ANYTA AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
ANYTA 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
 GEORGE Hf CALVERT. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY. 
 
 NEW YORK : HURD AND HOUGHTON. 
 
 1866. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 
 
 GEORGE B. CALVERT, 
 In the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District of Rhode Island 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 
 
 H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ANYTA . . .*. . . . . . .11 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
 A HARP OF MANY STRINGS 51 
 
 WASHINGTON 56 
 
 PREVISIONS 65 
 
 LOVE 69 
 
 To A ROSE . . . J 77 
 
 ALONE v . 79 
 
 THE DEMON > -: "> 81 
 
 SONG OP BIRDS BEFORE DAWN . . . ;. . 106 
 CHILDREN .. ,, .. ... . .^ * 108 
 STRIKE NOT A CHILD . .. . . . . .110 
 
 M191794 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 P ETS <,..... . .112 
 
 AKlNG .......... 114 
 
 THE MEETING. .... V- 124 
 
 DOWNWARD . * . oc 
 
 .I/O 
 
 THE YOUNG MOTHER ... ., . . . 19? 
 
 V : - . . J .130 
 
 VEILS . ,,-.- 138 
 
 .. . . . . .140 
 
 FOREVER . . . . .... . 142 
 
 A STAR . , . . 148 
 
 MONODY ON HORATIO GREENOUGH . 150 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 To KEATS . ...... . . ,. . ./".... .157 
 
 To SHELLEY . . . . . . * . 4 4 . . \. . 158 
 
 To COLERIDGE . . , . . . . ...... . 159 
 
 To WORDSWORTH,. .. *. . . .. .^ IgO 
 
 To GOETHE . . . . . / . , .* ,: * - . ici 
 
 To MILTON .. .. .. . ^. .. .. <; , 162 
 
 To SHAKESPEARE ... . .. <:.. . 
 
CONTENTS. vn 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To DANTE . . .... . . 164 
 
 To HOMER . . 165 
 
 To THE PRINCE OF WALES . . . . . 166 
 
 To ENGLAND . . 167 
 
 To SCOTT - . : .-... . . . - : 168 
 
 To ANDERSON 169 
 
 To LUTHER 170 
 
ANYTA. 
 
ANYTA. 
 
 THY happy tongue strings vocal pearls 
 From morn to eve through listening noon ; 
 
 Thou shakest beauty from thy curls, 
 As on the longest day of June 
 
 The Sun pours splendor from his eyes, 
 
 Thou font of sinless ecstasies. 
 
 Thou indoor Sun, whose gendering ray 
 
 Is the glad look thy smile that crests, 
 Thy little self sheds light all day, 
 
12 ANYTA. 
 
 Kindling new love in thankful breasts, 
 And breeding such good thoughts in me 
 That I am inly warmed by thee. 
 
 And was I once as thou now art, 
 My days with rosy blossoms rife ? 
 
 Therefore it is thy little heart 
 
 Singing so true fresh songs of life, 
 
 Tunes mine upon a wiser key, 
 
 A.nd makes me find myself in thee. 
 
 1853. 
 
 ii. 
 
 My feelings grow too large for speech, 
 
 If on the cliff in vivid hour 
 I stand, and with my mind would reach 
 
 About the sea and clasp its power. 
 
ANYTA. 13 
 
 When reverend Night, opening her eyes, 
 Bends all their pomp of look on me, 
 
 Dilated by the light, I rise 
 
 On thoughts of hushed solemnity. 
 
 Thy great new eyes light in me thought 
 Deeper than sea or night can draw, 
 
 To speechless love and wonder wrought, 
 Gazing in them with holy awe. 
 
 in. 
 
 The life that flashes in the cloud 
 Dies in its thunder-greeted birth : 
 The night it scatters from the earth 
 
 Reclasps it with an earthy shroud. 
 
14 ANYTA. 
 
 Quick kindled from a sphere still higher 
 Are lightnings mixt of finer light, 
 That die not, quenched in sudden night, 
 
 But live a steadfast sacred fire. 
 
