Youhave been far, and IBeen farther yet,Since last, in foul or fairAn impecunious pair,Below this northern skyOf ours, we met.
Now winter night shall seeAgain us two,While howls the tempest higher,Sit warmly by the fireAnd dream and plan, as weWere wont to do.
And, hand in hand, at largeOur thoughts shall walkWhile storm and gusty rain,Again and yet again,Shall drive their noisy chargeAcross the talk.
The pleasant future stillShall smile to me,And hope with wooing handsWave on to fairy landsAll over dale and hillAnd earth and sea.
And you who doubt the skyAnd fear the sun—You—Christian with the pack—You shall not wander backFor I am Hopeful—IWill cheer you on.
Come—where the great have trod,The great shall lead—Come, elbow through the press,Pluck Fortune by the dress—By God, we must—by God,We shall succeed.
Youremember, I suppose,How the August sun arose,And how his faceWoke to trill and caroletteAll the cages that were setAbout the place.
In the tender morning lightAll around lay strange and brightAnd still and sweet,And the gray doves unafraidWent their morning promenadeAlong the street.
Thisgloomy northern day,Or this yet gloomier night,Has moved a something highIn my cold heart; and I,That do not often pray,Would pray to-night.
And first on Thee I callFor bread, O God of might!Enough of bread for all,—That through the famished townCold hunger may lie downWith none to-night.
I pray for hope no less,Strong-sinewed hope, O Lord,That to the struggling youngMay preach with brazen tongueStout Labour, high success,And bright reward.
And last, O Lord, I prayFor hearts resigned and boldTo trudge the dusty way—Hearts stored with song and jokeAnd warmer than a cloakAgainst the cold.
If nothing else he had,He who has this, has all.This comforts under pain;This, through the stinging rain,Keeps ragamuffin gladBehind the wall.
This makes the sanded innA palace for a Prince,And this, when griefs beginAnd cruel fate annoys,Can bring to mind the joysOf ages since.
Thewind is without there and howls in the trees,And the rain-flurries drum on the glass:Alone by the fireside with elbows on kneesI can number the hours as they pass.Yet now, when to cheer me the crickets begin,And my pipe is just happily lit,Believe me, my friend, tho’ the evening draws in,That not all uncontested I sit.
Alone, did I say? O no, nowise aloneWith the Past sitting warm on my knee,To gossip of days that are over and gone,But still charming to her and to me.With much to be glad of and much to deplore,Yet, as these days with those we compare,Believe me, my friend, tho’ the sorrows seem moreThey are somehow more easy to bear.
And thou, faded Future, uncertain and frail,As I cherish thy light in each draught,His lamp is not more to the miner—their sailIs not more to the crew on the raft.For Hope can make feeble ones earnest and brave,And, as forth thro’ the years I look on,Believe me, my friend, between this and the grave,I see wonderful things to be done.
To do or to try; and, believe me, my friend,If the call should come early for me,I can leave these foundations uprooted, and tendFor some new city over the sea.To do or to try; and if failure be mine,And if Fortune go cross to my plan,Believe me, my friend, tho’ I mourn the designI shall never lament for the man.
MotleyI count the only wearThat suits, in this mixed world, the truly wise,Who boldly smile upon despairAnd shake their bells in Grandam Grundy’s eyes.Singers should sing with such a goodly cheerThat the bare listening should make strong like wine,At this unruly time of year,The Feast of Valentine.
We do not now parade our “oughtsâ€And “shoulds†and motives and beliefs in God.Their life lies all indoors; sad thoughtsMust keep the house, while gay thoughts go abroad,Within we hold the wake for hopes deceased;But in the public streets, in wind or sun,Keep open, at the annual feast,The puppet-booth of fun.
Our powers, perhaps, are small to please,But even negro-songs and castanettes,Old jokes and hackneyed reparteesAre more than the parade of vain regrets.Let Jacques stand Wert(h)ering by the wounded deer—We shall make merry, honest friends of mine,At this unruly time of year,The Feast of Valentine.
I know how, day by weary day,Hope fades, love fades, a thousand pleasures fade.I have not trudged in vain that wayOn which life’s daylight darkens, shade by shade.And still, with hopes decreasing, griefs increased,Still, with what wit I have shall I, for one,Keep open, at the annual feast,The puppet-booth of fun.
I care not if the wit be poor,The old worn motley stained with rain and tears,If but the courage still endureThat filled and strengthened hope in earlier years;If still, with friends averted, fate severe,A glad, untainted cheerfulness be mineTo greet the unruly time of year,The Feast of Valentine.
Priest, I am none of thine, and seeIn the perspective of still hopeful youthThat Truth shall triumph over thee—Truth to one’s self—I know no other truth.I see strange days for thee and thine, O priest,And how your doctrines, fallen one by one,Shall furnish at the annual feastThe puppet-booth of fun.
