Shelley's Centenary
Within a narrow span of time,
Three princes of the realm of rhyme,
At height of youth or manhood's prime,
From earth took wing,
To join the fellowship sublime
Who, dead, yet sing.
He, first, his earliest wreath who wove
Of laurel grown in Latmian grove,
Conquered by pain and hapless love
Found calmer home,
Roofed by the heaven that glows above
Eternal Rome.
A fierier soul, its own fierce prey,
And cumbered with more mortal clay,
At Missolonghi flamed away,
And left the air
Reverberating to this day
Its loud despair.
Alike remote from Byron's scorn,
And Keats's magic as of morn
Bursting for ever newly-born
On forests old,
Waking a hoary world forlorn
With touch of gold,
Shelley, the cloud-begot, who grew
Nourished on air and sun and dew,
Into that Essence whence he drew
His life and lyre
Was fittingly resolved anew
Through wave and fire.
'Twas like his rapid soul! 'Twas meet
That he, who brooked not Time's slow feet,
With passage thus abrupt and fleet
Should hurry hence,
Eager the Great Perhaps to greet
With Why? and Whence?
Impatient of the world's fixed way,
He ne'er could suffer God's delay,
But all the future in a day
Would build divine,
And the whole past in ruins lay,
An emptied shrine.
Vain vision! but the glow, the fire,
The passion of benign desire,
The glorious yearning, lift him higher
Than many a soul
That mounts a million paces nigher
Its meaner goal.
And power is his, if naught besides,
In that thin ether where he rides,
Above the roar of human tides
To ascend afar,
Lost in a storm of light that hides
His dizzy car.
Below, the unhastening world toils on,
And here and there are victories won,
Some dragon slain, some justice done,
While, through the skies,
A meteor rushing on the sun,
He flares and dies.
But, as he cleaves yon ether clear
Notes from the unattempted Sphere
He scatters to the enchanted ear
Of earth's dim throng,
Whose dissonance doth more endear
The showering song.
In other shapes than he forecast
The world is moulded: his fierce blast,--
His wild assault upon the Past,--
These things are vain;
Revolt is transient: what _must_ last
Is that pure strain,
Which seems the wandering voices blent
Of every virgin element,--
A sound from ocean caverns sent,--
An airy call
From the pavilioned firmament
O'erdoming all.
And in this world of worldlings, where
Souls rust in apathy, and ne'er
A great emotion shakes the air,
And life flags tame,
And rare is noble impulse, rare
The impassioned aim,
'Tis no mean fortune to have heard
A singer who, if errors blurred
His sight, had yet a spirit stirred
By vast desire,
And ardour fledging the swift word
With plumes of fire.
A creature of impetuous breath,
Our torpor deadlier than death
He knew not; whatsoe'er he saith
Flashes with life:
He spurreth men, he quickeneth
To splendid strife.
And in his gusts of song he brings
Wild odours shaken from strange wings,
And unfamiliar whisperings
From far lips blown,
While all the rapturous heart of things
Throbs through his own,--
His own that from the burning pyre
One who had loved his wind-swept lyre
Out of the sharp teeth of the fire
Unmolten drew,
Beside the sea that in her ire
Smote him and slew.
poem by William Watson
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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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Even So
THE DAYS go by—the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
“The days go by! The days go by!”
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life’s many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms—
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!
Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they—
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly,
Lashes with whips of steel the sea:
What words are left for Hope to say?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream!—
That I should sing a song supreme
To gladden all sad eyes that weep,
And take the Harp to Time, and sweep
Its chords to some eternal theme.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream.
The world is very old and wan—
The sun that once so brightly shone
Is now as pale as the pale moon.
I would that Death came swift and soon;
For all my dreams are dead and gone.
The world is very old and wan.
The world is young, the world is strong,
But I in dreams have wandered long.
God lives. What can Death do to me
The sun is shining on the sea.
Yet shall I sing my splendid song—
The world is young, the world is strong.
poem by Victor James Daley
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The Days go by
THE DAYS go by—the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
“The days go by! The days go by!”
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life’s many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms—
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!
Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they—
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly,
Lashes with whips of steel the sea:
What words are left for Hope to say?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream!—
That I should sing a song supreme
To gladden all sad eyes that weep,
And take the Harp to Time, and sweep
Its chords to some eternal theme.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream.
The world is very old and wan—
The sun that once so brightly shone
Is now as pale as the pale moon.
I would that Death came swift and soon;
For all my dreams are dead and gone.
The world is very old and wan.
. . . . .
The world is young, the world is strong,
But I in dreams have wandered long.
God lives. What can Death do to me
The sun is shining on the sea.
Yet shall I sing my splendid song—
The world is young, the world is strong.
poem by Victor James Daley
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The Death Of Richard Wagner
Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend,
Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth
Wane, and no lips rebuke or reprehend
Mourning on earth.
The soul wherein her songs of death and birth,
Darkness and light, were wont to sound and blend,
Now silent, leaves the whole world less in worth.
Winds that make moan and triumph, skies that bend,
Thunders, and sound of tides in gulf and firth,
Spake through his spirit of speech, whose death should send
Mourning on earth.
The world's great heart, whence all things strange and rare
Take form and sound, that each inseparate part
May bear its burden in all tuned thoughts that share
The world's great heart -
The fountain forces, whence like steeds that start
Leap forth the powers of earth and fire and air,
Seas that revolve and rivers that depart -
Spake, and were turned to song: yea, all they were,
With all their works, found in his mastering art
Speech as of powers whose uttered word laid bare
The world's great heart.
From the depths of the sea, from the wellsprings of earth, from the wastes of the midmost night,
From the fountains of darkness and tempest and thunder, from heights where the soul would be,
The spell of the mage of music evoked their sense, as an unknown light
From the depths of the sea.
As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, that none but a god might see,
Rose out of the silence of things unknown of a presence, a form, a might,
And we heard as a prophet that hears God's message against him, and may not flee.