 Like suns new-lit by th Architect, 
 Who warms th eternal domes above, 
 Fresh flashes issuing from his love 
 
 Warm thee, by his great hand bedeckt. 
 
 And thus in glistening unity 
 
 Thy beauties inly bud and flower : 
 
 Thou beam st with daily brightened power, 
 
 Each day more full of Deity. 
 
ANYTA. 15 
 
 IV. 
 
 With thee t is ever morning, 
 
 Thou playmate of the Hours ; 
 Young Time keeps young, adorning 
 
 Thy life with dewy flowers. 
 Thy minutes all are blessings, 
 
 Rained from an inward Heaven ; 
 We share them through caressings, 
 
 Regiving what thou ? st given. 
 Hope s fondling, pet of gladness, 
 Of prattling joy 
 The ready toy, 
 Thy coming gilds the clouds of sadness. 
 
ANYTA. 
 
 Is it a fiery breathing, 
 
 The pulsing of the brain, 
 In the rich turmoil seething 
 
 Of its initial gain ? 
 Or does imagination, 
 
 Enfreed by thee and fed, 
 Exhale an emanation 
 
 To girt thy glittering head? 
 For lo ! a golden glory 
 Circles thy brow: 
 It fronts me now, 
 Palpable as that of sacred story. 
 
 Fresh orb of holy fire, 
 
 That sun st our earthy night, 
 Thy motion swings me higher, 
 
 Thou singing star of light ! 
 The splendor in thy glances 
 
 Relumes my darkened youth ; 
 
ANYTA. 17 
 
 Thou swell st my tide of fancies 
 
 New satellite of truth. 
 Wise monitor of duty, 
 
 Mysterious child ! 
 In thee uppiled 
 Are treasuries of love and beauty. 
 
 v. 
 The noonday heat hath hushed the air, 
 
 And leaflets drink with noiseless glee 
 Their fill of light, and everywhere 
 
 The hot earth pulses silently. 
 
 Adown through ash-leaved maple limbs, 
 That guard with green the open sash, 
 
 A thousand rays with voiceless hymns, 
 A golden throng, benignant flash. 
 
18 ANYTA. 
 
 The light and air serenely keep 
 A smiling watch about the bed, 
 
 Whereon divine resistless sleep 
 
 Hath chained those lips, that restless head. 
 
 The warm beams play at hide-and-seek 
 Mong naked knees and arms and curls, 
 
 And smoothly glide from rounded cheek, 
 Like flying shadows chased from pearls. 
 
 And whosoever now draws nigh, 
 A loving listening silence keeps, 
 
 To catch that whisper from on high, 
 The breathing of a child that sleeps. 
 
ANYTA. 19 
 
 VI. 
 
 Life s tide in that sleep-circled breast 
 Heaves with a swell so much more worth 
 Than common cadences of earth, 
 
 It might be breathings of the blest. 
 
 The Builder builds a being rare, 
 Flushing it full with virgin power, 
 And in its rest, that holy hour, 
 
 Unresting works creative there. 
 
 And Beauty then like flowers at night, 
 That nurse their sweetness in their sleep - 
 Crouches to spring with bolder leap, 
 
 And seize tranced eyes with gaudier light. 
 
ANYTA. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Of genius tis the gorgeous gift 
 
 To read the cipher always gleaming 
 
 From Nature s face, and shrewdly sift 
 The subtleties of her wise seeming. 
 
 The Artist s large elected eye, 
 
 Tracking the Almighty s splendent duty, 
 Enraptured sees even gross things lie 
 
 Transfigured by the soul of beauty. 
 
 And things that are or great or good 
 Shine with a twofold lustre glowing, 
 
 Imburnished by his purple mood, 
 
 Like streams mid autumn foliage flowing. 
 
ANYTA. 21 
 
 These trembling moods, by plastic might 
 
 Transmuted are to firm creations, 
 So potent fair, they grow the light 
 
 And glory of the proudest nations. 
 
 And kings upraise themselves who raise 
 Art-palaces to ward these treasures, 
 
 That so the heart with joy amaze, 
 
 And feed such inward endless pleasures, 
 
 That thoughtful, thankful, Christian men, 
 To steep their eyes in these pure pages, 
 
 Bringing best will or practised ken, 
 Make to them votive pilgrimages. 
 
