Milton--December 9, 1608: December 9, 1908
What splendour of imperial station man,
The Tree of Life, may reach when, rooted fast,
His branching stem points way to upper air
And skyward still aspires, we see in him
Who sang for us the Archangelical host,
Made Morning, by old Darkness urged to the abyss;
A voice that down three centuries onward rolls;
Onward will roll while lives our English tongue,
In the devout of music unsurpassed
Since Piety won Heaven's ear on Israel's harp.
The face of Earth, the soul of Earth, her charm,
Her dread austerity; the quavering fate
Of mortals with blind hope by passion swayed,
His mind embraced, the while on trodden soil,
Defender of the Commonwealth, he joined
Our temporal fray, whereof is vital fruit,
And, choosing armoury of the Scholar, stood
Beside his peers to raise the voice for Freedom:
Nor has fair Liberty a champion armed
To meet on heights or plains the Sophister
Throughout the ages, equal to this man,
Whose spirit breathed high Heaven, and drew thence
The ethereal sword to smite.
Were England sunk
Beneath the shifting tides, her heart, her brain,
The smile she wears, the faith she holds, her best,
Would live full-toned in the grand delivery
Of his cathedral speech: an utterance
Almost divine, and such as Hellespont,
Crashing its breakers under Ida's frown,
Inspired: yet worthier he, whose instrument
Was by comparison the coarse reed-pipe;
Whereof have come the marvellous harmonies,
Which, with his lofty theme, of infinite range,
Abash, entrance, exalt.
We need him now,
This latest Age in repetition cries:
For Belial, the adroit, is in our midst;
Mammon, more swoln to squeeze the slavish sweat
From hopeless toil: and overshadowingly
(Aggrandized, monstrous in his grinning mask
Of hypocritical Peace,) inveterate Moloch
Remains the great example.
Homage to him
His debtor band, innumerable as waves
Running all golden from an eastern sun,
Joyfully render, in deep reverence
Subscribe, and as they speak their Milton's name,
Rays of his glory on their foreheads bear.
poem by George Meredith
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Related quotes
The Poet To Be Yet
NOT he who sings smooth songs that soothe—
Sweet opiates that lull asleep
The sorrow that would only weep;
There are some spirit-stains so deep
That only tears may wash away.
Not he whose lays thrill fiercely till
The soul is sick with surfeiting,
Such passion flies, and leaves its sting,
Till through the body quivering
The wearied dull pain throbs again.
Not he whose glad voice says “Rejoice!”
For whom no clouds o'ercast the sky;
Whose god is in his heaven so high
That this dull world he come not nigh:
Life is no sun-kissed optimist!
But he who Sorrow's presence knows,
Who hears the minor chords beneath
The song of life, and feels the breath
Upon his cheek of quiet death,
Yet stirs and sings of life and love.
Who in his suffering yet can sing;
With that calm pathos in his face—
The hopeless yearning of the race—
Can chant the faith that holds its place,
Upsurging through each sore heart's speech;
Who, though his heart bleed, onward leads;
Who knows eternal is our quest,
Yet bids us toil and strive—not rest—
Who looks life o'er and takes its best—
This is the poet to be yet!
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Luther's Angel-Song
Sing! sing! ye ransomed mortals, sing!
We come from heaven-from heaven, and bring
Glad tidings of great joy to earth;
We come from heaven, commissioned there
Glad tidings of great joy to bear,
Announcing your Redeemer's birth.
Yes! your Redeemer is at hand;
Echo the tidings through the land;
Your Saviour comes-he comes-the reign
Of peace and glory is begun:
He comes, the Son of peace, the Son
Of God, his advent shout again.
Shout! shout! thou earth!-thou heaven repeat
The notes of joy in transports meet,
For earth and heaven are one-are one;
The Lord of glory bows Him down,
And He who wears the heavenly crown
Descends to rule on earth alone.
poem by John Bowring
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Webster
"When I and all those that hear me shall have gone to our last home, and when the mould may have gathered on our memories, as it will on our tombs:" -- Webster's Speech in the Senate, July, 1850.
The mould upon thy memory! -- No,
Not while one note is rung,
Of those divine, immortal songs
Milton and Shakespeare sung; --
Not till the night of years enshrouds
The Anglo-Saxon tongue.
No! let the flood of Time roll on,
And men and empires die; --
Genius enthroned on lofty heights
Can its dread course defy,
And here on earth, can claim the gift
Of immortality:
Can save from that Lethean tide
That sweeps so dark along,
A people's name; -- a people's fame
To future time prolong,
As Troy still lives and only lives
In Homer's deathless song.
What though to buried Nineveh
The traveller may come,
And roll away the stone that hides
That long forgotten tomb; --
He questions its mute past in vain,
Its oracles are dumb.
What though he stand where Balbec stood
Gigantic in its pride;
No voice comes o'er that silent waste,
Lone, desolate and wide; --
They had no bard, no orator,
No statesman, -- and they died.
They lived their little span of life,
They lived and died in vain; --
They sank ingloriously beneath
Oblivion's silent reign,
As sank beneath the Dead Sea wave
The Cities of the Plain.
But for those famed, immortal lands,
Greece and imperial Rome,
Where Genius left its shining mark,
And found its chosen home,
All eloquent with mind they speak,
Wood, wave and crumbling dome.