Eye might not endure it, but ear and heart with a rapture of dark delight,
With a terror and wonder whose core was joy, and a passion of thought set free,
Felt inly the rising of doom divine as a sundawn risen to sight
From the depths of the sea.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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In The Beginning
WHEN sunshine met the wave,
Then love was born;
Then Venus rose to save
A world forlorn.
For light a thousand wings
Of joy unfurled,
And bound with golden rings
The icy world.
And color flamed the earth
With glad desire,
Till life sprang to the birth,
Fire answering fire,
And so the world awoke,
And all was done,
When first the ocean spoke
Unto the sun.
poem by Harriet Monroe
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To Constantia, Singing
I.
Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die,
Perchance were death indeed!—Constantia, turn!
In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,
Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn
Between thy lips, are laid to sleep;
Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour, it is yet,
And from thy touch like fire doth leap.
Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet.
Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!
II.
A breathless awe, like the swift change
Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers,
Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,
Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers.
The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven
By the enchantment of thy strain,
And on my shoulders wings are woven,
To follow its sublime career
Beyond the mighty moons that wane
Upon the verge of Nature's utmost sphere,
Till the world’s shadowy walls are past and disappear.
III.
Her voice is hovering o’er my soul—it lingers
O’ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings,
The blood and life within those snowy fingers
Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings.
My brain is wild, my breath comes quick--
The blood is listening in my frame,
And thronging shadows, fast and thick,
Fall on my overflowing eyes;
My heart is quivering like a flame;
As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies,
I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies.
IV.
I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee,
Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song
Flows on, and fills all things with melody.--
Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong,
On which, like one in trance upborne,
Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep,
Rejoicing like a cloud of morn.
Now 'tis the breath of summer night,
Which when the starry waters sleep,
Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright,
Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The Brides of Indra
Lo, 'tis Indra! he who kindles, God of celestial fire;
Who lights the thoughts of man with the flame of wild desire.
Have you watched the changeful sky, crimson, amethyst, and gold?
'T is his mantle, and the stars shine from every beaming fold.
He rides the snow-white elephant, lashed from the pale sea-foam.
From his hand the rushing thunderbolt, the arrowy lightning come.
Have you heard the shrieking east-wind when the trees were rent and strown,
And the white salt dust of the sea in the face of heaven was blown?
It is the wrath of Indra; and the sunlight is his smile.
When the clouds expire in raindrops, then Indra weeps the while.
In his beauty, none like him the earth or heaven have had:
With the wistful passion of a man, and the splendor of a god,
He has thrilled the earth's dark places, a supernal flash of fire,
He has sounded all the depths of guilt, and sorrow, and desire.
Now sinking in the struggle, now exalted soaring high,
The dark, wild heart of man strives with his divinity,
God of sunlight, God of storm, still the world his voice obeys,
And the sea of human passion, his mighty power still sways,
On its threshold, looking out on the changing world of life,
With its movement and its crowd, its uproar and its strife,
Stood a group of lovely maidens, charmed and dazzled by the glare.
The gaze of Indra fell upon them, and beholding them so fair
He loved them. Flashing earthward in a form of fire he came,
Kissed their lips, and then he left them, with blanched cheeks, and eyes aflame.
And they knew a god thus thrilled them; and had sought his home again
Ere they tasted aught of love, save its first and sudden pain.
Then they, with vague desire, in their innocence went forth;
Seeking what, or whom, they knew not, they wandered o'er the earth;
And Love, who only breathes in the clearer, upper air,
Led them to the hilly land, where the stars were shining near.
And there, though far beyond them, looking down from cloudless skies,
They saw the great god Indra, with outstretched arms and passionate eyes.
Then their hearts sank faint within them; fain was each one to turn back.
But the soul within had found its wings, and bore them rushing o'er the track,
In a superhuman ecstasy, along the dizzy space,
Till the arms of Indra clasped them in the fire of his embrace.
All unconscious of the bitter cost to those to whom 't is given
Thus to awaken the desire of the ardent sun of heaven,
With quivering lips and beating hearts was the sacrifice achieved,
And the sorrowful great gift---the love of Indra---they received.
Bear me witness, O ye mortals, by the kiss of fire refined,
How closely do the rapture and the anguish intertwine!
I know not which is greatest, for the bliss and suffering strain---
Strain alike, and all too fiercely, on the human heart and brain.
Yet who would cage his soul, when the mighty sun-god came
To thrill his being through, to draw his spirit forth in flame?
But the maidens, knowing naught of an Immortal's love,
Against the crown that Indra laid upon them, wildly, vainly strove;
Though it wrapped them in a glory, their young brows it scorched and tore,
And its golden hues the life-blood of the wearers crimsoned o'er.
"We are faint," they cried, "and weary; from our cheeks the blood has fled;
Our eyes are tired with beauty; in our souls the youth is dead;
The light is but a splendid pain; and, drooping, worn, and rent
With this eternal rapture, our weary hearts are spent;
We turn away in anguish, exhausted and oppressed.
From this fever of our lives, give us rest, give us rest."
They mourned thus until, at length, by resistless impulse led,
From the mountain of Méru, the brides of Indra fled;
Fled and sought those shadowy valleys where the stream of time flows by
Only measured by the seasons; and the mortal dwellers die
Of the slowly creeping years---not of sin, or shame, or wrong;
Not because they have lived too much, but because they 've lived too long.
Oh, what a pleasant land was that! Surely there might peace be found.
A sweet slumberous repose softly lay on all around.
No extreme of heat or cold, excess of light or depth of gloom,
Ever broke the wondrous calm of that wilderness of bloom.
And the hearts of those that dwelt there, emotion ne'er could move,
Or wake the slumbering ecstasies of hate, despair, or love.
Ever young and ever lovely were the women of that land,
And the men who ruled its councils were both courteous and bland.