 And such a Palace broadly stands, 
 
 Its walls with hallowed handwork flashing, 
 
 Where Elbe is proudest of her lands, 
 Her waters stately Dresden dashing. 
 
22 ANYTA. 
 
 Here flame-eyed Rubens titan brush 
 Hastens to fix the thronged emotions, 
 
 Lightening from his hot brain, that gush 
 In fulgent floods of grand proportions. 
 
 And here the wisest gaze with awe, 
 
 To see unfolded by a brother 
 Beauty transcending earthly law, 
 
 The Saviour-Child and sainted Mother, 
 
 " Madonna di San Sisto " styled, 
 
 Whereinto holy Raphael melted 
 His boundless being undefiled : 
 
 Those radiant heads, with grandeur belted. 
 
 Here too is great Correggio s "Night." 
 
 The dawn, that through Heaven s portal prieth, 
 
 Has not yet scaled in his auburn flight 
 The lonely manger, wherein lieth 
 
ANYTA. 
 
 The sacred Child. Yet, lo ! a sight ! 
 
 Athwart the air so thick and sparkless 
 From th Infant streams triumphant light, 
 
 Divinely vanquishing the darkness. 
 
 Fresh to my heart dear memories bring 
 That pictured joy, thee now beholding, 
 
 As Cherubs bout thee sleeping sing, 
 Thy tender life in theirs enfolding ; 
 
 While from thy brow divinely flows 
 
 Fresh conquering light, our souls illuming 
 
 With love and hope it silent glows, 
 
 The earth s dank gloominess consuming. 
 
24 ANYTA. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 They hover near, like sunlit airs 
 About the new-born lily s bloom, 
 To shield it from the wither d doom 
 
 A stagnant darkness surely bears, 
 
 They hover near, the ghostly powers, 
 They fan celestial light upon 
 The lid that veils its fiery sun : 
 
 Their vision guides the bandaged Hours, 
 
 A vision that nor rests nor swerves, 
 
 That knows not darkness, knows not sleep, 
 That long hath quit the realms that keep 
 
 The spirit subject to the nerves. 
 
ANYTA. 25 
 
 How solemn is this living death ! 
 The haughty self so lowly lain, 
 The muffling of the mighty brain, 
 
 And life but an unconscious breath. 
 
 IX. 
 
 As cloudlet silvered by the Sun, 
 Or air-supported gossamer, 
 Thou sleepest safe, without a stir, 
 
 Uplifted by His benison. 
 
 Great Sleep, thou liest on those lids 
 Like a warm calm upon the ocean, 
 When winds have folded up their motion, 
 
 And June to brooding stillness bids. 
 
26 ANYTA. 
 
 Lie gently, gracious Sleep, the while 
 Life s inmost channels brim with streams 
 To ripple soft through flowery dreams, 
 
 That dally with a waking smile. 
 
 x. 
 
 Lift at last those lids belashed : 
 From without and from within 
 
 Counter streams of light are flashed : 
 A new glory tints her skin. 
 
 Wide awake, she lieth still; 
 
 As she would her conscience steep 
 In the juices choice that fill 
 
 Life with savor after sleep. 
 
ANYTA. 27 
 
 Still she lieth, and her mouth 
 Joy exchangeth with her eyes : 
 
 As with breathings from the south 
 Flush her temples where she lies. 
 
 XL 
 
 Lusty freedom s brave child, 
 
 Thy dear motions all swing 
 
 To a rhythm such as angel-ears quaff: 
 
 In the air what is wild, 
 
 On the earth what can sing 
 
 Set their chords to thy musical laugh. 
 
28 ANYTA. 
 
 From thy black impish eyes 
 
 Leap young goblins of fun, 
 
 Deftly mounted on beamlets of light: 
 
 With their gossamer ties, 
 
 Out of mischief quick spun, 
 
 They fast bind us with magical might. 
 
 And these bonds make us free, 
 With their magical might 
 Unloosing of years the rough hold : 
 We grow guiltless with thee, 
 While we move in the sight 
 Of thy joy and thy innocence bold. 
 
