Bryant’s Seventieth Birthday
NOVEMBER 3, 1864
O EVEN-HANDED Nature! we confess
This life that men so honor, love, and bless
Has filled thine olden measure. Not the less.
We count the precious seasons that remain;
Strike not the level of the golden grain,
But heap it high with years, that earth may gain.
What heaven can lose,--for heaven is rich in song
Do not all poets, dying, still prolong
Their broken chants amid the seraph throng,
Where, blind no more, Ionia's bard is seen,
And England's heavenly minstrel sits between
The Mantuan and the wan-cheeked Florentine?
This was the first sweet singer in the cage
Of our close-woven life. A new-born age
Claims in his vesper song its heritage.
Spare us, oh spare us long our heart's desire!
Moloch, who calls our children through the fire,
Leaves us the gentle master of the lyre.
We count not on the dial of the sun
The hours, the minutes, that his sands have run;
Rather, as on those flowers that one by one.
From earliest dawn their ordered bloom display
Till evening's planet with her guiding ray
Leads in the blind old mother of the day,
We reckon by his songs, each song a flower,
The long, long daylight, numbering hour by hour,
Each breathing sweetness like a bridal bower.
His morning glory shall we e'er forget?
His noontide's full-blown lily coronet?
His evening primrose has not opened yet;
Nay, even if creeping Time should hide the skies
In midnight from his century-laden eyes,
Darkened like his who sang of Paradise,
Would not some hidden song-bud open bright
As the resplendent cactus of the night
That floods the gloom with fragrance and with
light?
How can we praise the verse whose music flows
With solemn cadence and majestic close,
Pure as the dew that filters through the rose?
How shall we thank him that in evil days
He faltered never,--nor for blame, nor praise,
Nor hire, nor party, shamed his earlier lays?
But as his boyhood was of manliest hue,
So to his youth his manly years were true,
All dyed in royal purple through and through!
He for whose touch the lyre of Heaven is strung
Needs not the flattering toil of mortal tongue
Let not the singer grieve to die unsung!
Marbles forget their message to mankind:
In his own verse the poet still we find,
In his own page his memory lives enshrined,
As in their amber sweets the smothered bees,--
As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze,
Lies self-embalmed amidst the mouldering trees.
Poets, like youngest children, never grow
Out of their mother's fondness. Nature so
Holds their soft hands, and will not let them go,
Till at the last they track with even feet
Her rhythmic footsteps, and their pulses beat
Twinned with her pulses, and their lips repeat.
The secrets she has told them, as their own
Thus is the inmost soul of Nature known,
And the rapt minstrel shares her awful throne!
O lover of her mountains and her woods,
Her bridal chamber's leafy solitudes,
Where Love himself with tremulous step intrudes,
Her snows fall harmless on thy sacred fire
Far be the day that claims thy sounding lyre
To join the music of the angel choir!
Yet, since life's amplest measure must be filled,
Since throbbing hearts must be forever stilled,
And all must fade that evening sunsets gild,
Grant, Father, ere he close the mortal eyes
That see a Nation's reeking sacrifice,
Its smoke may vanish from these blackened skies!
Then, when his summons comes, since come it must,
And, looking heavenward with unfaltering trust,
He wraps his drapery round him for the dust,
His last fond glance will show him o'er his head
The Northern fires beyond the zenith spread
In lambent glory, blue and white and red,--
The Southern cross without its bleeding load,
The milky way of peace all freshly strowed,
And every white-throned star fixed in its lost
abode!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Silence is in Our Festal Halls
Silence is in our festal halls --
Sweet son of song! thy course is o'er;
In vain on thee sad Erin calls,
Her minstrel's voice responds no more; --
All silent as the Eolian shell
Sleeps at the close of some bright day,
When the sweet breeze, that waked its swell
At sunny morn, hath died away.
Yet, at our feasts, thy spirit long,
Awaked by music's spell, shall rise;
For, name so link'd with deathless song
Partakes its charm and never dies;
And even within the holy fane,
When music wafts the soul to heaven,
One thought to him, whose earliest strain
Was echoed there, shall long be given.
But where is now the cheerful day,
The social night, when by thy side,
He who now weaves this parting lay
His skilless voice with thine allied;
And sung those songs whose every tone,
When bard and minstrel long have past,
Shall still, in sweetness all their own,
Embalm'd by fame, undying last.
Yes, Erin, shine alone the fame --
Or, if thy bard have shared the crown,
From thee the borrow'd glory came,
And at thy feet is now laid down.
Enough, if Freedom still inspire,
His latest song, and still there be,
As evening closes round his lyre,
One ray upon its chords from thee.
poem by Thomas Moore
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James Russell Lowell
1819-1891
THOU shouldst have sung the swan-song for the choir
That filled our groves with music till the day
Lit the last hilltop with its reddening fire,
And evening listened for thy lingering lay.
But thou hast found thy voice in realms afar
Where strains celestial blend their notes with thine;
Some cloudless sphere beneath a happier star
Welcomes the bright-winged spirit we resign.
How Nature mourns thee in the still retreat
Where passed in peace thy love-enchanted hours!
Where shall she find an eye like thine to greet
Spring's earliest footprints on her opening flowers?
Have the pale wayside weeds no fond regret
For him who read the secrets they enfold?
Shall the proud spangles of the field forget
The verse that lent new glory to their gold?
And ye whose carols wooed his infant ear,
Whose chants with answering woodnotes he repaid,
Have ye no song his spirit still may hear
From Elmwood's vaults of overarching shade?
Friends of his studious hours, who thronged to teach
The deep-read scholar all your varied lore,
Shall he no longer seek your shelves to reach
The treasure missing from his world-wide store?
This singer whom we long have held so dear
Was Nature's darling, shapely, strong, and fair;
Of keenest wit, of judgment crystal-clear,
Easy of converse, courteous, debonair,
Fit for the loftiest or the lowliest lot,
Self-poised, imperial, yet of simplest ways;
At home alike in castle or in cot,
True to his aim, let others blame or praise.
Freedom he found an heirloom from his sires;
Song, letters, statecraft, shared his years in turn;
All went to feed the nation's altar-fires
Whose mourning children wreathe his funeral urn.
He loved New England,--people, language, soil,
Unweaned by exile from her arid breast.
Farewell awhile, white-handed son of toil,
Go with her brown-armed laborers to thy rest.
Peace to thy slumber in the forest shade!
Poet and patriot, every gift was thine;
Thy name shall live while summers bloom and fade,
And grateful Memory guard thy leafy shrine!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Thanksgiving
When first in ancient time, from Jubal's tongue
The tuneful anthem filled the morning air,
To sacred hymnings and elysian song
His music-breathing sehll the minstrel woke.