No labor there was needed, no hardened hand of toil,
For all the heart could ask for sprang spontaneous from the soil.
Old age, disease, and poverty, and suffering could not stay,
For a dark and terrible river ever hurried them away,
As it poured its troubled waters through the shining land of gold,
Washing all its peaceful borders, muttering fiercely, as it rolled,
Words of menace and despair through its sinister black flood,
Which the smiling people on its banks heard, but never understood.
Wretched, flying, worn, and weary, to this luxurious land
Hither came these hapless wanderers, the fugitive fair band.
Their strange beauty and their wanness, born of passions here unknown
To the passionless who dwelt here, touched their hearts and they were won---
Touched their hearts with sweet compassion for each lovely fugitive,
And they cried, "Oh, stay here with us; we'll share with you, while we live."
Now pale, and with lustrous eyes, wandering daily side by side,
The once beloved of Indra in loneliness abide;
No friendly voices greet them as, dejected and apart,
They pass the idle throng, slow of step and sad at heart.
Each morning wakes anew a gnawing, fierce desire,
That the evening, in despair and in misery, sees expire;
And a curse pursues them ever like an avenging ghost---
The curse that haunts and maddens, of a glory won and lost.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To Giusue Carducci
O RICH and splendid soul that overflowest
With light and fire caught from thy native skies!—
Whose latent storm is lurid in thine eyes
When with august and bended brows thou throwest
Thy Jove-like bolt upon the world below.
Woe, woe the wretch—that ever he was born!
Whom once the fierce sirocco of thy scorn
Encircles, deadly, withering,—Ah woe!
But thrice-blest She, whom with one golden word
Thou settest in the firmament of heaven,
A happy, deathless star;—a wonder given
To awe-eyed mortals while thy voice is heard.
And she—ah me!—her name is—ITALY!
Most glorious and most woful of all names!
Whose sweet sound the whole world’s vast heart inflames
So chanted by her last great son—by thee
poem by George William Lewis Marshall-Hall
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Song VI: Cherish Life that Abideth
Love is enough: cherish life that abideth,
Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him;
For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth,
On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth?
And what is the joy of man's life that ye blame him
For his bliss grown a sword, and his rest grown a fire?
Ye who tremble for death, or the death of desire,
Pass about the cold winter-tide garden and ponder
On the rose in his glory amidst of June's fire,
On the languor of noontide that gathered the thunder,
On the morn and its freshness, the eve and its wonder:
Ye may make it no more--shall Spring come to awaken?
Live on, for Love liveth, and earth shall be shaken
By the wind of his wings on the triumphing morning,
When the dead, and their deeds that die not shall awaken,
And the world's tale shall sound in your trumpet of warning,
And the sun smite the banner called Scorn of the Scorning,
And dead pain ye shall trample, dead fruitless desire,
As ye wend to pluck out the new world from the fire.
poem by William Morris
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Natalie's Gift
Natalie so bright and free
A flower to unfold
The essence of serenity
Of wisdom's tales untold.
Your magic tune
The song of life
Your essence of pure love
Will lift the world from darkness
To lofty realms above
And now the tide is turning
Your youthful mind is burning
And that for which your yearning
Is right within your soul.
Please know you're loved
And cared for in spite of
Life's cruel pain
The light you give to others
Has never been in vain.
And when the winds of time
Have blown away the clouds
You are the song of joy
The birds will sing aloud.
poem by Lynne FincherSpringarden
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To a silent poet
I see the sons of Genius rise
The nobles of our land;
And foremost in the gathering ranks
I see the poet band.
That Priesthood of the beautiful,
To whom alone 'tis given
To lift our spirits from the dust,
Back to their native heaven.
But there is one amid the throng,
Not past his manhood's prime;
The laurel wreath upon his brow,
Has greener grown with time.
And in his eye yet glows the light
Of the celestial fire;
But cast beside him, on the earth,
Is his neglected lyre.
The lyre, whose high, heroic notes
A thousand hearts have stirred,
Lies mute, -- the skillful hand no more
Awakes one slumbering chord.
Oh poet! rouse thee from thy dreams!
Wake from thy voiceless slumbers!
And once again give to the breeze
The music of thy numbers.
Sing, for our country claims her bard,
She listens for thy strains;
Sing, for upon our jarring earth,
Too much of discord reigns.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Two Sunsets
In the fair morning of his life,
When his pure heart lay in his breast,
Panting, with all that wild unrest
To plunge into the great world's strife
That fills young hearts with mad desire,
He saw a sunset. Red and gold
The burning billows surged and rolled,
And upward tossed their caps of fire.
He looked. And as he looked the sight
Sent from his soul through breast and brain
Such intense joy, it hurt like pain.
His heart seemed bursting with delight.
So near the Unknown seemed, so close
He might have grasped it with his hand.
He felt his inmost soul expand,
As sunlight will expand a rose.
One day he heard a singing strain--
A human voice, in bird-like trills.
He paused, and little rapture-rills
Went trickling downward through each vein.
And in his heart the whole day long,
As in a temple veiled and dim,
He kept and bore about with him
The beauty of that singer's song.
And then? But why relate what then?
His smoldering heart flamed into fire--
He had his one supreme desire,
And plunged into the world of men.
For years queen Folly held her sway.
With pleasures of the grosser kind
She fed his flesh and drugged his mind,
Till, shamed, he sated turned away.
He sought his boyhood's home. That hour
Triumphant should have been, in sooth,
Since he went forth an unknown youth,
And came back crowned with wealth and power.
The clouds made day a gorgeous bed;
He saw the splendor of the sky
With unmoved heart and stolid eye;
He knew only West was red.
Then suddenly a fresh young voice
Rose, bird-like, from some hidden place,
He did not even turn his face;
It struck him simply as a noise.
He trod the old paths up and down.
Their ruch-hued leaves by Fall winds whirled--
How dull they were--how dull the world--
Dull even in the pulsing town.
