The beast to the beast is calling,
And the soul bends down to wait;
Like the stealthy lord of the jungle,
The white man calls his mate.

The beast to the beast is calling,
They rush through the twilight sweet,
But the soul is a wary hunter,
He will not let them meet.

Upon the plain of Dura stood an image great and high,
With golden forehead broad and bright beneath the morning sky;
All regal in its majesty and kingly in its mien,
The grandest and most glorious thing the world had ever seen!

Full sixty cubits high in air the lordly head was reared,
And robed in gold from head to foot the stately form appeared;
Adown the breast six cubits broad, a flood of yellow gold,
All deftly wrought with matchless skill, its shining tresses rolled.

And, fronting thus the rising sun, it sent back ray for ray -
A golden flood of arrowy light - into-the face of day;
While round its feet, in awe and dread, all Shinar stood amazed,
And up into that radiant face with reverent wonder gazed.

Woke sackbut, psaltery, and harp, woke dulcimer and flu...

Her breast is cold; her hands how faint and wan!
And the deep wonder of her starry eyes
Seemingly lost in cloudless Paradise,
And all earth's sorrow out of memory gone.
Yet sings her clear voice unrelenting on
Of loveliest impossibilities;
Though echo only answer her with sighs
Of effort wasted and delights foregone.

Spent, baffled, 'wildered, hated and despised,
Her straggling warriors hasten to defeat;
By wounds distracted, and by night surprised,
Fall where death's darkness and oblivion meet:
Yet, yet: O breast how cold! O hope how far!
Grant my son's ashes lie where these men's are!

READ IN MUSIC HALL, JANUARY 1, 1863

The word of the Lord by night
To the watching Pilgrims came,
As they sat by the seaside,
And filled their hearts with flame.

God said, I am tired of kings,
I suffer them no more;
Up to my ear the morning brings
The outrage of the poor.

Think ye I made this ball
A field of havoc and war,
Where tyrants great and tyrants small
Might harry the weak and poor?

My angel,--his name is Freedom,--
Choose him to be your king;
He shall cut pathways east and west
And fend you with his wing.

Lo! I uncover the land
Which I hid of old time in the West,
As the sculptor uncovers the statue
When he has wrought his best;

I show Columbia, of the rocks
Which dip their foot in the s...

At the silence of twilight's contemplative hour,
I have mused in a sorrowful mood,
On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower,
Where the home of my forefathers stood.
All ruin'd and wild is their roofless abode;
And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree;
And travell'd by few is the grass-cover'd road,
Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode,
To his hills that encircle the sea.

Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk,
By the dial-stone aged and green,
One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk,
To mark where a garden had been.
Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race,
All wild in the silence of nature, it drew,
From each wandering sun-beam, a lonely embrace,
For the night-weed and thorn overshadow'd the place,
Where the flowe...

Mark:
So, Maurice, you sail to-morrow, you say?
And you may or may not return?
Be sociable, man! for once in a way,
Unless you’re too old to learn.
The shadows are cool by the water side
Where the willows grow by the pond,
And the yellow laburnum’s drooping pride
Sheds a golden gleam beyond.
For the blended tints of the summer flowers,
For the scents of the summer air,
For all nature’s charms in this world of ours,
’Tis little or naught you care.
Yet I know for certain you haven’t stirred
Since noon from your chosen spot;
And you’ve hardly spoken a single word,
Are you tired, or cross, or what?
You’re fretting about those shares you bought,
They were to have gone up fast;
But I heard how they fell to nothing, in short,
They were given away ...

Our columns are broken, defeated, and fled;
We are gathered, a few from the flying and dead,
Where the green flag is up and our wounded remain
Imploring for water and groaning in pain.
Lo the blood-spattered bosom, the shot-shattered limb,
The hand-clutch of fear as the vision grows dim,
The half-uttered prayer and the blood-fettered breath,
The cold marble brow and the calm face of death.
O proud were these forms at the dawning of morn,
When they sprang to the call of the shrill bugle-horn:
There are mothers and wives that await them afar;
God help them! Is this then the glory of war?
But hark! hear the cries from the field of despair;
"The Black-Horse" are charging the fugitives there;
They gallop the field o'er the dying and dead,
And their blades with the blood...

Lasso! ben so che dolorose prede.

THOUGH FOR FOURTEEN YEARS HE HAS STRUGGLED UNSUCCESSFULLY, HE STILL HOPES TO CONQUER HIS PASSION.


    Alas! well know I what sad havoc makes
Death of our kind, how Fate no mortal spares!
How soon the world whom once it loved forsakes,
How short the faith it to the friendless bears!
Much languishment, I see, small mercy wakes;
For the last day though now my heart prepares,
Love not a whit my cruel prison breaks,
And still my cheek grief's wonted tribute wears.
I mark the days, the moments, and the hours
Bear the full years along, nor find deceit,
Bow'd 'neath a greater force than magic spell.
For fourteen years have fought with varying powers
Desire and Reason: and the best shall beat;
If mortal spirits here...

During the Revolutionary war, a young American lady was murdered, while dressed in her bridal robe, by a party of Indians, sent by her betrothed to conduct her to the village where he was encamped. After the deed was done, they carried her long hair to her lover, who, urged by a frantic despair, hurried to the spot to assure himself of the truth of the tale, and shortly after threw himself, in battle, on the swords of his countrymen. After this event, the Indians were never successful in their warfare, the spectre of their victim presenting itself continually between them and the enemy.


