Introit : VIII. The Golden Joy
What has the poet but a glorious phrase
And the heart's wisdom? -- Oh, a Joy of gold!
A Joy to mint and squander on the Kind,--
Pure gold coined current for eternity,
Giving dear wealth to men for a long age,
And after, lost to sight and touch of hands,
Leaving a memory that will bud and bloom
And blossom all into a lyric phrase--
The glorious phrase again on other lips,
The heritage of Joy, the heart again,
Wisdom anew that ages not but lives
To Sappho-sing the Poet else forgot.
O Joy! O secret transport of mystic vision,
Who hold'st the keys of Ivory and Horn,
Who join'st the hands of Earth and Faerie!
Thou art the inmate of the hermit soul
That shuns the touch of every street-worn wind
Sweet to all else, the shuns doctrine and doubt,
To wait in trembling quietness for thee.
Thou art the spouse of the busy human mind
That bravely, sanely, bears his worldly part
And claims no favour for the gift of thee:
But, Nature's child, lives true in Nature's right,
Filling the duties of the Tribe of Man,
Keeping the heart, O Joy! untarnished still
And pinion-strong to soar the exalted way.
The Poet guards the philosophic soul
In contemplation that no importunate thought
May mar his ecstasy or change his song;
And though he see the gloom and sing of sorrow,
He is the world's Herald of Joy at last:
His song is Joy, the music that needs sorrow
To fill its closes, as Death fulfils Life,
As Life fills Time, and Time Eternity:
Joy that sees Death, yet in Death sees not woe.
O Joy! the Spring is green -- on many a wall
The roses straggle, on many a tree dew-laden;
And now the waters murmur 'neath their banks
And all the flocks are loud with firstling cries,
And in the heart of life Joy wakes anew
To live a long day ere the winter falls;
And now the song of an invisible lark,
And now a child's voice makes the morning glad;
The kindling sky and the mist-wreathed earth
Have broken from the drowsihood of night,--
Dawn widened grey, but now the orient blush
Is over all the roses on the wall,
Over the drooping trees that wait the winds
To join them to the murmur of the day.
The Pilgrim Seer who journeyed silently
When all the ways were Winter, wild and bare,
Tarries to-day to hear the call of bliss,--
Of Joy, Joy, Joy! thou emblem, symbol, sign
Of all the Pilgrim's dream of Paradise--
The Beatific Vision of Beauty supreme!
Thou art the Angel of the Gate of Heaven!
Thou art the great Vice-regent of the King!
Then forward goes and will not brook Life's house,
Yearning to dwell far away, far away,
In the wide palace of Eternity--
To hold a life beyond this birth and death
With the high Prophets in their calm sublime.--
Ah yet, in Joy's despite, his heart will keep
Memorial futile melancholy thought
Of this and some that never knew the gold!
And so he turns, bows down to toil with men,
To toil and strive and care for earthy cares;
The common life that has her claim on all
Claims him, and yet leaves him his ecstasy;
Knowing the glooms of life and the dark nights,
Sure of the dawns and the white Summer days,
He sings in twilight and the state of Job
One golden Dawn and one enduring Wealth!
So he keeps ever burning in his heart
The fire eternal that will flame and shine
When the man lies compounded with the rest
Who never knew to look upon his light,
Whose light none saw, whose lives are all forgot.
One is Eternity to common man,
Twain to the poet soul;-- though his name die,
Though after fall of years many or few
His phrases wander out of memory's fold,
His soul is twain, a heritage has he,
His dreams are children dreams and parent dreams.
What has the Poet but a glorious phrase
And the heart's wisdom? He has naught to do
With April changes that your lives endue,
Sunshine and shadow. Him your blame and praise
Trouble in calm along the spirit's ways
That are with the great Change, unchanging, true,
With the great Silence where no voice is new
And no voice old -- a train of prophet days.
What but the Golden Joy that sacred stands
As gift of Paradise to human art?
For though the lust of the world still claims and brands
All others, the Joy stands for us apart
And will not fail or tarnish touched by hands
That highly bear the trust of poet heart.
So would I rhythm and rime the glorious phrase
In this Spring lyric morning of my day,
When brown and green and nebulous silver lie
Quiet and happy 'neath the vernal pomp
Of that rich sky,--- the trees a dome of song,
Song in the waters, in the sea-born wind,
And in the human soul the Cherub hymn
Of Joy, which is the heart's philosophy.
Dear holy hymn, yet wert thou sad to hear
Matched with the dream song of the Ivory Gate
That waked a boy to rapture long ago,
That raised a boy to poet in an hour,
That the boy failed to mimic with his voice
But held heart-hid against his vocal day
And sings here to thee, Joy, this lyric morn!
For first he sang out of a book of Death
Before his day, and then with weaker voice
Chanted a resurrection, sang for Hope
All in a Spring like this, before his day.
Of Beauty now which is the light of Hope
He sings and of the Quest that cannot cease
Voyaging to Wonder on an endless road;
But chiefly and over all and through the whole
Sings yet the memory of untaught days
When dawn and dark brought to the waiting soul
The vision that he sees now through the dusk
Leading him back to thy tranquility.
I saw last night again the Unknown Land,
And, travelled far, I stood beside a sea
Whose pale waves crowding stared head over head
And mouthed warning inarticulate.
Spirits of poets they, high called and lost,
Thus missing half the Man's eternity
For gaining half the Poet's, Joy forgone.
And there by the dread waste of liquid life
My feet were set upon a living shore
Wrought of the souls that never knew the Joy
And never needed, never lost, -- all dumb
But at long rest while the waves turn and toss.
These quiet I loved more than the quick foam,
And yet the human pity at my heart
Stirred and would draw me to that passionate shame,
But that the Joy flamed and the glorious phrase
Broke into rapture: the waves wept to hear,
Wept for the exaltation once their own,
Wept for the gold they never more may spend
In mintage of the phrase upon the Kind,
Wept, wept, to scatter from the spirit's tower
The joy-notes and the glory of this song.
I hastened thence to spare them cruelty
Out through the Ivory Gate,-- and thus I know
The dream was but a symbol of the true.
It is the Spring and these the songs of Spring,
Songs of the rathe rose and the lily's hope;--
For now the Poet hears the lily call
That came to Christ from beauty's natural shrine
And, through his lips, soared sacred out and up
Into the space beyond of holiness,
The aether of the rapture of High God.
