Spirituality

For some forty years, and over,
Poets had with me their way;
And they made me think that Sorrow
Owned the Night and owned the Day;
And the corpse beneath the clover
Had a hopeful word to say.

And they made me think that Sorrow
Was the Shadow in the Sun;
And they made me think To-morrow
Was a gift to everyone:
And the days I used to borrow,
Till my credit now is done.

And they told me softly, sweetly,
That, when Life had lost its glee,
I could be consoled completely

By the Forest or the Sea;
And they wrote their rhymes so neatly
That they quite deluded me.

But when Sorrow is at sorest,
And the heart weeps silently,
Is there healing in the Forest?
Is there solace in the Sea?
And the God whom thou adorest

When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!

Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night,
Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray,
Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
Peep with the moonbeams through the leafy roof,
And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof!

Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,
Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:
Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
And f...

No Berserk thirst of blood had they,
No battle-joy was theirs, who set
Against the alien bayonet
Their homespun breasts in that old day.

Their feet had trodden peaceful, ways;
They loved not strife, they dreaded pain;
They saw not, what to us is plain,
That God would make man's wrath his praise.

No seers were they, but simple men;
Its vast results the future hid
The meaning of the work they did
Was strange and dark and doubtful then.

Swift as their summons came they left
The plough mid-furrow standing still,
The half-ground corn grist in the mill,
The spade in earth, the axe in cleft.

They went where duty seemed to call,
They scarcely asked the reason why;
They only knew they could but die,
And death was not the worst of ...

And dwells there in a female heart,
By bounteous Heaven design’d,
The choicest raptures to impart,
To feel the most refined—


Dwells there a wish in such a breast
Its nature to forego,
To smother in ignoble rest
At once both bliss and woe!


Far be the thought, and far the strain,
Which breathes the low desire,
How sweet soe’er the verse complain,
Though Phœbus string the lyre.


Come, then, fair maid (in nature wise),
Who, knowing them, can tell
From generous sympathy what joys
The glowing bosom swell:


In justice to the various powers
Of pleasing, which you share,
Join me, amid your silent hours,
To form the better prayer.


With lenient balm may Oberon hence
To fairy-land be driven...

I

In youth I have known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held, as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light such for his spirit was fit,
And yet that spirit knew, not in the hour
Of its own fervor, what had o’er it power.


II

Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a ferver by the moonbeam that hangs o’er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ever told, or is it of a thought
The unembodied essence, and no more
That with a quickening spell doth o’er us pass
As dew of the night-time, o’er the summer grass?


III
<...

(Written during sickness).

Soul -
    Oh! say must I leave this world of light
    With its sparkling streams and sunshine bright,
    Its budding flowers, its glorious sky?
    Vain 'tis to ask me - I cannot die!

Angel -
    But, sister, list! in the realms above,
    That happy home of eternal love,
    Are flowers more fair, and skies more clear
    Than those thou dost cling to so fondly here.

Soul -
    Ah! yes, but to reach that home of light
    I must pass through the fearful vale of night;
    And my soul with alarm doth shuddering cry -
    O angel, I tell thee, I dare not die!

Angel -
    Ah! mortal beloved, in that path untried
    Will I be, as ever, still at thy side,
    T...

Above the valleys, over rills and meres,
Above the mountains, woods, the oceans, clouds,
Beyond the sun, past all ethereal bounds,
Beyond the borders of the starry spheres,

My agile spirit, how you take your flight!
Like a strong swimmer swooning on the sea
You gaily plough the vast immensity
With manly, inexpressible delight.

F1y far above this morbid, vaporous place;
Go cleanse yourself in higher, finer air,
And drink up, like a pure, divine liqueur,
Bright fire, out of clear and limpid space.

Beyond ennui, past troubles and ordeals
That load our dim existence with their weight,
Happy the strong-winged man, who makes the great
Leap upward to the bright and peaceful fields!

The man whose thoughts, like larks, take to their wings
E...

I have trod this path a hundred times
With idle footsteps, crooning rhymes.
I know each nest and web-worm's tent,
The fox-hole which the woodchucks rent,
Maple and oak, the old Divan
Self-planted twice, like the banian.
I know not why I came again
Unless to learn it ten times ten.
To read the sense the woods impart
You must bring the throbbing heart.
Love is aye the counterforce,--
Terror and Hope and wild Remorse,
Newest knowledge, fiery thought,
Or Duty to grand purpose wrought.
Wandering yester morn the brake,
I reached this heath beside the lake,
And oh, the wonder of the power,
The deeper secret of the hour!
Nature, the supplement of man,
His hidden sense interpret can;--
What friend to friend cannot convey
Shall the dumb bird ins...

We traveled by a mountain's edge,
It was September calm and bright,
Nature had decked its rocky ledge
With flowers of varied hue and height.
It seemed a miracle that they
Should flourish in that meager soil,
As noble spirits oftenest may
Gleam forth through poverty and toil.

Below were rippling, sparkling streams
Through meadows kissed by shadowy hills,
Reflecting autumn's peaceful dreams
Within those swift, translucent rills.
This lesson should these scenes impart
As on the road of life we go,
To do our duty and take heart,
As flowers bloom and streamlets flow.

Perhaps in ages yet to be
May flowers wave here e'en as today,
These streams still rush in merry glee
To cheer and charm who here may stray;
But we upon Time's rapid tid...

Softly, softly, Niccolo Amati!
What can put such fancies in your head?
There, go dream of your blue-skied Cremona,
While I ponder something you have said.

