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My Nutmeg Phantasy
nutty nutmeg phantasy
can't you see you and me
in my nutty nutmeg phantasy
nutty nutmeg phantasy
you and me
can't you see
you and me
in my nutty nutmeg
baby I know we had a bad day
you are so mad at me
it don't mean we have to mope around
picture us on the moon
happy like a cartoon
believe in love and it will come down
nutty nutmeg phantasy
can't you see you and me
in my nutty nutmeg phantasy
nutty nutmeg phantasy
you and me
can't you see
you and me
in my nutty nutmeg
picture if I was understanding
and you were less demanding
and the only time we scream and shout
is when we're making love babe
on top of cloud 8
believe in love and it will come down
nutty nutmeg phantasy
can't you see you and me
in my nutty nutmeg phantasy
nutty nutmeg phantasy
you and me
can't you see
you and me
in my nutty nutmeg
imagine and maybe it will happen
you and me till the end
may be a dream but it's real to me
chocolare covered roses
love in massive doses
in my nutmeg phanta-ta-sy
nutty nutmeg phantasy
can't you see you and me
in my nutty nutmeg phantasy
nutty nutmeg phantasy
you and me
can't you see
you and me
in my nutty nutmeg
song performed by by Macy Gray from The ID
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Nut-Brown Ale
THE nut-brown ale, the nut-brown ale,
Puts down all drink when it is stale!
The toast, the nutmeg, and the ginger
Will make a sighing man a singer.
Ale gives a buffet in the head,
But ginger under-props the brain;
When ale would strike a strong man dead
Then nutmeg tempers it again.
The nut-brown ale, the nut-brown ale,
Puts down all drink when it is stale!
poem by John Marston
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Since you have scolding me, I have counted a hundred and twenty holes in that nutmeg grater.
Yeoman service
Woman, be a flower
To emit fragrance.
Woman, be an inflorescence
To display beauty.
Woman, be a honey
To stimulate men
And be not a nutmeg
To betray longing souls.
This is the greatest joy
You can do to mankind.
Woman, grant men access
To have pleasure of your company.
You can do as many
As you can, a yeoman service.
12.10.2005
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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An Ode To Maybe
Lead in night at the laundry mat
And Im staring at you pulling clothes from a dryer
And Im wondering how I got here
But it seems some how I keep getting stuck in the mire
I needed this more than you I knew
And I let you down and I said Im sorry
But the light that falls on my castle walls
And my basketballs pelt me with bricks in my dreams
Tonight
Oh maybe
What you need I hope it finds you
Oh I might
I might be
Well maybe
Maybe someday youll get it right
If I could bottle my hopes in a store bought scent
Theyd be nutmeg peach and theyd pay the rent
And Id ride a horse and Id teach a course
On how I got to be a star crossed pimp
Tonight
Oh maybe
What you need I hope it finds you
Oh I might
I might be
Well maybe
Maybe someday youll get it right
song performed by by Third Eye Blind
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ballad of women i love
Prudence Mears hath an old blue plate
Hid away in an oaken chest,
And a Franklin platter of ancient date
Beareth Amandy Baker's crest;
What times soever I've been their guest,
Says I to myself in an undertone:
"Of womenfolk, it must be confessed,
These do I love, and these alone."
Well, again, in the Nutmeg State,
Dorothy Pratt is richly blest
With a relic of art and a land effete--
A pitcher of glass that's cut, not pressed.
And a Washington teapot is possessed
Down in Pelham by Marthy Stone--
Think ye now that I say in jest
"These do I love, and these alone?"
Were Hepsy Higgins inclined to mate,
Or Dorcas Eastman prone to invest
In Cupid's bonds, they could find their fate
In the bootless bard of Crockery Quest.
For they've heaps of trumpery--so have the rest
Of those spinsters whose ware I'd like to own;
You can see why I say with such certain zest,
"These do I love, and these alone."
poem by Eugene Field
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Forever After
For I would rescue you from the bowels of hell
For a chance with you to dwell
You are the rains that bring forth life
You are the means to the end of strife
You are my one and only turtledove
For the L in your name means love
In the heavens you are the shining star
Never change for I love you the way you are
Take a gamble and roll the dice
For in this life you are my spice
Cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger too
The taste of honey and essences blue
You make my heart sing LADI, DA, DA
Your smile takes me to Shangri-La
Gorgeous damsel femininity speaking
Au couture La fem I have been seeking
How I would whisper sweet things in your ear
To wake and find that you are still there
To hold and touch you would bring so much joy
For I would be content to be your love toy
These things I cannot deny
To refrain from you I would not try
I can see the beauty in your eyes
For to you never I would tell lies
So precious and a sensational find
Thoughts of you are dancing in my mind
On you I would spend my last dime
With you I’d spend the rest of time
Wait no longer and stop all stalling
Don’t you hear true love calling
With you I can form a fellowship
The goddess in my life that deserves worship
Here I am with arms open wide
I will sit eternally by you side
If you should pass before I do
Forever after moaning I would for you
poem by Wilfred Mellers
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Weird Food Combos!
Consider a roll, with a bacon and fried banana filling;
To take a bite, would you consider yourself willing?
Worcestershire sauce poured over cheese on toast,
Is a concept which, to me, seems really rather gross.
Apple pie, topped with a melted cheddar cheese slice,
Is something, which is considered, by some, rather nice.
Chilli and dark chocolate, I think is really delightful,
But marmite and chocolate, strikes me as just frightful.
A sandwich filled with strawberries and double cream,
May be rather squidgy, but, to me, it would be a dream.
A meal served to me, with both chips and sprouts,
Is not something which I would definitely rule out.
For bacon and marmalade sandwiches, I would not rush,
But there are some people, who think that this is just lush.
It seems really popular, and I wondered what you’d make,
Of dipping French fries in custard or chocolate milkshake?
Years ago, from a supermarket chiller, I very happily chose
A pack of yoghurts: the flavours included lavender and rose.
Apparently, an omelette is good, spread with strawberry jam;
Although, you may prefer yours, filled with just cheese or ham.
A little nutmeg lightly sprinkled over hot boiled potatoes,
Is said to add depth to the taste – but it’s a strange combo!
Hot creamy custard poured over crisp, golden fish fingers,
Produces an unusual aftertaste which, in the mouth, lingers.
Raspberry jam, spread on chicken, which is barbequed,
Is another unusual combination, but is a well liked food.
Crackers topped with peanut butter and horseradish sauce,
Is not one of those combinations, which I think I’d endorse.
Apple sliced up, and mixed with chunks of fresh tuna,
Is something I may try much later, rather than sooner.
Ham which has been marinated in fresh orange juice,
Is adored by some, because of the flavour produced.
Some people love to mix different foodstuffs up together,
And they produce new exciting combos, which is so clever.
I'm glad that people experiment, and try tastes, which are new,
And invent some amazing concoctions, on which we can chew.
poem by Angela Wybrow
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It Is The Sinners' Dust-Tongued Bell
It is the sinners' dust-tongued bell claps me to churches
When, with his torch and hourglass, like a sulpher priest,
His beast heel cleft in a sandal,
Time marks a black aisle kindle from the brand of ashes,
Grief with dishevelled hands tear out the altar ghost
And a firewind kill the candle.
Over the choir minute I hear the hour chant:
Time's coral saint and the salt grief drown a foul sepulchre
And a whirlpool drives the prayerwheel;
Moonfall and sailing emperor, pale as their tide-print,
Hear by death's accident the clocked and dashed-down spire
Strike the sea hour through bellmetal.
There is loud and dark directly under the dumb flame,
Storm, snow, and fountain in the weather of fireworks,
Cathedral calm in the pulled house;
Grief with drenched book and candle christens the cherub time
From the emerald, still bell; and from the pacing weather-cock
The voice of bird on coral prays.
Forever it is a white child in the dark-skinned summer
Out of the font of bone and plants at that stone tocsin
Scales the blue wall of spirits;
From blank and leaking winter sails the child in colour,
Shakes, in crabbed burial shawl, by sorcerer's insect woken,
Ding dong from the mute turrets.
I mean by time the cast and curfew rascal of our marriage,
At nightbreak born in the fat side, from an animal bed
In a holy room in a wave;
And all love's sinners in sweet cloth kneel to a hyleg image,
Nutmeg, civet, and sea-parsley serve the plagued groom and bride
Who have brought forth the urchin grief.
poem by Dylan Thomas
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Part 2 of Trout Fishing in America
ANOTHER METHOD
OF MAKING WALNUT CATSUP
And this is a very small cookbook for Trout Fishing in America
as if Trout Fishing in America were a rich gourmet and
Trout Fishing in America had Maria Callas for a girlfriend
and they ate together on a marble table with beautiful candles.
Compote of Apples
Take a dozen of golden pippins, pare them
nicely and take the core out with a small
penknife; put them into some water, and
let them be well scalded; then take a little
of the water with some sugar, and a few
apples which may be sliced into it, and
let the whole boil till it comes to a syrup;
then pour it over your pippins, and garnish
them with dried cherries and lemon-peel
cut fine. You must take care that your
pippins are not split.
And Maria Callas sang to Trout Fishing in America as
they ate their apples together.
A Standing Crust for Great Pies
Take a peck of flour and six pounds of butter
boiled in a gallon of water: skim it off into
the flour, and as little of the liquor as you
can. Work it up well into a paste, and then
pull it into pieces till it is cold. Then make
it up into what form you please.
And Trout Fishing in America smiled at Maria Callas as
they ate their pie crust together.
A Spoonful Pudding
Take a spoonful of flour, a spoonful of
cream or milk, an egg, a little nutmeg,
ginger, and salt. Mix all together, and
boil it in a little wooden dish half an hour.
If you think proper you may add a few
currants .
And Trout Fishing in America said, "The moon's coming
out." And Maria Callas said, "Yes, it is."
Another Method of Making Walnut Catsup
Take green walnuts before the shell is
formed, and grind them in a crab-mill,
or pound them in a marble mortar.
Squeeze out the juice through a coarse
cloth, and put to every gallon of juice
a pound of anchovies, and the same
quantity of bay-salt, four ounces of
Jamaica pepper, two of long and two of
black pepper; of mace, cloves, and
ginger, each an ounce, and a stick of
horseradish. Boil all together till
reduced to half the quantity, and then
put it into a pot. When it is cold, bottle
it close, and in three months it will be
fit for use.
And Trout Fishing in America and Maria Callas poured
walnut catsup on their hamburgers.
PROLOGUE TO GRIDER CREEK
Mooresville, Indiana, is the town that John Dillinger came
from, and the town has a John Dillinger Museum. You can
go in and look around.
Some towns are known as the peach capital of America or
the cherry capital or the oyster capital, and there's always
a festival and the photograph of a pretty girl in a bathing suit.
Mooresville, Indiana, is the John Dillinger capital of America.
Recently a man moved there with his wife, and he discovered
hundreds of rats in his basement. They were huge, slowmoving
child-eyed rats.
When his wife had to visit some of her relatives for a few
days, the man went out and bought a .38 revolver and a lot
of ammunition. Then he went down to the basement where
the rats were, and he started shooting them. It didn't bother
the rats at all. They acted as if it were a movie and started
eating their dead companions for popcorn.
The man walked over to a rat that was busy eating a friend
and placed the pistol against the rat's head. The rat did not
move and continued eating away. When the hammer clicked
back, the rat paused between bites and looked out of the corner
of its eye. First at the pistol and then at the man. It was a kind
of friendly look as if to say, "When my mother was young she
sang like Deanna Durbin. "
The man pulled the trigger.
He had no sense of humor.
There's always a single feature, a double feature and an
eternal feature playing at the Great Theater in Mooresville,
Indiana: the John Dillinger capital of America.
poem by Richard Brautigan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Jubilate Agno: Fragment B, Part 3
For a Man is to be looked upon in that which he excells as on a prospect.
For there be twelve cardinal virtues -- three to the East -- Greatness, Valour, Piety.
For there be three to the West -- Goodness, Purity and Sublimity.
For there be three to the North -- Meditation, Happiness, Strength.
For there be three to the South -- Constancy, Pleasantry and Wisdom.
For the Argument A PRIORI is GOD in every man's CONSCIENCE.
For the Argument A POSTERIORI is God before every man's eyes.
For the Four and Twenty Elders of the Revelation are Four and Twenty Eternities.
For their Four and Twenty Crowns are their respective Consummations.
For a CHARACTER is the votes of the Worldlings, but the seal is of Almighty GOD alone.
For there is no musick in flats and sharps which are not in God's natural key.
For where Accusation takes the place of encouragement a man of Genius is driven to act the vices of a fool.
For the Devil can set a house on fire, when the inhabitants find combustibles.
For the old account of time is the true -- Decr 28th 1759-60 -- -- --
For Faith as a grain of mustard seed is to believe, as I do, that an Eternity is such in respect to the power and magnitude of Almighty God.
For a DREAM is a good thing from GOD.
For there is a dream from the adversary which is terror.
For the phenomenon of dreaming is not of one solution, but many.
For Eternity is like a grain of mustard as a growing body and improving spirit.
For the malignancy of fire is oweing to the Devil's hiding of light, till it became visible darkness.
For the Circle may be SQUARED by swelling and flattening.
For the Life of God is in the body of man and his spirit in the Soul.
For there was no rain in Paradise because of the delicate construction of the spiritual herbs and flowers.
For the Planet Mercury is the WORD DISCERNMENT.
For the Scotchman seeks for truth at the bottom of a well, the Englishman in the Heavn of Heavens.
For the Planet Venus is the WORD PRUDENCE or providence.
For GOD nevertheless is an extravagant BEING and generous unto loss.
For there is no profit in the generation of man and the loss of millions is not worth God's tear.