Oh! it steals to us like the breath of dawn
That fills the pipes of Nature with sweet sounds,--
Steals low and swells anon into a chant
To throb and triumph through the heart of Spring
With the clear canticle of Love that hails
The orient Epiphany of Joy.
And now the poet heart is calling too
And called aloud by every voice divine
Behind our wall out through the lattices.
Now is the season of the Golden Joy,
Now is the season of the birth of Love--
The perfect passion of the heart of God,
The rapture of the beauty of the world,
The rapture of eternity of bliss!
For all our Winters pass and all rains go,
And all the flowers of Joy appear again,
And Spring is green with figs more beautiful
And sweet with odours of the mystic Tree
That droops its branches over Heaven and Earth,
Scattering flowers and fruit and passionate wine
Down into all the places of the sun,
And into all the nether places dim,
Fragrant with ecstasy of Joy and Peace.
And who will steep his senses in the flowers
And who will feed his spirit on the fruit
And who will his veins with the great wine
Shall see no Winters and shall feel no rains
But Joy perpetual in the Land of God.
poem by Thomas MacDonagh
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Introit : V. Litany Of Beauty
Joy, if the Soul or aught immortal be,
How may this Beauty know mortality?
O Beauty, perfect child of Light,
Sempiternal spirit of delight!
White and set with gold like the gold of the night,
The gold of the stars in quiet weather,--
White and shapely and pure!--
O lily-flower from stain secure,
With life and virginity dying together!
One lily liveth so,
Liveth for ever unstained, immortal, a mystic flower:
Perfectly wrought its frame,
Gold inwrought and eternal white,
White more white than cold of the snow,
For never, never, near it came,
Never shall come till the end of all,
Hurtful thing in wind or shower,
Worm or stain or blight;
But ever, ever, gently fall
The dews elysian of years that flow
Where it doth live secure
In flawless comeliness mature,
Golden and white and pure.
In the fair far-shining glow
Of eternal and holy Light.
Beauty of earthly things
Wrought by God and with hands of men!
Beauty of Nature and Art,
Fashioned anew for each Time brings,
For each new soul and living heart!
Beauty of Beauty that fills the ken
Till the soul is swooning, faint with delight!
Beauty of human form and voice,
Of eyes and ears and lips!--
O golden hair and brow of white!--
Wine of Beauty that whoso sips
Doth die to a spirit free, and rejoice,
Living with God and living with men,
Rapt rejoice in eternal bliss,
Raising his face to meet the kiss
Of the Beauty seraphic he sees above
In figure of his love.
O Beauty of Wisdom unsought
That in trance to poet is taught,
Uttered in secret lay,
Singing the heart from earth away,
Cunning the soul from care to lure,--
O mystic lily, from stain and death secure,
Till the end of all to stay!
O shapely flower that must for ever endure!
O voice of God that every heart must hear!
O hymn of purest souls that dost unsphere
The ravished soul that hears! O white, white gem!
O rose that dost the senses drown in bliss!
No thought shall stay the wing, or stem
The song or win the heart to miss
Thy love, thy joy, thy rapture divine!
O Beauty, Beauty, ever thine
The soul, the heart, the brain,
To own three in a loud perpetual strain,
Shriller and sweeter than song of wine,
Than song of sorrow or love or war!
Beauty of heaven and sun and day,
Beauty of water and frost and star,
Beauty of dusk-tide, narrowing, grey!
Beauty of silver light,
Beauty of purple night,
Beauty of solemn breath,
Beauty of closèd eye, and sleep, and death!
Beauty of dawn and dew,
Beauty of morning peace,
Ever ancient and ever new,
Ever renewed till waking cease
Or sleep for ever, when loud the angel's word
Through all the world is heard!
Beauty of brute and bird,
Beauty of earthly creatures
Whose hearts by the hand of God are stirred!
Beauty of the soul,
Beauty informing forms and features,
Fairest to God's eye,--
Beauty that cannot fade or die
Though atoms to ruin roll!
Beauty of blinded Trust,
Led by the hand of God
To a heaven where Cherub hath never trod!
Austere Beauty of Truth
Lighting the way of the just!
Splendid Beauty of Youth
Staying when Youth is sped,
Living when Life is dead,
Burning in funeral dust!
The glory of form doth pale and pall,
Beauty endures to the end of all.
poem by Thomas MacDonagh
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The Grave Of A Poetess
I stood beside thy lowly grave;
Spring-odours breath'd around,
And music, in the river-wave,
Pass'd with a lulling sound.
All happy things that love the sun,
In the bright air glanc'd by,
And a glad murmur seem'd to run
Thro' the soft azure sky.
Fresh leaves were on the ivy-bough
That fring'd the ruins near;
Young voices were abroad–but thou
Their sweetness couldst not hear.
And mournful grew my heart for thee,
Thou in whose woman's mind
The ray that brightens earth and sea,
The light of song was shrined.
Mournful, that thou wert slumbering low,
With a dread curtain drawn
Between thee and the golden glow
Of this world's vernal dawn.
Parted from all the song and bloom
Thou wouldst have lov'd so well,
To thee the sunshine round thy tomb
Was but a broken spell.
The bird, the insect on the wing,
In their bright reckless play,
Might feel the flush and life of spring,–
And thou wert pass'd away!
But then, ev'n then, a nobler thought
O'er my vain sadness came;
Th' immortal spirit woke, and wrought
Within my thrilling frame.
Surely on lovelier things, I said,
Thou must have look'd ere now,
Than all that round our pathway shed
Odours and hues below.
The shadows of the tomb are here,
Yet beautiful is earth!
What see'st thou then where no dim fear,
No haunting dream hath birth?
Here a vain love to passing flowers
Thou gav'st–but where thou art,
The sway is not with changeful hours,
There love and death must part.
Thou hast left sorrow in thy song,
A voice not loud, but deep!
The glorious bowers of earth among,
How often didst thou weep!
Where couldst thou fix on mortal ground
Thy tender thoughts and high?–
Now peace the woman's heart hath found,
And joy the poet's eye.
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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At Dawn and Dusk
At Dawn and Dusk
Love-Laurel
IN MEMORY OF HENRY KENDALL
AH! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth’s breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song’s sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.
Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledge of the soft-eyed Spring;
But Death sits there, with outspread ebon wing,
Closing with dust the mouth of each new-comer
To that mute land, where never sound of seas
Is heard, and no birds sing.