Devotion breathed aloud from every chord:
The voice of praise was heard in every tone,
And prayer and thanks to Him, the Eternal One,
To Him, that with bright inspiration touched
The high and gifted lyre of heavenly song,
And warmed the soul with new vitality.
A stirring energy through Nature breathed:
The voice of adoration from her broke,
Swelling aloud in every breeze, and heard
Long in the sullen waterfall, what time
Soft Spring or hoary Autumn threw on earth
Its bloom or blighting; when the summer smiled;
Or winter o'er the year's sepulcher mourned.
The Deity was there; a nameless spirit
Moved in the breasts of men to do him homage;
And when the morning smiled, or evening pale
Hung weeping o'er the melancholy urn,
They came beneath the broad, o'erarching trees,
And in their tremulous shadow worshipped oft,
Where pale the vine clung round their simple altars,
And gray moss mantling hung. Above was heard
The melody of winds, breathed out as the green trees
Bowed to their quivering touch in living beauty;
And birds sang forth their cheerful hymns. Below,
The bright and widely wandering rivulet
Struggled and gushed amongst the tangled roots
That choked its reedy fountain, and dark rocks
Worn smooth by the constant current. Even there
The listless wave, that stole with mellow voice
Where reeds grew rank on the rushy-fringed brink,
And the green sedge bent to the wandering wind,
Sang with a cheerful song of sweet tranquillity.
Men felt the heavenly influence; and it stole
Like balm into their hearts, till all was peace:
And even the air they breathed, the light they saw,
Became religion; for the ethereal spirit
That to soft music wakes the chords of feeling,
And mellows everything to beauty, moved
With cheering energy within their breasts
And made all holy there, for all was love.
The morning stars, that sweetly sang together;
The moon, that hung at night in the mid-sky:
Dayspring and eventide; and all the fair
And beautiful forms of nature, had a voice
Of eloquent worship. Ocean, with its tides
Selling and deep, where low the infant storm
Hung on his dun, dark cloud, and heavily beat
The pulses of the sea, sent forth a voice
Of awful adoration to the spirit
That, wrapt in darkness, moved upon its face.
And when the bow of evening arched the east,
Or, in the moonlight pale, the curling wave
Kissed with a sweet embrace the sea-worn beach,
And soft the song of winds came o'er the waters,
The mingled melody of wind and wave
Touched like a heavenly anthem on the ear;
For it arose a tuneful hymn of worship.
And have our hearts grown cold? Are there on earth
No pure reflections caught from heavnly light?
Have our mute lips no hymn, our souls no song?
Let him thatin the summer-day of youth
Keeps pure the holy fount of youthful feeling,
And him that in the nightfall of his years
Lies down in his last sleep, and shuts in peace
His dim, pale eyes on life's short wayfaring,
Praise Him that rules the destiny of man.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Shakespeare
TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
APRIL 23, 1864
'Who claims our Shakespeare from that realm unknown,
Beyond the storm-vexed islands of the deep,
Where Genoa's roving mariner was blown?
Her twofold Saint's-day let our England keep;
Shall warring aliens share her holy task?'
The Old World echoes ask.
O land of Shakespeare! ours with all thy past,
Till these last years that make the sea so wide;
Think not the jar of battle's trumpet-blast
Has dulled our aching sense to joyous pride
In every noble word thy sons bequeathed
The air our fathers breathed!
War-wasted, haggard, panting from the strife,
We turn to other days and far-off lands,
Live o'er in dreams the Poet's faded life,
Come with fresh lilies in our fevered hands
To wreathe his bust, and scatter purple flowers,--
Not his the need, but ours!
We call those poets who are first to mark
Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,--
Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark,
While others only note that day is gone;
For him the Lord of light the curtain rent
That veils the firmament.
The greatest for its greatness is half known,
Stretching beyond our narrow quadrant-lines,--
As in that world of Nature all outgrown
Where Calaveras lifts his awful pines,
And cast from Mariposa's mountain-wall
Nevada's cataracts fall.
Yet heaven's remotest orb is partly ours,
Throbbing its radiance like a beating heart;
In the wide compass of angelic powers
The instinct of the blindworm has its part;
So in God's kingliest creature we behold
The flower our buds infold.
With no vain praise we mock the stone-carved name
Stamped once on dust that moved with pulse and breath,
As thinking to enlarge that amplest fame
Whose undimmed glories gild the night of death:
We praise not star or sun; in these we see
Thee, Father, only thee!
Thy gifts are beauty, wisdom, power, and love:
We read, we reverence on this human soul,--
Earth's clearest mirror of the light above,--
Plain as the record on thy prophet's scroll,
When o'er his page the effluent splendors poured,
Thine own 'Thus saith the Lord!'
This player was a prophet from on high,
Thine own elected. Statesman, poet, sage,
For him thy sovereign pleasure passed them by;
Sidney's fair youth, and Raleigh's ripened age,
Spenser's chaste soul, and his imperial mind
Who taught and shamed mankind.
Therefore we bid our hearts' Te Deum rise,
Nor fear to make thy worship less divine,
And hear the shouted choral shake the skies,
Counting all glory, power, and wisdom thine;
For thy great gift thy greater name adore,
And praise thee evermore!
In this dread hour of Nature's utmost need,
Thanks for these unstained drops of freshening dew!
Oh, while our martyrs fall, our heroes bleed,
Keep us to every sweet remembrance true,
Till from this blood-red sunset springs new-born
Our Nation's second morn!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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She Sung of Love
She sung of Love, while o'er her lyre
The rosy rays of evening fell,
As if to feed with their soft fire
The soul within that trembling shell.
The same rich light hung o'er her cheek,
And play'd around those lips that sung
And spoke, as flowers would sing and speak,
If Love could lend their leaves a tongue.
But soon the West no longer burn'd,
Each rosy ray from heaven withdrew;
And, when to gaze again I turn'd,
The minstrel's form seem'd fading too.
As if her light and heaven's were one,
The glory all had left that frame;
And from her glimmering lips the tone,
As from a parting spirit, came.
Who ever loved, but had the thought
That he and all he loved must part?
Fill'd with this fear, I flew and caught
The fading image to my heart --
And cried, "Oh Love! is this thy doom?
Oh light of youth's resplendent day!
Must ye then lose your golden bloom,
And thus, like sunshine die away?"
poem by Thomas Moore
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Our Dead Singer
H. W. L.
PRIDE of the sister realm so long our own,
We claim with her that spotless fame of thine,
White as her snow and fragrant as her pine!
