University of Virginia Library

TUPPER'S SONNETS.

THOUGHT-CRYSTALS.

Plunged in my brain, fermenting thick and warm,
Simmer deep thoughts; and shape themselves apace,
So soon as Quiet for a little space
Gives Life a rest, and lulls its petty storm:
Then, in some tranquil solitary place,
Whose silence is my music, choice and good,
They shoot out crystallous, in measured form,
Magnetic harmonies:—O Solitude!
O blessed Silence! how most dear to me
Are the sweet soothings of your double grace:
The calm clear heaven wherein my spirit soars,
Then lures its inmate upward, blythe and free,
Like the glad lark that to the sun outpours,
Higher and higher, floods of minstrelsy.

EDINBURGH.

Thou hast been just, glad Mother of great Sons—
To such high memories generous and just;
For everywhere the consecrated dust
Of those thy world-beloved and glorious ones
Hath honour in thy fair palatial streets,
Grateful Edina!—for the tourist greets
With sympathetic tenderness and praise
The noble trophies of thy children's fame
Thy love hath raised to them—and yet will raise;
Ramsay, and Wilson, and each other name
Rising successive to the starry ranks
Of those we constellate with Scott and Burns,
After their labours win such blest returns
In this Valhalla of a Nation's thanks.

St. DAVID'S HEAD.

People these wilds: the Sea-King, just ashore,
Is camp'd upon that black and craggy steep;
And, while his rude bark rocks upon the deep,
Glares vulture-like the victim-region o'er:
And the barbarian tribe is soon astir,
And celts and swords are gilt with rival gore;
While Druids three, like Moses, Aaron, and Hur,
Beside their cromlech, with bare arms uprear'd,
Stand on Carn Llyddi, where the logan stone
And serpent avenues and circles weird
Are red with blood: three thousand years are gone,
And here our happier feet those tracks explore,
Only to hunt for ferns or crystals now
That wave and glitter on St. David's brow.

OUR DAY.

O, but how great a thing it is, how glad,
To live in this our day! when plain strong sense,
Free knowledge, and Religion's influence,
Build up a wall against the false and bad,
And give the good both temple and defence:
To live,—when ancient enmities intense
Turn to new brotherhoods, till now unknown;
When science and invention bless the world,
Banishing half our pains and woes far hence;
When time is trebled, distance neighbour-grown;
When tyranny from every throne is hurl'd;
When Right is Might, and Reason holds her own:
O, happy day! for prophets priests and kings
Have longed in vain to see such glorious things.

TINTERN ABBEY.

Look on these ruins in a spirit of praise:
Not only with the painter's well-pleased eye,
Nor with a poet's glance at times gone by
And all his gilded thoughts of olden days;
But, thankfully regard them as a phase
Of just Emancipation for the Soul;
For, as the feudal dungeon and its chain
Prison'd the Body of Man, and would again,
Had English freedom left them strong and whole,—
So held these glorious abbeys grim control
Over man's Heart and Mind, enslaving both
To crafty monk and superstitious rite:
Therefore, to find them crush'd be little loth,
But note their ruins with a new delight.

CHANGE-CHEERFULNESS.

Who hath not felt it for a standing sorrow
That everything so perisheth away?
That all the pleasant pastures of To-day
Are in the retrospection of To-morrow
But a burnt sward?—that nothing in one stay
Continueth ever, but, to chanceful change
Hourly submitting, crieth aloud to us,
Mortals, forget things past as best ye may,
And make alliance with things new and strange!
Alas for life, that it is ever thus:
But why Alas? why sorrow? Life must pass,
And passing, perisheth; and blest are they
Whose bright unguilty spirits, glad and gay,
See all things through a rosy-tinctured glass.

STONE-HENGE.

That there were giants in the olden time
These stones cry out; whether before the Flood
(As some have dreamt) in earth's majestic prime,
The sons of Tubal piled up here sublime
What ever since in mystery hath stood
A miracle; or whether Merlin's rhyme,
Or patriarchal Druids, with their brood
Of swarming Celts uprear'd them,—here they stand
In Titan strength stupendous, wonderful,
The great primæval glory of our land:
And—who can tell how stained with innocent blood
This Golgotha, this place of many a skull,
Is peopled now with terrors of the past,
Poor ghosts, that howl on every driving blast?

VATICINIUM: 1854.

The Poet and the Prophet are as one
To scan the coming future; at a glance
His mind forecasts what shortly shall be done:
For, the quick spirit, running in advance
Of creeping Fact and halting Circumstance,
With God's own mind is tuned in unison;
And so to Truth, by more than guess or chance,
Vibrates intuitive:—he sees, he knows
What all-evolving Time shall soon disclose,—
Fierce armies, full of hate and arrogance,
Pour'd on fair England by converging streams,
And, roused at length (too late for vigilance)
Our peaceful people, startled from their dreams,
Grappling for life with tiger-bands from France!

BRITANNIA HASTATA: 1860.

In stern determination now at length
Cinctured with shining arms, how calmly grand
Before the wondering Nations dost thou stand,
Britannia, in thy righteousness and strength!
For, not a whit too soon, nor with light cause,
Have the free children of thy happy land
Stood forth to guard their liberties and laws,
Altar and throne, yea, humbler hearth and home,
Against whatever perils dare to come
Between them and their heritage in thee;
Therefore we muster round thy flag unfurl'd
Vowing to keep thee glorious great and free,
Unconquerable both by land and sea,
The Sanctuary of Freedom for the World!

BALFOUR IN ORKNEY.

When to the storm-historic Orcades
The wanderer comes, he marvels to find there
A stately palace, towering new and fair,
Bedded in flowers, though unbanked by trees,
A feudal dream uprisen from the seas:
And when his wonder asks,—Whose magic rare
Hath wrought this bright creation?—men reply,
Balfour's of Balfour: large in mind and heart,
Not only doth his duteous care reclaim
All Shapinsay to new fertility,
But to his brother men a brother's part
Doing, in always doing good,—his fame
Is to have raised an Orcade Arcady,
Rich in the gems of Nature as of Art.

HEART-YOUTHFULNESS.

Man's heart, if it but will, can keep its youth
Unsoil'd, unsear'd, as if it were sixteen,
As full of impulse, and as fresh and green
And loveable of beauty joy and truth
And all things good as it hath ever been!
Who says that fifty, or five hundred years
Must make the heart feel old?—those years alone,
Though set with sorrows and full filled with fears,
Are powerless to congeal the heart within
And turn its early softness into stone,
Unless to Care and Grief be added—Sin:
And, where the Present in the Past is bold
Truly but humbly, having hope to win
A glorious Future,—can that heart feel old?

THE MOUNT, ABERGANNY.

They say, that,—in the hour when Jesus died,
And shuddering Earth with pity and affright
Shook to her centre at the rueful sight,
And rocks were rent and craters opened wide,—
This craggy fissure in the Skyrrid's side
First bared its entrails to the eclipséd light:
Tradition's gossip tongue hath often lied,—
But haply here may chronicle a fact;
For everywhere the legend hath gone forth,
Flitting from land to land, of shivered rocks,
Of shores disrupted, mountain-ridges crack'd,
Isles torn from continents by earthquake-shocks,—
All, before Record welcomed History's birth,
Yet since Tradition kept the rolls of Earth.

SKYRRID VAWR.

Therefore, when Britain in her rude young prime
(God's Israel to come, as time hath shown,)
Trembled in all her hills at Judah's crime,
Down toppled in their sympathy sublime
Our crags from many a high-peak'd mountain-throne,
And Skyrrid, falling with a thunder-groan,
Became this ruin: so, of ancient time
Men have accounted it a holy place;
And Superstition's sly monastic face
Hath doted here for ages: even now
Priestcraft can promise some superior grace
For those who to St. Michael's summit toil,
And gather thence, as reverently they bow,
A coffin-handful of the sacred soil.

AGATES.

Quartz-flowers, whether mossy starred or lined,
Translucent agates! by the ebbing sea
How often have I lingered hopefully,
Among the beach your bubbling blooms to find:
And you are memoried in my tranquil mind
With wild Glen-Farg, with Struie's quarried hill,
With Ochil-side, where in each fresh-ploughed field
I gathered up a harvest richer still
To my fond thought than all that barley yield:
And after, when my lapidary's skill
Has opened to the sunshine of to-day
Your chalcedonic beauties, fair and bright,
Hitherto since Time's birth-hour seal'd in night,
You seem more precious than I care to say.

THE BRECON BEACONS.

O glorious sea of mountains in a storm,
Joyously surging, and careering high
With angry crests flung up against the sky,
And billowy troughs between, that roll enorme
For miles of desolate grandeur scoop'd out deep,—
—Yet all congeal'd and magically asleep,
As on a sudden stopp'd to this fixt form
By ‘Peace, be still!’—Well may the filméd eye
Of Ignorance here behold in cloudy robe
The mythologic Arthur on his throne,
A Spiritual King, sublime, alone,
Marshalling tempests over half the globe,
Or, kindlier now by summer-zephyrs fann'd,
Blessing invisibly his ancient land!

ALONE.

Unvext by any eye, by any tongue,
In meditative bliss beside the sea
Exultingly I loiter, calm and free,
Looking for agates as I stroll along,
And finding health and peace and joy for me
The beach, the sands, the seaweed-rocks among!
Alone;—what anodyne so sweet as this?
Silence, or only music of the waves,—
And Solitude, with only Nature's kiss
When my glad cheek with dewy spray she laves;
Silence, and Solitude; my twofold joy
Wherewith a stranger intermeddleth not,
I hold you here, and hug my golden lot
Untarnished with Society's alloy.

CALLANISH, IN LEWIS.

Look back,—look back,—look back,—three thousand years;
And dream of Callanish, in that old time
When, worshipping with simple right sublime
The God of darkling Nature's hopes and fears,
Around these hoary stones Druidic seers,
Hoary as they, were clustered: dream it out,
How, weaving as they went their magic rhyme,
They paced this mystic circle round about,
Or watched with trembling awe that central den,
Where the red victim lay; dream on, and see
Yon outer crowd of skin-clad fierce-eyed men
Shouting rude pæans as they bend the knee
To Him, the One Great Worship of all lands,
Who dwelleth not in temples made with hands.

ABEL.

Our fresh young world lay basking in its prime,
And all around was peace; the leprous spot
On her fair forehead Nature heeded not,
So beauteously she smiled in love sublime;
Yet, even then, upon thy gentle form
Rush'd the black whirlwind of a brother's crime,
Breaking that calm of universal love
With the fierce blast of murder's pitiless storm,
Awroth at goodness:—thee, truth's stricken dove,
First victim of oppression's iron feet,
Religion's earliest martyr, slain by pride
And man's self-righteousness, with praises meet
Thee would my soul's affection humbly greet,
Trusting the Lamb whereon thy faith relied.

LIFE.

A busy dream, forgotten ere it fades,
A vapour, melting into air away,
Vain hopes, vain fears, a mesh of lights and shades,
A chequered labyrinth of night and day,—
This is our life; a rapid surgy flood
Where each wave hunts its fellow; on they press;
To-day is yesterday, and hope's young bud
Has fruited a to-morrow's nothingness:
Still on they press, and we are borne along,
Forgetting and forgotten, trampling down
The living and the dead in that fierce throng,
With little heed of Heaven's smile or frown,
And little care for others' right or wrong,
So we in iron selfishness stand strong.

ENOCH.

Of whom earth was not worthy; for alone
Among the dense degenerate multitude,
Witness to truth, and teacher of all good,
Enoch, thy solitary lustre shone
For thrice an hundred years, in trust and love
Walking with God: so sped thy blameless life
That He, thy Worship, justly could approve
His patriarch servant; and when sinners scoff'd
Thy bold prophetic woe with judgment rife,
Or hurl'd at thee their threaten'd vengeance oft,
From those fell clamours of ungodly strife
God took thee to Himself:—Behold, on high
The car of dazzling glory, borne aloft,
Wings the blest mortal through the startled sky!

THE KALEIDOSCOPE.

I saw a child with a kaleidoscope,
Turning at will the tesselated field;
And straight my mental eye became unseal'd,
I learnt of life, and read its horoscope:
Behold, how fitfully the patterns change!
The scene is azure now with hues of Hope,
Now sober'd grey by Disappointment strange,
With Love's own roses blushing, warm and bright,
Black with Hate's heat, or white with Envy's cold,
Made glorious by Religion's purple light,
Or sicklied o'er with yellow lust of Gold:
So, good or evil coming, peace or strife,
Zeal when in youth, and Avarice when old,
In changeful chanceful phases passeth Life.

ZOROASTER.

Fathomless past! what precious secrets lie
Gulph'd in thy depths;—how brave a mingled throng,
Fathers of wisdom, bards of mighty song,
Hearts gushing with warm hopes and feelings high,
Lovers and sages, prophets priests and kings,
Sleep nameless in thy drear obscurity:
Fathomless past!—the vague conception brings,
Amid thick-coming thoughts of olden things,
Hoar Zoroaster,—as he walk'd sometime
In shadowy Babel, and around him stood
The strangely-mitred earnest multitude
Listening the wonders of his speech sublime:
Hail, mantled ghost, I track thy light from far,
On the chaotic dark an ‘exiled star.’

THE CATHEDRAL MIND.

Temple of truths most eloquently spoken,
Shrine of sweet thoughts veil'd-in with words of power,
The Author's mind replete with hallow'd riches
Stands a Cathedral: full of precious things,—
Tastefully built in harmonies unbroken,
Cloister, and aisle, dark crypt, and aëry tower;
Long-treasured relics in the fretted niches,
And secret stores, and heap'd-up offerings,
Art's noblest gems, with every fruit and flower,
Paintings and sculpture, choice imaginings,
Its plenitude of wealth and praise betoken;
An ever-burning lamp portrays the soul;
Deep music all around enchantment flings;
And God's great Presence consecrates the whole.

ABRAHAM.

Thou friend of God, the paragon of faith:
Simply to trust, unanswering to obey,
This was thy strength; and happy sons are they,
Father! who follow thee through life and death,
Ready at His mysterious command
The heart's most choice affectionate hopes to slay,
With more than Martyr's suicidal hand;
Their sole sufficing cause,—Jehovah saith,—
Their only murmur'd prayer, His will be done:
Ev'n so, thy God-like spirit did not spare
Thy cherish'd own, thy promised only son,
Trusting that He, whose word was never vain,
Could raise to life the victim offer'd there,
And to the father give his child again.

APOLOGY.

For I have sinn'd; oh, grievously and often;
Exaggerated ill, and good denied;
Blacken'd the shadows only born to soften;
And Truth's own light unkindly misapplied:
Alas for charities unloved, uncherish'd,
When some stern judgment, haply erring wide,
Hath sent my fancy forth, to dream and tell
Other men's deeds all evil! O my heart,
Renew once more thy generous youth half perish'd,
Be wiser, kindlier, better than thou art:
And first in fitting meekness, offer well
All earnest candid prayers, to be forgiven
For worldly, harsh, unjust, unloveable
Thoughts and suspicions against Man and Heaven.

SEMIRAMIS.

Stupendous Babylon! before mine eyes
Thy mountain walls and marble terraces,
Domes, temples, towers, and golden palaces
In vision'd recollection grandly rise
Huge and obscure, as icebergs in a cloud;
And mingling there a dense barbaric crowd
Throng thy triumphal car with eastern state,
Moon of the world, Semiramis the Great!
Ambiguous shade of majesty supreme,
Upon the night of ages limn'd sublime,
We think of thee but as a glorious dream,
And, waiving those dark hints of unproved crime,
Fain would we hope thee great and good combin'd,
To hail thee patriot Queen, and mighty Mind.

THE MOTHER OF KINGS.

A dream of empire,—and a waking thought
Patriot in wisdom, and of loyal worth,
Which placemen will not cherish as they ought,
Because with such there ever was a dearth
Of generous feeling in this frigid earth:
I saw our Queen an Empress; and her rule,
Not forced by mercantile or office clerks,
Nor mispresented by some party-tool,
But personal, and full of gracious works,
Rejoicing every colony: I saw
An Alfred, and all India prospering
Under his sceptre, sway'd by Christian law;
Australia, under Arthur triumphing;
And Duncan, Scottish Canada's young king.

JOSEPH.

The true nobility of generous minds,
Equal to either conquest, weal or woe,
Triumphant over fortune, friend or foe,
In thee, pure-hearted youth, its pattern finds:
Child best-beloved of Israel's green old age,
Innocent dreamer, persecuted slave,
Good steward, unguilty captive, honour'd sage,
Whose timely counsel rescued from the grave
Egypt's bronze children, and those exiled few
Dwelling at Goshen,—Ruler, born to save,
How rich a note of welcome were thy due,
O man much tried, and never found to fail;
Young, beauteous, mighty, wise and chaste and true,
Hail, holy prince, unspotted greatness, hail!

CALUMNY.

‘Lo! ye shall take up serpents without fear,
And walk on scorpions, scathless of their sting,
And, if ye drink of any deadly thing
It shall not hurt you:’—what a power is here!
A sevenfold buckler to our calm strong hearts
Against the feeble, blunted, broken darts
Of Hate's fierce frown, or Envy's subtle sneer:
O Christian! go straight on; though slander rear,
To freeze thy warmth, her cold Medusa head;
Go on, in faith and love, at duty's call:
With naked feet on adders thou shalt tread,
Meet perils, only to surmount them all,
And so, by bad men's blame, as good men's praise,
Build up God's blessing on thy words and ways.

MOSES.

How should I greet thee, God's ambassador,
Great shepherd of the people,—how proclaim
In worthiest song thy more than this-world fame,
Meek bard yet princely, prophet, conqueror,
Leader, and lawgiver!—thy hallowed name
Ev'n now with fears the captive bosom fills,
Though the dear love of thy grand Antitype
In glad assurance through that bosom thrills:
Alas, thy faithless tribes, for judgment ripe,
Chose Ebal and the curse; didst thou not heed
When these thy children dared the dreadful deed
Whereat high noon was blind,—nor bless the grace,
Which shall that stain from crime's dark record wipe,
And love once more the long-rejected race?

WISDOM.

It is the way we go, the way of life;
A drop of pleasure in a sea of pain,
A grain of peace amid a load of strife,
With toil and grief, and grief and toil again:
Yea;—but for this; the firm and faithful breast,
Bolder than lions, confident and strong,
That never doubts its birthright to be blest,
And dreads no evil while it does no wrong:
This, this is wisdom, manful and serene,
Towards God all penitence and prayer and trust,
But to the troubles of this shifting scene
Simple courageous and sublimely just:
Be then such wisdom mine, O heart within!
There is no foe, nor woe, nor grief, but—Sin.

DAVID.

It is not for thy throne and diadem,
Nor for the prowess of thy ruddy youth,
Nor skill with gentle minstrelsy to soothe
The spirit in its griefs, and banish them,
We count thee blest; these lesser stars of praise
May well in lustrous beauty round thee blaze,
Anointed monarch of Jerusalem;
But, that omniscient truth hath titled thee
Man after God's own heart,—this name alone
Doth to its highest mortal glory raise,
And leave us wondering here; O favour'd one,
As to my Saviour's symbol, reverent
And with such worship as befitteth me,
So would I greet thee, royal penitent.

SOLITUDE.

Therefore delight thy soul in Solitude,
Feeding on peace; if solitude it be
To feel that million creatures, fair and good,
With gracious influences circle thee,—
To hear the mind's own music,—and to see
God's glorious world with eyes of gratitude,
Unwatch'd by vain intruders! let me shrink
From crowds, and prying faces, and the noise
Of men and merchandise; far nobler joys
Than chill Society's false hand hath given
Enrich my soul when left alone to think:
To think—alone?—ah no, not quite alone;
Save me from that,—cast out from Earth and Heaven,
A friendless, Godless, isolated One.

SOLOMON.

Who hath not heard the trumpet of thy fame?
Or is there that sequester'd dismal spot
Where thy far-echoing glory soundeth not?—
The tented Arab still among his mates
In wondrous story chaunts thy mighty name;
Thy marvels yet the fakir celebrates;
Yea, and for Solomon's unearthly power
The sorcerer yells amid his deeds of shame,
Rifling the dead at midnight's fearful hour:
Not such thy praise; these savour of a fall
Which penitence should banish from the mind;
We gladlier on thy sainted wisdom call,
And greet thee with the homage of mankind,
Wisest, and mightiest, and first of all.

HOMER.

Thou poor and old, yet ever rich and young,
Ye sunless eyeballs, in all wisdom bright,
Travel-stain'd feet, and home-unwelcomed tongue;
That for a pauper's pittance strayed, and sung,
Where after-times the frequent acolyte
Track'd those faint steps with worship,—at what time
And where, thou untaught master, did the strings
Of thine immortal harp echo sublime
The rage of heroes, and the toil of kings?
Uncertain shadow of a mystic name!
The world's dead praise, as Hellas' living shame,
There is a mystery brooding on thy birth,
That thee its own each willing soil may claim;
Thy fatherland is all the flatter'd earth.

BLINDNESS.

O pitiful! to watch those precious eyes,
Those kindled diamonds with their sunny light,
Changing from orbs of day to orbs of night,—
Dimming to pearls!—for Providence most wise
So hath decreed of thee, my poor pale child;
And we shall see thy face, so soft and mild,
Looking up blank and sightless to the skies!
Well,—we will love thee more, and be more kind,
Cheer thee in heart, and cherish thee in mind;
And gentle music shall delight thee much,
And Memory with her pictures,—and Content,—
And,—who can tell? for we have heard of such,—
Art yet may reach thee with her healing touch,
And bring those eyes again from banishment.

ISAIAH.

Hear him, sore-travailing mother, patient earth,
Hear the glad eloquence of this thy son;
The times of want and woe are well nigh done,
And old creation springs to second birth,
Toil's rest, care's cure, and melancholy's mirth:
O golden sabbath of the world, speed on;
Why tarrieth nature's King?—the woods, the waves,
The waiting righteous in their prison-graves,
The moan of famine, and the shriek of fear,
Entreat Thy coming, O Desire of all,
Theme of Isaiah's hope, in praise appear!
Great Monarch, take thy universal crown,
Even so, quickly: shall thy people call
In vain? O rend the heavens, and come down!