Now thou hast found the end of all thy days
Hast thou found any heart a vigil keeping
For thee among the dead—some heart that heard
Thy singing when thou wert a brown, sweet bird
Gray Æons gone, in some old forest sleeping
Beneath the seas long since? in Death’s dim ways
Has thy heart any word?
For surely those in whom the deathless spark
Of song is kindled, sang from the beginning
If life were always? But the old desires—
Do they exist when sad-eyed Hope expires?
How live the dead? what crowns have they for winning?
Have they, to warm them in the dreamless dark,
For sun earth’s central fires?
Are the dead dead indeed whom we call dead?
Has God no life but this of ours for giving?—
When that they took thee by each well-known place,
Stark in thy coffin with a cold white face,
What thought, O Brother, hadst thou of the living?
What of the sun that round thee glory shed?
What of the fair day’s grace?
Is thy new life made up of memories
Or dreams that lull the dead, bright visions bringing
Of Spring above! Are thy days short or long?
Thou who wert master of our singing throng
Mayhap in death thou hast not lost thy singing,
But chauntst unheard, beside the moaning sea,
A solitary song.
The chance spade turns up skulls. God help the dead
And thee whose singing days have all passed over—
Thee, whom the gold-haired Spring shall seek in vain
When at the glad year’s doors she stands again,
Remembering the song-garlands thou hast wove her
In years gone by: but all these years have fled
With all their joy and pain.
. . . . .
My soul laughed out to hear my heart speak so,
And sprang forth skyward, as an eagle, hoping
To look upon thy soul with living eyes,
Until it came to where our dim life dies,
And dead suns darkly for a grave are groping
Through cycles of immeasurable woe,
Stone-blind in the blind skies.
The stars walk shuddering on that awful verge
From which my soul, with swift and fearless motion,
Clove the black depths, and sought for God and thee;
But God dwells where nor stars nor suns there be—
No shore there is to His Eternal Ocean;
A thousand systems are a fringe of surge
On that great starless sea.
And thou wert not. So that, with weary plumes,
My soul through the great void its way came winging
To earth again. “What hope for him who sings
Is there?” it sighed. “Death ends all sweetest things.”
When lo! there came a swell of mighty singing,
Flooding all space, and swift athwart the glooms
A flash of sudden wings.
. . . . .
Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth’s secret bosom
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
Across the golden sea.
But haply there shall come in days to be
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul, as sword from out its sheath,
Song shall leap forth where now, O silent master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea,
I lay this laurel-wreath.
poem by Victor James Daley
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Love-Laurel
Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth’s breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song’s sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.
Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledge of the soft-eyed Spring;
But Death sits there, with outspread ebon wing,
Closing with dust the mouth of each new-comer
To that mute land, where never sound of seas
Is heard, and no birds sing.
Now thou hast found the end of all thy days
Hast thou found any heart a vigil keeping
For thee among the dead—some heart that heard
Thy singing when thou wert a brown, sweet bird
Gray Æons gone, in some old forest sleeping
Beneath the seas long since? in Death’s dim ways
Has thy heart any word?
For surely those in whom the deathless spark
Of song is kindled, sang from the beginning
If life were always? But the old desires—
Do they exist when sad-eyed Hope expires?
How live the dead? what crowns have they for winning?
Have they, to warm them in the dreamless dark,
For sun earth’s central fires?
Are the dead dead indeed whom we call dead?
Has God no life but this of ours for giving?—
When that they took thee by each well-known place,
Stark in thy coffin with a cold white face,
What thought, O Brother, hadst thou of the living?
What of the sun that round thee glory shed?
What of the fair day’s grace?
Is thy new life made up of memories
Or dreams that lull the dead, bright visions bringing
Of Spring above! Are thy days short or long?
Thou who wert master of our singing throng
Mayhap in death thou hast not lost thy singing,
But chauntst unheard, beside the moaning sea,
A solitary song.
The chance spade turns up skulls. God help the dead
And thee whose singing days have all passed over—
Thee, whom the gold-haired Spring shall seek in vain
When at the glad year’s doors she stands again,
Remembering the song-garlands thou hast wove her
In years gone by: but all these years have fled
With all their joy and pain.
My soul laughed out to hear my heart speak so,
And sprang forth skyward, as an eagle, hoping
To look upon thy soul with living eyes,
Until it came to where our dim life dies,
And dead suns darkly for a grave are groping
Through cycles of immeasurable woe,
Stone-blind in the blind skies.
The stars walk shuddering on that awful verge
From which my soul, with swift and fearless motion,
Clove the black depths, and sought for God and thee;
But God dwells where nor stars nor suns there be—
No shore there is to His Eternal Ocean;
A thousand systems are a fringe of surge
On that great starless sea.
And thou wert not. So that, with weary plumes,
My soul through the great void its way came winging
To earth again. “What hope for him who sings
Is there?” it sighed. “Death ends all sweetest things.”
When lo! there came a swell of mighty singing,
Flooding all space, and swift athwart the glooms
A flash of sudden wings.
Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth’s secret bosom
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
Across the golden sea.
But haply there shall come in days to be
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul, as sword from out its sheath,
Song shall leap forth where now, O silent master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea,
I lay this laurel-wreath.
poem by Victor James Daley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Sir Walter Scott
DEAD!—it was like a thunderbolt
To hear that he was dead;
Though for long weeks the words of fear
Came from his dying bed;
Yet hope denied, and would deny—
We did not think that he could die.
The poet has a glorious hold
Upon the human heart,
Yet glory is from sympathy
A light alone—apart;
But there was something in thy name,
Which touched us with a dearer claim
The earnest feeling borne to thee
Was like a household tie,
A sunshine on our common life,
And from our daily sky.
Thy works are those familiar things
From which so much of memory springs.
We talked of them beside the hearth,
Till every story blends
With some remembered intercourse
Of near and dearest friends,
Friends that in early youth were ours.
Connected with life's happiest hours.
How well I can recall the time
When first I turned thy page,
The green boughs closed above my head
A natural hermitage;
And sang a little brook along,
As if it heard and caught thy song.
I peopled all the walks and shades
With images of thine;
The lime-tree was a lady's bower,
The yew-tree was a shrine:
Almost I deemed each sunbeam shone
O'er banner, spear, and morion.
Now, not one single trace is left
Of that sequestered nook;
The very course is turned aside
Of that melodious brook:
Not so the memories can depart,
Then garner'd in my inmost heart.