Ours was thy birthplace, but in every zone
Some wreath of song thy liberal hand has thrown
Breathes perfume from its blossoms, that entwine
Where'er the dewdrops fall, the sunbeams shine,
On life's long path with tangled cares o'ergrown.
Can Art thy truthful counterfeit command,--
The silver-haloed features, tranquil, mild,--
Soften the lips of bronze as when they smiled,
Give warmth and pressure to the marble hand?
Seek the lost rainbow in the sky it spanned
Farewell, sweet Singer! Heaven reclaims its child.
Carved from the block or cast in clinging mould,
Will grateful Memory fondly try her best
The mortal vesture from decay to wrest;
His look shall greet us, calm, but ah, how cold!
No breath can stir the brazen drapery's fold,
No throb can heave the statue's stony breast;
'He is not here, but risen,' will stand confest
In all we miss, in all our eyes behold.
How Nature loved him! On his placid brow,
Thought's ample dome, she set the sacred sign
That marks the priesthood of her holiest shrine,
Nor asked a leaflet from the laurel's bough
That envious Time might clutch or disallow,
To prove her chosen minstrel's song divine.
On many a saddened hearth the evening fire
Burns paler as the children's hour draws near,--
That joyous hour his song made doubly dear,--
And tender memories touch the faltering choir.
He sings no more on earth; our vain desire
Aches for the voice we loved so long to hear
In Dorian flute-notes breathing soft and clear,--
The sweet contralto that could never tire.
Deafened with listening to a harsher strain,
The Maenad's scream, the stark barbarian's cry,
Still for those soothing, loving tones we sigh;
Oh, for our vanished Orpheus once again!
The shadowy silence hears us call in vain!
His lips are hushed; his song shall never die.
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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From The Iron Gate
AS on the gauzy wings of fancy flying
From some far orb I track our watery sphere,
Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying,
The silvered globule seems a glistening tear.
But Nature lends her mirror of illusion
To win from saddening scenes our age-dimmed eyes,
And misty day-dreams blend in sweet confusion
The wintry landscape and the summer skies.
So when the iron portal shuts behind us,
And life forgets us in its noise and whirl,
Visions that shunned the glaring noonday find us,
And glimmering starlight shows the gates of pearl.
I come not here your morning hour to sadden,
A limping pilgrim, leaning on his staff,—
I, who have never deemed it sin to gladden
This vale of sorrows with a wholesome laugh.
If word of mine another’s gloom has brightened,
Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message came;
If hand of mine another’s task has lightened,
It felt the guidance that it dares not claim.
But, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers,
These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of toil’s release;
These feebler pulses bid me leave to others
The tasks once welcome; evening asks for peace.
Time claims his tribute; silence now is golden;
Let me not vex the too long suffering lyre;
Though to your love untiring still beholden,
The curfew tells me—cover up the fire.
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Blessed Among Women --To The Signora Cairoli
Blessed was she that bare,
Hidden in flesh most fair,
For all men's sake the likeness of all love;
Holy that virgin's womb,
The old record saith, on whom
The glory of God alighted as a dove;
Blessed, who brought to gracious birth
The sweet-souled Saviour of a man-tormented earth.
But four times art thou blest,
At whose most holy breast
Four times a godlike soldier-saviour hung;
And thence a fourfold Christ
Given to be sacrificed
To the same cross as the same bosom clung;
Poured the same blood, to leave the same
Light on the many-folded mountain-skirts of fame.
Shall they and thou not live,
The children thou didst give
Forth of thine hands, a godlike gift, to death,
Through fire of death to pass
For her high sake that was
Thine and their mother, that gave all you breath?
Shall ye not live till time drop dead,
O mother, and each her children's consecrated head?
Many brought gifts to take
For her love's supreme sake,
Life and life's love, pleasure and praise and rest,
And went forth bare; but thou,
So much once richer, and now
Poorer than all these, more than these be blest;
Poorer so much, by so much given,
Than who gives earth for heaven's sake, not for earth's sake heaven.
Somewhat could each soul save,
What thing soever it gave,
But thine, mother, what has thy soul kept back?
None of thine all, not one,
To serve thee and be thy son,
Feed with love all thy days, lest one day lack;
All thy whole life's love, thine heart's whole,
Thou hast given as who gives gladly, O thou the supreme soul.
The heart's pure flesh and blood,
The heaven thy motherhood,
The live lips, the live eyes, that lived on thee;
The hands that clove with sweet
Blind clutch to thine, the feet
That felt on earth their first way to thy knee;
The little laughter of mouths milk-fed,
Now open again to feed on dust among the dead;
The fair, strong, young men's strength,
Light of life-days and length,
And glory of earth seen under and stars above,
And years that bring to tame
Now the wild falcon fame,
Now, to stroke smooth, the dove-white breast of love;
The life unlived, the unsown seeds,
Suns unbeholden, songs unsung, and undone deeds.
Therefore shall man's love be
As an own son to thee,
And the world's worship of thee for a child;
All thine own land as one
New-born, a nursing son,
All thine own people a new birth undefiled;
And all the unborn Italian time,
And all its glory, and all its works, thy seed sublime.
That henceforth no man's breath,
Saying "Italy," but saith
In that most sovereign word thine equal name;
Nor can one speak of thee
But he saith "Italy,"
Seeing in two suns one co-eternal flame;
One heat, one heaven, one heart, one fire,
One light, one love, one benediction, one desire.
Blest above praise and prayer
And incense of men's air,
Thy place is higher than where such voices rise
As in men's temples make
Music for some vain sake,
This God's or that God's, in one weary wise;
Thee the soul silent, the shut heart,
The locked lips of the spirit praise thee that thou art.
Yea, for man's whole life's length,
And with man's whole soul's strength,
We praise thee, O holy, and bless thee, O mother of lights;
And send forth as on wings
The world's heart's thanksgivings,
Song-birds to sing thy days through and thy nights;
And wrap thee around and arch thee above
With the air of benediction and the heaven of love.
And toward thee our unbreathed words
Fly speechless, winged as birds,
As the Indian flock, children of Paradise,
The winged things without feet,
Fed with God's dew for meat,
That live in the air and light of the utter skies;
So fleet, so flying a footless flight,
With wings for feet love seeks thee, to partake thy sight.
Love like a clear sky spread
Bends over thy loved head,
As a new heaven bends over a new-born earth,
When the old night's womb is great
With young stars passionate
And fair new planets fiery-fresh from birth;
And moon-white here, there hot like Mars,
Souls that are worlds shine on thee, spirits that are stars.
Till the whole sky burns through
With heaven's own heart-deep hue,
With passion-coloured glories of lit souls;
And thine above all names
Writ highest with lettering flames
Lightens, and all the old starriest aureoles
And all the old holiest memories wane,
And the old names of love's chosen, found in thy sight vain.