CONSOLATION.

Scholar of Reason, Grace, and Providence,
Restrain thy bursting and indignant tears;
With tenderest might unerring Wisdom steers
Through those mad seas the bark of Innocence:
Doth thy heart burn for vengeance on the deed,—
Some barbarous deed, wrought out by cruelty
On woman, or on famished childhood's need,
Yea, or these fond dumb dogs,—doth thy heart bleed
For pity, child of sensibility?
Those tears are gracious, and thy wrath most right:
Yet patience, patience; there is comfort still;
The Judge is just; a world of love and light
Remains to counterpoise the load of ill,
And the poor victim's cup with joy to fill.

SOLON.

To know thyself,—a knowledge beyond price,
Which some of this world's wisest cannot learn;
To search the heart, and keenly there discern
Even among its flowers of Paradise
The watchful subtle snake of natural vice,
And thus aware, to fly it,—nor to fan
Those guilty sparks that else shall scorch and burn
Thine innocence,—this is thy wisdom, Man:
This, had no messenger of grace aloud
Proclaim'd it for thy weal, of yonder sage
Separate in glory from that white-robed crowd,
Thou long hadst learnt: Solon, from age to age
One short full phrase a noble proof supplies
That thou wert wise as good, and good as wise.

THE VERDICT.

I leave all judgments to that better world
And my more righteous Judge: for He shall tell
In the dread day when from their thrones are hurl'd
Each human tyranny and earthly spell,
That which alone of all He knoweth well—
The heart's own secret; He shall tell it out
With all the feelings and the sorrows there,
The fears within, the foes that hemm'd without,
Neglect and wrong and calumny and care:
For He hath saved thine every tearful prayer
In His own lachrymal; and noted down
Each unconsider'd grief with tenderest love:
Look up! beyond the cross behold the crown,
And for all wrongs below all rights above.

ÆSOP.

A garden of ungathered parable
Lies ripe around us, in fair-figured speech
Blooming, like Persian love-letters, to teach
Dull-hearted man where hidden pleasures dwell;
Its fruits, its flowers, of love and beauty tell,
And, as quick conscience wings the thought, to each
Doth all our green sweet world sublimely preach
Of wisdom, truth, and might, unutterable:
For thee, poor Phrygian slave, mind's free-born son,
In whose keen humour nought of malice lurk'd,
While good was forced at wit's sarcastic fire,
The world should pay thee thanks, for having work'd
That garden first; and well the work is done,
A labourer full worthy of his hire.

MUCH READING.

I hope to ripen into richer wine
Than mixt Falernian; those decantered streams
Pour'd from another's chalice into thine
Make less of wisdom than the scholar dreams;
Precept on precept, tedious line on line,
That never-thinking, ever-reading plan,
Fashion some patchwork garments for a man,
But starve his mind; it starves of too much meat,
An undigested surfeit; as for me,
I am untamed, a spirit free and fleet
That cannot brook the studious yoke, nor be
Like some dull grazing ox without a soul,
But, feeling racer's shoes upon my feet,
Before my teacher starts, I touch the goal!

SAPPHO.

The poisonous tooth of time, O shepherdess,
Hath kill'd thy thousand vines; a few scarr'd shoots
Alone are green above the wither'd roots,
And thence we cherish an admiring guess
Of what the rich ripe vintage should have been:
Poor muse, they do thee wrong; they have not seen
Those records lost of truth and tenderness,
They have not read thy heart,—but harm thee still
Where, as unknown, their charity should bless,
Tainting thy memory with whisper'd ill:
Yet are those snatches of thy musical songs
Full of warm nature, and impassion'd truth,
Love, beauty, sweetness, and eternal youth:
Sappho,—we praise thee rather for thy wrongs.

WHEAT AND CHAFF.

My little learning fadeth fast away,
And all the host of words and forms and rules
Bred in my teeming youth of books and schools
Dwindle to less and lighter; night and day
I dream of tasks undone, and lore forgot,
Seeming some sailor in the ‘ship of fools,’
Some debtor owing what he cannot pay,
Some conner of old themes remember'd not:
Despise such small oblivion; 'tis the lot
Of human life, amid its chance and change,
To learn, and then unlearn; to seek and find,
And then to lose familiars grown quite strange:
Store up, store wisdom's corn in heart and mind,
But fling the chaff on every winnowing wind!

PYTHAGORAS.

Rare Egypt, not thine own sweet-water'd Nile,
Thy Memphis, nor those seated giants twain,
Not golden Thebes, nor Luxor's stately fane,
Nor pyramids eterne of mountain pile,
Exhaust thy glories gone; thy grander boast
Was Learning, and her sons,—who throng'd of old
To draw fair knowledge from thy generous coast,
Nor drew in vain, but drank the blessed draught;
And deepest hath this noble Samian quaff'd,
Who walketh with me now in white and gold;
Wear thou indeed that crown, mysterious sage,
Whose soaring fancy, with deep-diving thought,
Hath pour'd mind-riches over every age,
And charm'd a world Pythagoras hath taught.

SILENCE.

Then give me Silence; for my spirit is rare,
Of delicate edge and tender: when I think,
I rear aloft a mental fabric fair;
But soon as words come hurtling on the air,
Down to this dust my ruin'd fancies sink:
Look you! on yonder Alp's precipitous brink
An avalanche is tottering;—one breath
Loosens an icy chain;—it falls,—it falls,
Filling the buried glens and glades with death!
Or, as when on the mountain's granite walls
The hunter spies a chamois,—hush! be calm,
A word will scare it,—even so my Mind
Creative, energizing, seeks the balm
Of Quiet: Solitude and Peace combined.

CONFUCIUS.

For thou art worthy, Seric Socrates,
Of the bright robe, and that fair coronet,
Meed of true goodness, on thy forehead set,
Worthy to walk in equal bliss with these
Thy peers, in Hades' dreamy valley met;
For thine were pure and patriot services,
High worth, and generous love of doing good,
Gilding the darkness of a barbarous clime
That paid thee wages of ingratitude,
After the Balaam cunning of a foe
Had drown'd thine efforts in adulterous crime,
For righteous weal exchanging sinful woe:
Witness, ye spirits of the good and wise,
None recks of greatness till the great man dies!

EDUCATION.

Soul without knowledge,—world without a Sun,
Torpid and loveless as an Arctic night,—
How changed shall all things be to thee, when Light
Bursts on thy desolation, startled one:
So in the tropics doth the Morning Gun
Welcome, from utter dark, the sudden day
Escaped as from Death's prison, drear and dun,
To glitter, god-like, on his burning way!
Yea, Soul, look hitherward: tho' dull and blind,
And heretofore more dead than tongue can say,
Thine eye may yet have grace to catch a ray,
Whose lightning touch shall kindle up the Mind,
And speed the Heart that happiest course to run,—
The race of doing good to all mankind.

PINDAR.

Ye harp-controlling hymns! triumphant praise,
That heralded to his delighted home
The blushing victor of departed days
From Elis, or Nemæa, or the dome
Of sacred Delphi,—spirit-stirring songs,
Ev'n now your echoes linger on mine ears,
And to your Theban father still belongs
That name, time-honour'd twice a thousand years,
King of the sounding lyre: nor alone
For music be thy praise, but for a heart
Strung with affections of deep-thrilling tone
And patriot feelings, that in lightning dart
Through the mute souls of all, with charm'd suspense
Listening in love thy honied eloquence.

AUTARCHES.

Happy self-autocrat! alone he walks
With springing step adown this heathery glen,
Freed from the social tyrannies of men,
And each conventionality, that balks
The spirit of its liberty, and then
Worries its quiet with perpetual talks:
O Solitude, O Silence! sister pair,—
I am your brother; walking still apart,
Embodied Independence, head and heart,
Quit of all thraldoms and cast loose from care,
And spurning every trick of this world's mart:
‘Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,’—
Not so! no ‘share,’—no ‘let;’ I claim, alone,
Thy spirit, Independence, all mine own!

ARISTIDES.

Severe in simple virtue, nobly poor,
The guard alike and glory of all Greece
Through fierce invading war, and factious peace,
Model for youth, the temperate and pure,
Exemplar for old age, the just and good,
Athenian Aristides meekly stood
A thankless people's boast: thee—country's love
Warm'd with its holiest flame; thee—party spite
From hearth and home to bitter exile drove,
Envied for greatness: still, the patriot fight
Against the Mede beheld thee in the van
Doubly a victor, at the self-same hour
Crushing the foreign despot's giant power,
And conquering in thyself the pride of man.

GOOD AND FAITHFUL.

Gladstone, through youth and manhood, many a year
My constant heart hath followed thee with praise,
As ‘good and faithful;’ in thy words and ways
Pure-minded, just, and simple, and sincere:
And as, with early half-prophetic ken
I hail'd thy greatness in my college days,
The coming man to guide and govern men,
How gladly that instinctive prescience then
Now do I see fulfill'd! because, thou art
Our England's eloquent tongue, her wise free hand
To pour, wherever is her world-wide mart,
The horn of Plenty over every land;
Because, by every praise of mind and lip
Thou art the crown of Christian statesmanship.

ÆSCHYLUS.

Thou rock-bound and undying sacrifice,—
Ye fierce conspiring chieftains,—haggard queen,—
Thou parricide, convulsed with agonies,—
Ye furies, through the fearful darkness seen
Glaring with horrid eye and spectral mien,—
Appear, appear—for him, whose magic spell
From the dim void of intellectual night
Gave you dread being, terribly to tell
The shuddering world a master-spirit's might:
Yet thus alone not worthily nor well
Nor equal to a patriot-poet's praise
In black procession stalks gigantic crime;
To thee, great bard, their holier worship raise
Deep thoughts, high hopes, and symphonies sublime.

RESERVE.

O dark and frozen fiend, Love's mortal bane!
Lethargic poison of the moral sense,
Killing those high-soul'd children of the brain
Warm Enterprise and noble Confidence,
Fly from my threshold, traitor, get thee hence!
Without thee we are open, cheerful, kind,
Mistrusting none but Self, injurious self,
Of and to others wishing only good;
With thee, suspicions crowd the gloomy mind,
Suggesting all the world a viperous brood,
That acts a base bad part in hope of pelf:
Virtue stands shamed, Truth mute misunderstood,
Honour unhonour'd, Courage lacking nerve,
Beneath thy dull domestic curse, Reserve!

HERODOTUS.

Olympia, with her festal multitude,
Beheld thy triumph first, in glad acclaim
Hailing thy nascent dawn of endless fame,
Eldest historian,—while Jove's sacred wood
And vocal statue sounded out thy name,
As gather'd Græcia's all of wise and good
Inscribed upon those modest narratives
The hallowed titles of the classic Nine:
For, sweet simplicity through every line,
With graphic phrase and talent, breathes and lives,—
Truth, tolerance, pow'r, and patience, these are thine:
And let not pedants to thy blame recall
That thy fresh mind such ready credence gives,
For thou art Charity, believing all.

LETTERS.

Tear, scatter, burn, destroy,—but keep them not;
I hate, I dread those living witnesses
Of varying self, of good or ill forgot,
Of alter'd hopes, and wither'd kindnesses:
Oh, call not up those shadows of the dead,
Those visions of the past, that idly blot
The present with regret for blessings fled:
This hand that wrote, this ever-teeming head,
This flickering heart is full of chance and change;
I would not have you watch my weaknesses,
Nor how my foolish likings roam and range,
Nor how the mushroom friendships of a day
Hastened in hotbed ripeness to decay,
Nor how to mine own self I grow so strange.

HIPPOCRATES.

Dust unto dust; the silver spinal cord
Shall soon be loosed; the forehead's golden bowl,
That precious chalice for the wine of soul,
Be shivered, and its treasure all outpour'd;
The cell-stopt veins, that, as an emptying vase,
Pour back upon the heart its weaken'd stream,
Be shattered all; the circling wheel that draws
From a strange cistern,—this corporeal frame,—
Moisture and increase, must be broken up;
And with the shock we wake from life's dull dream:
Still, oftentimes the wholesome bitter cup,
The glory, great physician, of thine art,
Shall wondrously from ill-timed death redeem,
Rallying the routed forces of the heart.

TOOTHACHE.

A raging throbbing tooth,—it burns, it burns!
Darting its fiery fibres to the brain,
A stalk of fever on a root of pain,
A red-hot coal, a dull sore cork by turns,
A poison, kindred to the viper's fang,
Galling and fretting: ha! it stings again,
Riving the sensitive nerve with keenest pang:
Well; from this bitter let me cull the sweet,
For Goodness never did afflict in vain,
But wills that Pain should sit at Wisdom's feet:
Serve God in pleasant health; repent, and pray,
While the frail body rests at grateful ease;
And, sympathise with sickness and decay,
Charitable to Man: remember these.

THUCYDIDES.

So might an angel weep, thou noble boy;
For, all unmixt with envy's duller flame,
Enthusiastic hope, and chivalrous joy
To note the calm historian's rising fame,
Glow'd at thy heart, and bade thee emulate
Those grand attempts, that honourable fate,
A brother, not a foe: years sped away,
And saw thee, still with patriot feelings warm,
A warrior-exile at thy Thracian farm,
Weaving the web of glory, day by day,
For Athens, that ingrate; thy manly pen
Eternal good for evil could repay,
For all prophetic was thy boldness, when
It writ thy works, an ‘heritage for aye.’

SOCIETY.

Alas, we do but act; we are not free;
The presence of another is a chain
My trammell'd spirit strives to break, in vain:
How strangely different myself from me!
Thoughtful in solitude, serenely blest,
Crown'd and enthroned in mental majesty,
Equal to all things great, and daring all,
I muse of mysteries, and am at rest:
But in the midst, some dull intruded guest
Topples me from my heights, holding in thrall
With his hard eye the traitor in my breast,
That before humbler intellects is cow'd,
Silently shrinking from the common crowd,
And only with the highest self-possest.

SOCRATES.

Self-knowing, therefore humbled to the dust,
Self-curbing, therefore in a sensual age
Pure, patriotic, mild, religious, just,
Self-taught, yet moderate,—Athenian sage,
Albeit but faintly the recording page
Samples the precious harvest of thy brain,
Where Plato's self, thine intellectual son,
And the scarr'd hand of gallant Xenophon,
Have gathered up the fragments that remain
Of thy large speech, with wondrous wisdom fraught,
From those rich morsels we may guess the feast,
And note the Pisgah-summit of thy thought
Bright with true trust, that God hath never ceas'd
To care for all creative love hath wrought.

SOCRATES TO LYSIAS.

No, Lysias!—all that honied eloquence
May not be buttress to my righteous cause;
The majesty of Truth and Innocence
Deigns not to hoodwink nor to cheat the laws:
What, if my foe's benighted moral sense
Will not, or cannot, see my holy ends?
To lure the youth of Athens to all good,—
To knit mankind in one, a world of friends,—
To win their worship from mere stone and wood,
And preach the Unknown God!—O God of All,
Thy will be done! let falsehood work my fall,
Martyr for truth I rise, and dwell at ease;
The only Advocate on whom I call
Is God Himself,—to plead for Socrates!

PLATO.

Another god-like son, O glorious land,
Athens, glad mother of a mighty line,
In foremost rank of thine immortal band,
Wise, great, and good, unchallenged takes his stand,
Plato the master, Plato the divine:
For that, unveil'd before his favour'd eyes,
Truth's everlasting dawn serenely rose
Glimmering from the windows of the skies,
And gold-bedropping, like the sun on streams,
The river of his rich poetic prose;
Yet clouded much by fancy's misty dreams,
That eloquence an Alpine torrent flows,
And thy strong mind, dim with ideal schemes,
Stands a stone mountain crown'd with melting snows.

HEAR THE CHURCH.

The Church?—how gladly would I hear the Church:
I long to love and honour and obey,
And truly to be guided in the way,
And comforted and counsell'd in my search:
But where—where is She? who shall strike the truth
Between opposing factions, priest and lay,
The one, to Rome perverting half our youth,
The other leading liberally astray?
Is She indeed embalm'd in magic rite,
And sacramental miracle forsooth,
Resurgent from that mediæval night?
Nor rather living still, and to be found,
With secret ministration shedding light,
In men of every race and sect around?

DEMOSTHENES.

Strange, that within the wondrous walls of space,
Ringing on some rare atmosphere far hence,
The periods of thy matchless eloquence
Are flying still in vibratory race,—
O prince of words and thoughts, Demosthenes:
Thee, centuries agone, great Athens bore
Chief orator above those brilliant four,
Demades, Lycurgus, Lysias, Æschines;
For thy majestic energy was still
Foremost in might to move, and power to please,
While midnight toil matured thy graceful ease,
And country's love inspired each Siren sound,
Now soft and gentle, as a trickling rill,
Now like a rushing torrent pour'd around.

PROVIDENTIAL HINTS.

Watch little providences: if indeed
Or less there be, or greater, in the sight
Of Him who governs all by day and night,
And sees the forest hidden in the seed:
Of all that happens take thou reverent heed,
For seen in true Religion's happier light
(Though not unknown of reason's placid creed)
All things are ordered; all by orbits move,
Having precursors, satellites, and signs,
Whereby the mind not doubtfully divines
What is the will of Him who rules above,
And takes for guidance those paternal hints
That all is well, that thou art led by Love,
And in thy travel trackest old footprints.

ARISTOTLE.

If aught of sterling wit, or natural worth,
The heights of thought, or depths of various lore
That to the mind's own fountain gushing forth
Added all wealth as from an ocean store,
If these be honour, be that honour thine,
O human wonder, Intellect divine,
That spake of all things wisely,—taught aright
By nature's voice, and reason's inner sun,—
Still can we love thy not all human light,
And hail thy wisdom, heathen Solomon:
Another praise be thine, O Stagyrite,
For that the world's great winner, in thy school
His all of power, with all of knowledge, won,
Learning from thee to conquer and to rule.

TRUE SENATORS.

Beware of mere delusive eloquence,—
Your hackney'd clever talkers, who can make
Evil seem good for place and party sake,
Well skill'd in dialectic thrust and fence;
Let common honesty and common sense
Come to Thy council board; no longer take
For statesmen some few scornful consulars
The scions of great families,—for such
Less love the People's friendship than the Czar's,
Doting on courts and dynasties too much
For England's honour in these latter wars:
Extinguish all those wranglers of debate
Corrupt with family feuds and party jars,
And choose the Good and Wise to serve the State.

PHOCION.

Truly ennobled in that name The Good,
Thy spirit sought a thankless country's weal
Through fourscore years with all a martyr's zeal,
And then,—the fickle envious multitude,
That democratic city's viper brood,
Rewarded thee with hate and clamorous strife,
Poison'd thy fame with calumny's foul breath,
And for the wages of a patriot's life
Paid, as their wont, a malefactor's death:
Athens, base Athens, what a deed abhorr'd
Of guileless blood lies heavily on thee;
Hear to thy shame a Phocion's dying word,
‘My son, forget that thou hast seen or heard
The bitter wrongs poor Athens heap'd on me.’

NEW STATESMEN.

We need the Good; the men of just intent,
Lovers of right who will not wink at wrong,
Men of just principle and purpose strong,
On Duty and the common welfare bent;
We want no longer,—we have had too long,—
The Siren-talkers false and eloquent,
Mighty in word, but paralysed in deed;
Too long the mere adventurers, whose aim
Is self-advancement from their country's need;
O party gamesters, hide yourselves for shame!
England calls out for Patriots good and true,
—What if plebeian, so they save the State,
Men to diplomacy and office new,
Pure-hearted, and unhackney'd in debate.

PHIDIAS.

O rare creative mind, and plastic hand,
Whose skill enshrined in one gigantic form,
Chryselephantine, rear'd in air enorme,
The viewless guardian of thy father-land
Olympian Jove,—pardon to thee for this,
That of the God whose chariot is the storm
Thy soul by Him untaught should deem amiss,
Pardon to thee, and praise; thy labour proves
The heart's sincerity, though little light
Scatter'd the darkness of thy moral night:
Behold, it quickens! the colossus moves!
Who, who would not fall down?—Start not, ye proud,
Perchance your idols are as false as Jove's,
And ye more guilty than that pagan crowd.

WINTERHALTER'S PORTRAITS.

How pleasantly from out their arches golden
These faces smile on me; how kindly they
By beauteous love my loyalty embolden,
And round my heart-springs like a sun-beam play,
And with sweet voices to my spirit say,
Up! our true knight,—as in the tourneys olden,—
Stand thou for us against all evil tongues!
In truth, O Royal Children of my Queen,
My spirit vows, I will!—'twas ever seen
In this poor world that calumnies and wrongs
Afflict the highest; it hath sometimes been
A mouse may save the lion from a snare;
So, may my true devotion help to spare
From any grief these gracious looks serene.

EPICURUS.

They have malign'd thy memory, grave good man,
They have abused the truth thy pureness taught,
Beautiful truth with rare religion fraught,
That to cull pleasure whensoe'er he can
Is a man's wisdom,—so he keep in thought
That pleasure lies in living as he ought:
For, selfish vice, the fool's besotted plan
Of mis-call'd happiness, how false it is,—
What misery lurks beneath the painted cheek,
How much of sorrow in the wanton's kiss!
O would that, where thou walkest now in bliss,
Some garden of the stars, thy wrath could speak
To these degenerate sons, who blot thy fame,
Glad in their woe, and glorying in their shame!

THE TRUE EPICURE.

How saidst thou?—Pleasure: why, my life is pleasure;
My days are pleasantness, my nights are peace;
I drink of joys which neither cloy nor cease,
A well that gushes blessings without measure:
Ah, thou hast little heed how rich and glad
How happy is my soul in her full treasure,
How seldom but for honest pity sad,
How constantly at calm!—my very cares
Are sweetness in my cup, as being sent;
And country quiet, and retired leisure
Keep me from half the common fears and snares;
And I have learnt the wisdom of content:
Yea, and to crown the cup of peace with praise
Both God and man have blest my works and ways.

