Inspirational

A:
Not far from hence. From yonder pointed hill,
Crowned with a ring of oaks, you may behold
A dark and barren field, through which there flows,
Sluggish and black, a deep but narrow stream,
Which the wind ripples not, and the fair moon
Gazes in vain, and finds no mirror there.
Follow the herbless banks of that strange brook
Until you pause beside a darksome pond,
The fountain of this rivulet, whose gush
Cannot be seen, hid by a rayless night
That lives beneath the overhanging rock
That shades the pool - an endless spring of gloom,
Upon whose edge hovers the tender light,
Trembling to mingle with its paramour, -
But, as Syrinx fled Pan, so night flies day,
Or, with most sullen and regardless hate,
Refuses stern her heaven-born embrace.
On one side of...

Aloft on the brow of a mountain,
And hard by a clear running fountain,
In neat little cot,
Content with her lot,
Retired, there lives a sweet maiden.

Her father is dead, and her brother,
And now she alone with her mother
Will spin on her wheel,
And sew, knit, and reel,
And cheerfully work for their living.

To gossip she never will roam,
She loves, and she stays at, her home,
Unless when a neighbour
In sickness does labour,
Then, kindly, she pays her a visit.

With Bible she stands by her bed,
And when some blest passage is read,
In prayer and in praises
Her sweet voice she raises
To Him who for sinners once died.

Well versed in her Bible is she,
Her language is artless and free,
Imparting pure joy,
That...

In life's first years as on a mother's breast,
When Nature nurs'd me in her flowery pride,
I cull'd her bounty, such as seemed best,
And made my garlands by some hedge-row side:
With pleasing eagerness the mind reclaims
From black oblivion's shroud such artless scenes,
And cons the calendar of childish names
With simple joy, when manhood intervenes.

From the sweet time that spring's young thrills are born,
And golden catkins deck the sallow tree,
Till summer's blue-caps blossom mid the corn,
And autumn's ragwort yellows o'er the lea,
I roam'd the fields about, a happy child,
And bound my posies up with rushy ties,
And laugh'd and mutter'd o'er my visions wild,
Bred in the brain of pleasure's ecstacies.

Crimp-frilled daisy, bright bronze buttercup,<...

One's ardour, Nature, makes you bright,
One finds within you mourning, grief!
What speaks to one of tombs and death
Says to the other, Splendour! Life!

Mystical Hermes, help to me,
Intimidating though you are,
You make me Midas' counterpart,
No sadder alchemist than he;

My gold is iron by your spell,
And paradise turns into hell;
I see in winding-sheets of clouds

A dear cadaver in its shroud,
And there upon celestial strands
I raise huge tombs above the sands.

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death,
    Passed o'er our village as the morning broke;
The dawn was on their faces, and beneath,
    The sombre houses hearsed with plumes of smoke.

Their attitude and aspect were the same,
    Alike their features and their robes of white;
But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame,
    And one with asphodels, like flakes of light.

I saw them pause on their celestial way;
    Then said I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed,
"Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betray
    The place where thy beloved are at rest!"

And he who wore the crown of asphodels,
    Descending, at my door began to knock,
And my soul sank within me, as in wells
    The waters sink before an earthquake's shock.

I recogni...

    'Tis not by selfish miser's greed
        The great rewards of love are given;
    'Tis not the cynic's haughty creed
        Which gladly makes this world a heaven;
    But tender word and loving deed
        Increase the angel joys of living,
    And mortals gain life's grandest meed
        By acts of giving and forgiving.

    Let warriors bold with armies fight
        Their awful battles brave and gory,
    To reap the harvest of their might
        And fill a gaping world with glory!
    The humble heroes, out of sight,
        Where hidden tears and woes are striving,
    Win victories for truth and right
        By deeds of giving and forgiving.

    Let mighty kings of loyal lands
        Despise the faithful sons of duty,
   ...

From Mirth's bright circle, from the giddy throng,
How sweet it is to steal away at eve,
To listen to the homeward fisher's song,
Whilst dark the waters of the ocean heave; -

And on the sloping beach to bear the spray
Dash 'gainst some hoary vessel's broken side;
Whilst, far illumin'd by the parting ray,
The distant sail is faintly seen to glide.

