University of Virginia Library

I.

[What though the glow of love in me be past]

What though the glow of love in me be past,
And my full sacrifice of thee complete,
The tears all wept, the heart-aches borne, yet, sweet,
Be thou my friend while life and pain shall last.
Am I not proud? I would not bid thee cast
Thine eyes so low that they with mine may meet,
Nor yet can crouch with lovers at thy feet,
Nor wear thy pity warm against the blast.
I bid thee but be noble as thou art,
That I may have one friend to honour left
Amid the wreck and ravage of my hopes,
That so the burning scorn that eats my heart
May not consume me quite, but through a cleft
One saviour star shine out of heaven that opes.

II.

[Violet! what a fragrance in that name!]

Violet! what a fragrance in that name!
A waft in autumn of the sweets of spring.
Is not the violet the loveliest thing
That the young season of the year can claim?
Are not the summer's roses red as shame,
And gold the sheaf of autumn's harvesting
As the false metals that false pleasures bring,
But fresh the violet as first boyhood's flame?
But yet, some other name should thine have been,
Whose step is like the ruffling of a storm
Across the dark green waters of the sea,—
Some breath of Babylon's Titanic queen,
Some hint of Artemis, a huntress form,
Or Rhea with Saturn's head upon her knee.

III.

[Love, marry, and be happy in thy home]

Love, marry, and be happy in thy home,
For mine is love that asks for no return,
A star content all unobserved to burn
In some remotest coigne of heaven's great dome
Steadfast and still, as spirits having clomb
The sky of fame, their bright eyes seldom turn
From filling with gold ewers the o'erflowing urn
Of gracious gifts given freely, till it foam.
Yet do not marry, for where lives the man
Could for a moment hold the fragile chain
Should bind thy goddess-limbs in vassalage?
I see with quivering lip, and eyes that scan
His human stature with a god's disdain,
Thee rend him piecemeal in a Maenad's rage.

IV.

[The scorn that shows to others undisguised]

The scorn that shows to others undisguised
The haughty gestures of thy queen-like mood,
Thy royal beauty, and thine ancient blood
Conspire to honour me, poor and despised,
For song, by the mean hucksters nothing prized
Who worship wealth, nor ever understood
Me in my song, thee in thy womanhood,
Each in our loftier spheres imparadised.
Oh wed not thou with one of these, a slave
To lay thy fortune on a harlot's knee,
Whose native vice shall loathe thy stately bed.
But be thy choice one simple, high, and brave,
Whom I may honour as I honour thee.
But these base times have none: so never wed.

V.

[Behold me wrecked, gone down in shattering seas]

Behold me wrecked, gone down in shattering seas,
Swathed in dead seaweed, beaten on dead rocks,
Drifted and driven with oft-repeated shocks
Among the deeps of life. Woe and disease
Smite on me like the whirlpool and the breeze;
Yet 'mid the shriek of the hoarse flying flocks,
The hissing sea, the howling wind that mocks,
I keep a good heart, and am well at ease.
What though my shivered armour gape to drink
The bitterness of every wandering tide?
What though I have no harbourage, no home?
My sightless hulk feels from the orient's brink,
Slanting across the waters woful-wide,
Love's holy dawn that kindles the waste foam.

VI.

[When I shall quail before the bitter blast]

When I shall quail before the bitter blast,
That drives me desperate on the surf forlorn,
When on my shattered masts and canvas torn
Turning a hopeless eye, you see me cast
Prostrate my pride, and wail over the past.
And give the pitiless heavens excuse of scorn,
Craving to know the reason I was born,—
Then leave me having found me base at last.
Nay, as thou wilt: nay, leave me not at all,
For I am strong, but Heaven is merciless;
And man is weak on the elemental sea;
Nay when you come to find me thus a thrall,
I cannot let you leave me comfortless:—
I can but suffer you to pity me.

VII.

