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469

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

471

COME, POET, COME!

Come, Poet, come!
A thousand labourers ply their task,
And what it tends to scarcely ask,
And trembling thinkers on the brink
Shiver, and know not how to think.
To tell the purport of their pain,
And what our silly joys contain;
In lasting lineaments pourtray
The substance of the shadowy day;
Our real and inner deeds rehearse,
And make our meaning clear in verse:
Come, Poet, come! for but in vain
We do the work or feel the pain,
And gather up the seeming gain,
Unless before the end thou come
To take, ere they are lost, their sum.
Come, Poet, come!
To give an utterance to the dumb,
And make vain babblers silent, come;
A thousand dupes point here and there,
Bewildered by the show and glare;
472

And wise men half have learned to doubt
Whether we are not best without.
Come, Poet; both but wait to see
Their error proved to them in thee.
Come, Poet, come!
In vain I seem to call. And yet
Think not the living times forget.
Ages of heroes fought and fell
That Homer in the end might tell;
O'er grovelling generations past
Upstood the Doric fane at last;
And countless hearts on countless years
Had wasted thoughts, and hopes, and fears,
Rude laughter and unmeaning tears;
Ere England Shakespeare saw, or Rome
The pure perfection of her dome.
Others, I doubt not, if not we,
The issue of our toils shall see;
Young children gather as their own
The harvest that the dead had sown,
The dead forgotten and unknown.

THE DREAM LAND.

I

To think that men of former days
In naked truth deserved the praise
Which, fain to have in flesh and blood
An image of imagined good,
Poets have sung and men received,
And all too glad to be deceived,
473

Most plastic and most inexact,
Posterity has told for fact;—
To say what was, was not as we,
This also is a vanity.

II

Ere Agamemnon, warriors were,
Ere Helen, beauties equalling her,
Brave ones and fair, whom no one knows,
And brave or fair as these or those.
The commonplace whom daily we
In our dull streets and houses see,
To think of other mould than these
Were Cato, Solon, Socrates,
Or Mahomet or Confutze,
This also is a vanity.

III

Hannibal, Cæsar, Charlemain,
And he before, who back on Spain
Repelled the fierce inundant Moor;
Godfrey, St. Louis, wise and pure,
Washington, Cromwell, John, and Paul,
Columbus, Luther, one and all,
Go mix them up, the false and true,
With Sindbad, Crusoe, or St. Preux,
And say as he was, so was he,
This also is a vanity.

IV

Say not: Behold it here or there,
Or on the earth, or in the air.
That better thing than can be seen
Is neither now nor e'er has been;
474

It is not in this land or that,
But in a place we soon are at,
Where all can seek and some can find,
Where hope is liberal, fancy kind,
And what we wish for we can see,
Which also is a vanity.

IN THE DEPTHS.

It is not sweet content, be sure,
That moves the nobler Muse to song,
Yet when could truth come whole and pure
From hearts that inly writhe with wrong?
'Tis not the calm and peaceful breast
That sees or reads the problem true;
They only know on whom it has prest
Too hard to hope to solve it too.
Our ills are worse than at their ease
These blameless happy souls suspect,
They only study the disease,
Alas, who live not to detect.

DARKNESS.

But that from slow dissolving pomps of dawn
No verity of slowly strengthening light
Early or late hath issued; that the day
Scarce-shown, relapses rather, self-withdrawn;
Back to the glooms of ante-natal night,
For this, O human beings, mourn we may.
475

TWO MOODS.

Ah, blame him not because he's gay!
That he should smile, and jest, and play
But shows how lightly he can bear,
How well forget that load which, where
Thought is, is with it, and howe'er
Dissembled, or indeed forgot,
Still is a load, and ceases not.
This aged earth that each new spring
Comes forth so young, so ravishing
In summer robes for all to see,
Of flower, and leaf, and bloomy tree,
For all her scarlet, gold, and green,
Fails not to keep within unseen
That inner purpose and that force
Which on the untiring orbit's course
Around the sun, amidst the spheres
Still bears her thro' the eternal years.
Ah, blame the flowers and fruits of May,
And then blame him because he's gay.
Ah, blame him not, for not being gay,
Because an hundred times a day
He doth not currently repay
Sweet words with ready words as sweet,
And for each smile a smile repeat.
To mute submissiveness confined,
Blame not, if once or twice the mind
Its pent up indignation wreak
In scowling brow and flushing cheek,
And smiles curled back as soon as born,
To dire significance of scorn.
476