O! worst of punishments, that brings
A blunting of all finer sense,
A loss of feelings keen, intense,
And dulls us to the higher things.
O! penalty most dire, most sure,
Swift following after gross delights,
That we no more see beauteous sights,
Or hear as hear the good and pure.
O! shape more hideous and more dread
Than Vengeance takes in creed-taught minds,
This certain doom that blunts and blinds,
And strikes the holiest feelings dead.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Teacher's Monologue
The room is quiet, thoughts alone
People its mute tranquillity;
The yoke put on, the long task done,
I am, as it is bliss to be,
Still and untroubled. Now, I see,
For the first time, how soft the day
O'er waveless water, stirless tree,
Silent and sunny, wings its way.
Now, as I watch that distant hill,
So faint, so blue, so far removed,
Sweet dreams of home my heart may fill,
That home where I am known and loved:
It lies beyond; yon azure brow
Parts me from all Earth holds for me;
And, morn and eve, my yearnings flow
Thitherward tending, changelessly.
My happiest hours, aye ! all the time,
I love to keep in memory,
Lapsed among moors, ere life's first prime
Decayed to dark anxiety.
Sometimes, I think a narrow heart
Makes me thus mourn those far away,
And keeps my love so far apart
From friends and friendships of to-day;
Sometimes, I think 'tis but a dream
I measure up so jealously,
All the sweet thoughts I live on seem
To vanish into vacancy:
And then, this strange, coarse world around
Seems all that's palpable and true;
And every sight, and every sound,
Combines my spirit to subdue
To aching grief, so void and lone
Is Life and Earthso worse than vain,
The hopes that, in my own heart sown,
And cherished by such sun and rain
As Joy and transient Sorrow shed,
Have ripened to a harvest there:
Alas ! methinks I hear it said,
'Thy golden sheaves are empty air.'
All fades away; my very home
I think will soon be desolate;
I hear, at times, a warning come
Of bitter partings at its gate;
And, if I should return and see
The hearth-fire quenched, the vacant chair;
And hear it whispered mournfully,
That farewells have been spoken there,
What shall I do, and whither turn?
Where look for peace? When cease to mourn?
'Tis not the air I wished to play,
The strain I wished to sing;
My wilful spirit slipped away
And struck another string.
I neither wanted smile nor tear,
Bright joy nor bitter woe,
But just a song that sweet and clear,
Though haply sad, might flow.
A quiet song, to solace me
When sleep refused to come;
A strain to chase despondency,
When sorrowful for home.
In vain I try; I cannot sing;
All feels so cold and dead;
No wild distress, no gushing spring
Of tears in anguish shed;
But all the impatient gloom of one
Who waits a distant day,
When, some great task of suffering done,
Repose shall toil repay.
For youth departs, and pleasure flies,
And life consumes away,
And youth's rejoicing ardour dies
Beneath this drear delay;
And Patience, weary with her yoke,
Is yielding to despair,
And Health's elastic spring is broke
Beneath the strain of care.
Life will be gone ere I have lived;
Where now is Life's first prime?
I've worked and studied, longed and grieved,
Through all that rosy time.
To toil, to think, to long, to grieve,
Is such my future fate?
The morn was dreary, must the eve
Be also desolate?
Well, such a life at least makes Death
A welcome, wished-for friend;
Then, aid me, Reason, Patience, Faith,
To suffer to the end!
poem by Charlotte Brontë from Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Dream Star
Whisper, O wings of the wind! Sing me your song, O sea!
Grey is the weary world, and grey is the heart of me!
Into my shadowy heart pierce like the star of old,
Pearl of the tender dawn, kissed by the trembling gold!
Sing me the hope made sure, sing me the heart made strong!
Give me the battle-fire, give me the bugle-song
Onward ever and on, O swift, green bird of the sun;
Ever a vaster goal for the goal that thy wings have won.
Keen with a tireless beat is the rush of thy wings that soar;
But keener, swifter than thee is the vision that flies before.
What though we die forgot and sad for the song unsung!
Fresh from her thousand deaths ever the world is young.
For, ever the dream-world floats, a light on a misty bar,
And ever the grey earth follows the wake of that pilot star;
Follows a spirit ship that bears o’er a spirit sea
Shadows of thoughts unborn, phantoms of destiny.
Silver the giant sails loom through the amber haze,
And ever the helmsman Hope steers for the halcyon days;
And ever the voices call, out of the golden light,
Into the dreamer’s heart, sad in the lonely night—
Call like the ring of steel and thrill as of bugles blown,
Splendours of days to be, flaming in skies unknown.
Deep in the eastern skies glimmers that phantom star;
Dim in the distance dies the surge of the world afar.
Ah, but like broken swords, scattered along the van,
Perish the outpost souls that fall in the march of Man!
Ah, but they die not so; out of their ashes then
Flowers of immortal Love spring in the hearts of men!
Wings of the swift green Earth, ever and ever young—
This is the whispered word the wind of the morning sung!
This is the rune I heard flung by the ocean old,
Pearl of the tender dawn, kissed by the trembling gold!
poem by George Essex Evans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Failure
THE BOY went out from the ranges grim,
And the breath of the mountains went with him;
With a song in his heart and a smile on his face,
And a light in his eyes for a foremost place:
And the good green earth, and the salt sea spray,
And the soft blue skies, they were his that day;
And, like Eden, ringed with a golden fire—
Afar rose the Land of His Heart’s Desire.
The boy went down to the city’s strife,
And his face was lost in the surge of life;
But a Power that he did not understand
Had nerved his brain and his fighting hand.
And he strove and failed, and he rose and won—
And he failed again ere the fight was done;
But he battled on when the days were dire
To win to the Land of His Heart’s Desire.
And there, in the heart of the stress and din,
’Mid want and labour and wealth and sin,
The strong man struggled with shining eyes,
And forced a passage, and grasped the prize.
