in the divine delight:
Distorted from its use and just design,
To make the pitiful possessor shine,
To purchase at the fool-frequented fair
Of vanity a wreath for self to wear,
Is profanation of the basest kind'
Proof of a trifling and a worthless mind.
A. Hail, Sternhold, then! and, Hopkins, hail!'
B. Amen.
If flattery, folly, lust, employ the pen;
If acrimony, slander, and abuse,
Give it a charge to blacken and traduce;
Though Butler's wit, Pope's numbers, Prior's ease,
With all that fancy can invent to please,
Adorn the polish'd periods as they fall,
One madrigal of theirs is worth them all.
A. 'Twould thin the ranks of the poetic tribe,
To dash the pen through all that you proscribe.
B. No matter'we could shift when they were not;
And should, no doubt, if they were all forgot.
|
Nursery Rhyme. CXXXVI. Songs. | Unknown | You shall have an apple,
You shall have a plum,
You shall have a rattle-basket,
When your dad comes home. |
On Looking Up By Chance At The Constellations | Robert Lee Frost | You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drouth will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn't reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night. |
L'Envoi (Songs of a Sourdough) | Robert William Service | You who have lived in the Land,
You who have trusted the trail;
You who are strong to withstand,
You who are swift to assail;
Songs have I sung to beguile,
Vintage of desperate years
Hard as a harlot's smile,
Bitter as unshed tears.
Little of joy or mirth,
Little of ease I sing;
Sagas of men of earth,
Humanly suffering,
Such as you all have done;
Savagely faring forth,
Sons of the midnight sun,
Argonauts of the North.
Far in the land God forgot
Glimmers the lure of your trail;
Still in your lust are you taught
Even to win is to fail.
Still must you follow and fight
Under the vampire wing;
There in the long, long night
Hoping and vanquishing.
Husbandmen of the Wild,
Reaping a barren gain;
Scourged by desire, reconciled
Unto disaster and pain;
These my songs are for you,
You who are seared with the brand:
God knows I have tried to be true;
Please God you will understand. |
Chorus From 'Lincoln' | John Drinkwater | You who have gone gathering
Cornflowers and meadowsweet,
Heard the hazels glancing down
On September eves,
Seen the homeward rooks on wing
Over fields of golden wheat,
And the silver cups that crown
Water-lily leaves;
You who know the tenderness
Of old men at eve-tide,
Coming from the hedgerows,
Coming from the plough,
And the wandering caress
Of winds upon the woodside,
When the crying yaffle goes
Underneath the bough;
You who mark the flowing
Of sap upon the May-time,
And the waters welling
From the watershed,
You who count the growing
Of harvest and hay-time,
Knowing these the telling
Of your daily bread;
You who cherish courtesy
With your fellows at your gate,
And about your hearthstone sit
Under love's decrees,
You who know that death will be
Speaking with you soon or late,
Kinsmen, what is mother-wit
But the light of these?
Knowing these, what is there more
For learning in your little years?
Are not these all gospels bright
Shining on your day?
How then shall your hearts be sore
With envy and her brood of fears,
How forget the words of light
From the mountain-way ...
Blessed are the merciful ...
Does not every threshold seek
Meadows and the flight of birds
For compassion still?
Blessed are the merciful ...
Are we pilgrims yet to speak
Out of Olivet the words
Of knowledge and good-will?
|
With The Seasons. | Madison Julius Cawein | I
You will not love me, sweet.
When this fair year is past;
Or love now at my feet
At others' feet be cast.
You will not love me, sweet,
When this fair year is past.
II
Now 'tis the Springtide, dear,
The crocus cups hold flame
Brimmed to the pregnant year.
Who crimsons as with shame.
Now 'tis the Springtide, dear,
The crocus cups hold flame.
III
Ah, heart, the Summer's queen,
At her brown throat one rose;
The poppies now are seen
With seed-pods thrust in rows.
Dear heart, the Summer's queen,
At her brown throat one rose.
IV
Now Autumn reigns, a prince
Fierce, gipsy-dark; live gold
Weighs down the fruited quince,
The last chilled violet's told.
The Autumn reigns, a prince,
A despot crowned with gold.
V
Alas! rude Winter's king,
Snow-driven from chin to head;
No wild birds pipe and sing,
The wild winds sing instead.
Ah me! rude Winter's king,
Snow-driven from chin to head.
VI
Weep now, you once who smiled,
Sweet hope that had few fears!
And this the end, my child! -
Thyself, my shame and tears!
