No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life, that in me has rest,
As I, undying Life, have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as wither'd weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchor'd on
The steadfast rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universe...

Spare, generous victor, spare the slave,
Who did unequal war pursue;
That more than triumph he might have,
In being overcome by you.

In the dispute, whate'er I said,
My heart was by my tongue belied;
And in my looks you might have read
How much I argued on your side.

You, far from danger as from fear,
Might have sustain'd an open fight;
For seldom your opinions err,
Your eyes are always in the right.

Why, fair one, would you not rely
On reason's force with beauty's join'd?
Could I their prevalence deny,
I must at once be deaf and blind.

Alas! not hoping to subdue,
I only to the fight aspired:
To keep the beauteous foe in view
Was all the glory I desired.

But she, howe'er of victory sure,
Contemns the wreat...

The Brave young Marquis, second but to one
For whom he felt the reverence of a son,
Rides at the head of his division proud -
A ray of Glory painted on the cloud!
Mad Anthony is there, and Knox - but why
Great names like battle flags attempt to fly?
Who sings of skies lit up by Jove and Mars
Thinks not to chant a catalogue of stars!
I bow me low, and bowing low I pass
Unnumbered heroes in unnumbered mass,
While at their head in grave, and sober state,
Rides one whom Time has found completely great
Master of Fortune and the match of Fate!


Then Tilghman mounted on these Plains of York
Swift sped away as speeds the homing hawk,
And soon 'twas his to wake that watchman's cry
That woke all Nations and shall never die!

The ordeal's fatal trumpet sounded,
And sad pale Adelgitha came,
When forth a valiant champion bounded,
And slew the slanderer of her fame.

She wept, delivered from her danger;
But when he knelt to claim her glove
"Seek not!" she cried, "oh, gallant stranger,
For hapless Adelgitha's love.

For he is dead and in a foreign land
Whose arm should now have set me free;
And I must wear the willow garland
For him that's dead, or false to me."

"Nay! say not that his faith is tainted!"
He raised his visor. At the sight
She fell into his arms and fainted;
It was indeed her one true knight!

(AT WESTMINSTER)

Within these long gray shadows many dead
Lie waiting: we wait with them. Do you believe
That at the last the threadbare soul will give
All his shifts over, and stand dishevellèd,
Naked in truth? Then we shall hear it said,
"Ye two have waited long, daring to live
Grimly through days tormented; now reprieve
Awaiteth you with all these ancient dead!"

The slope sun letteth down thro' our dark bars
His ladder from the skies. Hand fast in hand,
With quiet hearts and footsteps quiet and slow,
Like children venturous in an unknown land
We will come to the fields whose flowers are stars,
And kneeling ask, "Lord, wilt Thou crown us now?"

By whom was David taught
To aim the deadly blow,
When he Goliath fought,
And laid the Gittite low?
Nor sword nor spear the stripling took,
But chose a pebble from the brook.


‘Twas Israel’s God and King
Who sent him to the fight;
Who gave him strength to sling,
And skill to aim aright.
Ye feeble saints, your strength endures,
Because young David’s God is yours.


Who order’d Gideon forth,
To storm the invader’s camp,
With arms of little worth,
A pitcher and a lamp?[1]
The trumpets made his coming known,
And all the host was overthrown.


Oh! I have seen the day,
When, with a single word,
God helping me to say,
My trust is in the Lord,
My soul hath quell’d a thousand foes,
Fearless of ...

O Mother Earth, I have a fear
Which I would tell to thee--
Softly and gently in thine ear
When the moon and we are three.

Thy grass and flowers are beautiful;
Among thy trees I hide;
And underneath the moonlight cool
Thy sea looks broad and wide;

But this I fear--lest thou shouldst grow
To me so small and strange,
So distant I should never know
On thee a shade of change,

Although great earthquakes should uplift
Deep mountains from their base,
And thy continual motion shift
The lands upon thy face;--

The grass, the flowers, the dews that lie
Upon them as before--
Driven upwards evermore, lest I
Should love these things no more.

Even now thou dimly hast a place
In deep star galaxies!
And I, driven ever ...

You have the grit and the guts, I know;
You are ready to answer blow for blow
You are virile, combative, stubborn, hard,
But your honor ends with your own back-yard;
Each man intent on his private goal,
You have no feeling for the whole;
What singly none would tolerate
You let unpunished hit the state,
Unmindful that each man must share
The stain he lets his country wear,
And (what no traveller ignores)
That her good name is often yours.

You are proud in the pride that feels its might;
From your imaginary height
Men of another race or hue
Are men of a lesser breed to you:
The neighbor at your southern gate
You treat with the scorn that has bred his hate.
To lend a spice to your disrespect
You call him the "greaser". But reflect!
The g...

Blessings there are of cradle and of clan,
Blessings that fall of priests' and princes' hands;
But never blessing full of lives and lands,
Broad as the blessing of a lonely man.

Though that old king fell from his primal throne,
And ate among the cattle, yet this pride
Had found him in the deepest grass, and cried
An 'Ecce Homo' with the trumpets blown.

And no mad tyrant, with almighty ban,
Who in strong madness dreams himself divine,
But hears through fumes of flattery and of wine
The thunder of this blessing name him man.

Let all earth rot past saints' and seraphs' plea,
Yet shall a Voice cry through its last lost war,
'This is the world, this red wreck of a star,
That a man blessed beneath an alder-tree.'

Lord, save their souls alive!
And--for the rest,--
We leave it all to Thee;
Thou knowest best.

Whether they live or die,
Safely they'll rest,
Every true soul of them,
Thy Chosen Guest.

Whether they live or die,
They chose the best,
They sprang to Duty's call,
They stood the test.