The honeyed words of Plato still
Float on the echoing air,
The thunders of Demosthenes
AEgean waters bear,
And the pilgrim to the Forum hears
The voice of Tully there.
And thus thy memory shall live,
And thus thy fame resound,
While far-off future ages roll
Their solemn cycles round,
And make this wide, this fair New World
An ancient, classic ground.
Then with our Country's glorious name
Thine own shall be entwined;
Within the Senate's pillared hall
Thine image shall be shrined;
And on the nation's Law shall gleam
Light from thy giant mind.
Our proudest monuments no more
May rise to meet the sky,
The stately Capitol o'erthrown,
Low in the dust may lie;
But mind, sublime above the wreck,
Immortal -- cannot die.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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The Sunflower
Eagle of flowers! I see thee stand,
And on the sun's noon-glory gaze:
With eye like his thy lids expand,
And fringe their disk with golden rays;
Though fix'd on earth, in darkness rooted there,
Light is thine element, thy dwelling air,
Thy prospect heaven.
So would mine eagle-soul descry,
Beyond the path where planets run,
The light of immortality,
The splendour of creation's sun;
Though sprung from earth, and hast'ning to the tomb
In hope a flower of paradise to bloom,
I took to heaven.
poem by James Montgomery
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America
NOR force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye
Who north or south, on east or western land,
Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth,
Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God
For God; O ye who in eternal youth
Speak with a living and creative flood
This universal English, and do stand
Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand
Heroic utterance—parted, yet a whole,
Far yet unsever’d,—children brave and free
Of the great Mother-tongue, and ye shall be
Lords of an empire wide as Shakespeare’s soul,
Sublime as Milton’s immemorial theme,
And rich as Chaucer’s speech, and fair as Spenser’s dream.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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On The Busts Of Milton, In Youth And Age, At Stourhead
IN YOUTH.
Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace
Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair,
That brow untouched by one faint line of care,
To mar its openness, we seem to trace
The front of the first lord of human race,
'Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair,
Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed it: such the air
That characters thy youth. Shall time efface
These lineaments as crowding cares assail!
It is the lot of fall'n humanity.
What boots it! armed in adamantine mail,
The unconquerable mind, and genius high,
Right onward hold their way through weal and woe,
Or whether life's brief lot be high or low!
IN AGE.
And art thou he, now 'fall'n on evil days,'
And changed indeed! Yet what do this sunk cheek,
These thinner locks, and that calm forehead speak!
A spirit reckless of man's blame or praise,--
A spirit, when thine eyes to the noon's blaze
Their dark orbs roll in vain, in suffering meek,
As in the sight of God intent to seek,
'Mid solitude or age, or through the ways
Of hard adversity, the approving look
Of its great Master; whilst the conscious pride
Of wisdom, patient and content to brook
All ills to that sole Master's task applied,
Shall show before high heaven the unaltered mind,
Milton, though thou art poor, and old, and blind!
poem by William Lisle Bowles
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Altiora Peto
O for a vision of the perfect light
To shame the splendour of the morning star!
O for a breath from out the Infinite
Where the great heart of Being throbs afar!
O for that sound, too fine for mortal ears,
The music of the silence of the spheres!
The Masters fathomed not that song sublime,
Tho’ oft on straining ear and brain o’erwrought,
And heart grown faint at heights too sheer to climb,
The roll of some immortal wave of thought
Swept by and left, adown its troubled verge,
The lingering echoes of its mighty surge.
To each there came the passion and the fire,
The breadth of vision and the sudden light,
And for a moment on an earthly lyre
Quivered a tremor of the Infinite;
Yet to each poet of that deep-browed throng
’Twas but the shadow of Immortal Song.
’Twas but the presage of th’ Omniscient Soul
That moves and throbs thro’ all this wondrous plan,
Unseen, unheard, unknown: that is the Whole,
Yet stirs in atoms and the heart of Man;
That thro’ all phase of change, and form, and name
Remains and works eternally the same.
That seems to whisper us:—“All life is one,
Reborn in death it blossoms from decay,
The same when first the fury of the sun
Belched forth his satellites of fiery spray,
The same when he and all his planet train
Shall plough the Ether, cold—to glow again!
“Whither, O whither? Still th’ eternal cry,
That from the ages rolled and yet shall roll!
Who shall declare to man his destiny—
A unit in the Cosmos of the Soul—
A spirit-germ, storm-tossed in doubt and strife,
That feebly dreams of larger light and life?”
Systems and stars their courses onward sweep,
And creeds and nations flower and fade away.
Still Nature worketh out her purpose deep—
New life, new thought for that of yesterday.
Unto the utmost confines of her range
One law abideth of unchanging change.
Around us dwells the secret no man reads!
About us swells the music none can hear!
Behind us lie the ruins of the creeds!
Before us loom the mystery and the fear!
To Love and Hope our souls are clinging fast,
What giveth these, perchance gives Truth at last!
poem by George Essex Evans
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I Am An Abolitionist
I am an Abolitionist!
I glory in the name:
Though now by Slavery’s minions hiss’d
And covered o’er with shame,
It is a spell of light and power —
The watchword of the free : ——
Who spurns it in the trial-hour,
A craven soul is he !
I am an Abolitionist!