MARCELLUS.

A conqueror that weeps for victory won!—
O glorious soul, that mid the patriot fight
Raged as an Ajax in his ruthless might,
Then turn'd to mourn the havoc he had done!
So wept Marcellus, Rome's heroic son,
(When haughty Syracuse had fallen, despite
Her strength in Archimedes,)—and with care
Strove—not to butcher foemen, but—to spare:
Stop we not here; for ev'n a brighter act
Claims deeper homage: when avail'd not all
Thy pious care, but those fierce legions sack'd
The helpless city in its last dread fall,
When thy worst foe, thy subtlest, met his doom,
Thy nobler praise was Archimedes' tomb.

TO A CRIMEAN GENERAL.

Where are my sons? indignant England cries,—
Where is mine honour?—O thou sorry chief,
How much of poignant shame and bitter grief
Cling to those askings and their sad replies:
By selfish incapacity betray'd
Under a cloud Britannia's glory lies:
Her soldiery, who fight beneath the shade
Of upas-oligarchy, pine and waste
(O brave brave hearts, though starving, undismay'd!)
For very want at plenty's richest board,
Because contemptuous rank will not make haste
To care for common men! Degenerate Lord,
Too soon hath England heap'd thine honours thus;
Thou shalt account for them to God and us.

HIPPARCHUS.

In spirit as I roam with thee by night,
Threading the galaxy on fancy's wing,
Oft, as I reach a star more sweetly bright,
My hope will rise and in a rapture sing,
Fair planet, can I ever be thy king,
A sainted monarch in thy halls of light?
For there are many mansions, mighty thrones,
Glories, and sceptres, praise and golden zones,
Reward, and homage, crowns and shining robes:
Ambition's boldest dream, and wildest flight
Hath yet to be borne out: ecstatic soul
Shall soar triumphant to those burning globes
That round essential God sublimely roll,
The life, the sun, the centre of the whole!

THE SUN.

Blame not, ye million worshippers of gold,
Modern idolators—their works and ways,
When Asia's children, in the times of old,
Knelt to the sun, outpouring prayer and praise
As to God's central throne; for when the blaze
Of that grand eye is on me, and I stand
Watching its majesty with painful gaze,
I too could kneel among that Persian band,
Had not the Architect of yon bright sphere
Taught me Himself; bidding me look above,
Beneath, around, and still to find Him—here!
King of the heart, dwelling in no fixt globe,
But gladly throned within the spirit of love,
Wearing that light ethereal as a robe.

VIRGIL.

As, for yourselves, O birds, no nest ye build,
No fleecy coats, O nibbling flocks, ye wear,
With sweets for you, O bees, no hive is fill'd,
O steers, no self-enriching yoke ye bear;
Thus for thyself, great prince of pastoral song,
Toil'd not thy modest muse, but for all time;
Yea, to the world thy polish'd strains belong:
Was it then virtue in thee, or half crime,
A false humility, sublimely wrong,
To try to cheat thine Epic of its fame,
For that to thee perfection seem'd ill done,
Hurling thy laurels to the jealous flame?
O Mantua, thou wert rich in such a son,
Yea, had thy Virgil been thine only one.

THE MOON.

I know thee not, O Moon,—thou cavern'd realm,
Sad satellite, a giant ash of death,
Where cold, alternate, and the sulphurous breath
Of ravaging volcanoes, overwhelm
All chance of life like ours,—art thou not
Some fallow world, after a reaping time
Of creatures' judgment, resting in thy lot?
Or haplier must I take thee for the blot
On God's fair firmament, the home of crime,
The prison-house of sin, where damnèd souls
Feed upon punishment?—O thought sublime,
That, amid Night's black deeds, when evil prowls
Thro' the broad world, then, watching sinners well,
Glares over all the wakeful eye of—Hell!

HORACE.

Lyrist of every age, of every clime,
Whose eye prophetic saw thy strong-built fame
Stand a perennial monument sublime,—
Not all of thee shall perish: in thy name
Live memories embalm'd of richest thought,
Far-flashing wit, and satire's wholesome smart,
Fine speech with feeling delicately fraught,
And patriot songs that with their generous glow
Warm to the love of home the wanderer's heart:
How varied is the chaplet on thy brow,
How wreath'd of many praises! the bright bay,
With laughing rose, and ebrious ivy twined,
And myrtles of staid hue, and wild-flowers gay,
Shadow the changeful phases of thy mind.

THE STARS.

Far-flaming stars, ye sentinels of Space,
Patient and silent ministers around
Your Queen, the moon, whose melancholy face
Seems ever pale with pity and grief profound
For sinful Earth,—I, a poor groveller here,
A captive eagle chain'd to this dull ground,
Look up and love your light in hope and fear;
Hope, that among your myriad host is one,
A kingdom for my spirit, a bright place
Where I shall reign when this short race is run,
An heir of joy, and glory's mighty son!
Yet, while I hope, the fear will freeze my brain—
What if indeed for worthless me remain
No waiting sceptre, no predestined throne?

CORNELIA.

O jewels beyond price, uncounted gold,
Children, best wardens of a father's fame,
Ye joys wealth never bought, want never sold,
In you the rare unmammon'd hearts behold
The highest earthly good of mortal aim:
Yon toothless darling at the mother's breast,—
That ruddy three-year-old who joyous runs
Jealous of love, in haste to be carest,—
Those gentle daughters, and these manly sons,—
Are they not riches?—O thou worldly wise,
Go to some home of earth's despised ones
To learn where treasure—not thy gold-god—lies!
Yea, Roman mother, glory in your gems;
Such are the stars in heavenly diadems.

OUR KINGDOM.

Hence, doubts of darkness! I am not mine own,
But ransom'd by the King of that bright host;
In Him my just humility shall boast,
And claim through Him that sceptre and that throne:
Yes, world of light,—when by the booming sea
At eve I loiter on this shingly coast,
In seeming idleness,—I gaze on thee,
(Some Star,—I know not which,—) fated to be
My glorious heritage, my heavenly home,
A temple and a paradise for me,
Whence my celestial form at will may roam
To other worlds, unthought and unexplor'd,
Whose atmosphere is bliss and liberty,
The palaces and gardens of the Lord!

MARY THE VIRGIN.

Hail, Mary! blessed among women, hail!
How should I pass thee by, most favoured one,
As thus I greet thee in this vision'd vale
Far other than on earth, when sad and pale
Beneath the bitter cross of that dear Son
Thy woman's heart did faint; I note thee now
Walking in praise, and on thy modest brow
The coronet that tells of glory won:
O blest art thou, but not yet full thy bliss,
Albeit where erst a sword piercéd thy heart
Celestial joys in thrilling raptures dart;
For He, the tender firstling of thy love,
The precious child thy virgin lips did kiss,
Hath still to take his triumph from above.

WAIT.

How often to lie still is to be wise,—
How many times is Patience as a charm
That wins a gracious blessing from the skies
Richer than all on Labour's bustling farm—
How often to do more is to do harm!
So, when thy seeds are wedded to the soil,
And thou hast well done duty, and the lot
Is cast into the lap, consider not
How next to make all speed by thought and toil,—
But rather wait; the power of faith is there,—
Faith that achieves all conquest, takes all spoil,—
Faith, the great reaper of the crop of pray'r;
In faith be still; lest unbelieving care,
By overstriving, all good efforts foil.

OUR BROTHER IN HEAVEN.

O Thou, my God, and yet my brother man,
My worshipp'd Lord, and sympathising friend,
Who so hath loved us all, ere time began,
Who so wilt love us still, when time shall end,
Pardon and bless, if on my bended knee
As best of Men I raise the song to Thee!
For we can claim Thee ours, as of earth;
To us, to us, the wondrous child is given,
And that illimitable praise of heaven
Prisons his fulness in a mortal birth:
Hope of the world, what were all life, all health,
All honours, riches, pow'rs, and pleasures worth,
If from Thy gracious face, Good Master, driven,
Whose smiles are everlasting joy and wealth?

A REPLY TO CERTAIN.

That I have loved my Saviour as I ought,
I dare not say; but I can call him Lord,
The man Christ Jesus and the God the Word,—
And worship Him in will and deed and thought
With my poor best and truest; where He leads,
As from mine infant years I have been taught,
Thither I follow through the crowd of creeds,
And have not swerved nor changed: without His power
I could not stand, could not have stood, one hour;
But, with His help, I yet shall go straight on
Believing, and obeying, doing good,
Truth-telling, yet intolerant to none,
Giving both God and man my gratitude
For all I have or hope, through Christ the Son.

ST. JOHN.

Not love alone, thou whom the Saviour loved,
Not faith alone, O favour'd more than men,
Not five-score years of holiness approved,
Nor the dear beauties of thy joyful pen,
Mark thee alone God's friend; ennobled more
By the large gift of deep prophetic ken,
How full of ecstasy couldst thou adore
With thousand thousand shining ones before
That throne of glory, pouring out the hymn,
While echoed far the rapturous amen
From brilliant flocks of thronging cherubim,
And those four restless Zoa, full of eyes:
O seals, O trumpets, wonders dread and dim!
Exile, thy praise be holiest mysteries.

SELF-RESTRAINT.

Thee from thyself to rescue and to save,
O man! is God's salvation; other foes
Were easier conquest, even to the grave:
And for this end our God commandment gave
That all things whereby Nature works, in those
Should man resist, lest he should be their slave:
‘Thou shalt not’—is the law; however hot
Be wrath, or covetous wish, or low desire,
Or any selfish purpose, thou shalt Not:
Within thee lies a hidden fount of fire,
And, if with evil thou dost fan a blaze,
Woe, for the flaming house; if self-control
Chastens its fierceness into genial rays,
Rejoice! it glows the hearth-fire of the soul.

ST. PAUL.

What thanks to pay thee?—by what stretch of thought,
What happy flight of reverential praise,
What tuneful hymn with holiest ardour fraught,—
A welcome worthy of the heart, to raise
Even to thee,—whose Apostolic zeal
Hath blest, corrected, comforted, and taught
All generations for eternal weal?
God send the grace, with contrite breast to feel
The preciousness of each high argument
In those dear letters writ from heaven to earth;—
O thus to gather manna, kindly sent
To feast our souls in more than Egypt's dearth,—
Thus, like to thee, through might in mercy lent,
Dying indeed to sin, by second birth.

CONFESSION.

Alas, how many vain and bitter things
My zeal, and pride, and natural haste have wrought;
Yea, thou my soul, by word and deed and thought,
The curse of selfishness hath scorch'd thy wings:
There is a fire within, I feel it now,
A smouldering mass of strong imaginings
That heat my heart, and burn upon my brow,
And vent their hissing lava on my tongue
Scathing, unsparing:—yet my will is just,
My wrath is ever quicken'd by a wrong,
I flame—to strike oppressors to the dust,
To crush the cruel, and confound the base,
To welcome insolence with calm disgust,
And brand the scoffer's forehead with disgrace.

ZENOBIA.

Palmyra,—widow'd city of the dead,
How mournfully thy marshall'd columns stand
Grey sentinels above that desert sand
Where once thy patriot multitudes were spread
In serried ranks around Zenobia's car,
Hurling defiance at despotic Rome,
When country's love inspired the righteous war
For temples, Lares, liberties, and home,
Yea, to the death: Palmyra, thy last boast
Was this undaunted queen, the chaste, the fair,
Wise to decide, and resolute to dare,
Sage among sages, heroine in the host:
Hide not the fetters, as thou walkest there,
Liberty's martyr, those become thee most.

INFLUENCES.

Judge not the sensitive: if thou hast blamed,
Think how a thousand influences tell,
With strong enchantment acting like a spell,
Upon that spirit all too finely framed:
Antagonisms, and slights, and vulgar things,
And all whatever else should make ashamed
Of mean or vain, from these as nettle-stings
Shrinks back within itself the feeling mind;
What thou hast counted cold fastidious pride
Is to warm graces tenderly allied,
Indignant wrath with holy pain combined;
And spirit-nerves alike with nerves of sense,
To some brute natures worthily denied,
In others thrill with energies intense.

COLOMBA.

Mournfully breaks the north wave on thy shore,
Silent Iona, and the mocking blast
Sweeps sternly o'er thy relics of the past,
The stricken cross, the desecrated tomb
Of abbots, and barbarian kings of yore:
Thee from the blight of death's encircling gloom
Colomba saved, and to thy cloisters grey
In pious zeal for God, and love for man,
Of mighty truth led on the conquering van,
And largely pour'd fair learning's hallow'd ray
On night's dark deep,—an isolated star,
The Pharos of those arctic Cyclades,
That lighted to her rocky nest from far
Mercy's white dove, faint flutterer o'er the seas.

DUTY.

Pearls before swine: this is an old complaint;
In very humbleness and not in pride
The spirit feels it true; yet makes a feint
To rest with man's neglect well satisfied,
And have its wealth of words, its stores of thought,
Despised or unregarded: woe betide
The heart that lives on praise! considering nought
Of Duty's royal edicts, that command
Thy talents to be lent, thy lamp to shine:
Soul, be not faint; nor, body, stay thy hand;
Heed only this,—not whether those be swine,
But whether these be pearls, precious and pure;
That so, whatever fate the world make thine,
Elsewhere, through Grace, thy guerdon be secure.

BEDE.

Around thy memory there lingereth still
A rare and gracious savour, reverend man,
Whose patient toil so long ago began
To sink the sacred wells on Zion-hill,—
Whence issued ankle-deep truth's earliest rill,
That, deepening soon, in copious torrents ran
From thee their sometime patriarch, until
They reach us fathomless, a mighty sea:
O simple priest, pious, and just, and true,
Religious, learned,—thousand thanks are due
From England, and her children unto thee:
Thou, like thy Master, bowing His meek head,
Didst view thy perfect work of piety,
And die rejoicing it was finishèd.

PHANTASIA.

My fond first love, sweet mistress of my mind,
Thy beautiful sublimity hath long
Charm'd mine affections, and entranced my song,
Thou Spirit-Queen, that sitst enthroned, enshrined
Within this suppliant heart; by day and night
My brain is full of thee: ages of dreams,—
Thoughts of a thousand worlds in visions bright,
Fear's dim terrific train, Guilt's midnight schemes,
Strange peeping eyes, soft smiling fairy faces,
Dark consciousness of fallen angels nigh,
Sad converse with the dead, or headlong races
Down the straight cliffs, or clinging on a shelf
Of brittle shale,—or hunted through the sky!
O God of mind, I shudder at myself!

CHARLEMAGNE.

Whence comest thou?—What kingdom of the stars
Is thine, imperial ghost?—with homage meet,
Cæsar, Augustus, thee my song shall greet,
And hail a Charlemagne the second Mars!
Yet other notes must fill the praiseful song
Than those hoarse clamours of continual wars,
Or never had I met thee blest among
Children of light: thee, rectitude of soul,
Majestic firmness, patriot excellence,
Simplicity and truth and sterling sense
On the bright record of the Great enroll:
Rejoice, fair France, in those dear memories
Of him, thy somewhile glory and defence:
Such monarchs earn the fame that never dies.

IMAGINATION.

Dread Monarch-maid, I see thee now before me,
Searching my soul with those mysterious eyes,
Spell-bound I stand, thy presence stealing o'er me,
While all unnerved my trembling spirit dies:
Oh, what a world of untold wonder lies
Within thy quivering lips; how rare a light
Of conquered joys and ecstasies represt
Beneath thy dimpled cheek shines half-confest;
In what luxuriant masses, glossy-bright,
Those raven locks fall shadowing thy fair breast;
And lo, that bursting brow, with gorgeous wings,
And vague young forms of beauty coyly hiding
In thy crisp curls, like cherubs there abiding,—
Charmer, to thee my heart enamour'd springs!

HAROON ALRASCHID.

Visions of Oriental pomp around
Teem on my sight; a grand ideal scene,
Where upon Tigris Bagdat sits as queen,
Rises in dreamy splendour from the ground;
I hear the clashing cymbals, and the sound
Of brazen horns, and loud monotonous drums
From turban'd thousands in their war array
About Alraschid, as the conqueror comes
From perjured Greece triumphant in the fray:
Best lord, and wisest judge, that ever sat
In the black mantle of the Caliphat,
When we recall thy race and thee, Haroon,
We count thee as the herald of the day
Rising to quench in light the crescent moon.

MODERN PROGRESS.

These twenty years,—how full of gain to us,
To common humble multitudinous Man;
How swiftly Providence advances thus
Our flag of progress flaming in the van!
This double decade of the world's short span
Is richer than two centuries of old:
Richer in helps, advantages, and pleasures,
In all things richer—even down to gold—
To all of every class in liberal measures:
We travel quicker now than Isthmians might;
In books we quaff the veriest Hebe's chalice;
All wonders of the world gladden the sight
In that world's wonder-house the Crystal Palace;
And everywhere is might enslaved to Right.

ALFRED.

All hail our own, our ancient peerless boast!
From thee thy Britain loves her all to date,
Proud of her ‘Darling King,’ the ever-great,
Who pour'd the liberties we value most,
The sacred old-time rights we venerate,
In rich abundance round our sea-girt coast:
Where is thy Tomb among us? where the spot
Ennobled by some record of thy worth,
True father of thy country?—have we lost
All love of thee? hath England then forgot
Her patriot-prince, her lawgiver, her sage,
Who taught her, nourish'd her, and sent her forth
Rejoicing on her way, from age to age
Queen of the seas, and Empress of the earth?

FRIENDS.

I cannot move a mile upon this earth,
I could not, did I walk from end to end,
But there I find a heart of wit and worth,
Some gracious spirit to be hail'd a friend:
O there are frequent angels unawares,
And many have I met upon my way,
Dear Christian souls, to make me rich with prayers,
Whilst in like coin their mercies I repay;
And oft the sun of praise hath lit mine eyes,
Generous praise and just encouragement,
From some who say I help them to be wise,
And teach them to be happy in content:
Ah soul, rejoice! for thou hast thickly sown
The living world with friendships all thine own.

DANTE.

Thou hast borne many great and noble sons,
Florence the fair! that beauteous as a dream
Sittest enthroned on Arno's silver stream,
Where coyly through the laughing vale it runs,
And, oh not last, among those gifted ones,
Memory thine own undying Dante views:
Him, yet a child, strong Love, that earliest winds
Fetters of rose around the purest minds,
Claim'd for his own, and like a monarch gave
To staid Melpomene, his laurell'd muse,
The happy captive for a favourite slave:
A slave? A mighty master,—from whose lyre
The pangs of hell, the terrors of the grave,
The joys of paradise, rush forth in fire!

FOES.

A man's own household: Wisdom spake the word,
The just but bitter paradox of truth;
Who hath not known and felt and seen and heard
How real it was to him in age or youth?
There are no foes so keen as kith and kin:
Grant that thou hast, however lightly, err'd,
These blazon out the fault and call it sin,
Hunting thee down with censure; or if fame
Worthy and just be meted to thy lot,
And men of every nation bless thy name,
That kith and kin neglect thee, marvel not;
Their envious hopes would make thy glory shame:
Yea, let a man for loves and friendships roam;
He finds, or wisely leaves, his foes at home.

TELL.

O Liberty, sweet angel much malign'd,
How have the sons of licence wrong'd thy name,—
What crimes, what follies of unhallowed aim
Have they not cast upon thee, too resign'd
Meek martyr, and their lawless works of shame
With thine own wreath of grand achievements twin'd!
Not thus, yon gallant mountain-patriot,
Fair Switzerland, the darling of thy fame,
Caught to his outraged heart the rescued child,
And just avenger, spared not, waver'd not,
But with dread patience dared the noble deed,
On which glad Liberty approving smiled;
For when she saw the savage Austrian bleed
She knew her own Swiss home, her temple freed.

FRATERNAL EGOTISM.

Not in self-seeking doth the Poet draw
From his own wells, and analyse his heart;
All men in all men bear a kindred part,
All spirits to all spirits are a law:
Whatever any mind has seen or felt,
That inner secret which in self he saw
With genial utterance to his brother dealt
Shall quicken him, and make his hardness melt,
His passion thrill, his frozen feeling thaw,
His selfishness to brotherhood aspire:
So then, accuse not as of mean design
The generous fervour of poetic fire,—
Such frankness cheers, such sympathies refine,
Such noble thoughts to nobler thoughts inspire.

PETRARCH.

Poet, and hermit-scholar of Vaucluse,
Whom Rome, admiring, forth with laurels sent
A crownéd lover to thy classic muse,—
That thy rare wisdom could serenely choose
Nature, and God, and quiet with content,
Spurning the baubles of ambitious strife
And wealth sin-tainted of a courtier life
In palaces of priests unholy spent,
Honour be thine, and more than mortal fame
Wreathing with amaranth thy starry name:
And may that gentle spirit, strangely rent
By love, alike unguilty and unblest,
Now with its mate, beyond the breath of blame,
After thy life-long search find endless rest.

FROM PETRARCH.

Sloth and the sensual mind have driven away
All virtues from the world: where'er I range,
I note on every side an evil change;
Our steps are now unlit by heavenly ray:
The poet, walking in his crown of bay,
Is pointed at—for scorn; the selfish herds
Of mammon-worshippers insulting say
‘What is the worth of all these metred words?
Your crowns of bay and myrtle are but leaves:’
And so Philosophy goes starved and lone,
And Vice is glad, while widow'd Virtue grieves:
Still be not thou disheartened, generous one,
Follow that path, which entered ne'er deceives,
But leads if not to Gain, to Glory's throne.

COLUMBUS.

Thy soul was nerved with more than mortal force,
Bold mariner upon a chartless sea,
With none to second, none to solace thee,
Alone, who daredst keep thy resolute course
Thro' the broad waste of waters drear and dark,
Mid wrathful skies, and howling winds, and worse
The prayer, the taunt, the threat, the mutter'd curse
Of all thy brethren in that fragile bark:
For on thy brow, throbbing with hopes immense,
Had just Ambition set his royal mark,
Enriching thee with noble confidence,
That having once thy venturous sails unfurl'd
No danger should defeat thy recompense,
The god-like gift to Man of half the world.