Nor blame if once, and once again
He wring the hearts of milder men,
If slights, the worse if undesigned,
Should seem unbrotherly, unkind;
For though tree wave, and blossom blow
Above, earth hides a fire below;
Her seas the starry laws obey,
And she from her own ordered way,
Swerves not, because it dims the day
Or changes verdure to decay.
Ah, blame the great world on its way,
And then blame him for not being gay.

YOUTH AND AGE.

Dance on, dance on, we see, we see
Youth goes, alack, and with it glee,
A boy the old man ne'er can be;
Maternal thirty scarce can find
The sweet sixteen long left behind;
Old folks must toil, and scrape, and strain,
That boys and girls may once again
Be that for them they cannot be,
But which it gives them joy to see,
Youth goes and glee; but not in vain
Young folks if only you remain.
Dance on, dance on, 'tis joy to see;
The dry red leaves on winter's tree,
Can feel the new sap rising free.
On, on, young folks; so you survive,
The dead themselves are still alive;
The blood in dull parental veins
Long numbed, a tingling life regains.
477

Deep down in earth, the tough old root
Is conscious still of flower and fruit.
Spring goes and glee but were not vain:
In you, young folks, they come again.
Dance on, dance on, we see, we feel;
Wind, wind your waltzes, wind and wheel,
Our senses too with music reel;
Nor let your pairs neglect to fill
The old ancestral scorned quadrille.
Let hand the hand uplifted seek,
And pleasure fly from cheek to cheek;
Love too; but gently, nor astray,
And yet, deluder, yet in play.
Dance on; youth goes: but all's not vain,
Young folks, if only you remain.
Dance on, dance on, 'tis joy to see;
We once were nimble e'en as ye,
And danced to give the oldest glee;
O wherefore add, as we, you too,
Once gone your prime cannot renew;
You too, like us, at last shall stand
To watch and not to join the band,
Content some day (a far-off day)
To your supplanters soft to say,
Youth goes, but goes not all in vain,
Young folks, so only you remain,
Dance on, dance on, 'tis joy to see.
478

SOLVITUR ACRIS HIEMS.

Youth, that went, is come again,
Youth, for which we all were fain;
With soft pleasure and sweet pain
In each nerve and every vein,
Circling through the heart and brain,
Whence and wherefore come again?
Eva, tell me!
Dead and buried when we thought him,
Who the magic spell hath taught him?
Who the strong elixir brought him?
Dead and buried as we thought,
Lo! unasked for and unsought
Comes he, shall it be for nought?
Eva, tell me!
Youth that lifeless long had lain,
Youth that long we longed in vain for,
Used to grumble and complain for,
Thought at last to entertain
A decorous cool disdain for,
On a sudden see again
Comes, but will not long remain,
Comes, with whom too in his train,
Comes, and shall it be in vain?
Eva, tell me!

THESIS AND ANTITHESIS.

If that we thus are guilty doth appear,
Ah, guilty tho' we are, grave judges, hear!
Ah, yes; if ever you in your sweet youth
'Midst pleasure's borders missed the track of truth,
479

Made love on benches underneath green trees,
Stuffed tender rhymes with old new similes,
Whispered soft anythings, and in the blood
Felt all you said not most was understood—
Ah, if you have—as which of you has not?—
Nor what you were have utterly forgot,
Then be not stern to faults yourselves have known,
To others harsh, kind to yourselves alone.
That we, young sir, beneath our youth's green trees
Once did, not what should profit, but should please,
In foolish longing and in love-sick play
Forgot the truth and lost the flying day—
That we went wrong we say not is not true,
But, if we erred, were we not punished too?
If not—if no one checked our wandering feet,—
Shall we our parents' negligence repeat?—
In future times that ancient loss renew,
If none saved us, forbear from saving you?
Nor let that justice in your faults be seen
Which in our own or was or should have been.
Yet, yet, recal the mind that you had then,
And, so recalling, listen yet again;
If you escaped, 'tis plainly understood
Impunity may leave a culprit good;
If you were punished, did you then, as now,
The justice of that punishment allow?
Did what your age consents to now, appear
Expedient then and needfully severe?
In youth's indulgence think there yet might be
A truth forgot by grey severity.
That strictness and that laxity between,
Be yours the wisdom to detect the mean.
480

'Tis possible, young sir, that some excess
Mars youthful judgment and old men's no less;
Yet we must take our counsel as we may
For (flying years this lesson still convey),
'Tis worst unwisdom to be overwise,
And not to use, but still correct one's eyes.