Stand on your putrid ruins—stand,White neck-clothed bigot, fixedly the same,Cruel with all things but the hand,Inquisitor in all things but the name.Back, minister of Christ and source of fear—We cherish freedom—back with thee and thineFrom this unruly time of year,The Feast of Valentine.
Blood thou mayest spare; but what of tears?But what of riven households, broken faith—Bywords that cling through all men’s yearsAnd drag them surely down to shame and death?Stand back, O cruel man, O foe of youth,And let such men as hearken not thy voicePress freely up the road to truth,The King’s highway of choice.
Hail! Childish slaves of social rulesYou had yourselves a hand in making!How I could shake your faith, ye fools,If but I thought it worth the shaking.I see, and pity you; and thenGo, casting off the idle pity,In search of better, braver men,My own way freely through the city.
My own way freely, and not yours;And, careless of a town’s abusing,Seek real friendship that enduresAmong the friends of my own choosing.I’ll choose my friends myself, do you hear?And won’t let Mrs. Grundy do it,Tho’ all I honour and hold dearAnd all I hope should move me to it.
I take my old coat from the shelf—I am a man of little breeding.And only dress to please myself—I own, a very strange proceeding.I smoke a pipe abroad, becauseTo all cigars I much prefer it,And as I scorn your social lawsMy choice has nothing to deter it.
Gladly I trudge the footpath way,While you and yours roll by in coachesIn all the pride of fine array,Through all the city’s thronged approaches.O fine religious, decent folk,In Virtue’s flaunting gold and scarlet,I sneer between two puffs of smoke,—Give me the publican and harlot.
Ye dainty-spoken, stiff, severeSeed of the migrated Philistian,One whispered question in your ear—Pray, what was Christ, if you be Christian?If Christ were only here just now,Among the city’s wynds and gablesTeaching the life he taught us, howWould he be welcome to your tables?
I go and leave your logic-straws,Your former-friends with face averted,Your petty ways and narrow laws,Your Grundy and your God, deserted.From your frail ark of lies, I fleeI know not where, like Noah’s raven.Full to the broad, unsounded seaI swim from your dishonest haven.
Alone on that unsounded deep,Poor waif, it may be I shall perish,Far from the course I thought to keep,Far from the friends I hoped to cherish.It may be that I shall sink, and yetHear, thro’ all taunt and scornful laughter,Through all defeat and all regret,The stronger swimmers coming after.
Swallowstravel to and fro,And the great winds come and go,And the steady breezes blow,Bearing perfume, bearing love.Breezes hasten, swallows fly,Towered clouds forever ply,And at noonday, you and ISee the same sunshine above.
Dew and rain fall everywhere,Harvests ripen, flowers are fair,And the whole round earth is bareTo the moonshine and the sun;And the live air, fanned with wings,Bright with breeze and sunshine, bringsInto contact distant things,And makes all the countries one.
Let us wander where we will,Something kindred greets us still;Something seen on vale or hillFalls familiar on the heart;So, at scent or sound or sight,Severed souls by day and nightTremble with the same delight—Tremble, half the world apart.
Thewind may blaw the lee-gang wayAnd aye the lift be mirk an’ gray,An deep the moss and steigh the braeWhere a’ maun gang—There’s still an hoor in ilka dayFor luve and sang.
And canty hearts are strangely steeled.By some dikeside they’ll find a bield,Some couthy neuk by muir or fieldThey’re sure to hit,Where, frae the blatherin’ wind concealed,They’ll rest a bit.
An’ weel for them if kindly fateSend ower the hills to them a mate;They’ll crack a while o’ kirk an’ State,O’ yowes an’ rain:An’ when it’s time to take the gate,Tak’ ilk his ain.
—Sic neuk beside the southern seaI soucht—sic place o’ quiet leeFrae a’ the winds o’ life. To me,Fate, rarely fair,Had set a freendly companyTo meet me there.
Kindly by them they gart me sit,An’ blythe was I to bide a bit.Licht as o’ some hame fireside litMy life for me.—Ower early maun I rise an’ quitThis happy lee.
Whatis the face, the fairest face, till Care,Till Care the graver—Care with cunning hand,Etches content thereon and makes it fair,Or constancy, and love, and makes it grand?
Forsome abiding central source of power,Strong-smitten steady chords, ye seem to flowAnd, flowing, carry virtue. Far below,The vain tumultuous passions of the hourFleet fast and disappear; and as the sunShines on the wake of tempests, there is castO’er all the shattered ruins of my pastA strong contentment as of battles won.
And yet I cry in anguish, as I hearThe long drawn pageant of your passage rollMagnificently forth into the night.To yon fair land ye come from, to yon sphereOf strength and love where now ye shape your flight,O even wings of music, bear my soul!