For this is the twelfth day of the MILLENNIUM of the MILLENNIUM foretold by the prophets -- give the glory to God ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY --
For the Planet Mars is the word FORTITUDE.
For to worship naked in the Rain is the bravest thing for the refreshing and purifying the body.
For the Planet Jupiter is the WORD DISPENSATION.
For Tully says to be generous you must be first just, but the voice of Christ is distribute at all events.
For Kittim is the father of the Pygmies, God be gracious to Pigg his family.
For the Soul is divisible and a portion of the Spirit may be cut off from one and applied to another.
For NEW BREAD is the most wholesome especially if it be leaven'd with honey.
For a NEW SONG also is best, if it be to the glory of God; and taken with the food like the psalms.
For the Planet Saturn is the word TEMPERANCE or PATIENCE.
For Jacob's Ladder are the steps of the Earth graduated hence to Paradice and thence to the throne of God.
For a good wish is well but a faithful prayer is an eternal benefit.
For SPICA VIRGINIS is the star that appeared to the wise men in the East and directed their way before it was yet insphered.
For an IDEA is the mental vision of an object.
For Lock supposes that an human creature, at a given time may be an atheist i.e. without God, by the folly of his doctrine concerning innate ideas.
For it is not lawful to sell poyson in England any more than it is in Venice, the Lord restrain both the finder and receiver.
For the ACCENTS are the invention of the Moabites, who learning the GREEK tongue marked the words after their own vicious pronuntiation.
For the GAULS (the now-French and original Moabites) after they were subdued by Cæsar became such Grecians at Rome.
For the Gaullic manuscripts fell into the hands of the inventors of printing.
For all the inventions of man, which are good, are the communications of Almighty God.
For all the stars have satellites, which are terms under their respective words.
For tiger is a word and his satellites are Griffin, Storgis, Cat and others.
For my talent is to give an Impression upon words by punching, that when the reader casts his eye upon 'em, he takes up the image from the mould which I have made.
For JOB was the son of Issachar and patience is the child of strength.
For the Names of the DAYS, as they now stand, are foolish and abominable.
For the Days are the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh.
For the names of the months are false -- the Hebrew appellatives are of God.
For the Time of the Lord's temptation was in early youth and imminent danger.
For an equivocal generation is a generation and no generation.
For putrifying matter nevertheless will yield up its life in diverse creatures and combinations of creatures.
For a TOAD can dwell in the centre of a stone, because -- there are stones whose constituent life is of those creatures.
For a Toad hath by means of his eye the most beautiful prospects of any other animal to make him amends for his distance from his Creator in Glory.
For FAT is the fruit of benevolence, therefore it was the Lord's in the Mosaic sacrifices.
For the very particular laws of Moses are the determinations of CASES that fell under his cognizance.
For the Devil can make the shadow thicker by candlelight by reason of his pow'r over malignant fire.
For the Romans clipped their words in the Augustan thro idleness and effeminacy and paid foreign actors for speaking them out.
For when the weight and the pow'r are equivalent the prop is of none effect.
For shaving of the beard was an invention of the people of Sodom to make men look like women.
For the ends of the world are the accomplishment of great events, and the consummation of periods.
For ignorance is a sin because illumination is to be obtained by prayer.
For Preferment is not from the East, West or South, but from the North, where Satan has most power.
For the ministers of the Devil set the hewer of wood over the head of God's free Man.
For this inverting God's good order, edifice and edification, and appointing place, where the Lord has not appointed.
For the Ethiopian question is already solved in that the Blacks are the children of Cain.
For the phenomenon of the horizontal moon is the truth -- she appears bigger in the horizon because she actually is so.
For it was said of old 'can the Ethiopian change his skin?' the Lord has answered the question by his merit and death he shall. --
For the moon is magnified in the horizon by Almighty God, and so is the Sun.
For she has done her day's-work and the blessing of God upon her, and she communicates with the earth.
For when she rises she has been strength'ned by the Sun, who cherishes her by night.
For man is born to trouble in the body, as the sparks fly upwards in the spirit.
For man is between the pinchers while his soul is shaping and purifying.
For the ENGLISH are the seed of Abraham and work up to him by Joab, David, and Naphtali. God be gracious to us this day. General Fast March 14th 1760.
For the Romans and the English are one people the children of the brave man who died at the altar praying for his posterity, whose death was the type of our Saviour's.
For the WELCH are the children of Mephibosheth and Ziba with a mixture of David in the Jones's.
For the Scotch are the children of Doeg with a mixture of Cush the Benjamite, whence their innate antipathy to the English.
For the IRISH are the children of Shimei and Cush with a mixture of something lower -- the Lord raise them!
For the FRENCH are Moabites even the children of Lot.
For the DUTCH are the children of Gog.
For the Poles are the children of Magog.
For the Italians are the children of Samuel and are the same as the Grecians.
For the Spaniards are the children of Abishai Joab's brother, hence is the goodwill between the two nations.
For the Portuguese are the children of Amman -- God be gracious to Lisbon and send good angels amongst them!
For the Hottentots are the children of Gog with a Black mixture.
For the Russians are the Children of Ishmael.
For the Turks are the children of Esaw, which is Edom.
For the Wallachians are the children of Huz. God be gracious to Elizabeth Hughes, as she was.
For the Germans are the children of the Philistins even the seed of Anak.
For the Prussians are the children of Goliah -- but the present, whom God bless this hour, is a Campbell of the seed of Phinees.
For the Hanoverians are Hittites of the seed of Uriah. God save the king.
For the Hessians are Philistines with a mixture of Judah.
For the Saxons are Benjamites, men of great subtlety and Marshal Saxe was direct from Benjamin.
For the Danes are of the children of Zabulon.
For the Venetians are the children of Mark and Romans.
For the Swiss are Philistins of a particular family. God be gracious to Jonathan Tyers his family and to all the people at Vaux Hall.
For the Sardinians are of the seed of David -- The Lord forward the Reformation amongst the good seed first. --
For the Mogul's people are the children of Phut.
For the Old Greeks and the Italians are one people, which are blessed in the gift of Mustek by reason of the song of Hannah and the care of Samuel with regard to divine melody.
For the Germans and the Dutch are the children of the Goths and Vandals who did a good in destruction books written by heathen Free-Thinkers against God.
For there are Americans of the children of Toi. --
For the Laplanders are the children of Gomer.
For the Phenomena of the Diving Bell are solved right in the schools.
For NEW BREAD is the most wholesome -- God be gracious to Baker.
For the English are the children of Joab, Captain of the host of Israel, who was the greatest man in the world to GIVE and to ATCHIEVE.
For TEA is a blessed plant and of excellent virtue. God give the Physicians more skill and honesty!
For nutmeg is exceeding wholesome and cherishing, neither does it hurt the liver.
For The Lightning before death is God's illumination in the spirit for preparation and for warning.
For Lavender Cotton is exceeding good for the teeth. God be gracious to Windsmore.
For the Fern is exceeding good and pleasant to rub the teeth.
For a strong preparation of Mandragora is good for the gout.
For the Bark was a communication from God and is sovereign.
For the method of curing an ague by terror is exaction.
For Exaction is the most accursed of all things, because it brought the Lord to the cross, his betrayers and murderers being such from their exaction.
For an Ague is the terror of the body, when the blessing of God is withheld for a season.
For benevolence is the best remedy in the first place and the bark in the second.
For, when the nation is at war, it is better to abstain from the punishment of criminals especially, every act of human vengeance being a check to the grace of God.
For the letter ל [Hebrew character lamed] which signifies GOD by himself is on the fibre of some leaf in every Tree.
For ל is the grain of the human heart and on the network of the skin.
For ל is in the veins of all stones both precious and common.
For ל is upon every hair both of man and beast.
For ל is in the grain of wood.
For ל is in the ore of all metals.
For ל is on the scales of all fish.
For ל is on the petals of all flowers.
For ל is upon on all shells.
For ל is in the constituent particles of air.
For ל is on the mite of the earth.
For ל is in the water yea in every drop.
For ל is in the incomprehensible ingredients of fire.
For ל is in the stars the sun and in the Moon.
For ל is upon the Sapphire Vault.
For the doubling of flowers is the improvement of the gardners talent.
For the flowers are great blessings.
For the Lord made a Nosegay in the meadow with his disciples and preached upon the lily.
For the angels of God took it out of his hand and carried it to the Height.
For a man cannot have publick spirit, who is void of private benevolence.
For there is no Height in which there are not flowers.
For flowers have great virtues for all the senses.
For the flower glorifies God and the root parries the adversary.
For the flowers have their angels even the words of God's Creation.
For the warp and woof of flowers are worked by perpetual moving spirits.
For flowers are good both for the living and the dead.
For there is a language of flowers.
For there is a sound reasoning upon all flowers.
For elegant phrases are nothing but flowers.
For flowers are peculiarly the poetry of Christ.
For flowers are medicinal.
For flowers are musical in ocular harmony.
For the right names of flowers are yet in heaven. God make gard'ners better nomenclators.
For the Poorman's nosegay is an introduction to a Prince.
For it were better for the SERVICE, if only select psalms were read.
For the Lamentations of Jeremiah, Songs from other scriptures, and parts of Esdras might be taken to supply the quantity.
For A is the beginning of learning and the door of heaven.
For B is a creature busy and bustling.
For C is a sense quick and penetrating.
For D is depth.
For E is eternity -- such is the power of the English letters taken singly.
For F is faith.
For G is God -- whom I pray to be gracious to Liveware my fellow prisoner.
For H is not a letter, but a spirit -- Benedicatur Jesus Christus, sic spirem!
For I is identity. God be gracious to Henry Hatsell.
For K is king.
For L is love. God in every language.
For M is musick and Hebrew מ [Hebrew character mem] is the direct figure of God's harp.
For N is new.
For O is open.
For P is power.
For Q is quick.
For R is right.
For S is soul.
For T is truth. God be gracious to Jermyn Pratt and to Harriote his Sister.
For U is unity, and his right name is Uve to work it double.
For W is word.
For X [drawn as a backwards G and a G stuck together] is hope -- consisting of two check G -- God be gracious to Anne Hope.
For Y is yea. God be gracious to Eennet and his family!
For Z is zeal.
For in the education of children it is necessary to watch the words, -which they pronounce with difficulty, for such are against them in their consequences.
For A is awe, if pronounced full. Stand in awe and sin not.
For B pronounced in the animal is bey importing authority.
For C pronounced hard is ke importing to shut.
For D pronounced full is day.
For E is east particularly when formed little e with his eye.
For F in it's secondary meaning is fair.
For G in a secondary sense is good.
For H is heave.
For I is the organ of vision.
For K is keep.
For L is light, and ל [Hebrew character lamed] is the line of beauty.
For M is meet.
For N is nay.
For O is over.
For P is peace.
For Q is quarter.
For R is rain, or thus reign, or thus rein.
For S is save.
For T is take.
For V is veil.
For W is world.
For X [drawn as a backwards G and a G stuck together] beginneth not, but connects and continues.
For Y is young -- the Lord direct me in the better way of going on in the Fifth year of my jeopardy June the 17th N.S. 1760. God be gracious to Dr YOUNG.
For Z is zest. God give us all a relish of our duty.
For Action and Speaking are one according to God and the Ancients.
For the approaches of Death are by illumination.
For a man cannot have Publick Spirit, who is void of private benevolence.
For the order of Alamoth is first three, second six, third eighteen, fourth fifty four, and then the whole band.
For the order of Sheminith is first ten, second twenty, third thirty and then the whole band.
For the first entrance into Heaven is by complement.
For Flowers can see, and Pope's Carnations knew him.
For the devil works upon damps and lowth and causes agues.
For Ignorance is a sin, because illumination is to be had by prayer.
For many a genius being lost at the plough is a false thought -- the divine providence is a better manager.
For a man's idleness is the fruit of the adversary's diligence.
For diligence is the gift of God, as well as other good things.
For it is a good NOTHING in one's own eyes and in the eyes of fools.
For æra in its primitive sense is but a weed amongst corn.
For there is no knowing of times and seasons, in submitting them to God stands the Christian's Chronology.
For Jacob's brown sheep wore the Golden fleece.
For Shaving of the face was the invention of the Sodomites to make men look like women.
poem by Christopher Smart
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Old-Home Folks
Such was the Child-World of the long-ago--
The little world these children used to know:--
Johnty, the oldest, and the best, perhaps,
Of the five happy little Hoosier chaps
Inhabiting this wee world all their own.--
Johnty, the leader, with his native tone
Of grave command--a general on parade
Whose each punctilious order was obeyed
By his proud followers.
But Johnty yet--
After all serious duties--could forget
The gravity of life to the extent,
At times, of kindling much astonishment
About him: With a quick, observant eye,
And mind and memory, he could supply
The tamest incident with liveliest mirth;
And at the most unlooked-for times on earth
Was wont to break into some travesty
On those around him--feats of mimicry
Of this one's trick of gesture--that one's walk--
Or this one's laugh--or that one's funny talk,--
The way 'the watermelon-man' would try
His humor on town-folks that wouldn't buy;--
How he drove into town at morning--then
At dusk (alas!) how he drove out again.
Though these divertisements of Johnty's were
Hailed with a hearty glee and relish, there
Appeared a sense, on his part, of regret--
A spirit of remorse that would not let
Him rest for days thereafter.--Such times he,
As some boy said, 'jist got too overly
Blame good fer common boys like us, you know,
To '_so_ciate with--less'n we 'ud go
And jine his church!'
Next after Johnty came
His little tow-head brother, Bud by name.--
And O how white his hair was--and how thick
His face with freckles,--and his ears, how quick
And curious and intrusive!--And how pale
The blue of his big eyes;--and how a tale
Of Giants, Trolls or Fairies, bulged them still
Bigger and bigger!--and when 'Jack' would kill
The old 'Four-headed Giant,' Bud's big eyes
Were swollen truly into giant-size.