[Through rain and storm I press my lonely flight]

Through rain and storm I press my lonely flight,
A sea-gull battling with the winds of heaven:
Beneath, the ocean white and tempest-riven;
Above, the black unfathomable night,
Seamed with the net-work of the lightnings white;
Full in mine eyes the blinding sea-spray driven;
Before, behind me, night; to guide me given
Nought but the burning of an inward light.
Ah yes, the light that guides me burns within,
A high blind instinct that impels me on,
The sea-bird's love of battle and storm that cheers.
And see from that same quarter I would win
A still small star breaks flower, where no star shone,
And shines on me afar off as through tears.

VIII.

[My spirit turns to thee in my dark hour]

My spirit turns to thee in my dark hour
Instinctive, as the sea-wave to the sand,
The wind to the sweet-scented meadow-land,
The comet to the sun, bee to the flower,
The weak will to the strong will's greater power,
The nervous ship to the helm's quick command,
The horse to each turn of his rider's hand,
And to the wind the vane on spire and tower;
Ay, as the fine magnetic needles find
With sensitive and trembling sympathy
The altered region of the star-girt pole
With each turn of the prow: e'en so my mind
With each change of my place and destiny
Seeks out afresh the dwelling of thy soul,

IX.

[Yet pole, or polestar have a fixéd site]

Yet pole, or polestar have a fixéd site
And only by relation change in place
To the vexed mariner: but of thy sweet face
How shall I say it shines with constant light,
Being set in heaven so far out of my sight?
While the abundance of its bounteous grace
Perchance is now diffusèd over space,
Kindling the urns of countless lamps of night.
Again, I answer, as the needle knows
The polar fixity by its own sure sense
That, seeming fickle, its aims never veers:
Or by result. We trust the pole that shows
The safe path through the reefs and islets dense:
I thee, who guidest me through life's griefs and fears.

X.

[Each star that burns in heaven has a home.]

Each star that burns in heaven has a home.
Pure white they move among their families,
Their infant lights clustered about their knees;
Or, steadfast, hold up in the doubtful gloom
A torch of bright example. Hither come
The lesser lights, and, hovering, drink at ease
Gold draughts of wisdom, hanging mute on these.
But the uncompanioned comet? It must roam.
Swart, gloomy, trailing its own agony,
A weary weight of devastating flame
That preys on its own fiery heart with fire,
It goes; and if some sister star draw nigh,
Inspiring love, the miserable sees with shame
Her, blasted at his touch, and wrecked, expire.

XI.

[Behold from opposite quarters of the sky]

Behold from opposite quarters of the sky,
Destined for one another, on they sail,
He fierce and red, she timorous and pale;
Doomed for each other by ill destiny,
Sinister, calm, like a great tragedy,
Two kindred lives, the female and the male,
Halves of the same life severed to their bale,
Magnetic, hungering, thirsting, they draw nigh;
Though yet each knows not if the other be,
Or if indeed that aching want be vain,
And all things desolate on life's howling flood.
They meet, they kiss, take fire, and, as at sea
Two flaming ships, locked in each other's pain,
They drift to death, reddening the heavens with blood

XII.

[Behold the plague-wind. From some orient fen]

Behold the plague-wind. From some orient fen
It rises spreading out its foggy wings
And wreathing in long curls its smoke-like rings,—
A great wise serpent, darting far its ken,
Eager to see the cities of strange men,
To quench the thirst of knowledge at pure springs,
To spread itself over the face of things,
River and sea, mountain and flowery glen.
Sinuous it glides, and lengthens from the hills,
Gathering up its train of shortening folds.
With earnest love the monster onward sweeps.
A blue steam rises mantling o'er the rills,
And o'er the cities and the spreading wolds,
And the dead lie about the plains in heaps.

XIII.

[Plague-wind and comet can but love to blight.]