The past was his—his generous song
Went back to other days,
With filial feeling, which still sees
Something to love and praise,
And closer drew the ties which bind
Man with his country and his kind.
It rang throughout his native land,
A bold and stirring song,
As the merle's hymn at matin sweet,
And as the trumpet strong:
A touch there was of each degree,
Half minstrel and half knight was he.
How many a lonely mountain glade
Lives in his verse anew,
Linked with associate sympathy,
The tender and the true;
For nature has fresh beauty brought,
When animate with life from thought.
'Tis not the valley nor the hill,
Tho' beautiful they be,
That can suffice the heart, till touched
As they were touched by thee;
Thou who didst glorify the whole,
By pouring forth the poet's soul.
Who now could stand upon the banks
Of thine own 'silver Tweed?'
Nor deem they heard thy 'warrior's horn,'
Or heard thy 'shepherd's reed?'
Immutable as Nature's claim,
The ground is hallowed by thy name.
I cannot bear to see the shelf
Where ranged thy volumes stand,
And think that mute is now thy lip,
And cold is now thy hand;
That, hadst thou been more common clay,
So soon thou hadst not passed sway,
For thou didst die before thy time,
The tenement o'erwrought,
The heart consumed by its desire,
The body worn by thought;
Thyself the victim of thy shrine,
A glorious sacrifice was thine.
Alas, it is too soon for this—
The future for thy fame;
But now we mourn as if we mourned
A father's cherished claim.
Ah! time may bid the laurel wave—
We can but weep above thy grave.
poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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A Song In Our Heart
We have a song we love to sing, a special song about our King.
Friend this King will always be, The King through all of Eternity.
This song we sing in our heart, throughout our day plays a part,
As the sweet melody within, reminds us that we belong to Him.
Friend, The King of all Eternity, through The Spirit, lives in me,
My heart became His Throne, when He made me His very own.
God gave me brand new life, through The Savior Jesus Christ,
Who fills my heart all day long, with a new and everlasting song.
A song unlike any other friend, for once it begins, it has no end.
The song will then fill your heart, with Christ’s love from the start.
Christ then fills you with a peace, from God that will never cease.
And in this song you shall find, God’s comfort for heart and mind.
Friend, this song, you shall see, will focus you heart on Eternity.
The song is lead by The Holy Spirit, and not all men can hear it.
But The Spirit fills you with mirth, the day you receive new birth.
It then continues in eternal song, when we join Heaven’s throng.
Christ can make all things new, and this day He can start in you.
When you let Him be your King, you too will have a song to sing,
As He fills your heart with love, that only comes from God above.
And just like His song of peace, the Love of God will never cease.
(Copyright ©03/2006)
The Hamadryad.
Last night I was like one who prayed
Beneath a mystic tree
Whose windless leaves a murmur made,
As if it there might be
A spirit in the sap that laid
Its spell on them and me.
A creature who, invisible,
In sorrow and in mirth,
Through summer's heat or when the chill
Is on the dreaming Earth,
Sings as in sleep divinely still
The secret of its birth.
(And as it sings, possessed, apart
From all things far and near,
The music of its own strange heart
Is all it seems to hear,
As if its ardour made an art
Of its own atmosphere.
Still none who come there hear the song
Until their souls are bowed
Beneath the mystic boughs, among
Whose living leaves a crowd
Of spirit voices, weak and strong,
Sing all that God allowed).
Oh! wondrous was that faery strain,
Too holy to be heard
But by the soul with no profane
Imagination stirr'd —
Like a seer when his heart and brain
Are in the coming word,
And he bows low before the breath
Of that which, as a flame,
All that he is illumineth
And calls him as by name,
When one to him are Life and Death,
One honour and one shame.
Ah! so possessed I heard them sing,
The many voices who
Were the sense of a secret thing
That with the tree-life grew,
As it did from the same seed spring
And a dream-breath from it drew —
The mystic life which God had shut
Within the dark seed's core,
Diverse from all that He had put
In others evermore —
No hint of death behind it, but
Of life that is before!
The tree-life in more lives than this —
Of that it sings for aye —
And as I listened the world's hiss
In silence died away,
And the perfect life for all that is
Like a dream on me lay.
poem by Robert Crawford
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A Dead Friend
I.
Gone, O gentle heart and true,
Friend of hopes foregone,
Hopes and hopeful days with you
Gone?
Days of old that shone
Saw what none shall see anew,
When we gazed thereon.
Soul as clear as sunlit dew,
Why so soon pass on,
Forth from all we loved and knew
Gone?
II.
Friend of many a season fled,
What may sorrow send
Toward thee now from lips that said
'Friend'?
Sighs and songs to blend
Praise with pain uncomforted
Though the praise ascend?
Darkness hides no dearer head:
Why should darkness end
Day so soon, O dear and dead
Friend?
III.
Dear in death, thou hast thy part
Yet in life, to cheer
Hearts that held thy gentle heart
Dear.
Time and chance may sear
Hope with grief, and death may part
Hand from hand's clasp here:
Memory, blind with tears that start,
Sees through every tear
All that made thee, as thou art,
Dear.
IV.
True and tender, single-souled,
What should memory do
Weeping o'er the trust we hold
True?
Known and loved of few,
But of these, though small their fold,
Loved how well were you!
Change, that makes of new things old,
Leaves one old thing new;
Love which promised truth, and told
True.
V.
Kind as heaven, while earth's control
Still had leave to bind
Thee, thy heart was toward man's whole
Kind.
Thee no shadows blind
Now: the change of hours that roll
Leaves thy sleep behind.
Love, that hears thy death-bell toll
Yet, may call to mind
Scarce a soul as thy sweet soul
Kind.
VI.
How should life, O friend, forget
Death, whose guest art thou?
Faith responds to love's regret,
How?
Still, for us that bow
Sorrowing, still, though life be set,
Shines thy bright mild brow.
Yea, though death and thou be met,
Love may find thee now
Still, albeit we know not yet
How.
VII.
Past as music fades, that shone
While its life might last;
As a song-bird's shadow flown
Past!
Death's reverberate blast
Now for music's lord has blown
Whom thy love held fast.
Dead thy king, and void his throne:
Yet for grief at last
Love makes music of his own
Past.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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O Heart of Spring
O HEART of Spring!
