Padre del ciel, dopo i perduti giorni.

CONSCIOUS OF HIS FOLLY, HE PRAYS GOD TO TURN HIM TO A BETTER LIFE.


    Father of heaven! after the days misspent,
After the nights of wild tumultuous thought,
In that fierce passion's strong entanglement,
One, for my peace too lovely fair, had wrought;
Vouchsafe that, by thy grace, my spirit bent
On nobler aims, to holier ways be brought;
That so my foe, spreading with dark intent
His mortal snares, be foil'd, and held at nought.
E'en now th' eleventh year its course fulfils,
That I have bow'd me to the tyranny
Relentless most to fealty most tried.
Have mercy, Lord! on my unworthy ills:
Fix all my thoughts in contemplation high;
How on the cross this day a Saviour died.

DACRE.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

(See Note 38)

Thoughts toward one another coursing
To their pole must run,
Hearts that meet, all bonds are forcing,
Like the springtime sun.
Though to-day too heavy sorrow
Dull the mind of youth,
Higher on the meeting's morrow
Roll the tides of truth.

Though each man with courage fired
Hundreds forward bore,
Though a thousand died inspired,
There is need of more.
May a Northern Spring come blowing
Over wood and field,
Wake the hundred thousands, knowing
Meeting-hour revealed!

Hail! A Northern day is written
In the brightening sky;
Darksome dread, that erst had smitten,
Flees, now dawn is nigh.
After Gjallar-horn blasts hollow,
Tears and shame and blood,
As so often, now shall follow
Full the spirit's fl...

Draw thi cheer nigher th' foir, put th' knittin away,
Put thi tooas up o'th' fender to warm:
We've booath wrought enuff, aw should think, for a day,
An a rest willn't do us mich harm.
Awr lot's been a rough en, an tho' we've grown old,
We shall have to toil on to its end;
An altho' we can booast nawther silver nor gold,
Yet we ne'er stood i'th' want ov a Friend.

Soa cheer up, old lass,
Altho' we've grown grey,
An we havn't mich brass,
Still awr hearts can be gay:
For we've health an contentment an soa we can say,
'At we're gradely weel off after all.

As aw coom ovver th' moor, a fine carriage went by,
An th' young squire wor sittin inside;
An wol makkin mi manners aw smothered a sigh,
As for th' furst time aw saw his young bride.
Shoo wor...

    O great heart of God,
    Once vague and lost to me,
    Why do I throb with your throb to-night,
    In this land, eternity?

    O little heart of God,
    Sweet intruding stranger,
    You are laughing in my human breast,
    A Christ-child in a manger.

    Heart, dear heart of God,
    Beside you now I kneel,
    Strong heart of faith.    O heart not mine,
    Where God has set His seal.

    Wild thundering heart of God
    Out of my doubt I come,
    And my foolish feet with prophets' feet,
    March with the prophets' drum.

Best and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair Day,
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn Spring,
Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn
To hoar February born,
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May
Strewed flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs -

If Thought can reach to Heaven,
On Heaven let it dwell,
For fear the Thought be given
Like power to reach to Hell.
For fear the desolation
And darkness of thy mind
Perplex an habitation
Which thou hast left behind.

Let nothing linger after,
No whimpering gost remain,
In wall, or beam, or rafter,
Of any hate or pain.
Cleans and call home thy spirit,
Deny her leave to cast,
On aught thy heirs inherit,
The shadow of her past.

For think, in all thy sadness,
What road our griefs may take;
Whose brain reflect our madness,
Or whom our terrors shake:
For think, lest any languish
By cause of thy distress,
The arrows of our anguish
Fly farther than we guess.

Our lives, our tears, as water,
Are spilled upon t...

If all the troubles in the world
    Were traced back to their start,
We'd find not one in ten begun
    From want of willing heart.
But there's a sly, woe-working elf
    Who lurks about youth's brink,
And sure dismay he brings alway -
    The elf, 'I didn't think.'

He seems so sorry when he's caught;
    His mien is all contrite;
He so regrets the woe he wrought,
    And wants to make things right.
But wishes do not heal a wound
    Or weld a broken link;
The heart aches on, the link is gone,
    All through -'I didn't think.'

I half believe that ugly sprite,
    Bold, wicked, 'I don't care,'
In life's long run less harm has done
    Because he is so rare;
And one can be so stern with him,
    Can make the monster shrink;...

Illustrious prince, we're come before ye,
Who, more than in our founders, glory
            To be by you protected;
Deign to descend and give us laws,
For we are converts to your cause,
            From this day well-affected.[2]

The noble view of your high merits
Has charm'd our thoughts and fix'd our spirits,
            With zeal so warm and hearty;
That we resolved to be devoted,
At least until we be promoted,
            By your just power and party.

Urged by a passionate desire
Of being raised a little higher,
            From lazy cloister'd life;
We cannot flatter you nor fawn,
But fain would honour'd be with lawn,
            And settled by a wife.[3]

For this we have before resorted,
Paid levees[4] punctually, and cou...