Plague-wind and comet can but love to blight.
Therefore I joy we are so far apart—
I but a burning self-tormenting heart,
Thou a still star high up in the pure night
Brooding as with white wings o'er my red flight,
Holding a lamp to guide my venturous start,
Severe, serenest being that thou art,
Angel or goddess, moon or star of light.
Ah well thou art so high, so still, so great,
So all-fulfilled in thine own essence clear,
So self-sufficient in cold majesty!
Our paths can never meet. Our separate fate
Sets gulfs between. From hell that wraps me here
I lift mine eyes to thee in heaven on high.

XIV.

[The comet passing furious and fast]

The comet passing furious and fast
Shakes poison from his hair in flowers of flame.
Apollo the destroyer is his name
Scattering his arrows and his plagues broadcast.
His yellow locks are stretched out on the blast,
His forward face is eager on its aim:
He wades in blood to the far goal of fame
Leaving destruction desolate where he passed.
Such would I be, so pass through darkling space
To the bright sun, the temple of the soul,
Nor turn toward the left hand or the right.
But thou, a silent and a smiling face,
Shalt gaze upon me struggling to the goal
Far up above in liquid lands of light.

XV.

[When jarring natures cross my loftier mood]

When jarring natures cross my loftier mood,
And shatter all my golden dream to dust;
When acid friendships eat my heart like rust,
And shallow hatred feeding on love's food;
When some mean tongue in viper's juice imbrued
Has tainted me; when selfishness and lust
Brew for my lips their rank and bloody must,
Where I sought sympathy and womanhood;
Ah then I sigh and say the fault is mine,
Who am not sated with one sympathy,
Though of the noblest woman earth can bear.
Not so, not so. Shine out, sweet star, but shine,
And I am safe. But thou art set so high
Faith cannot trust itself remembered there.

XVI.

[My soul is like a marsh, a fenny swamp]

My soul is like a marsh, a fenny swamp,
That breeds dull fogs which hide thee from my sight:
My own heart's effluence vile shuts out thy light;
My atmosphere, unhealthsome dim and damp,
Polluted by long sorrow, swathes the lamp
Of my new hope, and with its deadly blight
Would poison the pure flame, if so it might,
But fire is pure and takes no spurious stamp.
Rivers and streams and the illimitable air,
And the gross earth, though sometime deemed divine,
Sustain corruption: clouds pollute the pole:
But fire—sun, star, and comet's blazing hair,
And silver moon!—their subtler essence fine
Earth cannot stain, nor my love stain thy soul.

XVII.

[Sometimes I stand upon a mountain-peak.]

Sometimes I stand upon a mountain-peak.
And hold communion with the evening star,
That no dull sound of the low earth may mar,
And from the summit of my spirit speak,
Alone with the keen air and the snow-streak.
The fogs of evil memory lie afar,
Down in the darkness where great cities are,
Where human habitations roar and reek.
There, swathed in my clear childhood's atmosphere,
Sin's intervening clouds o'erclimbed, aneled,
I gaze with chastened eyelids up to thee;
And through the solemn air of thought I hear
The moaning of love's waves, and catch revealed
The far off silver of the future sea.

XVIII.

[Sometimes I stand upon the lower plain]

Sometimes I stand upon the lower plain,
Gazing across the illimitable woe,
Sin's rivers with their wide and freezing flow,
Pale haze of doubt from swamps of wrong and pain,
Impassable, inevitable, and strain
Towards the sunset's devastating glow
Reddening with conflagration the far snow,
Branding life's desert with a bloody stain.
Ill dreams are on me; demons point and grin;
A witches' sabbath shrieks around my path,
Against the archangel urging their dark claim;
And from the red east, in revenge of sin,
Love the Destroyer rises, winged with wrath,
And all the world seems swallowed up in flame.

XIX.

