The land of sunshine and of song!
Her name your hearts divine;
To her the banquet's vows belong
Whose breasts have poured its wine;
Our trusty friend, our true ally
Through varied change and chance
So, fill your flashing goblets high, -
I give you, VIVE LA FRANCE!

Above our hosts in triple folds
The selfsame colors spread,
Where Valor's faithful arm upholds
The blue, the white, the red;
Alike each nation's glittering crest
Reflects the morning's glance, -
Twin eagles, soaring east and west
Once more, then, VIVE LA FRANCE!

Sister in trial! who shall count
Thy generous friendship's claim,
Whose blood ran mingling in the fount
That gave our land its name,
Till Yorktown saw in blended line
Our conquering arms advance,
And ...

    Through the vigils deep of the sable night
        A mother sits in grief alone,
    For her sons have gone to the battle front
        And left on the hearth a crushing stone.
    Beyond the stars that burn at night
        She sees God's arm in pity reach;
    It counsels patience, love and faith,
        Heroic hearts and souls to teach.

    The blue is spann'd and the tide goes out.
        And the stars rain down a kindlier cheer;
    And the mother turns from this throne of grief
        To pierce the years with a joyous tear;
    For duty born of a mother's heart
        Fills all the rounds of our common day -
    Yea, sheds its joy in the darkest night,
        And fills with light each hidden way.

    For Miss Ina Coolbrith.

He smashed his hand
in opening a door for her,
and less pain than
embarrassment shrieked through him.
Concealing both,
grimacing as if theatrically,
he asked himself
who he thought he was to go
around opening
doors for anyone, much less for her.

To get thine ends, lay bashfulness aside;
Who fears to ask doth teach to be deny'd.

"Abide with us!" Where could we go?
Thou art our strength, thou art our tower,
Our refuge from the ills below,
In darkness light, in weakness power.

"Abide with us!" We would prevail,
And plead that thou be ever near
To banish doubts when they assail,
And give deliverance from fear.

"Abide with us" in words of love,
For thou dost say, "Come unto me."
Oh, guide us to thy home above
To dwell in joy and peace with thee!

O come you down from the far hills
Whereon you fought, triumphed and died,
Men at whose names the quick blood thrills
And the heart's troubled in our side.

Your shadows o'er our fields ere night
Draw from the shadow of old trees;
Ghost-hallowed run the streams, and light
Hangs halo-wise in the great peace.

Warriors of England whom we praise
(Ah, vain all praise!), your spirit is not
Lost in the meanness of these days,
Not wholly is your charge forgot.

And this perplexity of strife
Not all estrangèd leaves our heart;
England is ours yet, and her life
Has yet in ours the purest part.

But come you down and stand you yet
A little closer to our side,
Or in the darkness we forget
The cause for which Earth's noblest died.

I.

Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn,
Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain
The knots that tangle human creeds,
The wounding cords that bind and strain
The heart until it bleeds,
Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn
Roof not a glance so keen as thine;
If aught of prophecy be mine,
Thou wilt not live in vain.


II.

Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit;
Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow;
Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit.
Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords
Can do away that ancient lie;
A gentler death shall Falsehood die,
Shot thro’ and thro’ with cunning words.



III.

Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch,
Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need,

        "Delicta juventutis et ignorantius ejus,
            quoesumus ne memineris, Domine."



        I left, to earth, a little maiden fair,
        With locks of gold, and eyes that shamed the light;
        I prayed that God might have her in His care
            And sight.

        Earth's love was false; her voice, a siren's song;
        (Sweet mother-earth was but a lying name)
        The path she showed was but the path of wrong
            And shame.

        "Cast her not out!" I cry.    God's kind words come --
        "Her future is with Me, as was her past;
        It shall be My good will to bring her home
            At last."

O to be a woman! to be left to pique and pine,
When the winds are out and calling to this vagrant heart of mine.
Whisht! it whistles at the windows, and how can I be still?
There! the last leaves of the beech-tree go dancing down the hill.
All the boats at anchor they are plunging to be free-
O to be a sailor, and away across the sea!
When the sky is black with thunder, and the sea is white with foam,
The gray-gulls whirl up shrieking and seek their rocky home,
Low his boat is lying leeward, how she runs upon the gale,
As she rises with the billows, nor shakes her dripping sail.
There is danger on the waters-there is joy where dangers be-
Alas! to be a woman and the nomad’s heart in me.

Ochone! to be a woman, only sighing on the shore-
With a soul that finds a passion ...

    We steal the brawn, we steal the brain;
    The man beneath us in the fight
    Soon learns how helpless and how vain
    To plead for justice or for right.
    We steal the youth, we steal the health,
    Hope, courage, aspiration high;
    We steal men's all to make for wealth -
    We will repent us by and by.

    Meantime, a gift will heaven appease -
    Great God, forgive our charities!

    We steal the children's laughter shrill,
    We steal their joys e'er they can taste,
    "Why skip like young lambs on a hill?
    Go, get ye to your task in haste."
    No matter that they droop and tire,
    That heaven cries out against the sin,
    The gold, red gold, that we desire
    Their dimpled hands must help to win.

    A c...