And he cried to the Power who had lent the fire:
“Lo! Fame is the Land of My Heart’s Desire!
Give the cup to me with a beaded brim.”
And the Power that he knew not gave it him.
But the air is keen on the Cliffs of Fame,
And the shafts that fly have a deadly aim!
With a foothold scarce, and a sleepless dread
For the gulfs below and the heights o’erhead,
He cried to the Power who had steeled his hand:
“I am outcast yet from my Fairyland!
For Fame is a land where no strength may tire,
But Love is the Land of My Heart’s Desire!”
Then there came to the man all his dream of Love,
With the brow of snow and the eyes of a dove,
With the glint of the sun on her wavy hair,
And her soul as pure as her face was fair.
Like a living lily to him she came,
Till his eyes were wet and his soul was flame,
And she called to him, with an outstretched hand,
And they entered into the Promised Land.
But there came a day when he asked his soul,
“Is this the land, and is this the goal?”
In his heart there lay what his lips denied—
The pang of a hunger unsatisfied.
“For Fame,” he said, “and for Love I wrought;
They are not the things that I should have sought:
’Tis to boundless power that my dreams aspire—
And Wealth is the Land of My Heart’s Desire!”
Then the Power that he did not understand
Gave him ships and houses and gold and land,
And the man’s power grew with each passing year;
But his thoughts were vexed with a sleepless fear,
And his hair grew gray with the iron strain
Of the dread of loss and the lust of gain,
And he bowed his head on his hands and said.
“All things are mine, but my heart is dead!”
And he thought of the boy from the ranges grim
With the breath of the mountains over him,
With a song in his heart and a smile on his face,
And a light in his eyes for a foremost place,
And the good green earth and the salt sea spray,
And the soft blue skies that were his that day,
When, like Eden, ringed with a golden fire,
Afar rose the Land of His Heart’s Desire.
Then clear on his startled ear there fell
A voice like the sound of a silver bell:
“To each is the work that he best can do,
But you turned from the work when it called to you.
And you sought instead for the vulgar praise,
For the lips of love, and for prosperous days.
And with all that the world can give you here,
You have lost the thing that you hold most dear.
For who hears the word that the Gods inspire—
In his work finds the Land of His Heart’s Desire.”
poem by George Essex Evans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Christmas Antiphones
I -- In Church
Thou whose birth on earth
Angels sang to men,
While thy stars made mirth,
Saviour, at thy birth,
This day born again;
As this night was bright
With thy cradle-ray,
Very light of light,
Turn the wild world's night
To thy perfect day.
God whose feet made sweet
Those wild ways they trod,
From thy fragrant feet
Staining field and street
With the blood of God;
God whose breast is rest
In the time of strife,
In thy secret breast
Sheltering souls opprest
From the heat of life;
God whose eyes are skies
Love-lit as with spheres
By the lights that rise
To thy watching eyes,
Orbed lights of tears;
God whose heart hath part
In all grief that is,
Was not man's the dart
That went through thine heart,
And the wound not his?
Where the pale souls wail,
Held in bonds of death,
Where all spirits quail,
Came thy Godhead pale
Still from human breath -
Pale from life and strife,
Wan with manhood, came
Forth of mortal life,
Pierced as with a knife,
Scarred as with a flame.
Thou the Word and Lord
In all time and space
Heard, beheld, adored,
With all ages poured
Forth before thy face,
Lord, what worth in earth
Drew thee down to die?
What therein was worth,
Lord, thy death and birth?
What beneath thy sky?
Light above all love
By thy love was lit,
And brought down the Dove
Feathered from above
With the wings of it.
From the height of night,
Was not thine the star
That led forth with might
By no worldly light
Wise men from afar?
Yet the wise men's eyes
Saw thee not more clear
Than they saw thee rise
Who in shepherd's guise
Drew as poor men near.
Yet thy poor endure,
And are with us yet;
Be thy name a sure
Refuge for thy poor
Whom men's eyes forget.
Thou whose ways we praised,
Clear alike and dark,
Keep our works and ways
This and all thy days
Safe inside thine ark.
Who shall keep thy sheep,
Lord, and lose not one?
Who save one shall keep,
Lest the shepherds sleep?
Who beside the Son?
From the grave-deep wave,
From the sword and flame,
Thou, even thou, shalt save
Souls of king and slave
Only by thy Name.
Light not born with morn
Or her fires above,
Jesus virgin-born,
Held of men in scorn,
Turn their scorn to love.
Thou whose face gives grace
As the sun's doth heat,
Let thy sunbright face
Lighten time and space
Here beneath thy feet.
Bid our peace increase,
Thou that madest morn;
Bid oppressions cease;
Bid the night be peace;
Bid the day be born.
II--OUTSIDE CHURCH
We whose days and ways
All the night makes dark,
What day shall we praise
Of these weary days
That our life-drops mark?
We whose mind is blind,
Fed with hope of nought;
Wastes of worn mankind,
Without heart or mind,
Without meat or thought;
We with strife of life
Worn till all life cease,
Want, a whetted knife,
Sharpening strife on strife,
How should we love peace?
Ye whose meat is sweet
And your wine-cup red,
Us beneath your feet
Hunger grinds as wheat,
Grinds to make you bread.
Ye whose night is bright
With soft rest and heat,
Clothed like day with light,
Us the naked night
Slays from street to street.
Hath your God no rod,
That ye tread so light?
Man on us as God,
God as man hath trod,
Trod us down with might.
We that one by one
Bleed from either's rod.
What for us hath done
Man beneath the sun,
What for us hath God?