And Bud was apt in make-believes--would hear
His Grandma talk or read, with such an ear
And memory of both subject and big words,
That he would take the book up afterwards
And feign to 'read aloud,' with such success
As caused his truthful elders real distress.
But he _must_ have _big words_--they seemed to give
Extremer range to the superlative--
That was his passion. 'My Gran'ma,' he said,
One evening, after listening as she read
Some heavy old historical review--
With copious explanations thereunto
Drawn out by his inquiring turn of mind,--
'My Gran'ma she's read _all_ books--ever' kind
They is, 'at tells all 'bout the land an' sea
An' Nations of the Earth!--An' she is the
Historicul-est woman ever wuz!'
(Forgive the verse's chuckling as it does
In its erratic current.--Oftentimes
The little willowy waterbrook of rhymes
Must falter in its music, listening to
The children laughing as they used to do.)
Who shall sing a simple ditty all about the Willow,
Dainty-fine and delicate as any bending spray
That dandles high the happy bird that flutters there to trill a
Tremulously tender song of greeting to the May.
Ah, my lovely Willow!--Let the Waters lilt your graces,--
They alone with limpid kisses lave your leaves above,
Flashing back your sylvan beauty, and in shady places
Peering up with glimmering pebbles, like the eyes of love.
Next, Maymie, with her hazy cloud of hair,
And the blue skies of eyes beneath it there.
Her dignified and 'little lady' airs
Of never either romping up the stairs
Or falling down them; thoughtful everyway
Of others first--The kind of child at play
That 'gave up,' for the rest, the ripest pear
Or peach or apple in the garden there
Beneath the trees where swooped the airy swing--
She pushing it, too glad for anything!
Or, in the character of hostess, she
Would entertain her friends delightfully
In her play-house,--with strips of carpet laid
Along the garden-fence within the shade
Of the old apple-trees--where from next yard
Came the two dearest friends in her regard,
The little Crawford girls, Ella and Lu--
As shy and lovely as the lilies grew
In their idyllic home,--yet sometimes they
Admitted Bud and Alex to their play,
Who did their heavier work and helped them fix
To have a 'Festibul'--and brought the bricks
And built the 'stove,' with a real fire and all,
And stovepipe-joint for chimney, looming tall
And wonderfully smoky--even to
Their childish aspirations, as it blew
And swooped and swirled about them till their sight
Was feverish even as their high delight.
Then Alex, with his freckles, and his freaks
Of temper, and the peach-bloom of his cheeks,
And '_amber-colored_ hair'--his mother said
'Twas that, when others laughed and called it '_red_'
And Alex threw things at them--till they'd call
A truce, agreeing ''t'uz n't red _ut-tall_!'
But Alex was affectionate beyond
The average child, and was extremely fond
Of the paternal relatives of his
Of whom he once made estimate like this:--
'_I'm_ only got _two_ brothers,--but my _Pa_
He's got most brothers'n you ever saw!--
He's got _seben_ brothers!--Yes, an' they're all my
Seben Uncles!--Uncle John, an' Jim,--an' I'
Got Uncle George, an' Uncle Andy, too,
An' Uncle Frank, an' Uncle Joe.--An' you
_Know_ Uncle _Mart_.--An', all but _him_, they're great
Big mens!--An' nen s Aunt Sarah--she makes eight!--
I'm got _eight_ uncles!--'cept Aunt Sarah _can't_
Be ist my _uncle_ 'cause she's ist my _aunt_!'
Then, next to Alex--and the last indeed
Of these five little ones of whom you read--
Was baby Lizzie, with her velvet lisp,--
As though her Elfin lips had caught some wisp
Of floss between them as they strove with speech,
Which ever seemed just in yet out of reach--
Though what her lips missed, her dark eyes could say
With looks that made her meaning clear as day.
And, knowing now the children, you must know
The father and the mother they loved so:--
The father was a swarthy man, black-eyed,
Black-haired, and high of forehead; and, beside
The slender little mother, seemed in truth
A very king of men--since, from his youth,
To his hale manhood _now_--(worthy as then,--
A lawyer and a leading citizen
Of the proud little town and county-seat--
His hopes his neighbors', and their fealty sweet)--
He had known outdoor labor--rain and shine--
Bleak Winter, and bland Summer--foul and fine.
So Nature had ennobled him and set
Her symbol on him like a coronet:
His lifted brow, and frank, reliant face.--
Superior of stature as of grace,
Even the children by the spell were wrought
Up to heroics of their simple thought,
And saw him, trim of build, and lithe and straight
And tall, almost, as at the pasture-gate
The towering ironweed the scythe had spared
For their sakes, when The Hired Man declared
It would grow on till it became a _tree_,
With cocoanuts and monkeys in--maybe!
Yet, though the children, in their pride and awe
And admiration of the father, saw
A being so exalted--even more
Like adoration was the love they bore
The gentle mother.--Her mild, plaintive face
Was purely fair, and haloed with a grace
And sweetness luminous when joy made glad
Her features with a smile; or saintly sad
As twilight, fell the sympathetic gloom
Of any childish grief, or as a room
Were darkened suddenly, the curtain drawn
Across the window and the sunshine gone.
Her brow, below her fair hair's glimmering strands,
Seemed meetest resting-place for blessing hands
Or holiest touches of soft finger-tips
And little roseleaf-cheeks and dewy lips.
Though heavy household tasks were pitiless,
No little waist or coat or checkered dress
But knew her needle's deftness; and no skill
Matched hers in shaping pleat or flounce or frill;
Or fashioning, in complicate design,
All rich embroideries of leaf and vine,
With tiniest twining tendril,--bud and bloom
And fruit, so like, one's fancy caught perfume
And dainty touch and taste of them, to see
Their semblance wrought in such rare verity.
Shrined in her sanctity of home and love,
And love's fond service and reward thereof,
Restore her thus, O blessed Memory!--
Throned in her rocking-chair, and on her knee
Her sewing--her workbasket on the floor
Beside her,--Springtime through the open door
Balmily stealing in and all about
The room; the bees' dim hum, and the far shout
And laughter of the children at their play,
And neighbor-children from across the way
Calling in gleeful challenge--save alone
One boy whose voice sends back no answering tone--
The boy, prone on the floor, above a book
Of pictures, with a rapt, ecstatic look--
Even as the mother's, by the selfsame spell,
Is lifted, with a light ineffable--
As though her senses caught no mortal cry,
But heard, instead, some poem going by.
The Child-heart is so strange a little thing--
So mild--so timorously shy and small.--
When _grown-up_ hearts throb, it goes scampering
Behind the wall, nor dares peer out at all!--
It is the veriest mouse
That hides in any house--
So wild a little thing is any Child-heart!
_Child-heart!--mild heart!--
Ho, my little wild heart!--
Come up here to me out o' the dark,
Or let me come to you!_
So lorn at times the Child-heart needs must be.
With never one maturer heart for friend
And comrade, whose tear-ripened sympathy
And love might lend it comfort to the end,--
Whose yearnings, aches and stings.
Over poor little things
Were pitiful as ever any Child-heart.
_Child-heart!--mild heart!--
Ho, my little wild heart!--
Come up here to me out o' the dark,
Or let me come to you!_
Times, too, the little Child-heart must be glad--
Being so young, nor knowing, as _we_ know.
The fact from fantasy, the good from bad,
The joy from woe, the--_all_ that hurts us so!
What wonder then that thus
It hides away from us?--
So weak a little thing is any Child-heart!
_Child-heart!--mild heart!--
Ho, my little wild heart!--
Come up here to me out o' the dark,
Or let me come to you!_
Nay, little Child-heart, you have never need
To fear _us_,--we are weaker far than you--
Tis _we_ who should be fearful--we indeed
Should hide us, too, as darkly as you do,--
Safe, as yourself, withdrawn,
Hearing the World roar on
Too willful, woful, awful for the Child-heart!
_Child-heart!--mild heart!--
Ho, my little wild heart!--
Come up here to me out o' the dark,
Or let me come to you!_
The clock chats on confidingly; a rose
Taps at the window, as the sunlight throws
A brilliant, jostling checkerwork of shine
And shadow, like a Persian-loom design,
Across the homemade carpet--fades,--and then
The dear old colors are themselves again.
Sounds drop in visiting from everywhere--
The bluebird's and the robin's trill are there,
Their sweet liquidity diluted some
By dewy orchard spaces they have come:
Sounds of the town, too, and the great highway--
The Mover-wagons' rumble, and the neigh
Of overtraveled horses, and the bleat
Of sheep and low of cattle through the street--
A Nation's thoroughfare of hopes and fears,
First blazed by the heroic pioneers
Who gave up old-home idols and set face
Toward the unbroken West, to found a race
And tame a wilderness now mightier than
All peoples and all tracts American.
Blent with all outer sounds, the sounds within:--
In mild remoteness falls the household din
Of porch and kitchen: the dull jar and thump
Of churning; and the 'glung-glung' of the pump,
With sudden pad and skurry of bare feet
Of little outlaws, in from field or street:
The clang of kettle,--rasp of damper-ring
And bang of cookstove-door--and everything
That jingles in a busy kitchen lifts
Its individual wrangling voice and drifts
In sweetest tinny, coppery, pewtery tone
Of music hungry ear has ever known
In wildest famished yearning and conceit
Of youth, to just cut loose and eat and eat!--
The zest of hunger still incited on
To childish desperation by long-drawn
Breaths of hot, steaming, wholesome things that stew
And blubber, and up-tilt the pot-lids, too,
Filling the sense with zestful rumors of
The dear old-fashioned dinners children love:
Redolent savorings of home-cured meats,
Potatoes, beans, and cabbage; turnips, beets
And parsnips--rarest composite entire
That ever pushed a mortal child's desire
To madness by new-grated fresh, keen, sharp
Horseradish--tang that sets the lips awarp
And watery, anticipating all
The cloyed sweets of the glorious festival.--
Still add the cinnamony, spicy scents
Of clove, nutmeg, and myriad condiments
In like-alluring whiffs that prophesy
Of sweltering pudding, cake, and custard pie--
The swooning-sweet aroma haunting all
The house--upstairs and down--porch, parlor, hall
And sitting-room--invading even where
The Hired Man sniffs it in the orchard-air,
And pauses in his pruning of the trees
To note the sun minutely and to--sneeze.
Then Cousin Rufus comes--the children hear
His hale voice in the old hall, ringing clear
As any bell. Always he came with song
Upon his lips and all the happy throng
Of echoes following him, even as the crowd
Of his admiring little kinsmen--proud
To have a cousin _grown_--and yet as young
Of soul and cheery as the songs he sung.
He was a student of the law--intent
Soundly to win success, with all it meant;
And so he studied--even as he played,--
With all his heart: And so it was he made
His gallant fight for fortune--through all stress
Of battle bearing him with cheeriness
And wholesome valor.
And the children had
Another relative who kept them glad
And joyous by his very merry ways--
As blithe and sunny as the summer days,--
Their father's youngest brother--Uncle Mart.
The old 'Arabian Nights' he knew by heart--
'Baron Munchausen,' too; and likewise 'The
Swiss Family Robinson.'--And when these three
Gave out, as he rehearsed them, he could go
Straight on in the same line--a steady flow
Of arabesque invention that his good
Old mother never clearly understood.
He _was_ to be a _printer_--wanted, though,
To be an _actor_.--But the world was 'show'
Enough for _him_,--theatric, airy, gay,--
Each day to him was jolly as a play.
And some poetic symptoms, too, in sooth,
Were certain.--And, from his apprentice youth,
He joyed in verse-quotations--which he took
Out of the old 'Type Foundry Specimen Book.'
He craved and courted most the favor of
The children.--They were foremost in his love;
And pleasing _them_, he pleased his own boy-heart
And kept it young and fresh in every part.
So was it he devised for them and wrought
To life his quaintest, most romantic thought:--
Like some lone castaway in alien seas,
He built a house up in the apple-trees,
Out in the corner of the garden, where
No man-devouring native, prowling there,
Might pounce upon them in the dead o' night--
For lo, their little ladder, slim and light,
They drew up after them. And it was known
That Uncle Mart slipped up sometimes alone
And drew the ladder in, to lie and moon
Over some novel all the afternoon.
And one time Johnty, from the crowd below,--
Outraged to find themselves deserted so--
Threw bodily their old black cat up in
The airy fastness, with much yowl and din.
Resulting, while a wild periphery
Of cat went circling to another tree,
And, in impassioned outburst, Uncle Mart
Loomed up, and thus relieved his tragic heart:
''_Hence, long-tailed, ebon-eyed, nocturnal ranger!
What led thee hither 'mongst the types and cases?
Didst thou not know that running midnight races
O'er standing types was fraught with imminent danger?
Did hunger lead thee--didst thou think to find
Some rich old cheese to fill thy hungry maw?
Vain hope! for none but literary jaw
Can masticate our cookery for the mind!_''
So likewise when, with lordly air and grace,
He strode to dinner, with a tragic face
With ink-spots on it from the office, he
Would aptly quote more 'Specimen-poetry--'
Perchance like ''Labor's bread is sweet to eat,
(_Ahem!_) And toothsome is the toiler's meat.''
Ah, could you see them _all_, at lull of noon!--
A sort of _boisterous_ lull, with clink of spoon
And clatter of deflecting knife, and plate
Dropped saggingly, with its all-bounteous weight,
And dragged in place voraciously; and then
Pent exclamations, and the lull again.--
The garland of glad faces 'round the board--
Each member of the family restored
To his or her place, with an extra chair
Or two for the chance guests so often there.--
The father's farmer-client, brought home from
The courtroom, though he 'didn't _want_ to come
Tel he jist saw he _hat_ to!' he'd explain,
Invariably, time and time again,
To the pleased wife and hostess, as she pressed
Another cup of coffee on the guest.--
Or there was Johnty's special chum, perchance,
Or Bud's, or both--each childish countenance
Lit with a higher glow of youthful glee,
To be together thus unbrokenly,--
Jim Offutt, or Eck Skinner, or George Carr--
The very nearest chums of Bud's these are,--
So, very probably, _one_ of the three,
At least, is there with Bud, or _ought_ to be.
