Poet:

"Why this fever why this sighing?
Why this restless longing dying
For a something dreamy something,
Undefined, and yet defying
All the pride and power of manhood?

"O these years of sin and sorrow!
Smiling while the iron harrow
Of a keen and biting longing
Tears and quivers in the marrow
Of my being every moment
Of my very inmost being.

"What to me the mad ambition
For men's praise and proud position
Struggling, fighting to the summit
Of its vain and earthly mission,
To lie down on bed of ashes
Bed of barren, bitter ashes?

"Cure this fever? I have tried it;
Smothered, drenched it and defied it
With a will of brass and iron;
Every smile and look denied it;
Yet it heeded not denying,
And it m...

One word to the guest we have gathered to greet!
The echoes are longing that word to repeat, -
It springs to the lips that are waiting to part,
For its syllables spell themselves first in the heart.

Its accents may vary, its sound may be strange,
But it bears a kind message that nothing can change;
The dwellers by Neva its meaning can tell,
For the smile, its interpreter, shows it full well.

That word! How it gladdened the Pilgrim yore,
As he stood in the snow on the desolate shore!
When the shout of the sagamore startled his ear
In the phrase of the Saxon, 't was music to hear!

Ah, little could Samoset offer our sire, -
The cabin, the corn-cake, the seat by the fire;
He had nothing to give, - the poor lord of the land, -
But he gave him a WELCOME...

Go, little girl, your course pursue,
On life's rough ocean safely glide,
May want nor woe e'er visit you,
Nor any other ills betide.

Improve the shining hours of youth,
For soon, alas, they will be gone,
Strive hard for learning, zeal and truth,
For ev'ry soul must fight alone.

    A woman's figure, on a ground of night
        Inlaid with sallow stars that dimly stare
        Down in the lonesome eyes, uplifted there
    As in vague hope some alien lance of light
    Might pierce their woe.    The tears that blind her sight -
        The salt and bitter blood of her despair -
        Her hands toss back through torrents of her hair
    And grip toward God with anguish infinite.
        And O the carven mouth, with all its great
    Intensity of longing frozen fast
        In such a smile as well may designate
    The slowly-murdered heart, that, to the last,
        Conceals each newer wound, and back at Fate
    Throbs Love's eternal lie - "Lo, I can wait!"

The curtain rose; in thunders long and loud
The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed.
In flaming line the telltales of the stage
Showed on his brow the autograph of age;
Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair,
And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care;
Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye, -
He strove to speak, - his voice was but a sigh.

Year after year had seen its short-lived race
Flit past the scenes and others take their place;
Yet the old prompter watched his accents still,
His name still flaunted on the evening's bill.
Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor,
Had died in earnest and were heard no more;
Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread
They faced the footlights in unborrowed red,
Had faded slowly through suc...

I said I stood upon thy grave,
My Mother State, when last the moon
Of blossoms clomb the skies of June.
And, scattering ashes on my head,
I wore, undreaming of relief,
The sackcloth of thy shame and grief.
Again that moon of blossoms shines
On leaf and flower and folded wing,
And thou hast risen with the spring!
Once more thy strong maternal arms
Are round about thy children flung,
A lioness that guards her young!
No threat is on thy closëd lips,
But in thine eye a power to smite
The mad wolf backward from its light.
Southward the baffled robber's track
Henceforth runs only; hereaway,
The fell lycanthrope finds no prey.
Henceforth, within thy sacred gates,
His first low howl shall downward draw
The thunder of thy righteous law.
Not min...

        Thank God my brain is not inclined to cut
        Such capers every day! I 'm just about
        Mellow, but then--There goes the tent-flap shut.
        Rain 's in the wind. I thought so: every snout
        Was twitching when the keeper turned me out.

        That screaming parrot makes my blood run cold.
        Gabriel's trump! the big bull elephant
        Squeals "Rain!" to the parched herd. The monkeys scold,
        And jabber that it 's rain water they want.
        (It makes me sick to see a monkey pant.)

        I 'll foot it home, to try and make believe
        I 'm sober. After this I stick to beer,
        And drop the circus when the sane folks leave.
        A man 's a fool to look at things too near:
        They look back, and begi...

Who bides his time, and day by day
Faces defeat full patiently,
And lifts a mirthful roundelay,
However poor his fortunes be,
He will not fail in any qualm
Of poverty - the paltry dime
It will grow golden in his palm,
Who bides his time.

Who bides his time - he tastes the sweet
Of honey in the saltest tear;
And though he fares with slowest feet,
Joy runs to meet him, drawing near;
The birds are heralds of his cause;
And like a never-ending rhyme,
The roadsides bloom in his applause,
Who bides his time.

Who bides his time, and fevers not
In the hot race that none achieves,
Shall wear cool-wreathen laurel, wrought
With crimson berries in the leaves;
And he shall reign a goodly king,
And sway his hand o'er every clime,
Wi...

It may have been a fragment of that higher
Truth dreams, at times, disclose;
It may have been to Fond Illusion nigher,
But thus the story goes:

A fierce sun glared upon a gaunt land, stricken
With barrenness and thirst,
Where Nature’s pulse with joy of Spring would quicken
No more; a land accurst.

Gray salt-bush grimmer made the desolation,
Like mocking immortelles
Strewn on the graveyard of a perished nation
Whose name no record tells.