THE GOLD-DIGGINGS.

Behold a miracle!—when Mercy found
That still in vain across the waters wide
Famine and Plenty to each other cried
Pleading for food or feasters all around,
God gave the word! and straight, with lumps of gold
And brilliant specks among the rich black mould
Some angel sowed the labour-craving ground;
And so the shoaling multitudes went forth,
Pour'd from this hive of nations in the north
To people our Antipodes: O Man!
When shall thy dullard soul acknowledge God,
Wondrous in perfecting, as wise in plan,—
Thus leading on Progression's eager van
By the poor fisher's lure, a baited sod.

RAFFAELLE.

Ho!—thou that hither comest, in gorgeous stole
Of many-colour'd silk,—and round thy head
The rainbow hues of fancy richly shed,—
And eyes that in ecstatic transport roll,—
And looks that speak the triumph of the soul,—
Hail, young creative spirit! from whose mind
Teeming tumultuously with thoughts and things,
(The flitting notion with strong power combined
Of fixing all those grand imaginings,)
An intellectual world of wonder springs:
Raffaelle, thine all too perishable art
Fades from the time-stain'd walls: but not so fade
Our memories of thy skill;—those laurels start
Afresh for ever: walk thou in their shade.

DISPARAGEMENT.

Make haste, make haste, my prudent little friends!
You lag behind the world, both blind and halt,—
For your own credit leave off finding fault,
And wisely bustle up to make amends:
Look you! time was, when even such small salt
As your encouragement and speaking fair
Would have been prized and grateful; savouring well
The taste of bitterness, the touch of care
The proud young spirit felt, but scorn'd to tell,
When, keenly sensitive of man's despite,
While conscious that from kinder Heav'n above
A gift had been vouchsafed of purest light,
That spirit coveted your looks of love,
And yearn'd around, and ye refused his Right.

BAYARD.

The clarion sounds,—the steeds impatient prance,
While featly spurring to the mimic fray
The high-born chivalry of gallant France
Poise the stout shield, and break the quivering lance;—
And who this beardless champion of to-day?
The young Bayard; than whom no brighter name
Shines in more blazon on the rolls of fame,
The fearless, and the spotless,—nobly hail'd,
All honour to the brave!—Alone he stood
With single sword against the multitude
At Gargliano; and when fortune fail'd,
Generous Bayard alone knew not to yield,—
But full of glories—gentle, brave, and good,
He died in pray'r, though on the battle field.

APPRECIATION.

Yet were there other some, the generous few
Kindly prophetic, helping with their praise
Balmy and precious as the morning dew
Or early sunshine in those anxious days;
All thanks, all thanks!—I now can shine on you;
And love you for the love that linger'd not
Till honour and success had wreath'd my pen,
Till God had seal'd to me a blessed lot,—
That pleasant heritage, the hearts of men:
All thanks, ye noble souls! Behold, the rill
Your dewy praise did graciously distil
Soon gather'd to a stream, and swelling then
Grew to a river, and that river wide
Far out to sea now rolls its ceaseless tide.

LUTHER.

Couldst thou look down upon us from thy rest,
Where'er thy spirit hath its glorious home,
And note that persecuting horn of Rome
Waxing in subtle power and pride unblest,
How would thy zeal flame out, thou second Paul:
Thy spurious children, who should still protest
Against a church apostate and impure,
Now bid her prosper, and insanely call
The pampering of priestcraft, liberal!
Liberal,—to help in forging more secure
Chains for the conscience, fetters for the mind;
Liberal,—to quench our light in utter dark!
But prophecy hath told it: search and find:
Cursèd is he that shall receive the mark.

MY NAMESAKE.

Luther Eleutheros! thou lion-heart,
Call'd by a name predestin'd to be Free,
Nobly thou didst the Christian warrior's part,—
Paul and Ignatius fought again in thee:
My glorious namesake, what a praise to me,
By nation, name, and nature too, thou art,
Martin Eleutheros, my Saxon chief!
I, too, would scorn to bend a slavish knee,
Or bate one tittle of my firm belief,
Or seem some other than I boast to be—
No human master's servant; in thy strength,
The Rock of Ages, is my spirit strong;
And resolutely will I lead along,
Like thee, for truth, and good, and God at length.

JANE GREY.

So young, so fair, so simple, so deceived!—
For all thy learning could not teach thee guile,
Nor warn thee from that base domestic wile
Which coil'd thee like a serpent, and bereaved
Thy heart of life, of loyal praise thy name,—
Posterity is just; and from the blame
Of stealing for thyself another's crown
And playing false in hot ambition's game
Declares thee innocent: that little week
Of splendour forced and fear'd, so soon laid down,
Cost thee most bitter wages;—yet most sweet,
If prison-haunting wisdom bade thee seek
This heav'nly crown, for thy fair brow so meet,
This higher majesty my song would greet.

STRANGE ATTRIBUTES.

Vengeance, and jealousy, and wrath are Thine:
Can these things be indeed, most loving Lord,
Or have we spoilt the beauty of thy word
By names so dark for attributes divine?
Yet must true justice vindicate the right,
And scatter wrong in well-avenging might,
Chastising, not revenging: yet must Love
Most fondly claim that every heart should beat
As its own bliss for only God above:
Yet must some moral fire, some holy heat,
Pervade the Will that else were wilfulness:
Those words are well; He doth avenge the wrong,
His love is jealous thee by love to bless,
And sin shall rouse His wrath, though suffering long.

SHAKSPEARE.

Who shall appraise Potosi's hidden mines,
Or measure Oronooko's gushing springs,
Or in a balance weigh the Apennines,
Fathom the deep, or span the polar rings?—
And who can sum thy wealth, exhaustless mind,
Or scale the heights of its imaginings,
Where giant thoughts with beauteous fancies twined,
Stand wondrous, as the heaven-kissing hills?
Thy theme is Man: the universal heart
In sympathy with thee dissolves or thrills,
While the strong spells of nature leagued with art
Bind the world captive in a magic chain:
Thy peer is out of hope; we wait in vain;—
We may not look upon his like again.

PEACE AND QUIETNESS.

Peace is the precious atmosphere I breathe;
And my calm mind goes to her dewy bower,
A trellis rare of fragrant thoughts to wreathe,
Mingling the scents and tints of every flower;
For pity, vex her not; those inner joys
That bless her in this consecrated hour,
Start and away, like plovers at a noise,
Sensitive, timorous:—O do not scare
My happy fancies, lest the flock take wing,
Fly to the wilderness and perish there!
For I have secret luxuries, that bring
Gladness and brightness to mine eyes and heart,
Memory, and Hope, and keen Imagining,
Sweet thoughts and peaceful, never to depart.

CERVANTES.

If to have been wise Europe's pioneer
To truth, and sense, and better aims of life,—
If by thy satire's keen and caustic knife
To have had Ercles' might to lop and sear
The stolid hydra-heads of errant strife,—
If these be worth a passing grateful thought,
Take it, Cervantes; we have few like thee,
Full of right-minded wit, that wounds not aught
But folly, with its cutting gaiety:
Thanks to thy prison, that its dulness wrought
A lasting humorous good; the crazy knight,
His shrewd rough squire, and those unheard-of deeds,
Whereat the school-boy shouts with huge delight,
And the philosopher wonders as he reads.

YOUNG-HEARTED.

As by an effort only, reckoning o'er
The fleeting years, and lives of other men,
How life creeps on apace, and why and when
Its changing phases should affect us more,
We guess and gather doubtingly: for me,
(Startled at times mine equals old to see,)
My heart is young as ever, full of mirth
And buoyancy, too light and fresh and free
For dignities and pompous tricks of earth;
So hath it been till now,—so let it be,—
And not grow grave: thrice happy is the man
Whose spirit, feeling a Tithonic birth,
Never grows old, rejoices where it can,
And cares no more for Time than it is worth.

HARVEY.

‘The life which is the blood:’ O heedless men,
How often unbelieving have ye heard
The side-dropp'd hints, that strew the written Word:
The fountain-heart, that pours the stream of life;
The cell-stopt wheel, that makes it circle then
By vessels manifold; ye might have learn'd
From the fool's scorn, a Guide that never err'd,
Without the clumsier aid of scalpel knife,
These truths for ages, had ye but discern'd
The book of God with natural wisdom rife:
Still, Harvey, be thy patient genius praised,
The shrewdness of thy well-digested plan,
Whose hand the strangely-woven curtain raised
That veil the mysteries of life from man.

PAIN.

Delay not, sinner, till the hour of pain
To seek repentance: pain is absolute,
Exacting all the body, all the brain,
Humanity's stern king from head to foot:
How canst thou pray, while fever'd arrows shoot
Thro' this torn targe,—while every bone doth ache,
And the scared mind raves up and down her cell
Restless and begging rest for mercy's sake?
Add not to death the bitter fears of hell;
Take pity on thy future self, poor man,
While yet in strength thy timely wisdom can;
Wrestle to-day with sin; and spare that strife
Of meeting all its terrors in the van,
Just at the ebbing agony of life.

EVELYN.

Wotton, fair Wotton, thine ancestral Hall,
Thy green fresh meadows, coursed by ductile streams
That ripple joyous in the noonday beams
Leaping adown the frequent waterfall,
Thy princely forest, and calm-slumbering lake,
Are hallow'd spots and classic precincts all;
For in thy terraced walks and beechen grove
The gentle generous Evelyn wont to rove,
Peace-lover, who of Nature's garden spake
From cedars to the hyssop on the wall:
O righteous spirit, fall'n on evil times,
Thy loyal zeal, and learned piety
Blest all around thee, wept thy country's crimes,
And taught the world how Christians live and die.

HOP-PICKING.

A thyrsus grove it seem'd, of standing spears
Wildly festoon'd with gadding wreaths of green;
Yet, not as if old Bacchus and his peers
In tipsy rout and frolic there had been
To hurl them up on end with all their sheen,—
But orderly set forth in warrior rank,
Giants array'd, with fighting-room at flank,
Caparison'd, and heavily plumed a-top
With clustering bells:—and, are these Dryad bands,
Or groups of Oreades, so blythely seen
To gather in with songs that golden crop,
Crushing its fragrance in their sportive hands?
No! dreamer:—let Arcadian fancies drop;
These are but hop-pickers,—and that the Hop.

MILTON.

O light, denied to him, that thou art mine!
O blessed Sun, that I can joy in thee!
To praise the Love,—alas so lost on me,—
How gladly should I pour the hymn divine:
Yet all unlike this glorious blind old man,
Mine inward eyes with no such radiance shine;
How seldom in that better sun I bask;
How fainly would I, yet how faintly can:
Great Giver, might I unpresumptuous ask
Into my heart thy love its light to pour,
Take all instead thy righteous mercy wilt;
Not so, for Thou art God; give this, give more,
The richest glory to the poorest guilt,
So with thy Milton shall my soul adore.

GOOD AND EVIL.

Good hath been born of Evil many times,
As pearls and precious ambergris are grown—
Fruits of disease, in pain and sickness sown;
Nations have won their liberty through crimes,
And men true gain of losses: God alone,
Unreachable upon His holy throne,
Needeth not shade to illustrate His light,
Nor less to foil His greatest: but for man
The wrong must riot to awake the right,
And patience grow of pain, as day of night,
And wisdom end what woesome harm began:
And think not to unravel in thy thought
This mingled tissue, this mysterious plan,
This alchemy of good through evil wrought.

IZAAK WALTON.

By guiltless guile the spotted trout to snare;
In idlesse all unblamed to while away
With contemplation sweet the sunny day;
To stroll in morning's dewy freshness where
The stream invited, and grey-mantled sky,
And so with buoyant float, or mimic fly,
To win the sinless triumphs of thine art,—
These were thy simple pastimes, kind old man,
These are thy fame: yet would I praise thee more
For the rich treasure of a childlike heart
That longs to compass all the good it can,
Tender and self-forgetful, gushing o'er
With cheerful thoughts and generous feelings when
Loving thou yearnest on thy fellow-men.

FLY-FISHING.

Look, like a village queen of May, the stream
Dances her best before the holiday sun,
And still with musical laugh goes tripping on
Over those golden sands, which brighter gleam
To watch her pale-green kirtle flashing fleet
Above them, and her tinkling silver feet,
That ripple melodies: quick!—yon circling rise
In the calm refluence of this gay cascade
Mark'd an old trout, who shuns the sunny skies,
And, nightly prowler, loves the hazel shade:
Well thrown!—you hold him bravely,—off he speeds,
Now up, now down,—now madly darts about!
Mind, mind your line among those flowering reeds,—
How the rod bends!—and hail, thou noble trout.

ISAAC NEWTON.

When craft and ignorance with envious tongue
At that lone Florentine their malice hurl'd,
On thee his robe the parting prophet flung,
And hail'd thy dawn to glorify the world,
Like the young moon the clouds of night among,
Modest and solitary, shedding forth
O'er the broad universe truth's holy light:
Yet ev'n against the meekness of thy worth
Detraction's withering breath, and jealous spite
Shed, not all impotent, their cankering blight;
For care sat with thee at thy silent hearth,
O gentle child of wisdom, whose keen eye
Dissolved the sunbeam, pierced the depths of earth,
And read the unwritten charters of the sky.

TIME'S HONOUR.

The attributes of God are all in all
Of beauty and of glory: man admireth
In creature-excellence despite the fall
Just what reflected Deity inspireth:
So cometh it, that Loveliness hath love,
Truth doth enchant, and Mighty Force appal;
And, as The Father is enthroned above,
‘Ancient of Days,’—Antiquity requireth
Man's homage for such nearness to his God:
And so, when ancestry beneath the sod,
And old old woods, and rooftree black with age,
To modern days reflect an ancient fame
Enshrined in history's mediæval page,
These paint the gilded halo round a Name.

FENELON.

Yet are there, ev'n in thee, polluted church,
A worthier chosen few to walk in white,
Some undefiled, whom Grace hath taught to search,
And seen their humble toil, and sent them light;
For, like a meteor dropt upon the night,
Thy faith, good priest, thy pure religion shone
Amid the moral darkness of thine age,
Shedding soft lustre round: nor this alone,
But the sweet pictures of thy graphic page,
Young Telemaque, and that enchanted isle,
The false fair wanton, and mysterious sage,
How well those pleasant tales our care beguile:
Nor only thus; a higher goal is won;
Thou lurest up to virtue with a smile.

THE FIELD, THE WORLD.

Consider thou,—the world wherein we live
Is God's great field for wise experiment;
And there, except what mercy must forgive,
All go their rounds by rule and measurement,
True root and fruit, fit cause and consequent:
And angels watch us well; those loving minds
Note every just effect, and mean, and cause,
And each Intelligence delighted finds
In all the working of eternal laws,
And so adores the Ruler: faith in Him
Makes every riddle clear that else were dim;
And all our trials to one issue tend,
That issue, dear to saints and cherubim,
God's glory,—our beginning, middle, end.

CZAR PETER.

Turn, wondrous shade of an immortal man,
And give my welcome favourable heed,
While my mute soul considers each bright deed
That gems thy crown, imperial artizan,
Whose patriot labour thy rude country freed
From Scythian darkness; for to thee, great prince,
Despite a Jezebel-sister's cursèd plan
Of luring thee to pleasure's guilty ways,
Justly belongs the honourable praise
Of waking a barbarian world of slaves
To fame and power, that have not faded since:
Nobly the bronze Colossus tells thy worth,
For he that blesses, helps, improves, and saves,
Is the true hero of this strife-torn earth.

IMPULSE.

Let me not now ungenerously condemn
My few good deeds on impulse,—half unwise
And scarce approved by reason's colder eyes;
I will not blame, nor weakly blush for them:
The feelings and the actions then stood right:
And if regret for half a moment sighs
That worldly wisdom with its keener sight
Had order'd matters so and so, my heart
Still in its fervour loves a warmer part
Than Prudence wots of: while my faithful mind,
Heart's husband, also praises her for this;
And on our conscience little load I find
If sometimes we have help'd another's bliss
At some small cost of selfish loss behind.

HANDEL.

Awake, my glory, and the world's delight!
Bring hither tabret, harp, and lute, and lyre,
And greet him with the whole angelic quire,
For Handel now from earth has wing'd his flight,
A holy bard in chariot of fire,
To mingle with your band in garments bright:
Oh, with what harmony to hymn aright
Thy canzonet of praise, monarch of song!
So that its music may enchant the mind,
Like some sweet air, that might to thee belong,
Where holiness with melody combined,
Majestic thought in thrilling sound express'd,
Cheat of their sorrows thine indebted kind,
And soothe our souls with harpings of the Blest!

PRAISE AND BLAME.

If thou art praised, be sure that envious spite
Will dodge thee sullenly; will never shrink
From blotting thy fair fame with slander's ink;
And, where it can, right cruelly will smite:
If thou art praised, thou standest on the brink
Of peril, and art near to be cast down
Either through vain conceits, or brainless fright
Of some malignant critic's sneer or frown:
But if loud blame assault thine honour's crown,
Take comfort; for that, to defend the right,
A generous troop of friends shall surely come
To vindicate thy hooted words and ways,
Tending the Pythian victor to his home
With more than he deserves of love and praise.

WESLEY.

Hence, ye profane: and thou, mine honest muse,
Banish the worldly blush from thy false cheek,—
With liberal voice to Wesley's glory speak,
The holy man whom God was pleased to choose
His instrument; from one so good, so meek,
High honour to withhold, or to refuse
Were folly, if not sin; we hail thee then
Glad bearer of good tidings unto men,
Zealous and noble, worthy of the phrase
In which thy Lord, and ours, hath greeted thee,
Well done, thou faithful servant, thine be praise!
These Christ-church cloisters thy pure feet have trod
Mine have trod too; grace grant it,—ev'n to me,
That like a Wesley I may walk with God.

CHRISTIAN UNION.

‘That they may all be one!’—a blessed pray'r,
Echoed by holy hearts, and felt within
As answer'd evermore and everywhere
Among the souls redeem'd from death and sin!
For by whatever name the world may care
To mock those happy ones of earth who win
The prize of our high calling,—still, as One,
They stand together, one in kith and kin,—
Serving The Father, ransom'd by The Son,
And by The Spirit made to live for heaven!
O friends, much loving because much forgiven,
Let us be one in heart throughout the globe,—
Renouncing narrow thoughts and bitter leaven,
One, without rent, as Jesu's woven robe!

LINNÆUS.

Fresh Nature, gentle nurse, we run to thee
With all the love of childhood's innocent heart,
Hiding from those dull works and ways of art,
Glad to escape their schooling, and be free;
O fairy landscape,—fields and wooded hills,
Green valleys, mirror'd lakes and sunny rills,
Young flowers, and blushing fruits, and tufted groves,
How Eden-like a home of peace are ye,
Peopled with angel-guests, and infant loves!
So companied, and in a scene so sweet,
High summer's gorgeous tribute would we bring,
And lay them, priest of Nature, at thy feet,
While their white bells the wedded lilies ring,
And kissing roses a Linnæus greet.

A GREENHOUSE.

Fragrant and fresh, the tropical warm air
Lures into loveliness my petted flowers,
That newly bathed in artificial showers,
Hide in sweet shade their thousand beauties rare:
Here, in high pomp, the gorgeous Cactus flings
Its eastern tassel down the prickly stem,
And Fuchsias spread their tiny scarlet wings,
Like hovering humming-birds in emerald bowers:
There, the tall Amaryll's pink diadem
Above this lowlier Hyacinth queenly towers;
While Orange-blossoms, mingling in the throng
With blushing Roses, and Geraniums bright,
Pour forth an eloquent flood of silent song,
And fill my dancing spirit with delight.

JOHNSON.

Stern moralist, whose potent intellect
Flooded the world with all the Nile of truth,
Slave to no master, prisoner of no sect,
Albeit disease, and want, and harsh neglect
Were long the bitter portion of thy youth,
Thine Atlas mind stood firm beneath the weight,
Preaching the noble homily to men
That poverty hath uses real and great,
In quickening thought, urging the sluggish pen,
Claiming due labours of the listless brow,
Forcing its flowers of wit, and fruits of sense,
And, for man's wonder, bidding grandly flow
The deluge of a Johnson's eloquence,
Like thundering Niagara, strong and slow.

SUCCESS.

Success hath many friends: some faithful found,
As grown to reverent love and just esteem;
Some other, not so hearty as they seem,
Veering vane-minded with the winds around:
Yet more, the shams and worldlings, only scheme
Each shrewdly for his own, clinging to self
More than to him who rises from the ground,—
Pride, reputation, pleasure, common pelf
All binding to his wings: but many foes
Crowd also round Success; the Lion's track
Is hunted by an envious jackal-pack
Born to be disappointed, and to hate
Goodness, maligning him behind his back,
And vainly lusting for his high estate.

GALVANI.

Thou marvel, life, the indescribable!
Whether in spirit, seeming then concrete,
Perpetual motion, or pervading heat,
Or matter's subtlest web, thy might doth dwell,
How rare, how rank, how various is thy form!
Behold, thou lurkest in the fallow clod,
Climbest the fir, and grovellest with the worm,
Reignest in man, and ridest on the storm,
Peopling far worlds,—how many who can tell?
The simple universal breath of God:
We, darkling children, may not compass more
Than note thine influences, still the same,
One cause, though Legion in effect and name,
And with Galvani gratefully adore.

PEACE AND STRIFE.

‘Live peaceably with all, for aught in thee,
If it be possible:’—but is it so,
When every faithful word ensures its foe,
And wrath and impulse, in their due degree,
Make the lip quiver and the forehead glow?
Peace is not always duty; peace forsooth
Were sinful compromise with evil men,
Whose arméd phalanx from the seeds of truth
Springs forth, a foeman from each dragon's tooth:
If thou essayest good by tongue or pen,
Or, worst of all, by force of blameless life,
One martyrdom is certain; thou shalt smart
A pierced Sebastian from the shafts of strife
Aim'd at a loving though a zealous heart.

WASHINGTON.