We whose blood is food
Given your wealth to feed,
From the Christless rood
Red with no God's blood,
But with man's indeed;
How shall we that see
Nightlong overhead
Life, the flowerless tree,
Nailed whereon as we
Were our fathers dead -
We whose ear can hear,
Not whose tongue can name,
Famine, ignorance, fear,
Bleeding tear by tear
Year by year of shame,
Till the dry life die
Out of bloodless breast,
Out of beamless eye,
Out of mouths that cry
Till death feed with rest -
How shall we as ye,
Though ye bid us, pray?
Though ye call, can we
Hear you call, or see,
Though ye show us day?
We whose name is shame,
We whose souls walk bare,
Shall we call the same
God as ye by name,
Teach our lips your prayer?
God, forgive and give,
For His sake who died?
Nay, for ours who live,
How shall we forgive
Thee, then, on our side?
We whose right to light
Heaven's high noon denies,
Whom the blind beams smite
That for you shine bright,
And but burn our eyes,
With what dreams of beams
Shall we build up day,
At what sourceless streams
Seek to drink in dreams
Ere they pass away?
In what street shall meet,
At what market-place,
Your feet and our feet,
With one goal to greet,
Having run one race?
What one hope shall ope
For us all as one
One same horoscope,
Where the soul sees hope
That outburns the sun?
At what shrine what wine,
At what board what bread,
Salt as blood or brine,
Shall we share in sign
How we poor were fed?
In what hour what power
Shall we pray for morn,
If your perfect hour,
When all day bears flower,
Not for us is born?
III--BEYOND CHURCH
Ye that weep in sleep,
Souls and bodies bound,
Ye that all night keep
Watch for change, and weep
That no change is found;
Ye that cry and die,
And the world goes on
Without ear or eye,
And the days go by
Till all days are gone;
Man shall do for you,
Men the sons of man,
What no God would do
That they sought unto
While the blind years ran.
Brotherhood of good,
Equal laws and rights,
Freedom, whose sweet food
Feeds the multitude
All their days and nights
With the bread full-fed
Of her body blest
And the soul's wine shed
From her table spread
Where the world is guest,
Mingling me and thee,
When like light of eyes
Flashed through thee and me
Truth shall make us free,
Liberty make wise;
These are they whom day
Follows and gives light
Whence they see to slay
Night, and burn away
All the seed of night.
What of thine and mine,
What of want and wealth,
When one faith is wine
For my heart and thine
And one draught is health?
For no sect elect
Is the soul's wine poured
And her table decked;
Whom should man reject
From man's common board?
Gods refuse and choose,
Grudge and sell and spare;
None shall man refuse,
None of all men lose,
None leave out of care.
No man's might of sight
Knows that hour before;
No man's hand hath might
To put back that light
For one hour the more.
Not though all men call,
Kneeling with void hands,
Shall they see light fall
Till it come for all
Tribes of men and lands.
No desire brings fire
Down from heaven by prayer,
Though man's vain desire
Hang faith's wind-struck lyre
Out in tuneless air.
One hath breath and saith
What the tune shall be -
Time, who puts his breath
Into life and death,
Into earth and sea.
To and fro years flow,
Fill their tides and ebb,
As his fingers go
Weaving to and fro
One unfinished web.
All the range of change
Hath its bounds therein,
All the lives that range
All the byways strange
Named of death or sin.
Star from far to star
Speaks, and white moons wake,
Watchful from afar
What the night's ways are
For the morning's sake.
Many names and flames
Pass and flash and fall,
Night-begotten names,
And the night reclaims,
As she bare them, all.
But the sun is one,
And the sun's name Right;
And when light is none
Saving of the sun,
All men shall have light.
All shall see and be
Parcel of the morn;
Ay, though blind were we,
None shall choose but see
When that day is born.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Pilgrims
Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass
Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?
For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing.
--Our lady of love by you is unbeholden;
For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden
Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we
That love, we know her more fair than anything.
--Is she a queen, having great gifts to give?
--Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live
Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,
Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears;
And when she bids die he shall surely die.
And he shall leave all things under the sky
And go forth naked under sun and rain
And work and wait and watch out all his years.
--Hath she on earth no place of habitation?
--Age to age calling, nation answering nation,
Cries out, Where is she? and there is none to say;
For if she be not in the spirit of men,
For if in the inward soul she hath no place,
In vain they cry unto her, seeking her face,
In vain their mouths make much of her; for they
Cry with vain tongues, till the heart lives again.
--O ye that follow, and have ye no repentance?
For on your brows is written a mortal sentence,
An hieroglyph of sorrow, a fiery sign,
That in your lives ye shall not pause or rest,
Nor have the sure sweet common love, nor keep
Friends and safe days, nor joy of life nor sleep.
--These have we not, who have one thing, the divine
Face and clear eyes of faith and fruitful breast.
--And ye shall die before your thrones be won.
--Yea, and the changed world and the liberal sun
Shall move and shine without us, and we lie
Dead; but if she too move on earth and live,
But if the old world with all the old irons rent
Laugh and give thanks, shall we be not content?
Nay, we shall rather live, we shall not die,
Life being so little and death so good to give.
--And these men shall forget you.--Yea, but we
Shall be a part of the earth and the ancient sea,
And heaven-high air august, and awful fire,
And all things good; and no man's heart shall beat
But somewhat in it of our blood once shed
Shall quiver and quicken, as now in us the dead
Blood of men slain and the old same life's desire
Plants in their fiery footprints our fresh feet.
--But ye that might be clothed with all things pleasant,
Ye are foolish that put off the fair soft present,
That clothe yourselves with the cold future air;
When mother and father and tender sister and brother
And the old live love that was shall be as ye,
Dust, and no fruit of loving life shall be.
--She shall be yet who is more than all these were,
Than sister or wife or father unto us or mother.
--Is this worth life, is this, to win for wages?
Lo, the dead mouths of the awful grey-grown ages,
The venerable, in the past that is their prison,
In the outer darkness, in the unopening grave,
Laugh, knowing how many as ye now say have said,
How many, and all are fallen, are fallen and dead:
Shall ye dead rise, and these dead have not risen?