Then urge me not to pause;
For joyfully do I enlist
In Freedom’s sacred cause:
A nobler strife the world ne’er saw,
Th’ enslaved to disenthral;
I am a soldier for the war,
Whatever may befall!
I am an Abolitionist!
Oppression’s deadly foe;
In God’s great strength will I resist,
And lay the monster low;
In God’s great name do I demand,
To all be freedom given,
That peace and joy may fill the land,
And songs go up to heaven!
I am an Abolitionist!
No threats shall awe my soul,
No perils cause me to desist,
No bribes my acts control;
A freeman will I live and die,
In sunshine and in shade,
And raise my voice for liberty,
Of nought on earth afraid.
poem by Anonymous Americas
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To England
We are not twain, but one: though seas divide us—
The children of the English-speaking race—
This nothing now can change: whate'er betide us,
This is our birthright grace.
The tongue that holds our earliest recollection,
Whose accents moved us like a fond caress—
The tongue in which we lisped our first affection,
Must still attach and bless.
America and England knit together—
Offspring of one great Mother, Sister Lands—
Fear neither frowning fate nor boding weather,
When close are joined their hands.
Beneath the ocean-billow sways the cable
That gives them instant knowledge, each of each,
And were it sunk, their hearts would still be able
To find a way of speech.
The younger, who her virgin prairies planted
To bless the alien—Teuton, Latin, Gaul,
Welcomes the poorest, as to realms enchanted,
And makes them English, all!
And still, the elder, in the hour of danger,
The bond of kinship never quite forgot,
Speaks with commanding accent to the stranger:
"Be heedful; touch her not!"
For we have felt—have felt with one another,
Sharing each other's hope, each other's dread;
And we have wept, as children of one mother,
Mourning our cherished dead.
Is 't for ourselves this friendship hath caressed us—
That Heaven hath strengthened so the English speech?
Nay; God forbid! the mercy that hath blessed us
Hath a diviner reach!
If with new strength there come not larger kindness,
Our banners, proudly borne, were better furled;
If we no longer see, for selfish blindness,
Beyond our realms, the world,—
Then poor, indeed, though vast our rule supernal,
Who magnify the ill we might redeem;
Missing the glory of the hope eternal—
The god-like, human dream!
To solace life, there blooms on earth a flower
Whose deathless name is Love. Of its increase
Are born compassion, freedom, beauty, power;
And of its gift is peace.
O Sister Lands, thrice blest! though wisdom guide us,
Yet in our hearts may love perfected lie—
Deep as the ocean that cannot divide us,
Kind as the arching sky!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
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Israel O Israe
Israel O Israel
God came for you in flesh and blood
Left Christ with the key to hell
To Heaven too, yet you can’t tell
Israel O Israel.
Woman travails with sin as a child
Bishops cry
Angels sigh
Men die
And you labour in birth
Alas a child without breath
Israel O Israel
Suffer not your child to wrath.
Woman walks around naked
Still she is blackened, darkened
In sight
Cavalry is full of blood
Blood O blood
Don’t go don’t dry
Wash o Israel, wash
For in sin you lie
Wash before the blood says bye.
Woman travails with sin
Widowed and tears of darkness
Woman blinks in blindness.
Bishops cry
Saints cry
Jesus cries
For woman with child-sin
In wails aloud.
Israel o Israel
Bishops cry.
You have grown talons
Become a wolf,
Wondering on paths to pits of hell
You’ve become a boat ready to set sail
On lakes of fire.
Israel o woman
Put to birth, let go of the child
Come away from death’s lair
Thou art fair
Come hither from the forsaken valley
Come to life at cavalry.
Israel O Israel!
Wash o widow, wash!
Travail no more
For you’re pregnant with sin
Come away from the unseen
O fair woman
God loves you, he cares for you
Preachers cry
Pastors cry
And you o Israel cries
Tears pour as tall
Long like ancient of days
With spots, a suspension-a sol
Live o woman live!
Alive in God’s bosom.
Israel o Israel
Now you smile
Pastors smile
Angels rejoice
Bishops smile
Jesus smiles for your new voice
O fair woman.
In Christ there’s more
Take his palm come ashore
To a holy hall
A new Heaven and earth
A life anew, everlasting with a girth
Of eternity
Thou art fair for the husband man
To live in charity
In waters of gold and prosperity
After the new birth
Praise, extol the LORD with your mouth
Sing psalms
You are unto HIM a wife
Israel o woman to you shall be the tree of life.
And a voice spoke:
“BEHOLD, THE TABERNACLE OF GOD IS WITH MEN
AND HE WILL DWELL WITH THEM
AND THEY SHALL BE HIS PEOPLE
AND GOD HIMSELF SHALL BE WITH THEM
AND BE THEIR GOD.”
Israel o lamb’s wife.
poem by Chanda Mwenechanya
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To a Mountain
To thee, O father of the stately peaks,
Above me in the loftier light -- to thee,
Imperial brother of those awful hills
Whose feet are set in splendid spheres of flame,
Whose heads are where the gods are, and whose sides
Of strength are belted round with all the zones
Of all the world, I dedicate these songs.