And crowned heads are discrowned,
And stars sink without sound,
And love's self for thy love's sake waxes pale
Seeing from his storied skies
In what new reverent wise
Thee Rome's most highest, her sovereign daughters, hail;
Thee Portia, thee Veturia grey,
Thee Arria, thee Cornelia, Roman more than they.
Even all these as all we
Subdue themselves to thee,
Bow their heads haloed, quench their fiery fame;
Seen through dim years divine,
Their faint lights feminine
Sink, then spring up rekindled from thy flame;
Fade, then reflower and reillume
From thy fresh spring their wintering age with new-blown bloom.
To thy much holier head
Even theirs, the holy and dead,
Bow themselves each one from her heavenward height;
Each in her shining turn,
All tremble toward thee and yearn
To melt in thine their consummated light;
Till from day's Capitolian dome
One glory of many glories lighten upon Rome.
Hush thyself, song, and cease,
Close, lips, and hold your peace;
What help hast thou, what part have ye herein?
But you, with sweet shut eyes,
Heart-hidden memories,
Dreams and dumb thoughts that keep what things have been
Silent, and pure of all words said,
Praise without song the living, without dirge the dead.
Thou, strengthless in these things,
Song, fold thy feebler wings,
And as a pilgrim go forth girt and shod,
And where the new graves are,
And where the sunset star,
To the pure spirit of man that men call God,
To the high soul of things, that is
Made of men's heavenlier hopes and mightier memories;
To the elements that make
For the soul's living sake
This raiment of dead things, of shadow and trance,
That give us chance and time
Wherein to aspire and climb
And set our life's work higher than time or chance
The old sacred elements, that give
The breath of life to days that die, to deeds that live;
To them, veiled gods and great,
There bow thee and dedicate
The speechless spirit in these thy weak words hidden;
And mix thy reverent breath
With holier air of death,
At the high feast of sorrow a guest unbidden,
Till with divine triumphal tears
Thou fill men's eyes who listen with a heart that hears.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The Black Wolf (The Song of Merlin)
The black wolf howls
as dusk prowls among the shadows.
Freed from the stones of ancient altars
his haunting song drifts above the willows.
As light retreats, the wolf entreats
the spirit of the moon to come forth
and shed her beams upon the dreams
of night’s primeval sleep.
Close to the flames of my evening fire
I sit entranced by the choir of spectral hosts,
as other voices repeat the sound
that shakes the ground like thunder;
and yet, in spite of the holocaust,
I sense some purpose I once lost to my vanity.
Hope swells within my soul
that like the wolf I might find
the muse of lyric poetry.
Here in the forest beneath the sky
I dream of the fires
my mother set in the apple groves.
From dusk to dawn with lilting voice
she told the ancient stories.
She spoke in time of the hearth of heaven
and of the starry circle dance.
She sang to the earth; she sang to the trees.
She sang to the night with love.
Nature’s soul possessed the smoke
that was my mother’s misty cape;
and now the wolf in my mother’s tongue
sings the same celestial song.
Copyright © 1993 John M. Marshall
poem by John M. Marshall
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Moving Through The Dew
I
Moving through the dew, moving through the dew,
Ere I waken in the city—Life, thy dawn makes all things new!
And up a fir-clad glen, far from all the haunts of men,
Up a glen among the mountains, oh my feet are wings again!
Moving through the dew, moving through the dew,
O mountains of my boyhood, I come again to you,
By the little path I know, with the sea far below,
And above, the great cloud-galleons with their sails of rose and snow
As of old, when all was young, and the earth a song unsung
And the heather through the crimson dawn its Eden incense flung
From the mountain-heights of joy, for a careless-hearted boy,
And the lavrocks rose like fountain sprays of bliss that ne’er could cloy,
From their little beds of bloom, from the golden gorse and broom,
With a song to God the Giver, o’er that waste of wild perfume;
Blowing from height to height, in a glory of great light,
While the cottage-clustered valleys held the lilac last of night,
So, when dawn is in the skies, in a dream, a dream, I rise,
And I follow my lost boyhood to the heights of Paradise.
Life, thy dawn makes all things new! Hills of Youth, I come to you,
Moving through the dew, moving through the dew.
II
Moving through the dew, moving through the dew,
Floats a brother’s face to meet me! Is it you? Is it you?
For the night I leave behind keeps these dazzled eyes still blind!
But oh, the little hill-flowers, their scent is wise and kind;
And I shall not lose the way from the darkness to the day,
While dust can cling as their scent clings to memory for aye;
And the least link in the chain can recall the whole again,
And heaven at last resume its far-flung harvests, grain by grain.
To the hill-flowers clings my dust, and tho’ eyeless Death may thrust
All else into the darkness, in their heaven I put my trust;
And a dawn shall bid me climb to the little spread of thyme
Where first I heard the ripple of the fountain-heads of rhyme.
And a fir-wood that I know, from dawn to sunset-glow,
Shall whisper to a lonely sea, that swings far, far below.
Death, thy dawn makes all things new. Hills of Youth, I come to you,
Moving through the dew, moving through the dew.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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A Baby's Death
A little soul scarce fledged for earth
Takes wing with heaven again for goal
Even while we hailed as fresh from birth
A little soul.
Our thoughts ring sad as bells that toll,
Not knowing beyond this blind world's girth
What things are writ in heaven's full scroll.
Our fruitfulness is there but dearth,
And all things held in time's control
Seem there, perchance, ill dreams, not worth
A little soul.
The little feet that never trod
Earth, never strayed in field or street,
What hand leads upward back to God
The little feet?
A rose in June's most honied heat,
When life makes keen the kindling sod,
Was not so soft and warm and sweet.
Their pilgrimage's period
A few swift moons have seen complete
Since mother's hands first clasped and shod
The little feet.
The little hands that never sought
Earth's prizes, worthless all as sands,
What gift has death, God's servant, brought
The little hands?
We ask: but love's self silent stands,
Love, that lends eyes and wings to thought
To search where death's dim heaven expands.
Ere this, perchance, though love know nought,
Flowers fill them, grown in lovelier lands,
Where hands of guiding angels caught
The little hands.
The little eyes that never knew
Light other than of dawning skies,
What new life now lights up anew
The little eyes?
Who knows but on their sleep may rise
Such light as never heaven let through
To lighten earth from Paradise?
No storm, we know, may change the blue
Soft heaven that haply death descries
No tears, like these in ours, bedew
The little eyes.
Was life so strange, so sad the sky,
So strait the wide world's range,
He would not stay to wonder why
Was life so strange?