ANYTA. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Thou art a vision which the eyes 
 Cannot see with all their light : 
 
 Too far a mystery in thee lies 
 For the reason s measured sight. 
 
 Thou art a myth entrapped in flesh, 
 From its antique cloudy land, 
 
 Delighting in the sudden mesh 
 Spun by Beauty s lithesome hand : 
 
 A Poem bounding through the leaves, 
 Interlaced with sun and thee, 
 
 More true than ever Poet weaves 
 In his gladdest minstrelsy. 
 
30 ANYTA. 
 
 A beamlet art thou of the dawn, 
 Shot from Night s high-peopled blue, 
 
 To skim across a May-steeped lawn, 
 Scattering diamonds on the dew. 
 
 So full of Morning s healthy gush 
 Is thy motion s fluent spring, 
 
 Thou know st nor noon nor evening s hush, 
 Nor for thee hath Time a wing. 
 
 Too nimble thou for sense to catch thee 
 
 In thy mystic joyous dance : 
 Imagination e en can t match thee 
 
 With his fleet extravagance. 
 
ANYTA. 81 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Swift minutes run before thy feet ; 
 But not the swiftest passeth by 
 Till he hath touched the springs that ply 
 
 Thy ruddy pulse s wishful beat. 
 
 Each comes from far to bring his gift, 
 He comes from God s eternity ; 
 Mysterious gives his gift to thee, 
 
 Then silent onward passeth swift. 
 
 And lordly Day, when thou dost sleep, 
 His vassals tribute counteth o er, 
 And, miser with his more to more, 
 
 Rejoiceth in the growing heap. 
 
32 ANYTA. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Like matin-note from bridal nest 
 
 Entangled in a blooming tree ; 
 Or, rockt on ripple s trembling breast, 
 
 The moon s long path across the sea ; 
 
 Or foremost sunbeams ordered flight, 
 A gairish, gleesome, countless crew, 
 
 That scale the dungeon-walls of night 
 To kiss th expectant eyes of dew, 
 
 Like all that best, through eye and ear, 
 High thought doth launch upon the deeps 
 
 Where unseen hands our being steer 
 And life with sightless movement leaps, 
 
ANYTA. 33 
 
 Is thy free glance s mystery ; 
 
 And in thy voice s maiden mood 
 Are cadences that fall on me, 
 
 Soft echoes from infinitude. 
 
 xv. 
 
 Transparent streamlets upward run 
 
 !From roots that cull a dainty food, 
 And send it in an amber flood 
 To meet the embraces of the sun. 
 
 A miracle the summit shows : 
 The overrunnings of the rill 
 A broidered chalice scoop, and fill 
 
 With fragrant flakes, which are the rose. 
 
34 ANYTA. 
 
 But pale and cold and thin the vein 
 Of earthy blood that vivifies 
 The rose, to juices hot that rise 
 
 Ensanguined to thy crescent brain ; 
 
 And there through torrid teemful spells, - 
 Which human senses dare not trace, 
 Nor less than holiest thought embrace, 
 
 Perform their plastic miracles. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 For there such luminous fires are lit, 
 A blaze athwart the stars they fling, 
 And flashing broad, the riches bring 
 
 Of shapes, sounds, colors infinite. 
 
ANYTA. 35 
 
 And others kindle warmer yet, 
 
 And thought s smooth endless coils unwind, 
 
 That blandly thy new being bind 
 In law s unseen connubial net. 
 
 And others warmer, finer still, 
 Upon thy inward softly melt 
 The loves that purest hearts have felt, 
 
 And fuse thy bashful wants to will. 
 
 And this deep inward wealth overruns 
 In featured joyfulness", and dips 
 In beauty s foam curl, cheek, and lips, 
 
 And eyes that borrow of the suns. 
 
36 ANYTA. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 But deeper inward, still more rare, 
 Are essences that swiftly sweep, 
 And, glorified, as nimble leap 
 
 As lightnings in their boreal lair. 
 