Ye have the power, if but ye had the will,Strong-smitten steady chords in sequence grand,To bear me forth into that tranquil landWhere good is no more ravelled up with ill;Where she and I, remote upon some hillOr by some quiet river’s windless strand,May live, and love, and wander hand in hand,And follow nature simply, and be still.
From this grim world, where, sadly, prisoned, weSit bound with others’ heart-strings as with chains,And, if one moves, all suffer,—to that Goal,If such a land, if such a sphere, there be,Thither, from life and all life’s joys and pains,O even wings of music, bear my soul!
Fearnot, dear friend, but freely live your daysThough lesser lives should suffer. Such am I,A lesser life, that what is his of skyGladly would give for you, and what of praise.Step, without trouble, down the sunlit ways.We that have touched your raiment, are made wholeFrom all the selfish cankers of man’s soul,And we would see you happy, dear, or die.Therefore be brave, and therefore, dear, be free;Try all things resolutely, till the best,Out of all lesser betters, you shall find;And we, who have learned greatness from you, we,Your lovers, with a still, contented mind,See you well anchored in some port of rest.
Letlove go, if go she will.Seek not, O fool, her wanton flight to stay.Of all she gives and takes awayThe best remains behind her still.
The best remains behind; in vainJoy she may give and take again,Joy she may take and leave us pain,If yet she leave behindThe constant mindTo meet all fortunes nobly, to endureAll things with a good heart, and still be pure,Still to be foremost in the foremost cause,And still be worthy of the love that was.Love coming is omnipotent indeed,But not Love going. Let her go. The seedSprings in the favouring Summer air, and grows,And waxes strong; and when the Summer goes,Remains, a perfect tree.
Joy she may give and take again,Joy she may take and leave us pain.O Love, and what care we?For one thing thou hast given, O Love, one thingIs ours that nothing can remove;And as the King discrowned is still a King,The unhappy lover still preserves his love.
Idonot fear to own me kinTo the glad clods in which spring flowers begin;Or to my brothers, the great trees,That speak with pleasant voices in the breeze,Loud talkers with the winds that pass;Or to my sister, the deep grass.
Of such I am, of such my body is,That thrills to reach its lips to kiss.That gives and takes with wind and sun and rainAnd feels keen pleasure to the point of pain.
Of such are these,The brotherhood of stalwart trees,The humble family of flowers,That make a light of shadowy bowersOr star the edges of the bent:They give and take sweet colour and sweet scent;They joy to shed themselves abroad;And tree and flower and grass and sodThrill and leap and live and singWith silent voices in the Spring.
Hence I not fear to yield my breath,Since all is still unchanged by death;Since in some pleasant valley I may be,Clod beside clod, or tree by tree,Long ages hence, with her I love this hour;And feel a lively joy to shareWith her the sun and rain and air,To taste her quiet neighbourhoodAs the dumb things of field and wood,The clod, the tree, and starry flower,Alone of all things have the power.
Iamlike one that for long days had sate,With seaward eyes set keen against the gale,On some lone foreland, watching sail by sail,The portbound ships for one ship that was late;And sail by sail, his heart burned up with joy,And cruelly was quenched, until at lastOne ship, the looked-for pennant at its mast,Bore gaily, and dropt safely past the buoy;And lo! the loved one was not there—was dead.Then would he watch no more; no more the seaWith myriad vessels, sail by sail, perplexHis eyes and mock his longing. Weary head,Take now thy rest; eyes, close; for no more meShall hopes untried elate, or ruined vex.
For thus on love I waited; thus for loveStrained all my senses eagerly and long;Thus for her coming ever trimmed my song;Till in the far skies coloured as a dove,A bird gold-coloured flickered far and fledOver the pathless waterwaste for me;And with spread hands I watched the bright bird fleeAnd waited, till before me she dropped dead.O golden bird in these dove-coloured skiesHow long I sought, how long with wearied eyesI sought, O bird, the promise of thy flight!And now the morn has dawned, the morn has died,The day has come and gone; and once more nightAbout my lone life settles, wild and wide.
Herein the quiet eveMy thankful eyes receiveThe quiet light.I see the trees stand fairAgainst the faded air,And star by star prepareThe perfect night.
And in my bosom, lo!Content and quiet growToward perfect peace.And now when day is done,Brief day of wind and sun,The pure stars, one by one,Their troop increase.
Keen pleasure and keen griefGive place to great relief:Farewell my tears!Still sounds toward me float;I hear the bird’s small note,Sheep from the far sheepcote,And lowing steers.
For lo! the war is done,Lo, now the battle won,The trumpets still.The shepherd’s slender strain,The country sounds againAwake in wood and plain,On haugh and hill.
Loud wars and loud loves cease.I welcome my release;And hail once moreFree foot and way world-wide.And oft at eventideLight love to talk besideThe hostel door.