Something in that last low lovely cadence
Piercing the green dusk alone and far,
Named a new room in the house of knowledge,
Waiting unfrequented, door ajar.

While you dream then, let me unmolested
Pass in childish wonder through that door,--
Breathless, touch and marvel at the beauties
Soon my wiser elders must explore.

Ah, my Niccolo, it's no great science
We shall ever conquer, you and I.
Yet, when you are nestled at my shoulder,
Others guess not half that we descry.

As all sight is but a finer hearing,
And all color but a finer sound,
Beauty, but the reach of lyric freed...

A Pilgrim, when the summer day
Had closed upon his weary way,
A lodging begged beneath a castle's roof;
But him the haughty Warder spurned;
And from the gate the Pilgrim turned,
To seek such covert as the field
Or heath-besprinkled copse might yield,
Or lofty wood, shower-proof.

He paced along; and, pensively,
Halting beneath a shady tree,
Whose moss-grown root might serve for couch or seat,
Fixed on a Star his upward eye;
Then, from the tenant of the sky
He turned, and watched with kindred look,
A Glow-worm, in a dusky nook,
Apparent at his feet.

The murmur of a neighbouring stream
Induced a soft and slumbrous dream,
A pregnant dream, within whose shadowy bounds
He recognised the earth-born Star,
And 'That' which glittered from...

    My heart is full of inarticulate pain,
        And beats laborious. Cold ungenial looks
    Invade my sanctuary. Men of gain,
        Wise in success, well-read in feeble books,
    No nigher come, I pray: your air is drear;
    'Tis winter and low skies when ye appear.

    Beloved, who love beauty and fair truth,
        Come nearer me; too near ye cannot come;
    Make me an atmosphere with your sweet youth;
        Give me your souls to breathe in, a large room;
    Speak not a word, for, see, my spirit lies
    Helpless and dumb; shine on me with your eyes.

    O all wide places, far from feverous towns;
        Great shining seas; pine forests; mountains wild;
    Rock-bosomed shores; rough heaths, and sheep-cropt downs;
        Vast pallid clo...

Beyond yon dim old mountain's shadowy height,
    The restless sun droops low his grand old face;
While downward sweeps the trembling veil of night,
    To hide the earth; the frost king's filmy lace
Rests on the mountain's hoary snow-crowned head,
    And adds to it a softened grace; the light
Which dies afar in faint and fading red
    In purple shadows circles near.

                    The flight
Of birds across the vast and silent plains
    Awakes the echoes of the sleeping earth;
Of all the summer beauty naught remains,
    There come no tidings of the spring's glad birth.

Beyond the valley and far-off height
    The birds in wandering do take their way;
Ah, whither is their strange and trackless flight
    Amid the dying embers of the day;

Beside a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
Hung heavily the dew of blood.

Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,
But all the air was quick with pain
And gusty sighs and tearful rain.

Two angels, each with drooping head
And folded wings and noiseless tread,
Watched by that valley of the dead.

The one, with forehead saintly bland
And lips of blessing, not command,
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.

The other’s brows were scarred and knit,
His restless eyes were watch-fires lit,
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.

“How long!” I knew the voice of Peace,
“Is there no respite? no release?
When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?

“O Lord, how long!! One human soul
Is more than any parchm...

I.

Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plow’d hills
With loving blue;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.



II.

Opens a door in heaven;
From skies of glass
A Jacob’s ladder falls
On greening grass,
And o’er the mountain-walls
Young angels pass.



III.

Before them fleets the shower,
And burst the buds,
And shine the level lands,
And flash the floods;
The stars are from their hands
Flung thro’ the woods,



IV.

The woods with living airs
How softly fann’d,
Light airs from where the deep,
All down the sand,
Is breathing in his sleep,
Heard by the land.



V.

O,...

Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
    One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
    Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.

Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
    As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
    Like the burning stars, which they beheld.

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
    God hath written in those stars above;
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
    Stands the revelation of his love.

Bright and glorious is that revelation,
    Written all over this great world of ours;
Making evident our own creation,
    In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.

And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,
    ...

Now those days arrive when, stem throbbing,
each flower sheds its fragrance like a censer:
sounds and scents twine in the evening air:
languorous dizziness, Melancholy dancing!


Each flower sheds its fragrance like a censer:
the violin quivers, a heart that’s suffering:
languorous dizziness, Melancholy dancing!
the sky is lovely, sad like a huge altar.


The violin quivers, a heart that’s suffering:
a heart, hating the vast black void, so tender!
the sky is lovely, sad like a huge altar:
the sun is drowned, in its own blood congealing.


A heart, hating the vast black void, so tender:
each trace of the luminous past it’s gathering!
The sun is drowned, in its own blood congealing
A vessel of the host, your memory shines there.

'Tis well to have a goal in mind,
A life-aim, high and true;
Clear as the day, and well defined,
And ever kept in view.
But God has strewn along the way
Bright flowers of every hue.
Gather the brightest while you may,
For they were meant for you.

Heaven's joy transcends the joys of earth,
But if earth's joys be pure
They must have had a heavenly birth,
And bless while they endure;
So pluck the flower before it fades--
Drink from the purling stream;
Nor look for sorrow's darkening shades,
But for the morning gleam.

Life's burdens lose full half their weight
If gay our spirits be;
The rest beyond we antedate,
And serve, though ever free.
Our lamentations all will end,
Exchanged for smile and song,
And men will mark our u...