Yes, 'tis Reflection's chosen hour; for then,
With pensive pleasure mingling o'er the scene,
Th' erratic mind treads over life again,
And gazes on the past with eye serene.

Those stormy passions which bedimm'd the soul,
That oft have bid the joys it treasur'd fly,
Now, like th' unruffled waves of Ocean, roll
With gentle lapse - their only sound a sigh.

The galling wrong no longer knits the brow...

One Morn as through Hyde Park we walk’d.
My friend and I, by chance we talk’d
Of Lessing’s famed Laocoön;
And after we awhile had gone
In Lessing’s track, and tried to see
What painting is, what poetry,
Diverging to another thought,
‘Ah,’ cries my friend, ‘but who hath taught
Why music and the other arts
Oftener perform aright their parts
Than poetry? why she, than they,
Fewer real successes can display?

‘For ’tis so, surely! Even in Greece
Where best the poet framed his piece,
Even in that Phoebus-guarded ground
Pausanias on his travels found
Good poems, if he look’d, more rare
(Though many) than good statues were,
For these, in truth, were everywhere!
Of bards full many a stroke divine
In Dante’s, Petrarch’s, Tasso’s line,
The ...

Call to remembrance, reader, if thou e'er
Hast, on a mountain top, been ta'en by cloud,
Through which thou saw'st no better, than the mole
Doth through opacous membrane; then, whene'er
The wat'ry vapours dense began to melt
Into thin air, how faintly the sun's sphere
Seem'd wading through them; so thy nimble thought
May image, how at first I re-beheld
The sun, that bedward now his couch o'erhung.

Thus with my leader's feet still equaling pace
From forth that cloud I came, when now expir'd
The parting beams from off the nether shores.

O quick and forgetive power! that sometimes dost
So rob us of ourselves, we take no mark
Though round about us thousand trumpets clang!
What moves thee, if the senses stir not? Light
Kindled in heav'n, spontaneous, sel...

O Bios Bpaxus, - life is but a song;
H rexvn uakpn, - art is wondrous long;
Yet to the wise her paths are ever fair,
And Patience smiles, though Genius may despair.
Give us but knowledge, though by slow degrees,
And blend our toil with moments bright as these;
Let Friendship's accents cheer our doubtful way,
And Love's pure planet lend its guiding ray, -
Our tardy Art shall wear an angel's wings,
And life shall lengthen with the joy it brings!

Such as the youth, who came to Clymene
To certify himself of that reproach,
Which had been fasten'd on him, (he whose end
Still makes the fathers chary to their sons),
E'en such was I; nor unobserv'd was such
Of Beatrice, and that saintly lamp,
Who had erewhile for me his station mov'd;
When thus by lady: "Give thy wish free vent,
That it may issue, bearing true report
Of the mind's impress; not that aught thy words
May to our knowledge add, but to the end,
That thou mayst use thyself to own thy thirst
And men may mingle for thee when they hear."

"O plant! from whence I spring! rever'd and lov'd!
Who soar'st so high a pitch, thou seest as clear,
As earthly thought determines two obtuse
In one triangle not contain'd, so clear
Dost see contingencies, ...

It is a pity and a shame - alas! alas! I know it is,
To tread the trodden grapes again, but so it has been, so it is;
The purple vintage long is past, with ripened clusters bursting so
They filled the wine-vats to the brim,-'t is strange you will be thirsting so!

Too well our faithful memory tells what might be rhymed or sung about,
For all have sighed and some have wept since last year's snows were flung about;
The beacon flame that fired the sky, the modest ray that gladdened us,
A little breath has quenched their light, and deepening shades have saddened us.

No more our brother's life is ours for cheering or for grieving us,
One only sadness they bequeathed, the sorrow of their leaving us;
Farewell! Farewell! - I turn the leaf I read my chiming measure in;
Who knows but...

I passed a cottage 'twixt the town and wood,
And marked its garden, blossoming bright and bold,
And breathing many a scent. Awhile I stood
Near pink and marigold.

