Boston To Florence
Sent to 'The Philological Circle' of Florence for its
meeting in commemoration of Dante, January 27, 1881,
the anniversary of his first condemnation.
PROUD of her clustering spires, her new-built towers,
Our Venice, stolen from the slumbering sea,
A sister's kindliest greeting wafts to thee,
Rose of Val d' Arno, queen of all its flowers!
Thine exile's shrine thy sorrowing love embowers,
Yet none with truer homage bends the knee,
Or stronger pledge of fealty brings, than we,
Whose poets make thy dead Immortal ours.
Lonely the height, but ah, to heaven how near!
Dante, whence flowed that solemn verse of thine
Like the stern river from its Apennine
Whose name the far-off Scythian thrilled with fear:
Now to all lands thy deep-toned voice is dear,
And every language knows the Song Divine!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Melody
Melody
By: Adam M. Snow
O' Melody, names like the angel's song;
music swaying around thine love
but of thy love my days be long;
O' my Melody, sang my song.
I long to hear thy voice, thy angelic voice
soothes away my hearts desire.
But it be that of love's choice
echoing upon thy voice.
Can thee forever love a lonely man such as I,
or do thee live on knowing not that of love,
or do thee walk passed and curse myself to die?
This feeling, this love O' Melody I cannot deny.
Let me hear thy choir of thy song;
a voice so deep calming the soul.
Let thy voice and passion be strong;
O' my Melody, sang my song.
Sing; let thy voice be heard across the Earth.
Let it pierce thy shadows.
Let the world see a new found birth
and the wonders its worth.
O' Melody, a song I longed after
to cleanse my immortal soul,
to feel the joy and laughter
and be with you hereafter.
O' Melody, names like the angel's song;
music swaying around thine love
but of thy love my days be long;
O' my Melody, sang my song.
O' Melody, play thy music for I love thee.
Thy lyrics be true thy heart,
Thy song be thy key
to set all souls free.
Let me hear thy choir of thy song;
a voice so deep calming the soul.
Let thy voice and passion be strong;
O' my Melody, sang my song.
poem by Adam M. Snow
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Sonnet LXI: The Song-Throe
By thine own tears thy song must tears beget,
O Singer! Magic mirror thou hast none
Except thy manifest heart; and save thine own
Anguish or ardour, else no amulet.
Cisterned in Pride, verse is the feathery jet
Of soulless air-flung fountains; nay, more dry
Than the Dead Sea for throats that thirst and sigh,
That song o'er which no singer's lids grew wet.
The Song-god—He the Sun-god—is no slave
Of thine; thy Hunter he, who for thy soul
Fledges his shaft: to no august control
Of thy skilled hand his quivered store he gave:
But if thy lips' loud cry leap to his smart,
The inspir'd recoil shall pierce thy brother's heart.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Sonnet XXXV: The Lamp's Shrine
Sometimes I fain would find in thee some fault,
That I might love thee still in spite of it:
Yet how should our Lord Love curtail one whit
Thy perfect praise whom most he would exalt?
Alas! he can but make my heart's low vault
Even in men's sight unworthier, being lit
By thee, who thereby show'st more exquisite
Like fiery chrysoprase in deep basalt.
Yet will I nowise shrink; but at Love's shrine
Myself within the beams his brow doth dart
Will set the flashing jewel of thy heart
In that dull chamber where it deigns to shine:
For lo! in honour of thine excellencies
My heart takes pride to show how poor it is.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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To Louise
OH, the poets may sing of their Lady Irenes,
And may rave in their rhymes about wonderful queens;
But I throw my poetical wings to the breeze,
And soar in a song to my Lady Louise.
A sweet little maid, who is dearer, I ween,
Than any fair duchess, or even a queen.
When speaking of her I can't plod in my prose,
For she's the wee lassie who gave me a rose.
Since poets, from seeing a lady's lip curled,
Have written fair verse that has sweetened the world;
Why, then, should not I give the space of an hour
To making a song in return for a flower?