And if, within the compass of this book,
There lives and glows ONE verse in which there beats
The pulse of wind and torrent -- if ONE line
Is here that like a running water sounds,
And seems an echo from the lands of leaf,
Be sure that line is thine. Here, in this home,
Away from men and books and all the schools,
I take thee for my Teacher. In thy voice
Of deathless majesty, I, kneeling, hear
God's grand authentic Gospel! Year by year,
The great sublime cantata of thy storm
Strikes through my spirit -- fills it with a life
Of startling beauty! Thou my Bible art
With holy leaves of rock, and flower, and tree,
And moss, and shining runnel. From each page
That helps to make thy awful volume, I
Have learned a noble lesson. In the psalm
Of thy grave winds, and in the liturgy
Of singing waters, lo! my soul has heard
The higher worship; and from thee, indeed,
The broad foundations of a finer hope
Were gathered in; and thou hast lifted up
The blind horizon for a larger faith!
Moreover, walking in exalted woods
Of naked glory, in the green and gold
Of forest sunshine, I have paused like one
With all the life transfigured: and a flood
Of light ineffable has made me feel
As felt the grand old prophets caught away
By flames of inspiration; but the words
Sufficient for the story of my Dream
Are far too splendid for poor human lips!
But thou, to whom I turn with reverent eyes --
O stately Father, whose majestic face
Shines far above the zone of wind and cloud,
Where high dominion of the morning is --
Thou hast the Song complete of which my songs
Are pallid adumbrations! Certain sounds
Of strong authentic sorrow in this book
May have the sob of upland torrents -- these,
And only these, may touch the great World's heart;
For, lo! they are the issues of that grief
Which makes a man more human, and his life
More like that frank exalted life of thine.
But in these pages there are other tones
In which thy large, superior voice is not --
Through which no beauty that resembles thine
Has ever shone. THESE are the broken words
Of blind occasions, when the World has come
Between me and my Dream. No song is here
Of mighty compass; for my singing robes
I've worn in stolen moments. All my days
Have been the days of a laborious life,
And ever on my struggling soul has burned
The fierce heat of this hurried sphere. But thou,
To whose fair majesty I dedicate
My book of rhymes -- thou hast the perfect rest
Which makes the heaven of the highest gods!
To thee the noises of this violent time
Are far, faint whispers; and, from age to age,
Within the world and yet apart from it,
Thou standest! Round thy lordly capes the sea
Rolls on with a superb indifference
For ever; in thy deep, green, gracious glens
The silver fountains sing for ever. Far
Above dim ghosts of waters in the caves,
The royal robe of morning on thy head
Abides for ever! Evermore the wind
Is thy august companion; and thy peers
Are cloud, and thunder, and the face sublime
Of blue mid-heaven! On thy awful brow
Is Deity; and in that voice of thine
There is the great imperial utterance
Of God for ever; and thy feet are set
Where evermore, through all the days and years,
There rolls the grand hymn of the deathless wave.
poem by Henry Kendall
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Poetry
THE POETRY OF CHAUCER
Grey with all honours of age! but fresh-featured and ruddy
As dawn when the drowsy farm-yard has thrice heard Chaunticlere.
Tender to tearfulness-childlike, and manly, and motherly;
Here beats true English blood richest joyance on sweet English ground.
THE POETRY OF SPENSER
Lakes where the sunsheen is mystic with splendour and softness;
Vales where sweet life is all Summer with golden romance:
Forests that glimmer with twilight round revel-bright palaces;
Here in our May-blood we wander, careering 'mongst ladies and knights.
THE POETRY OF SHAKESPEARE
Picture some Isle smiling green 'mid the white-foaming ocean; -
Full of old woods, leafy wisdoms, and frolicsome fays;
Passions and pageants; sweet love singing bird-like above it;
Life in all shapes, aims, and fates, is there warm'd by one great human heart.
THE POETRY OF MILTON
Like to some deep-chested organ whose grand inspiration,
Serenely majestic in utterance, lofty and calm,
Interprets to mortals with melody great as its burthen
The mystical harmonies chiming for ever throughout the bright spheres.
THE POETRY OF SOUTHEY
Keen as an eagle whose flight towards the dim empyrean
Fearless of toil or fatigue ever royally wends!
Vast in the cloud-coloured robes of the balm-breathing Orient
Lo! the grand Epic advances, unfolding the humanest truth.
THE POETRY OF COLERIDGE
A brook glancing under green leaves, self-delighting, exulting,
And full of a gurgling melody ever renewed -
Renewed thro' all changes of Heaven, unceasing in sunlight,
Unceasing in moonlight, but hushed in the beams of the holier orb.
THE POETRY OF SHELLEY
See'st thou a Skylark whose glistening winglets ascending
Quiver like pulses beneath the melodious dawn?
Deep in the heart-yearning distance of heaven it flutters -
Wisdom and beauty and love are the treasures it brings down at eve.
THE POETRY OF WORDSWORTH
A breath of the mountains, fresh born in the regions majestic,
That look with their eye-daring summits deep into the sky.
The voice of great Nature; sublime with her lofty conceptions,
Yet earnest and simple as any sweet child of the green lowly vale.
