I.

A King once said of a Prince struck down,
"Taller he seems in death."
And this speech holds truth, for now as then
'Tis after death that we measure men,
And as mists of the past are rolled away
Our heroes, who died in their tattered grey,
Grow "taller" and greater in all their parts
Till they fill our minds as they fill our hearts.
And for those who lament them there's this relief -
That Glory sits by the side of Grief,
Yes, they grow "taller" as the years pass by
And the World learns how they could do and die.


II.

A Nation respects them. The East and West,
The far-off slope of the Golden Coast,
The stricken South and the North agree
That the heroes who died for you and me -
Each valiant man, in his own degree,
Whether...

Lions tremble at my claws;
And I at a gazelle with eyes.

From the Turkish of Sultan Selim I.

Your chosen grasp the torch of faith--the key
Of very certainty is theirs to hold.
They read Your word in messages of gold.
Lord, what of us who have no light to see
And in the darkness doubt, whose hands may be
Broken upon the door, who find but cold
Ashes of words where others see enscrolled,
The glorious promise of Life's victory.

Oh, well for those to whom You gave the light
(The light we may not see by) whose award
Is that sure key--that message luminous,
Yet we, your people stumbling in the night,
Doubting and dumb and disbelieving--Lord,
Is there no word for us--no word for us?

Above my head the great pine-branches tower;
Backwards and forwards each to the other bends,
Beckoning the tempest-cloud which hither wends
Like a slow-laboured thought, heavy with power:
Hark to the patter of the coming shower!
Let me be silent while the Almighty sends
His thunder-word along--but when it ends
I will arise and fashion from the hour
Words of stupendous import, fit to guard
High thoughts and purposes, which I may wave,
When the temptation cometh close and hard,
Like fiery brands betwixt me and the grave
Of meaner things--to which I am a slave,
If evermore I keep not watch and ward.

To God and man be simply true:
Do as thou hast been wont to do:
Or, Of the old more in the new:
Mean all the same when said to you.

I love thee. Thou art calm and strong;
Firm in the right, mild to the wrong;
Thy heart, in every raging throng,
A chamber shut for prayer and song.

Defeat thou know'st not, canst not know;
Only thy aims so lofty go,
They need as long to root and grow
As any mountain swathed in snow.

Go on and prosper, holy friend.
I, weak and ignorant, would lend
A voice, thee, strong and wise, to send
Prospering onward, without end.

Captain or Colonel, or Knight in Arms,
Whose chance on these defenceless dores may sease,
If ever deed of honour did thee please,
Guard them, and him within protect from harms,
He can requite thee, for he knows the charms
That call Fame on such gentle acts as these,
And he can spred thy Name o're Lands and Seas,
What ever clime the Suns bright circle warms.
Lift not thy spear against the Muses Bowre,
The great Emathian Conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when Temple and Towre
Went to the ground: And the repeated air
Of sad Electra's Poet had the power
To save th' Athenian Walls from ruine bare.

They stream across the fading western sky
A sable cloud, far o'er the lonely leas;
Now parting into scattered companies,
Now closing up the broken ranks, still high
And higher yet they mount, while, carelessly,
Trail slow behind, athwart the moving trees
A lingering few, 'round whom the evening breeze
Plays with sad whispered murmurs as they fly.

A lonely figure, ghostly in the dim
And darkening twilight, lingers in the shade
Of bending willows: "Surely God has laid
His curse on me," he moans, "my strength of limb
And old heart-courage fail me, and I flee
Bowed with fell terror at this augury."

What mortal, when he saw,
Life’s voyage done, his heavenly Friend,
Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly:
‘I have kept uninfring’d my nature’s law;
The inly-written chart thou gayest me
To guide me, I have steer’d by to the end’?

Ah! let us make no claim
On life’s incognizable sea
To too exact a steering of our way!
Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim
If some fair coast has lured us to make stay,
Or some friend hail’d us to keep company !

Aye, we would each fain drive
At random, and not steer by rule!
Weakness! and worse, weakness bestow’d in vain!
Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive,
We rush by coasts where we had lief remain;
Man cannot, though he would, live chance’s fool.

No! as the foaming swathe
Of torn-...

Ay, man is manly. Here you see
The warrior-carriage of the head,
And brave dilation of the frame;
And lighting all, the soul that led
In Spottsylvania's charge to victory,
Which justifies his fame.

A cheering picture. It is good
To look upon a Chief like this,
In whom the spirit moulds the form.
Here favoring Nature, oft remiss,
With eagle mien expressive has endued
A man to kindle strains that warm.

Trace back his lineage, and his sires,
Yeoman or noble, you shall find
Enrolled with men of Agincourt,
Heroes who shared great Harry's mind.
Down to us come the knightly Norman fires,
And front the Templars bore.

Nothing can lift the heart of man
Like manhood in a fellow-man.
The thought of heaven's great King afar
But hu...