--Not we but she, who is tender and swift to save.
--Are ye not weary and faint not by the way,
Seeing night by night devoured of day by day,
Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire?
Sleepless: and ye too, when shall ye too sleep?
--We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet,
And surely more than all things sleep were sweet,
Than all things save the inexorable desire
Which whoso knoweth shall neither faint nor weep.
--Is this so sweet that one were fain to follow?
Is this so sure where all men's hopes are hollow.
Even this your dream, that by much tribulation
Ye shall make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight?
--Nay, though our life were blind, our death were fruitless,
Not therefore were the whole world's high hope rootless;
But man to man, nation would turn to nation,
And the old life live, and the old great world be great.
--Pass on then and pass by us and let us be,
For what light think ye after life to see?
And if the world fare better will ye know?
And if man triumph who shall seek you and say?
--Enough of light is this for one life's span,
That all men born are mortal, but not man:
And we men bring death lives by night to sow,
That man may reap and eat and live by day.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Prelude
Between the green bud and the red
Youth sat and sang by Time, and shed
From eyes and tresses flowers and tears,
From heart and spirit hopes and fears,
Upon the hollow stream whose bed
Is channelled by the foamless years;
And with the white the gold-haired head
Mixed running locks, and in Time's ears
Youth's dreams hung singing, and Time's truth
Was half not harsh in the ears of Youth.
Between the bud and the blown flower
Youth talked with joy and grief an hour,
With footless joy and wingless grief
And twin-born faith and disbelief
Who share the seasons to devour;
And long ere these made up their sheaf
Felt the winds round him shake and shower
The rose-red and the blood-red leaf,
Delight whose germ grew never grain,
And passion dyed in its own pain.
Then he stood up, and trod to dust
Fear and desire, mistrust and trust,
And dreams of bitter sleep and sweet,
And bound for sandals on his feet
Knowledge and patience of what must
And what things may be, in the heat
And cold of years that rot and rust
And alter; and his spirit's meat
Was freedom, and his staff was wrought
Of strength, and his cloak woven of thought.
For what has he whose will sees clear
To do with doubt and faith and fear,
Swift hopes and slow despondencies?
His heart is equal with the sea's
And with the sea-wind's, and his ear
Is level to the speech of these,
And his soul communes and takes cheer
With the actual earth's equalities,
Air, light, and night, hills, winds, and streams,
And seeks not strength from strengthless dreams.
His soul is even with the sun
Whose spirit and whose eye are one,
Who seeks not stars by day, nor light
And heavy heat of day by night.
Him can no God cast down, whom none
Can lift in hope beyond the height
Of fate and nature and things done
By the calm rule of might and right
That bids men be and bear and do,
And die beneath blind skies or blue.
To him the lights of even and morn
Speak no vain things of love or scorn,
Fancies and passions miscreate
By man in things dispassionate.
Nor holds he fellowship forlorn
With souls that pray and hope and hate,
And doubt they had better not been born,
And fain would lure or scare off fate
And charm their doomsman from their doom
And make fear dig its own false tomb.
He builds not half of doubts and half
Of dreams his own soul's cenotaph,
Whence hopes and fears with helpless eyes,
Wrapt loose in cast-off cerecloths, rise
And dance and wring their hands and laugh,
And weep thin tears and sigh light sighs,
And without living lips would quaff
The living spring in man that lies,
And drain his soul of faith and strength
It might have lived on a life's length.
He hath given himself and hath not sold
To God for heaven or man for gold,
Or grief for comfort that it gives,
Or joy for grief's restoratives.
He hath given himself to time, whose fold
Shuts in the mortal flock that lives
On its plain pasture's heat and cold
And the equal year's alternatives.
Earth, heaven, and time, death, life, and he,
Endure while they shall be to be.
"Yet between death and life are hours
To flush with love and hide in flowers;
What profit save in these?" men cry:
"Ah, see, between soft earth and sky,
What only good things here are ours!"
They say, "what better wouldst thou try,
What sweeter sing of? or what powers
Serve, that will give thee ere thou die
More joy to sing and be less sad,
More heart to play and grow more glad?"
Play then and sing; we too have played,
We likewise, in that subtle shade.
We too have twisted through our hair
Such tendrils as the wild Loves wear,
And heard what mirth the Maenads made,
Till the wind blew our garlands bare
And left their roses disarrayed,
And smote the summer with strange air,
And disengirdled and discrowned
The limbs and locks that vine-wreaths bound.
We too have tracked by star-proof trees
The tempest of the Thyiades
Scare the loud night on hills that hid
The blood-feasts of the Bassarid,
Heard their song's iron cadences
Fright the wolf hungering from the kid,
Outroar the lion-throated seas,
Outchide the north-wind if it chid,
And hush the torrent-tongued ravines
With thunders of their tambourines.
But the fierce flute whose notes acclaim
Dim goddesses of fiery fame,
Cymbal and clamorous kettledrum,
Timbrels and tabrets, all are dumb
That turned the high chill air to flame;
The singing tongues of fire are numb
That called on Cotys by her name
Edonian, till they felt her come
And maddened, and her mystic face
Lightened along the streams of Thrace.
For Pleasure slumberless and pale,
And Passion with rejected veil,
Pass, and the tempest-footed throng
Of hours that follow them with song
Till their feet flag and voices fail,
And lips that were so loud so long
Learn silence, or a wearier wail;
So keen is change, and time so strong,
To weave the robes of life and rend
And weave again till life have end.
But weak is change, but strengthless time,
To take the light from heaven, or climb
The hills of heaven with wasting feet.
Songs they can stop that earth found meet,
But the stars keep their ageless rhyme;
Flowers they can slay that spring thought sweet,
But the stars keep their spring sublime;
Passions and pleasures can defeat,
Actions and agonies control,
And life and death, but not the soul.