THE POETRY OF KEATS
The song of a nightingale sent thro' a slumbrous valley,
Low-lidded with twilight, and tranced with the dolorous sound,
Tranced with a tender enchantment; the yearning of passion
That wins immortality even while panting delirious with death.
poem by George Meredith
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The Rail Road
Thou great proclaimer to the outward eye
Of what the spirit too would seek to tell,
Onward thou go'st, appointed from on high
The other warnings of the Lord to swell;
Thou art the voice of one that through the world
Proclaims in startling tones, 'Prepare the way;'
The lofty mountain from its seat is hurled,
The flinty rocks thine onward march obey;
The valleys lifted from their lowly bed
O'ertop the hills that on them frowned before,
Thou passest where the living seldom tread,
Through forests dark, where tides beneath thee roar,
And bid'st man's dwelling from thy track remove,
And would with warning voice his crooked paths reprove.
poem by Jones Very
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To The Memory Of Charles B. Storrs
Thou hast fallen in thine armor,
Thou martyr of the Lord
With thy last breath crying 'Onward!'
And thy hand upon the sword.
The haughty heart derideth,
And the sinful lip reviles,
But the blessing of the perishing
Around thy pillow smiles!
When to our cup of trembling
The added drop is given,
And the long-suspended thunder
Falls terribly from Heaven,--
When a new and fearful freedom
Is proffered of the Lord
To the slow-consuming Famine,
The Pestilence and Sword!
When the refuges of Falsehood
Shall be swept away in wrath,
And the temple shall be shaken,
With its idol, to the earth,
Shall not thy words of warning
Be all remembered then?
And thy now unheeded message
Burn in the hearts of men?
Oppression's hand may scatter
Its nettles on thy tomb,
And even Christian bosoms
Deny thy memory room;
For lying lips shall torture
Thy mercy into crime,
And the slanderer shall flourish
As the bay-tree for a time.
But where the south-wind lingers
On Carolina's pines,
Or falls the careless sunbeam
Down Georgia's golden mines;
Where now beneath his burthen
The toiling slave is driven;
Where now a tyrant's mockery
Is offered unto Heaven;
Where Mammon hath its altars
Wet o'er with human blood,
And pride and lust debases
The workmanship of God,--
There shall thy praise be spoken,
Redeemed from Falsehood's ban,
When the fetters shall be broken,
And the slave shall be a man!
Joy to thy spirit, brother!
A thousand hearts are warm,
A thousand kindred bosoms
Are baring to the storm.
What though red-handed Violence
With secret Fraud combine?
The wall of fire is round us,
Our Present Help was thine.
Lo, the waking up of nations,
From Slavery's fatal sleep;
The murmur of a Universe,
Deep calling unto Deep!
Joy to thy spirit, brother!
On every wind of heaven
The onward cheer and summons
Of Freedom's voice is given!
Glory to God forever!
Beyond the despot's will
The soul of Freedom liveth
Imperishable still.
The words which thou hast uttered
Are of that soul a part,
And the good seed thou hast scattered
Is springing from the heart.
In the evil days before us,
And the trials yet to come,
In the shadow of the prison,
Or the cruel martyrdom,--
We will think of thee, O brother!
And thy sainted name shall be
In the blessing of the captive,
And the anthem of the free.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Great Are The Myths
GREAT are the myths--I too delight in them;
Great are Adam and Eve--I too look back and accept them;
Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages,
inventors, rulers, warriors, and priests.
Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their follower;
Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where you sail, I sail,
I weather it out with you, or sink with you.
Great is Youth--equally great is Old Age--great are the Day and
Night;
Great is Wealth--great is Poverty--great is Expression--great is
Silence.
Youth, large, lusty, loving--Youth, full of grace, force,
fascination!
Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace, force,
fascination? 10
Day, full-blown and splendid--Day of the immense sun, action,
ambition, laughter,
The Night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep, and
restoring darkness.
Wealth, with the flush hand, fine clothes, hospitality;
But then the Soul's wealth, which is candor, knowledge, pride,
enfolding love;
(Who goes for men and women showing Poverty richer than wealth?)
Expression of speech! in what is written or said, forget not that
Silence is also expressive,
That anguish as hot as the hottest, and contempt as cold as the
coldest, may be without words.
Great is the Earth, and the way it became what it is;
Do you imagine it has stopt at this? the increase abandon'd?
Understand then that it goes as far onward from this, as this is from
the times when it lay in covering waters and gases, before man
had appear'd. 20
Great is the quality of Truth in man;
The quality of truth in man supports itself through all changes,
It is inevitably in the man--he and it are in love, and never leave
each other.
The truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eyesight;
If there be any Soul, there is truth--if there be man or woman there
is truth--if there be physical or moral, there is truth;
If there be equilibrium or volition, there is truth--if there be
things at all upon the earth, there is truth.
O truth of the earth! I am determin'd to press my way toward you;
Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the sea after you.
Great is Language--it is the mightiest of the sciences,
It is the fulness, color, form, diversity of the earth, and of men
and women, and of all qualities and processes; 30
It is greater than wealth--it is greater than buildings, ships,
religions, paintings, music.
Great is the English speech--what speech is so great as the English?
Great is the English brood--what brood has so vast a destiny as the
English?
It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the new
rule;
The new rule shall rule as the Soul rules, and as the love, justice,
equality in the Soul rule.
Great is Law--great are the few old land-marks of the law,
They are the same in all times, and shall not be disturb'd.
Great is Justice!