I have found in my life — it has not been so long —
There are too few of flowers — too little of song.
So out of that blossom, this lay of mine grows,
For the dear little lady who gave me the rose.
I thank God for innocence, dearer than Art,
That lights on a by-way which leads to the heart,
And led by an impulse no less than divine,
Walks into the temple and sits at the shrine.
I would rather pluck daisies that grow in the wild,
Or take one simple rose from the hand of a child,
Than to breathe the rich fragrance of flowers that bide
In the gardens of luxury, passion, and pride.
I know not, my wee one, how came you to know
Which way to my heart was the right way to go;
Unless in your purity, soul-clean and dear,
God whispers his messages into your ear.
You have now had my song, let me end with a prayer
That your life may be always sweet, happy, and fair;
That your joys may be many, and absent your woes,
O dear little lady who gave me the rose!
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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In San Lorenzo
Is thine hour come to wake, O slumbering Night?
Hath not the Dawn a message in thine ear?
Though thou be stone and sleep, yet shalt thou hear
When the word falls from heaven--Let there be light.
Thou knowest we would not do thee the despite
To wake thee while the old sorrow and shame were near;
We spake not loud for thy sake, and for fear
Lest thou shouldst lose the rest that was thy right,
The blessing given thee that was thine alone,
The happiness to sleep and to be stone:
Nay, we kept silence of thee for thy sake
Albeit we knew thee alive, and left with thee
The great good gift to feel not nor to see;
But will not yet thine Angel bid thee wake?
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Morning Song Of Love
Darling, my darling, my heart is on the wing,
It flies to thee this morning like a bird,
Like happy birds in springtime my spirits soar and sing,
The same sweet song thine ears have often heard.
The sun is in my window, the shadow on the lea,
The wind is moving in the branches green,
And all my life, my darling, is turning unto thee,
And kneeling at thy feet, my own, my queen.
The golden bells are ringing across the distant hill,
Their merry peals come to me soft and clear,
But in my heart's deep chapel all incense-filled and still
A sweeter bell is sounding for thee, dear.
The bell of love invites thee to come and seek the shrine
Whose altar is erected unto thee,
The offerings, the sacrifice, the prayers, the chants are thine,
And I, my love, thy humble priest will be.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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The Chamois Hunter's Love
Thy heart is in the upper world, where fleet the chamois bounds;
Thy heart is where the mountain-fir shakes to the torrent-sounds;
And where the snow-peaks gleam like stars, through the stillness of the air,
And where the Lauwine's peal is heart - Hunter! thy heart is there!
I know thou lovest me well, dear friend! but better, better far,
Thou lovest that high and haughty life, with rocks and storms at war;
In the green sunny vales with me, thy spirit would but pine,
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
And I will not seek to woo thee down from those thy native heights,
With the sweet song, our land's own song, of pastoral delights;
For thou must live as eagles live, thy path is not as mine,
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
And I will leave my blessed home, my father's joyous hearth,
With all the voices meeting there in tenderness and mirth,
With all the kind and laughing eyes that in its firelight shine,
To sit forsaken in thy hut, yet know that thou art mine!
It is my youth, it is my bloom, it is my glad free heart,
That I cast away for thee - for thee, all reckless as thou art!
With tremblings and with vigils lone, I bind myself to dwell,
Yet, yet I would not change that lot, oh no! I love too well!
A mournful thing is love which grows to one so wild as thou,
With that bright restlessness of eye, that tameless fire of brow.
Mournful! - but dearer far I call its mingled fear and pride,
And the trouble of its happiness, than aught on earth beside.
To listen for thy step in vain, to start at every breath,
To watch through long long nights of storm, to sleep and dream of death,
To wake in doubt and loneliness - this doom I know is mine
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
That I may greet thee from thine Alps, when thence thou comest at last,
That I may hear thy thrilling voice tell o'er each danger past,
That I may kneel and pray for thee, and win thee aid divine -
For this I will be thine, my love! for this I will be thine!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Lines On The Death Of S. Oliver Torrey
SECRETARY OF THE BOSTON YOUNG MEN'S ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.
