War

Warriors true, 'tis no false glory
    For which now you peril life, -
For no worthless aim unholy,
    Do ye plunge into the strife;
No unstable, fleeting vision
    Bright before your gaze hath shone,
No day dream of wild ambition,
    Now your footsteps urges on:

But a cause both great and glorious,
    Worthy of a Christian's might,
One which yet shall be victorious, -
    'Tis the cause of God and right:
Men! by aim more pure and holy
    Say, could soldiers be enticed?
Strike for truth and conscience solely,
    Strike for Pius and for Christ.

Even like the brave Crusaders -
    Heroes true and tried of old,
You would check the rash invaders
    Of all that we sacred hold.
And though hosts your steps beleaguer,
    Fu...

How steep the stairs within Kings' houses are
For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,
And O how salt and bitter is the bread
Which falls from this Hound's table, better far
That I had died in the red ways of war,
Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,
Than to live thus, by all things comraded
Which seek the essence of my soul to mar.

'Curse God and die: what better hope than this?
He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss
Of his gold city, and eternal day'
Nay peace: behind my prison's blinded bars
I do possess what none can take away
My love, and all the glory of the stars.

Snug at the club two fathers sat,
Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat.
One of them said: "My eldest lad
Writes cheery letters from Bagdad.
But Arthur's getting all the fun
At Arras with his nine-inch gun."

"Yes," wheezed the other, "that's the luck!
My boy's quite broken-hearted, stuck
In England training all this year.
Still, if there's truth in what we hear,
The Huns intend to ask for more
Before they bolt across the Rhine."
I watched them toddle through the door -
These impotent old friends of mine.

I

Peradventure of old, some bard in Ionian Islands,
    Walking alone by the sea, hearing the wash of the waves,
Learned the secret from them of the beautiful verse elegiac,
    Breathing into his song motion and sound of the sea.

For as the wave of the sea, upheaving in long undulations,
    Plunges loud on the sands, pauses, and turns, and retreats,
So the Hexameter, rising and singing, with cadence sonorous,
    Falls; and in refluent rhythm back the Pentameter flows?

II

Not in his youth alone, but in age, may the heart of the poet
    Bloom into song, as the gorse blossoms in autumn and spring.

III

Not in tenderness wanting, yet rough are the rhymes of our poet;
    Though it be Jacob's voice, Esau's, alas! are the hands.

A song for the unsung heroes who rose in the country's need,
When the life of the land was threatened by the slaver's cruel greed,
For the men who came from the cornfield, who came from the plough and the flail,
Who rallied round when they heard the sound of the mighty man of the rail.

They laid them down in the valleys, they laid them down in the wood,
And the world looked on at the work they did, and whispered, "It is good."
They fought their way on the hillside, they fought their way in the glen,
And God looked down on their sinews brown, and said, "I have made them men."

They went to the blue lines gladly, and the blue lines took them in,
And the men who saw their muskets' fire thought not of their dusky skin.
The gray lines rose and melted beneath their scathing showers,

        On grassy amphitheatre,
        Spectators sit to view the war,
        'Mong bold contestants on the plain
        Where each doth strive the prize to gain.

        Come witness the great tug of war,
        And see great hammer thrown afar,
        See running, jumping, highland fling,
        At concert hear the skylark sing.

        And the bagpipes will send thrills,
        Like echoes from the distant hills,
        And the bold sound of the pibroch,
        Which does resound o'er highland loch.

        Young men and maids and fine old dames
        Will gather on the banks of Thames,
        And though we have a tug of war
        'Twill leave no wound or deadly scar.

In Nature's bright blossoms not always reposes
    That strange subtle essence more rare than their bloom,
Which lies in the hearts of carnations and roses,
    That unexplained something by men called perfume.
Though modest the flower, yet great is its power
    And pregnant with meaning each pistil and leaf,
If only it hides there, if only abides there,
    The fragrance suggestive of love, joy, and grief.

Not always the air that a master composes
    Can stir human heart-strings with pleasure or pain.
But strange, subtle chords, like the scent of the roses,
    Breathe out of some measures, though simple the strain.
And lo! when you hear them, you love them and fear them,
    You tremble with anguish, you thrill with delight,
For back of them slumber old dreams...

    Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
    Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
    Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
    And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
    Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
    But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
    Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
    Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

    Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
    Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
    But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
    And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
    Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
    As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

    In all my dreams before my helpless sight
    He p...

Our band is few, but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles
When Marion's name is told.
Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress-tree;
We know the forest round us,
As seamen know the sea.
We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,
Its safe and silent islands
Within the dark morass.

Wo to the English soldiery
That little dread us near!
On them shall light at midnight
A strange and sudden fear:
When waking to their tents on fire
They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us
Are beat to earth again;
And they who fly in terror deem
A mighty host behind,
And hear the tramp of thousands
Upon the hollow wind.

Then sweet the hour that ...

Just from the sentry's tramp
(I must take it again at ten),
I have laid my musket down,
And seized instead my pen;
For, pacing my lonely round
In the chilly twilight gray,
The thought, dear Mary, came,
That this is St. Valentine's Day.

And with the thought there came
A glimpse of the happy time
When a school-boy's first attempt
I sent you, in borrowed rhyme,
On a gilt-edged sheet, embossed
With many a quaint design,
And signed, in school-boy hand,
"Your loving Valentine."

The years have come and gone,--
Have flown, I know not where, --
And the school-boy's merry face
Is grave with manhood's care;
But the heart of the man still beats
At the well-remembered name,
And on this St. Valentine's Day
His choice is still t...