ανεμωλια.

Go, foolish thoughts, and join the throng
Of myriads gone before;
To flutter and flap and flit along
The airy limbo shore.
Go, words of sport and words of wit,
Sarcastic point and fine,
And words of wisdom, wholly fit
With folly's to combine.
Go, words of wisdom, words of sense,
Which, while the heart belied,
The tongue still uttered for pretence,
The inner blank to hide.
Go, words of wit, so gay, so light,
That still were meant express
To soothe the smart of fancied slight
By fancies of success.
Go, broodings vain o'er fancied wrong;
Go, love-dreams vainer still;
And scorn that's not, but would be, strong;
And Pride without a Will.
481

Go, foolish thoughts, and find your way
Where myriads went before,
To languish out your lingering day
Upon the limbo shore.
November, 1850

COLUMBUS.

How in God's name did Columbus get over
Is a pure wonder to me, I protest,
Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover,
Frobisher, Dampier, Drake, and the rest.
Bad enough all the same,
For them that after came,
But, in great Heaven's name,
How he should ever think
That on the other brink
Of this wild waste terra firma should be,
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.
How a man ever should hope to get thither,
E'en if he knew that there was another side;
But to suppose he should come any whither,
Sailing straight on into chaos untried,
In spite of the motion
Across the whole ocean,
To stick to the notion
That in some nook or bend
Of a sea without end
He should find North and South America,
Was a pure madness, indeed I must say, to me.
482

What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy,
Judged that the earth like an orange was round,
None of them ever said, Come along, follow me,
Sail to the West, and the East will be found.
Many a day before
Ever they'd come ashore,
From the ‘San Salvador,’
Sadder and wiser men
They'd have turned back again;
And that he did not, but did cross the sea,
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.

EVEN THE WINDS AND THE SEA OBEY.

Said the Poet, I wouldn't maintain,
As the mystical German has done,
That the land, inexistent till then,
To reward him then first saw the sun;
And yet I could deem it was so,
As o'er the new waters he sailed,
That his soul made the breezes to blow,
With his courage the breezes had failed;
His strong quiet purpose had still
The hurricane's fury withheld;
The resolve of his conquering will
The lingering vessel impelled:
For the beings, the powers that range
In the air, on the earth, at our sides,
Can modify, temper and change
Stronger things than the winds and the tides,
By forces occult can the laws—
As we style them—of nature o'errule;
Can cause, so to say, every cause,
And our best mathematics befool;
483

Can defeat calculation and plan,
Baffle schemes ne'er so wisely designed,
But will bow to the genius of man,
And acknowledge a sovereign mind.

REPOSE IN EGYPT.

O happy mother!—while the man wayworn
Sleeps by his ass and dreams of daily bread,
Wakeful and heedful for thy infant care—
O happy mother!—while thy husband sleeps,
Art privileged, O blessed one, to see
Celestial strangers sharing in thy task,
And visible angels waiting on thy child.
Take, O young soul, O infant heaven-desired,
Take and fear not the cates, although of earth,
Which to thy hands celestial hands extend,
Take and fear not: such vulgar meats of life
Thy spirit lips no more must scorn to pass;
The seeming ill, contaminating joys,
Thy sense divine no more be loth to allow;
The pleasures as the pains of our strange life
Thou art engaged, self-compromised, to share.
Look up, upon thy mother's face there sits
No sad suspicion of a lurking ill,
No shamed confession of a needful sin;
Mistrust her not, although of earth she too:
Look up! the bright-eyed cherubs overhead
Strew from mid air fresh flowers to crown the just.
Look! thy own father's servants these, and thine,
Who at his bidding and at thine are here.
In thine own word was it not said long since
484

Butter and honey shall he eat, and learn
The evil to refuse and choose the good:
Fear not, O babe divine, fear not, accept;
O happy mother, privileged to see,
While the man sleeps, the sacred mystery.

