When by Jabbok the patriarch waited
    To learn on the morrow his doom,
And his dubious spirit debated
    In darkness and silence and gloom,
    There descended a Being with whom
He wrestled in agony sore,
    With striving of heart and of brawn,
And not for an instant forbore
    Till the east gave a threat of the dawn;
And then, as the Awful One blessed him,
    To his lips and his spirit there came,
Compelled by the doubts that oppressed him,
The cry that through questioning ages
Has been wrung from the hinds and the sages,
    "Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!"

Most fatal, most futile, of questions!
    Wherever the heart of man beats,
    In the spirit's most sacred retreats,
It comes with its sombre suggestions,
    Unanswered for e...

If any God should say,
"I will restore
The world her yesterday
Whole as before
My Judgment blasted it" who would not lift
Heart, eye, and hand in passion o'er the gift?

If any God should will
To wipe from mind
The memory of this ill
Which is Mankind
In soul and substance now, who would not bless
Even to tears His loving-tenderness?

If any God should give
Us leave to fly
These present deaths we live,
And safely die
In those lost lives we lived ere we were born,
What man but would not laugh the excuse to scorn?

For we are what we are,
So broke to blood
And the strict works of war,
So long subdued
To sacrifice, that threadbare Death commands
Hardly observance at our busier hands.

Yet we were what we ...

A blue line to the westward that surely is not cloud;
A green tinge in the waters; a clamorous bird-crowd;
Then far-off foamy edges, and hill-tops timber fringed;
And, perched aloft, a light-house, o’er grey cliffs golden-tinged.

O watchers leaning landward, know ye of nothing more?
And hear ye but the sea-birds? and see ye but the shore?
Nay, look awhile, and listen who bids you welcome there;
The great seas kiss her sandals, the high stars gem her hair!
Behold her in the gateway! high-held in either hand
A blazing beacon, lighted to lead you to the land.

“Now welcome, kindly welcome, who come to me for cheer!
My forts may frown on others, but ye have nought to fear.
The cannon’s flash and thunder are all for joy to-day,
No murmurs meet your coming, none wish to...

(Deserters)
There is a world outside the one you know,
To which for curiousness 'Ell can't compare,
It is the place where "wilful-missings" go,
As we can testify, for we are there.

You may 'ave read a bullet laid us low,
That we was gathered in "with reverent care"
And buried proper. But it was not so,
As we can testify , for we are there!

They can't be certain, faces alter so
After the old aasvogel 'ad 'is share.
The uniform's the mark by which they go,
And, ain't it odd?, the one we best can spare.

We might 'ave seen our chance to cut the show,
Name, number, record, an 'begin elsewhere,
Leaven'' some not too late-lamented foe
One funeral-private-British-for 'is share.

We may 'ave took it yonder in the Low
Bush-veldt that sen...

        A century of silent suns
            Have set since he was laid on sleep,
        And now they bear with booming guns
            And streaming banners o'er the deep
        A withered skin and clammy hair
            Upon a frame of human bones:
        Whose corse?    We neither know nor care,
            Content to name it John Paul Jones.

        His dust were as another's dust;
            His bones--what boots it where they lie?
        What matter where his sword is rust,
            Or where, now dark, his eagle eye?
        No foe need fear his arm again,
            Nor love, nor praise can make him whole;
        But o'er the farthest sons of men
            Will brood the glory of his soul.

        Careless though cenotaph or to...

("Laissez-moi pleurer sur cette race.")

[I. v.]


Oh! let me weep that race whose day is past,
By exile given, by exile claimed once more,
Thrice swept away upon that fatal blast.
Whate'er its blame, escort we to our shore
These relics of the monarchy of yore;
And to th' outmarching oriflamme be paid
War's honors by the flag on Fleurus' field displayed!

Fraser's Magazine

This is a leader's tent. "Who gathers here?"
    Enter and see and listen. On the ground
Men sit or stand, enter or disappear,
    Dark faces and deep voices all around.

One answers you. "You ask who gathers here?
    Companions! Generals we have none, nor chief.
What need is there? The plan is all so clear -
    The future's hope, the present's grim relief!

"Food for us all, and clothes, and roofs come first.
    The means to gain them? This, our leaguered band!
The hatred of the robber rich accursed
    Keeps foes together, makes fools understand.

"Beyond the present's faith, the future's hope
    Points to the dawning hour when all shall be
But one. The man condemned shall fit the rope
    Around the hangman's neck, and both be free!

The readiness of doing doth express
No other but the doer's willingness.

If Thou who seest this heart of mine
    To earthly idols prone,
Should'st all those clinging cords untwine,
    And take again Thy own,--
Help me to lay my hands in thine,
    And say Thy will be done!

But Oh, when Thou dost claim the gift
    Which Thou did'st only lend,
And leav'st my life of love bereft,
    And lonely to the end,--
Oh Saviour! be Thyself but left,
    My best beloved Friend!

And still the chastening hand I bless,
    Which doth my steps uphold
Along earth's thorny wilderness,
    Back to the Father's fold,
Where I Thy face in righteousness
    Shall evermore behold.