Gone before us, O our brother,
To the spirit-land!
Vainly look we for another
In thy place to stand.
Who shall offer youth and beauty
On the wasting shrine
Of a stern and lofty duty,
With a faith like thine?
Oh, thy gentle smile of greeting
Who again shall see?
Who amidst the solemn meeting
Gaze again on thee?
Who when peril gathers o'er us,
Wear so calm a brow?
Who, with evil men before us,
So serene as thou?
Early hath the spoiler found thee,
Brother of our love!
Autumn's faded earth around thee,
And its storms above!
Evermore that turf lie lightly,
And, with future showers,
O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly
Blow the summer flowers
In the locks thy forehead gracing,
Not a silvery streak;
Nor a line of sorrow's tracing
On thy fair young cheek;
Eyes of light and lips of roses,
Such as Hylas wore,--
Over all that curtain closes,
Which shall rise no more!
Will the vigil Love is keeping
Round that grave of thine,
Mournfully, like Jazer weeping
Over Sibmah's vine;
Will the pleasant memories, swelling
Gentle hearts, of thee,
In the spirit's distant dwelling
All unheeded be?
If the spirit ever gazes,
From its journeyings, back;
If the immortal ever traces
O'er its mortal track;
Wilt thou not, O brother, meet us
Sometimes on our way,
And, in hours of sadness, greet us
As a spirit may?
Peace be with thee, O our brother,
In the spirit-land
Vainly look we for another
In thy place to stand.
Unto Truth and Freedom giving
All thy early powers,
Be thy virtues with the living,
And thy spirit ours!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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A New National Anthem
I.
God prosper, speed,and save,
God raise from England’s grave
Her murdered Queen!
Pave with swift victory
The steps of Liberty,
Whom Britons own to be
Immortal Queen.
II.
See, she comes throned on high,
On swift Eternity!
God save the Queen!
Millions on millions wait,
Firm, rapid, and elate,
On her majestic state!
God save the Queen!
III.
She is Thine own pure soul
Moulding the mighty whole,--
God save the Queen!
She is Thine own deep love
Rained down from Heaven above,--
Wherever she rest or move,
God save our Queen!
IV.
‘Wilder her enemies
In their own dark disguise,--
God save our Queen!
All earthly things that dare
Her sacred name to bear,
Strip them, as kings are, bare;
God save the Queen!
V.
Be her eternal throne
Built in our hearts alone--
God save the Queen!
Let the oppressor hold
Canopied seats of gold;
She sits enthroned of old
O’er our hearts Queen.
VI.
Lips touched by seraphim
Breathe out the choral hymn
‘God save the Queen!’
Sweet as if angels sang,
Loud as that trumpet’s clang
Wakening the world’s dead gang,--
God save the Queen!
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Sonnet: God Keeps Me Safe
Thy ‘tethered animal’ I am, O God,
To Thy divine lamp-post, I have been tied!
Thine cord of Love binds me with Thee, O God,
In Thine meadow I graze: In Thee abide.
Thine cord of Love is not one of bondage!
It gives me enough freedom that I need;
Let it become stronger, thicker with age;
On just the grass you show, let me but feed.
Let me not break Thine cord and run away;
Let me not jump over the fence in haste;
Let me be satisfied with life each day,
And never bolt to alien land to waste.
Within Thy shelter, I am safe, O Lord;
And let me eat and live as per Thy Code.
6-4-2001
poem by John Celes
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Sonnet: We Can See God
The Sun looks like Thine heart afilled with joy;
0 God, the Rain is like Thine compassion;
The Moon appears like Thine face as when coy;
The Galaxies are like divine Mansion.
The quadrillion stars look like Heaven's eyes;
The thunder seems to be Thine angry voice;
The Lightning is Thine pow'r of sample size,
The songs of birds akin Thine happy noise.
The verdure spring looks like Thine beauteous face;
The winter cold is Thine heart's discontent;
The summer’s yield is sign of Thine own pace;
The autumn’s wind appears to be Thine vent.