Justice is not settled by legislators and laws--it is in the Soul;
It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love, pride, the
attraction of gravity, can; 40
It is immutable--it does not depend on majorities--majorities or what
not, come at last before the same passionless and exact
tribunal.
For justice are the grand natural lawyers, and perfect judges--is it
in their Souls;
It is well assorted--they have not studied for nothing--the great
includes the less;
They rule on the highest grounds--they oversee all eras, states,
administrations.
The perfect judge fears nothing--he could go front to front before
God;
Before the perfect judge all shall stand back--life and death shall
stand back--heaven and hell shall stand back.
Great is Life, real and mystical, wherever and whoever;
Great is Death--sure as life holds all parts together, Death holds
all parts together.
Has Life much purport?--Ah, Death has the greatest purport.
poem by Walt Whitman
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The Dream of Margaret
It fell upon a summer night
The village folk were soundly sleeping,
Unconscious of the glamour white
In which the moon all things was steeping;
One window only showed a light;
Behind it, silent vigil keeping,
Sat Margaret, as one in trance—
The dark-eyed daughter of the Manse.
A flood of strange, sweet thoughts was surging
Her passionate heart and brain within.
At last, some secret impulse urging,
She laid aside her garment thin,
And from its snowy folds emerging,
Like Lamia from the serpent-skin,
She stood before her mirror bright
Naked, and lovely as the night.
Her dark hair o’er her shoulders flowing
Might well have been a silken pall
O’er Galatea’s image glowing
To life and love: she was withal—
The lamplight o’er her radiance throwing—
With her high bosom virginal,
A woman made to madden men,
A Cleopatra born again.
Hers was the beauty dark and splendid,
Whose spell upon the heart of man
Falls swiftly as, when day is ended,
Night falls in lands Australian.
Her rich, ripe, scarlet lips, bow-bended,
Smiled as such ripe lips only can;
Her eyes, wherein strange lightnings shone,
Were deeper than Oblivion.
With round, white arms, whose warm caress
No lover knew, raised towards the ceiling,
She looked like some young Pythoness
The secrets dark of Fate revealing,
Or goddess in divine distress
To higher powers for help appealing.
This invocation, standing so,
She sang in clear, sweet tones, but low:
Soul, from this narrow,
Mean life we know,
Speed as an arrow
From bended bow!
Seek, and discover,
On land or sea,
My destined lover,
Where’er he be.
How shalt thou know him,
My heart’s desire?—
His mien will show him,
His glance of fire.
High is his bearing,
His pride is high,
His spirit daring
Burns in his eye.
Birds have done mating;
The Spring is past;
My arms are waiting,
My heart beats fast.
“Oh, why,” she sighed, “has Fate awarded
This lot to me whose heart is bold?
My days by trifles are recorded,
My suitors men whose God is gold.
Oh for the Heroes helmed and sworded,
The lovers of the days of old,
Who broke for ladies many a lance
In gallant days of old Romance!
“Would I had lived in that great time when
A lady’s love was knight’s best boon;
When sword with sword made ringing rhyme, when
Mailed sea-kings fought from noon to moon,
And thought the slaughter grim no crime, when
The prize was golden-haired Gudrun.
Then I might find swords, broad and bright
And keen as theirs, for me to fight.
“But narrow bounds my life environ,
And hold my eager spirit in.
The men I see no heart of fire in
Their bodies bear. My love to win
A man must have a will of iron,
A soul of flame. Then sweet were sin
Or Death for him!” With ardent glance
Thus spake the daughter of the Manse.
Then, with a smile, she fell asleep in
Her white and dainty maiden bed.
The chaste, cold moon alone could peep in,
And view her tresses dark outspread
Upon an arm whose clasp might keep in
The life of one given up for dead:
And, as she drifted down the stream
Of Slumber deep, she dreamt a dream.
. . . . .
It was a banquet rich and rare,
The wine of France was foaming madly;
The proud and great of earth were there,
And all were slaves to serve her gladly,
And yet on them with haughty air
She gazed, half-scornfully, half-sadly;
The Lady of the Feast was she—
So ran her strange dream-fantasy.
A Prince was at her fair right hand,
And at her left a famous leader
Of hosts, with look of high command,
And—blacker than the tents of Kedar—
An Eastern King, barbaric, grand,
Sat near—their Queen they had decreed her.
Below the proud, the brave, the wise,
Sat charmed by her mesmeric eyes.
Then thus she spake: “O Lords of Earth!
Than you I know none nobler, braver;
And yet your fame, and rank, and birth,
And wealth in my sight find small favour,
For all too well I know their worth—
Long since for me they lost their savour.
The Spirit, fit to mate with mine,
Must be demoniac—or divine.
“A toast!” she cried. The gallant throng
Sprang up, their foaming glasses clinking.
“Satan! The Spirit proud and strong!
The bravest lover to my thinking!
The Wine of Life I’ve drunk too long:
The Wine of death I now am drinking!” . . .
“Our Queen she was a moment since—
Bear forth the body!” said the Prince.
. . . . .
A ghostly wind arose, all wet
With tears, and full of cries and wailing,
And wringing hands, and faces set
In bitter anguish unavailing;
It bore the soul of Margaret
To where a voice, in tones of railing,
Cried, “Spirit proud, thou hast done well!
Thou art within the Gates of Hell!”