 Than rubiest blood more potent they, 
 They mete its currents to the heart, 
 And rule its pulse with earthless art 
 
 In supersubtle ghostly play. 
 
 Earth cannot hear their working-hymn, 
 Nor see their billowy hues of flame, 
 To which Beethoven s chords were tame, 
 
 And splendors of the rainbow dim. 
 
ANYTA. 37 
 
 Streaming from life s great fountain-head, 
 They know nor death, decay, nor sleep, 
 Foredestined to upmount the steep 
 
 Of angel-summits, music-led. 
 
 Behind all thought and passion sit 
 The immortal, to the mortal bound, 
 And watch each motion, blow, or wound, 
 
 With looks informed from th Infinite, 
 
 With looks more grand than beamy bend 
 From old Olympian battlements, 
 When to great Agamemnon s tents 
 
 The Grecian gods a greeting send. 
 
38 ANYTA. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Like the violets veined thou cullest, 
 Singing, as the laden bees, 
 
 Untaught airs wherewith thou lullest 
 Sweetest inner harmonies, 
 
 Is the pensive opal blaze 
 
 Of thy face on summer days. 
 
 Like the restless leap of fountain, 
 Musical from morn to eve, 
 
 That from distant trackless mountain 
 Draws the thread its jet to weave, 
 
 From the Highest, dim away, 
 
 Comes thy tuneful bubbling day. 
 
ANYTA. 39 
 
 Like the changeful joy of skies, 
 Flooded so by western Sun 
 
 With sweet awe they brim our eyes, 
 And the heart to prayer is won, 
 
 Is the shifting earnest play 
 
 Of thy childhood s dimpled day. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The Sun his children doth embrace, 
 
 In flame his arm they feel : 
 Through love it is he rolls through space 
 
 Each ordered orbit s wheel. 
 
 From several suns the fervor warms 
 
 Thy new corruscant path, 
 And burns with love the hydra-harms 
 
 That multiply with wrath. 
 
40 ANYTA. 
 
 But not a beam from us outstarts 
 To beck thee on thy way, 
 
 But it returns upon our hearts 
 To bless us with its day, 
 
 A day elate with love s own light, 
 
 Illumination pure, 
 A spark seraphic, kindled white 
 
 By inward sufflature. 
 
 xx. 
 
 As flusht Aurora, crowned with May, 
 Snatches from Night the dreamy flowers, 
 
 Earth s beauties waken to the day 
 Of thy new-risen spriteful powers. 
 
ANYTA. 41 
 
 And one by one life s wonders press 
 Their features on thy molten brain, 
 
 Where words that lift and thoughts that bless 
 In quivering piles are hourly lain. 
 
 Like pictured cherub-heads a-wing, 
 
 Soft glistening through fresh incense-fires, 
 
 Here little loves and longings cling, 
 And peeping buds of pure desires. 
 
 They nestle shy and close and warm, 
 An unfledged brood of meteless might, 
 
 That twitter, chirp and flit, and arm 
 Their pinions for a summer flight. 
 
42 ANYTA. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 But pinions puissant-plumed have I, 
 Imagination s brood, by love 
 Requickened, keen to soar and rove 
 
 Through the deep Future s swarming skj. 
 
 Ere yet thy paths grow steep and rough, 
 While still the day has all its bloom, 
 And night no care for one to whom 
 
 Each glossy hour is life enough, 
 
 I waft me to the rubied peaks, 
 
 First warmed by Fortune s gairish ray, 
 "Where breezes fan the heats of day, 
 
 And latest linger golden streaks. 
 
ANYTA. 
 
 Here, with a thousand shadows chased, 
 By foils and artful mouldings cast, 
 A towered palace, light and vast, 
 
 With oriels, corbels, finials graced, 
 
 Looks from a hundred windows out, 
 Through vista .d park, on leafy forms, 
 Gigantic playmates of the storms, 
 
 Hoar oaks, that help the tempest shout. 
 
 Within, smooth luxury refined 
 By manly need enrobes the halls 
 And chambers, from whose storied walls 
 
 Gleams lifesome Art s transfusive mind. 
 