I rose up as my custom is
    On the eve of All-Souls' day,
And left my grave for an hour or so
To call on those I used to know
    Before I passed away.

I visited my former Love
    As she lay by her husband's side;
I asked her if life pleased her, now
She was rid of a poet wrung in brow,
    And crazed with the ills he eyed;

Who used to drag her here and there
    Wherever his fancies led,
And point out pale phantasmal things,
And talk of vain vague purposings
    That she discredited.

She was quite civil, and replied,
    "Old comrade, is that you?
Well, on the whole, I like my life. -
I know I swore I'd be no wife,
    But what was I to do?

"You see, of all men for my sex
    A poet is the worst;
Women ...

Oh Peace, oh come with me and dwell -
But stop, for there's the bell.
Oh Peace! for thee I go and sit in churches
On Wednesday, when there's very few
In loft or pew -
Another ring, the tarts are come from Birch's.
Oh Peace! for thee I have avoided marriage -
Hush! there's a carriage.
Oh Peace! thou art the best of earthly goods -
The five Miss Woods!
Oh Peace! thou art the goddess I adore -
There come some more.
Oh Peace! thou child of solitude and quiet -
That's Lord Dunn's footman, for he loves a riot!

Oh Peace!
Knocks will not cease.
Oh Peace! thou wert for human comfort plann'd -
That's Weippert's band.
Oh Peace! how glad I welcome thy approaches -
I hear the sound of coaches.
Oh Peace! oh Peace! another carriage stops -
It's...

The storm and peril overpast,
The hounding hatred shamed and still,
Go, soul of freedom! take at last
The place which thou alone canst fill.
Confirm the lesson taught of old
Life saved for self is lost, while they
Who lose it in His service hold
The lease of God's eternal day.
Not for thyself, but for the slave
Thy words of thunder shook the world;
No selfish griefs or hatred gave
The strength wherewith thy bolts were hurled.
From lips that Sinai's trumpet blew
We heard a tender under song;
Thy very wrath from pity grew,
From love of man thy hate of wrong.
Now past and present are as one;
The life below is life above;
Thy mortal years have but begun
Thy immortality of love.
With somewhat of thy lofty faith
We lay thy outworn garment by...

Some starlit garden grey with dew,
Some chamber flushed with wine and fire,
What matters where, so I and you
Are worthy our desire?

Behind, a past that scolds and jeers
For ungirt loin and lamp unlit;
In front the unmanageable years,
The trap upon the pit;

Think on the shame of dreams for deeds,
The scandal of unnatural strife,
The slur upon immortal needs,
The treason done to life:

Arise! no more a living lie
And with me quicken and control
A memory that shall magnify
The universal Soul.

WOODSTOCK, CONN., JULY 4, 1877

Not to myself this breath of vesper song,
Not to these patient friends, this kindly throng,
Not to this hallowed morning, though it be
Our summer Christmas, Freedom's jubilee,
When every summit, topmast, steeple, tower,
That owns her empire spreads her starry flower,
Its blood-streaked leaves in heaven's benignant dew
Washed clean from every crimson stain they knew, -
No, not to these the passing thrills belong
That steal my breath to hush themselves with song.
These moments all are memory's; I have come
To speak with lips that rather should be dumb;
For what are words? At every step I tread
The dust that wore the footprints of the dead
But for whose life my life had never known
This faded vesture which it calls its own.

Tho' leafless are the woods, tho' flow'rs no more,
In beauty blushing, spread their fragrant store,
Yet still 'tis sweet to quit the crowded scene,
And rove with Nature, tho' no longer green;
For Winter bids her winds so softly blow,
That, cold and famine scorning, even now
The feather'd warblers still delight the ear,
And all of Summer, but her leaves, is here.
Here, on this winding garden's sloping bound,
'Tis sweet to listen to each rustic sound,
The distant dog-bark, and the rippling rill,
Or catch the sparkling of the water-mill.
The tranquil scene each tender feeling moves;
As the eye rests on Holwood's naked groves,
A tear bedims the sight for Chatham's son,
For him whose god-like eloquence could stun,
Like some vast cat'ract, Faction's clam'rous tongue...

Rufus Gale speaks - 1852


Yes, - in the Lincoln Militia, - in the war of eighteen-twelve;
Many's the day I've had since then to dig and delve -
But those are the years I remember as the brightest years of all,
When we left the plow in the furrow to follow the bugle's call.
Why, even our son Abner wanted to fight with the men!
"Don't you go, d'ye hear, sir!" - I was angry with him then.
"Stay with your mother!" I said, and he looked so old and grim -
He was just sixteen that April - I couldn't believe it was him;
But I didn't think - I was off - and we met the foe again,
Five thousand strong and ready, at the hill by Lundy's Lane.
There as the night came on we fought them from six to nine,
Whenever they broke our line we broke their line,
They took our guns and we ...

In Presence Of The Painted Tower Of Tell, At Altorf.


What though the Italian pencil wrought not here,
Nor such fine skill as did the meed bestow
On Marathonian valour, yet the tear
Springs forth in presence of this gaudy show,
While narrow cares their limits overflow.
Thrice happy, burghers, peasants, warriors old,
Infants in arms, and ye, that as ye go
Homeward or schoolward, ape what ye behold!
Heroes before your time, in frolic fancy bold!

And when that calm Spectatress from on high
Looks down the bright and solitary Moon,
Who never gazes but to beautify;
And snow-fed torrents, which the blaze of noon
Roused into fury, murmur a soft tune
That fosters peace, and gentleness recalls;
'Then' might the passing Monk receive a boon
Of saintl...