Onnow, although the year be done,Now, although the love be dead,Dead and gone;Hear me, O loved and cherished one,Give me still the hand that led,Led me on.
Inthe green and gallant Spring,Love and the lyre I thought to sing,And kisses sweet to give and takeBy the flowery hawthorn brake.
Now is russet Autumn here,Death and the grave and winter drear,And I must ponder here aloofWhile the rain is on the roof.
Death, to the dead for evermoreA King, a God, the last, the best of friends—Whene’er this mortal journey endsDeath, like a host, comes smiling to the door;Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shoreWhere neither piping bird nor peeping dawnDisturbs the eternal sleep,But in the stillness far withdrawnOur dreamless rest for evermore we keep.
For as from open windows forth we peepUpon the night-time star besetAnd with dews for ever wet;So from this garish life the spirit peers;And lo! as a sleeping city death outspread,Where breathe the sleepers evenly; and lo!After the loud wars, triumphs, trumpets, tearsAnd clamour of man’s passion, Death appears,And we must rise and go.
Soon are eyes tired with sunshine; soon the earsWeary of utterance, seeing all is said;Soon, racked by hopes and fears,The all-pondering, all-contriving head,Weary with all things, wearies of the years;And our sad spirits turn toward the dead;And the tired child, the body, longs for bed.
On the death of their common friend,Mr. John Adam,Clerk of court.
OurJohnie’s deid. The mair’s the pity!He’s deid, an’ deid o’ Aqua-vitæ.O Embro’, you’re a shrunken city,Noo Johnie’s deid!Tak hands, an’ sing a burial dittyOwer Johnie’s heid.
To see him was baith drink an’ meat,Gaun linkin’ glegly up the street.He but to rin or tak a seat,The wee bit body!Bein’ aye unsicken on his feetWi’ whusky toddy.
To be aye tosh was Johnie’s whim,There’s nane was better teut than him,Though whiles his gravit-knot wad clim’Ahint his ear,An’ whiles he’d buttons oot or inThe less ae mair.
His hair a’ lang about his bree,His tap-lip lang by inches three—A slockened sort ‘mon,’ to preeA’ sensuality—A droutly glint was in his e’eAn’ personality.
An’ day an’ nicht, frae daw to daw,Dink an’ perjink an’ doucely braw,Wi’ a kind o’ Gospel ower a’,May or October,Like Peden, followin’ the LawAn’ no that sober.
Whusky an’ he were pack thegether.Whate’er the hour, whate’er the weather,John kept himsel’ wi’ mistened leatherAn’ kindled spunk.Wi’ him, there was nae askin’ whether—John was aye drunk.
The auncient heroes gash an’ bauldIn the uncanny days of auld,The task ance fo(u)nd to which th’were called,Stack stenchly to it.His life sic noble lives recalled,Little’s he knew it.
Single an’ straucht, he went his way.He kept the faith an’ played the play.Whusky an’ he were man an’ mayWhate’er betided.Bonny in life—in death—this twaeWere no’ divided.
An’ wow! but John was unco sport.Whiles he wad smile about the CourtMalvolio-like—whiles snore an’ snortWas heard afar.The idle winter lads’ resortWas aye John’s bar.
What’s merely humorous or bonnyThe Worl’ regairds wi’ cauld astony.Drunk men tak’ aye mair place than ony;An’ sae, ye see,The gate was aye ower thrang for Johnie—Or you an’ me.
John micht hae jingled cap an’ bells,Been a braw fule in silks an’ pells,In ane o’ the auld worl’s canty hellsParis or Sodom.I wadnae had him naething elseBut Johnie Adam.
He suffered—as have a’ that wanEternal memory frae man,Since e’er the weary worl’ began—Mister or Madam,Keats or Scots Burns, the Spanish DonOr Johnie Adam.
We leuch, an’ Johnie deid. An’ fegs!Hoo he had keept his stoiterin’ legsSae lang’s he did’s a fact that begsAn explanation.He stachers fifty years—syne plegsTo’s destination.
Iwhoall the winter throughCherished other loves than you,And kept hands with hoary policy in marriage-bed and pew;Now I know the false and true,For the earnest sun looks through,And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.
Now the hedged meads renewRustic odour, smiling hue,And the clean air shines and tinkles as the world goes wheeling through;And my heart springs up anew,Bright and confident and true,And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.
Love—what is love? A great and aching heart;Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair.Life—what is life? Upon a moorland bareTo see love coming and see love depart.
Soonour friends perish,Soon all we cherishFades as days darken—goes as flowers go.Soon in DecemberOver an ember,Lonely we hearken, as loud winds blow.