 The air is sweet with courtesy ; 
 
 And martial wills and grandeurs proud 
 Are quelled by breeding in the crowd 
 
 That radiant waving circles thee, 
 
44 ANYTA. 
 
 Mistress and Matron young, whose jets 
 Of speech canorous fountains make, 
 And from whose breathing beauties break 
 
 As lightnings from thy carcanets. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 But wherefore leap the jocund years 
 To hang upon thy woman s state 
 The dole of gross ambition s weight, 
 
 That presses out the bitterest tears ? 
 
 If Fancy, hopeful-hovering, will 
 Dare the dim Future s silent vast, 
 Shield her, the dear one, gainst the blast 
 
 Of joyments that the duties chill. 
 
ANYTA. 45 
 
 Let Fancy work it modestly 
 
 Each nimble gleaming spirit-vein, 
 
 Intreasured in a blossom-brain, 
 To glisten through eternity. 
 
 Audacious sacrilege it is, 
 
 To build for thee with wishful thought, 
 God s fresh-enkindled flame inwrought 
 
 With earthen greedy fantasies. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 And Fancy hath her craven moods ; 
 
 Then, gainst my heart, she cowards me, 
 And through my pallor makes me see 
 
 Of crime and vice the raven broods 
 
46 ANYTA. 
 
 Screeching about thy shadowed head, 
 Untimely tamed by net of gray; 
 Then darkening still my cold dismay, 
 
 She conjures phantoms upas-fed, 
 
 Dim visible, so murksome vague, 
 Except on thy wan features, feared 
 To clammy paleness, as though bleared 
 
 By poison of an inward plague. 
 
 Then quickly shifts the torture s phase, 
 And, like a cave within a cave, 
 Sinks to a deeper night; and, slave 
 
 To terrors undivulged, I gaze, 
 
 Blinded at first by blackness. Then 
 By silent lightning swift is torn 
 The pitchy screen, and thou, forlorn, 
 
 Sittest within a muttering den. 
 
ANYTA. 47 
 
 Ere on this hell sweep other blast, 
 My harrowed soul the senses shakes 
 Loose from the spell, like one who wakes 
 
 With dreams unspeakable aghast. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Cold Fancy here s no friend of mine, 
 But traitress, who doth dog my mood, 
 To tempt me with circean food, 
 
 Or drug me with a poisoned wine. 
 
 And false to me to thee she s false ; 
 And so I gird me gainst her bribes, 
 And hearken where the soul imbibes 
 
 Naught that or flatters or appalls, 
 
48 A NYTA. 
 
 Where accents free are laden deep 
 With music tuned on heavenly bars ; 
 Where pulses throbbing through the stars 
 
 Temper thy motion s joyful sweep. 
 
 Thy lightest plays are buds that hold 
 A rhythmic life within their flakes, 
 And through fresh orient glancing breaks 
 
 Thy noon in marvels manifold. 
 
 And marvels more than fancy feigns 
 
 Are smallest deeds, so dim their reach ; 
 Nor can all thought such wisdom teach 
 
 As thy young loves and petty pains. 
 
 With these and these alone I 11 build 
 A modest future for thy years : 
 I 11 build it more of smiles than tears, 
 
 And pray that Heaven its sorrows gild. 
 
 1862. 
 
OTHER POEMS. 
 
A HAEP OF MANY STRINGS. 
 
 SOFTLY doth sleep at dawn unlock 
 The forted palace where she broods; 
 
 Then back to their chambers instant flock 
 The brain s unnumbered multitudes. 
 
 Through the quick-opened casement, where 
 An hour before was lonely night, 
 
 My fresh eyes meet the crowded glare, 
 And broad beatitudes of light. 
 
52 A HARP OF MANY STRINGS. 
 
 The joyance of the star-cooled trees, 
 Earth s baptizement in dewy air, 
 
 Love-messages through whispering breeze, 
 The sky s gold crown of misty hair, 
 
 The winds that with grave shadows romp, 
 Splendors that through the glad leaves leap, 
 
 Young Morning s sunny piled pomp, 
 All these are harvests I may reap. 
 