Because man's soul is man's God still,
What wind soever waft his will
Across the waves of day and night
To port or shipwreck, left or right,
By shores and shoals of good and ill;
And still its flame at mainmast height
Through the rent air that foam-flakes fill
Sustains the indomitable light
Whence only man hath strength to steer
Or helm to handle without fear.
Save his own soul's light overhead,
None leads him, and none ever led,
Across birth's hidden harbour-bar,
Past youth where shoreward shallows are,
Through age that drives on toward the red
Vast void of sunset hailed from far,
To the equal waters of the dead;
Save his own soul he hath no star,
And sinks, except his own soul guide,
Helmless in middle turn of tide.
No blast of air or fire of sun
Puts out the light whereby we run
With girded loins our lamplit race,
And each from each takes heart of grace
And spirit till his turn be done,
And light of face from each man's face
In whom the light of trust is one;
Since only souls that keep their place
By their own light, and watch things roll,
And stand, have light for any soul.
A little time we gain from time
To set our seasons in some chime,
For harsh or sweet or loud or low,
With seasons played out long ago
And souls that in their time and prime
Took part with summer or with snow,
Lived abject lives out or sublime,
And had their chance of seed to sow
For service or disservice done
To those days daed and this their son.
A little time that we may fill
Or with such good works or such ill
As loose the bonds or make them strong
Wherein all manhood suffers wrong.
By rose-hung river and light-foot rill
There are who rest not; who think long
Till they discern as from a hill
At the sun's hour of morning song,
Known of souls only, and those souls free,
The sacred spaces of the sea.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lux In Tenebris
When first the Gods, whose Empire is eternal,
In Time’s deep chalice poured Life’s sacred wine,
Flashed all the crystal cup with fire supernal;
Then said they: “Shall the mortal be divine?
Shall man usurp the ways the Gods have trod?
Who quaffs this cup, himself should be a God!”
So tempered they the measure of their giving,
And mingled germs of evil with the good;
So mixed they death with the fierce fire of living,
And anguish with the joy of motherhood;
And with the balm of peace a weird unrest,
And an unformed desire in every breast.
So set they discord in the sweetest singing,
And a sharp thorn about the fairest rose;
And doubt around the cross where faith was clinging,
And fear to haunt the regions of repose;
And dimmed men’s eyes, so that they should not see,
Like Gods, the vistas of futurity.
They coloured failure with hope’s rainbow splendour,
And tinged the hour of triumph with regret;
Made strength subservient to the weak and tender,
And wisdom, folly-caught in beauty’s net;
Till unto man life’s wine was bitter-sweet—
Betwixt the perfect and the incomplete.
Then said the Gods—the Gods who live for ever—
“Let us shower gifts upon the soul of man,
That he may catch a glimpse of our endeavour,
And yet not solve the Universal Plan.
For, though Life’s deepest truths be near to find,
Man shall behold and see not, being blind!”
Thus, to the blessing of the Gods descending,
The universal curse and shadow clung;
The mystic evil with the glory blending
That mars the aeons since the world was young.
For upon all whom the High Gods had blest
There fell the quenchless fever of unrest.
Then rose a ferment and an exaltation,
And all men’s souls were thrilled and stirred within.
There came a prophet unto every nation
To teach new doctrines of the source of sin;
And men arose as Gods, and creeds began
To preach th’ Eternal Godhead one with man.
And ever, thro’ all lands, with waves sonorous,
Rolled on from age to age the stream of song
Which made low valleys sweet with rhythmic chorus,
And shook the rock-bound hills with music strong,
And flushed and fired men’s souls like fumes of wine—
Yet was but human! . . . not a song divine!
For, lo! thro’ all that seemeth inspiration
Enters the curse that blurs created things;
Beyond the barriers of our limitation
Not ever yet a soul has spread its wings!
Nor has been yet, nor ever shall there be,
A perfect song—a perfect harmony!
O music of the wind and of the ocean!—
O Power that sways the glory of the spheres!
O aching hearts that vibrate with emotion!
O mystery of Life! O human tears!
What light shall lead us thro’ the wilderness
From out the Egypt of our bitterness?
O Poets, round whose souls, since the beginning,
Strange echoes tremble and wild visions throng,
Ye all have heard the sweetness of the singing,
But no man knows the meaning of the song
That lifts our frail souls heavenwards with its strain—
Then flings us bleeding to the earth again!
Brothers, my soul has quickened with your gladness.
I, too, have sorrowed over human woe.
I, too, have felt the terror and the madness
That all who seek for truth and light must know.
My faint heart falters in the bitter strife—
The labyrinths of the mysteries of Life.
What hope—what comfort—in our desolation?
What ray to pierce the blackness of our night?
To weary hearts, what balm of consolation
That earth is finite, heaven is infinite?
What tho’ the hand of Faith still points the way—
The voice of Reason ever brings delay.
Nay! tho’ Life’s secret be beyond our dreaming,
And all the creeds that sway the world untrue,
A radiance creeps aslant the shadows gleaming
Whose golden arrows pierce the darkness thro’.
If all our errors hold one germ of right,
The paths that lead to truth are infinite!
Throughout all nature and throughout creation
A Power Supreme its manual sign has writ.
In pain and stress, thro’ aeons of gradation,
Shall the weak soul of man decipher it;
For, since the spirit is above the clay,
Man shall not know th’ Eternal in a day.
Yet, tho’ we know not their immortal places,
And tho’ their footsteps are not heard of man,
And tho’ with mystery they veil their faces
And bid us search the Universal Plan,
And tho’ to all there cometh with Life’s breath
Suffering, and doubt, and weariness, and death—
I sing Eternal Hope and Strong Endeavour,
Truth shining down a myriad aisles of thought;
I sing the deathless souls of men, for ever
By strange, wild paths to one vast triumph brought.
The God in Man—the hunger of the soul—
One with the Wisdom that inspires the Whole!
poem by George Essex Evans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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