The worn bird of Freedom had furled o'er our land
The shattered wings, pierced by the despot's rude hand,
And stout hearts were vowing, 'mid havoc and strife,
To Liberty, fortune, fame, honor, and life.

The red li...

    Shout! for the Lord hath triumphed gloriously!
    Upon the shores of that renowned land,
    Where erst His mighty arm and outstretched hand
    He lifted high,
    And dashed, in pieces dashed the enemy;
    Upon that ancient coast,
    Where Pharaoh's chariot and his host
    He cast into the deep,
    Whilst o'er their silent pomp He bid the swoll'n sea sweep;
    Upon that eastern shore,
    That saw His awful arm revealed of yore,
    Again hath He arisen, and opposed
    His foes' defying vaunt: o'er them the deep hath closed!

    Shades of mighty chiefs of yore,
    Who triumphed on the self-same shore:
    Ammon, who first o'er ocean's empire wide
    Didst bid the bold bark stem the roaring tide;
    Sesac, who from the East to farthes...

How comes it that, at even-tide,
When level beams should show most truth,
Man, failing, takes unfailing pride
In memories of his frolic youth?

Venus and Liber fill their hour;
The games engage, the law-courts prove;
Till hardened life breeds love of power
Or Avarice, Age's final love.

Yet at the end, these comfort not
Nor any triumph Fate decrees
Compared with glorious, unforgot
Ten innocent enormities

Of frontless days before the beard,
When, instant on the casual jest,
The God Himself of Mirth appeared
And snatched us to His heaving breast

And we not caring who He was
But certain He would come again
Accepted all He brought to pass
As Gods accept the lives of men...

Then He withdrew from sight and speech,

("Non! je n'y puis tenir.")

[CROMWELL, Act III. sc. iv.]


Stay! I no longer can contain myself,
But cry you: Look on John, who bares his mind
To Oliver - to Cromwell, Milton speaks!
Despite a kindling eye and marvel deep
A voice is lifted up without your leave;
For I was never placed at council board
To speak my promptings. When awed strangers come
Who've seen Fox-Mazarin wince at the stings
In my epistles - and bring admiring votes
Of learned colleges, they strain to see
My figure in the glare - the usher utters,
"Behold and hearken! that's my Lord Protector's
Cousin - that, his son-in-law - that next" - who cares!
Some perfumed puppet! "Milton?" "He in black -
Yon silent scribe who trims their eloquence!"
Still 'chroniclin...

    Ye aspiring ones, listen to the story of the unknown
    Who lies here with no stone to mark the place.
    As a boy reckless and wanton,
    Wandering with gun in hand through the forest
    Near the mansion of Aaron Hatfield,
    I shot a hawk perched on the top
    Of a dead tree. He fell with guttural cry
    At my feet, his wing broken.
    Then I put him in a cage
    Where he lived many days cawing angrily at me
    When I offered him food.
    Daily I search the realms of Hades
    For the soul of the hawk,
    That I may offer him the friendship
    Of one whom life wounded and caged.
    Alexander Throckmorton

    In youth my wings were strong and tireless,
    But I did not know the mountains.
    In age I knew the mountains

    Glory and gain thus mixed distract the thought,
    We owe to honour all, to fortune nought;
    The poet, like the soldier, scorns for pay
    Peruvian gold, but seeks the wreath of bay.
    How is the advocate the poet's peer?
    The poet's glory is complete and clear;
    He far outlives the advocate's renown,
    Patru is e'en by Scarron's name weighed down.
    The bar of Greece and Rome you point me out,
    A bar that trained great men, I do not doubt,
    For then chicane with language void of sense
    Had not deformed the law and eloquence.
    Purge the tribune of all this monstrous growth,
    I mount it, and my soul will sink, though loth,
    Will yield to fortune and will speak in prose.
    But since reform in this so slowly grows,
    Lea...

Winter's cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast;
For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold
What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed,
What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is told.

Even as the bells, in one consenting chime,
Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air,
So joined all voices, in that mournful time,
His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare.

What place is left for words of measured praise,
Till calm-eyed History, with her iron pen,
Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase
That shapes his image in the souls of men?

Yet while the echoes still repeat his name,
While countless tongues his full-orbed life rehearse,
Love, by his beating pulses taught, will claim
The breath of song, the tuneful throb of verse, -

Not what, but WHOM, I do believe,
That, in my darkest hour of need,
Hath comfort that no mortal creed
To mortal man may give;--
Not what, but WHOM!
For Christ is more than all the creeds,
And His full life of gentle deeds
Shall all the creeds outlive.
Not what I do believe, but WHOM!
WHO walks beside me in the gloom?
WHO shares the burden wearisome?
WHO all the dim way doth illume,
And bids me look beyond the tomb
The larger life to live?--
Not what I do believe,
BUT WHOM!
Not what,
But WHOM!

Written among the ruins of the Sonnenberg.


Thou who within thyself dost not behold
Ruins as great as these, though not as old,
Can'st scarce through life have travelled many a year,
Or lack'st the spirit of a pilgrim here.
Youth hath its walls of strength, its towers of pride;
Love, its warm hearth-stones; Hope, its prospects wide;
Life's fortress in thee, held these one, and all,
And they have fallen to ruin, or shall fall.

Foremost of all on battle's fiery steep
    Here VERTUE fell, and here he sleeps his sleep.*
A fairer name no Roman ever gave
    To stand sole monument on Valour's grave.