Was earth's fair house a joyless grange
Beside that house on high
Whence Time that bore him failed to estrange?
That here at once his soul put by
All gifts of time and change,
And left us heavier hearts to sigh
'Was life so strange?'
Angel by name love called him, seeing so fair
The sweet small frame;
Meet to be called, if ever man's child were,
Angel by name.
Rose-bright and warm from heaven's own heart he came,
And might not bear
The cloud that covers earth's wan face with shame.
His little light of life was all too rare
And soft a flame:
Heaven yearned for him till angels hailed him there
Angel by name.
The song that smiled upon his birthday here
Weeps on the grave that holds him undefiled
Whose loss makes bitterer than a soundless tear
The song that smiled.
His name crowned once the mightiest ever styled
Sovereign of arts, and angel: fate and fear
Knew then their master, and were reconciled.
But we saw born beneath some tenderer sphere
Michael, an angel and a little child,
Whose loss bows down to weep upon his bier
The song that smiled.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Adieux à Marie Stuart
I.
QUEEN, for whose house my fathers fought,
With hopes that rose and fell,
Red star of boyhood’s fiery thought,
Farewell
They gave their lives, and I, my queen,
Have given you of my life,
Seeing your brave star burn high between
Men’s strife.
The strife that lightened round their spears
Long since fell still: so long
Hardly may hope to last in years
My song.
But still through strife of time and thought
Your light on me too fell:
Queen, in whose name we sang or fought,
Farewell.
II.
There beats no heart on either border
Wherethrough the north blasts blow
But keeps your memory as a warder
His beacon-fire aglow.
Long since it fired with love and wonder
Mine, for whose April age
Blithe midsummer made banquet under
The shade of Hermitage.
Soft sang the burn’s blithe notes, that gather
Strength to ring true:
And air and trees and sun and heather
Remembered you.
Old border ghosts of fight or fairy
Or love or teen,
These they forgot, remembering Mary
The Queen.
III.
Queen once of Scots and ever of ours
Whose sires brought forth for you
Their lives to strew your way like flowers,
Adieu.
Dead is full many a dead man’s name
Who died for you this long
Time past: shall this too fare the same,
My song?
But surely, though it die or live,
Your face was worth
All that a man may think to give
On earth.
No darkness cast of years between
Can darken you:
Man’s love will never bid my queen
Adieu.
IV.
Love hangs like light about your name
As music round the shell:
No heart can take of you a tame
Farewell.
Yet, when your very face was seen,
Ill gifts were yours for giving:
Love gat strange guerdons of my queen
When living.
O diamond heart unflawed and clear,
The whole world’s crowning jewel!
Was ever heart so deadly dear
So cruel?
Yet none for you of all that bled
Grudged once one drop that fell:
Not one to life reluctant said
Farewell
V.
Strange love they have given you, love disloyal,
Who mock with praise your name,
To leave a head so rare and royal
Too low for praise or blame.
You could not love nor hate, they tell us,
You had nor sense nor sting:
In God’s name, then, what plague befell us
To fight for such a thing?
‘Some faults the gods will give’ to fetter
Man’s highest intent:
But surely you were something better
Than innocent !
No maid that strays with steps unwary
Through snares unseen,
But one to live and die for; Mary,
The Queen.
VI.
Forgive them all their praise, who blot
Your fame with praise of you:
Then love may say, and falter not
Adieu.
Yet some you hardly would forgive
Who did you much less wrong
Once: but resentment should not live
Too long.
They never saw your lip’s bright bow,
Your swordbright eyes,
The bluest of heavenly things below
The skies.
Clear eyes that love’s self finds most like
A swordblade’s blue,
A swordblade’s ever keen to strike,
Adieu.
VII.
Though all things breathe or sound of fight
That yet make up your spell,
To bid you were to bid the light
Farewell
Farewell the song says only, being
A star whose race is run:
Farewell the soul says never, seeing
The sun.
Yet, wellnigh as with flash of tears,
The song must say but so
That took your praise up twenty years
Ago,
More bright than stars or moons that vary,
Sun kindling heaven and hell,
Here, after all these years, Queen Mary,
Farewell
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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All here
IT is not what we say or sing,
That keeps our charm so long unbroken,
Though every lightest leaf we bring
May touch the heart as friendship's token;
Not what we sing or what we say
Can make us dearer to each other;
We love the singer and his lay,
But love as well the silent brother.
Yet bring whate'er your garden grows,
Thrice welcome to our smiles and praises;
Thanks for the myrtle and the rose,
Thanks for the marigolds and daisies;
One flower erelong we all shall claim,
Alas! unloved of Amaryllis--
Nature's last blossom-need I name
The wreath of threescore's silver lilies?
How many, brothers, meet to-night
Around our boyhood's covered embers?
Go read the treasured names aright
The old triennial list remembers;
Though twenty wear the starry sign
That tells a life has broke its tether,
The fifty-eight of 'twenty-nine--
God bless THE Boys!--are all together!
These come with joyous look and word,
With friendly grasp and cheerful greeting,--
Those smile unseen, and move unheard,
The angel guests of every meeting;
They cast no shadow in the flame
That flushes from the gilded lustre,
But count us--we are still the same;
One earthly band, one heavenly cluster!
Love dies not when he bows his head
To pass beyond the narrow portals,--
The light these glowing moments shed
Wakes from their sleep our lost immortals;
They come as in their joyous prime,
Before their morning days were numbered,--
Death stays the envious hand of Time,--
The eyes have not grown dim that slumbered!
The paths that loving souls have trod
Arch o'er the dust where worldlings grovel
High as the zenith o'er the sod,--
The cross above the sexton's shovel!
We rise beyond the realms of day;
They seem to stoop from spheres of glory
With us one happy hour to stray,
While youth comes back in song and story.
Ah! ours is friendship true as steel
That war has tried in edge and temper;
It writes upon its sacred seal
The priest's _ubique--omnes--semper_!
It lends the sky a fairer sun
That cheers our lives with rays as steady
As if our footsteps had begun
To print the golden streets already!
The tangling years have clinched its knot
Too fast for mortal strength to sunder;
The lightning bolts of noon are shot;
No fear of evening's idle thunder!
Too late! too late!--no graceless hand
Shall stretch its cords in vain endeavor
To rive the close encircling band
That made and keeps us one forever!
So when upon the fated scroll
The falling stars have all descended,
And, blotted from the breathing roll,
Our little page of life is ended,
We ask but one memorial line
Traced on thy tablet, Gracious Mother
'My children. Boys of '29.
In pace. How they loved each other!'