Spirit of light and love and joyous day,
So soon to faint beneath the fiery Summer:
Still smiles the Earth, eager for thee alway:
Welcome art thou, soever short thy stay,
Thou bold, thou blithe newcomer!
Whither, O whither this thy journeying,
O heart of Spring?
O heart of Spring!
After the stormy days of Winter’s reign,
When the keen winds their last lament are sighing,
The Sun shall raise thee up to life again:
In thy dim death thou shalt not suffer pain:
Surely thou dost not fear this quiet dying?
Whither, O whither this thy journeying,
O heart of Spring?
O heart of Spring!
Youth’s emblem, ancient and unchanging light,
Uncomprehended, unconsumed, still burning:
Oh that we could, as thou, rise from the night
To find a world of blossoms lilac-white,
And long-winged swallows unafraid returning…
Whither, O whither this thy journeying,
O heart of Spring?
poem by John Shaw Neilson
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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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MDCCCXCIII: A Prelude
Sweet days of breaking light,
or yet the shadowy might
and blaze of starry strife
possess’d my life;
sweet dawn of Beauty’s day,
first hint and smiling play
of the compulsive force
that since my course
across the years obeys;
not tho’ all earlier days
in me were buried, not
were ye forgot. –-
The northern kingdom’s dream,
prison’d in crystal gleam,
heard the pale flutes of spring,
her thin bells ring;
the tranced maiden’s eyes
open’d a far surmise,
and heavens and meadows grew
a tender blue
of petal-hearts that keep
thro’ their dark winter-sleep
true memory of delight,
a hidden light.
Then by her well Romance
waiting the fabled chance
dream’d all the forest-scene
in shifting green;
and Melusina’s gaze
lurk’d in the shadow’d glaze
of waters gliding still,
a witching ill;
or lost Undine wept
where the hid streamlet crept,
to the dusk murmuring low
her silvery woe.
Dim breaths in the dim shade
of the romantic glade
told of the timid pain
that hearken’d, fain,
how Beauty came to save
the prison’d life and wave
above the famish’d lands
her healing hands
(Beauty, in hidden ways
walking, a leafy maze
with magic odour dim,
far on life’s rim;
Beauty, sweet pain to kiss,
Beauty, sharp pain to miss,
in sorrow or in joy
a dear annoy;
Beauty, with waiting years
that bind the fount of tears
well-won if once her light
shine, before night).
Then the shy heart of youth
dared know its weening sooth,
then first thy godhead, Sun,
it’s life’s light one,
what time the hour outroll’d
its banner blazon’d gold
and all the honey’d time
rang rich with rhyme—-
rhyme, and the liquid laugh
of girlish spring, to quaff
granted each heart, and shed
about each head
a sound of harping blown
and airs of elfin tone
and gipsy waifs of song,
a dancing throng.
The yellow meads of May
acclaim’d the louder lay,
more rapturously athirst
for that fierce burst
of Summer’s clarioning,
what time his fulgent wing
should cleave the crystal spell
his hot eyes tell
each charm beneath the veil
his eager hands assail
and his red lips be prest
against her breast,
filling her every vein
with the diviner pain
of life beyond all dream
burning, supreme—-
(O natural ecstasy!
O highest grace, to be,
in every pulse to know
the Sungod’s glow!)
Thence the exulting strain
sped onward as a rain
of gold-linked notes
from unseen throats,
till the mad heart, adust,
of August’s aching lust
to do her beauty wrong
broke, and the song;
and in her poppied fate
ken life, grown all too great,
illumed with grateful breath
the lips of death. –-
But those deep fibres hold
the season’s mortal gold,
by silent alchemy
of soul set free,
and woven in vision’d shower
as each most secret hour
sheds the continuing bliss
in song or kiss. –-
O poets I have loved
when in my soul first moved
desire to breathe in one
love, song and sun,
your pages that I turn,
your jewelled phrases burn
richly behind a haze
of golden days. –-
And, O ye golden days,
tho’ since on stranger ways
to some undying war
the fatal star
of unseen Beauty draw
this soul, to occult law
obedient ever, not
are ye forgot.
poem by Christopher John Brennan
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A Bird and flower upon the tree
A bird and flower upon the tree,
Sweet peony and oriole,
Each of them a perfect soul,
Song and sweetness manifest
The bird and flower we love the best
Side by side on the tall tree.
'Flower who art sunlight and fire, flower who art perfume and joy,
Sweetest of sweet,
Ah for the gift withheld!
Ah for the given gift's alloy!
Why must thy spirit exhale only in beauty and breath?
Ah for the voice thou hast not! I by thy side on the tree,
Telling the world of love, pain, and all raptures that be,
Raptures of laughter and life, raptures of tears and death,
Singing my heart to heaven, singing to earth at my feet;
Silence in thee.'
'Bird who art dew-drops and flame, bird who art rapture and song,
Sweetest of sweet,
Lo there's a voice part mine, songs that to me too belong,
Songs that grew of my growth, voice that has breathed my breath.
Bird that while I sit mute singest beside on the tree,
Hast thou ever a song taking no perfume of me?
Give forth my sweetness in song; bird, thou art singing for both,
Singing our hearts to heaven, singing to earth at our feet;
My voice in thee.'
On the tree-top side by side,
Sweet oriole and peony;
Music rings through earth and sky,
Sweet and sweet in sweetness lost
The flower and bird we love the most,
On the tree-top side by side.
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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The Poet To Be Yet
NOT he who sings smooth songs that soothe—
Sweet opiates that lull asleep
The sorrow that would only weep;
There are some spirit-stains so deep
That only tears may wash away.
Not he whose lays thrill fiercely till
The soul is sick with surfeiting,
Such passion flies, and leaves its sting,
Till through the body quivering
The wearied dull pain throbs again.
Not he whose glad voice says “Rejoice!”
For whom no clouds o'ercast the sky;
Whose god is in his heaven so high
That this dull world he come not nigh:
Life is no sun-kissed optimist!
But he who Sorrow's presence knows,
Who hears the minor chords beneath
The song of life, and feels the breath
Upon his cheek of quiet death,
Yet stirs and sings of life and love.
Who in his suffering yet can sing;
With that calm pathos in his face—
The hopeless yearning of the race—
Can chant the faith that holds its place,
Upsurging through each sore heart's speech;
Who, though his heart bleed, onward leads;
Who knows eternal is our quest,
Yet bids us toil and strive—not rest—
Who looks life o'er and takes its best—
This is the poet to be yet!