A hermit (or if ‘chance you hold
That title now too trite and old),
A man, once young, who lived retired
As hermit could have well desired,
His hours of study closed at last,
And finish’d his concise repast,
Stoppled his cruise, replaced his book
Within its customary nook,
And, staff in hand, set forth to share
The sober cordial of sweet air,
Like Isaac, with a mind applied
To serious thought at evening-tide.
Autumnal rains had made it chill,
And from the trees, that fringed his hill,
Shades slanting at the close of day,
Chill’d more his else delightful way.
Distant a little mile he spied
A western bank’s still sunny side,
And right toward the favour’d place
Proceeding with his nimblest pace,
In hope to bask a little yet,
Just reach’d ...

The figure that thou here seest . . . Tut!
Was it for gentle Shakespeare put?
- B. JORSON. (Adapted.)



I “next poet?” No, my hearties,
I nor am nor fain would be!
Choose your chiefs and pick your parties,
Not one soul revolt to me!
I, forsooth, sow song-sedition?
I, a schism in verse provoke?
I, blown up by bard’s ambition,
Burst, your bubble-king? You joke.

Come, be grave! The sherris mantling
Still about each mouth, mayhap,
Breeds you insight, just a scantling,
Brings me truth out, just a scrap.
Look and tell me! Written, spoken,
Here’s my life-long work: and where
Where’s your warrant or my token
I’m the dead king’s son and heir?

Here’s my work: does work discover,
What was rest from work, my life?

[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.]

At The Summit Of The Washington Monument.

        Look North! A white-clad city fills
        This valley to its sloping hills;
        Here gleams the modest house of white,
        The statesman's longed-for, dizzy height.
        Beyond, a pledge of love to one
        Who in two lands was Freedom's son -
        The holder of an endless debt -
        Our nation's brother, Lafayette.
        But yonder lines of costly homes
        And bristling spires and swelling domes,
        And far away the spreading farms
        Where thrift displays substantial charms,
        And hamlets creeping out of sight,
        And cities full of wealth and might,
        Must own the fatherhood of him
        Whose...

The Harp in lowliness obeyed;
And first we sang of the greenwood shade
And a solitary Maid;
Beginning, where the song must end,
With her, and with her sylvan Friend;
The Friend who stood before her sight,
Her only unextinguished light;
Her last companion in a dearth
Of love, upon a hopeless earth.
For She it was this Maid, who wrought
Meekly, with foreboding thought,
In vermeil colours and in gold
An unblest work; which, standing by,
Her Father did with joy behold,
Exulting in its imagery;
A Banner, fashioned to fulfil
Too perfectly his headstrong will:
For on this Banner had her hand
Embroidered (such her Sire's command)
The sacred Cross; and figured there
The five dear wounds our Lord did bear;
Full soon to be uplifted high,
And...

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
    Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
    And things are not what they seem.

Life is real!    Life is earnest!
    And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
    Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
    Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
    Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
    And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
    Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
    In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
    Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!

    How do you survive
    in the mangrove swamps -
    amid the twitchings of foetid water
    & lice thick as baby tears?

    How, with all the wallow of thick muck
    making suction noises and the teams in
    relays
    searching nightly with baited hounds,
    do you pull free?

    Your bamboo pole knows every ploy
    but a slender craft ill-equipped
    to sparring blows from every quarter
    the undergrowth necessitates.

    The closeness of the clammy night
    heaved about like so much rotting
    fruit will draw
    the ants ... devouring like that
    abundance of cold yellow eye -
    the firefly swarms that mock your
    heavy steel machete arm.

    Across the drift of darkness
    and the in...

Where be the temples which, in Britain's Isle,
For his paternal Gods, the Trojan raised?
Gone like a morning dream, or like a pile
Of clouds that in cerulean ether blazed!
Ere Julius landed on her white-cliffed shore,
They sank, delivered o'er
To fatal dissolution; and, I ween,
No vestige then was left that such had ever been.

Nathless, a British record (long concealed
In old Armorica, whose secret springs
No Gothic conqueror ever drank) revealed
The marvellous current of forgotten things;
How Brutus came, by oracles impelled,
And Albion's giants quelled,
A brood whom no civility could melt,
"Who never tasted grace, and goodness ne'er had felt."

By brave Corineus aided, he subdued,
And rooted out the intolerable kind;
And this too-long-po...

Is it so, that the sword is broken,
Our sword, that was halfway drawn?
Is it so, that the light was a spark,
That the bird we hailed as the lark
Sang in her sleep in the dark,
And the song we took for a token
Bore false witness of dawn?

Spread in the sight of the lion,
Surely, we said, is the net
Spread but in vain, and the snare
Vain; for the light is aware,
And the common, the chainless air,
Of his coming whom all we cry on;
Surely in vain is it set.

Surely the day is on our side,
And heaven, and the sacred sun;
Surely the stars, and the bright
Immemorial inscrutable night:
Yea, the darkness, because of our light,
Is no darkness, but blooms as a bower-side
When the winter is over and done;

Blooms underfoot with youn...

Quell' antiquo mio dolce empio signore.

LOVE, SUMMONED BY THE POET TO THE TRIBUNAL OF REASON, PASSES A SPLENDID EULOGIUM ON LAURA.


    Long had I suffer'd, till--to combat more
In strength, in hope too sunk--at last before
Impartial Reason's seat,
Whence she presides our nobler nature o'er,
I summon'd my old tyrant, stern and sweet;
There, groaning 'neath a weary weight of grief,
With fear and horror stung,
Like one who dreads to die and prays relief,
My plea I open'd thus: "When life was young,
I, weakly, placed my peace within his power,
And nothing from that hour
Save wrong I've met; so many and so great
The torments I have borne,
That my once infinite patience is outworn,
And my life worthless grown is held in very hate!