Road-Hymn For The Start

                Leave the early bells at chime,
                Leave the kindled hearth to blaze,
        Leave the trellised panes where children linger out the waking-time,
        Leave the forms of sons and fathers trudging through the misty ways,
        Leave the sounds of mothers taking up their sweet laborious days.

                Pass them by! even while our soul
                Yearns to them with keen distress.
        Unto them a part is given; we will strive to see the whole.
        Dear shall be the banquet table where their singing spirits press;
        Dearer be our sacred hunger, and our pilgrim loneliness.

                We have felt the ancient swaying
                Of the earth before the sun,
        On the darkened marge of midnight heard sidereal rivers playing;
        Rash it was to bathe our souls there, but we plunged and all was done.
        That is lives and lives behind us--lo, our journey is begun!

                Careless where our face is set,
                Let us take the open way.
        What we are no tongue has told us: Errand-goers who forget?
        Soldiers heedless of their harry? Pilgrim people gone astray?
        We have heard a voice cry "Wander!" That was all we heard it say.

                Ask no more: 't is much, 't is much!
                Down the road the day-star calls;
        Touched with change in the wide heavens, like a leaf the frost winds
                    touch,
        Flames the failing moon a moment, ere it shrivels white and falls;
        Hid aloft, a wild throat holdeth sweet and sweeter intervals.

                Leave him still to ease in song
                Half his little heart's unrest:
        Speech is his, but we may journey toward the life for which we long.
        God, who gives the bird its anguish, maketh nothing manifest,
        But upon our lifted foreheads pours the boon of endless quest.

William Vaughn Moody

William Vaughn Moody was an American poet, dramatist, and professor born on July 8, 1869, in Spencer, Indiana. He graduated from Harvard University in 1893 and later joined its faculty teaching English literature. His notable works include the play "The Great Divide" and the poem "An Ode in Time of Hesitation." Moody was part of the Chicago literary renaissance. He passed away on October 17, 1910.

William Vaughn Moody

A Dialogue In Purgatory

William Vaughn Moody, Simple Poetry

Heart's Wild-Flower

William Vaughn Moody, Simple Poetry

Harmonics

William Vaughn Moody, Simple Poetry

On A Soldier Fallen In The Philippines

William Vaughn Moody, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Jetsam

        I wonder can this be the world it was
        At sunset? I remember the sky fell
        Green as pale meadows, at the long street-ends,
        But overhead the smoke-wrack hugged the roofs
        As if to shut the city from God's eyes
        Till dawn should quench the laughter and the lights.
        Beneath the gas flare stolid faces passed,
        Too dull for sin; old loosened lips set hard
        To drain the stale lees from the cup of sense;
        Or if a young face yearned from out the mist
        Made by its own bright hair, the eyes were wan
        With desolate fore-knowledge of the end.
        My life lay waste about me: as I walked,
        From the gross dark of unfrequented streets
        The face of my own youth peered forth at me,

William Vaughn Moody

Devotional Incitements

"Not to the earth confined,
Ascend to heaven."


Where will they stop, those breathing Powers,
The Spirits of the new-born flowers?
They wander with the breeze, they wind
Where'er the streams a passage find;
Up from their native ground they rise
In mute aerial harmonies;
From humble violet, modest thyme,
Exhaled, the essential odours climb,
As if no space below the sky
Their subtle flight could satisfy:
Heaven will not tax our thoughts with pride
If like ambition be 'their' guide.

Roused by this kindliest of May-showers,
The spirit-quickener of the flowers,
That with moist virtue softly cleaves
The buds, and freshens the young leaves,
The birds pour forth their souls in notes
Of rapture from a thousand throats
Here checked b...

William Wordsworth

The Song Of The Pilgrims

(Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees.)



What light of unremembered skies
Hast thou relumed within our eyes,
Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .
A certain odour on the wind,
Thy hidden face beyond the west,
These things have called us; on a quest
Older than any road we trod,
More endless than desire. . . .
Far God,
Sigh with thy cruel voice, that fills
The soul with longing for dim hills
And faint horizons! For there come
Grey moments of the antient dumb
Sickness of travel, when no song
Can cheer us; but the way seems long;
And one remembers. . . .
Ah! the beat
Of weary unreturning feet,
And songs of pilgrims unreturning! . . .
The fires we left are always burning
O...

Rupert Brooke

Onward

Onward, still on! - though the pathway be dreary, -
    Though few be the fountains that gladden the way, -
Though the tired spirit grow feeble and weary,
    And droop in the heat of the toil-burdened day;
Green in the distance the hills of thy Canaan
    Lift their bright heads in a tenderer light,
Where the full boughs with rich fruits overladen
    Spread their luxurious treasures in sight.

Onward, still onward! - around us are falling
    Lengthening shadows as daylight departs;
Up from the past mournful voices are calling,
    Often we pause with irresolute hearts.
Wherefore look backward? - the flower thou didst gather
    Wounded thy hand with the thorn it concealed, -
Onward, and stay not! - the voice of thy Father
    Calls thee to glory and bliss u...

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)

Song-Flower And Poppy

        I

        IN NEW YORK

        He plays the deuce with my writing time,
        For the penny my sixth-floor neighbor throws;
        He finds me proud of my pondered rhyme,
        And he leaves me--well, God knows
        It takes the shine from a tunester's line
        When a little mate of the deathless Nine
        Pipes up under your nose!

        For listen, there is his voice again,
        Wistful and clear and piercing sweet.
        Where did the boy find such a strain
        To make a dead heart beat?
        And how in the name of care can he bear
        To jet such a fountain into the air
        In this gray gulch of a street?

        Tuscan slopes or the Piedmontese?
        Umbria under the Apennine?

William Vaughn Moody

To S. C. Blithe Dreams Arise To Greet Us

Blithe dreams arise to greet us,
And life feels clean and new,
For the old love comes to meet us
In the dawning and the dew.
O'erblown with sunny shadows,
O'ersped with winds at play,
The woodlands and the meadows
Are keeping holiday.
Wild foals are scampering, neighing,
Brave merles their hautboys blow:
Come! let us go a-maying
As in the Long-Ago.

Here we but peak and dwindle:
The clank of chain and crane,
The whir of crank and spindle
Bewilder heart and brain;
The ends of our endeavour
Are merely wealth and fame,
Yet in the still Forever
We're one and all the same;
Delaying, still delaying,
We watch the fading west:
Come! let us go a-maying,
Nor fear to take the best.

Yet beautiful and spacious
The wis...

William Ernest Henley