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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In Early Spring
O Spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise
In the young children's eyes.
But I have learnt the years, and know the yet
Leaf-folded violet.
Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell
The cuckoo's fitful bell.
I wander in a gray time that encloses
June and the wild hedge-roses.
A year's procession of the flowers doth pass
My feet, along the grass.
And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know
The notes that stir you so,
Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear
Beginnings of the year.
In these young days you meditate your part;
I have it all by heart.
I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers
Hidden and warm with showers,
And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall
Alter his interval.
But not a flower or song I ponder is
My own, but memory's.
I shall be silent in those days desired
Before a world inspired.
O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases,
Earth, thy familiar daisies.
The poet mused upon the dusky height,
Between two stars towards night,
His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space,
The meaning of his face:
There was the secret, fled from earth and skies,
Hid in his gray young eyes.
My heart and all the Summer wait his choice,
And wonder for his voice.
Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire
But to divine his lyre?
Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries,
But he is lord of his.
poem by Alice Meynell
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Third Sunday After Easter
Well may I guess and feel
Why Autumn should be sad;
But vernal airs should sorrow heal,
Spring should be gay and glad:
Yet as along this violet bank I rove,
The languid sweetness seems to choke my breath,
I sit me down beside the hazel grove,
And sigh, and half could wish my weariness were death.
Like a bright veering cloud
Grey blossoms twinkle there,
Warbles around a busy crowd
Of larks in purest air.
Shame on the heart that dreams of blessings gone,
Or wakes the spectral forms of woe and crime,
When nature sings of joy and hope alone,
Reading her cheerful lesson in her own sweet time.
Nor let the proud heart say,
In her self-torturing hour,
The travail pangs must have their way,
The aching brow must lower.
To us long since the glorious Child is born
Our throes should be forgot, or only seem
Like a sad vision told for joy at morn,
For joy that we have waked and found it but a dream.
Mysterious to all thought
A mother's prime of bliss,
When to her eager lips is brought
Her infant's thrilling kiss.
O never shall it set, the sacred light
Which dawns that moment on her tender gaze,
In the eternal distance blending bright
Her darling's hope and hers, for love and joy and praise.
No need for her to weep
Like Thracian wives of yore,
Save when in rapture still and deep
Her thankful heart runs o'er.
They mourned to trust their treasure on the main,
Sure of the storm, unknowing of their guide:
Welcome to her the peril and the pain,
For well she knows the bonus where they may safely hide.
She joys that one is born
Into a world forgiven,
Her Father's household to adorn,
And dwell with her in Heaven.
So have I seen, in Spring's bewitching hour,
When the glad Earth is offering all her best,
Some gentle maid bend o'er a cherished flower,
And wish it worthier on a Parent's heart to rest.
poem by John Keble
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A New Year's Morning Song
Thanksgiving and the voice of melody,
This new year's morning, call me from my sleep;
A new, sweet song is in my heart for Thee,
Thou faithful, tender Shepherd of the sheep;
Thou knowest where to find, and how to keep
The feeble feet that tremble where they stray, —
O'er the dark mountains — through the whelming deep —
Thy everlasting mercy makes its way.
The past is not so dark as once it seemed,
For there Thy footprints, now distinct, I see;
And seed in weakness sown, from death redeemed,
Is springing up, and bearing fruit in Thee.
Not all that hath been, Lord, henceforth shall be;
A low, sweet, cheering strain is in mine ear,
Thanksgiving, and the voice of melody,
Are leading in, from Heaven, a blest new year.
With voice subdued, my listening spirit sings,
As backward on the trodden path I gaze,
While ministering angels fold their wings,
To fill with lowly thoughts my song of praise.
The shadow of the past on future days,
Will make them clear to my instructed sight;
For the heart's knowledge of Thy sacred ways,
Even in its deepest, darkest shades, is light.
I am not stronger — yet I do not fear
The present pain, the conflict yet to be;
Experience is a kind voice in mine ear,
And all my failures bid me lean on Thee.
No future suffering can seem strange to me,
While in the hidden part I feel and know
The wisdom of a child at rest and free
In the tried love, whose judgment keeps him low.
Thanksgiving and the voice of melody!
O, to my tranquil heart how sweet the strain!
Father of mercies, it arose in Thee,
And to Thy bosom it returns again.
There let my grateful song, my soul, remain,
Calm in the risen Savior's tender care;
And welcome any trial, any pain,
That serves to keep thy faithful children there.
Thoughts of Thy love — and O, how great the sum!
Enduring grief, obtaining bliss for me;
The world, life, death, things present, things to come,
All swell a new year's opening melody.
Past, present, future, all things worship Thee;
And I, through all, with trembling joy behold,
While mountains fall, and treacherous visions flee,
Thy wandering sheep returning to the fold.
poem by Anna Laetitia Waring
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Requiem
To what bright world afar didst thou belong,
Thou whose pure soul seemed not of mortal birth?
From what fair clime of flowers and love and song,
Cam'st thou, a star beam to our shadowed earth?
What hadst thou done, sweet spirit in that sphere,
That thou wert banished here?
Here, where our blossoms early fade and die,
Where autumn frosts despoil our loveliest bowers,
Where song goes up to heaven an anguished cry
From wounded hearts, like perfume from crushed flowers;
Where Love despairing waits and weeps in vain,
His Psyche to regain.
Thou cam'st not unattended on thy way; --
Spirits of grace and beauty, joy and love,
Were with thee ever, bearing each some ray
From the far home that thou hadst left above;
And ever at thy side, upon our sight
Gleamed forth their wings of light.
We heard their voices in the gushing song
That rose like incense from thy poet heart;
We saw the footsteps of the shining throng
Glancing upon thy pathway, high apart,
Where in thy radiance thou didst walk the earth,
Thou child of glorious birth.
But the way lengthened and the song grew sad,
Breathing those tones that find no echo here;
Aspiring, soaring, but no longer glad,
Its mournful music fell upon the ear:
'Twas the home-sickness of a soul that sighs
For its own native skies.
Then he that to earth's children comes at last,
The angel-messenger, white-robed and pale,
Upon thy soul his sweet oblivion cast,
And bore thee gently through the shadowy vale,
The fleeting years of thy brief exile o'er,
Home to the blissful shore.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Properzia Rossi
Tell me no more, no more
Of my soul's lofty gifts! Are they not vain
To quench its haunting thirst for happiness?