Weep now, you once who smiled,
Sweet hope, that had few fears!
|
Shit List; Or, Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity | A. R. Ammons | You'll rejoice at how many kinds of shit there are:
gosling shit (which J. Williams said something
was as green as), fish shit (the generality), trout
shit, rainbow trout shit (for the nice), mullet shit,
sand dab shit, casual sloth shit, elephant shit
(awesome as process or payload), wildebeest shit,
horse shit (a favorite), caterpillar shit (so many dark
kinds, neatly pelleted as mint seed), baby rhinoceros
shit, splashy jaybird shit, mockingbird shit
(dive-bombed with the aim of song), robin shit that
oozes white down lawnchairs or down roots under roosts,
chicken shit and chicken mite shit, pelican shit, gannet
shit (wholesome guano), fly shit (periodic), cockatoo
shit, dog shit (past catalog or assimilation),
cricket shit, elk (high plains) shit, and
tiny scribbled little shrew shit, whale shit (what
a sight, deep assumption), mandril shit (blazing
blast off), weasel shit (wiles' waste), gazelle shit,
magpie shit (total protein), tiger shit (too acid
to contemplate), moral eel and manta ray shit, eerie
shark shit, earthworm shit (a soilure), crab shit,
wolf shit upon the germicidal ice, snake shit, giraffe
shit that accelerates, secretary bird shit, turtle
shit suspension invites, remora shit slightly in
advance of the shark shit, hornet shit (difficult to
assess), camel shit that slaps the ghastly dry
siliceous, frog shit, beetle shit, bat shit (the
marmoreal), contemptible cat shit, penguin shit,
hermit crab shit, prairie hen shit, cougar shit, eagle
shit (high totem stuff), buffalo shit (hardly less
lofty), otter shit, beaver shit (from the animal of
alluvial dreams), a vast ordure is a broken down
cloaca'macaw shit, alligator shit (that floats the Nile
along), louse shit, macaque, koala, and coati shit,
antelope shit, chuck-will's-widow shit, alpaca shit
(very high stuff), gooney bird shit, chigger shit, bull
shit (the classic), caribou shit, rasbora, python, and
razorbill shit, scorpion shit, man shit, laswing
fly larva shit, chipmunk shit, other-worldly wallaby
shit, gopher shit (or broke), platypus shit, aardvark
shit, spider shit, kangaroo and peccary shit, guanaco
shit, dolphin shit, aphid shit, baboon shit (that leopards
induce), albatross shit, red-headed woodpecker (nine
inches long) shit, tern shit, hedgehog shit, panda shit,
seahorse shit, and the shit of the wasteful gallinule. |
The Book Of Joyous Children Gratefully And Affectionately Inscribed To Joel Chandler Harris | James Whitcomb Riley | You who to the rounded prime
Of a life of toil and stress,
Still have kept the morning-time
Of glad youth in heart and spirit,
So your laugh, as children hear it,
Seems their own, no less, -
Take this book of childish rhyme -
The Book of Joyous Children.
Their first happiness on earth
Here is echoed - their first glee:
Rich, in sooth, the volume's worth -
Not in classic lore, but rich in
The child-sagas of the kitchen; -
Therefore, take from me
To your heart of childish mirth
The Book of Joyous Children. |
The Man And The Adder. | Jean de La Fontaine | [1]
'You villain!' cried a man who found
An adder coil'd upon the ground,
'To do a very grateful deed
For all the world, I shall proceed.'
On this the animal perverse
(I mean the snake;
Pray don't mistake
The human for the worse)
Was caught and bagg'd, and, worst of all,
His blood was by his captor to be spilt
Without regard to innocence or guilt.
Howe'er, to show the why, these words let fall
His judge and jailor, proud and tall: -
'Thou type of all ingratitude!
All charity to hearts like thine
Is folly, certain to be rued.
Die, then,
Thou foe of men!
Thy temper and thy teeth malign
Shall never hurt a hair of mine.'
The muffled serpent, on his side,
The best a serpent could, replied, -
'If all this world's ingrates
Must meet with such a death,
Who from this worst of fates
Could save his breath?
Upon thyself thy law recoils;
I throw myself upon thy broils,
Thy graceless revelling on spoils;
If thou but homeward cast an eye,
Thy deeds all mine will justify.
But strike: my life is in thy hand;
Thy justice, all may understand,
Is but thy interest, pleasure, or caprice: -
Pronounce my sentence on such laws as these.
But give me leave to tell thee, while I can,
The type of all ingratitude is man.'
By such a lecture somewhat foil'd,
The other back a step recoil'd,
And finally replied, -
'Thy reasons are abusive,
And wholly inconclusive.
I might the case decide
Because to me such right belongs;
But let's refer the case of wrongs.'