Like interchange the town-boys each had known--
His playmate's dinner better than his own--
_Yet_ blest that he was ever made to stay
At _Almon Keefer's, any_ blessed day,
For _any_ meal!... Visions of biscuits, hot
And flaky-perfect, with the golden blot
Of molten butter for the center, clear,
Through pools of clover-honey--_dear-o-dear!_--
With creamy milk for its divine 'farewell':
And then, if any one delectable
Might yet exceed in sweetness, O restore
The cherry-cobbler of the days of yore
Made only by Al Keefer's mother!--Why,
The very thought of it ignites the eye
Of memory with rapture--cloys the lip
Of longing, till it seems to ooze and drip
With veriest juice and stain and overwaste
Of that most sweet delirium of taste
That ever visited the childish tongue,
Or proved, as now, the sweetest thing unsung.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Prejudice
IN yonder red-brick mansion, tight and square,
Just at the town's commencement, lives the mayor.
Some yards of shining gravel, fenced with box,
Lead to the painted portal--where one knocks :
There, in the left-hand parlour, all in state,
Sit he and she, on either side the grate.
But though their goods and chattels, sound and new,
Bespeak the owners very well to do,
His worship's wig and morning suit betray
Slight indications of an humbler day
That long, low shop, where still the name appears,
Some doors below, they kept for forty years :
And there, with various fortunes, smooth and rough,
They sold tobacco, coffee, tea, and snuff.
There labelled drawers display their spicy row--
Clove, mace, and nutmeg : from the ceiling low
Dangle long twelves and eights , and slender rush,
Mix'd with the varied forms of genus brush ;
Cask, firkin, bag, and barrel, crowd the floor,
And piles of country cheeses guard the door.
The frugal dames came in from far and near,
To buy their ounces and their quarterns here.
Hard was the toil, the profits slow to count,
And yet the mole-hill was at last a mount.
Those petty gains were hoarded day by day,
With little cost, for not a child had they ;
Till, long proceeding on the saving plan,
He found himself a warm, fore-handed man :
And being now arrived at life's decline,
Both he and she, they formed the bold design,
(Although it touched their prudence to the quick)
To turn their savings into stone and brick.
How many an ounce of tea and ounce of snuff,
There must have been consumed to make enough !
At length, with paint and paper, bright and gay,
The box was finished, and they went away.
But when their faces were no longer seen
Amongst the canisters of black and green ,
--Those well-known faces, all the country round--
'Twas said that had they levelled to the ground
The two old walnut trees before the door,
The customers would not have missed them more.
Now, like a pair of parrots in a cage,
They live, and civic honours crown their age :
Thrice, since the Whitsuntide they settled there,
Seven years ago, has he been chosen mayor ;
And now you'd scarcely know they were the same ;
Conscious he struts, of power, and wealth, and fame ;
Proud in official dignity, the dame :
And extra stateliness of dress and mien,
During the mayoralty, is plainly seen ;
With nicer care bestowed to puff and pin
The august lappet that contains her chin.
Such is her life ; and, like the wise and great,
The mind has journeyed hand in hand with fate :
Her thoughts, unused to take a longer flight
Than from the left-hand counter to the right,
With little change, are vacillating still,
Between his worship's glory, and the till.
The few ideas moving, slow and dull,
Across the sandy desert of her skull,
Still the same course must follow, to and fro,
As first they traversed three-score years ago ;
From whence, not all the world could turn them back,
Or lead them out upon another track.
What once was right or wrong, or high or low
In her opinion, always must be so :--
You might, perhaps, with reasons new and pat,
Have made Columbus think the world was flat ;
There might be times of energy worn out,
When his own theory would Sir Isaac doubt ;
But not the powers of argument combined,
Could make this dear good woman change her mind,
Or give her intellect the slightest clue
To that vast world of things she never knew.
Were but her brain dissected, it would show
Her stiff opinions fastened in a row,
Ranged duly, side by side, without a gap,
Much like the plaiting on her Sunday cap.
It is not worth our while, but if it were,
We all could undertake to laugh at her ;
Since vulgar prejudice, the lowest kind,
Of course, has full possession of her mind ;
Here, therefore, let us leave her, and inquire
Wherein it differs as it rises higher.
--As for the few who claim distinction here,
The little gentry of our narrow sphere,
Who occupy a safe enclosure, made
Completely inaccessible to trade,
Where, 'tis a trespass on forbidden ground,
If any foot plebeian pass the bound ;--
Wide as the distance that we choose to make
For pride, precedence, and for custom's sake,
Yet philosophic eyes (though passing fine)
Could scarcely ascertain the boundary line ;
So that, if any should be found at all,
The difference must be infinitely small.
The powdered matron, who for many a year
Has held her mimic routs and parties here,
(Exchanging just the counter, scales, and till
For cups of coffee, scandal, and quadrille)
Could boast nor range of thought, nor views of life,
Much more extended than our grocer's wife.
Although her notions may be better drest,
They are but vulgar notions at the best,--
Mere petrifactions, formed as time runs by,
Hard and unmalleable, and dull and dry,
Ne'er to the test of truth and reason brought,
--Opinions made by habit, not by thought.
Then let inquiry rise, with sudden flight,
To reason's utmost intellectual height ;
Where native powers, with culture high combined,
Present the choicest specimen of mind.
--Those minds that stand from all mankind aloof,
To smile at folly, or dispense reproof ;
Enlarged, excursive, reason soars away,
And breaks the shackles that confine its sway :
Their keen, dissecting, penetrating view,
Searches poor human nature through and through ;
But while they notice all the forms absurd,
That prejudice assumes among the herd,
And every nicer variation see,
Theirs lies in thinking that themselves are free.
There is a science reason cannot teach ;
It lies beyond the depth her line can reach ;
It is but taught by Heaven's imparted grace,
The feet of Jesus is the only place ;
And they who mental riches largely share,
But seldom stoop to seek their wisdom there.
'Not many mighty' in His train appear ;
The simple poor adorn it best ;--and here,
While prejudice the mental sight impairs
Of vulgar minds,--'tis like a beam in theirs.
Religion, as in common course professed,
Is first a question with them, then a jest :
Quick to discern the ludicrous and base,
With which blind votaries have deformed her face,
Errors, abuses, creeds imposed by man,
Are undistinguished from the Scripture plan.
Rome's proud ambition, tyranny, and fraud,
The Christian standard's bloody deeds abroad,
Priestcraft, the same in every age and clime,
From earliest record to the present time,
Contending parties' never-dying strife,
Each calling vengeance on the other's life,
The wretched hypocrite,--the wild extreme
Of blind fanatics,--the enthusiast's dream,
The lives of those who bear the Christian name,--
Of this, of all, religion bears the blame ;
Though these are men who most reject its sway,
And know as little what it means as they.
There's not a wolf within the church's fold,
But what the Bible has itself foretold ;
Yet these triumphantly are brought to view,
To prove that word of prophecy untrue.
A cold acknowledgment of one Supreme,
Avoids, they argue, every wide extreme ;
And this, if made by Christian, Turk, or Jew,
Is all the same in His impartial view.
But all beyond their rational degree
Of distant homage to the Deity,--
A firm attachment to the truth revealed ,
(Truth which with blood the Lord of glory sealed)
Zeal to obey, as well as to adore,--
Is vulgar prejudice, and nothing more.
Thus, christian service, spiritual and free,
They class (with pleased and proud complacency)
With rights impure that pagan India boasts,
The blood-dyed Koran, and the idol hosts ;
The cross, perhaps, held up with least respect,
The hated symbol of the hated sect :
That seal which marks it Heaven's appointed way,
They caring nor to read, nor to obey,
--That whoso names that name, must first depart
From all iniquity of life and heart.
Or, should the Christian code from all the rest
Be singled out, and owned to be the best,
The same keen shafts of ridicule are bent
Against its spirit, and its true intent.
Of all that gives it energy bereft,
There are but some mere scraps of ethics left,
Scarce more enlightened than were heard to flow
From Socrates and Plato long ago :
As though, had Scripture never solved a doubt,
We might have managed vastly well without.
Religion's nature, and its worth, are known
To those by whom it is possessed alone.
The Christian's aims and motives, simple, grand,
The wisest worldlings cannot understand :
Those views which worldly principles condemn,
Are so incomprehensible to them,
That they, unanimous in self defence,
Pronounce them mere delusion or pretence ;
And prejudice (a favourite word) explains
All that still unaccounted for remains.
Mid the strong course of passion's wonted sway,
What makes the wicked man forsake his way ?
Conquers the habits years had rooted in,
All fear subduing, but the fear of sin ?
And him who toiled for earthly bliss, arise,
Leave all, and lay up treasure in the skies ?
These are phenomena that, strange to say,
Religion is presenting every day ;
Changes, which they who witness dare not doubt,
Though little heard of by the world without.
The man now goes rejoicing on his way,
With inward peace, and cheerful, though not gay ;
Unseen the motives that his path define ;
His life is hidden, though his graces shine.
He walks through life's distracting changes now,
With even pace, and with an even brow ;
Hears the vain world's tumultuous hue and cry,
Just turns his head, and passes calmly by ;
Yet takes his cheerful share when duty draws,
And still is foremost found in mercy's cause.
What works this strange philosophy in him,
Is it misanthropy, or merely whim ?
No ; 'tis the glowing, present sense he feels
Of things invisible, which faith reveals.
And should the man thus walking with his God,
Be one unpolished as the valley's clod,
Should all his science but amount to this,
--To loathe iniquity, and long for bliss ?
This is not prejudice--or if it be,
'Twere well if all were prejudiced as he !
But things to come--the vast unfathomed state,
To which death opens instantly the gate,--
Although the thought of that expected change,
Affords the finest intellectual range,
Although that change must soon become our lot,
Whether the subject suit our taste or not,
Although objectors cannot well reply,
That 'tis a vulgar prejudice to die,--
The subject seems (howe'er it came to pass)
Avoided much by this enlightened class.
All other themes, whose tendencies appear
To add to our accommodation here,
Every contrivance of contriving men
To make a pleasant three-score years and ten,
--Inventions and improvements, whether made
In science, commerce, agriculture, trade,
The arts, belles lettres , politics, finance,
Their value is acknowledged at a glance ;
And these are studied, patronised, and taught,
With active diligence,--and so they ought.
But since a moment may--some moment must
Consign our interest in them all to dust,
Has not the business of the world to come,
Mid all our thoughts, at least a claim to some ?
But these are things mysterious and obscure,
Not tangible, and rational, and sure ;
'Tis such a vague untenable expanse :--
In short, they mean to wait, and take their chance.
Could you but show by demonstration clear,
How forms and things invisible appear ;
Produce your apparatus, bright and clean,
And try experiments on things unseen ;
Rare specimens, in due assortment bring,
Of seraph's eyes, and slips of angel's wing,
Or metaphysic air-pumps work, to show
A disembodied soul in vacuo ;
Then 'twere a study worthy of alliance
With any other branch of modern science.
But mere assertion of a future state,
By unknown writers, at a distant date,
If this be all its advocates advance,
It is but superstition and romance.
Thus, mental pride, unsubject to control ;
To God a secret enmity of soul ;
That stubbornness which scorns to yield assent
To aught unfounded on experiment ;
A wretched clinging to the present state,
That loathes to dwell on things beyond its date ;
That dread of death which ne'er the thought pursues,
And which the Christian's hope alone subdues,--
Combine a veil of prejudice to place
Between dark reason and the light of grace ;
--A prejudice as hopeless as can bind
The meanest, most illiterate of mankind.
Would that the films of error were allowed
But by the vulgar worldling, or the proud !
But this distemper of the moral eye
Never affects it more inveterately,
Than when the false of prejudice's view
Is intermingled with a little true .
And hence, the conscientious and sincere,
Who know essential truth, and hold it dear,
If education (as she doubtless can)
Have formed their souls upon the narrow plan,
Permit no notion from its nook to stir ;
Most obstinately certain--where they err.
Thus are opinions, as received in youth,
Wedged down immovably with slips of truth ;
Assured of part, they deem the whole is right ;
And what astonishment it would excite,
Should any have the boldness to allege,
That all is rubbish but the golden wedge !
--'Tis pity, for the sceptic world without
Produce the error to confirm their doubt,
Therefore refuse the sterling to behold ;
And thus the rubbish tarnishes the gold.
There is a tender, captivating glow
Which certain views on certain objects throw :
Taste, and poetic feeling, range alone
A fairy world exclusively their own ;
And delicacies gather that arise,
Where'er they turn, unseen by vulgar eyes.
Their dainty aliment serenely floats
On every breeze--they live like gnats on motes.
There they might safely, innocently stray ;
But when they come and stand in Reason's way,
They blind her views, demean her princely air,
And do more mischief than their smiles repair.
Why she their interference should restrain,
A simple instance shall at once explain.
When Paul the walks of beauteous Athens trod,
To point its children to their 'unknown God,'
If some refined Athenian, passing by,
Heard that new doctrine, how would he reply ?
Regarding first, with polished, scornful smile,
The stranger's figure and unclassic style,
Perceiving then the argument was bent
Against the gods of his establishment,
He need but cast his tutored eye around,
And in that glance he has an answer found :
--Altars and theatres, and sacred groves,
Temples and deities where'er it roves,
Each long perspective that the eye pervades,
Peopled with heroes, thickening as it fades;
Those awful forms that hold their silent sway,
Matchless in grace, while ages roll away;
There, softly blending with the evening shade,
Less light and less, the airy colonnade ;
Here, in magnificence of Attic grace,
Minerva's Temple, rising from its base ;
Its spotless marble forming to the eye
A ghostly outline on the deep-blue sky :--
'Enough--the doctrine that would undermine
These forms of beauty cannot be divine.'