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The Ruin And Its Flowers
Sweets of the wild! that breathe and bloom,
On this lone tow'r, this ivy'd wall;
Lend to the gale a rich perfume,
And grace the ruin in its fall;
Tho' doom'd, remote from careless eye,
To smile, to flourish, and to die,
In solitude sublime,
Oh! ever may the spring renew,
Your balmy scent and glowing hue,
To deck the robe of time!
Breathe, fragrance! breathe, enrich the air,
Tho' wasted on its wing unknown!
Blow, flow'rets! blow, tho' vainly fair,
Neglected and alone!
These tow'rs, that long withstood the blast,
These mossy tow'rs are mouldering fast,
While Flora's children stay;
To mantle o'er the lonely pile,
To gild destruction with a smile,
And beautify decay!
Sweets of the wild! uncultur'd blowing,
Neglected in luxuriance glowing;
From the dark ruins frowning near,
Your charms in brighter tints appear,
And richer blush assume;
You smile with softer beauty crown'd,
Whilst, all is desolate around,
Like sun-shine on a tomb!
Thou hoary pile! majestic still,
Memento of departed fame!
While roving o'er the moss-clad hill,
I ponder on thine ancient name!
Here grandeur, beauty, valour, sleep,
That here, so oft have shone supreme;
While glory, honor, fancy, weep,
That vanish'd is the golden dream!
Where are the banners, waving proud,
To kiss the summer-gale of ev'n?
All purple as the morning-cloud,
All streaming to the winds of heav'n!
Where is the harp, by rapture strung,
To melting song, or martial story?
Where are the lays the minstrel sung,
To loveliness, or glory?
Lorn echo of these mouldering walls,
To thee no festal measure calls;
No music thro' the desert-halls,
Awakes thee to rejoice!
How still thy sleep! as death profound,
As if, within this lonely round,
A step-a note-a whisper'd sound,
Had ne'er arous'd thy voice!
Thou hear'st the zephyr murmuring, dying,
Thou hear'st the foliage waving, sighing;
But ne'er again shall harp, or song,
These dark, deserted courts along,
Disturb thy calm repose;
The harp is broke, the song is fled,
The voice is hush'd, the bard is dead;
And never shall thy tones repeat,
Or lofty strain, or carol sweet,
With plaintive close!
Proud castle! tho' the days are flown,
When once thy tow'rs in glory shone;
When music thro' thy turrets rung,
When banners o'er thy ramparts hung,
Tho' 'midst thine arches, frowning lone,
Stern desolation rear his throne;
And silence, deep and awful, reign,
Where echoed once the choral strain;
Yet oft, dark ruin! ling'ring here,
The muse will hail thee with a tear;
Here, when the moon-light, quiv'ring, beams,
And thro' the fringing ivy streams,
And softens ev'ry shade sublime,
And mellows ev'ry tint of time,
Oh ! here shall contemplation love,
Unseen, and undisturb'd, to rove;
And bending o'er some mossy tomb,
Where valor sleeps, or beauties bloom,
Shall weep for glory's transient day,
And grandeur's evanescent ray!
And list'ning to the swelling blast,
Shall wake the spirit of the past,
Call up the forms of ages fled,
Of warriors and of minstrels dead;
Who sought the field, who struck the lyre,
With all ambition's kindling fire!
Nor wilt thou, Spring! refuse to breathe,
Soft odours on this desert-air;
Refuse to twine thine earliest wreath,
And fringe these tow'rs with garlands fair
Sweets of the wild, oh! ever bloom,
Unheeded on this ivy'd wall!
Lend to the gale a rich perfume,
And grace the ruin in its fall!
Thus, round Misfortune's holy head,
Would Pity wreaths of honor spread;
Like you, thus blooming on this lonely pile,
She seeks despair, with heart-reviving smile!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Our Sweet Singer
J. A.
ONE memory trembles on our lips;
It throbs in every breast;
In tear-dimmed eyes, in mirth's eclipse,
The shadow stands confessed.
O silent voice, that cheered so long
Our manhood's marching day,
Without thy breath of heavenly song,
How weary seems the way!
Vain every pictured phrase to tell
Our sorrowing heart's desire,--
The shattered harp, the broken shell,
The silent unstrung lyre;
For youth was round us while he sang;
It glowed in every tone;
With bridal chimes the echoes rang,
And made the past our own.
Oh blissful dream! Our nursery joys
We know must have an end,
But love and friendship's broken toys
May God's good angels mend!
The cheering smile, the voice of mirth
And laughter's gay surprise
That please the children born of earth.
Why deem that Heaven denies?
Methinks in that refulgent sphere
That knows not sun or moon,
An earth-born saint might long to hear
One verse of 'Bonny Doon';
Or walking through the streets of gold
In heaven's unclouded light,
His lips recall the song of old
And hum 'The sky is bright.'
And can we smile when thou art dead?
Ah, brothers, even so!
The rose of summer will be red,
In spite of winter's snow.
Thou wouldst not leave us all in gloom
Because thy song is still,
Nor blight the banquet-garland's bloom
With grief's untimely chill.
The sighing wintry winds complain,--
The singing bird has flown,--
Hark! heard I not that ringing strain,
That clear celestial tone?
How poor these pallid phrases seem,
How weak this tinkling line,
As warbles through my waking dream
That angel voice of thine!
Thy requiem asks a sweeter lay;
It falters on my tongue;
For all we vainly strive to say,
Thou shouldst thyself have sung!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Amaranth
ONCE a poet—long ago—
Wrote a song as void of art
As the songs that children know,
And as pure as a child’s heart.
With a sigh he threw it down,
Saying, “This will never shed
Any glory or renown
On my name when I am dead.
“I will sing a lordly song
Men shall hear, when I am gone,
Through the years sound clear and strong
As a golden clarion.”
So this lordly song he sang
That would gain him deathless fame—
When the death-knell o’er him rang
No man even knew its name.
Ay, and when his way he found
To the place of singing souls,
And beheld their bright heads crowned
With song-woven aureoles,
He stood shame-faced in the throng,
For his brow of wreath was bare,
And, alas! his lordly song
Sere had grown in that sweet air;
Then, all sudden, a divine
Light fell on him from afar,
And he felt the child-song shine
On his forehead like a star.
So for ever. Each and all
Songs of passion or of mirth
That are not heart-pure shall fall
As a sky-lark’s—to the earth;
But the soul’s song has no bounds—
Like the voice of Israfel,
From the heaven of heavens it sounds
To the very hell of hell.
poem by Victor James Daley
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Fourth Sunday In Lent
When Nature tries her finest touch,
Weaving her vernal wreath,
Mark ye, how close she veils her round,
Not to be traced by sight or sound,
Nor soiled by ruder breath?