TO A SLEEPING CHILD.

Lips, lips, open!
Up comes a little bird that lives inside—
Up comes a little bird, and peeps, and out he flies.
All the day he sits inside, and sometimes he sings,
Up he comes, and out he goes at night to spread his wings.
Little bird, little bird, whither will you go?
Round about the world, while nobody can know.
Little bird, little bird, whither do you flee?
Far away around the world, while nobody can see.
Little bird, little bird, how long will you roam?
All round the world and around again home;
Round the round world, and back through the air,
When the morning comes, the little bird is there.
Back comes the little bird and looks and in he flies,
Up wakes the little boy, and opens both his eyes.
Sleep, sleep, little boy, little bird's away,
Little bird will come again, by the peep of day;
Sleep, little boy, the little bird must go
Round about the world, while nobody can know.
Sleep, sleep sound, little bird goes round,
Round and round he goes;—sleep, sleep sound.
485

TRANSLATIONS FROM GOETHE.

I

[Over every hill]

Over every hill
All is still;
In no leaf of any tree
Can you see
The motion of a breath.
Every bird has ceased its song,
Wait; and thou too, ere long,
Shall be quiet in death.

II

[Who ne'er his bread with tears hath ate]

Who ne'er his bread with tears hath ate,
Who never through the sad night hours
Weeping upon his bed hath sate,
He knows not you, you heavenly powers.
Forth into life you bid us go,
And into guilt you let us fall,
Then leave us to endure the woe
It brings unfailingly to all.

III

[You complain of the woman for roving from one to another:—]

You complain of the woman for roving from one to another:—
Where is the constant man whom she is trying to find?

IV

[Slumber and Sleep, two brothers appointed to serve the immortals]

Slumber and Sleep, two brothers appointed to serve the immortals,
By Prometheus were brought hither to comfort mankind;
486

But what in heaven was light, to human creatures was heavy:—
Slumber became our Sleep, Sleep unto mortals was Death.

V

[Oh, the beautiful child! and oh, the most happy mother!]

Oh, the beautiful child! and oh, the most happy mother!
She in her infant blessed, and in its mother the babe—
What sweet longing within me this picture might not occasion,
Were I not, Joseph, like you, calmly condemned to stand by!

VI

[Diogenes by his tub, contenting himself with the sunshine]

Diogenes by his tub, contenting himself with the sunshine,
And Calanus with joy mounting his funeral pyre:—
Great examples were these for the eager approving of Philip,
But for the Conqueror of Earth were, as the earth was, too small.

URANUS.

When on the primal peaceful blank profound,
Which in its still unknowing silence holds
All knowledge, ever by withholding holds—
When on that void (like footfalls in far rooms),
In faint pulsations from the whitening East
Articulate voices first were felt to stir,
And the great child, in dreaming grown to man,
487

Losing his dream to piece it up began;
Then Plato in me said,
‘'Tis but the figured ceiling overhead,
With cunning diagrams bestarred, that shine
In all the three dimensions, are endowed
With motion too by skill mechanical,
That thou in height, and depth, and breadth, and power,
Schooled unto pure Mathesis, might proceed
To higher entities, whereof in us
Copies are seen, existent they themselves
In the sole kingdom of the Mind and God.
Mind not the stars, mind thou thy Mind and God.’
By that supremer Word
O'ermastered, deafly heard
Were hauntings dim of old astrologies;
Chaldean mumblings vast, with gossip light
From modern ologistic fancyings mixed,
Of suns and stars, by hypothetic men
Of other frame than ours inhabited,
Of lunar seas and lunar craters huge.
And was there atmosphere, or was there not?
And without oxygen could life subsist?
And was the world originally mist?—
Talk they as talk they list,
I, in that ampler voice,
Unheeding, did rejoice.

SELENE.