How might a Briton bless thee without blame,—
Yet how deny thy worth his honest praise?
Great, virtuous, modest, whose unspotted name
Is stamp'd in gold upon the rolls of fame,
Whose brow is circled by her brightest bays,—
Part of thy glory still let England claim,
For still she loves her noble child always:
Where shall we search now, or in ancient days,
To find thy peer,—Leonidas in fight,
Pure Cincinnatus, meek retiring home,
Fabius the wise, or Cato the upright?
Nature hath cull'd the best of Greece and Rome,
And moulding all their virtues into one,
Gave to her infant world a Washington.

ENGLAND APPROVED.

I do believe it, England! God hath blest thee
With all prosperity of heaven and earth
(As man may speak—) according to thy worth:
I do believe, when Duty's power possest thee
Unselfishly, yea sadly, to go forth
And bind that proud Barbarian of the North,
God's love went too, and as His child carest thee:
For, all the fears and perils that opprest thee
Behold them scatter'd in the smile of heaven!
Foes are made friends; where famine gauntly glared
Plenty and peace and happiness are given;
Even the pestilence hath stopp'd and spared
Our chasten'd homes,—though chasten'd not destroy'd,
And rich in good with thanks to be enjoy'd!

HOWARD.

Glorious Apostle of Humanity,
Whose every thought was love to God and Man,
Whose every day sped one consistent plan
Of energized benevolence,—to thee,
O noblest of the Howards, would I bring
A young disciple's worship: tell it out,
Daughters of guilt, and sons of misery,
Poor prisoners, in a grateful chorus sing,
Felons, and common thieves, ye rabble rout
Of gaol or galley, vilest, meanest, worst,
Whom but godlike Howard's pitying eye
Left to your desperate fate, as things accurst,
To greet your Friend in generous rapture shout,
And raise your homage to his home on high!

EMIGRATION.

O Christian patriots, men of mighty heart!
One stirring word to you: the hour is ripe;
Thousands are thronging eager to depart
From this fierce rivalry in Mammon's mart,
To happier shores where Penury's hard gripe
On earth's rich zone is loosen'd: hasten then,
Pour out your offerings with a liberal hand,
Earnest in zeal to help your fellow-men,
And from old England this reproach to wipe
That, crowded up in corners of the land,
Virtuous toil can starve in sorrow's den:
Up! use your wealth aright; and prove its worth
By generous aid to yonder homeless band,
Who look to you to find them homes on earth.

KLOPSTOCK.

Dwell ye then round about us, cheering us
Alike in crowded haunts and solitude,
Warding from ill, and ministering good,
O bright and blessed Sabaoth,—is it thus?
Alas, what can we give of gratitude
To your pure essences, that, o'er us each
Hovering, delight to love and aid and teach
Poor prisoners in the flesh?—Yon sainted bard
Who sang Messiah, loved the happy thought,
Praying that for his angel guide and guard
The spirit of his Cidli might be brought
Ev'n from the grave: O lover, didst thou err,
It were an error with such sweetness fraught,
I too would ask an angel minister.

TO KLOPSTOCK'S SPIRIT.

Immortal mind, so bright with beautiful thought,
And robed so fair in gentlest sympathy,
Thou Christian! by thy guardian angel taught
To strike the holiest harp of melody,
Would I were he for whom thy spirit sought
Prospective with affection's longing eye!
I feel I love thee, brother, as I ought;
Look down, and love me too, where'er thou art:
Ah! could I find a kindred echoing heart
As true as was thy Cidli's unto thine,
How would I bless the Grace that made her mine!
Yes, love as pure should through this bosom dart,
As in thy feeling nature nobly dwelt,
My thrilling heart should feel as thou hast felt.

NELSON.

Well hast thou done thy duty, gallant son;
What truer fame can greet a mortal's ear
Than duty's task heroically done?—
So are they hail'd, who better crowns have won:
Thou, to the patriot's soul so justly dear,
O let us blot thy failings with a tear,
And read alone the record of thy worth,
Man without pride, or hate, or fraud, or fear,
Who banish'd discord, and gave peace to earth,
Thine was the generous heart, though gentle, brave,
The will to bless, the godlike power to save:
What nobler pæan can the poet raise?
A glorious life, an honourable grave,
Trafalgar and Aboukir be thy praise!

PRESIDENT TAYLOR.

‘I am prepared to die; for I have tried
To do my Duty!’—Was it Nelson's twin
Who spake so like an hero when he died,
A Christian hero, with forgiven sin?
Yes!—it is one, Columbia's honest pride
(And mother England's joy,—we claim him too,)
Who now is gone far other spoils to win
Than late of Palo-Alto,—higher meed,
Trophies of nobler fame, and praise more true
Than those a grateful country well decreed
To her Best Son; her best and bravest son,
Rough for the fight, but Ready heart and hand
To make it up again with victory won,
In war—and peace—the Glory of his Land!

FELIX NEFF.

O brighter conquests in a better cause,
O nobler champion, O diviner fame!
To the dear honours of thy sainted name
A hallowing sympathy my spirit draws;
Come in, thou holy happy one, come in!
Why standest thou without,—triumphant shade,
Who well hast battled Misery and Sin,
And of the wilderness a garden made,
So blessing man, though meanest?—witness, Alps,
That rear o'er Dormeilleuse your icy scalps;
Witness, thou church of ages, thither driven,
A partridge hunted to the glacier chill;
Witness the pastor's praise, approving Heaven,—
Witness it, Earth! with good he vanquish'd ill.

AN ASPIRATION.

O that I had a pastor near my home
Honest and earnest, wise and good and kind,
A man of gracious heart and vigorous mind,
Untainted by the pestilence of Rome:
How gladly would I recognise in such
The guide, the brother, and the priest combined:
With hearty help, albeit perchance not much,
Standing beside him, strengthening his hands,—
While he, uniting all men by the bands
Of Christian fellowship and social love,
Himself should illustrate what God commands,
Lift up our hearts to fix their hopes above,
And as the minister of Heaven be found
The honour'd friend of every neighbour round!

GENIUS BOUND.

Durham,—I well discern thy noble thought,
This pleading epic builded up of clay,
This new-created clod, so cold and gray
Yet so mindsodden and with feeling fraught,
To exquisite perfection slowly wrought
By thy true zeal through many a night and day:
Still must it be as it hath ever been,
Genius is bound; his eagle wings are caught
In that old serpent's coil; his hands are seen
Powerless at his side; his glances keen
Proclaim a quiet holy baffled strength,—
No vulgar struggle with constraining fate,
No concentrated wilfulness of hate,
But calm resolve to soar aloft at length.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

If ever saint obey'd the great command,
Leave all and follow Me; if ever heart
Acted in love the high and holy part
Of good Samaritan from land to land,—
That praise is thine, O Lady! and thou art
Truly the crown of Christian womanhood,
With tender eye and ministering hand
Going about like Jesus doing good
Among the sick and dying: what a scene
Of wounds and writhing pain and hideous throes
For thee to dwell in,—O thou martyr-Queen,
Calm dove of peace amid war's vulture woes,
Soothing their fury by thy looks serene,
And lulling agony to deep repose!

WORDSWORTH.

We will not sorrow for the glorious dead,—
Death is The Life to glory's hallow'd sons!
Above this body, in its prison-bed,
Soar the free spirits of those blessed ones,
Waiting in hope, on heavenly manna fed:
To such rich feast in beauteous raiment led,
Why should we wail for him, as those who wept
Some Lycidas or Bion of old time,
Mourning as dead the soul that only slept?
No! rather let the pæan rise sublime
For nature's poet-priest from nature's voice,—
Let sea and sky be glad, and field and fen,
And pastoral vale, and thunder-riven glen,
And dewy Rydal in her bard rejoice!

RYDAL'S BARD.

For there, by hill and dale, in sun or shade,
He ‘communed with the universe’ in love;
‘The deep foundations of his mind’ were laid,
Sphered in their midst, on all around, above:
He read God's heart in all His hand hath made:
Then, in the majesty of simple truth,
To man's dim mind he showed the mind of God
Lustrous and lovely, ‘full of pity and ruth’
For high and low, the sunbeam—and the sod!
So did he teach in age, as erst in youth,—
To turn away from passion's lurid light,
And yearn on purer things of lowlier birth,
Pure because lowly,—which, in God's own sight,
As in his servants', are the pearls of earth.

PEEL.

Struck down at noon amid the startled throng;
An eagle shot while soaring to the sun;
A wounded gladiator dying strong,
As loath to leave the glories he had won;
A life-long patriot, with his work half done,—
Of thee, great Statesman, shall my mourning song
Arise in due solemnity!—of thee,
Whom the wide world, so lately and so long
Thine acolyte, would crowd to hear and see,
Their intellectual Athlete, their high name
For eloquence and prudence, gifts and powers:
But lo! that starry mind, a heavenly flame,
Is well enfranchised from this earth of ours,
Translated in the zenith of its fame!

GLADSTONE, AT NAPLES.

Well done, great heart! and happy shalt thou be:
The poor that criéd, and the fatherless,
And he that had no helper, now shall bless
The generous zeal that will not tamely see
Such Dionysian spite and power oppress
Bodies and souls,—but vows to set them free!
For, still they look in trembling hope to thee,
Gladstone,—as under Heaven their only aid;
Those many noble, wrong'd, unguilty men,
Whom treachery and slander have betray'd
Deep to some Stygian gulf, some Ischian den;
There, there to rot, till forceful truth hath made
The tyrant, half remorseful, half afraid,
Yield up his captives to thy conquering pen.

CAMBRIDGE.

Another of thy chiefs, O Israël,
Gone to a good man's rest, and high reward,
As full of years as honours; it is well
Thus timely to be call'd to meet the Lord!
O Death,—how oft Britannia tolls the knell
For those she loves, a mother for her sons!
Yet is it seldom that her tongue can tell
More truly how she mourns her mighty ones,
Than now in honest sorrow fills her breast;
For he was worthy; full of kindliness,
A man of peace, and charity, and truth;
For ever doing good, and feeling blest
(Though nurtur'd as a warrior from his youth)
In finding what a joy it is to bless!

SAMUEL ROGERS.

Nothing of thee shall perish, rare old Man!
Thou art an heirloom to the world and us;
Let even me then bring my homage thus,
And greet thee with such greeting as I can:
For thou art not thine own; the nations claim
Thee for their children's children, veteran,
A spirit walking in immortal fame,
The friend of Memory: Death is none of thine,
Nor Self, the death of soul; thou wilt not spurn
An acolyte, whose venturous footsteps turn
Out of the track to offer at thy shrine:
Because Italian suns and classic skies
Have ripened all thy heart-blood into wine
Excellent, spiritual, pure and wise.

MORSE'S TELEGRAPH.

A good and generous spirit ruled the hour;
Old jealousies were drowned in brotherhood;
Philanthropy rejoiced that skill and power,
Servants to science, compass all men's good;
And over all, Religion's banner stood
Upheld by thee, true patriarch of the plan
Which in two hemispheres was schemed to shower
Mercies from God on universal Man:
Yes, this electric chain from East to West
More than mere metal, more than Mammon can
Bind us together, kinsmen, in the best
As most affectionate and frankest bond,
Brethren at one,—and, looking far beyond,
The World in an electric Union blest.

NIAGARA.

I long'd for Andes all around, and Alps,
Hoar kings and priests of Nature, robed in snow,
Throned as for judgment in a solemn row,
With icy mitres on their granite scalps,
Dumb giants, frowning at the strife below—
I long'd for The Sublime!—Thou art too Fair,
Too fair, Niagara, to be sublime;
In calm slow strength thy mighty floods o'erflow,
And stand a cliff of cataracts in the air—
Yet,—all too beauteous Water-bride of Time,—
Veil'd in soft mists, and cinctur'd by the bow,
Thy pastoral charms may fascinate the sight,
But have not force to set my soul aglow,
Raptur'd by fear, and wonder, and delight.

TO AMERICA.

Columbia, child of Britain,—noblest child!
I praise the growing lustre of thy worth,
And fain would see thy great heart reconciled
To love the mother of so blest a birth:
For we are one, Columbia! still the same
In lineage, language, laws, and ancient fame,
The natural nobility of earth:
Yes, we are one; the glorious days of yore
When dear old England earn'd her storied name,
Are thine as well as ours for evermore;
And thou hast rights in Milton, ev'n as we,
Thou too canst claim ‘sweet Shakspeare's wood-notes wild,’
And chiefest, brother, we are both made free
Of one Religion, pure and undefiled!

ENGLAND'S CHILD.

I blame thee not, as other some have blamed,—
The highborn heir had grown to man's estate;
I mock thee not as some who should be shamed,
Nor ferret out thy faults with envious hate;
Far otherwise, by generous love inflamed,
Patriot I praise my country's foreign Son,
Rejoicing in the blaze of good and great
That diadems thy head!—go on, go on,
Young Hercules, thus travelling in might,
Boy-Plato, filling all the West with light,
Thou new Themistocles for enterprise,
Go on and prosper, Acolyte of Fate!
And, precious child, dear Ephraim, turn those eyes,—
For thee thy Mother's yearning heart doth wait.

COLUMBIA'S FUTURE.

Let aged Britain claim the classic Past,
A shining track of bright and mighty deeds,
For thee I prophecy the Future vast
Whereof the Present sows its giant seeds:
Corruption and decay may gather fast
O'er dear old England; yet a few dark years,
And we may die as nations died of yore!
But, in the millions of thy teeming shore—
Thy patriots, sages, warriors, saints, and seers—
We live again, Columbia! yea, once more
Unto a thousand generations live,
The mother in the child; to all the West
Through Thee shall We earth's choicest blessings give,
Ev'n as our Orient world in Us is blest.

OUR WESTERN SON.

Thou noble scion of an ancient root,
Born of the forest king! spread forth, spread forth,—
High to the stars thy tender leaflets shoot,
Deep dig thy fibres round the ribs of earth:
From sea to sea, from South to icy North,
It must ere long be thine, through good or ill,
To stretch thy sinewy boughs: Go,—wondrous Child!
The glories of thy destiny fulfil;—
Remember then thy Mother in her age,
Shelter her in the tempest, warring wild,
Stand thou with us when all the nations rage
So furiously together!—we are one:
And, through all time, the calm historic page
Shall tell of Britain blest in thee her Son!

REPULSIONS.

Love is akin to peace, that mother's child,
Dying of clamour: love, the lamp of life,
Shines as a moon in harvest, mellow and mild,
Not flaring up with Etna's fiery strife:
Love shrinks from all contention; gentle things,
The charitable thought and word and deed,
The patient cheerfulness that sits and sings,
Plying its daily duty, well agreed
With all around,—here Love may fold his wings:
But he shall spread them, hasting to be freed
From meannesses and strifes; the jealous look,
The jarring nerves of a discordant tongue,
He cannot dwell with these; and will not brook
Such poison-asps his flowers and fruits among.

ATTRACTIONS.

Love must have loveliness to feed upon,
Or he shall starve: the beautiful, the pure,
The sister-spirit's innocent sweet lure
Drawing out fragrance like a gentle sun,—
The frankness, yet the tenderness, of truth
Nourishing up for their immortal youth
The nurselings of Affection one by one,—
With charities, and looks and voices kind,
The gracious heart, the free and generous mind,—
These are Love's intimates, his brotherhood,
Joy of his soul and apple of his eye,
The noble, and the comely, and the good;
But, if such true companions be not nigh,
He pines away for want of spirit-food.

FALSE PATIENCE.

But this dead level,—Patience; what a change
From Passion's craggy glens and crested heights!
What a dull ebb,—stagnation sad and strange
From Feeling's tide of boundless ocean range
With flooding hopes and terrors and delights!
O Patience,—yet thou hast a baser name
Cut in the flint of man's enduring heart,—
Callous Contempt alike of scorn and fame,
Self, well resigned to play the Stoic part,
Or truer, as an Epicure, to stand
Balancing present comforts in the hand
With cold philosophy: see, that thou disown
This evil fruit of worldly trouble sown
Which Man calls Patience, God, the heart of stone.

TRUE PATIENCE.

The martyred spirit that can shrink and feel,
Gently enduring long; the generous mind
After ill-usage waiting to be kind;
The man who for his enemy can kneel
And beg from Heav'n forgiveness for his sin:
The outraged heart, all tenderness within,
Though like a hero plated up in steel;
These be the Patient ones whom God approves:
He wills no feeling quench'd, no hope destroy'd;
He claims affection's life, the warmth of zeal,
All noblest active impulses and loves
Energized, and encouraged, and enjoy'd,—
Then counsels Patience; with her oily balm
Lulling life's roughest surface to a calm.

SPITHEAD.

A day for patriot thoughts of honest pride,
A day for praise to Heaven, as is most meet;
When England pours upon the peaceful tide
Her willing thousands, thronging far and wide
Our Ocean-Queen in joyfulness to greet:
Lo! how majestic stands the giant Fleet
Robed in white thunderclouds, that roll away
Amid these deafening clamours, to display
The black-embattled hulls, and overhead
Their taper spars, or glittering canvas spread:
While, all around, on this glad holiday,
The white-winged yachts, like sea-birds, flit about,
And crowded steamers, drest in pennons gay,
Cheer as they pass, and reel beneath the shout.

CHOBHAM.

Once more a silent solitary spot,
Chobham,—already those thy glories seem
Half-lost to memory, like a fading dream
Of martial sights and sounds, which now are not:
The tents, array'd so trim, that used to teem
With merry humours, all are swept away;
Where is the Rifleman,—the kilted Scot,—
The helm'd Life-guardsman,—and the Lancer gay?
Where are the Guns, that thunder'd thick and hot
Galloping furiously through the fray?
All, all are gone: and where with stirring tramp
The troops defiling proudly wont to pass,
Nothing is seen to cheer this rugged swamp
But spotted sundews and wild cotton-grass!

A RISE.

Come, then, coy Zephyr, waft my feather'd bait
Over this rippling shallow's tiny wave
To yonder pool, whose calmer eddies lave
Some Triton's ambush,—where he lies in wait
To catch my skipping fly; there drop it lightly:
A rise,—by Glaucus! but he miss'd the hook—
Another!—safe; the monarch of the brook,
With broadside like a salmon's, gleaming brightly!
Off let him race, and waste his prowess there;
The dread of Damocles, a single hair
Will tax my skill to take this fine old trout:
So—lead him gently: quick—the net, the net!
Now gladly lift the glittering beauty out,
Hued like a dolphin, sweet as violet.

THE TROPHY.

O, thou hast robb'd the Nereids, gentle brother,
Of some swift fairy messenger; behold
His dappled livery prankt with red and gold
Shows him their favourite page: just such another
Sad Galatæa to her Acis sent
To teach the new-born fountain how to flow,
And track, with loving haste, the way she went
Down the rough rocks, and thro' the flowery plain,
E'en to her home where coral branches grow,
And where the sea-nymph clasps her love again:
We, the while, terrible as Polypheme,
Brandish the lissom rod, and featly try
Once more to throw the tempting treacherous fly,
And win a brace of trophies from the stream.

ARMY PURCHASE.

If only merit ever should prevail,
And birth and money take their lower seat,
(Unless deserving too, as is most meet,)
If ever zeal and prowess should not fail
Of honour and promotion and command,
They ought to help the Soldier: in his hand
The country's welfare, glory, and defence
Bound up like fasces round the colours stand:
But, outraging both right and common sense,
Merit with us is nothing; cash and friends,
And years, produce our chieftains rich and old;
While the poor gentleman, whom England sends
To guard the right amid Crimean cold,
Is crushed beneath the Mammon he defends.

ARMY CASTE.

O that a spirit kindlier and less cold,
More brotherly, more equal, could be seen
Those members of one family between,
Our troops and their commanders! All are bold,
All heroes in the field; but hard routine
Sets caste and class each by itself aside,
The slave of fashion, luxury, and pride:
Ah! shame, to knit the brow and blanch the cheek!
Yon fierce-lipp'd major, rich and well-allied
And pampered up for pleasures at his mess,
To these poor privates hardly deigns to speak,
And has no heart to cheer them in distress:
Haste, nobler natures,—those old barriers break,
And gladden comrades by new kindliness.

WINTER.

As some fair statue, white and hard and cold,
Smiling in marble, rigid yet at rest,
Or like some gentle child of beauteous mould,
Whose placid face and softly swelling breast
Are fix'd in death, and on them bear imprest
His magic seal of peace,—so, frozen lies
The loveliness of Nature: every tree
Stands hung with lace against the clear blue skies;
The hills are giant waves of glistering snow;
Rare northern fowl, now strangely tame to see,
With ruffling plumage cluster on the bough,
And tempt the murderous gun; mouse-like the wren
Hides in the new-cut hedge, and all things now
Fear starving Winter more than cruel men.

SUMMER.

Warm Summer! yes, the very word is warm;
The hum of bees is in it, and the sight
Of sunny fountains glancing silver light,
And the rejoicing world, and every charm
Of happy nature in her hour of love,
Fruits, flowers, and flies, in rainbow-glory bright:
The smile of God glows graciously above,
And genial earth is grateful; day by day
Old faces come again, with blossoms gay,
Gemming in gladness meadow, garden, grove:
Haste with thy harvest then, my soften'd heart,
Awake thy better hopes of better days,
Bring in thy fruits and flowers of thanks and praise,
And in creation's pæan take thy part.

DEATH.

Ghastly and weak, O dreadful monarch Death,
With failing feet I near thy silent realm,
Upon my brain strikes chill thine icy breath,
My fluttering heart thy terrors overwhelm:
Thou sullen pilot of life's crazy bark,
How treacherously thou puttest down the helm
Just where smooth eddies hide the sunken rock;
While close behind follows the hungry shark
Snuffing his meal from far, swift with black fin
The foam dividing,—ha! that sudden shock
Splits my frail skiff; upon the billows dark
A drowning wretch awhile struggling I float,
Till, just as I had hoped the wreck to win,
I feel thy bony fingers clutch my throat.

LIFE.