Have I not lov'd, and striven, and fail'd to bind
One true heart unto me, whereon my own
Might find a resting-place, a home for all
Its burden of affections? I depart,
Unknown, tho' Fame goes with me; I must leave
The earth unknown. Yet it may be that death
Shall give my name a power to win such tears
As would have made life precious.
I.
ONE dream of passion and of beauty more!
And in its bright fulfillment let me pour
My soul away! Let earth retain a trace
Of that which lit my being, tho' its race
Might have been loftier far. Yet one more dream!
From my deep spirit one victorious gleam
Ere I depart! For thee alone, for thee!
May this last work, this farewell triumph be,
Thou, lov'd so vainly! I would leave enshrined
Something immortal of my heart and mind,
That yet may speak to thee when I am gone,
Shaking thine inmost bosom with a tone
Of lost affection; something that may prove
What she hath been, whose melancholy love
On thee was lavish'd; silent pang and tear,
And fervent song, that gush'd when none were near,
And dream by night, and weary thought by day,
Stealing the brightness from her life away,
While thou, Awake! not yet within me die,
Under the burden and the agony
Of this vain tenderness my spirit, wake!
Ev'n for thy sorrowful affection's sake,
Live! in thy work breathe out! that he may yet
Feeling sad mastery there, perchance regret
Thine unrequited gift.
II.
It comes, the power
Within me born, flows back; my fruitless dower
That could not win me love. Yet once again
I greet it proudly, with its rushing train
Of glorious images: they throng they press
A sudden joy lights up my loneliness,
I shall not perish all!
The bright work grows
Beneath my hand, unfolding, as a rose,
Leaf after leaf, to beauty; line by line,
I fix my thought, heart, soul, to burn, to shine,
Thro' the pale marble's veins. It grows and now
I give my own life's history to thy brow,
Forsaken Ariadne! thou shalt wear
My form, my lineaments; but oh! more fair,
Touched into lovelier being by the glow
Which in me dwells, as by the summer-light
All things are glorified. From thee my wo
Shall yet look beautiful to meet his sight,
When I am pass'd away. Thou art the mould,
Wherein I pour the fervent thoughts, th' untold,
The self-consuming! Speak to him of me,
Thou, the deserted by the lonely sea,
With the soft sadness of thine earnest eye,
Speak to him, lorn one, deeply, mournfully,
Of all my love and grief! Oh! could I throw
Into thy frame a voice, a sweet, and low,
And thrilling voice of song! when he came nigh,
To send the passion of its melody
Thro' his pierced bosom on its tones to bear
My life's deep feeling as the southern air
Wafts the faint myrtle's breath, to rise, to swell,
To sink away in accents of farewell,
Winning but one, one gush of tears, whose flow
Surely my parted spirit yet might know,
If love be strong as death!
III.
Now fair thou art,
Thou form, whose life is of my burning heart!
Yet all the vision that within me wrought,
I cannot make thee! Oh! I might have given
Birth to creations of far nobler thought,
I might have kindled, with the fire of heaven,
Things not of such as die! But I have been
Too much alone; a heart, whereon to lean,
With all these deep affections that o'erflow
My aching soul, and find no shore below,
An eye to be my star; a voice to bring
Hope o'er my path like sounds that breathe of spring,
These are denied me dreamt of still in vain,
Therefore my brief aspirings from the chain,
Are ever but as some wild fitful song,
Rising triumphantly, to die ere long
In dirge-like echoes.
IV.
Yet the world will see
Little of this, my parting work, in thee,
Thou shalt have fame! Oh, mockery! give the reed
From storms a shelter, give the drooping vine
Something round which its tendrils may entwine,
Give the parch'd flower a rain-drop, and the meed
Of love's kind words to woman! Worthless fame!
That in his bosom wins not for my name
Th' abiding place it ask'd! Yet how my heart,
In its own fairy world of song and art,
Once beat for praise! Are those high longings o'er?
That which I have been can I be no more?
Never, oh! never more; tho' still thy sky
Be blue as then, my glorious Italy!
And tho' the music, whose rich breathings fill
Thine air with soul, be wandering past me still,
And tho' the mantle of thy sunlight streams
Unchang'd on forms instinct with poet-dreams;
Never, oh! never more! Where'er I move,
The shadow of this broken-hearted love
Is on me and around! Too well they know,
Whose life is all within, too soon and well,
When there the blight hath settled; but I go
Under the silent wings of Peace to dwell;
From the slow wasting, from the lonely pain,
The inward burning of those words 'in vain',
Sear'd on the heart I go. 'Twill soon be past,
Sunshine, and song, and bright Italian heaven,
And thou, oh! thou, on whom my spirit cast
Unvalued wealth, who know'st not what was given
In that devotedness, the sad, and deep,
And unrepaid farewell! If I could weep
Once, only once, belov'd one! on thy breast,
Pouring my heart forth ere I sink to rest!
But that were happiness, and unto me
Earth's gift is fame. Yet I was form'd to be
So richly bless'd! With thee to watch the sky,
Speaking not, feeling but that thou wert nigh:
With thee to listen, while the tones of song
Swept ev'n as part of our sweet air along,
To listen silently; with thee to gaze
On forms, the deified of olden days,
This had been joy enough; and hour by hour,
From its glad well-springs drinking life and power,
How had my spirit soar'd, and made its fame
A glory for thy brow! Dreams, dreams! the fire
Burns faint within me. Yet I leave my name?
As a deep thrill may linger on the lyre
When its full chords are hush'd?awhile to live,
And one day haply in thy heart revive
Sad thoughts of me: I leave it, with a sound,
A spell o'er memory, mournfully profound;
I leave it, on my country's air to dwell,
Say proudly yet?'
'Twas hers who lov'd me well!
'
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Robert Louis Stevenson
An Elegy
High on his Patmos of the Southern Seas
Our northern dreamer sleeps,
Strange stars above him, and above his grave
Strange leaves and wings their tropic splendours wave,
While, far beneath, mile after shimmering mile,
The great Pacific, with its faery deeps,
Smiles all day long its silken secret smile.
Son of a race nomadic, finding still
Its home in regions furthest from its home,
Ranging untired the borders of the world,
And resting but to roam;
Loved of his land, and making all his boast
The birthright of the blood from which he came,
Heir to those lights that guard the Scottish coast,
And caring only for a filial fame;
Proud, if a poet, he was Scotsman most,
And bore a Scottish name.