My beloved, is it nothing
Though we meet not, neither can,
That I see thee, and thou me,
That we see, and see we see,
488

When I see I also feel thee;
Is it nothing, my beloved?
Thy luminous clear beauty
Brightens on me in my night,
I withdraw into my darkness
To allure thee into light.
About me and upon me I feel them pass and stay,
About me, deep into me, every lucid tender ray.
And thou, thou also feelest
When thou stealest
Shamefaced and half afraid
To the chamber of thy shade,
Thou in thy turn,
Thou too feelest
Something follow, something yearn,
A full orb blaze and burn.
My full orb upon thine,
As thine erst, gently smiling,
Softly wooing, sweetly wiling,
Gleamed on mine;
So mine on thine in turn
When thou feelest blaze and burn,
Is it nothing, my beloved?
My beloved, is it nothing
When I see thee and thou me,
When we each other see,
Is it nothing, my beloved?
Closer, closer come unto me.
Shall I see thee and no more?
I can see thee, is that all?
Let me also,
489

Let me feel thee,
Closer, closer, my beloved,
Come unto me, come to me, come!
O cruel, cruel lot, still thou rollest, stayest not,
Lookest onward, look'st before,
Yet I follow, evermore.
Oh, cold and cruel fate, thou rollest on thy way,
Scarcely lookest, will not stay,
From thine alien way.
The inevitable motion
Bears me forth upon the line
Whose course I cannot see.
I must move as it conveys me
Evermore. It so must be.
O cold one, and I round thee
Revolve, round only thee,
Straining ever to be nearer
While thou evadest still;
Repellest still, O cold one,
Nay, but closer, closer, closer,
My beloved, come, come, come!
The inevitable motion
Carries both upon its line,
Also you as well as me.
What is best, and what is strongest,
We obey. It so must be.
Cruel, cruel, didst thou only
Feel as I feel evermore,
A force, though in, not of me,
Drawing inward, in, in, in.
490

Yea, thou shalt though, ere all endeth,
Thou shalt feel me closer, closer,
My beloved, close, close to thee,
Come to thee, come, come, come!
The inevitable motion
Bears us both upon its line
Together, you as me,
Together and asunder,
Evermore. It so must be.

AT ROME.

O, richly soiled and richly sunned,
Exuberant, fervid, and fecund!
Is this the fixed condition
On which may Northern pilgrim come,
To imbibe thine ether-air, and sum
Thy store of old tradition?
Must we be chill, if clean, and stand
Foot-deep in dirt on classic land?
So is it: in all ages so,
And in all places man can know,
From homely roots unseen below
The stem in forest, field, and bower,
Derives the emanative power
That crowns it with the ethereal flower,
From mixtures fœtid, foul, and sour
Draws juices that those petals fill.
Ah Nature, if indeed thy will
Thou own'st it, it shall not be ill!
And truly here, in this quick clime,
Where, scarcely bound by space or time,
491

The elements in half a day
Toss off with exquisitest play
What our cold seasons toil and grieve,
And never quite at last achieve;
Where processes, with pain, and fear,
Disgust, and horror wrought, appear
The quick mutations of a dance,
Wherein retiring but to advance,
Life, in brief interpause of death,
One moment sitting taking breath,
Forth comes again as glad as e'er,
In some new figure full as fair,
Where what has scarcely ceased to be,
Instinct with newer birth we see—
What dies, already, look you, lives;
In such a clime, who thinks, forgives;
Who sees, will understand; who knows,
In calm of knowledge find repose,
And thoughtful as of glory gone,
So too of more to come anon,
Of permanent existence sure,
Brief intermediate breaks endure.
O Nature, if indeed thy will,
Thou ownest it, it is not ill!
And e'en as oft on heathy hill,
On moorland black, and ferny fells,
Beside thy brooks and in thy dells,
Was welcomed erst the kindly stain
Of thy true earth, e'en so again
With resignation fair, and meet
The dirt and refuse of thy street,
My philosophic foot shall greet,
So leave but perfect to my eye
Thy columns, set against thy sky!
492

LAST WORDS. NAPOLEON AND WELLINGTON.