It seemed a place of prayer; of love and peace;
Where gray Content with children at his knees,
Like blessings manifold,
Rested among the trees.

An old man came into the garden-plot;
And 'mid the tansy and the scarlet sage
Found for himseft a dim and quiet spot
Wherein to turn a page:

For in his hand he bore a well-thumbed book,
Upon whose pages now and then he'd look;
And then, as if with age,
His hoary head he shook.

I said to him:"You have a lovely place.
How rich your garden blooms! How sweet its shade!
How good to sit here in the eve and face
Those hills of ...

    Thou whom chance may hither lead,
    Be thou clad in russet weed,
    Be thou deck'd in silken stole,
    Grave these maxims on thy soul.
    Life is but a day at most,
    Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
    Day, how rapid in its flight,
    Day, how few must see the night;
    Hope not sunshine every hour,
    Fear not clouds will always lower.
    Happiness is but a name,
    Make content and ease thy aim.

    Ambition is a meteor gleam;
    Fame, a restless idle dream:
    Pleasures, insects on the wing
    Round Peace, the tenderest flower of Spring;
    Those that sip the dew alone,
    Make the butterflies thy own;
    Those that would the bloom devour,
    Crush the locusts, save the flower.
    For the future be pre...

Ah! might I range each hallow'd bower and glade
    Musæus cultur'd, many a raptur'd sigh
    Wou'd that dear, local consciousness supply
    Beneath his willow, in the grotto's shade,
Whose roof his hand with ores and shells inlaid.
    How sweet to watch, with reverential eye,
    Thro' the sparr'd arch, the streams he oft survey'd,
    Thine, blue Thamésis, gently wandering by!
This is the POET's triumph, and it towers
    O'er Life's pale ills, his consciousness of powers
    That lift his memory from Oblivion's gloom,
Secure a train of these heart-thrilling hours
    By his idea deck'd in rapture's bloom,
    For Spirits rightly touch'd, thro' ages yet to come.

I sit alone in the gray,
The snow falls thick and fast,
And never a sound have I heard all day
But the wailing of the blast,
And the hiss and click of the snow, whirling to and fro.

There seems no living thing
Left in the world but I;
My thoughts fly forth on restless wing,
And drift back wearily,
Storm-beaten, buffeted, hopeless, and almost dead.

No one there is to care;
Not one to even know
Of the lonely day and the dull despair
As the hours ebb and flow,
Slow lingering, as fain to lengthen out my pain.

And I think of the monks of old,
Each in his separate cell,
Hearing no sound, except when tolled
The stated convent bell.
How could they live and bear that silence everywhere?

And I think of tumbling seas,
'Nea...

The evening came; the golden vane
A moment in the sunset glanced,
Then darkened, and then gleamed again,
As from the east the moon advanced
And touched it with a softer light;
While underneath, with flowing mane,
Upon the sign the Red Horse pranced,
And galloped forth into the night.

But brighter than the afternoon
That followed the dark day of rain,
And brighter than the golden vane
That glistened in the rising moon,
Within the ruddy fire-light gleamed;
And every separate window-pane,
Backed by the outer darkness, showed
A mirror, where the flamelets gleamed
And flickered to and fro, and seemed
A bonfire lighted in the road.

Amid the hospitable glow,
Like an old actor on the stage,
With the uncertain voice of age,
The sing...

There is a path that leads
Through purple iron-weeds,
By button-bush and mallow
Along a creek;
A path that wildflowers hallow,
That wild birds seek;
Roofed thick with eglantine
And grape and trumpet-vine.

This side, blackberries sweet
Glow cobalt in the heat;
That side, a creamy yellow,
In summertime
The pawpaws slowly mellow;
And autumn's prime
Strews red the Chickasaw,
Persimmon brown and haw.

The glittering dragon-fly,
A wingéd flash, goes by;
And tawny wasp and hornet
Seem gleams that drone;
The beetle, like a garnet,
Slips from the stone;
And butterflies float there,
Spangling with gold the air.

Here the brown thrashers hide,
The chat and cat-bird chide;
The blue kingfisher houses
Ab...