[Or else I seem on a volcano's verge]

Or else I seem on a volcano's verge,
And hear the bubbling of the rising fire.
Beneath, the breathless furnaces suspire,
And prisoned whirlwind-blasts, impetuous, urge
Through sluice and vein the spume of fiery surge.
I see the white scurf rising high and higher;
The mountain's pulses throb; my funeral pyre
Awaits the torch; I hear my funeral dirge.
Then I would flee; but, as one in a dream
Stands sick with terror staring at his doom,
Or as the dove fixed by the serpent's gaze;
So from the rising passion powerless seem
My thoughts to fly, but bid the fire consume
Pride, hope, resolve, in one devouring blaze.

XX.

[Ah me, me miserable, whither am I borne]

Ah me, me miserable, whither am I borne
Far in a frail barque o'er the howling sea?
The scattering shattering waves roar over me,
Love upon love, anguish on anguish, scorn
Heaped upon scorn, passion by passion torn,
Surge after surge that smites and deafens. See!
The spray is lifted in white sheets! I flee
With straining prow and sleepless eyes outworn.
Woe, woe, me miserable, whither am I hurled?
Is it o'er the cataract, or down the chasm,
Or tempest-lifted from the precipice?
The Godless Universe, the guideless world
Foams maddening round me with an earth-quake spasm,
And I go shuddering through the loud abyss.

XXI.

[Lost love remembered makes the world a dream]

Lost love remembered makes the world a dream,
And life is grown the shadow of a shade
Since first with ripples on Love's shore I played
Nor waded deep into his stormier stream.
Swift passeth pleasure as the stray moon-beam,
But it strikes like the lightning. Sore afraid,
I see the blackened ruin round me laid
Of my fair sheltered vine, dead as I deem.
Love like a flowering tree hath shed its bloom
Before the almonds filled: Love like a vision
Just at its sweetest hath dissolved away.
Love is a flower whose root is in a tomb,
Love is a frail cloud steeped in Heaven's Elysian.
It breaks, and shadowy rain dims all the day.

XXII.

[I grope for thee through labyrinths of thought]

I grope for thee through labyrinths of thought,
Through the forgotten records of old years,
Mid memories withering time now daily sears,
And old delightful dreams now brought to nought,
I search for thee; and my dim eyes are fraught
With baffling dews; but sometimes soft appears,
But sometimes faintly, through a mist of tears,
A glimmering shadow of thy shape is caught.
Why does that image ever wear the smile
You gave me once? Is it that to your soul
My life not unheroic stands revealed;
Ah pardon, pardon. Let not hope defile
The single aim that guides me to my goal,
And love's closed book lie folded, clasped, and sealed.

XXIII.

[So thou art gone, and I am left alone.]

So thou art gone, and I am left alone.
Far seas divide us; night familiar hears
My bitter curses, and my bitter tears
Weigh down my heart, now hard and heavy grown
Like a dull wave-worn mass of lifeless stone,
On which the whole salt sea of sorrow rears
Its bulk of brine: day now like night appears,
And night's void darkness swallows up my groan.
Ah in that brighter country where thou art,
Dost thou, whiles walking through the meadows green,
In sun or starlight, call to mind my form,
My wasted form where beauty hath no part?
Stoop queenly woman! In God's presence e'en,
Seraphs forget no heart where love is warm.

XXIV.

[Love's hand is heavy on me. Woe that hope]

Love's hand is heavy on me. Woe that hope
Love's proper bride, should suffer cold divorce,
And love go lonely on his wintry course,
A death-drowsed pilgrim fiercely bent to cope
With the snow-laden whirlwind up the slope;
Before, the bare chill years of long remorse,
Which the world-weary feet must climb perforce;
Behind, the prints where grief long bore to grope,
The slow-effacing prints of sorrows old,
Branded in weary patience day by day,
Which softly-falling moments slowly fill,—
Flake after flake oblivion falling cold,
Till e'en our holy griefs are passed away,
And the blank waste lies desolate and still.

XXV.

[Oblivion! is it not one name of death?]