Asone who having wandered all night longIn a perplexed forest, comes at lengthIn the first hours, about the matin song,And when the sun uprises in his strength,To the fringed margin of the wood, and sees,Gazing afar before him, many a mileOf falling country, many fields and trees,And cities and bright streams and far-off Ocean’s smile:
I, O Melampus, halting, stand at gaze:I, liberated, look abroad on life,Love, and distress, and dusty travelling ways,The steersman’s helm, the surgeon’s helpful knife,On the lone ploughman’s earth-upturning share,The revelry of cities and the soundOf seas, and mountain-tops aloof in air,And of the circling earth the unsupported round:
I, looking, wonder: I, intent, adore;And, O Melampus, reaching forth my handsIn adoration, cry aloud and soarIn spirit, high above the supine landsAnd the low caves of mortal things, and fleeTo the last fields of the universe untrod,Where is no man, nor any earth, nor sea,And the contented soul is all alone with God.
Strangeare the ways of men,And strange the ways of God!We tread the mazy pathsThat all our fathers trod.
We tread them undismayed,And undismayed beholdThe portents of the sky,The things that were of old.
The fiery stars pursueTheir course in heav’n on high;And round the ‘leaguered town,Crest-tossing heroes cry.
Crest-tossing heroes cry;And martial fifes declareHow small, to mortal minds,Is merely mortal care.
And to the clang of steelAnd cry of piercing fluteUpon the azure peaksA God shall plant his foot:
A God in arms shall stand,And seeing wide and farThe green and golden earth,The killing tide of war,
He, with uplifted arm,Shall to the skies proclaimThe gleeful fate of man,The noble road to fame!
Thewind blew shrill and smart,And the wind awoke my heartAgain to go a-sailing o’er the sea,To hear the cordage moanAnd the straining timbers groan,And to see the flying pennon lie a-lee.
O sailor of the fleet,It is time to stir the feet!It’s time to man the dingy and to row!It’s lay your hand in mineAnd it’s empty down the wine,And it’s drain a health to death before we go!
To death, my lads, we sail;And it’s death that blows the galeAnd death that holds the tiller as we ride.For he’s the king of allIn the tempest and the squall,And the ruler of the Ocean wild and wide!
Mansails the deep awhile;Loud runs the roaring tide;The seas are wild and wide;O’er many a salt, o’er many a desert mile,The unchained breakers ride,The quivering stars beguile.
Hope bears the sole command;Hope, with unshaken eyes,Sees flaw and storm arise;Hope, the good steersman, with unwearying hand,Steers, under changing skies,Unchanged toward the land.
O wind that bravely blows!O hope that sails with allWhere stars and voices call!O ship undaunted that forever goesWhere God, her admiral,His battle signal shows!
What though the seas and windFar on the deep should whelmColours and sails and helm?There, too, you touch that port that you designed—There, in the mid-seas’ realm,Shall you that haven find.
Well hast thou sailed: now die,To die is not to sleep.Still your true course you keep,O sailor soul, still sailing for the sky;And fifty fathom deepYour colours still shall fly.
Thecock’s clear voice into the clearer airWhere westward far I roam,Mounts with a thrill of hope,Falls with a sigh of home.
A rural sentry, he from farm and fieldThe coming morn descries,And, mankind’s bugler, wakesThe camp of enterprise.
He sings the morn upon the westward hillsStrange and remote and wild;He sings it in the landWhere once I was a child.
He brings to me dear voices of the past,The old land and the years:My father calls for me,My weeping spirit hears.
Fife, fife, into the golden air, O bird,And sing the morning in;For the old days are pastAnd new days begin.
Nowwhen the number of my yearsIs all fulfilled, and IFrom sedentary lifeShall rouse me up to die,Bury me low and let me lieUnder the wide and starry sky.Joying to live, I joyed to die,Bury me low and let me lie.
Clear was my soul, my deeds were free,Honour was called my name,I fell not back from fearNor followed after fame.Bury me low and let me lieUnder the wide and starry sky.Joying to live, I joyed to die,Bury me low and let me lie.
Bury me low in valleys greenAnd where the milder breezeBlows fresh along the stream,Sings roundly in the trees—Bury me low and let me lieUnder the wide and starry sky.Joying to live, I joyed to die,Bury me low and let me lie.
Whatman may learn, what man may do,Of right or wrong of false or true,While, skipper-like, his course he steersThrough nine and twenty mingled years,Half misconceived and half forgot,So much I know and practise not.
Old are the words of wisdom, oldThe counsels of the wise and bold:To close the ears, to check the tongue,To keep the pining spirit young;To act the right, to say the true,And to be kind whate’er you do.
Thus we across the modern stageFollow the wise of every age;And, as oaks grow and rivers runUnchanged in the unchanging sun,So the eternal march of manGoes forth on an eternal plan.
Smallis the trust when love is greenIn sap of early years;A little thing steps in betweenAnd kisses turn to tears.
Awhile—and see how love be grownIn loveliness and power!Awhile, it loves the sweets alone,But next it loves the sour.