Who ever saw the earliest rose
First open her sweet breast?
Or, when the summer sun goes down,
The first soft star in evening's crown
Light up her gleaming crest?
Fondly we seek the dawning bloom
On features wan and fair,
The gazing eye no change can trace,
But look away a little space,
Then turn, and lo! 'tis there.
But there's a sweeter flower than e'er
Blushed on the rosy spray -
A brighter star, a richer bloom
Than e'er did western heaven illume
At close of summer day.
'Tis Love, the last best gift of Heaven;
Love gentle, holy, pure;
But tenderer than a dove's soft eye,
The searching sun, the open sky,
She never could endure.
E'en human Love will shrink from sight
Here in the coarse rude earth:
How then should rash intruding glance
Break in upon HER sacred trance
Who boasts a heavenly birth?
So still and secret is her growth,
Ever the truest heart,
Where deepest strikes her kindly root
For hope or joy, for flower or fruit,
Least knows its happy part.
God only, and good angels, look
Behind the blissful screen -
As when, triumphant o'er His woes,
The Son of God by moonlight rose,
By all but Heaven unseen:
As when the holy Maid beheld
Her risen Son and Lord:
Thought has not colours half so fair
That she to paint that hour may dare,
In silence best adored.
The gracious Dove, that brought from Heaven
The earnest of our bliss,
Of many a chosen witness telling,
On many a happy vision dwelling,
Sings not a note of this.
So, truest image of the Christ,
Old Israel's long-lost son,
What time, with sweet forgiving cheer,
He called his conscious brethren near,
Would weep with them alone.
He could not trust his melting soul
But in his Maker's sight -
Then why should gentle hearts and true
Bare to the rude world's withering view
Their treasure of delight!
No--let the dainty rose awhile
Her bashful fragrance hide -
Rend not her silken veil too soon,
But leave her, in her own soft noon,
To flourish and abide.
poem by John Keble
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The Conscript's Farewell
Farewell, father;—
I had hoped that I should be
In thine age a staff for thee;
But when years have mark'd thy brow,
When thy step is weak and slow,
When thy hair is thin and white,
And thine eye hath lost its light,
I shall never seek thy side,
And thy faltering footsteps guide.
Where my country's banners fly
Proudly ‘neath a distant sky,
To the battle forth I speed,
There to fight and there to bleed;
Not because the foeman's lance
Glitters in the vales of France;
Not because a stranger's mirth
Rises round my father's hearth;
Not at glory's trumpet call,
Nor in freedom's cause to fall;
But because ambitious power
Tears me from my peaceful bower.
Yet amidst the battle strife,
In the closing hours of life,
Think not that my heart shall quail,
Spirit droop, or courage fail.
Where the boldest deed is done,
Where the laurel-wreath is won,
Where the standard eagles fly,
There thy son shall proudly die;
Though, perhaps, no voice may tell
How the nameless conscript fell!
Thy blessing, father.
Farewell, mother;—
It is hard to part from thee,
And my tears are flowing free.
While around thee gloom and night
Quench'd religion's blessed light,
Still thou bad'st my lisping voice
In the evening hymn rejoice;
And my childhood's prayer was said,
Ere thou bless'd my pillow'd head.
Oh, before I leave thee now,
Place thy hand upon my brow,
And with every treasured word,
That my infant ears have heard,
Bless me, mother.
Farewell, brother;—
Many an hour of boyish glee,
I have pass'd in joy with thee;
If with careless act or tongue
I have ever done thee wrong,
Think upon thy brother's lot,
And be all his faults forgot;
Thou may'st dry our mother's tears,
Soothe our sisters’ anxious fears,
Be their shield, their guide, their stay
Throughout many a coming day;
Freely with thy father share
All his secret weight of care;
Be what it were mine to be,
Had I still remain'd with thee,
And love me, brother.
Farewell, sisters;—
Yonder is our favourite vine,
You must now its tendrils twine,
And when ‘neath its leafy bower,
You are met at evening hour,
Think how oft in by-past days,
There we waked the song of praise,
Till your beaming eyes are wet
With the tears of fond regret;
Then together fondly bend,
And your gentle voices blend.
Pray for me, sisters.
poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
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Victory
I.
Before those golden altar-lights we stood,
Each one of us remembering his own dead.
A more than earthly beauty seemed to brood
On that hushed throng, and bless each bending head.
Beautiful on that gold, the deep-sea blue
Of those young seamen, ranked on either side,
Blent with the khaki, while the silence grew
Deep, as for wings--Oh, deep as England's pride.
Beautiful on that gold, two banners rose--
Two flags that told how Freedom's realm was made,
One fair with stars of hope, and one that shows
The glorious cross of England's long crusade;
Two flags, now joined, till that high will be done
Which sent them forth to make the whole world one.
II.
There were no signs of joy that eyes could see.
Our hearts were all three thousand miles away.
There were no trumpets blown for victory.
A million dead were calling us that day.
And eyes grew blind, at times; but grief was deep,
Deeper than any foes or friends have known;
For Oh, my country's lips are locked to keep
Her bitterest loss her own, and all her own.
Only the music told what else was dumb,
The funeral march to which our pulses beat;
For all our dead went by, to a muffled drum
We heard the tread of all those phantom feet.
Yes. There was victory! Deep in every soul.
We heard them marching to their unseen goal.
III.
There, once again, we saw the Cross go by,
The Cross that fell with all those glorious towers,
Burnt black in France or mocked on Calvary,
Till--in one night--the crosses rose like flowers,
Legions of small white crosses, mile on mile,
Pencilled with names that had outfought all pain,
Where every shell-torn acre seems to smile--
_Who shall destroy the cross that rose again?_
Out of the world's Walpurgis, where hope perished,
Where all the forms of faith in ruin fell,
Where every sign of heaven that earth had cherished
Shrivelled among the lava-floods of hell,
The eternal Cross that conquers might with right
Rose like a star to lead us through the night.
IV.
How shall the world remember? Men forget:
Our dead are all too many even for Fame!
Man's justice kneels to kings, and pays no debt
To those who never courted her acclaim.
Cheat not your heart with promises to pay
For gifts beyond all price so freely given.
Where is the heart so rich that it can say
To those who mourn, 'I will restore your heaven'?
But these, with their own hands, laid up their treasure
Where never an emperor can break in and steal,
Treasure for those that loved them past all measure
In those high griefs that earth can never heal,
Proud griefs, that walk on earth, yet gaze above,
Knowing that sorrow is but remembered love.
V.