The soul of Margaret passed slowly,
Yet bravely, through the Hall of Dread,
The roof whereof was hidden wholly
By black clouds hanging overhead.
No sound disturbed the melancholy
Deep silence—which itself seemed dead.
No wailing of the damned was heard,
No voice the fearful stillness stirred.
But that deep silence held in keeping
The secret of Eternal Woe—
That yet seemed like a serpent creeping
Around the walls. It was as though
The cries of pain and hopeless weeping
Had died out ages long ago.
No face was seen, no figure dread. . . .
Were all the damned and devils dead?
No lustre known on earth was gleaming
In that dread Hall, but some weird light
Around the pillars vast was streaming,
And down the vistas infinite;
A light like that men see in dreaming,
And, waking, shudder with affright.
Its glare a baleful splendour shed
For ever through the Hall of Dread.
Then suddenly she was aware
That from the walls, and all around her,
In motionless and burning stare,
Millions of eyes glowed, that spellbound her:
The everlasting dumb despair
That spoke from them made Pity founder;
And, as she passed along the floor,
She trod on burning millions more.
For floor and pillar, roof and all,
Were full of eyes, for ever burning—
’Twas these that lit the Dreadful Hall,
These were the damned beyond returning,
Sealed up in pillar, floor, and wall,
Without a tongue to voice their yearning,
Or grief, or hate, so God might know:
Their eyes alone could speak their woe.
Her way lit by the weird light flowing
From those sad, awful eyes, she passed
To where—her terror ever growing—
Upon a Throne, in fire set fast,
And like a Rose of fire far-glowing,
She saw a Figure, Veiled and Vast.
She trembled, for she knew full well
She stood before the Lord of Hell.
And then, an instant courage taking,
She knelt before the burning throne,
And, all her hopes of heaven forsaking,
She cried, “O Lord, make me thine own!
For men, though they be of God’s making,
I love not. Thee I love alone.”
The figure veiled spake thus: “Arise,
O Spirit proud—and most unwise!”
And as It spake, unveiling slowly,
A brow of awful beauty shone
On Margaret’s soul—yet Melancholy
And Woe Eternal sat thereon.
But, lo! the form was woman wholly.
A faint smile played her lips upon,
As in a voice low, sweet, and level
She said: “My dear, I am the Devil!”
With one wild wail of bitter scorning
The stricken soul of Margaret fled,
Sore harrowed by that dreadful warning;
And, shrieking, through the Hall of Dread
She passed . . . and woke . . . and it was morning,
And she was in her own white bed.
poem by Victor James Daley
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The Stranger
When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?
No, rather smile away despair;
For those have been more sad than I,
With burthens more than I could bear;
Aye, gone rejoicing under care
Where I had sunk in black despair.
When pain disturbs my peace and rest,
Am I a hopeless grief to keep,
When some have slept on torture's breast
And smiled as in the sweetest sleep,
Aye, peace on thorns, in faith forgiven,
And pillowed on the hope of heaven?
Though low and poor and broken down,
Am I to think myself distrest?
No, rather laugh where others frown
And think my being truly blest;
For others I can daily see
More worthy riches worse than me.
Aye, once a stranger blest the earth
Who never caused a heart to mourn,
Whose very voice gave sorrow mirth--
And how did earth his worth return?
It spurned him from its lowliest lot,
The meanest station owned him not;
An outcast thrown in sorrow's way,
A fugitive that knew no sin,
Yet in lone places forced to stray--
Men would not take the stranger in.
Yet peace, though much himself he mourned,
Was all to others he returned.
* * * * *
His presence was a peace to all,
He bade the sorrowful rejoice.
Pain turned to pleasure at his call,
Health lived and issued from his voice.
He healed the sick and sent abroad
The dumb rejoicing in the Lord.
The blind met daylight in his eye,
The joys of everlasting day;
The sick found health in his reply;
The cripple threw his crutch away.
Yet he with troubles did remain
And suffered poverty and pain.
Yet none could say of wrong he did,
And scorn was ever standing bye;
Accusers by their conscience chid,
When proof was sought, made no reply.
Yet without sin he suffered more
Than ever sinners did before.
poem by John Clare
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Invocation
JUNE, 1866.
BREATHE thro' me in music,
Spirit of the time!
Pregnant with the future,
Spirit of the time!
As the west wind sougheth,
Through the swaying pine,
Sweep tho' all my branches
With thy song divine.
Nations now are rolling
Onward, as the sea
Which the moon upheaveth,
Thus upheaved by thee.
Muffled mutt'ring groweth
Louder on the air!
Like a lion roaring,
Rising from his lair.
As the anthem surgeth
Through cathedral aisles,
Swells the voice of nations
Over miles of miles.
As the thunder growleth
In yon cloud afar,
In their bosoms broodeth
The black bolt of war.
Snap in twain your fetters,
Cleave your ancient yoke,
Burst the gloom of ages
With the lightning stroke.
Clap on clap, down-crashing,
Clatter crowd on crowd,
From Venetia's dungeons,
From the Roman shroud;
From the graves of Poland,
From Germania's plains,
From the death-pollution
Of imperial chains.
Feel yourselves as brothers,
Dare to think ye free;
And in dust will shiver
Thrones of tyranny.
Like night's phantoms, with'ring
'Neath the glance of dawn,
Kings and priests dissolveth
Your full-flashing frown.