Thus taste would, doubtless, intercept his view
Of that 'strange thing,' which after all--was true.
When Luther's sun arose, to chase away
The 'dim religious light' of Romish day,
Opposing, only, to the mellow glare
Of gold and gems that deck the papal chair,
And each imposing pageant of the church,
Good sense, plain argument, and sound research ;--
Here taste, again, would prove a dangerous guide,
And raise a prejudice on error's side.
--Behold the slow procession move along !
The Pontiff's blessing on the prostrate throng ;
The solemn service, and the anthem loud,
The altar's radiance on the kneeling crowd :--
Or seek, at summons of the convent bell,
Deep, sacred shades, where fair recluses dwell ;
See the long train of white-robed sisters come,
Appearing now--now lost amid the gloom,
Chanting shrill vespers in the twilight dim,
The plaintive music of the Virgin's hymn :--
Then would not taste and fancy join the cry
Against the rude, barbarian heresy,
That sought those sacred walls to overthrow,
And rend the veil from that seducing show ?
And yet, according to our present light,
That barbarous, tasteless heretic--was right.
It might not be convenient had we gone
To carry this reflection further on.
--But whether, mid the faint and foggy ray,
Of ages past, or at the present day,
Truth's native lustre ever must decline
When human art attempts to make it shine :
--Truth is too strong to need the proffered hand
Of human feebleness to make it stand.
Inveterate prejudice, infirm and blind,
May take possession of an honest mind :
Though weakly yielding to its stubborn sway,
'Tis not determined to be led astray.
But is there not a sin that must not claim,
Though near of kindred, such a gentle name ?
A daring sin, that comes with open face,
To rear its standard in the holy place ?
E'en from that day, when some would fain condemn
The works of those who followed not with them,
And for that early spark of party rage
Received reproof designed for every age,
Down to the present noisy moment, when
'Tis spirting from the tip of many a pen,--
E'en from that day to this, with ceaseless reign,
Has party spirit been the church's bane.
Then, let the verse trace clearly as it can,
The finer features of the party man.
By birth, connexion, interest, pride, or taste,
On one or other side we find him placed ;
No matter which, nor is there need to say,
For there he is--and there he means to stay.
That point decided, 'tis his second care
To find a reason for his being there ;
Some reason that may make a brave defence
Against assaults from truth and common sense ;
--Supposing for the present, that his ground
Is not exactly tenable all round.
He, not contented like the vulgar herd
To take his creed on other people's word,
And urged amain, by intellectual pride,
To prove he is not on the weaker side,
His choisest stores of wit and fancy draws,
To prop and beautify the needy cause :
And well do wit and fancy suit their end,
Who seek not to examine , but defend.
His is no simple scrupulous mistake,
Like the weak brother, wrong for conscience' sake ;
But prejudice, in him, has had to bind
A knowing, subtle, and enlightened mind.
Hence, at each step, he has to bear along
The secret consciousness of something wrong ;
But that suspicion, unavowed of course,
Serves but to nerve his arm with triple force ;
Provokes his zeal to lend its utmost aid,
And gives the edge of keenness to his blade.
His mind is formed, as though 'twere nature's plan
To cut him out to be a party man,
And send him down, in pity, to his post,
As foremost champion of the weaker host :
Not of that grander, philosophic tone,
That lets all party littleness alone ;
But keen, sagacious, armed for quick reply,
And, though not visible to every eye,
Nor from his courteous manner to be guessed--
A dash of gall and wormwood in his breast.
Yet, every harsher quality is graced
With wit and learning, eloquence and taste ;
Yes--and as charity delights to say,
Much self deceived, and hoping that he may,
While gratifying self, and party spleen,
Squeeze in some love to God and man between.
A show of candour too, at times, is lent,
To add its lustre to his argument :
To those who advocate the favorite notion,
It flows as wide as the Atlantic Ocean ;
But towards the heretic who turns it over,
About as narrow as the straits of Dover.
It seems too much for either side to boast
The right in every contest, if in most :
Yet our true partizan from none withdraws,
But lends his talents out to every cause.
Each new encounter prompt to undertake,
Asking no questions first for conscience' sake :
'Tis not for him the right and wrong to sift,
Enough to know his party wants a lift ;
And, though so hazardous none other can,
He boldly takes the field with--'I'm your man !'
And thus he dares the controversial fray ;
Though careful, first of all, to clear away
A little rubbish, till he finds a stone
Just broad enough to set his foot upon.
On that one stone he loudly stamps, to show
How firm a standing-place it is, although
Should he advance a step, or step retire,
He plunges all at once knee-deep in mire.
If thence beat off by some opposing band,
He finds some neighbouring jutment where to stand ;
There followed, seeks the old support amain,
Driv'n off anew--anew slips back again.
draft board may exemplify the thing ;
When chased from post to post, one hapless king,
At length, betakes him to--by marches short,
The double corner as his last resort ;
Where long, from square to square he bravely courses,
And stands his ground though robbed of all his forces.
Meantime, he trusts the checks his arms receive
But few will hear of--fewer still believe ;
Hopes the dry record will be little sought ;
And feels a Jesuit-pleasure at the thought.
It seems the choicest secret of his art,
To ward invasion from the weaker part ;
To veil all blemishes, and make the most
Of what he has, or thinks he has, to boast.
Of full exposure more than all afraid,
He trusts to neat manoeuvres to evade
That thorough search, in every hole and nook,
Which unencumbered truth alone can brook ;
And labours hard, by hiding all the traces,
To intimate that there are no such places.
His fairest movements seem to wear disguise ;
His plans are rather politic than wise ;
Not to elicit truth, but o'er the dross
To spread a plausible and specious gloss,
But he, who finds it needful, on his part,
To ply the mean artillery of art,
And sharpen every arrow that he draws,
May well suspect the soundness of his cause.
Suspect he may,--but vain that lucid doubt,
Devoid of nobleness to search it out.
--Between the man on controversial ground,
Panting for truth wherever it be found,
And him who does but seek it on one side,
There lies a gulf immeasurably wide.
Two brother sportsmen, on a blithsome morn,
Obey the summons of the inspiring horn :
One, predetermined to pursue the chase
Within the limits of a certain space ;
The other, glowing with the bold intent,
Lead where it may, to follow up the scent.
--They start the hare--and after many a bound
Doubling and winding on file aforesaid ground,
She leaps the fence and gains the neighbouring mead ;
At which our doughty sportsman checks his steed ;
Rather than follow boldly on to that,
He stays behind the hedge--and starts a cat ;
Pursues poor puss with vast advantage thence,
And has brave sport within his blessed fence.
--Then having clipt and trimmed her, here and there,
Assures the world that he has caught the hare ;
And should his sporting friends confirm the lie,
Ere there is time to ask the reason why,
A hare--though common sense should stand appalled--
She was, is now, and ever shall be called.
Meantime, the brother sportsman does not fail
To chase his victim over hill and dale ;
The five-barred gate, tall rampart, hedge and ditch,
Alike to him--he leaps, and cares not which
At length he sees,--nor sees without dismay,
The pack strike off an unexpected way ;
The path they take, by tact unerring shown,
Must cross a fine enclosure of his own ;
The fair plantation, on his favorite grounds,
Is rudely torn and trampled by the hounds :
Safe from attack the sheltered spot appeared ;
His fathers raised it, and himself revered :
Though startled, he disdains to call them back,
But leaps, and follows the sagacious pack ;
Tramples the ground himself, with noble pride,
And hears the death-cry on the other side ;
Secures his prey--content to bear the shame,
If such it be,--for he has got the game.
Interest its secret bias may impart,
When least suspected, to an upright heart :
But when a creed and worldly views unite,
Where interest is the only rule of right ;
Where loaves and fishes--all our goodly show
Depend on people's thinking so and so ;
What pompous, loud, declamatory wrath,
The mere expression of a doubt calls forth !
The weight of argument is balanced here,
Against so many thousand pounds a year ;
--What dreadful, dangerous heresy is taught !
It must be silenced--will not bear a thought !
Is party spirit, therefore, only found
In one enclosure of disputed ground ?
No ; while Nathaniels stand on either side
The boundary lines that differing sects divide,
Unchristian tempers every form may take,
And truth itself be loved for party's sake.
The man whom conscience, less than mental pride,
Early enlisted on the opposing side,
Proves that the flames of an unhallowed fire,
Not love to God and man, his zeal inspire.
--Pleased, proud to differ, eloquent to teach
The lesser doctrines that enlarge the breach,
In bold defiance of the christian rule,
Says to his brother, 'raca,' and 'thou fool ;'
Or vainly hopes to violate its laws,
Beneath the sanction of a righteous cause.
Rejoiced, not grieved in spirit, to behold
Abuses thicken in the neighbouring fold ;
And doubting, grudging, backward to concede
That any sheep within that pasture feed.
Intent his controversial shafts to draw,
Omits the weightier matters of the law ;
Wont more on points of party strife to dwell,
Than emulous to save a soul from hell.
Yet,--if his soul be free from wilful guile,
Believes he does God service all the while.
But oh ! the darkest candidate for bliss,
Who seeking that, spares not a thought for this,
Though much encumbered should his notions be,
Is safer, happier, nearer Heaven than he.
Come, let us rise from party's noisy sphere,
To trace an honest mind in its career ;
And see how far true greatness spreads its flight
Above the cleverness of party spite.
He, from the regions of a calmer day,
Hears the faint clamour of the distant fray :
Hears but to pity--while in tranquil mood
He holds his course in happy solitude.
Truth his sole object, this, with simple aim,
He follows, caring little for the name ;
Not with the poor intent to make her stand
And wave his party's ensign in her hand,
Mocking his neighbour's pitiful mistake ;
But for her own invaluable sake.
That is the truly philosophic mind,
Which no inferior influence can bind ;
Which all endeavours to confine were vain,
Though the earth's orbit were its length of chain.
--But not that boldness which delights to break
From what our fathers taught, for license' sake,
Through all dry places wandering, still in quest,
Like lawless fiends, of some unhallowed rest ;--
The love of truth is genuine, when combined
With unaffected humbleness of mind.
He values most, who feels with sense acute
His own deep interest in the grand pursuit ;
Who heaven-ward spreads his undiverted wing,
Godly simplicity the moving spring.
No meaner power can regulate his flight,
Too much is staked upon his going right.
Dry, heartless speculation may succeed,
Where the sole object is to frame a creed ;
The sophist's heart may suit their eager quest,
Who only aim to prove their creed the best ;
But not such views his anxious search control,
Who loves the truth because he loves his soul.
Truth is but one with Heaven, in his esteem,
The sparkling spring of life's eternal stream ;
And hence, with equal singleness of heart,
He traces out each less essential part :
No worldly motives can his views entice ;
He parts with all to gain the pearl of price.
Why is opinion, singly as it stands,
So much inherited like house and lands ?
Whence comes it that from sire to son it goes,
Like a dark eye-brow or a Roman nose ?
How comes it, too, that notions, wrong or right,
Which no direct affinities unite,
On every side of party ground, one sees,
Clung close together like a swarm of bees ?
Where one is held, through habit, form, or force,
The rest are all consented to of course,
As though combined by some interior plot ;
Is it necessity, or chance, or what ?
Where'er the undiscovered cause be sought,
No man would trace its origin to thought :
Then shall we say, with leave of Dr. Gall,
It comes to pass from thinking not at all ?
Though man a thinking being is defined,
Few use the grand prerogative of mind :
How few think justly of the thinking few !
How many never think, who think they do !
Opinion, therefore--such our mental dearth--
Depends on mere locality or birth.
Hence, the warm tory, eloquent and big
With loyal zeal, had he been born a whig,
Would rave for liberty with equal flame,
No shadow of distinction but the name.
Hence, Christian bigots, 'neath the pagan cloud,
Had roared for 'great Diana' just as loud ;
Or, dropped at Rome, at Mecca, or Pekin,
For Fo , the prophet, or the man of sin,
Much of the light and soundness of our creed,
Whate'er it be, depends on what we read.
How many clamour loudly for their way,
Who never heard what others have to say :
Fixt where they are, determined to be right,
They fear to be disturbed by further light ;
And where the voice of argument is heard,
Away they run, and will not hear a word.
Form notions vague, and gathered up by chance,
Or mere report, of what you might advance ;
Resolve the old frequented path to tread,
And still to think as they were born and bred.
Besides this blind devotion to a sect
Custom produces much the same effect.
Our desks with piles of controversy groan ;
But still, alas ! each party's with its own,
Each deems his logic must conviction bring,
If people would but read ;--but there's the thing !
The sermons, pamphlets, papers, books, reviews,
That plead our own opinions, we peruse ;
And these alone--as though the plan had been
To rivet all our prejudices in.
'Tis really droll to see how people's shelves,
Go where you will, are labelled like themselves.
Ask if your neighbour--he whose party tone,
Polemic, or political, is known--
Sees such a publication--naming one
That takes a different side, or sides with none ;
And straight in flat, uncomfortable-wise,
That damps all further mention, he replies,
'No, sir, we do not see that work--I know
Its general views ;--we take in so and so.'
Thus each retains his notions, every one ;
Thus they descend complete from sire to son ;
And hence, the blind contempt so freely shown
For every one's opinions but our own.
How oft from public or from private pique,
Conscience and truth are not allowed to speak :
Reasons might weigh that now are quite forgot,
If such a man or party urged them not ;
But oh, what logic strong enough can be,
To prove that they have clearer views than we !