A little love is none at allThat wanders or that fears;A hearty love dwells still at callTo kisses or to tears.
Such then be mine, my love to give,And such be yours to take:—A faith to hold, a life to live,For lovingkindness’ sake:
Should you be sad, should you be gay,Or should you prove unkind,A love to hold the growing wayAnd keep the helping mind:—
A love to turn the laugh on careWhen wrinkled care appears,And, with an equal will, to shareYour losses and your tears.
Knowyou the river near to Grez,A river deep and clear?Among the lilies all the way,That ancient river runs to-dayFrom snowy weir to weir.
Old as the Rhine of great renown,She hurries clear and fast,She runs amain by field and townFrom south to north, from up to down,To present on from past.
The love I hold was borne by her;And now, though far away,My lonely spirit hears the stirOf water round the starling spurBeside the bridge at Grez.
So may that love forever holdIn life an equal pace;So may that love grow never old,But, clear and pure and fountain-cold,Go on from grace to grace.
It’sforth across the roaring foam, and on towards the west,It’s many a lonely league from home, o’er many a mountain crest,From where the dogs of Scotland call the sheep around the fold,To where the flags are flying beside the Gates of Gold.
Where all the deep-sea galleons ride that come to bring the corn,Where falls the fog at eventide and blows the breeze at morn;It’s there that I was sick and sad, alone and poor and cold,In yon distressful city beside the Gates of Gold.
I slept as one that nothing knows; but far along my way,Before the morning God rose and planned the coming day;Afar before me forth he went, as through the sands of old,And chose the friends to help me beside the Gates of Gold.
I have been near, I have been far, my back’s been at the wall,Yet aye and ever shone the star to guide me through it all:The love of God, the help of man, they both shall make me boldAgainst the gates of darkness as beside the Gates of Gold.
Upwith the sun, the breeze arose,Across the talking corn she goes,And smooth she rustles far and wideThrough all the voiceful countryside.
Through all the land her tale she tells;She spins, she tosses, she compelsThe kites, the clouds, the windmill sailsAnd all the trees in all the dales.
God calls us, and the day preparesWith nimble, gay and gracious airs:And from Penzance to MaidenheadThe roads last night He watered.
God calls us from inglorious ease,Forth and to travel with the breezeWhile, swift and singing, smooth and strongShe gallops by the fields along.
Asin their flight the birds of songHalt here and there in sweet and sunny dales,But halt not overlong;The time one rural song to singThey pause; then following bounteous galesSteer forward on the wing:Sun-servers they, from first to last,Upon the sun they waitTo ride the sailing blast.
So he awhile in our contested state,Awhile abode, not longer, for his Sun—Mother we say, no tenderer name we know—With whose diviner glowHis early days had shone,Now to withdraw her radiance had begun.Or lest a wrong I say, not she withdrew,But the loud stream of men day after dayAnd great dust columns of the common wayBetween them grew and grew:And he and she for evermore might yearn,But to the spring the rivulets not returnNor to the bosom comes the child again.
And he (O may we fancy so!),He, feeling time forever flowAnd flowing bear him forth and far awayFrom that dear ingle where his life beganAnd all his treasure lay—He, waxing into man,And ever farther, ever closer woundIn this obstreperous world’s ignoble round,From that poor prospect turned his face away.
AgainI hear you piping, for I know the tune so well,—You rouse the heart to wander and be free,Tho’ where you learned your music, not the God of song can tell,For you pipe the open highway and the sea.O piper, lightly footing, lightly piping on your way,Tho’ your music thrills and pierces far and near,I tell you you had better pipe to someone else to-day,For you cannot pipe my fancy from my dear.
You sound the note of travel through the hamlet and the town;You would lure the holy angels from on high;And not a man can hear you, but he throws the hammer downAnd is off to see the countries ere he die.But now no more I wander, now unchanging here I stay;By my love, you find me safely sitting here:And pipe you ne’er so sweetly, till you pipe the hills away,You can never pipe my fancy from my dear.
InSchnee der Alpen—so it runsTo those divine accords—and hereWe dwell in Alpine snows and suns,A motley crew, for half the year:A motley crew, we dwell to taste—A shivering band in hope and fear—That sun upon the snowy waste,That Alpine ether cold and clear.
Up from the laboured plains, and upFrom low sea-levels, we ariseTo drink of that diviner cupThe rarer air, the clearer skies;For, as the great, old, godly KingFrom mankind’s turbid valley cries,So all we mountain-lovers sing:I to the hills will lift mine eyes.
The bells that ring, the peaks that climb,The frozen snow’s unbroken curdMight yet revindicate in rhymeThe pauseless stream, the absent bird.In vain—for to the deeps of lifeYou, lady, you my heart have stirred;And since you say you love my life,Be sure I love you for the word.