Forward, sons of morning,
With a sacred ire!
Lead ye, like Jehovah,
In a pillar of fire.
Through the dreary desert,
Through the burning sand
Till, on shores of promise
And of peace, ye land.
Where a purer people,
Led by laws innate,
Shall, towards the heavens,
Tower in grander state.
Breathe and blow in music;
On, from clime to clime;
Baptize, with the Holy Spirit
Spirit of the time.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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A Song For Peace And Honour
TO THE QUEEN
LADY and Queen, for whom our laurels twine,
Upon whose head the glories of our land
In one immortal diadem are met,
Embodied England, in whose woman-hand
The sceptre of Imperial sway is set,
Receive this song of mine!
For you are England, and her bays grow green
To deck your brow, your goodness lends her grace,
And in our hearts your face is as Her face;
The Mother-Country is the Mother-Queen.
We, men of England, children of her might,
With all our Mother's record-roll of glory,
Great with her greatness, noble by her name,
Drank with our mothers' milk our Mother's story,
And in our veins the splendour of her fame
Made strong our blood and bright;
And to her absent sons her name has been
Familiar music heard in distant lands,
Heart of our heart and sinews of our hands,
England, our Mother, our Mistress and our Queen!
Out of the thunderous echoes of the past
Through the gold-dust of centuries we hear
Her voice, 'O children of a royal line,
Sons of her heart, whom England holdeth dear,
Mine was the Past--make ye the future mine
All glorious to the last!'
And, as we hear her, cowards grow to men,
And men to heroes, and the voice of fear
Is as a whisper in a deaf man's ear,
And the dead past is quick in us again.
Her robe is woven of glory and renown,
Hers are the golden-laden Argosies,
And lordship of the wild and watery ways,
Her flag is blown across the utmost seas:
Dead nations built her throne, and kingdoms blaze
For jewels in her crown.
Her Empire like a girdle doth enfold
The world; her feet upon her foes are set;
She wears the steel-wrought, blood-bright amulet
Won by her children in the days of old.
Yet in a treasury of such gems as these
Which power and sovereignty and kingship fill
To the vast limit of the circling sun,
England, our Mother, in her heart holds still,
As her most precious jewel, save only one,
The priceless pearl of peace--
Peace plucked from out the very heart of war
Through the long agony of strenuous years,
Made pure by blood and sanctified by tears,
A pearl to lie where England's treasures are.
O peaceful English lanes all white with may,
O English meadows where the grass grows tall,
O red-roofed village, field and farm and fold
Where the long shadows of the elm-trees fall
On the wide pastures which the sun calls gold
And twilit dew calls gray;--
These are the home, the happy cradle-place
Of every man who has our English tongue,
Sprung from those loins from which our sires have sprung,
Heirs of the glory of our mighty race!
Brothers, we hold the pearl of priceless worth:
Shall Peace, our pearl, by us be cast aside?
Is it not more to us than all things are?
Nay, Peace is precious as the world is wide,
But England's honour is more precious far
Than all the heavens and earth.
Were honour outcast from her supreme place
Our pearl of Peace no more a pearl would shine,
But, trampled under-foot of cowards and swine,
Rot in the mire of a deserved disgrace.
Know then, O ye our brothers over sea,
We will not cast our pearl of Peace away,
But, holding it, we wait; and if, at last,
The whole world came against us in array,
If all our glory into darkness passed,
Our Empire ceased to be,
Yet should we still have chosen the better part
Though in the dust our kingdoms were cast down,
Though lost were every jewel in our crown
We still should wear our jewel in our heart.
So, for our Mother's honour, if it must
Let Peace be lost, but lost the worthier way;
Not trampled down, but given, for her sake
Who forged of many an iron yesterday
The golden song that gold-tongued fame shall wake
When we are dust, in dust:
For brotherhood and strife and praise and blame
And all the world, even to our very land,
Weighed in the balance, are as a grain of sand
Against the honour of our English name!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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To Jane: The Recollection
I.
Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up,--to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled,--
For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven’s brow.
II.
We wandered to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean’s foam,
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.
The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay;
It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise.
III.
We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced;
And, soothed by every azure breath,
That under Heaven is blown,
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own,
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep,
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean woods may be.
IV.
How calm it was!—the silence there
By such a chain was bound
That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller by her sound
The inviolable quietness;
The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.
There seemed from the remotest seat
Of the white mountain waste,
To the soft flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced,--
A spirit interfused around
A thrilling, silent life,--
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature’s strife;
And still I felt the centre of
The magic circle there
Was one fair form that filled with love
The lifeless atmosphere.
V.
We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough,--
Each seemed as ’twere a little sky
Gulfed in a world below;
A firmament of purple light
Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,
And purer than the day--
In which the lovely forests grew,
As in the upper air,
More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.
Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen,
Were imaged by the water’s love
Of that fair forest green.
And all was interfused beneath
With an Elysian glow,
An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.
Like one beloved the scene had lent
To the dark water’s breast,
Its every leaf and lineament
With more than truth expressed;
Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought,
Which from the mind’s too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.
Though thou art ever fair and kind,
The forests ever green,
Less oft is peace in Shelley’s mind,
Than calm in waters, seen.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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