In times like ours, 'twere wise if people would
Well scrutinize their zeal for doing good.
A few plain questions might suffice, to prove
What flows from party--what from christian love.
--Our prayers are heard--some Mussulman, at last
Forsakes his prophet--some Hindoo his caste ;
Accepts a Saviour, and avows the choice ;
How glad we are, how much our hearts rejoice !
The news is told and echoed, till the tale,
Howe'er reviving, almost waxes stale.
--A second convert Gospel grace allures--
Oh, but this time he was not ours but yours ;
It came to pass we know not when or how ;
Well, are we quite as glad and thankful now ?
Or can we scarce the rising wish suppress,
That we were honoured with the whole success ?
There is an eye that marks the ways of men,
With strict, impartial, analyzing ken :
Our motley creeds, our crude opinions, lie
All, all unveiled to that omniscient eye.
He sees the softest shades by error thrown ;
Marks where His truth is left to shine alone ;
Decides with most exact, unerring skill,
Wherein we differ from His word and will.
No specious names nor reasonings to His view,
The false can varnish, or deform the true ;
Nor vain excuses e'er avail, to plead
The right of theory for the wrong of deed.
Before that unembarrassed, just survey,
What heaps of refuse must be swept away ;
How must its search from every creed remove
All but the golden grains of truth and love !
Yet, with compassion for our feeble powers,
For oh ! His thoughts and ways are not as ours.
--There is a day, in flaming terrors bright,
When truth and error shall be brought to light.
Who then shall rise, amid the shining throng,
To boast that he was right, and you were wrong ?
When each rejoicing saint shall veil his face,
And none may triumph, but in glorious grace !
No meaner praise shall heavenly tongues employ :
Yet, they shall reap the more abundant joy,
Who sought His truth, with simple, humble aim
To do His will, and glorify His name.
poem by Jane Taylor
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Zenana
WHAT is there that the world hath not
Gathered in yon enchanted spot?
Where, pale, and with a languid eye,
The fair Sultana listlessly
Leans on her silken couch, and dreams
Of mountain airs, and mountain streams.
Sweet though the music float around,
It wants the old familiar sound;
And fragrant though the flowers are breathing,
From far and near together wreathing,
They are not those she used to wear,
Upon the midnight of her hair.—
She's very young, and childhood's days
With all their old remembered ways,
The empire of her heart contest
With love, that is so new a guest;
When blushing with her Murad near,
Half timid bliss, half sweetest fear,
E'en the beloved past is dim,
Past, present, future, merge in him.
But he, the warrior and the chief,
His hours of happiness are brief;
And he must leave Nadira's side
To woo and win a ruder bride;
Sought, sword in hand and spur on heel,
The fame, that weds with blood and steel.
And while from Delhi far away,
His youthful bride pines through the day,
Weary and sad: thus when again
He seeks to bind love's loosen'd chain;
He finds the tears are scarcely dry
Upon a cheek whose bloom is faded,
The very flush of victory
Is, like the brow he watches, shaded.
A thousand thoughts are at her heart,
His image paramount o'er all,
Yet not all his, the tears that start,
As mournful memories recall
Scenes of another home, which yet
That fond young heart can not forget.
She thinks upon that place of pride,
Which frowned upon the mountain's side;
While round it spread the ancient plain,
Her steps will never cross again.
And near those mighty temples stand,
The miracles of mortal hand,
Where, hidden from the common eye,
The past's long buried secrets lie,
Those mysteries of the first great creed,
Whose mystic fancies were the seed
Of every wild and vain belief,
That held o'er man their empire brief,
And turned beneath a southern sky,
All that was faith to poetry.
Hence had the Grecian fables birth,
And wandered beautiful o'er earth;
Till every wood, and stream, and cave,
Shelter to some bright vision gave:
For all of terrible and strange,
That from those gloomy caverns sprung,
From Greece received a graceful change,
That spoke another sky and tongue,
A finer eye, a gentler hand,
Than in their native Hindoo land.
'Twas thence Nadira came, and still
Her memory kept that lofty hill;
The vale below, her place of birth,
That one charmed spot, her native earth.
Still haunted by that early love,
Which youth can feel, and youth alone;
An eager, ready, tenderness,
To all its after-life unknown.
When the full heart its magic flings,
Alike o'er rare and common things,
The dew of morning's earliest hour,
Which swells but once from leaf and flower,
From the pure life within supplied,
A sweet but soon exhausted tide.
There falls a shadow on the gloom,
There steals a light step through the room,
Gentle as love, that, though so near,
No sound hath caught the list'ning ear.
A moment's fond watch o'er her keeping.
Murad beholds Nadira weeping;
He who to win her lightest smile,
Had given his heart's best blood the while.
She turned—a beautiful delight
Has flushed the pale one into rose,
Murad, her love, returned to-night,
Her tears, what recks she now of those?
Dried in the full heart's crimson ray,
Ere he can kiss those tears away—
And she is seated at his feet,
Too timid his dear eyes to meet;
But happy; for she knows whose brow
Is bending fondly o'er her now.
And eager, for his sake, to hear
The records red of sword and spear,
For his sake feels the colour rise,
His spirit kindle in her eyes,
Till her heart beating joins the cry
Of Murad, and of Victory.
City of glories now no more,
His camp extends by Bejapore,
Where the Mahratta's haughty race
Has won the Moslem conqueror's place;
A bolder prince now fills the throne,
And he will struggle for his own.
'And yet,' he said, 'when evening falls
Solemn above those mouldering walls,
Where the mosques cleave the starry air,
Deserted at their hour of prayer,
And rises Ibrahim's lonely tomb,
'Mid weed-grown shrines, and ruined towers,
All marked with that eternal gloom
Left by the past to present hours.
When human pride and human sway
Have run their circle of decay;
And, mocking—the funereal stone,
Alone attests its builder gone.
Oh! vain such temple, o'er the sleep
Which none remain to watch or weep.
I could not choose but think how vain
The struggle fierce for worthless gain.
And calm and bright the moon looked down
O'er the white shrines of that fair town;
While heavily the cocoa-tree
Drooped o'er the walls its panoply,
A warrior proud, whose crested head
Bends mournful o'er the recent dead,
And shadows deep athwart the plain
Usurp the silver moonbeam's reign;
For every ruined building cast
Shadows, like memories of the past.
And not a sound the wind brought nigh,
Save the far jackal's wailing cry,
And that came from the field now red
With the fierce banquet I had spread:
Accursed and unnatural feast,
For worm, and fly, and bird, and beast;
While round me earth and heaven recorded
The folly of life's desperate game,
And the cold justice still awarded
By time, which makes all lots the same.
Slayer or slain, it matters not,
We struggle, perish, are forgot!
The earth grows green above the gone,
And the calm heaven looks sternly on.
'Twas folly this—the gloomy night
Fled before morning's orient light;
City and river owned its power,
And I, too, gladdened with the hour;
I saw my own far tents extend
My own proud crescent o'er them bend;
I heard the trumpet's glorious voice
Summon the warriors of my choice.
Again impatient on to lead,
I sprang upon my raven steed,
Again I felt my father's blood
Pour through my veins its burning flood.
My scimetar around I swung,
Forth to the air its lightning sprung,
A beautiful and fiery light,
The meteor of the coming fight.
'I turned from each forgotten grave
To others, which the name they bear
Will long from old oblivion save
The heroes of the race I share.
I thought upon the lonely isle
Where sleeps the lion-king the while,
Who looked on death, yet paused to die
Till comraded by Victory.
And he, fire noblest of my line,
Whose tomb is now the warrior's shrine,
(Where I were well content to be,
So that such fame might live with me.)
The light of peace, the storm of war,
Lord of the earth, our proud Akbar.
'What though our passing day but be
A bubble on eternity;
Small though the circle is, yet still
'Tis ours to colour at our will.
Mine be that consciousness of life
Which has its energies from strife,
Which lives its utmost, knows its power,
Claims from the mind its utmost dower—
With fiery pulse, and ready hand,
That wills, and willing wins command—
That boldly takes from earth its best—
To whom the grave can be but rest.
Mine the fierce free existence spent
Mid meeting ranks and armed tent:—
Save the few moments which I steal
At thy beloved feet to kneel—
And own the warrior's wild career
Has no such joy as waits him here—
When all that hope can dream is hung
Upon the music of thy tongue.
Ah! never is that cherished face
Banished from its accustomed place—
It shines upon my weariest night
It leads me on in thickest fight:
All that seems most opposed to be
Is yet associate with thee—
Together life and thee depart,
Dream—idol—treasure of my heart.'
Again, again Murad must wield
His scimetar in battle-field:
And must he leave his lonely flower
To pine in solitary bower?
Has power no aid has wealth no charm,
The weight of absence to disarm?
Alas! she will not touch her lute—
What!—sing?—and not for Murad's ear?
The echo of the heart is mute,
And that alone makes music dear.
In vain, in vain that royal hall
Is decked as for a festival.
The sunny birds, whose shining wings
Seem as if bathed in golden springs,
Though worth the gems they cost—and fair
As those which knew her earlier care.
The flowers—though there the rose expand
The sweetest depths wind ever fanned.
Ah! earth and sky have loveliest hues—
But none to match that dearest red,
Born of the heart, which still renews
The life that on itself is fed.
The maiden whom we love bestows
Her magic on the haunted rose.
Such was the colour—when her cheek
Spoke what the lip might never speak.
The crimson flush which could confess
All that we hoped—but dared not guess.
That blush which through the world is known
To love, and to the rose alone—
A sweet companionship, which never
The poet's dreaming eye may sever.
And there were tulips, whose rich leaves
The rainbow's dying light receives;
For only summer sun and skies
Could lend to earth such radiant dyes;
But still the earth will have its share,
The stem is green—the foliage fair—
Those coronals of gems but glow
Over the withered heart below—
That one dark spot, like passion's fire,
Consuming with its own desire.
And pale, as one who dares not turn
Upon her inmost thoughts, and learn,
If it be love their depths conceal,
Love she alone is doomed to feel—
The jasmine droopeth mournfully
Over the bright anemone,
The summer's proud and sun-burnt child:
In vain the queen is not beguiled,
They waste their bloom. Nadira's eye
Neglects them—let them pine and die.
Ah! birds and flowers may not suffice
The heart that throbs with stronger ties.
Again, again Murad is gone,
Again his young bride weeps alone:
Seeks her old nurse, to win her ear
With magic stories once so dear,
And calls the Almas to her aid.
With graceful dance, and gentle singing,
And bells like those some desert home
Hears from the camel's neck far ringing.
Alas! she will not raise her brow;
Yet stay—some spell hath caught her now:
That melody has touched her heart.
Oh, triumph of Zilara's art;
She listens to the mournful strain,
And bids her sing that song again.
Song.
'My lonely lute, how can I ask
For music from thy silent strings?
It is too sorrowful a task,
When only swept by memory's wings:
Yet waken from thy charmed sleep,
Although I wake thee but to weep.
'Yet once I had a thousand songs,
As now I have but only one.
Ah, love, whate'er to thee belongs.
With all life's other links, has done;
And I can breathe no other words
Than thou hast left upon the chords.
'They say Camdeo's place of rest,
When floating down the Ganges' tide,
Is in the languid lotus breast,
Amid whose sweets he loves to hide.
Oh, false and cruel, though divine,
What dost thou in so fair a shrine?
'And such the hearts that thou dost choose,
As pure, as fair, to shelter thee;
Alas! they know not what they lose
Who chance thy dwelling-place to be.
For, never more in happy dream
Will they float down life's sunny stream.
'My gentle lute, repeat one name,
The very soul of love, and thine:
No; sleep in silence, let me frame
Some other love to image mine;
Steal sadness from another's tone,
I dare not trust me with my own.
'Thy chords will win their mournful way,
All treasured thoughts to them belong;
For things it were so hard to say
Are murmured easily in song—
It is for music to impart
The secrets of the burthened heart.
'Go, taught by misery and love,
And thou hast spells for every ear:
But the sweet skill each pulse to move,
Alas! hath bought its knowledge dear—
Bought by the wretchedness of years,
A whole life dedicate to tears.'
The voice has ceased, the chords are mute,
The singer droops upon her lute;
But, oh, the fulness of each tone
Straight to Nadira's heart hath gone—
As if that mournful song revealed
Depths in that heart till then concealed,
A world of melancholy thought,
Then only into being brought;
Those tender mysteries of the soul,
Like words on an enchanted scroll,
Whose mystic meaning but appears
When washed and understood by tears.
She gaged upon the singer's face;
Deeply that young brow wore the trace
Of years that leave their stamp behind:
The wearied hope—the fever'd mind—
The heart which on itself hath turned,
Worn out with feelings—slighted—spurned—
Till scarce one throb remained to show
What warm emotions slept below,
Never to be renewed again,
And known but by remembered pain.
Her cheek was pale—impassioned pale—
Like ashes white with former fire,
Passion which might no more prevail,
The rose had been its own sweet pyre.
You gazed upon the large black eyes,
And felt what unshed tears were there;
Deep, gloomy, wild, like midnight skies,
When storms are heavy on the air—
And on the small red lip sat scorn,
Writhing from what the past had borne.
But far too proud to sigh—the will,
Though crushed, subdued, was haughty still;
Last refuge of the spirit's pain,
Which finds endurance in disdain.
Others wore blossoms in their hair,
And golden bangles round the arm.
She took no pride in being fair,
The gay delight of youth to charm;
The softer wish of love to please,
What had she now to do with these?
She knew herself a bartered slave,
Whose only refuge was the grave.
Unsoftened now by those sweet notes,
Which half subdued the grief they told,
Her long black hair neglected floats
O'er that wan face, like marble cold;
And carelessly her listless hand
Wandered above her lute's command
But silently—or just a tone
Woke into music, and was gone.