Of kindness, here I nothing say—Such loveless kindnesses there areIn that grimacing, common way,That old, unhonoured social war.Love but my dog and love my love,Adore with me a common star—I value not the rest aboveThe ashes of a bad cigar.
Theytell me, lady, that to-dayOn that unknown Australian strand—Some time ago, so far away—Another lady joined the band.She joined the company of thoseLovelily dowered, nobly planned,Who, smiling, still forgive their foesAnd keep their friends in close command.
She, lady, as I learn, was oneAmong the many rarely good;And destined still to be a sunThrough every dark and rainy mood:—She, as they told me, far had come,By sea and land, o’er many a rood:—Admired by all, beloved by some,She was yourself, I understood.
But, compliment apart and freeFrom all constraint of verses, mayGoodness and honour, grace and glee,Attend you ever on your way—Up to the measure of your will,Beyond all power of mine to say—As she and I desire you still,Miss Cornish, on your natal day.
Yes, friend, I own these tales of ArabiaSmile not, as smiled their flawless originals,Age-old but yet untamed, for agesPass and the magic is undiminished.
Thus, friend, the tales of the old Camaralzaman,Ayoub, the Slave of Love, or the Calendars,Blind-eyed and ill-starred royal scions,Charm us in age as they charmed in childhood.
Fair ones, beyond all numerability,Beam from the palace, beam on humanity,Bright-eyed, in truth, yet soul-less hourisOffering pleasure and only pleasure.
Thus they, the venal Muses Arabian,Unlike, indeed, the nobler divinities,Greek Gods or old time-honoured muses,Easily proffer unloved caresses.
Lost, lost, the man who mindeth the minstrelsy;Since still, in sandy, glittering pleasances,Cold, stony fruits, gem-like but quite in-Edible, flatter and wholly starve him.
Behold, as goblins dark of mienAnd portly tyrants dyed with crimeChange, in the transformation scene,At Christmas, in the pantomime,
Instanter, at the prompter’s cough,The fairy bonnets them, and theyThrow their abhorred carbuncles offAnd blossom like the flowers in May.
—So mankind, to angelic eyes,So, through the scenes of life below,In life’s ironical disguise,A travesty of man, ye go:
But fear not: ere the curtain fall,Death in the transformation sceneSteps forward from her pedestal,Apparent, as the fairy Queen;
And coming, frees you in a triceFrom all your lendings—lust of fame,Ungainly virtue, ugly vice,Terror and tyranny and shame.
So each, at last himself, for goodIn that dear country lays him down,At last beloved and understoodAnd pure in feature and renown.
StillI love to rhyme, and still more, rhyming, to wanderFar from the commoner way;Old-time trills and falls by the brook-side still do I ponder,Dreaming to-morrow to-day.
Come here, come, revive me, Sun-God, teach me, Apollo,Measures descanted before;Since I ancient verses, I emulous follow,Prints in the marbles of yore.
Still strange, strange, they sound in old-young raiment invested,Songs for the brain to forget—Young song-birds elate to grave old temples benestedPiping and chirruping yet.
Thoughts? No thought has yet unskilled attempted to flutterTrammelled so vilely in verse;He who writes but aims at fame and his bread and his butter,Won with a groan and a curse.
Longtime I lay in little easeWhere, placed by the Turanian,Marseilles, the many-masted, seesThe blue Mediterranean.
Now songful in the hour of sport,Now riotous for wages,She camps around her ancient port,As ancient of the ages.
Algerian airs through all the placeUnconquerably sally;Incomparable women paceThe shadows of the alley.
And high o’er dark and graving yardAnd where the sky is paler,The golden virgin of the guardShines, beckoning the sailor.
She hears the city roar on high,Thief, prostitute, and banker;She sees the masted vessels lieImmovably at anchor.
She sees the snowy islets dotThe sea’s immortal azure,And If, that castellated spot,Tower, turret, and embrasure.
Flowergod, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful,Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles,Here I wander in AprilCold, grey-headed; and still to myHeart, Spring comes with a bound, Spring the deliverer,Spring, song-leader in woods, chorally resonant;Spring, flower-planter in meadows,Child-conductor in willowyFields deep dotted with bloom, daisies and crocuses:Here that child from his heart drinks of eternity:O child, happy are children!She still smiles on their innocence,She, dear mother in God, fostering violets,Fills earth full of her scents, voices and violins:Thus one cunning in musicWakes old chords in the memory:Thus fair earth in the Spring leads her performances.One more touch of the bow, smell of the virginalGreen—one more, and my bosomFeels new life with an ecstasy.