Love that still holds us with immortal power,
Yet cannot lift us to His realm of light;
Love that still shows us heaven for one brief hour
Only to daunt the heart with that sheer height;
Love that is made of loveliness entire
In form and thought and act; and still must shame us
Because we ever acknowledge and aspire,
And yet let slip the shining hands that claim us.
O, if this Love might cloak with rags His glory,
Laugh, eat and drink, and dwell with suffering men,
Sit with us at our hearth, and hear our story,
This world--we thought--might be transfigured then.
'But Oh,' Love answered, with swift human tears,
'All these things have I done, these many years.'
VI.
'This day,' Love said, 'if ye will hear my voice;
I mount and sing with birds in all your skies.
I am the soul that calls you to rejoice.
And every wayside flower is my disguise.
'Look closely. Are the wings too wide for pity?
Look closely. Do these tender hues betray?
How often have I sought my Holy City?
How often have ye turned your hearts away?
'Is there not healing in the beauty I bring you?
Am I not whispering in green leaves and rain,
Singing in all that woods and seas can sing you?
Look, once, on Love, and earth is heaven again.
'O, did your Spring but once a century waken,
The heaven of heavens for this would be forsaken.'
VII.
There's but one gift that all our dead desire,
One gift that men can give, and that's a dream,
Unless we, too, can burn with that same fire
Of sacrifice; die to the things that seem;
Die to the little hatreds; die to greed;
Die to the old ignoble selves we knew;
Die to the base contempts of sect and creed,
And rise again, like these, with souls as true.
Nay (since these died before their task was finished)
Attempt new heights, bring even their dreams to birth:--
Build us that better world, Oh, not diminished
By one true splendor that they planned on earth.
And that's not done by sword, or tongue, or pen,
There's but one way. God make us better men.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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Hymns From The French Of Lamartine
I.
'Encore un hymne, O ma lyre
Un hymn pour le Seigneur,
Un hymne dans mon delire,
Un hymne dans mon bonheur.'
One hymn more, O my lyre!
Praise to the God above,
Of joy and life and love,
Sweeping its strings of fire!
Oh, who the speed of bird and wind
And sunbeam's glance will lend to me,
That, soaring upward, I may find
My resting-place and home in Thee?
Thou, whom my soul, midst doubt and gloom,
Adoreth with a fervent flame,--
Mysterious spirit! unto whom
Pertain nor sign nor name!
Swiftly my lyre's soft murmurs go,
Up from the cold and joyless earth,
Back to the God who bade them flow,
Whose moving spirit sent them forth.
But as for me, O God! for me,
The lowly creature of Thy will,
Lingering and sad, I sigh to Thee,
An earth-bound pilgrim still!
Was not my spirit born to shine
Where yonder stars and suns are glowing?
To breathe with them the light divine
From God's own holy altar flowing?
To be, indeed, whate'er the soul
In dreams hath thirsted for so long,--
A portion of heaven's glorious whole
Of loveliness and song?
Oh, watchers of the stars at night,
Who breathe their fire, as we the air,--
Suns, thunders, stars, and rays of light,
Oh, say, is He, the Eternal, there?
Bend there around His awful throne
The seraph's glance, the angel's knee?
Or are thy inmost depths His own,
O wild and mighty sea?
Thoughts of my soul, how swift ye go!
Swift as the eagle's glance of fire,
Or arrows from the archer's bow,
To the far aim of your desire!
Thought after thought, ye thronging rise,
Like spring-doves from the startled wood,
Bearing like them your sacrifice
Of music unto God!
And shall these thoughts of joy and love
Come back again no more to me?
Returning like the patriarch's dove
Wing-weary from the eternal sea,
To bear within my longing arms
The promise-bough of kindlier skies,
Plucked from the green, immortal palms
Which shadow Paradise?
All-moving spirit! freely forth
At Thy command the strong wind goes
Its errand to the passive earth,
Nor art can stay, nor strength oppose,
Until it folds its weary wing
Once more within the hand divine;
So, weary from its wandering,
My spirit turns to Thine!
Child of the sea, the mountain stream,
From its dark caverns, hurries on,
Ceaseless, by night and morning's beam,
By evening's star and noontide's sun,
Until at last it sinks to rest,
O'erwearied, in the waiting sea,
And moans upon its mother's breast,--
So turns my soul to Thee!
O Thou who bidst the torrent flow,
Who lendest wings unto the wind,--
Mover of all things! where art Thou?
Oh, whither shall I go to find
The secret of Thy resting-place?
Is there no holy wing for me,
That, soaring, I may search the space
Of highest heaven for Thee?
Oh, would I were as free to rise
As leaves on autumn's whirlwind borne,--
The arrowy light of sunset skies,
Or sound, or ray, or star of morn,
Which melts in heaven at twilight's close,
Or aught which soars unchecked and free
Through earth and heaven; that I might lose
Myself in finding Thee!
II.
LE CRI DE L'AME.
'Quand le souffle divin qui flotte sur le monde.'
When the breath divine is flowing,
Zephyr-like o'er all things going,
And, as the touch of viewless fingers,
Softly on my soul it lingers,
Open to a breath the lightest,
Conscious of a touch the slightest,--
As some calm, still lake, whereon
Sinks the snowy-bosomed swan,
And the glistening water-rings
Circle round her moving wings
When my upward gaze is turning
Where the stars of heaven are burning
Through the deep and dark abyss,
Flowers of midnight's wilderness,
Blowing with the evening's breath
Sweetly in their Maker's path
When the breaking day is flushing
All the east, and light is gushing
Upward through the horizon's haze,
Sheaf-like, with its thousand rays,
Spreading, until all above
Overflows with joy and love,
And below, on earth's green bosom,
All is changed to light and blossom:
When my waking fancies over
Forms of brightness flit and hover
Holy as the seraphs are,
Who by Zion's fountains wear
On their foreheads, white and broad,
'Holiness unto the Lord!'
When, inspired with rapture high,
It would seem a single sigh
Could a world of love create;
That my life could know no date,
And my eager thoughts could fill
Heaven and Earth, o'erflowing still!
Then, O Father! Thou alone,
From the shadow of Thy throne,
To the sighing of my breast
And its rapture answerest.
All my thoughts, which, upward winging,
Bathe where Thy own light is springing,--
All my yearnings to be free
Are at echoes answering Thee!
Seldom upon lips of mine,
Father! rests that name of Thine;
Deep within my inmost breast,
In the secret place of mind,
Like an awful presence shrined,
Doth the dread idea rest
Hushed and holy dwells it there,
Prompter of the silent prayer,
Lifting up my spirit's eye
And its faint, but earnest cry,
From its dark and cold abode,
Unto Thee, my Guide and God!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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