'Come hither, maiden, take thy seat,'
Nadira said, 'here at my feet.'
And, with the sweetness of a child
Who smiles, and deems all else must smile,
She gave the blossoms which she held,
And praised the singer's skill the while;
Then started with a sad surprise,
For tears were in the stranger's eyes.
Ah, only those who rarely know
Kind words, can tell how sweet they seem.
Great God, that there are those below
To whom such words are like a dream.
'Come,' said the young Sultana, 'come
To our lone garden by the river,
Where summer hath its loveliest home,
And where Camdeo fills his quiver.
If, as thou sayest, 'tis stored with flowers,
Where will he find them fair as ours?
And the sweet songs which thou canst sing
Methinks might charm away his sting.'
The evening banquet soon is spread—
There the pomegranate's rougher red
Was cloven, that it might disclose
A colour stolen from the rose—
The brown pistachio's glossy shell,
The citron where faint odours dwell;
And near the watermelon stands,
Fresh from the Jumna's shining sands;
And golden grapes, whose bloom and hue
Wear morning light and morning dew,
Or purple with the deepest dye
That flushes evening's farewell sky.
And in the slender vases glow—
Vases that seem like sculptured snow—
The rich sherbets are sparkling bright
With ruby and with amber light.
A fragrant mat the ground o'erspread,
With an old tamarind overhead,
With drooping bough of darkest green,
Forms for their feast a pleasant screen.
'Tis night, but such delicious time
Would seem like day in northern clime.
A pure and holy element,
Where light and shade, together blent,
Are like the mind's high atmosphere,
When hope is calm, and heaven is near.
The moon is young—her crescent brow
Wears its ethereal beauty now,
Unconscious of the crime and care,
Which even her brief reign must know,
Till she will pine to be so fair,
With such a weary world below.
A tremulous and silvery beam
Melts over palace, garden, stream;
Each flower beneath that tranquil ray,
Wears other beauty than by day,
All pale as if with love, and lose
Their rich variety of hues—
But ah, that languid loveliness
Hath magic, to the noon unknown,
A deep and pensive tenderness,
The heart at once feels is its own—
How fragrant to these dewy hours,
The white magnolia lifts its urn
The very Araby of flowers,
Wherein all precious odours burn.
And when the wind disperses these,
The faint scent of the lemon trees
Mingles with that rich sigh which dwells
Within the baubool's golden bells.
The dark green peepul's glossy leaves,
Like mirrors each a ray receives,
While luminous the moonlight falls,
O'er pearl kiosk and marble walls,
Those graceful palaces that stand
Most like the work of peri-land.
And rippling to the lovely shore,
The river tremulous with light,
On its small waves, is covered o'er
With the sweet offerings of the night—
Heaps of that scented grass whose bands
Have all been wove by pious hands,
Or wreaths, where fragrantly combined,
Red and white lotus flowers are twined.
And on the deep blue waters float
Many a cocoa-nut's small boat,
Holding within the lamp which bears
The maiden's dearest hopes and prayers,
Watch'd far as ever eye can see,
A vain but tender augury.
Alas! this world is not his home,
And still love trusts that signs will come
From his own native world of bliss,
To guide him through the shades of this.
Dreams, omens, he delights in these,
For love is linked with fantasies,
But hark! upon the plaining wind
Zilara's music floats again;
That midnight breeze could never find
A meeter echo than that strain,
Sad as the sobbing gale that sweeps
The last sere leaf which autumn keeps,
Yet sweet as when the waters fall
And make some lone glade musical.
Song.
'Lady, sweet Lady, song of mine
Was never meant for thee,
I sing but from my heart, and thine—
It cannot beat with me.
'You have not knelt in vain despair,
Beneath a love as vain,
That desperate—that devoted love,
Life never knows again.
'What know you of a weary hope,
The fatal and the fond,
That feels it has no home on earth,
Yet dares not look beyond?
'The bitterness of wasted youth,
Impatient of its tears;
The dreary days, the feverish nights,
The long account of years.
'The vain regret, the dream destroy'd,
The vacancy of heart,
When life's illusions, one by one,
First darken—then depart.
'The vacant heart! ah, worse,—a shrine
For one beloved name:
Kept, not a blessing, but a curse,
Amid remorse and shame.
'To know how deep, how pure, how true
Your early feelings were;
But mock'd, betray'd, disdain'd, and chang'd,
They have but left despair.
'And yet the happy and the young
Bear in their hearts a well
Of gentlest, kindliest sympathy,
Where tears unbidden dwell.
'Then, lady, listen to my lute;
As angels look below,
And e'en in heaven pause to weep
O'er grief they cannot know.'
The song was o'er, but yet the strings
Made melancholy murmurings;
She wandered on from air to air,
Changeful as fancies when they bear
The impress of the various thought,
From memory's twilight caverns brought.
At length, one wild, peculiar chime
Recalled this tale of ancient time.
THE RAKI.
'There's dust upon the distant wind, and shadow on the skies,
And anxiously the maiden strains her long-expecting eyes
And fancies she can catch the light far flashing from the sword,
And see the silver crescents raised, of him, the Mogul lord.
'She stands upon a lofty tower, and gazes o'er the plain:
Alas! that eyes so beautiful, should turn on heaven in vain.
'Tis but a sudden storm whose weight is darkening on the air,
The lightning sweeps the hill, but shows no coming warriors there.
'Yet crimson as the morning ray, she wears the robe of pride
That binds the gallant Humaioon, a brother, to her side;
His gift, what time around his arm, the glittering band was rolled,
With stars of ev'ry precious stone enwrought in shining gold.
'Bound by the Raki's sacred tie, his ready aid to yield,
Though beauty waited in the bower, and glory in the field:
Why comes he not, that chieftain vow'd, to this her hour of need?
Has honour no devotedness? Has chivalry no speed?
'The Rajpoot's daughter gazes round, she sees the plain afar,
Spread shining to the sun, which lights no trace of coming war.
The very storm has past away, as neither earth nor heaven
One token of their sympathy had to her anguish given.
'And still more hopeless than when last she on their camp looked down,
The foeman's gathered numbers close round the devoted town:
And daily in that fatal trench her chosen soldiers fall,
And spread themselves, a rampart vain, around that ruined wall.
'Her eyes upon her city turn—alas! what can they meet,
But famine, and despair, and death, in every lonely street?
Women and children wander pale, or with despairing eye
Look farewell to their native hearths, and lay them down to die.
'She seeks her palace, where her court collects in mournful bands,
Of maidens who but watch and weep, and wring their weary hands.
One word there came from her white lips, one word, she spoke no more;
But that word was for life and death, the young queen named—the Jojr.
[ the last,
'A wild shriek filled those palace halls—one shriek, it was
All womanish complaint and wail have in its utterance past:
They kneel at Kurnavati's feet, they bathe her hands in tears,
Then hurrying to their task of death, each calm and stern appears.
'There is a mighty cavern close beside the palace gate,
Dark, gloomy temple, meet to make such sacrifice to fate:
There heap they up all precious woods, the sandal and the rose,
While fragrant oils and essences like some sweet river flows.
'And shawls from rich Cashmere, and robes from Dacca's golden loom,
And caskets filled with Orient pearls, or yet more rare perfume:
And lutes and wreaths, all graceful toys, of woman's gentle care,
Are heaped upon that royal pile, the general doom to share.
'But weep for those the human things, so lovely and so young,
The panting hearts which still to life so passionately clung;
Some bound to this dear earth by hope, and some by love's strong thrall,
And yet dishonour's high disdain was paramount with all.
'Her silver robe flowed to her feet, with jewels circled round,
And in her long and raven hair the regal gems were bound;
And diamonds blaze, ruby and pearl were glittering in her zone,
And there, with starry emeralds set, the radiant Kandjar shone.
'The youthful Ranee led the way, while in her glorious eyes
Shone spiritual, the clear deep light, that is in moonlit skies:
Pale and resolved, her noble brow was worthy of a race
Whose proud blood flowed in those blue veins unconscious of disgrace.
'Solemn and slow with mournful chaunt, come that devoted band,
And Kurnavati follows last—the red torch in her hand:
She fires the pile, a death-black smoke mounts from that dreary cave—
Fling back the city gates—the foe, can now find but a grave.
'Hark the fierce music on the wind, the atabal, the gong,
The stem avenger is behind, he has not tarried long:
They brought his summons, though he stood before his plighted bride;
They brought his summons, though he stood in all but victory's pride.
'Yet down he flung the bridal wreath, he left the field unwon,
All that a warrior might achieve, young Humaioon had done,
Too late—he saw the reddening sky, he saw the smoke arise,
A few faint stragglers lived to tell the Ranee's sacrifice.
'But still the monarch held a sword, and had a debt to pay;
Small cause had Buhadour to boast—the triumph of that day:
Again the lone streets flowed with blood, and though too late to save,
Vengeance was the funereal rite at Kurnavati's grave.'
Deep silence chained the listeners round,
When, lo, another plaintive sound,
Came from the river's side, and there
They saw a girl with loosened hair
Seat her beneath a peepul tree,
Where swung her gurrah mournfully,
Filled with the cool and limpid wave,
An offering o'er some dear one's grave.
At once Zilara caught the tone,
And made it, as she sung, her own.
Song.
'Oh weep not o'er the quiet grave,
Although the spirit lost be near;
Weep not, for well those phantoms know
How vain the grief above their bier.
Weep not—ah no, 'tis best to die,
Ere all of bloom from life is fled;
Why live, when feelings, friends, and faith
Have long been numbered with the dead?
'They know no rainbow-hope that weeps
Itself away to deepest shade;
Nor love, whose very happiness
Should make the trusting heart afraid.
Ah, human tears are tears of fire,
That scorch and wither as they flow;
Then let them fall for those who live,
And not for those who sleep below.
'Yes, weep for those, whose silver chain
Has long been loosed, and yet live on;
The doomed to drink from life's dark spring,
Whose golden bowl has long been gone.
Aye, weep for those, the weary, worn,
The bound to earth by some vain tie;
Some lingering love, some fond regret,
Who loathe to live, yet fear to die.'
A moment's rest, and then once more
Zilara tried her memory's store,
And woke, while o'er the strings she bowed,
A tale of Rajahstan the proud.
KISHEN KOWER.
'Bold as the falcon that faces the sun,
Wild as the streams when in torrents they run,
Fierce as the flame when the jungle's on fire,
Are the chieftains who call on the day-star as Sire.
Since the Moghuls were driven from stately Mandoo,
And left but their ruins their reign to renew,
Those hills have paid tribute to no foreign lord,
And their children have kept what they won by the sword.
Yet downcast each forehead, a sullen dismay
At Oudeypoor reigns in the Durbar to-day,
For bootless the struggle, and weary the fight,
Which Adjeit Sing pictures with frown black as night:—
'Oh fatal the hour, when Makundra's dark pass
Saw the blood of our bravest sink red in the grass;
And the gifts which were destined to honour the bride,
By the contest of rivals in crimson were dyed.
Where are the warriors who once wont to stand
The glory and rampart of Rajahstan's land?
Ask of the hills for their young and their brave,
They will point to the valleys beneath as their grave.
The mother sits pale by her desolate hearth,
And weeps o'er the infant an orphan from birth;
While the eldest boy watches the dust on the spear,
Which as yet his weak hand is unable to rear.
The fruit is ungathered, the harvest unsown,
And the vulture exults o'er our fields as his own:
There is famine on earth—there is plague in the air,
And all for a woman whose face is too fair.'
There was silence like that from the tomb, for no sound
Was heard from the chieftains who darkened around,
When the voice of a woman arose in reply,
'The daughters of Rajahstan know how to die.'
'Day breaks, and the earliest glory of morn
Afar o'er the tops of the mountains is borne;
Then the young Kishen Kower wandered through the green bowers,
That sheltered the bloom of the island of flowers;
Where a fair summer palace arose mid the shade,
Which a thousand broad trees for the noon-hour had made
Far around spread the hills with their varying hue,
From the deepest of purple to faintest of blue;
On one side the courts of the Rana are spread,
The white marble studded with granite's deep red;
While far sweeps the terrace, and rises the dome,
Till lost in the pure clouds above like a home.
Beside is a lake covered over with isles,
As the face of a beauty is varied with smiles:
Some small, just a nest for the heron that springs
From the long grass, and flashes the light from its wings;
Some bearing one palm-tree, the stately and fair,
Alone like a column aloft in the air;
While others have shrubs and sweet plants that extend
Their boughs to the stream o'er whose mirror they bend.
The lily that queen-like uprears to the sun,
The loveliest face that his light is upon;
While beside stands the cypress, which darkens the wave
With a foliage meant only to shadow the grave.
But the isle in the midst was the fairest of all
Where ran the carved trellis around the light hall;
Where the green creeper's starry wreaths, scented and bright.
Wooed the small purple doves 'mid their shelter to light;
There the proud oleander with white tufts was hung,
And the fragile clematis its silver showers flung,
And the nutmeg's soft pink was near lost in the pride
Of the pomegranate blossom that blushed at its side.
There the butterflies flitted around on the leaves,
From which every wing its own colour receives;
There the scarlet finch past like a light on the wind,
And the hues of the bayas like sunbeams combined;
Till the dazzled eye sought from such splendours to rove
And rested at last on the soft lilac dove;
Whose song seemed a dirge that at evening should be
Pour'd forth from the height of the sad cypress tree.
Her long dark hair plaited with gold on each braid;
Her feet bound with jewels which flash'd through the shade;
One hand filled with blossoms, pure hyacinth bells
Which treasure the summer's first breath in their cells;
The other caressing her white antelope,
In all the young beauty of life and of hope.
The princess roved onwards, her heart in her eyes,
That sought their delight in the fair earth and skies.