This is he, who, felled by foes,
Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows:
He to captivity was sold,
But him no prison-bars would hold:
Though they sealed him in a rock,
Mountain chains he can unlock:
Thrown to lions for their meat,
The crouching lion kissed his feet;
Bound to the stake, no flames appalled,
But arched o'er him an honoring vault.
This is he men miscall Fate,
Threading dark ways, arriving late,
But ever coming in time to crown
The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down.
He is the oldest, and best known,
More near than aught thou call'st thy own,
Yet, greeted in another's eyes,
Disconcerts with glad surprise.
This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers,
Floods with blessings unawares.
Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line
Severing rightly ...

Weary of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.

And a look of passionate desire
O'er the sea and to the stars I send:
"Ye who from my childhood up have calm'd me,
Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!

"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters,
On my heart your mighty charm renew;
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,
Feel my soul becoming vast like you!"

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,
Over the lit sea's unquiet way,
In the rustling night-air came the answer:
"Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they.

"Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,
These demand...

Here are old trees, tall oaks and gnarled pines,
That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground
Was never trenched by spade, and flowers spring up
Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet
To linger here, among the flitting birds
And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and winds
That shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass,
A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set
With pale blue berries. In these peaceful shades,
Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old,
My thoughts go up the long dim path of years,
Back to the earliest days of liberty.

Oh FREEDOM! thou art not, as poets dream,
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap
With which the Roman master crowned his slave
When he took off the gyves. A bearded man...

A yeoman born, with patrimony small,
He held the world at large as his estate;
Found fit advices in the bugle's call
And took his part in iron-tongued debate
Where'er one sword another sword blade notched;
Ne'er was he slain, though often he was scotched,
Now down, now up, but always fronting fate.

At last a figure resolute, and grand
In arms he leaped upon Virginia's strand;
Fitted in many schools his course to steer
He knew the ax, the musketoon, and brand,
How to obey, and better to command;
First of his line he stood - a planted spear
The New World saw the English Pioneer!

Soul, dost thou fear
For to-day or to-morrow?
'Tis the part of a fool
To go seeking sorrow.
Of thine own doing
Thou canst not contrive them.
'Tis He that shall give them;
Thou may'st not outlive them.
So why cloud to-day
With fear of the sorrow,
That may or may not
Come to-morrow?

I.

Let the coward shrink aside,
We'll have our own again;
Let the brawling slave deride--
Here's for our own again!
Let the tyrant bribe and lie,
March, threaten, fortify,
Loose his lawyer and his spy--
Yet we'll have our own again!
Let him soothe in silken tone,
Scold from a foreign throne:
Let him come with bugles blown--
We shall have our own again!
Let us to our purpose bide,
We'll have our own again!
Let the game be fairly tried,
We'll have our own again!


II.

Send the cry throughout the land,
"Who's for our own again?"
Summon all men to our band,--
Why not our own again?
Rich and poor, and old and young,
Sharp sword, and fiery tongue,
Soul and sinew firmly strung--
All to get our own aga...

Be not dismayed, be not dismayed when death
Sets its white seal upon some worshipped face.
Poor human nature for a little space
Must suffer anguish, when that last drawn breath
Leaves such long silence; but let not thy faith
    Fail for a moment in God's boundless grace.
    But know, oh know, He has prepared a place
Fairer for our dear dead than worlds beneath,
Yet not beneath; for those entrancing spheres
    Surround our earth as seas a barren isle.
Ours is the region of eternal fears;
    Theirs is the region where God's radiant smile
Shines outward from the centre, and gives hope
Even to those who in the shadows grope.
They are not far from us.    At first though long
    And lone may seem the paths that intervene,
    If ever on the staff of prayer we l...

Father of Universal Man,
Where'er in this wide world he roam,
Not known to thee by kith or clan,
Nor height, nor breadth of mental dome,
Nor babbling tongue, nor sounding creed,
But by his woe and common need.

The pushing Anglo-Saxon race,
The Celts with wealth of heart and mind,
The Esquimaux of leaden face,
The Arabs whom no chain can bind,
With hardy Boers and all the rest,
Are with one common Father blest.

And all are brothers, though at times
Our flashing swords obscure the sun.
We ring aloud our Christmas chimes,
But louder sounds the booming gun,
And brother is by brother slain,
And kindred ties are rent in twain.

Yet Thou art true whate'er betide;
Thy heart o'er human woe doth melt;
For men of every race Christ die...

The cross, if rightly borne, shall be
No burden, but support to thee;"
So, moved of old time for our sake,
The holy monk of Kempen spake.

Thou brave and true one! upon whom
Was laid the cross of martyrdom,
How didst thou, in thy generous youth,
Bear witness to this blessed truth!

Thy cross of suffering and of shame
A staff within thy hands became,
In paths where faith alone could see
The Master's steps supporting thee.

Thine was the seed-time; God alone
Beholds the end of what is sown;
Beyond our vision, weak and dim,
The harvest-time is hid with Him.

Yet, unforgotten where it lies,
That seed of generous sacrifice,
Though seeming on the desert cast,
Shall rise with bloom and fruit at last