O life, O glorious! sister-twin of light,
Essence of Godhead, energizing love,
Hail, gentle conqueror of dead cold night,
Hail, on the waters kindly-brooding dove!
I feel thee near me, in me: thy strange might
Flies through my bones like fire,—my heart beats high
With thy glad presence; pain and fear and care
Hide from the lightning laughter of mine eye;
No dark unseasonable terrors dare
Disturb me, revelling in the luxury,
The new-found luxury of life and health,
This blithesome elasticity of limb,
This pleasure, in which all my senses swim,
This deep outpouring of a creature's wealth!

MATTER.

In the deep clay of yonder sluggish flood
The huge behemoth makes his ancient lair,
And with slow caution heavily wallows there,
Moving above the stream, a mound of mud:
And near him, stretching to the river's edge
In dense dark grandeur, stands the silent wood,
Whose unpierced jungles, choked with rotten sedge,
Prison the damp air from the freshening breeze:
Lo! the rhinoceros comes down this way
Thundering furiously on,—and snorting sees
The harmless monster at his awkward play,
And rushes on him from the crashing trees,—
A dreadful shock: as when the Titans hurl'd
Against high Jove the Himalayan world!

SPIRIT.

Throw me from this tall cliff,—my wings are strong,
The hurricane is raging fierce and high,
My spirit pants, and all in heat I long
To fly right upward to a purer sky,
And spurn the clouds beneath me rolling by;
Lo, thus into the buoyant air I leap
Confident and exulting, at a bound
Swifter than whirlwinds happily to sweep
On fiery wing the reeling world around:
Off with my fetters!—who shall hold me back?
My path lies there,—the lightning's sudden track
O'er the blue concave of the fathomless deep,—
O that I thus could conquer space and time,
Soaring above this world in strength sublime!

WORLDLY.

Idolator of gold, I love thee not;
The orbits of our hearts are sphered afar,
In lieu of tuneful sympathies, I wot,
My thoughts and thine are all at utter jar,
Because thou judgest by what men have got,
Heeding but lightly what they do or are:
Alas, for thee! this lust of gold shall mar,
Like leprous stains, the tissue of thy lot,
And drain the natural moisture from thy heart:
Alas! thou heedest not how poor thou art,
Weigh'd in the balances of truth, how vain:
O wrecking mariner, fling out thy freight,
Or founder with the heavily sinking weight,
Those ingots round thy neck of ill-got gain.

WORTHY.

Rather be thou my counsellor and friend,
Good man tho' poor, whose treasure with thy heart
Is stored and set upon that better part,
Choice of thy wisdom, without waste or end:
How cheerful is thy face, how glad thou art!
Using the world with all its bounteous store
Of richest blessings, comforts, loves, and joys,
Which thine all-healthy hunger prizeth more
Than the gorged fool whom sinful surfeit cloys;
Still, not forgetful of thy nobler self,
The breath divine within thee,—but with care
Cherishing the faint spark that glimmereth there,
Nor by Brazilian slavery to pelf
Plunging thy taper into poison'd air.

PROSE.

That the fine edge of intellect is dull'd
And mortal ken with cloudy films obscure,
And the numb'd heart so deep in stupor lull'd
That virtue's self is weak its love to lure,
This is thy fall, O man; and therefore those
Whose aims are earthy, like pedestrian prose,—
The selfish, useful, money-making plan,
Cold language of the desk, or quibbling bar,
Where in hard matter sinks ideal man:
Still, worldly teacher, be it from me far
Thy darkness to confound with yon bright band
Poetic all, though not so named by men,
Who have sway'd royally the mighty pen,
And now as kings in prose on Pisgah stand.

POETRY.

To touch the heart, and make its pulses thrill,
To raise and purify the grovelling soul,
To warm with generous heat the selfish will,
To conquer passion with a mild control,
And the whole man with nobler thoughts to fill,
These are thine aims, O pure unearthly power,
These are thine influences; and therefore those
Whose wings are clogg'd with evil, are thy foes:
And therefore these, who have thee for their dower,
The widow'd spirits with no portion here,
Eat angels' food, the manna thou dost shower:
For thine are pleasures, deep, and tried, and true,
Whether to read, or write, or think, or hear,
Spurn'd by the million, fed on by the few.

MALICE.

White Devil! turn from me thy louring eye,
Let thy lean lip unwreathe its bitter smile,
Down thine own throat I force its still-born lie,
And teach thee to digest it in thy bile,—
But I will merrily mock at thee the while:
Such venom cannot harm me; for I sit
On a fair hill of name, and power, and purse,
Too high for any shaft of thine to hit,
Beyond the petty reaching of thy curse,
Strong in good purpose, praise, and pregnant wit:
Husband thy hate for toads of thine own level,
I breathe an atmosphere too rare for thee:
And know thou this,—I'll crush thee, sorry devil,
If ever again thou wag thy tongue at me.

CHEERFULNESS.

Come to my heart of hearts, thou radiant face!
So would I gaze for ever on thy fairness;
Thine eyes are smiling stars, and holy grace
Blossoms thy sweet cheek with exotic rareness,
Trelissing it with jasmin-woven lace:
Come, laughing maid,—yet in thy laughter calm,—
Be this thy home, and live here evermore,
With all thy sister graces fair to see
Dancing, and mingling with the dance bright store
Of merry whispers, and young innocent glee;
O come, thou singer of Life's happiest psalm,
Solace my days with thy delicious balm,
And hover o'er my nightly couch, sweet dove,—
I live in joy, by living in thy love.

RICHES.

Heaps upon heaps,—hillocks of yellow gold,
Jewels, and hanging silks, and piled-up plate,
And marble groups in beauty's choicest mould,
And viands rare, and odours delicate,
And art and nature, in divinest works,
Swell the full pomp of my triumphant state
With all that makes a mortal glad and great;
—Ah! no, not glad: within my secret heart
The dreadful knowledge, like a death-worm, lurks,
That all this dream of life must soon depart;
And the hot curse of talents misapplied
Blisters my conscience with its burning smart;
For my poor soul, when its rich mate hath died,
Must lie with Dives, spoil'd of all his pride.

POVERTY.

The sun is bright and glad, but not for me,
My heart is dead to all but pain and sorrow,
Nor care nor hope have I in all I see,
Save from the fear that I may starve to-morrow;
And eagerly I seek uncertain toil,
Leaving my sinews in the thankless furrow,
To drain a scanty pittance from the soil,
While my life's lamp burns dim for lack of oil:
Alas, for you, poor famishing patient wife,
And pale-faced little ones! your feeble cries
Torture my soul: worse than a blank is life
Beggar'd of all that makes that life a prize:
Yet one thing cheers me,—is not life the door
To that Rich World where no one can be poor?

NATURE.

I stray'd at evening to a sylvan scene
Dimpling with nature's smile the stern old mountain,
A shady dingle, quiet, cool, and green,
Where the moss'd rock pours forth its natural fountain;
And hazels cluster there, with fern between,
And meadow-sweet perfumes the dewy maze:
Then was I calm and happy: for the voice
Of nightingales unseen in tremulous lays
Taught me with innocent gladness to rejoice,
And tuned my spirit to unformal praise:
So among silver'd moths, and closing flowers,
Gambolling hares, and rooks returning home,
And strong-wing'd chafers setting out to roam,
In careless peace I pass'd the soothing hours.

ART.

The massy fane of architecture olden,
Or fretted minarets of marble white,
Or Moorish arabesque, begemm'd and golden,
Or porcelain Pagoda flashing bright,
Or high-spann'd arches,—grand were such a sight:
Nor less yon gallant ship, that treads the waves
In a triumphant silence of delight,
Like some huge swan, with her fair wings unfurl'd,
Whose curvèd sides the laughing water laves,
Bearing her buoyant o'er the liquid world;
Nor less yon silken monster of the sky,
Around whose wicker car the clouds are curl'd,
Helping undaunted man to sail on high
Nearer the sun than eagles dare to fly!

AVERSION.

Coarse, vain and vulgar, ignorant and mean,
Sensual and sordid in each hope and aim,
Selfish in appetite, and basely keen
In tracking out gross pleasure's guilty game,
Such an one, like an Afreet, have I seen
Shedding o'er this fair world his balefire spite,
And can I love him?—far be from my thought
To show not such the charities I ought,—
But from his converse should I reap delight?
Nor bid the tender sproutings of my mind
Shrink from his evil, as from bane and blight,
Nor back upon themselves my feelings roll?—
O moral monster, loveless and unkind,
Thou art as wormwood to my secret soul!

ATTRACTION.

Gentle, but generous, modest, pure, and learnéd,
Ready to hear the fool, or teach the wise,
With gracious heart that all within him burnéd
To wipe the tears from virtue's blessed eyes,
Such an one, like a God, have I discernéd
Walking in goodness this polluted earth,
And cannot choose but love him: to my soul
Sway'd irresistibly with sweet control,
So rare and noble seems thy precious worth,
That the young fibres of my happier heart,
Like tendrils to the sun, are stretching forth
To twine around thy fragrant excellence,
O child of love:—so dear to me thou art,
So coveted by me thy good influence!

MODERN.

Behold, I stand upon a speck of earth
To work the works allotted me,—and die;
Glad among toils to snatch a little mirth,
And, when I must, unmurmuring down to lie
In the same soil that gave me food and birth:
For all that went before me, what care I?
The past, the future,—these are but a dream;
I want the tangible good of present worth,
And heed not wisps of light that dance and gleam
Over the marshes of the foolish past:
We are a race the best, because the last,
Improving all, and happier day by day
To think our chosen lot hath not been cast
In those old puerile times, well swept away.

ANCIENT.

My sympathies are all with times of old,
I cannot live with upstarts of to-day,
But spirits cast in a severer mould,
Of solid worth, like elemental gold:
I love to wander o'er the classic past,
Dreaming of dynasties long swept away,
And feel myself at once the least and last
Of Time's Cyclopic race, decaying fast:
For I can dote upon the rare antique,
Conjuring up what story it might tell,
The bronze, or bead, or coin, or quaint relique;
And in a desert could delight to dwell
Among vast ruins,—Tadmor's stately halls,
Old Egypt's fanes, or Babel's mouldering walls.

PRACTICE.

This body, O the body of this death!
Strive as thou wilt, do all that mortal can,
This is the sum,—a man is but a man,
And weak in error strangely wandereth
Down flowery ways with pain and peril fraught,
Conscious of what he doth, and what he ought:
Alas! but wherefore?—scarce my plaintive breath
Wafts its faint question to the listening sky,
When thus in answer some kind Spirit saith;
Man, thou art mean, although thine aims be high;
All matter hath one law, concent'ring strong
To some attractive point,—and thy world's core
Is the foul gravitating throne of Wrong,—
Which Right shall soon throw down for evermore.

THEORY.

How fair and facile seems that upland road!
Surely the mountain air is fresh and sweet,
And briskly shall I bear this mortal load
With well-braced sinews and unweary feet;
How dear my fellow pilgrims oft to greet
O'ertaken, as to reach yon blest abode
We strive together, in glad hope to meet
With angels, and as equal priests and kings,
All that in life we once have loved so well,
So those we loved be worthy: her bright wings
My willing spirit plumes, and upward springs
Rejoicing, over crag and fen and fell,
And down—or up—the cliff's precipitous face,
To run or fly her buoyant happy race.

HOME, WRETCHED.

Scene of disunion, bickering, and strife,
What curse has made thy native blessings die?
Why do these broils embitter daily life,
And hard self-interest form the strongest tie?
Hate ill-concealed is flashing from the eye,
And muttered vengeance curls the pallid lip;
What should be harmony is all at jar;
Doubt and reserve love's timid blossoms nip,
And weaken nature's links to ropes of sand;
While dull indifference takes the icy hand
(O chilling touch!) of constrained fellowship:
What secret demon has such discord fann'd?
What ill committed stirs this penal war?
What good omitted?—Woe, that such things are!

HOME, HAPPY.

O name for comfort, refuge, hope and peace!
O spot by gratitude and memory blest!
Where, as in brighter worlds, ‘the wicked cease
From troubling and the weary are at rest,’
And all the Loves and Graces have their nest:
How brightly here those jewelled Virtues shine!
Where nothing said or done is seen amiss,
While sweet affections every heart entwine,
And righteousness and peace together kiss,
And all is human love, and love divine:
Thou little kingdom of serene delight,
Heaven's nursery and foretaste,—O what bliss
Where, in despite of toil, in want's despite,
Earth gives her child a paradise like this.

MISANTHROPIC.

How long am I to smell this tainted air,
And in a pest-house draw my daily breath,
Where nothing but the sordid fear of death
Restrains from grander guilt than cowards dare?
O loathsome, despicable, petty race,
Low counterfeits of devils, villanous men,
Sooner than herd with any human face
I'll make my home in the hyæna's den
Or live with newts and bullfrogs in the fen,
For these at least are honest;—but—with man,
The best will cheat and use you if he can;
The best is only varnished o'er with grace,
Subtle for self, for damning mammon keen,
Cruel, luxurious, treacherous, proud, and mean.

PHILANTHROPIC.

Come near me, friends and brothers; hem me round
With the dear faces of my fellow-men,
The music of your tongues with magic sound
Shall charm my heart, and make me happiest then;
My soul yearns over you: the sitting hen
Cowers not more fondly o'er her callow brood,
Than, in most kind excuse of all your ill,
My heart is warm and patient for your good:
O that my power were equal to my will!
Then would I bless you as I love you still,
Forgiving as I trust to be forgiven;
Here, vilest of my kind, take hand and heart,
I also am a man,—'tis all thou art,
An erring, needy pensioner of Heaven.

MEANNESS.

Where vice is virtue, thou art still despised,
O petty loathsome lust of hoarded pelf,
Ev'n in the pit where all things vile are prized
Still is there found in Lucifer himself
Spirit enough to hate thee, sordid thing:
Thank Heav'n! I own in thee nor lot nor part;
And though to many a fault and folly cling
The worse weak fibres of my weedy heart,
Yet to the dull temptation of thy sin
My instant welcome is, depart, depart!
For to my sense so foul and base thou art,
I would not stoop to thee this world to win:
Aroint thee, filching hand and heart of stone,
Thou art like Death, unsated selfish one!

LIBERALITY.

Give while thou canst, it is a godlike thing;
Give what thou canst, thou shalt not find it loss;
Yea, sell and give, much gain such barteries bring;
Yea, all thou hast, and get fine gold for dross:
Still, see thou scatter wisely; for to fling
Good seed on rocks, or sands, or thorny ground,
Were ill to copy Him, whose generous cross
Hath this poor world with rich salvation crown'd;
And when thou look'st on woes and want around,
Knowing that thou art but a steward of wealth,
That better it is to give than to receive,
That riches cannot buy thee joy nor health,—
Why hinder thine own mercies? thousands grieve
Whom 'twere thy bliss to gladden and relieve.

PROTESTING TRUTH.

Protestant saints, is it the truth, indeed,
That cold negations merely, or in chief,
Make up the sorry texture of your creed—
A torn and flimsy robe of non-belief?
No! freely as your fathers would ye bleed,
Positive witnesses for truth and good;
Worshipping God, instead of stone and wood,
Pleading all merit solely in His Son,
Spurning each other fabulous help and aid,
And mediation—for there is but One!
Moreover, this: none ever stoutly stood
Against the False, but that his temper'd blade,
Pruning that bitter shoot, strengthen'd the bud,
The bud of Truth, whose bloom shall never fade.

UNHOLY ALLIANCE.

Yes, we protest! In just and generous strife
We combat Rome, the idolatrous and proud:
How should the adultress and the married wife
Together walk adown the vale of life,
In a false peace and union disallow'd?
True, there be some pure Abdiels in the crowd,
Faithful among the faithless; here and there
A Fenelon, a Pascal, whom to love
Were joy, and privilege to meet above:—
Accidents all, as angels scant and rare:
Far other, carved in rock, and dyed in black,
Stand in the sun Rome's evil qualities—
Fraud, force, extortion, pride, the stake, the rack,
Blaspheming guilt, and mad idolatries!

WHITE SLAVERY.

They tell of horrors on another shore,
Injustice, thraldom, chains and goads and whips,
And human-nature smothered to the lips
In self-wrung seas of tears and sweat and gore:
O Heaven,—avenge such woes for evermore!
But, England! somewhat is there against Thee;
Too oft thy Sun is shrouded in eclipse,
Thy Glory quench'd in Shame: too often here
Thy sons and daughters, children of the free,
Beneath Oppression's heel in pain and fear
Are but as bondmen,—but not long shall be:
Already our taskmasters and their slaves
Seem changing places; and each coming year
Shall bring more changes on its winds and waves.

EMANCIPATED.

Yea, be of better comfort, English heart!
The day has dawn'd when our whole scheme of Wrong
After its toils and griefs and suffering long
Must end,—and all that train of ills depart:
Not now a weed, O labouring man thou art;
Thews are not cheap and common, worthless stock,
But scarcer rise in value; social ill
Works its own cure, and wealth no more shall mock
The rights of labour, nor the freeman's will:
Strikes—let them fail! but Industry and Skill
Shall wrestle down the despots, till they crave
Help of all helpers; ay, and Time's old clock
Will soon strike Freedom for our British slave,
The long-hoped hour his handcuffs to unlock.

TOWN.

Enough of lanes, and trees, and valleys green,
Enough of briary wood, and hot chalk-down;
I hate the startling quiet of the scene,
And long to hear the gay glad hum of town:
My garden be the garden of the Graces,
Flowers full of smiles, with Fashion for their queen,
My lanes and fields be crowds of joyous faces,
A trifle pleasanter than solitude,
Better than cultivating crops or weeds,
Or the dull company of rustics rude,
Whose only hopes are bound in clods and seeds:
Out on it! let me live in town delight,
And for your tedious country-mornings bright
Give me gay London with its noon and night.

COUNTRY.

Most tranquil, innocent, and happy life,
Full of the holy joy chaste Nature yields,
Redeem'd from care, and sin, and the hot strife
That rings around the smoked unwholesome dome
Where mighty Mammon his black sceptre wields,—
Here let me rest in humble cottage home,
Here let me labour in the enamell'd fields:
How pleasant in these ancient woods to roam
With kind-eyed friend, or kindly-teaching book;
Or the fresh morning gallop on the downs;
Or at fair eventide with feather'd hook
To strike the swift trout in the pebbly brook;
Or, rescued from the smoke and din of towns,
Simply to live in my sweet country nook.

THE RUSSIAN WAR.

Where will it end?—Demolish what we may
Of forts and fleets and hecatombs of lives,
Nothing is done if Nicholas survives,
A Titan thrown but to renew the fray:
Scatheless in hostile victory's proudest day
Far off the solitary despot thrives;
And, ere we touch him, we must wade knee-deep
Through seas of servile but unguilty blood,
And, while our cannons to destruction sweep
Host after host of that serf-multitude,
He, in his malachite and golden pride,
Will neither heed home-woes nor foreign might,
But madly wilful thus will stand aside,
And watch secure the struggling millions fight.

THE CAUSE.

One man,—a despot ruthless and insane,
Counted a God by his barbarian hordes,
One man, whose lustful will is hot to gain
The whole world's throne thro' their fanatic swords,
He, monarch of their wills and deeds and words,
Evil, ambitious, pamper'd, proud, and vain,
Forces the contest: truly, is this war
A war of principles; for England fights,
Champion of freedom, with a tyrant Czar,
Protesting manfully for all men's rights
Against their bad enslaver: let kings reign
As God's chief servants for His people's good;
But, if both God and Man their hearts disdain,
They are rejected,—let them be withstood.

JUDGED.

A righteous retribution, stern and swift,
A world up-stirring and portentous thing!
The Lord hath stricken thee, thou wicked King,
Whose mad ambition dared usurp thy gift
Of government, to bind upon thy brow
An universal crown; who durst uplift
Thy power, all laws and liberties to bring
Beneath imperial serfdom: yet, as now
Dead,—foil'd and scorn'd and shamed,—how mean art thou!
O Mother England, let the fostering wing
Of Heaven be still thy buckler: other fears
And other foes rise dimly on the sight;
For all the friendliness that now appears,
Stand well on guard, and God defend the right!

ALFRED'S MEMORIAL: 1849.

In simple majesty serenely mild,
By pain well chasten'd, and made wise through grief,
Calm like a king, while gentle like a child,
Yet firm as may become the nation's chief,
Alfred! I stand in thought before thee now,
And to thy throne in duteous homage bow,
After a thousand years! My soul is glad,
Thus to have roused to thankful thoughts of thee,
From this dull mist of modern base and bad,
The world of Englishmen; that haply we,
United now again, as once thy will
Determined, and still mindful of thy worth,
O Paragon of goodness, force, and skill,
Like thee, may live a blessing upon earth.

ALFRED'S CHILDREN.

Thy children, King of Men! thy faithful ones,
The boldly cheerful, true in head and heart,
Salute thy crown with reverence as thy sons,
And joy to see thee honour'd as thou art,
By millions everywhere: behold, O King!
These, whom old England's laws, old England's tongue,
And all the good that of thy sowing sprung
Have nourish'd up like thee in everything,
Claim thee for Father; yea, yon untold host,
Ever the first to conquer and control,
Ambassadors of truth to every coast,
And mercy's messengers from pole to pole,
Thee, mighty King, their bright example boast,
And date their glories from thy Saxon soul.

BRITAIN AND COLUMBIA.

Then, Brothers, be at peace and love each other,
Let us contend for mastery no more,—
Britain! Columbia! let the name of brother
Echo with tenderness from shore to shore:
We dare not hope that alien wars are o'er;
We fear there yet must rage the strife of tongues;
The races and religions of mankind,
Mixing tumultuously their rights and wrongs,
Yet with the flesh will battle out the mind:
But us, one speech unites; to us, one birth,
One altar, and one home, one Past belongs;
One glorious Present over all the earth;
One Future! hark, the strain prophetic swelling,
Brothers in unity together dwelling!

ASCOT: WHEN HERO WON.

