Float in the winds of heaven, O tattered Flag!
Emblem of hope to all the misruled world:
Thy field of golden stars is rent and red
Dyed in the blood of brothers madly spilled
By brother-hands upon the mother-soil.
O fatal Upas of the savage Nile,[CT]
Transplanted hither rooted multiplied
Watered with bitter tears and sending forth
Thy venom-vapors till the land is mad,
Thy day is done. A million blades are swung
To lay thy jungles open to the sun;
A million torches fire thy blasted boles;
A million hands shall drag thy fibers out
And feed the fires till every root and branch
Lie in dead ashes. From the blackened soil,
Enriched and moistened with fraternal blood,
Beside the palm shall spring the olive-tree,
And every breeze shall waft the happy ...

[1]

To Mademoiselle De Sévigné.[2]

Sévigné, type of every grace
In female form and face,
In your regardlessness of men,
Can you show favour when
The sportive fable craves your ear,
And see, unmoved by fear,
A lion's haughty heart
Thrust through by Love's audacious dart?
Strange conqueror, Love! And happy he,
And strangely privileged and free,
Who only knows by story
Him and his feats of glory!
If on this subject you are wont
To think the simple truth too blunt,
The fabulous may less affront;
Which now, inspired with gratitude,
Yea, kindled into zeal most fervent,
Doth venture to intrude
Within your maiden solitude,
And kneel, your humble servant. -
In times when animals were speakers,
Among t...

While History's Muse the memorial was keeping
    Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves,
Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping,
    For hers was the story that blotted the leaves.
But oh! how the tear in her eyelids grew bright,
When, after whole pages of sorrow and shame,
        She saw History write,
        With a pencil of light
That illumed the whole volume, her Wellington's name.

"Hail, Star of my Isle!" said the Spirit, all sparkling
    With beams, such as break from her own dewy skies--
"Thro' ages of sorrow, deserted and darkling,
    "I've watched for some glory like thine to arise.
"For, tho' heroes I've numbered, unblest was their lot,
"And unhallowed they sleep in the crossways of Fame;--
        "But oh! there is not
        "...

I stood on the Land's End, alone and still.
    Man might have been unmade, for no frail trace
    Of mortal labour startled the wild place,
And only sea-mews with their wailing shrill,
    Circled beneath me over the dark sea,
Flashing the waves with pinions snowy white,
That glimmer'd faintly in the gloomy light
    Betwixt the foaming furrows constantly.
It was a mighty cape, that proudly rose
    Above the world of waters, high and steep,
    With many a scar and fissure fathoms deep,
Upon whose ledges lodged the endless snows;
    A noble brow to a firm-founded world,
    That at the limits of its empire stood,
    Fronting the ocean in its roughest mood,
And all its fury calmly backward hurl'd.
    The Midnight Sun rose like an angry god,
Girt round...

You mustn't show weakness
and you've got to have a tan.
But sometimes I feel like the thin veils
of Jewish women who faint
at weddings and on Yom Kippur.

You mustn't show weakness
and you've got to make a list
of all the things you can load
in a baby carriage without a baby.

This is the way things stand now:
if I pull out the stopper
after pampering myself in the bath,
I'm afraid that all of Jerusalem, and with it the whole world,
will drain out into the huge darkness.

In the daytime I lay traps for my memories
and at night I work in the Balaam Mills,
turning curse into blessing and blessing into curse.

And don't ever show weakness.
Sometimes I come crashing down inside myself
without anyone noticing. I'm like an ambulanc...

At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
In the wild purple of the glowering sun,
Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,
Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire.
The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed
With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear,
Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire.
Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,
They leave their trenches, going over the top,
While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists,
And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists,
Flounders in mud. O Jesu, make it stop!

When in brave days of old, Theology
Flourished with utmost sap and energy,
A celebrated doctor, it is said,
When he had force-fed some indifferent heads;
Had stirred them in their blackest lethargy
Vaulted himself towards holy ecstasy
By mystic processes he scarcely knew,
A state pure souls alone were welcomed to.
This man who'd tried to grasp beyond his reach,
Flushed with Satanic pride, made bold in speech:
'O little Jesus! I have raised you high!
But if I chose to take the other side,
Thou helpless one, I'd bring thy glory low,
The Christ child an outlandish embryo!'

At once his Reason's sentence had begun.
Shrouded in crepe was this once-blazing sun;
All chaos rolled in this intelligence
Before, a temple, ordered, opulent,
Where he'd held f...

What means this gathering multitude,
    Upon thy shores, O, Galilee,
As various as the billows rude
    That sweep thy ever restless sea?
        Can but the mandate of a King
        So varied an assemblage bring?

Behold the noble, rich, and great,
    From Levite, Pharisee and Priest,
Down to the lowest dregs of fate,
    From mightiest even to the least;
        Yes, in this motley throng we find
        The palsied, sick, mute, halt, and blind.

Is this some grand affair of state,
    A coronation, or display,
By some vainglorious potentate,--
    Or can this concourse mark the day
        Of some victorious hero's march
        Homeward, through triumphal arch?

Or, have they come to celebrate
    Some sacred sacerdotal rit...

Discreet and prudent we that discord call
That either profits, or not hurts at all.

What we, when face to face we see
The Father of our souls, shall be,
John tells us, doth not yet appear;
Ah! did he tell what we are here!

A mind for thoughts to pass into,
A heart for loves to travel through,
Five senses to detect things near,
Is this the whole that we are here?

Rules baffle instincts–instincts rules,
Wise men are bad–and good are fools,
Facts evil–wishes vain appear,
We cannot go, why are we here?

O may we for assurance sake,
Some arbitrary judgment take,
And wilfully pronounce it clear,
For this or that ’tis we are here?

Or is it right, and will it do,
To pace the sad confusion through,
And say:–It doth not yet appear,
What we shall be, what we are here.

Ah yet, when all is thought and said,...

The Ancient of Days forever is young,
Forever the scheme of Nature thrives;
I know a wind in purpose strong--
It spins against the way it drives.
What if the gulfs their slimed foundations bare?
So deep must the stones be hurled
Whereon the throes of ages rear
The final empire and the happier world.

Power unanointed may come--
Dominion (unsought by the free)
And the Iron Dome,
Stronger for stress and strain,
Fling her huge shadow athwart the main;
But the Founders' dream shall flee.
Age after age has been,
(From man's changeless heart their way they win);
And death be busy with all who strive--
Death, with silent negative.

Yea and Nay--
Each hath his say;
But God He keeps the middle way.
None ...