The earth is footstool for Thine lovely feet;
Thine Replica is Mother Nature sweet.
poem by John Celes
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To Philip Bourke Marston, Inciting Me To Poetic Work
SWEET Poet, thou of whom these years that roll
Must one day yet the burdened birthright learn,
And by the darkness of thine eyes discern
How piercing was the sight within thy soul;—
Gifted apart, thou goest to the great goal,
A cloud-bound radiant spirit, strong to earn,
Light-reft, that prize for which fond myriads yearn
Vainly light-blest,—the Seër's aureole.
And doth thine ear, divinely dowered to catch
All spheral sounds in thy song blent so well,
Still hearken for my voice's slumbering spell
With wistful love? Ah! let the Muse now snatch
My wreath for thy young brows, and bend to watch
Thy veiled transfiguring sense's miracle.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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All White Continued
Ah, beautiful sweet woman, made in vain,
Since Launcelot is dead and only I,
Alas for this new world of recreant men,
Remain in age Love's creed to justify
And prove his right to fools who would deny!
Heaven's help shall win her, though she long hath been
Child of a doubting Age. Or let me die
At her dear feet, my Guenevere, my queen.
--Ride therefore forth, my soul, on this last quest.
Oblivion soon shall fold all in its arms.
Love, if she love thee or love not. The loss
Is hers, not thine, since each thing else is dross;
Not thine, whom Heaven makes whole and no hurt harms,
Even that of death, so thou have loved thy best.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The North Wind
That wind is from the North, I know it well;
No other breeze could have so wild a swell.
Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell,
The faintly dies,
And softly sighs,
And moans and murmurs mournfully.
I know its language; thus is speaks to me
'I have passed over thy own mountains dear,
Thy northern mountains - and they still are free,
Still lonely, wild, majestic, bleak and drear,
And stern and lovely, as they used to be
When thou, a young enthusiast,
As wild and free as they,
O'er rocks and glens and snowy heights
Didst often love to stray.
I've blown the wild untrodden snows
In whirling eddies from their brows,
And I have howled in caverns wild
Where thou, a joyous mountain child,
Didst dearly love to be.
The sweet world is not changed, but thou
Art pining in a dungeon now,
Where thou must ever be;
No voice but mine can reach thine ear,
And Heaven has kindly sent me here,
To mourn and sigh with thee,
And tell thee of the cherished land
Of thy nativity.'
Blow on, wild wind, thy solemn voice,
However sad and drear,
Is nothing to the gloomy silence
I have had to bear.
Hot tears are streaming from my eyes,
But these are better far
Than that dull gnawing tearless [time]
The stupor of despair.
Confined and hopeless as I am,
O speak of liberty,
O tell me of my mountain home,
And I will welcome thee.
poem by Anne Brontë
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Sisters
ANNIE and Rhoda, sisters twain,
Woke in the night to the sound of rain,
The rush of wind, the ramp and roar
Of great waves climbing a rocky shore.
Annie rose up in her bed-gown white,
And looked out into the storm and night.
'Hush, and hearken!' she cried in fear,
'Hearest thou nothing, sister dear?'
'I hear the sea, and the plash of rain,
And roar of the northeast hurricane.
'Get thee back to the bed so warm,
No good comes of watching a storm.
'What is it to thee, I fain would know,
That waves are roaring and wild winds blow?
'No lover of thine's afloat to miss
The harbor-lights on a night like this.'
'But I heard a voice cry out my name,
Up from the sea on the wind it came.
'Twice and thrice have I heard it call,
And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!'
On her pillow the sister tossed her head.
'Hall of the Heron is safe,' she said.
'In the tautest schooner that ever swam
He rides at anchor in Anisquam.
'And, if in peril from swamping sea
Or lee shore rocks, would he call on thee?'
But the girl heard only the wind and tide,
And wringing her small white hands she cried,
'O sister Rhoda, there's something wrong;
I hear it again, so loud and long.