Oblivion! is it not one name of death?
Nay is not Lethe death's most dismal name,
Death growing hour by hour within our frame,
Death settling slowly in our brain, the breath
Of the soul ebbing, so that he who saith,
I am to-day as yesterday the same,
Lies, for his thoughts are fled like smoke from flame,
And like the dew his sorrow vanisheth.
Changed is the river, though the waves remain,
Which rocks of slowlier-changing circumstance
Plough up in every day of chafing foam.
Changed is the river, gone, gone to the main,
Yesterday's dream and last year's happy chance,
And the heart's thoughts again return not home.

XXVI.

[Oblivion! must I then forget thy face?]

Oblivion! must I then forget thy face?
Can death devour the one last star that shines?
Ah me, already faded are the lines.
Death in mine eyes and in my breast hath place
And with his icy finger dims the trace.
Death is upon me; with his seal he signs
My doings and myself; my day declines.
Nay, I am Death, and Death grows old apace.
Or else I am his son, for, as I move,
I grow more like him daily, and still steep
My breast in ruin, drunk with charnel breath.
Yet how should I forget thee quite, and love,
Which is my being, never dream in sleep?
Thou fool, Death is not life, nor slumber Death.

XXVII.

[Can I forget the past? What is the past?]

Can I forget the past? What is the past?
Who shall declare the meaning of that word
Which makes us weep or shudder oft as heard?
Ruin; destruction; loves and sorrows cast
To the unknown; new faiths that follow fast;
Life which has been and now is Death; a bird
Flown of sight, but whither? a steed spurred
Over the cliff, a moment seen, the last;
A motion of the soul in endless time
Which is the space of spirits, portioned to
The weary body's flight through boundless space.—
Behind, before, past, future—who shall climb
The steep from whence they blend unto the view,
One circled orb, where time shall swallow place?

XXVIII.

[What should I do with love who may not taste]

What should I do with love who may not taste
Love's sweets for evermore? Why should I nurse
Its cruel tortures, breed myself a curse,
In mine own heart, to lay its pastures waste?
Why murder mine own peace? Why with fierce haste
Pull down my self-sufficiency, immerse
My breast in fruitless longing and what worse
Love stirs in spirits ruined and defaced?—
Remorse, regrets, loss of all left me now,
The fierce unbridled will that mocks at pain,
The will self-centred, devilish in its power,
The erect, republican, rebellious brow,
That God and Fate and Nature storm in vain,
That goes down bravely at the final hour.

XXIX.

[The tortures I can bear, as I bear all.]

The tortures I can bear, as I bear all.
The freedom I shall never lose with life.
With even love's control war to the knife!
For I have set on all things, great and small,
And good and evil, that to men befall,
An iron heel, and calm above the strife
That hems me in, with storm and thunder rife,
I raise a head that gods nor men appal.
Calm is the mountain crest above the wreck
Of lower winds to which it may not bow,
That fill the valleys with destructions dire.
Snow on its forehead, white without a fleck,
Crowns with Olympian cold its conqueror brow.
Ay but the mountain has a heart of fire.

XXX.

[And all are mountains who have learned to scorn]

And all are mountains who have learned to scorn
Passion, disaster, hope, and destiny,
All that lift up defiant brows on high,
Self-based upon a dignity forlorn,
Alone and loving to be lonely, born
For rule or isolation. Such am I
E'en in my downfall and despair. No cry
Escapes me now, by inward strength upborne.
I care not though the whole vast universe
Be shattered round me. I am I, and keep
My soul's identity in life or death,
And would not be another, proudly averse
To pay that homage to earth's loftiest steep.—
Baffled, not conquered I shall yield my breath.

XXXI.

['Tis thus I love thee. I look not to gain]

'Tis thus I love thee. I look not to gain
Love in return or sympathy. Alone
I shall stand ever, hated, battle-blown,
Self-scorning, scorning others; my lone brain
Struggling forever with the mighty strain
Of hostile god and man. Yet, having known
One wholly noble, I have yet a tone
To vibrate in accord with strong disdain.
For thou disdainest, as my higher soul
(An instinct still untarnished by our deeds)
Disdains all evil and half-hearted good,
Sees clearly to the glittering snow-capped goal
Of wisdom, virtue, poesy, and bleeds
To live forever here in widowhood.