NAPOLEON.
Is it this, then, O world-warrior,
That, exulting, through the folds
Of the dark and cloudy barrier
Thine enfranchised eye beholds?
Is, when blessed hands relieve thee
From the gross and mortal clay,
This the heaven that should receive thee?
‘Tête d'armée.’
Now the final link is breaking,
Of the fierce, corroding chain,
And the ships, their watch forsaking,
Bid the seas no more detain,
Whither is it, freed and risen,
The pure spirit seeks away,
Quits for what the weary prison?
‘Tête d'armée.’
Doubtless—angels, hovering o'er thee
In thine exile's sad abode,
Marshalled even now before thee,
Move upon that chosen road!
Thither they, ere friends have laid thee
Where sad willows o'er thee play,
Shall already have conveyed thee!
‘Tête d'armée.’
Shall great captains, foiled and broken,
Hear from thee on each great day,
493

At the crisis, a word spoken—
Word that battles still obey—
‘Cuirassiers here, here those cannon;
‘Quick, those squadrons, up—away!
‘To the charge, on—as one man, on!’
‘Tête d'armée.’
(Yes, too true, alas! while, sated
Of the wars so slow to cease,
Nations, once that scorned and hated,
Would to Wisdom turn, and Peace;
Thy dire impulse still obeying,
Fevered youths, as in the old day,
In their hearts still find thee saying,
‘Tête d'armée.’)
Oh, poor soul!—Or do I view thee,
From earth's battle-fields withheld,
In a dream, assembling to thee
Troops that quell not, nor are quelled,
Breaking airy lines, defeating
Limbo-kings, and, as to-day,
Idly to all time repeating
‘Tête d'armée.’

WELLINGTON.
And what the words, that with his failing breath
Did England hear her aged soldier say?
I know not. Yielding tranquilly to death,
With no proud speech, no boast, he passed away.
Not stirring words, nor gallant deeds alone,
Plain patient work fulfilled that length of life;
Duty, not glory—Service, not a throne,
Inspired his effort, set for him the strife.
494

Therefore just Fortune, with one hasty blow,
Spurning her minion, Glory's, Victory's lord,
Gave all to him that was content to know,
In service done its own supreme reward.
The words he said, if haply words there were,
When full of years and works he passed away,
Most naturally might, methinks, refer
To some poor humble business of to-day.
‘That humble simple duty of the day
Perform,’ he bids; ‘ask not if small or great:
Serve in thy post; be faithful, and obey;
Who serves her truly, sometimes saves the State.’

1852

PESCHIERA.

What voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost?
‘'Tis better to have fought and lost,
Than never to have fought at all.’
The tricolor—a trampled rag
Lies, dirt and dust; the lines I track
By sentry boxes yellow-black,
Lead up to no Italian flag.
I see the Croat soldier stand
Upon the grass of your redoubts;
The eagle with his black wings flouts
The breath and beauty of your land.
495

Yet not in vain, although in vain,
O men of Brescia, on the day
Of loss past hope, I heard you say
Your welcome to the noble pain.
You say, ‘Since so it is,—good bye
Sweet life, high hope; but whatsoe'er
May be, or must, no tongue shall dare
To tell, “The Lombard feared to die!”’
You said (there shall be answer fit),
‘And if our children must obey,
They must; but thinking on this day
'Twill less debase them to submit.’
You said (Oh not in vain you said),
‘Haste, brothers, haste, while yet we may;
The hours ebb fast of this one day
When blood may yet be nobly shed.’
Ah! not for idle hatred, not
For honour, fame, nor self-applause,
But for the glory of the cause,
You did, what will not be forgot.
And though the stranger stand, 'tis true,
By force and fortune's right he stands;
By fortune, which is in God's hands,
And strength, which yet shall spring in you.
This voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost,
‘'Tis better to have fought and lost,
Than never to have fought at all.’
1849
496

ALTERAM PARTEM.

Or shall I say, Vain word, false thought,
Since prudence hath her martyrs too,
And Wisdom dictates not to do,
Till doing shall be not for nought.
Not ours to give or lose is life;
Will Nature, when her brave ones fall,
Remake her work? or songs recall
Death's victim slain in useless strife?
That rivers flow into the sea
Is loss and waste, the foolish say,
Nor know that back they find their way,
Unseen, to where they wont to be.
Showers fall upon the hills, springs flow,
The river runneth still at hand,
Brave men are born into the land,
And whence the foolish do not know.
No! no vain voice did on me fall,
Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost,
‘'Tis better to have fought and lost,
Than never to have fought at all.’
1849

SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH.

Say not, the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
497

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main,
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.
1849
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