The snake agreed; they to a cow referr'd it.
Who, being called, came graciously and heard it.
Then, summing up, 'What need,' said she,
'In such a case, to call on me?
The adder's right, plain truth to bellow;
For years I've nursed this haughty fellow,
Who, but for me, had long ago
Been lodging with the shades below.
For him my milk has had to flow,
My calves, at tender age, to die.
And for this best of wealth,
And often re'stablished health,
What pay, or even thanks, have I?
Here, feeble, old, and worn, alas!
I'm left without a bite of grass.
Were I but left, it might be weather'd,
But, shame to say it, I am tether'd.
And now my fate is surely sadder
Than if my master were an adder,
With brains within the latitude
Of such immense ingratitude.
This, gentles, is my honest view;
And so I bid you both adieu.'
The man, confounded and astonish'd
To be so faithfully admonish'd,
Replied, 'What fools to listen, now,
To this old, silly, dotard cow!
Let's trust the ox.' 'Let's trust,' replied
The crawling beast, well gratified.
So said, so done;
The ox, with tardy pace, came on
And, ruminating o'er the case,
Declared, with very serious face,
That years of his most painful toil
Had clothed with Ceres' gifts our soil -
Her gifts to men - but always sold
To beasts for higher cost than gold;
And that for this, for his reward,
More blows than thanks return'd his lord;
And then, when age had chill'd his blood,
And men would quell the wrath of Heaven,
Out must be pour'd the vital flood,
For others' sins, all thankless given.
So spake the ox; and then the man: -
'Away with such a dull declaimer!
Instead of judge, it is his plan
To play accuser and defamer.'
A tree was next the arbitrator,
And made the wrong of man still greater.
It served as refuge from the heat,
The showers, and storms which madly beat;
It grew our gardens' greatest pride,
Its shadow spreading far and wide,
And bow'd itself with fruit beside:
But yet a mercenary clown
With cruel iron chopp'd it down.
Behold the recompense for which,
Year after year, it did enrich,
With spring's sweet flowers, and autumn's fruits,
And summer's shade, both men and brutes,
And warm'd the hearth with many a limb
Which winter from its top did trim!
Why could not man have pruned and spared,
And with itself for ages shared? -
Much scorning thus to be convinced,
The man resolved his cause to gain.
Quoth he, 'My goodness is evinced
By hearing this, 'tis very plain;'
Then flung the serpent bag and all,
With fatal force, against a wall.
So ever is it with the great,
With whom the whim doth always run,
That Heaven all creatures doth create
For their behoof beneath the sun -
Count they four feet, or two, or none.
If one should dare the fact dispute,
He's straight set down a stupid brute.
Now, grant it so, - such lords among,
What should be done, or said, or sung?
At distance speak, or hold your tongue.
|
To A Historian | Walt Whitman | You who celebrate bygones!
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life that has exhibited itself;
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and priests;
I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself, in his own rights,
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the great pride of man in himself;)
Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be,
I project the history of the future. |
The Briny Grave | Henry Lawson | You wonder why so many would be buried in the sea,
In this world of froth and bubble,
But I don't wonder, for it seems to me
That it saves such a lot of trouble.
And there ain't no undertaker,
Oh! there ain't no order that your friends can give
On the quiet to the coffin-maker,
To a gimcrack coffin-maker,
They make no differ twixt the absentee swell
And the clerk that cut from a 'shortage',
Oh! there ain't no pauper funer-el,
And there ain't no 'impressive cortege.'
It may be a chap from the for'ard crowd,
Or a member of the British Peerage,
But they sew his nibs in a canvas shroud
Just the same as the bloke from the steerage,
As that poor bloke from the steerage.
There ain't no need for a gravedigger there,
For you dig your own grave! Lord love yer!
And there ain't no use for a headstone fair
When the waters close above yer!
The little headstone where they come to weep,
May be right for the land's dry-rotters,
But you rest just as sound when you're anchored deep
With the pigiron at your trotters,
(Our fathers had iron at their trotters).
The sea is democratic the wide world round,
And it don't give a hang for no man,
There ain't no Church of England burial ground,
Nor yet there ain't no Roman.
Orthodox and het'rodox by wreck-strewn cliffs,
At peace in the stormiest weather,
Might bob up and down like two brother 'stiffs,'
And rest in one shark together,
And mix up their bones together.
The bare-headed skipper is as good any day
As an authorised shifter of sin is,
And the tear of shipmate is better anyway
Than the tear of the next-of-kin is.
It saves your friends, and it fills your needs,
It is best when all is reckoned,
And she can't come there in her widder weeds,
With her eyes on a likely second,
And a spot for the likely second. |