XXXII.

[Will they not poison thee against me now?]

Will they not poison thee against me now?
Will they not tell my faults and my disgrace?
Will they not cloud with blushes thy proud face
For having called me friend? will they not bow
With holy anguish thine imperious brow,
Which as a god I see in every place,
My dream, my paradise, my resting-space?
When they shall do all this be faithful, thou,
Queen, for I am thy subject, not thy slave,
Queen, for I am not held by bonds and laws,
Nor know a lover's skill to fawn and sigh,
Queen, for I am a freeman to the grave,
Queen, for I too am proud and with some cause,
For there is that in me which shall not die.

XXXIII.

[Back looking through life's tear-dimmed bitter vale]

Back looking through life's tear-dimmed bitter vale
What shadows rise that make me blush and start!
Yes, Violet, I have deeply stained my heart
With many an act that makes my cheek turn pale.
Who lives that hath not wrought some deed of bale
He shrinks from, hath not some time played the part
Of cruelty? And there are thoughts that smart
Like venomed arrows 'neath my bosom's mail.
Straight out I own them now to all mankind.
What should I fear from those I loathe and scorn,
Who ne'er shall flinch 'neath Heaven's eternal rod?
But that this miracle be known, a mind
So sunk, by love in spirit newly born,
Having been devil I will be a god.

XXXIV.

[I hear one say, much merit to revive]

I hear one say, much merit to revive
A spirit fall'n so far 'neath sympathy!—
Dogs, who are ye to judge, who fawn and lie,
Who suffer tyrants in your midst to thrive,
And howl on priests your coward sins to shrive,
Who cringe and trample, bred for slavery,
Who batten on the poor with usury,
And dock his wage to keep your lusts alive?
A cry of ragged babes goes through your land,
And anguished women slaughtered for your lust,
And slaves that bear your water and your logs.
Your daily bread is murder; from your hand
The worm shall turn with loathing in the dust;
And ye cry out on me a freeman! Dogs.

XXXV.

[Freedom is come among us. Winged from hell]

Freedom is come among us. Winged from hell
She rises with the serpents in her locks.
Kings, priests, republics with her fiery shocks
She breaks and scatters daily. This is well.
But though all other false dominions fell,
There is one tyranny based on the rocks
Of nature and necessity, that mocks
And breaks all waves that 'gainst its base rebel—
The union of the drove against the deer
That follows not their path, of bird with bird
Against the lonely one of alien song,
The league against the brave of those that fear,
The hate for isolation of the herd,
The banding of the weak to crush the strong.

XXXVI.

[Am I not lonely? I must stand alone]

Am I not lonely? I must stand alone
Until I die, unloved, misunderstood,
And this is right. I am not of the brood,
That round me smile with brows and hearts of stone,
For if I have been cruel I atone
By suffering tenfold, if I sin, I brood.
I cannot make another's pain my food
Nor sneer and trample. So I live unknown.
I cannot with the wicked be at peace,
For I hate evil, yet abhor them less
Than those who play with virtue and with truth.
And with the one or two, that without cease
Have lived with science, wisdom, gentleness,
I cannot rest, remembering my youth.

XXXVII.

[Not for itself the wild bird thrills the grove.]

Not for itself the wild bird thrills the grove.
To stir sweet sympathy, to lure some mate,
The small breast throbs, with love and joy elate,
And to some sister pines the brooding dove.
But, barred out from its kind, beneath, above,
E'en in this lonely, hopeless, piteous state,
The baffled instinct fights in vain with fate.
He sings apart to his own dream of love.
And so shall I. Thrice prisoned by my curse,
My fate, my sin, within my own locked heart,
To life-long solitude doomed though I seem;
Yet I shall ever in my bosom nurse
My fair ideal, high, unmoved, apart;
Yet I shall sing forever to my dream.