Modern Olympia! shorn of all their pride,
The patriot spirit, and unlucred praise,—
Thou art a type of these degenerate days,
When love of simple honour all hath died;
Oh dusty, gay, and eager multitude,
Agape for gold—No! do not thus condemn;
For hundreds here are innocent, and good,
And young, and fair, among—but not of—them;
And hundreds more enjoy with gratitude
This well-earn'd holiday, so bright and green:
Do not condemn! it is a stirring scene,
Though vanity and folly fill it up:
Look, how the mettled racers please the Queen!
Ha! brave John Day—a Hero wins the cup!

THE ART TREASURES: 1857.

O God! how wondrous is Thy creature, Man,
In spite of all his misery and sin,
Warrings without and wickedness within
That shrivel every blessing to a ban:
How gloriously through all his strife and schism
Thy perfect attributes, intensely bright,
Show milder and full-coloured in the sight
Of fallen man, creation's broken prism!
How richly is he unction'd with the chrism
Of Thine own wealths and wisdoms manifold!
This paradise of treasures, new and old,
Ripe with the rarest fruits and flowers of Art,
Pictures and ivories, and gems and gold,
To Thee, Great Spirit, lift both mind and heart.

ART-INFLUENCES.

Ah! do they—can they? rather would they hide
In creature-fairness the Creator's face,
Pampering man's indomitable pride
To stand alone, unhelp'd of God and grace:
How few behold their Father in this place,—
On all those pleasant pictures note His skill,
In all these marvellous works of human will
His force creative, and high wisdom trace!
Alas, that good is overgrown with ill;
Alas, that very weariness of eye,
Quite surfeited of beauty, power, and taste,
With listless lingering, or careless haste
Provokes to scorn, or colder to pass by
Too many merits flung around in waste.

WASTE IN ART.

Thousands of excellences unregarded,
On the dense crowd and not on desert air
Wasting their sweetness, ever unrewarded,
Suffer in silent patience everywhere:
O multitude of merits grand or fair,
Yet hardly winning meed devoutly due!
O many messmates in life's crowded crew
Jostled aside by others' selfish care!
For here, as elsewhere, we discern it true
That lesser stars are scarcely seen to shine,
Though each a sun in universal heaven:
'Tis well; go on in faith and duty's line;
Be satisfied to be as God has given,—
Greater or lesser light is His,—not thine.

THE GREAT EXHIBITION.

Yet was it an unsatisfying meal,
A poor dry pittance to the Souls of men
That long for spiritual food, and then
Only are feasted, when they love and feel!
No more than so; a this-world's commonweal,
Triumphant Matter rang'd from pole to pole;
And our Valhalla, to High Wisdom's ken,
Had not one drop of balm the heart to heal,
One ray of peace the conscience to console!
Oh! Man needs more than merchandise, to make
His better nature quicken, and unseal
His eyes, from sinful slumber that they wake:
He thirsts for Thoughts, he starves on thirsty Things,
He spurns this grovelling Earth, and yearns for Wings!

FRANKNESS.

Are there no sympathies, no loves between us?
Is my hope vain?—I have not vext thee long,
Nor lent thee thoughts from God or good to wean us,
Nor given thee words that warp from right to wrong:
And if, at times, mine independent song
Hath rung triumphantly,—doth it demean us,
That when a man feels hotly at his heart
The quick spontaneous fire of thoughts and words,
He will not play the hypocrite's ill part,
Flinging aside the meed his mind affords?
No! with all gratitude and humbleness
I claim mine own; nor can affect to scorn
A gift, of my Creator's goodness born,
His grace to give, my glory to possess.

THE QUEEN'S BIRTHDAY.

Another year, O Queen of many realms,
Dawns in fair promise on my Sovereign's throne;
And, while the hurrying tempest overwhelms
All climes and crowns beside,—thou, thou alone
Sittest in majesty, God's favour'd one:
Yea, blessed of the Lord,—how blest art thou!
Blest in the King of kings' own secret love,
Blest in thy people never more than now,
Blest in the earth beneath and heaven above;
And, be thou blest for ever! this glad day
That gave to us the mercy of thy birth,
Be full of good to thee in God's own way,
As His chief child and servant upon earth,
For whom a thousand thousands hourly pray!

NATIONAL PRAYERS.

Oh, shielded by such panoply of saints
Forged in high heaven! thus, most gracious Queen,
If ever here thy royal spirit faints
Amid the perils of our changeful scene,
These prayers shall pour upon thy brow serene
Unruffled radiance; shedding holy balm,
Like moonlight silvering a lake at calm,
Over thy many cares and many fears
So lull'd to rest: and thus, on history's page,
Mercies to come for many happy years
Shall be thy birthright: though the nations rage,
And the uprooted mountains churn the sea,
The Lord shall bless thy line from age to age,
And Britain thank her God for lending Thee!

A ROYAL BRIDE.

Princess and Duchess! rich in love and duty,
How art thou blest with all that gladdens life,—
Claim'd by thy lover in thine early beauty
Both as a Royal—and a loving—wife!
For, love hath ever smiled upon thy lot;
A Mother's and a Father's loves have blest thee,
Sisters and Brothers play'd with and carest thee,
Thy few bright years with friendships have been rife,
And still the palace with the peasant's cot
Hath vied for love and peace: thou happiest Bride,—
Remember how the millions toil and groan,
And, with thy princely Husband by thy side
Teach them that high estate, with love allied,
Is blessedness to all within its zone!

A ROYAL BRIDEGROOM.

Great Prince,—if England's Daughter weds with thee,
It argues in thy Highness well-pair'd worth;
For not alone by grace of royal birth,
Nor wealth, nor beauty, nor all gifts that be
Within the dowry of this Flower of Earth,
Is thy Betrothed most precious,—but that She
Having the heart of love, the mind of light,
Thus doth enrich thee with her lightful love,
Making her choice so worthiest: and this sight
Of two such spirits, blest of Heav'n above,
Blest in each other, and of all men blest,
Stirs us, as kindred Peoples, to rejoice,
Whilst either Nation gives her best for best,
And shouting ratifies the other's choice!

PRUSSIA'S HEIR.

Daughter, the love of England follows thee,
A guardian angel hovering soft and fair
Tending thy steps with more than earthly care,
And joying with a mother's joy to see
Fulfill'd thy happiest hope, her heartiest pray'r:
Thou wast a bride, when England's parting kiss
And overflowing eyes bedewed thee last,
And now this beauteous fruit of wedded bliss
Is added to thy mercies in the past;
Give God the glory, as the grace is His!
And be thy thanks for Hohenzollern's heir
More glad for this, that Britain's earnest heart
Scarce reconciled from thee her Child to part,
In thy best blessing claims a Mother's share.

VICTORIA'S GRANDCHILD.

Another crown for thee, most gracious Queen!
Another phase of glory and of bliss,
Brighter than even that so lately seen
Risen o'er Hindostan in light serene,
A brighter and a better crown is this:
For, haloed with a nimbus of new joy,
It now is thine to fondle and to kiss
Thy child's dear child, thy darling's darling boy:
Kind Heaven, shed mercies on that tender pair
The mother and her babe!—be sure thou art
Not unremembered of our English heart,
O proud and happy Father, in that pray'r;
Nor chiefly thou, O Queen; nor thy glad part,
Young Grandsire, in exulting Prussia's heir.

MALIGNED GREATNESS.

Go on in spite of slander, noble heart!
And still, as heretofore, by doing good
Silence the folly and ingratitude
Of those who ought to know how true thou art,
How true and wise, though thus misunderstood:
For thine exalted yet most delicate part
Thou hast play'd well; so dignified, so kind,
So pure in heart, so liberal in mind,
So innocent a mark for envy's dart:
Bear with our people; love is ever blind,
Jealous and sensitive; they love thee well,
Ay, next to Her! and when to England's shame
False tongues of thee sheer falsehoods dared to tell,
Honest affection vexed itself in blame.

WELCOME TO SARDINIA.

Brother in Arms, co-helper of the Right
With France and us,—all honour and all love,
Praises on earth, and blessings from Above,
On thee, Sardinia, and thy King alight:
Welcome, most worthy Comrade!—England's heart
Rejoices at the brave and generous part
Thy nobleness hath acted, in the sight
Of God and Man; that thou hast flung aside
Those papal tyrannies that prison'd thee,
And with a righteous boldness durst be free
From Rome and her intolerable pride:
Welcome! thou shalt not want for lovers here,
For everywhere our People far and wide
Will greet thee, Victor, with a British cheer.

WELCOME TO FRANCE.

England with all her heart doth welcome thee
Her guest, O reigning Majesty of France!
And gladly do we seize this golden chance
To bless a day we scarce had hoped to see:
O happy courtesies, O brave advance
Made by the Monarchs for their Peoples' good,
To knit us up in closer brotherhood,
That peace may flourish over Europe free:
Welcome, fair France in well-named Eugenie!
Ever, as now, with us defend the right,
And be the wrong by both of us withstood,
United still in council as in fight:
Welcome! for glad indeed must England be,
And in such gracious coming take delight.

THE IMPERIAL VISIT.

Could any Triumph have transcended this?
Could all, that evil conquest might have won
In trophied war by guilty daring done
Have set thy glory higher than it is?—
Behold, how gladly Heav'n's approving Sun
Shines on good faith! how graciously the Lord
Blesses a brotherhood so well begun
With honours greater, than to conquering sword,
Or rank, or right, before were ever given!
Thou hast done well; and therefore favouring Heaven
(Forgiving sin,—as all most deeply need,)
Hath in these golden days with love sublime
Smiled on us both,—and made us friends indeed,
England and France: so be it for all time!

THE PARTING GUESTS.

That all hath sped so well these brilliant days
Of England's welcome to our brother France,
That no dark storm, no terrible mischance
Hath marr'd the glorious Fact,—give God the praise!
For He doth guide the wheels of circumstance,
Ordaining all this whirl of men and things,
The spirit of Peoples and the hearts of Kings:
Yet did we fear, in that mixed multitude
Acclaiming joyously,—lest some black mind,
Some exiled caitiff of Barabbas brood,
Might dare a crime to horrify mankind;
Those fears were evil,—for our God is good:
The precious pledges lent by France to us
We have restored in happy safety thus.

AT THE ACCESSION.

Bold in my freedom, yet with homage meek,
As duty prompts and loyalty commands,
To thee, O Queen of empires, would I speak:
Behold, the most high God hath giv'n to thee
Kingdoms and glories, might and majesty,
Setting thee ruler over many lands;
Him first to serve, O Monarch, wisely seek:
And many people, nations, languages,
Have laid their welfare in thy sovereign hands;
Them next to bless, to prosper, and to please,
Nobly forget thyself, and thine own ease:
Rebuke ill counsel; rally round thy state
The scatter'd good, and true, and wise, and great:
So Heav'n upon thee shed sweet influences!

PROPHETS.

Prophets at home,—I smile to note your wrongs;
How scantly praised at each ancestral hearth
Are ye, caress'd by million hearts and tongues,
And full of honours over half the earth:
O petty jealousies and paltry strife!
The little minds that chronicle a birth
Stood once for teachers in the task of life;
But, as the child of genius grew apace,
Dismay'd at his gigantic lineaments,
They fear'd to find his glory their disgrace,
His mind their master: so their worldly aim
Was still to vex him with discouragements,
To check the spring-tide budding of his fame,
And keep it down, to save themselves a name.

MONT ST. MICHEL.

Alas! for thy pollutions, wondrous pile,
Rare pyramid of Nature and high Art,
Desecrate, and befoul'd in every part
By all that moderns add of mean and vile:
Woe, for thine ancient glories gone to waste!
These sculptur'd cloisters, and that lofty aisle,
This arch'd chivalric hall of sumptuous taste,
Those Norman turrets—(whose unconquer'd strength
Enclose the steep old town of gables strange)—
After a thousand years, all, all at length
Given up to filth and felons!—gaol-birds range
Where erst devoted maids and holy men
Peal'd their full anthem:—O the bitter change!
Heaven's gorgeous house become corruption's den.

THE SAME: NORMANDY.

Thou sad Romance in stone among the seas,—
Monstrous Chimæra, saint and fiend in one,
Where the Archangel, soaring to the sun,
Feels the brute serpent coil'd about his knees:
O pinnacles, and flying buttresses
Rear'd on a festering heap of foul and base;
O hallow'd Pharos, rank with oily lees;
O censer, spoil'd of all thy fragrant grace,—
Alas! how fair, how fearful is this place!
Round it, the garden of Hesperides
Once bloom'd,—with that ‘old dragon’ for a guard
The stone Kimmerian windings of Carnac;
But now, the light that since blazed heavenward
Is quench'd,—and all again is utter black!

A CHURCH APPEAL.

Shame on thee, Christian, cold and covetous one!
The laws (I praise them not for this) declare
That ancient, loved, deserted house of prayer
As money's worth a layman landlord's own;
Then use it as thine own; thy mansion there
Beneath the shadow of this ruinous church
Stands new and decorate; thine every shed
And barn is neat and proper; I might search
Thy comfortable farms, and well despair
Of finding dangerous ruin overhead,
And damp unwholesome mildew on the walls:
Arouse thy better self,—restore it; see,
Through thy neglect the holy fabric falls!
Fear, lest that crushing guilt should fall on thee.

ST. ANN'S, ALDERNEY.

Arise, O Lord, into thy resting-place,
Thou, and thy strength! Be with thy servants here,—
To bless their work in faithfulness come near,—
For thine is all the glory, all the grace:
Add then Thy Presence, and in spirit appear
To consecrate this House! Not unto us,
But thanks be giv'n to Thee, that, (as a bride,
Apparell'd well to meet her coming Lord
In virgin garments meekly purified,)
Waiteth for heavenly benediction thus
‘St. Ann's of Alderney,’ to heav'n restored;
O may that blessing on her sacred brow
Like Aaron's holy oil of joy be pour'd
Down to her beauteous feet in fulness now!

A CONSECRATION.

Like some fair Nun, the pious and the chaste,
Shalford, thy new-born temple stands serene,
Modestly deck'd in pure old English taste,
The village beauty of thy tranquil scene;
And we to-day have made religious haste
To see thee wedded to thy heavenly Spouse,
Kneeling in unison of praise and prayer
To help the offering of thy maiden vows:
Hark! what a thrilling utterance is there,
‘Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates,’—
As God's high priest with apostolic care
To Him this tent of glory consecrates:
Good work! to be remember'd for all time,
The seed of mercies endless and sublime.

THE SAME: SHALFORD.

‘Come in, thou King of Glory,’ yea, come in,
Rest here awhile, great Conqueror for good!
Bless thou this font to cleanse from Adam's sin,
Spread thou this table with celestial food:
And, kindled by Thy grace to gratitude,
May thousands here eternal treasures win,
As, hither led, from time to time with joy
They seek their Father: lo! before mine eyes
Visions and promises of good arise,—
The tender babe baptized, the stripling boy
Confirm'd for godliness, the maid and youth
Wedded in love, the man mature made wise,
The elder taught in righteousness and truth,
And each an heir of life before he dies!

TARRING CHURCH.

Mother,—beneath fair Tarring's heavenward spire,
Where in old years thy youthful vows were paid,
When God had granted thee thy heart's desire,
And she went forth a wife, who came a maid,
With mindful steps thus wisely have we stray'd,
Full of deep thoughts: for where that sacred fire
Of Love was kindled, in the self-same spot,
Thou and the dear companion of thy lot,
Thy helpmate all those years, mine honour'd sire,
To-day have found fulfill'd before your eyes
The promise of old time;—look round and see
Your children's children! lo, these babes arise,
And call you blessed: Blessed both be ye!
And in your blessing bless ye these, and me.

THE SAME PLACE AND DAY.

Mother! this day, one little year agone,
Thy spirit pass'd from pain to peacefulness:
Look down then in thy love, and smile upon
My duteous pilgrimage; look down and bless
In thine own tender love of old, thy son:
For in this spot, where on thy bridal-dress
The villagers threw flowers, now my heart,
To honour thee, where'er in bliss thou art,
Pours forth its deep libation:—many years
Have sped away, and thou, the blushing bride,
After long sojourn down this vale of tears
With Him thy lover ever at thy side,
Didst reap the promise of that word to thee
Fulfill'd,—‘Thy children's children thou shalt see.’

THE SAME: LONG AFTER.

For memories, and prayer, and pious thought
Of days departed, and the dear ones dead,
Tarring, once more thy sacred walls I sought:
So, to some native spot, some genial bed,
The botanist goes forth to seek and find
His curious fern or lichen; so, my mind
In melancholy pleasure wisely taught
Culls here its rarest weed; with tender care
Gather it up and store it:—years ago
From this old choir a young and loving pair
Went out just wedded; and the glittering show
Of pleasure, wealth, and promise glad and gay,
Pass'd thro' these portals:—God was with you there,
My Father and my Mother!—these were They.

MY FATHER.

Forgotten?—not forgotten, kind good man,
Though never fully prized at thy great worth,—
I will embalm thy memory as I can,
And send this blessing to the ends of earth!
For thou wert all things kindly unto all,
Benevolent and liberal from birth,
Ever responsive to affection's call,
And full of care for others,—full of care—
Weary with others' burdens, generous heart,
And yet thine own too little strong to bear:
Father! I owe thee all, and cannot pay
The happy debt until I too depart;
Then, will I bless and love it all away
In that bright world, my Father, where thou art!

A BIRTHDAY PRAYER.

Mother, dear mother, no unmeaning rhyme,
No mere ingenious compliment of words
My heart pours out at this auspicious time;
I know, a simple honest prayer affords
More music on affection's thrilling chords,
More joy than can be measured or exprest
In song most sweet or eloquence sublime:
Mother, I bless thee! God doth bless thee too,
In these thy children's children thou art blest
With dear old pleasures springing up anew:
And blessings wait upon thee still, my mother,
Blessings to come for many a happy year;
For, losing thee, where could we find another
So kind, so true, so tender—and so dear?

THE WORLD.

Well-named in sound and sense,—the world, the world!
Because, in circling tides of fate-whorl'd rings
That ceaseless whirlpool heart is toss'd and twirl'd,
A caldron seething up with thoughts and things;
Because that whirlwind soul, on worrying wings
Flapping disquiet, ever flies unfurl'd,
Like a swift smoke from steaming lava springs;
Because that whirl of change, of vexing change,
Is as a poisonous tendril, closely curl'd
Round a man's spirit-harp, to jar its strings,
Unharmonied by matters sad and strange:
O world! O whirlpool whirlwind whirling world!
Thou art the whorl of Circumstance, that clings
Around our footfalls, wheresoe'er we range.

A GLIMPSE OF EDEN.

Not many rays of heaven's unfallen sun
Reach the dull distance of this world of ours,
Nor oft dispel its shadows cold and dun,
Nor oft with glory tinge its faded flowers:
But, oh, if ever yet there wandered one,
Like Peri from her amaranthine bowers,
Or ministering angel sent to bless,
'Twas to thy hearth, domestic happiness;
Where sweet Contentment sings her cheery psalm,
And in the sunshine of a peaceful home
Loves choicest roses wear their summer dress;
And if some lurking evils that way roam
As chance they will, there Gilead's healing balm
Soothes every sorrow with its heavenly calm.

INFANT DAUGHTERS.

Oh ye, my beauteous nest of snow-white doves,
My earthly cherubim, my precious pearls,
My pretty leash of loving little girls,
What wealth could price for me your guileless loves,—
My happiness, all gold with no alloy,
My treasuries of hope and trembling joy?
This toothless darling nestled soft and warm
Close to her glad young mother's yearning face;
That other bright-eyed fairy, full of grace
Laughing, like light, from underneath her arm;
And this sweet eldest, this just-budding mind
Beauteous and rich in thousand winning ways,
Dear winning ways, that round my heart-strings wind:
O God, for these my spirit is all praise!

ELLIN.—1837.

My precious babe, my guileless little girl,—
The soft sweet beauty of thy cherub face
Is smiling on me, radiant as a pearl
With young intelligence and infant grace:
And must the wintry touch of sorrow gall
Thy tenderness, fair snow-drop of the spring?
Must evil taint thee,—must the world enthrall
Thine innocent mind, poor harmless little thing?
Ah, yes! thou too must taste the cup of woe,
Thy heart must learn to grieve, as others do,
Thy soul must feel life's many-pointed sting:
But fear not, darling child, for well I know
Whatever cares may meet thee, ills befall,
Thy father's God shall lead thee safe through all.

MARY.—1838.

Lo, Thou hast crown'd me with another blessing,
Into my lot hast dropt one mercy more:—
All good, all kind, all wise in Thee possessing,
My cup, O bounteous Giver, runneth o'er,
And still Thy hand doth without ceasing pour!
For the sweet fruit of undecaying love
Clusters in beauty round my cottage door,
And this new little one, like Noah's dove,
Comes to mine ark with promise from above:
O happy home, O light and cheerful hearth!
Look round with me, in thankfulness, O wife,
On such fair faces we have lit with life,
For Grace doth add this blessing to their birth,
That these be children both of heaven and earth.

MARGARET.—1840.

A song of gratitude and cheerful prayer
Still shall go forth my pretty babes to greet,
As on life's firmament, serenely fair,
Their little stars arise, with aspect sweet
Of mild successive radiance; that small pair,
Ellin and Mary, having gone before
In this affection's welcome, the dear debt
Here shall be paid to gentle Margaret:
Be thou indeed a Pearl,—in pureness, more
Than beauty, praise, or price; full be thy cup,
Mantling with grace, and truth with mercy met,
With warm and generous charities flowing o'er;
And when the Great King makes His jewels up,
Shine forth, child-angel, in His coronet!

MARTIN.—1842.

Not slender is the triumph and the joy,
To know and feel that, for his father's sake,
The world will look with favour on my boy;
—On thee, my noble little firstborn son,—
On thee!—and that it shall be thine to take
(With whatsoever else of this world's spoil)
For heritage the honours I have won:
Speed on, my second self, speed nobly on!
Forget, in good men's praise, the strife and toil
Which Folly's herd shall still around thee make
If thou dost well: speed on in gifts and grace,
Beloved of God and man, even as now;
Speed,—and in both worlds win the glorious race,
Bearing thy father's blessing on thy brow!

WILLIAM.—1844.