No faintest sign of distant water glimmered
The aching eye to bless;
The far horizon like a sword’s edge shimmered,
Keen, gleaming, pitiless.

And all the long day through the hot air quivered
Beneath a burning sky,
In dazzling dance of heat that flashed and shivered:
It seemed as if...

MORTAL:
    'The night is cold, the hour is late, the world is bleak and
drear;
    Who is it knocking at my door?'

THE NEW YEAR:
    'I am Good Cheer.'

MORTAL:
    'Your voice is strange; I know you not; in shadows dark I grope.
    What seek you here?'

THE NEW YEAR:
    'Friend, let me in; my name is Hope.'

MORTAL:
    'And mine is Failure; you but mock the life you seek to bless.
    Pass on.'

THE NEW YEAR:
    'Nay, open wide the door; I am Success.'

MORTAL:
    'But I am ill and spent with pain; too late has come your wealth.
    I cannot use it.'

THE NEW YEAR:
    'Listen, friend; I am Good Health.'

MORTAL:
    'Now, wide I fling my door.    Come in, and your fair statements

When the impatient spirit leaves behind
The clogging hours and makes no dear delay
To drop this Nessus-shirt of night and day,
To cast the flesh that bound and could not bind
The heart untamable, the tireless mind,
In equal dissolution shall the clay
That once was seer or singer flee away,
It shall be fire and blown upon the wind.
Not us befits such change in radiance dressed,
Not us, O Earth, for whom thou biddest cease
Our grey endurance of the dark and cold.
These eyes have watched with grief, and now would rest;
Rest we desire, and on thy bosom's peace
The long slow change to unremembering mould.

Has then, the Paphian Queen at length prevail'd?
Has the sly little Archer, whom my Friend
Once would despise, with all his boyish wiles,
Now taken ample vengeance, made thee feel
His piercing shaft, and taught thy heart profane
With sacred awe, repentant, to confess
The Son of Venus is indeed a God?
I greet his triumph; for he has but claim'd
His own; the breast that was by Nature form'd
And destined for his temple Love has claim'd.

The great, creating Parent, when she breathed
Into thine earthly frame the breath of life,
Indulgently conferr'd on thee a soul
Of finer essence, capable to trace,
To feel, admire, and love, the fair, the good,
Wherever found, through all her various works.
And is not Woman, then, her fairest work,
Fairest, and oft her ...

Say, what is Honour? 'Tis the finest sense
Of 'justice' which the human mind can frame,
Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim,
And guard the way of life from all offence
Suffered or done. When lawless violence
Invades a Realm, so pressed that in the scale
Of perilous war her weightiest armies fail,
Honour is hopeful elevation, whence
Glory, and triumph. Yet with politic skill
Endangered States may yield to terms unjust;
Stoop their proud heads, but not unto the dust
A Foe's most favourite purpose to fulfil:
Happy occasions oft by self-mistrust
Are forfeited; but infamy doth kill.

Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?

Is it thy will Love that I love so well
That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot
Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?

Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,
And sell ambition at the common mart,
And let dull failure be my vestiture,
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.

Perchance it may be better so at least
I have not made my heart a heart of stone,
Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.

Many a man hath done so; sought to fence
In straitened bonds the ...

Yes, Nightingale, through all the summer-time
    We followed on, from moon to golden moon;
    From where Salerno day-dreams in the noon,
And the far rose of Pæstum once did climb.
    All the white way beside the girdling blue,
Through sun-shrill vines and campanile chime,
    We listened;--from the old year to the new.
        Brown bird, and where were you?

You, that Ravello lured not, throned on high
    And filled with singing out of sun-burned throats!
    Nor yet Minore of the flame-sailed boats;
Nor yet--of all bird-song should glorify--
    Assisi, Little Portion of the blest,
Assisi, in the bosom of the sky,
    Where God's own singer thatched his sunward nest;
        That little, heavenliest!

And north and north, to where the hedge-row...

Oh ye kindly nymphs, who dwell 'mongst the rocks and the thickets,

Grant unto each whatsoe'er he may in silence desire!
Comfort impart to the mourner, and give to the doubter instruction,

And let the lover rejoice, finding the bliss that he craves.
For from the gods ye received what they ever denied unto mortals,

Power to comfort and aid all who in you may confide.

What of the faith and fire within us
    Men who march away
    Ere the barn-cocks say
    Night is growing gray,
To hazards whence no tears can win us;
What of the faith and fire within us
    Men who march away?

Is it a purblind prank, O think you,
    Friend with the musing eye,
    Who watch us stepping by
    With doubt and dolorous sigh?
Can much pondering so hoodwink you!
Is it a purblind prank, O think you,
    Friend with the musing eye?

Nay. We well see what we are doing,
    Though some may not see -
    Dalliers as they be -
    England's need are we;
Her distress would leave us rueing:
Nay. We well see what we are doing,
    Though some may not see!

In our heart of hearts believing
    Victory crowns...

(FOURTEENTH CENTURY)

    "Time mocks thy opening music with a close;
    What now he gives long since he gave away.
    Thou deemst thy sun hath risen, but ere it rose
    It was eclipsed, and dusk shall be thy day."

    Yet has the Dawn gone up: in loveliest light
    She walks high heaven beyond the shadow there:
    Whom I too veiled from all men's envious sight
    With inward eyes adore and silent prayer.