''Annie! Annie!' I hear it call,
And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall!'
Up sprang the elder, with eyes aflame,
'Thou liest! He never would call thy name!
'If he did, I would pray the wind and sea
To keep him forever from thee and me!'
Then out of the sea blew a dreadful blast;
Like the cry of a dying man it passed.
The young girl hushed on her lips a groan,
But through her tears a strange light shone,--
The solemn joy of her heart's release
To own and cherish its love in peace.
'Dearest!' she whispered, under breath,
'Life was a lie, but true is death.
'The love I hid from myself away
Shall crown me now in the light of day.
'My ears shall never to wooer list,
Never by lover my lips be kissed.
'Sacred to thee am I henceforth,
Thou in heaven and I on earth!'
She came and stood by her sister's bed
'Hall of the Heron is dead!' she said.
'The wind and the waves their work have done,
We shall see him no more beneath the sun.
'Little will reek that heart of thine,
It loved him not with a love like mine.
'I, for his sake, were he but here,
Could hem and 'broider thy bridal gear,
'Though hands should tremble and eyes be wet,
And stitch for stitch in my heart be set.
'But now my soul with his soul I wed;
Thine the living, and mine the dead!'
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Even So
So it is, my dear.
All such things touch secret strings
For heavy hearts to hear.
So it is, my dear.
Very like indeed:
Sea and sky, afar, on high,
Sand and strewn seaweed,—
Very like indeed.
But the sea stands spread
s one wall with the flat skies,
Where the lean black craft like flies
Seem well-nigh stagnated,
Soon to drop off dead.
Seemed it so to us
When I was thine and thou wast mine,
And all these things were thus,
But all our world in us?
Could we be so now?
Not if all beneath heaven's pall
Lay dead but I and thou,
Could we be so now!
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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An Evening Guest
IF, in the silence of this lonely eve,
With the street lamp pale flickering on the wall,
An angel were to whisper me, 'Believe--
It shall be given thee. Call!'--whom should I call?
And then I were to see thee gliding in
Clad in known garments, that with empty fold
Lie in my keeping, and my fingers, thin
As thine were once, to feel in thy safe hold:
'I should fall weeping on thy neck and say,
'I have so suffered since--since--' But my tears
Would stop, remembering how thou count'st thy day
A day that is with God a thousand years.
Then what are these sad days, months, years of mine,
To thine eternity of full delight?
What my whole life, when myriad lives divine
May wait, each leading to a higher height?
I lose myself--I faint. Beloved, best,
Let me still dream, thy dear humanity
Sits with me here, my head upon thy breast,
And then I will go back to heaven with thee.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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Song Of Proserpine While Gathering Flowers On The Plain Of Enna
Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,
Thou from whose immortal bosom
Gods and men and beasts have birth,
Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine.
If with mists of evening dew
Thou dost nourish these young flowers
Till they grow in scent and hue
Fairest children of the Hours,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Wapentake
To Alfred Tennyson
Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine;
Not as a knight, who on the listed field
Of tourney touched his adversary's shield
In token of defiance, but in sign
Of homage to the mastery, which is thine,
In English song; nor will I keep concealed,
And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed,
My admiration for thy verse divine.
Not of the howling dervishes of song,
Who craze the brain with their delirious dance,
Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart!
Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong,
To thee our love and our allegiance,
For thy allegiance to the poet's art.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Lonely
If thine soul feels loneliness,
Thou art not perfectly understood
As thou soul wishes
If thine soul does not feel
The human word
It feels loneliness's hollow cry
If thine soul wearies of human love
It always has loneliness to watch thy love die
If thine soul speaks to deaf ears
Then the loneliest, most remote ears in the world, hear with melancholy
If thine soul has no hand to hold
Then loneliness walks by thy side and holds thee
If thou fear to die alone, alone with loneliness you will die
If thou fear the dark when alone, loneliness hides in the dark
Afraid with thee.
As mine tears fell
Into God's empty well
And to his lonely cell
Loneliness heard and spoke though me…
Lonely
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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