Oh, loveliest time! oh, happiest day!
When the heart is unconscious, and knows not its sway,
When the favourite bird, or the earliest flower,
Or the crouching fawn's eyes, make the joy of the hour,
And the spirits and steps are as light as the sleep
Which never has waken'd to watch or to weep.
She bounds o'er the soft grass, half woman half child,
As gay as her antelope, almost as wild.
The bloom of her cheek is like that on her years;
She has never known pain, she has never known tears,
And thought has no grief, and no fear to impart;
The shadow of Eden is yet on her heart.
'The midnight has fallen, the quiet, the deep,
Yet in yon Zenana none lie down for sleep.
Like frighted birds gathered in timorous bands,
The young slaves within it are wringing their hands.
The mother hath covered her head with her veil,
She weepeth no tears, and she maketh no wail;
But all that lone chamber pass silently by;
She has flung her on earth, to despair and to die.
But a lamp is yet burning in one dismal room,
Young princess; where now is thy morning of bloom?
Ah, ages, long ages, have passed in a breath,
And life's bitter knowledge has heralded death.
At the edge of the musnud she bends on her knee,
While her eyes watch the face of the stern Chand Baee.
Proud, beautiful, fierce; while she gazes, the tone
Of those high murky features grows almost her own;
And the blood of her race rushes dark to her brow,
The spirit of heroes has entered her now.
' 'Bring the death-cup, and never for my sake shall shame
Quell the pride of my house, or dishonour its name.
She drained the sherbet, while Chand Baee looked on,
Like a warrior that marks the career of his son.
But life is so strong in each pure azure vein,
That they take not the venom—she drains it again.
The haughty eye closes, the white teeth are set,
And the dew-damps of pain on the wrung brow are wet:
The slight frame is writhing—she sinks to the ground;
She yields to no struggle, she utters no sound—
The small hands are clenched—they relax—it is past,
And her aunt kneels beside her—kneels weeping at last.
Again morning breaks over palace and lake,
But where are the glad eyes it wont to awake.
Weep, weep, 'mid a bright world of beauty and bloom,
For the sweet human flower that lies low in the tomb.
And wild through the palace the death-song is breathing,
And white are the blossoms, the slaves weep while wreathing,
To strew at the feet and to bind round the head,
Of her who was numbered last night with the dead:
They braid her long tresses, they drop the shroud o'er,
And gaze on her cold and pale beauty no more:
But the heart has her image, and long after-years
Will keep her sad memory with music and tears.'
Days pass, yet still Zilara's song
Beguiled the regal beauty's hours
As the wind bears some bird along
Over the haunted orange bowers.
'Twas as till then she had not known
How much her heart had for its own;
And Murad's image seemed more dear,
These higher chords of feeling strung;
'And love shone brighter for the shade
'That others' sorrows round it flung.
It was one sultry noon, yet sweet
The air which through the matted grass
Came cool—its breezes had to meet
A hundred plumes, ere it could pass;
The peacock's shining feathers wave
From many a young and graceful slave;
Who silent kneel amid the gloom
Of that dim and perfumed room.
Beyond, the radiant sunbeams rest
On many a minaret's glittering crest,
And white the dazzling tombs below,
Like masses sculptured of pure snow;
While round stands many a giant tree,
Like pillars of a sanctuary,
Whose glossy foliage, dark and bright,
Reflects, and yet excludes the light.
Oh sun, how glad thy rays are shed;
How canst thou glory o'er the dead?
Ah, folly this of human pride,
What are the dead to one like thee,
Whose mirror is the mighty tide,
Where time flows to eternity?
A single race, a single age,
What are they in thy pilgrimage?
The tent, the palace, and the tomb
Repeat the universal doom.
Man passes, but upon the plain
Still the sweet seasons hold their reign,
As if earth were their sole domain,
And man a toy and mockery thrown
Upon the world he deems his own.
All is so calm—the sunny air
Has not a current nor a shade;
The vivid green the rice-fields wear
Seems of one moveless emerald made;
The Ganges' quiet waves are rolled
In one broad sheet of molten gold;
And in the tufted brakes beside,
The water-fowls and herons hide.
And the still earth might also seem
The strange creation of a dream.
Actual, breathless—dead, yet bright—
Unblest with life—yet mocked with light,
It mocks our nature's fate and power,
When we look forth in such an hour,
And that repose in nature see,
The fond desire of every heart;
But, oh! thou inner world, to thee,
What outward world can e'er impart?
But turn we to that darkened hall,
Where the cool fountain's pleasant fall
Wakens the odours yet unshed
From the blue hyacinth's drooping head;
And on the crimson couch beside
Reclines the young and royal bride;
Not sleeping, though the water's chime,
The lulling flowers, the languid time,
Might soothe her to the gentlest sleep,
O'er which the genii watchings keep,
And shed from their enchanted wings,
All loveliest imaginings:
No, there is murmuring in her ear,
A voice than sleep's more soft and dear;
While that pale slave with drooping eye
Speaks mournfully of days gone by;
And every plaintive word is fraught
With music which the heart has taught,
A pleading and confiding tone,
To those mute lips so long unknown.
Ah! all in vain that she had said
To feeling, 'slumber like the dead;'
Had bade each pang that might convulse
With fiery throb the beating pulse,
Each faded hope, each early dream,
Sleep as beneath a frozen stream;
Such as her native mountains bear,
The cold white hills around Jerdair;
Heights clad with that eternal snow,
Which happier valleys never know.
Some star in that ungenial sky,
Might well shape such a destiny;
But till within the dark calm grave,
There yet will run an under-wave,
Which human sympathy can still
Excite and melt to tears at will;
No magic any spell affords,
Whose power is like a few kind words.
'Twas strange the contrast in the pair,
That leant by that cool fountain's side
Both very young, both very fair,
By nature, not by fate allied:
The one a darling and delight,
A creature like the morning bright:
Whose weeping is the sunny shower
Half light upon an April hour;
One who a long glad childhood past,
But left that happy home to 'bide
Where love a deeper shadow cast,
A hero's proud and treasured bride:
Who her light footstep more adored,
Than all the triumphs of his sword;
Whose kingdom at her feet the while,
Had seemed too little for a smile.
But that pale slave was as the tomb
Of her own youth, of her own bloom;
Enough remained to show how fair,
In other days those features were,
Still lingered delicate and fine,
The shadow of their pure outline;
The small curved lip, the glossy brow,
That melancholy beauty wore,
Whose spell is in the silent past,
Which saith to love and hope, 'No more:'
No more, for hope hath long forsaken
Love, though at first its gentle guide
First lulled to sleep, then left to 'waken,
'Mid tears and scorn, despair and pride,
And only those who know can tell,
What love is after hope's farewell.
And first she spoke of childhood's time,
Little, what childhood ought to be,
When tenderly the gentle child
Is cherished at its mother's knee,
Who deems that ne'er before, from heaven
So sweet a thing to earth was given.
But she an orphan had no share
In fond affection's early care;
She knew not love until it came
Far other, though it bore that name.
'I felt,' she said, 'all things grow bright!
Before the spirit's inward light.
Earth was more lovely, night and day,
Conscious of some enchanted sway,
That flung around an atmosphere
I had not deemed could brighten here.
And I have gazed on Moohreeb's face,
As exiles watch their native place;
I knew his step before it stirred
From its green nest the cautious bird.
I woke, till eye and cheek grew dim,
Then slept—it was to dream of him;
I lived for days upon a word
Less watchful ear had never heard:
And won from careless look or sign
A happiness too dearly mine.
He was my world—I wished to make
My heart a temple for his sake.
It matters not—such passionate love
Has only life and hope above;
A wanderer from its home on high,
Here it is sent to droop and die.
He loved me not—or but a day,
I was a flower upon his way:
A moment near his heart enshrined,
Then flung to perish on the wind.'
She hid her face within her hands—
Methinks the maiden well might weep;
The heart it has a weary task
Which unrequited love must keep;
At once a treasure and a curse,
The shadow on its universe.
Alas, for young and wasted years,
For long nights only spent in tears;
For hopes, like lamps in some dim urn,
That but for the departed burn.
Alas for her whose drooping brow
Scarce struggles with its sorrow now.
At first Nadira wept to see
That hopelessness of misery.
But, oh, she was too glad, too young,
To dream of an eternal grief;
A thousand thoughts within her sprung,
Of solace, promise, and relief.
Slowly Zilara raised her head,
Then, moved by some strong feeling, said,
'A boon, kind Princess, there is one
Which won by me, were heaven won;
Not wealth, not freedom—wealth to me
Is worthless, as all wealth must be;
When there are none its gifts to share:
For whom have I on earth to care?
None from whose head its golden shrine
May ward the ills that fell on mine.
And freedom—'tis a worthless boon
To one who will be free so soon;
And yet I have one prayer, so dear,
I dare not hope—I only fear.'
'Speak, trembler, be your wish confest,
And trust Nadira with the rest.'
'Lady, look forth on yonder tower,
There spend I morn and midnight's hour,
Beneath that lonely peepul tree—
Well may its branches wave o'er me,
For their dark wreaths are ever shed,
The mournful tribute to the dead—
There sit I, in fond wish to cheer
A captive's sad and lonely ear,
And strive his drooping hopes to raise,
With songs that breathe of happier days.
Lady, methinks I scarce need tell
The name that I have loved so well;
'Tis Moohreeb, captured by the sword
Of him, thy own unconquered lord.
Lady, one word—one look from thee,
And Murad sets that captive free.'
'And you will follow at his side?'
'Ah, no, he hath another bride;
And if I pity, can'st thou bear
To think upon her lone despair?
No, break the mountain-chieftain's chain,
Give him to hope, home, love again.'
Her cheek with former beauty blushed,
The crimson to her forehead rushed,
Her eyes rekindled, till their light
Flashed from the lash's summer night.
So eager was her prayer, so strong
The love that bore her soul along.
Ah! many loves for many hearts;
But if mortality has known
One which its native heaven imparts
To that fine soil where it has grown;
'Tis in that first and early feeling,
Passion's most spiritual revealing;
Half dream, all poetry—whose hope
Colours life's charmed horoscope
With hues so beautiful, so pure—
Whose nature is not to endure.
As well expect the tints to last,
The rainbow on the storm hath cast.
Of all young feelings, love first dies,
Soon the world piles its obsequies;
Yet there have been who still would keep
That early vision dear and deep,
The wretched they, but love requires
Tears, tears to keep alive his fires:
The happy will forget, but those
To whom despair denies repose,
From whom all future light is gone,
The sad, the slighted, still love on.
The ghurrees are chiming the morning hour,
The voice of the priest is heard from the tower,
The turrets of Delhi are white in the sun,
Alas! that another bright day has begun.
Children of earth, ah! how can ye bear
This constant awakening to toil and to care?
Out upon morning, its hours recall,
Earth to its trouble, man to his thrall;
Out upon morning, it chases the night,
With all the sweet dreams that on slumber alight;
Out upon morning, which wakes us to life,
With its toil, its repining, its sorrow and strife.
And yet there were many in Delhi that day,
Who watched the first light, and rejoiced in the ray;
They wait their young monarch, who comes from the field
With a wreath on his spear, and a dent on his shield.
There's a throng in the east, 'tis the king and his train:
And first prance the horsemen, who scarce can restrain
Their steeds that are wild as the wind, and as bold
As the riders who curb them with bridles of gold:
The elephants follow, and o'er each proud head
The chattah that glitters with gems is outspread,
Whence the silver bells fall with their musical sound,
While the howdah's red trappings float bright on the ground:
Behind stalk the camels, which, weary and worn,
Seem to stretch their long necks, and repine at the morn:
And wild on the air the fierce war-echoes come,
The voice of the atabal, trumpet, and drum:
Half lost in the shout that ascends from the crowd,
Who delight in the young, and the brave, and the proud.
Tis folly to talk of the right and the wrong,
The triumph will carry the many along.
A dearer welcome far remains,
Than that of Delhi's crowded plains?
Soon Murad seeks the shadowy hall,
Cool with the fountain's languid fall;
His own, his best beloved to meet.
Why kneels Nadira at his feet?
With flushing cheek, and eager air,
One word hath won her easy prayer;
It is such happiness to grant,
The slightest fancy that can haunt
The loved one's wish, earth hath no gem,
And heaven no hope, too dear for them.
That night beheld a vessel glide,
Over the Jumna's onward tide;
One watched that vessel from the shore,
Too conscious of the freight it bore,
And wretched in her granted vow,
Sees Moohreeb leaning by the prow,
And knows that soon the winding river
Will hide him from her view for ever.
Next morn they found that youthful slave
Still kneeling by the sacred wave;
Her head was leaning on the stone
Of an old ruined tomb beside,
A fitting pillow cold and lone,
The dead had to the dead supplied:
The heart's last string hath snapt in twain,
Oh, earth, receive thine own again:
The weary one at length has rest
Within thy chill but quiet breast.
Long did the young Nadira keep
The memory of that maiden's lute;
And call to mind her songs, and weep,
Long after those charmed chords were mute.
A small white tomb was raised, to show
That human sorrow slept below;
And solemn verse and sacred line
Were graved on that funereal shrine.
And by its side the cypress tree
Stood, like unchanging memory.
And even to this hour are thrown
Green wreaths on that remembered stone;
And songs remain, whose tunes are fraught
With music which herself first taught.
And, it is said, one lonely star
Still brings a murmur sweet and far
Upon the silent midnight air,
As if Zilara wandered there.
Oh! if her poet soul be blent
With its aerial element,
May its lone course be where the rill
Goes singing at its own glad will;
Where early flowers unclose and die;
Where shells beside the ocean lie,
Fill'd with strange tones; or where the breeze
Sheds odours o'er the moonlit seas:
There let her gentle spirit rove,
Embalmed by poetry and love.
poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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