Look on this babe; and let thy pride take heed,
Thy pride of manhood, intellect, or fame,
That thou despise him not: for he indeed,
And such as he, in spirit and heart the same,
Are God's own children in that kingdom bright
Where purity is praise,—and where before
The Father's throne, triumphant evermore,
The ministering angels, sons of light,
Stand unreproved; because they offer there,
Mix'd with the Mediator's hallowing prayer,
The innocence of babes in Christ like this:
O guardian Spirit, be my child thy care,
Lead im to God, obedience and bliss,
To God, O fostering cherub, thine and his!

HENRY.—1847.

Hail, then, a sixth! my doubly treble joy,—
Another soul to me from Eden lent,
Another young mind for a season sent
To breed him up for good and God's employ:
I bless this blessing in my third-born boy,
And see in him a hostage from above,
Another second self, with hopes like mine
In better worlds beyond the stars to shine,
Through the great largesse of Our Father's love:
God guard the babe; and cherish the young child;
And bless the boy; and yearn upon the youth;
And make the man a Christian undefil'd;
And all through life enrich him with the Truth,
Crown'd with all Grace,—through Jesus reconcil'd.

THE SEVENTH: WALTER.

So, one by one, Thy jewels are made up
Ev'n to the perfect number, glorious Lord!
So, one by one, ambrosially pour'd
These rills of happiness o'erflow my cup:
Add yet this grace, Contentment with Enough:
That, resting always on Thy gracious word,
My band of innocent babes, my beauteous band,
Through all the maze of life, thorny and rough,
To Thee in prayer continually given,
Safely may pass along; and, hand in hand,
A lustrous company, a blessed seven,
Pure as the Pleiads, as the Sages wise,
With hearts commingled like the rainbow dyes,
May shine together, heirs of earth and heaven!

ALICE.

And thou, my child in glory! gone before
To reign with Jesus in eternal rest
Hymning thine infant psalm among the blest,
Should I not count thee still among my store,
My jewel store of children? should I cease,
Nor sing of thee as lent a little while
To teach how patient is an heir of Peace
When Death itself is welcomed with a smile?
Beautiful Alice! six long months of pain
With two short added years of prattling love
Made up the life, whose loss to thee was gain,
So soon translated to the life above,—
Too soon for us,—Ah well—my heart is fain
To fly away and be with thee, sweet dove!

ON A CHILD STILL-BORN.

Born, but to die!—O happier lot than ours,
Born to do battle in this world of strife
With cares and wrongs and wants and woes of life,
Guilt that o'erclouds and Evil that o'erpowers
Our threescore years and ten, with sorrows rife:
Born, but to die! O favour'd little one,
So soon and easily to overleap
Sin's moat, drawn black all round us broad and deep,
And in the glory of a brighter sun
To spring at once to Eden's greenest bowers!
Yes, happy innocent, thy work is done
Without one effort but that waking sleep,
Winning the race, though scarcely well begun,
And ripe for bliss, though never taught to weep!

A PLEA FOR SUCH.

Not blest? not saved? Who dares to doubt all well
With holy Innocence, a Christian seed?
Presumptuous priest,—I scorn thy bigot creed,
And tell thee,—truer than the Fathers tell,—
That babes unborn are Jesu's lambs indeed!
Thou teachest, that, as if by magic force,
A rite, a formula, redeems from hell,—
A drop of water saving as of course,—
And this unspilt, no Grace!—O heathen spell,
Rome's heresy!—there is a surer source
Of baptism for the soul than thou canst give,
And Christian parents dip their children there
Unborn, or born, to die, as well as live,
In Heaven's own font of faith and hope and pray'r.

HORACE'S PHILOSOPHY.

Wisely for us within night's sable veil
God hides the future; and, if men turn pale
For dread distrusting, laughs their fear to scorn:
For thee, the present calmly order well;
All else as on a river's tide is borne,
Now flowing peaceful to the Tuscan sea
Down the mid-channel on a gentle swell,
Now, as the hoarse fierce mandate of the flood
Stirs up the quiet stream, time-eaten rocks
Go hurrying down, with houses herds and flocks,
And echoes from the mountain and the wood:
He stands alone glad, self-possess'd and free,
Who grateful for to-day can say, I live;
To-morrow let my Father take or give.

FROM THE SAME ODE. III. 29.

As He may will, not I—with dark or light
Let God ordain the morrow, noon or night:
He, even He, can never render vain
The past behind me; nor bring back again
What any transient hour has once made fact:
Fortune, rejoicing in each cruel act,
And playing frowardly a saucy game,
Dispenses changeful and uncertain fame,
Now kind to me, and now to some beside:
I praise her here; but if it should betide
She spreads her wings for flight, I hold no more
The good she gave, but in mine honest worth
Clad like a man, go honourably forth
To seek the undowried portion of the poor.

TO A PREMIER: 1839.

Hold thy rash hand!—for Britain is no slave,
Thus to be forced against her word and will;
Her voice is terrible, her heart is brave,
Her lion-nature free and fearless still:
Why make this reckless haste to compass ill?
Be, if thou canst, deliberate and grave:
For, hark! I hear upon the burden'd wind,
From fell and field and town and dale and hill,
That gathering tempest of the Nation's mind,
No peace with Rome! no league with crafty Rome!
Down with the traitor, who would smoothly bind
Her chains around us,—and whose deed would mark
With the foul beast our every hearth and home,
Changing our glorious Light to utter Dark.

POLITICS IN 1839.

Chill'd is the patriot's hope, the poet's prayer:
Alas, for England and her tarnish'd crown,
Her sun of ancient glory going down,
Her foes triumphant in her friends' despair:
What wonder should the billows overwhelm
A bark so mann'd by Comus and his crew,
‘Youth at the prow, and Pleasure at the helm?’—
Yet, no!—we will not fear; the loathing realm
At length has burst its chains; a motley few,
The pseudo-saint, the boasting infidel,
The demagogue and courtier, hand in hand,
No more besiege our Zion's citadel:
But, high in hope comes on this nobler band,
For God, the Sovereign, and our Father-land.

ROMISH PRIESTCRAFT.—1851.

What! after all our charitable pains,
And long conciliation's liberal hope,
Can we endure to see this subtle Pope
Scheming to bind our freedom in his chains?
Ungrateful, feeble, and perfidious knave!
Never again through Britain's fair domains
Shall tyrannous old priestcraft make us grope
In thy dark deep of Intellect's own grave,—
Never again shalt thou the Mind enslave!
And yet, who knoweth? haply for awhile,
The penalty for gifts and grace abused,
Some weaklings may be cozened by thy guile,
Trick'd at thy boldness, with thy pomps amused,
And fascinated by thy serpent smile!

CHURCH-DIVIDINGS.

O Freedom's very heart, her hearth, and home,
England! resist with vigour as of old
This pestilent miasma bred at Rome,
This inward cancer to the Church and State
Into thy vitals creeping quick and cold:
Let not a cunning foe's malignant hate
Triumph in thy dividings: bear, forbear;
Win back those sheep, half-wandering from thy fold,
And lead them with The Shepherd's tender care!
For some be generous souls, athirst for truth,
And Truth's high heralds count but scant and rare,—
And soberness is frost to their hot youth,—
And so they shun our Church: but soon, goodsooth,
Gladly for Christ will turn to find Him there!

THE PAPAL AGGRESSION.

Enough of gossip and grandiloquence,—
What must be done? Has England thus been stirr'd
To her deep heart,—and lashed her sober sense
Into high wrath at Rome's rare insolence,
Only to bluster with a bullying word?
The Lion roars, but when he roars he springs!
He is no cur to bark and slink away:
The times are past, when ministers or kings
Could make our nation, puppet-like, obey,
Pulling one string to rouse it, one to lay;—
We claim that you, the Rulers of the realm,
For, and with us, to whom you first appeal'd,
The sword of government shall firmly wield
With stern defeat this Pope to overwhelm.

TOLERATION.

Yet; let not such aggression's baffled scheme,
Incite to act unjustly: tolerate,
(And rather half in love than half in hate),
Whatever Conscience may her duty deem,
From God's full truth, to man's most empty dream:
Where reason and religion can, convince;
No less ethereal weapons may convert:
Meanwhile, let each, the peasant as the prince,
Work for the weal of all, and no man's hurt:
With the true papist, if a patriot too,
Live well in peace as fellow-citizen;
But for yon traitorous undermining crew,—
Send them to Rome, to do as Romans do,
To earn God's judgment, and the scorn of men!

ON BOARD THE ASIA.

Count up with me our mercies manifest,
My brother voyagers; that God hath sped
Our wandering steps, in safety hither led,
Strong in His strength, and with His bounty blest:
O, how can half the perils be exprest
That He hath spared us on this prosperous way?
No evil hath come near us, to deform
One pleasant night, or one luxurious day,
No traitor rock, no fierce tyrannic storm:
But, as, at night, bell echoing answer'd bell
Like neighbouring village clocks, the cheering word
Ever was added in response, ‘All's well!’
Thank God! that thus His ready grace hath heard
Our pray'rs, though few and feeble, truth to tell!

ATLANTIC MERCIES.

And, meekly think how many better men
Have gone this way in famine and in fear,
Yet, after all their toils, had labour'd then
Vainly,—for Death hath feasted on them here!
O think how, gulph'd away from human ken,
Thousands have struggled in yon yeasty waves,
As gloomily around some staggering wreck
Yawn'd the black throats of those Atlantic graves:
We the while, pacing this high-terraced deck,
Like proud triumphant despots of the deep,
Set our calm feet on Ocean's vassal neck;
And day or night, in pastimes, or in sleep,
With ease and skill and mammoth-muscled force
Speed to the goal of our victorious course!

ARRIVAL AT NEW YORK.

Not with cold scorn, or ill-dissembled sneer,
Ungraciously your kindly looks to greet,
By God's good favour safely wafted here,
O friends and brothers, face to face we meet:
Now, for a little space, my willing feet,
After long hope and promise many a year,
Shall tread your happy shores; my heart and voice
Your kindred love shall quicken and shall cheer;
While in your greatness shall my soul rejoice—
For you are England's nearest and most dear!
Suffer my simple fervours to do good,
As one poor pilgrim haply may and can,
Who, knit to heaven and earth by gratitude,
Speaks from his heart, to touch his brother man.

RETURN IN THE ARCTIC.

A floating palace of luxurious ease,
Mirror'd and cushion'd, sumptuously built
With precious woods, polish'd and carved and gilt,
Full of the richest rare appliances
Which wealth could wish, or curious skill invent,
Body and mind to pamper and to please,
Such was our ship:—and, for the way she went,
A magic race across the slumbering seas,
As if some giant cygnet, black of breast,
But snowy-wing'd to catch the welcome breeze,
Gracefully skimm'd the waters: for the rest,
Fair woman with good-natured merriment,
And frank fraternal manhood, did their best
To make our memories of the Arctic blest!

CHURCH WORLDLINGS.

Not many noble, mighty, wise, or great
Are call'd of God: the scripture saith, not Many,—
Whereby the Few be call'd; it saith not Any:
Some then there be, set high in Church and State,
Who yet shall reach to Heav'n's unbounded bliss,
For having here well earn'd the labourer's penny,
And not betray'd their Master by a kiss:
Likewise, of old quoth holy Chrysostome,
Few clerks be saved;—for so he reckoned then
That trumpeters and liveried serving-men
Themselves to royal feasts could scarcely come:
Few, not condemning all; yet, by that Few
Excluding some, the many faithless some,
Who barely preach,—but never practise too.

GOOD PRIESTS.

And for those Few,—all hail, most honour'd band,
Who turning many souls to righteousness,
Greatly beloved, shall in your portion stand,
And shine for ever, blessing and to bless!
Yea,—thou true Bishop, pure and wise and kind,
My verse rebukes not thee; nor thee, good priest,
Who to thy parish with a humble mind
Givest both daily bread and weekly feast;
Nor every canon in Cathedral-dome
Standing bestall'd, a legacy from Rome,
For some may well be tender and devout:
Only against our Church's worldling-brood
Who for the loaves and fishes seek her out,
My zeal has flamed awroth for God and good!

ON A BIRTH.

At length,—a dreary length of many years,
God's favour hath shone forth! and blest thee well,
O handmaid of the Lord, for all thy tears,
For all thy prayers, and hope, and faith, and fears,
With that best treasure of consummate joy
A childless wife alone can fully tell
How sorely long withheld—her first-born boy:
This blessing is from heav'n; to heav'n once more,
Another Hannah with her Samuel,
Render thou back the talent yielding ten,
A spirit, train'd right early to adore,
A heart, to yearn upon its fellow-men,
A being, meant and made for endless heaven,
This give to God: this, God to thee hath given.

GUERNSEY.

Guernsey! to me and in my partial eyes
Thou art a holy and enchanted isle,
Where I would live long years, and muse the while
On ancient thoughts and solemn memories,
Quickening the tender tear or pensive smile;
Guernsey!—for nearly thrice a hundred years
Home of my fathers; refuge from their fears
And haven to their hope,—when long of yore
Fleeing Imperial Charles and bloody Rome,
Protestant martyrs, to thy seagirt shore
They came to seek a temple and a home,
And found thee generous,—I their son would pour
My heartfull all of praise and thanks to thee,
Island of welcomes,—friendly, frank, and free!

THE LIBERIAN CHURCH.

Not freedom only be Liberia's boast,—
Nor chiefly, Africa, thy sons return'd
To those dear palmy plains and tropic coast
For which so long in alien climes they yearn'd:
No!—but a blessing, to be sought the most
Wherever men for truest treasure search,
Shall be thy praise, Liberia!—lo, at length,
As in St. Cyprian's day, a Christian Church
With its Apostle stands in holy strength,
A new-lit beacon set on Ham's dark shore;
And round it now the quickened heathen throng,
While Ethiopia's outstretch'd hands implore
Of thee, Salvation's hallowed gospel song,
And treasuries of joy for evermore.

AFRICA'S SELF-BLOCKADE.

Sister, we are not slow to learn of thee
How best to compass good; how best to pour
Freedom and health, as on Liberia's shore,
Along the skirt of Afric's Western sea;
Sister Columbia, wiser than of yore
We love in all things generous to agree;
And, well content if blessings so may be
To the poor darkling slave, a slave no more,
Frankly we haste to fringe the sea-board thus
With homes and fields of freemen: glad to win
Around the standards rear'd by thee and us,
Body and soul, the rescued sons of sin
From both worlds' doom of bitterest and worst,
No more poor slaves benighted and accurst.

EXPEDIENCE.

Do ill that good may come,—so Satan spake:
Woe to the land deluded by that lie,
Woe to its rulers, for whose evil sake
The curse of God may now be hovering nigh:
Up, England! and avert it: boldly break
The spells of sorceress Rome, and cast away
The cords of bad expedience: is it wise,
Or right, or safe, for some chance gains to-day
To dare sure vengeance on to-morrow's skies?
Be wiser thou, dear Land, my native home,
Do always good, do good that good may come;
The path of duty lieth before thee plain,
Turn from the harlot speech of papal Rome,
For none who go that way return again.

TO CERTAIN PRELATES.

Were ye not posted upon Zion-hill
Wardens and warriors, sworn and paid to keep
From harms and heresies your Master's sheep,
From thieves that plunder and from wolves that kill?
And how did ye such heavenly trust fulfil?
Let England tell it out: these purple lords
Over God's heritage, who love to sleep,
Welcomed the wolf; fawned on the powers of ill,—
And, all for prudence, smiled with courtly words
On old insidious Rome:—why were ye sent
Save as protesting champions of the right?
Why thus arrayed in spiritual might,
If in the day of battle ye repent
Of honour, courage, truth,—and will not fight?

OUR PROTESTANTISM.

Apostates, not apostles! ye shall hear
Thro' my weak tongue indignant England's voice;
At you her patriots groan, her foes rejoice,
For you sad Zion drops the bitter tear:
Alas! our prophets fail, our princes fear,
The wise men stumble, and the seers are blind,
And ye, our sacred guardians, are of those
Who, placed in power on earth to loose and bind,
Seem weak as doves truth's tottering cause to aid,
And shrewd as serpents to befriend her foes:
Fear, for yourselves; for, if no ravening Rome,
On whom ye doat so tenderly afraid,
Shall rend the shepherds who their trust betray'd,
Your very sheep shall find you fears at home.

TRIMMERS.

Think it no vulgar threat, no party spite
At Church and State, at gentle Rome, or you;
I speak the words of soberness and right,
A patriot and a churchman staunch and true:
If Rome were health and not a moral blight,
Still, by your duty sworn and province fee'd,
Bishops of England, foremost in the van
To stand contending for our purer creed
Is to you law, while honour dwells in man:
But if, as erst, ye fail through sinful sloth,
Flinging integrity and faith away,
To combat evil in this perilous day
Trimming with God and Man, think you from both
Ye shall not earn confusion and dismay?

GOOD BISHOPS.

Ye seek not praise from man, nor fear his face;
Then let my words be few: before your Lord
Commended, as establish'd by His grace
Faithful ye stand, to reap a good reward:
True shepherds of the fold, whom power and place
Have not corrupted from that lowlier mind
Which dwelt in Him,—we love in you to trace
The likeness of his zeal, in you to find
Martyrs for truth in these last perilous times;
Thunders, with hail and fire, are rolling round,
And good men writhe beneath their rulers' crimes,
And Babylon must rise again to fall;
Yet is there hope; while you are faithful found,
Zion is strong behind her sevenfold wall.

GRATITUDE.

I number you by thousands, unseen friends,
And dearly precious is your love to me:
Yea, what a goodly company ye be!
Far as the noble brotherhood extends
Of English hearts and tongues o'er land and sea:
How rich am I in love:—the sweet amends
For all whatever little else of pain
Some few unkindly cause; most rich in love,
From mine own home to earth's remotest ends:
Let me then count my store, my glorious gain,
This wealth, that my poor merit far transcends,
Your loving kindness,—echoing from above
The Highest Blessing on my works and ways,
‘Eu doule agathe,’ my Father's praise.

AUTHORSHIP.

Ay; blest indeed above the mass of men,
And rich in joys that reach the true sublime!
For that the frequent droppings of my pen
Have comforted the Good in every clime,
And help'd the Right,—(O solace beyond time!)
Therefore my soul is glad: judge me, my friends,
Is there not happier treasure in such joys
Than all the world can win from all its toys?
And as the poet's dynasty extends
To children's children, reigning in the mind,
Is he not crown'd a king among his kind?
Ah me! not so: this thought of pride destroys:
Give God the praise: His blessing sends this store
Of unseen friends by thousands evermore!

THANKS.

Then, let me thank you; let my heart outpour
In humbleness its earnest gratitude
To all whose yearnings follow me with good,
Loving my mind and all its simple store:
O generous friends!—a cordial multitude
Hived in the West, upon that busy shore
Where fair Columbia, Britain's child, is throned
Imperial, yet with empire all unown'd,—
O generous friends!—another cordial band
From far Australia to the Arctic Seas,
And crowds around me in mine own dear land,
What thanks to pay for mercies great as these?—
Felt from the heart, and by the tongue confest,
Be the deep love of one so nobly blest!

TO ALL FRIENDS.

A book of many thoughts in classic measures;
Songs of my Heart, attuned through many a year
From time to time a silent hour to cheer;
Unguarded tell-tales of mine inner pleasures,
High hopes, and joys most deep, and loves most dear;
What welcome shall we find?—Neglect?—Reproof?
Critical pride that scorns and holds aloof?
No, Friends! not such will be my welcome here:
From heart to heart I speak, from love to love,
With kindly words that kindliness inspire,
Frankly, confidingly: no fear, no fear,
But love shall be your greeting to my lyre;
For, through the mercies lent me from above,
I warm your hearts, O Friends! with holy fire.

A PORTRAIT.

A mindful man, but hearted like a child,
Lived near my dwelling: he was frank and glad,
(Tho' some deep sorrows might have made him sad,)
But, to say sooth, his cheerfulness beguil'd
The way of life so well, that trouble's power
Was half unheeded, like a passing shower,
For he did good, with all the good he had:
Still as he went he sang, hoping the best,
And restless energy claim'd every hour,
And with a buoyant spirit he was blest:
And Independence, and outspoken Truth,
And courage, ev'n alone to stand and fight,
Had lived and moved in him from earliest youth,
With purity, and zeal, and love of light.

ANONYMOUS POEMS.

My heart presents her gift: in turn, of thee
I ask a little time, an idle hour,
Kindly to spend with these my thoughts and me,
Wooing the fragrance of the Muses' bower:
Not without crest or coat, yet nameless now,
As one to earn his spurs, and prove his power,
A candidate unknown, with vizor'd brow,
Bearing no charge upon mine argent shield,
Full of young hopes, I dare the tented field!
—Not so: this is no time for measuring swords;
Thou art no craven, though thy spirit yield,
For yonder are fair looks, and friendly words:
Choose a more peaceful image:—here reveal'd,
Taste a small sample of my humble hoards.

THUS FAR.

Thus far: a few of my less faulty flowers
Dropt on the highway for the passers-by;
In grace and charity, good world of ours,
Leave not the foundlings freezingly to die:
They have bloom'd thus within my fancy's bowers
Willing as weeds,—perchance as little worth;
Yet have I hoped them not all things of earth;
For, with electric fervour, from my pen,
As quicken'd sometimes by angelic powers,
Thoughts have shot out to hit the hearts of men—
Whilst on mine own the spirit of light and love
So winningly hath shed his heavenly showers,
That my free songs have fill'd no toilsome hours,
But happy moments lent me from above.

THE LAST STONE.

My pile is heap'd: the world goes whirling on,
And each man's life is full of chance and change,
While all withal that seems so new and strange
Looks like an old familiar, soon as done:
So must the Soul, that up and down doth range
Restless and energetic, set up straight
Its Runic record ever and anon,
Or pile its cairn of pebbles, one by one,
To mark the ways that lead to Duty's gate;
And I, much musing in mine ivied grange,
Thankful for life at such a busy time,
And earnest, though much erring every way,
Fling out in hope my way-side heap of rhyme
To rest some wearied traveller, as it may.