Oft, as I rest in quiet peace, am I
Thrust out at sudden doors, and madly driven
Through desert solitudes, and thunder-riven
Black passages which have not any sky:
The scourge is on me now, with all the cry
Of ancient life that hath with murder striven.
How many an anguish hath gone up to heaven,
How many a hand in prayer been lifted high
When the black fate came onward with the rush
Of whirlwind, avalanche, or fiery spume!
Even at my feet is cleft a shivering tomb
Beneath the waves; or else, with solemn hush
The graveyard opens, and I feel a crush
As if we were all huddled in one doom!

Like as the Oak whose roots descend
Through earth and stillness seeking food
Most apt to furnish in the end
That dense, indomitable wood

Which, felled, may arm a seaward flank
Of Ostia’s mole or, bent to frame
The beaked Liburnian’s triple bank,
Carry afar the Roman name;

But which, a tree, the season moves
Through gentler Gods than Wind or Tide,
Delightedly to harbour doves,
Or take some clasping vine for bride;

So this man, prescient to ensure
(Since even now his orders hold)
A little State might ride secure
At sea from foes her sloth made bold,,

Turned in his midmost harried round,
As Venus drove or Liber led,
And snatched from any shrine he found
The Stolen Draught, the Secret Bread.

Nor these alone. His li...

I give God thanks that I, a lean old man,
Wrinkled, infirm, and crippled with keen pains
By austere penance and continuous toil,
Now rest in spirit, and possess "the peace
Which passeth understanding." Th' end draws nigh,
Though the beginning is yesterday,
And a broad lifetime spreads 'twixt this and that -
A favored life, though outwardly the butt
Of ignominy, malice, and affront,
Yet lighted from within by the clear star
Of a high aim, and graciously prolonged
To see at last its utmost goal attained.
I speak not of mine Order and my House,
Here founded by my hands and filled with saints -
A white society of snowy souls,
Swayed by my voice, by mine example led;
For this is but the natural harvest reaped
From labors such as mine when blessed by God.
...

From this hour the pledge is given,
    From this hour my soul is thine:
Come what will, from earth or heaven,
    Weal or woe, thy fate be mine.
When the proud and great stood by thee,
    None dared thy rights to spurn;
And if now they're false and fly thee,
    Shall I, too, basely turn?
No;--whate'er the fires that try thee,
    In the same this heart shall burn.

Tho' the sea, where thou embarkest,
    Offers now no friendly shore,
Light may come where all looks darkest,
    Hope hath life when life seems o'er.
And, of those past ages dreaming,
    When glory decked thy brow,
Oft I fondly think, tho' seeming
    So fallen and clouded now,
Thou'lt again break forth, all beaming,--
    None so bright, so blest as thou!

To lift the sombre fringes of the Night,
To open lands long darkened to the Light,
To heal grim wounds, to give the blind new sight,
Right mightily wrought he.
        Forth to the fight he fared,
        High things and great he dared,
        He thought of all men but himself,
        Himself he never spared.
        He greatly loved--
        He greatly lived--
        And died right mightily.

Like Him he served, he walked life's troublous ways,
With heart undaunted, and with calm, high face,
And gemmed each day with deeds of sweetest grace;
Pull lovingly wrought he.
        Forth to the fight he fared,
        High things and great he dared,
        In His Master's might, to spread the Light,
        Right lovingly wrought he.
        ...

That you are fair or wise is vain,
Or strong, or rich, or generous;
You must add the untaught strain
That sheds beauty on the rose.
There's a melody born of melody,
Which melts the world into a sea.
Toil could never compass it;
Art its height could never hit;
It came never out of wit;
But a music music-born
Well may Jove and Juno scorn.
Thy beauty, if it lack the fire
Which drives me mad with sweet desire,
What boots it? What the soldier's mail,
Unless he conquer and prevail?
What all the goods thy pride which lift,
If thou pine for another's gift?
Alas! that one is born in blight,
Victim of perpetual slight:
When thou lookest on his face,
Thy heart saith, 'Brother, go thy ways!
None shall ask thee what thou doest,
Or care a rush ...

(What the Ghosts Said)


And after all the labour and the pains,
    After the heaping up of gold on gold,
After success that locked your feet in chains,
    And left you with a heart so tired and old,

Strange--is it not?--to find your chief desire
    Is what you might have had for nothing then--
The face of love beside a cottage fire
    And friendly laughter with your fellow-men?

You were so rich when fools esteemed you poor.
    You ruled a field that kings could never buy;
The glory of the sea was at your door;
    And all those quiet stars were in your sky.

The nook of ferns below the breathless wood
    Where one poor book could unlock Paradise ...
What will you give us now for that lost good?
    Better forget. You ca...

Picture Diana decked out for the chase,
Charging through forests, beating brush aside,
Drunk with the action, wind around her face,
Breast bare, her finest horsemen left behind!

You've seen Theroigne, carnage in her heart,
Rousing the shoeless masses to resist,
Cheek and eye blazing, playing out her part,
Mounting the royal stair, sabre in fist?

Such is Sisina, but the gentle knight
Within her heart can love as well as fight;
Though spurred by powder and by drums, her nerve

Before her suppliants lays arms to earth,
And her flame-ravaged heart keeps in reserve
A well of tears, for those who've proved their worth.