Death, that long sought our poet, finds at last,
Death, that pursued him over land and sea:
Not his the flight of fear, the heart aghast
With stony dread of immortality,
He fled 'not cowardly';
Fled, as some captain, in whose shaping hand
Lie the momentous fortunes of his land,
Sheds not vainglorious blood upon the field,
Death! why at last he finds his treasure isle,
And he the pirate of its hidden hoard;
Life! 'twas the ship he sailed to seek it in,
And Death is but the pilot come aboard,
Methinks I see him smile a boy's glad smile
On maddened winds and waters, reefs unknown,
As thunders in the sail the dread typhoon,
And in the surf the shuddering timbers groan;
Horror ahead, and Death beside the wheel:
Then--spreading stillness of the broad lagoon,
And lap of waters round the resting keel.
Strange Isle of Voices! must we ask in vain,
In vain beseech and win no answering word,
Save mocking echoes of our lonely pain
From lonely hill and bird?
Island beneath whose unrelenting coast,
As though it never in the sun had been,
The whole world's treasure lieth sunk and lost,
Unsunned, unseen.
For, either sunk beyond the diver's skill,
There, fathoms deep, our gold is all arust,
Or in that island it is hoarded still.
Yea, some have said, within thy dreadful wall
There is a folk that know not death at all,
The loved we lost, the lost we love, are there.
Will no kind voice make answer to our cry,
Give to our aching hearts some little trust,
Show how 'tis good to live, but best to die?
Some voice that knows
Whither the dead man goes:
We hear his music from the other side,
Maybe a little tapping on the door,
A something called, a something sighed--
No more.
O for some voice to valiantly declare
The best news true!
Then, Happy Island of the Happy Dead,
How gladly would we spread
Impatient sail for you!
O vanished loveliness of flowers and faces,
Treasure of hair, and great immortal eyes,
Are there for these no safe and secret places?
And is it true that beauty never dies?
Soldiers and saints, haughty and lovely names,
Women who set the whole wide world in flames,
Poets who sang their passion to the skies,
And lovers wild and wise:
Fought they and prayed for some poor flitting gleam,
Was all they loved and worshipped but a dream?
Is Love a lie and fame indeed a breath,
And is there no sure thing in life--but death?
Or may it be, within that guarded shore,
He meets Her now whom I shall meet no more
Till kind Death fold me 'neath his shadowy wing:
She whom within my heart I softly tell
That he is dead whom once we loved so well,
He, the immortal master whom I sing.
Immortal! yea, dare we the word again,
If aught remaineth of our mortal day,
That which is written--shall it not remain?
That which is sung, is it not built for aye?
Faces must fade, for all their golden looks,
Unless some poet them eternalise,
Make live those golden looks in golden books;
Death, soon or late, will quench the brightest eyes--
'Tis only what is written never dies.
Yea, memories that guard like sacred gold
Some sainted face, they also must grow old,
Pass and forget, and think--or darest thou not!--
On all the beauty that is quite forgot.
Strange craft of words, strange magic of the pen,
Whereby the dead still talk with living men;
Whereby a sentence, in its trivial scope,
May centre all we love and all we hope;
And in a couplet, like a rosebud furled,
Lie all the wistful wonder of the world.
Old are the stars, and yet they still endure,
Old are the flowers, yet never fail the spring:
Why is the song that is so old so new,
Known and yet strange each sweet small shape and hue?
How may a poet thus for ever sing,
Thus build his climbing music sweet and sure,
As builds in stars and flowers the Eternal mind?
Ah, Poet, that is yours to seek and find!
Yea, yours that magisterial skill whereby
God put all Heaven in a woman's eye,
Nature's own mighty and mysterious art
That knows to pack the whole within the part:
The shell that hums the music of the sea,
The little word big with Eternity,
The cosmic rhythm in microcosmic things--
One song the lark and one the planet sings,
One kind heart beating warm in bird and tree--
To hear it beat, who knew so well as he?
Virgil of prose! far distant is the day
When at the mention of your heartfelt name
Shall shake the head, and men, oblivious, say:
'We know him not, this master, nor his fame.'
Not for so swift forgetfulness you wrought,
Day upon day, with rapt fastidious pen,
Turning, like precious stones, with anxious thought,
This word and that again and yet again,
Seeking to match its meaning with the world;
Nor to the morning stars gave ears attent,
That you, indeed, might ever dare to be
With other praise than immortality
Unworthily content.
Not while a boy still whistles on the earth,
Not while a single human heart beats true,
Not while Love lasts, and Honour, and the Brave,
Has earth a grave,
O well-beloved, for you!
poem by Richard Le Gallienne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Milton
I
Lover of beauty, walking on the height
Of pure philosophy and tranquil song;
Born to behold the visions that belong
To those who dwell in melody and light;
Milton, thou spirit delicate and bright!
What drew thee down to join the Roundhead throng
Of iron-sided warriors, rude and strong,
Fighting for freedom in a world half night?
Lover of Liberty at heart wast thou,
Above all beauty bright, all music clear:
To thee she bared her bosom and her brow,
Breathing her virgin promise in thine ear,
And bound thee to her with a double vow, --
Exquisite Puritan, grave Cavalier!
II
The cause, the cause for which thy soul resigned
Her singing robes to battle on the plain,
Was won, O poet, and was lost again;
And lost the labour of thy lonely mind
On weary tasks of prose. What wilt thou find
To comfort thee for all the toil and pain?
What solace, now thy sacrifice is vain
And thou art left forsaken, poor, and blind?
Like organ-music comes the deep reply:
"The cause of truth looks lost, but shall be won.
For God hath given to mine inward eye
Vision of England soaring to the sun.
And granted me great peace before I die,
In thoughts of lowly duty bravely done."
III
O bend again above thine organ-board,
Thou blind old poet longing for repose!
Thy Master claims thy service not with those
Who only stand and wait for his reward.
He pours the heavenly gift of song restored
Into thy breast, and bids thee nobly close
A noble life, with poetry that flows
In mighty music of the major chord.
Where hast thou learned this deep, majestic strain,
Surpassing all thy youthful lyric grace,
To sing of Paradise? Ah, not in vain
The griefs that won at Dante's side thy place,
And made thee, Milton, by thy years of pain,
The loftiest poet of the Saxon race!
poem by Henry Van Dyke
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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