If they come back to us--
How grateful we!
If not,--we may not grieve;
They are with Thee.

No soul of them shall fail,
Whate'er the past.
Who dies for Thee and Thine
Wins Thee at last.

Who, through the fiery gates,
Enter Thy rest,
Greet them as conquerors,--
Bravest and best!

Every white soul of them,
Ransomed and blest,--
Wear them as living gems,
Bear them as living flames,
High on Thy br...

Let not a tear be shed!
    Of grief give not a token,
Although the silver thread
    And golden bowl be broken!
A warrior lived--a Christian died!
Sorrow's forgotten in our pride!

Go, bring his battle-blade,
    His helmet and his plume!
And be his trophies laid
    Beside him in the tomb,
Where files of time-marked veterans come
With martial tramp and muffled drum!

Give to the earth his frame,
    To moulder and decay;
But not his deathless name--
    That can not pass away!
In youth, in manhood, and in age,
He dignified his country's page!

Green be the willow-bough
    Above the swelling mound,
Where sleeps the hero now
    In consecrated ground:
Thy epitaph, O Delavan!
God's noblest work--an honest man!

                Three times have I beheld
    Fear leap in a babe’s face, and take his breath,
                Fear, like the fear of eld
    That knows the price of life, the name of death.

                What is it justifies
    This thing, this dread, this fright that has no tongue,
                The terror in those eyes
    When only eyes can speak-they are so young?

                Not yet those eyes had wept.
    What does fear cherish that it locks so well?
                What fortress is thus kept?
    Of what is ignorant terror sentinel?

                And pain in the poor child,
    Monstrously disproportionate, and dumb
                In the poor beast, and wild
    In the old decorous man, caught, overcome?

           ...

Over the surging tides and the mountain kingdoms,
Over the pastoral valleys and the meadows,
Over the cities with their factory darkness,
Over the lands where peace is still a power,
Over all these and all this planet carries
A power broods, invisible monarch, a stranger
To some, but by many trusted. Man's a believer
Until corrupted. This huge trusted power
Is spirit. He moves in the muscle of the world,
In continual creation. He burns the tides, he shines
From the matchless skies. He is the day's surrender.
Recognize him in the eye of the angry tiger,
In the sign of a child stepping at last into sleep,
In whatever touches, graces and confesses,
In hopes fulfilled or forgotten, in promises

Kept, in the resignation of old men,
This spirit, this power, thi...

haud curat Hippoclides.
        ERASM. Adag.


To those we love we've drank tonight;
    But now attend and stare not,
While I the ampler list recite
    Of those for whom WE CARE NOT.

For royal men, howe'er they frown,
    If on their fronts they bear not
That noblest gem that decks a crown,
    The People's Love--WE CARE NOT.

For slavish men who bend beneath
    A despot yoke, yet dare not
Pronounce the will whose very breath
    Would rend its links--WE CARE NOT.

For priestly men who covet sway
    And wealth, tho' they declare not;
Who point, like finger-posts, the way
    They never go--WE CARE NOT.

For martial men who on their sword,
    Howe'er it conquers, wear not
The pledges of a sol...

Men of the North-land! where's the manly spirit
Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone?
Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit
Their names alone?
Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us,
Stoops the strong manhood of our souls so low,
That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us
To silence now?
Now, when our land to ruin's brink is verging,
In God's name, let us speak while there is time!
Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forging,
Silence is crime!
What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors
Rights all our own? In madness shall we barter,
For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature gave us,
God and our charter?
Here shall the statesman forge his human fetters,
Here the false jurist human rights deny,
And in the church, their proud an...

WHEN Francis (named the first) o'er Frenchmen reign'd,
In Italy young Arthur laurels gained,
And oft such daring valour showed in fight,
With ev'ry honour he was made a knight;
The monarch placed the spur upon his heel,
That all around his proper worth might feel.
Then household deities at home he sought,
Where - not at prayers his beauteous dame he caught:
He'd left her, truly, quite dissolv'd in tears;
But now the belle had bid adieu to fears;
And oft was dancing joyously around,
With all the company that could be found.

GALLANTS in crowds Sir Arthur soon perceived;
At sight of these the knight was sorely grieved;
And, turning in his mind how best to act;
Cried he, Can this be truly held a fact,
That I've been worthy while I'd fame in view,
Of cuc...

I.

They who maintained their rights,
Through storm and stress,
And walked in all the ways
That God made known,
Led by no wandering lights,
And by no guess,
Through dark and desolate days
Of trial and moan:
Here let their monument
Rise, like a word
In rock commemorative
Of our Land's youth;
Of ways the Puritan went,
With soul love-spurred
To suffer, die, and live
For faith and truth.
Here they the corner-stone
Of Freedom laid;
Here in their hearts' distress
They lit the lights
Of Liberty alone;
Here, with God's aid,
Conquered the wilderness,
Secured their rights.
Not men, but giants, they,
Who wrought with toil
And sweat of brawn and brain
Their freehold here;
Who, with their blood, each day...

("Mon pére, ce héros au sourire.")

[Bk. XLIX. iv.]


My sire, the hero with the smile so soft,
And a tall trooper, his companion oft,
Whom he loved greatly for his courage high
And strength and stature, as the night drew nigh
Rode out together. The battle was done;
The dead strewed the field; long sunk was the sun.
It seemed in the darkness a sound they heard, -
Was it feeble moaning or uttered word?
'Twas a Spaniard left from the force in flight,
Who had crawled to the roadside after fight;
Shattered and livid, less live than dead,
Rattled his throat as hoarsely he said:
"Water, water to drink, for pity's sake!
Oh, a drop of water this thirst to slake!"
My father, moved at his speech heart-wrung,
Handed the orderly, downward leapt,...