TO COLONEL FRANCIS EDWARD YOUNGHUSBAND

    Across the Western World, the Arabian Sea,
    The Hundred Kingdoms and the Rivers Three,
    Beyond the rampart of Himalayan snows,
    And up the road that only Rumour knows,
    Unchecked, old friend, from Devon to Thibet,
    Friendship and Memory dog your footsteps yet.

    Let not the scornful ask me what avails
    So small a pack to follow mighty trails:
    Long since I saw what difference must be
    Between a stream like you, a ditch like me.
    This drains a garden and a homely field
    Which scarce at times a living current yield;
    The other from the high lands of his birth
    Plunges through rocks and spurns the pastoral earth,
    Then settling silent to his deeper course
    Draws in ...

Here a little child I stand
Heaving up my either hand;
Cold as paddocks though they be,
Here I lift them up to Thee,
For a benison to fall
On our meat and on us all. Amen.

If any God should say,
"I will restore
The world her yesterday
Whole as before
My Judgment blasted it" who would not lift
Heart, eye, and hand in passion o'er the gift?

If any God should will
To wipe from mind
The memory of this ill
Which is Mankind
In soul and substance now, who would not bless
Even to tears His loving-tenderness?

If any God should give
Us leave to fly
These present deaths we live,
And safely die
In those lost lives we lived ere we were born,
What man but would not laugh the excuse to scorn?

For we are what we are,
So broke to blood
And the strict works of war,
So long subdued
To sacrifice, that threadbare Death commands
Hardly observance at our busier hands.

Yet we were what we ...

O, the lasses, the lasses, God bless 'em!
His heart must be hard as a stooan
'At could willingly goa an distress 'em,
For withaat 'em man's lot 'ud be looan.

Tho' th' pooasies i' paradise growin
For Adam, wor scented soa sweet,
He ne'er thank'd 'em for odour bestowin,
He trampled 'em under his feet.

He long'd to some sweet one to whisper;
An wol sleepin Eve came to his home;
He wakken'd, an saw her, an kuss'd her,
An ne'er ax'd her a word ha shoo'd come.

An tho' shoo, like her sex, discontented,
An anxious fowk's saycrets to know,
Pluck'd an apple, - noa daat shoo repented
When shoo saw at it made sich a row.

Tho' aw know shoo did wrang, aw forgie her;
For aw'm fairly convinced an declare,
'At aw'd rayther ha sin an be wi' her...

Blessed are those who have not seen,
And who have yet believed
The witness, here that has not been,
From heaven they have received.

Blessed are those who have not known
The things that stand before them,
And for a vision of their own
Can piously ignore them.

So let me think whate’er befall,
That in the city duly
Some men there are who love at all,
Some women who love truly;

And that upon two millions odd
Transgressors in sad plenty,
Mercy will of a gracious God
Be shown—because of twenty.

And Simon Peter stood and warmed himself. John 18:25.


Peter, it was not outward cold
But inward chill thy bosom froze,
Made thee deny with falsehood bold
Thy Lord and Master to his foes.
When we find cheer at Satan's fires
The world is there to work us harm,
To deaden all our pure desires
With its deceitful lure and charm.

Peter, the voice of chanticleer
Fulfilled what Christ had prophesied;
And oh, that pitying look sincere
From him whom thou hadst just denied!
Thy burst of penitential grief!
Heaven those tears did surely send.
Tears give the burdened heart relief;
Dry anguish may its tendrils rend.

Sin soon will crucify our Lord,
Thy sin, and all the world's beside.
He gave himself, the Living Word,
Our shel...

Dead? or is it a dream
Only the voice of a dream?
Dead in the prime of his years,
And laid in the lap of the dust;
Only a handful of ashes
Moldering down into dust.

Strong and manly was he,
Strong and tender and true;
Proud in the prime of his years;
Strong in the strength of the just:
A heart that was half a lion's,
And half the heart of a girl;
Tender to all that was tender,
And true to all that was true;
Bold in the battle of life,
And bold on the bloody field;
First at the call of his country,
First in the front of the foe.
Hope of the years was his
The golden and garnered sheaves;
Fair on the hills of autumn
Reddened the apples of peace.

Dead? or is it a dream?
Dead in the prime of his years,
And laid in...

What of all the will to do?
It has vanished long ago,
For a dream-shaft pierced it through
From the Unknown Archer's bow.

What of all the soul to think?
Some one offered it a cup
Filled with a diviner drink,
And the flame has burned it up.

What of all the hope to climb?
Only in the self we grope
To the misty end of time:
Truth has put an end to hope.

What of all the heart to love?
Sadder than for will or soul,
No light lured it on above;
Love has found itself the whole.

On Bancroft height Aurora's face
    Shines brighter than a star,
As stepping forth in dewy grace,
    The gates of day unbar;
And lo! the firmament, the hills,
    And the vales that intervene -
Creation's self with gladness thrills
    To greet the matin queen.

On Bancroft height the atmosphere
    Is but an endless waft
Of life's elixir, pure and clear
    As mortal ever quaffed;
And such the sweet salubrity
    Of air and altitude,
Is banished many a malady
    And suffering subdued.

On Bancroft height the sunset glow
    When day departing dies
Outrivals all that tourists know
    Of famed Italian skies;
And happy dwellers round about
    Who view the scene aright
In admiration grow devout
    And laud the Lo...