XXXVIII.

[Am I not bound? There scarcely lives on earth]

Am I not bound? There scarcely lives on earth
A life more triply fettered than I lead,
A toiler to the galley chained, my meed
Man's idiot laughter and fate's furial mirth.
I sit down in the ashes on life's hearth,
And to the cinders spread my frozen feet:
But, preying on my heart, there is a heat
That makes a garden in the midst of dearth;
But, kindling in my breast, there is a hope,
A deathless courage, an immortal love,
That shall not leave me, till into the dust,
The charred black dust, in which I daily grope
And gnaw for comfort, and find food enough,
My life too crumbles in an iron rust.

XXXIX.

[How piteous is the impotence of rage!]

How piteous is the impotence of rage!
I have seen weakness, tortured, lift a hand
To strike, and when no strength came to command,
Drop anguished; seen a prisoned tiger wage,
Day upon day, war with his iron cage,
Indomitable, hopeless, shake the band,
That shall to-morrow as to-day withstand,
In passion that despair cannot assuage.
Red-eyed he wakens from his angry dreams,
And with the dawning sun renews the strife,
Or shatters on the grate his tortured brains.
Such and so endless to my spirit seems
The angry chafing of a noble life,
When man insults and destiny constrains.

XL.

[Hark to the tempest caught in a deep rift]

Hark to the tempest caught in a deep rift
Of the high mountains, netted in the firs,
How restless round the narrow gorge it stirs,
As on a whirlpool's power a ship adrift,
Or eagle strong, that vainly strives to lift
His cagéd flight aloft, (with his strong spurs
He strikes the ground, and his vain pinion whirs)
Then, finding outlet, issues sudden and swift.
So beats the human soul its narrow bound,
So wheeling flaps, and gropes along the wall,
And wastes its strength divine in panting breath.
Then, on a sudden, as it circles round,
It strikes upon an outlet, and from thrall
Forth issues into freedom. This is death.

XLI.

[On, on, my soul. Alone amid the fray]

On, on, my soul. Alone amid the fray
Forever onward, for thy breath is fight
Thine element is battle. Through the night
Amid the red-hot war-bolts t'ward the day
Onward and conquer. The shield tires. Away!
Use the sword only. Though the left fail quite,
What matter while the hilt is in the right,
The point toward the foe? There lies the way.
Do the fires blind thee, eagle of the morn,
That gazest on the red artillery?
Or dost thou flap thy wings, and laugh aloud,
Exulting in the glory of thy scorn,
Or dost thou revel in the flaming sky
Mocking the impotence of the thunder-cloud?

XLII.

[Through hail of fire, through sleet of blood, press on]

Through hail of fire, through sleet of blood, press on,
A warrior rushing on the spears, through all.
Stay not to mark the shrieking friends that fall,
Life's failures. They were loved and they are gone.
Forward over their bodies! Thus are won
Battles and empires. Steep, and trench, and wall
Are stormed and shattered at the clarion-call.
Blood smokes to heaven where late their bayonets shone.
Then on the rampart thou shalt stand, and plant
Thy blood-red flag, a calm and conquering form
Upon the citadel of immortal fame.
Still with the charge o'erpast thy breast shall pant,
There looking down on the dispersing storm
From the still summit of a deathless name.

XLIII.

[“On, on, ye brave.” The battle thickens fast.]

“On, on, ye brave.” The battle thickens fast.
The dense battalions wait. By wall and moat
They hold their rows of steel against our throat,
And shower their hate upon us. The fire-blast
Full in our face in sheets of flame is cast,
And on our running blood the hell-hounds gloat.
'Tis well. Look up, and o'er our head see float
The banner of the future. They are the past.
Look up, calm eyes and brows, a moment gaze
On that, and laugh the whistling bullets by,
Comrades, and with a jest be it unfurled.
Then with shut lips we plunge into the blaze,
Then with a roar as of the crashing sky
We sweep the liar and coward from the world.