Come, my beloved, hear from meTales of the woods or open sea.Let our aspiring fancy riseA wren’s flight higher toward the skies;Or far from cities, brown and bare,Play at the least in open air.In all the tales men hear us tellStill let the unfathomed ocean swell,Or shallower forest sound abroadBelow the lonely stars of God;In all, let something still be done,Still in a corner shine the sun,Slim-ankled maids be fleet of foot,Nor man disown the rural flute.Still let the hero from the startIn honest sweat and beats of heartPush on along the untrodden roadFor some inviolate abode.Still, O beloved, let me hearThe great bell beating far and near—The odd, unknown, enchanted gongThat on the road hales men along,That from the mountain calls afar,That lures a vessel from a star,And with a still, aerial soundMakes all the earth enchanted ground.Love, and the love of life and actDance, live and sing through all our furrowed tract;Till the great God enamoured givesTo him who reads, to him who lives,That rare and fair romantic strainThat whoso hears must hear again.
Sinceyears ago for evermoreMy cedar ship I drew to shore;And to the road and riverbedAnd the green, nodding reeds, I saidMine ignorant and last farewell:Now with content at home I dwell,And now divide my sluggish lifeBetwixt my verses and my wife:In vain; for when the lamp is litAnd by the laughing fire I sit,Still with the tattered atlas spreadInterminable roads I tread.
Whetherupon the garden seatYou lounge with your uplifted feetUnder the May’s whole Heaven of blue;Or whether on the sofa you,No grown up person being by,Do some soft corner occupy;Take you this volume in your handsAnd enter into other lands,For lo! (as children feign) supposeYou, hunting in the garden rows,Or in the lumbered attic, orThe cellar—a nail-studded doorAnd dark, descending stairway foundThat led to kingdoms underground:There standing, you should hear with easeStrange birds a-singing, or the treesSwing in big robber woods, or bellsOn many fairy citadels:
There passing through (a step or so—Neither mamma nor nurse need know!)From your nice nurseries you would pass,Like Alice through the Looking-GlassOr Gerda following Little Ray,To wondrous countries far away.Well, and just so this volume canTransport each little maid or manPresto from where they live awayWhere other children used to play.As from the house your mother seesYou playing round the garden trees,So you may see if you but lookThrough the windows of this bookAnother child far, far awayAnd in another garden play.But do not think you can at all,By knocking on the window, callThat child to hear you. He intentIs still on his play-business bent.He does not hear, he will not look,Nor yet be lured out of this book.For long ago, the truth to say,He has grown up and gone away;And it is but a child of airThat lingers in the garden there.
WhenThomas set this tablet here,Time laughed at the vain chanticleer;And ere the moss had dimmed the stone,Time had defaced that garrison.Now I in turn keep watch and wardIn my red house, in my walled yardOf sunflowers, sitting here at easeWith friends and my bright canvases.But hark, and you may hear quite plainTime’s chuckled laughter in the lane.
Hail, guest, and enter freely! All you seeIs, for your momentary visit, yours; and weWho welcome you are but the guests of God,And know not our departure.
Lo, now, my guest, if aught amiss were said,Forgive it and dismiss it from your head.For me, for you, for all, to close the date,Pass now the ev’ning sponge across the slate;And to that spirit of forgiveness keepWhich is the parent and the child of sleep.
Solive, so love, so use that fragile hour,That when the dark hand of the shining powerShall one from other, wife or husband, take,The poor survivor may not weep and wake.
Dearsir, good-morrow! Five years back,When you first girded for this arduous track,And under various whimsical pretextsEndowed another with your damned defects,Could you have dreamed in your despondent veinThat the kind God would make your path so plain?Non nobis, domine! O, may He stillSupport my stumbling footsteps on the hill!
Beforethis little gift was comeThe little owner had made haste for home;And from the door of where the eternal dwell,Looked back on human things and smiled farewell.O may this grief remain the only one!O may our house be still a garrisonOf smiling children, and for evermoreThe tune of little feet be heard along the floor!
Go, little book—the ancient phraseAnd still the daintiest—go your ways,My Otto, over sea and land,Till you shall come to Nelly’s hand.
How shall I your Nelly know?By her blue eyes and her black brow,By her fierce and slender look,And by her goodness, little book!
What shall I say when I come there?You shall speak her soft and fair:See—you shall say—the love they sendTo greet their unforgotten friend!
Giant Adulpho you shall singThe next, and then the cradled king:And the four corners of the roofThen kindly bless; and to your perch aloof,Where Balzac all in yellow dressedAnd the dear Webster of the westEncircle the prepotent throneOf Shakespeare and of Calderon,Shall climb an upstart.
There with theseYou shall give ear to breaking seasAnd windmills turning in the breeze,A distant undetermined dinWithout; and you shall hear withinThe blazing and the bickering logs,The crowing child, the yawning dogs,And ever agile, high and low,Our Nelly going to and fro.
There shall you all silent sit,Till, when perchance the lamp is litAnd the day’s labour done, she takesPoor Otto down, and, warming for our sakes,Perchance beholds, alive and near,Our distant faces reappear.