 Nor does the wonder steal away 
 If I step out into the blaze, 
 
 The broad is changed for subtler day, 
 The grosser for minute amaze ; 
 
 For leaf and blossom, blade and bush, 
 So vibrate each with separate law, 
 
 And beauty so doth all beflush, 
 That wonder deepens into awe. 
 
A HARP OF MANY STRINGS. 53 
 
 From sleepless nature, myriad-faced, 
 
 Upglimmers such a sea of eyes, 
 My brain, with sibyl-lights belaced, 
 
 Illumined wills it will be wise. 
 
 And thought is chafed by orphic hints, 
 The common glistens weird and strange, 
 
 And melt the firmest forms and tints 
 In mystic sequences of change. 
 
 And all about are sights and sounds 
 
 That suckle rapture, since began 
 Creation s radiant rhythmic rounds 
 
 Through rose and beetle up to man. 
 
 No pulse of life that humblest beats, 
 
 On earth below, in air above, 
 But its unhindered motion heats 
 
 In healthy hearts the pulse of love. 
 
54 A HARP OF MAXY STRINGS. 
 
 Each dumbest creature music wakes 
 
 That through the deeper life-chord rings, 
 
 As love upon us quivering shakes 
 The warmth that lifts seraphic wings. 
 
 Across the isles of joy and woe 
 
 ^Eolian gales forever sweep ; 
 Than hearts that faintly feel them blow 
 
 More blest are hearts they make to weep. 
 
 From wide still burning hearths the past 
 Bejems me with its whitest rays, 
 
 Whitened in the high holy blast 
 Of sage and poet s brain ablaze. 
 
 And in my jubilant thought so nurst, 
 
 Giant imaginations surge, 
 . As they the bonds of clay would burst, 
 And daunt me on creation s venre. 
 
A HARP OF MANY STRINGS. 55 
 
 In sleep s far travel what great hosts 
 
 Accost the soul, we cannot say ; 
 But gifts are given, as angel-ghosts 
 
 Had dyed them in a higher day. 
 
 Great lights great joys forever ply 
 
 About my life : the breath that warms 
 
 The Sun blows on my cheek, and I 
 Seem dandled in almighty arms. 
 
 I am a harp of many strings, 
 
 And all the day, through night and noon, 
 Upon me God his music flings, 
 
 If I but keep the harp in tune. 
 
56 WASHINGTON. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 THE RIVER. 
 
 THE wooded banks are silent each to each. 
 Far sundered as by rounding lake ; 
 
 To grasp the tideful flood s ambitious reach 
 The heavens a dim horizon make : 
 Fitly these woven grandeurs feed 
 
 Moods which a mighty presence here doth breed, 
 
 The fires of spring are kindled on the shores : 
 Cherry and dogwood flame in white ; 
 
WASHINGTON. 57 
 
 Blossoms in green the life from sassafras cores ; 
 
 But warmest is the redbud s light : 
 
 To each a deeper glow results 
 From his soul s heat who ruleth now my pulse. 
 
 Its hungry flanks the cork-buoyed sein spreads wide ; 
 
 The boatman s call is heard afar ; 
 The distant craft like friendly spectres glide ; 
 
 But all to me transfigured are : 
 
 For over all himself impends ; 
 To each his worth benignant blessing lends. 
 
 Potomac ! great thou art from thy great flood ; 
 
 Greater as seat of empire vast ; 
 But greatest, that thy breezes nursed the blood 
 
 Of him, the foremost of the past ; 
 
 For whom aye sacred shalt thou be, 
 With Avon, Tibur, holiest Galilee. 
 
58 WASHINGTON. 
 
 ii. 
 
 THE SALUTE. 
 
 Once more in hardy conflict met 
 
 The mother proud and daughter bold. 
 
 To slay and mangle, fright and fret, 
 A quarrel that was new and old. 
 
 For England, rankling with the past, 
 And angered at our forward port, 
 
 Insult and taunt upon us cast, 
 Which first awakened rfo retort ; 
 
 For ours are arms of puissant peace, 
 The axe than sword we rather wield, 
 
 And take our joy in sure increase 
 By thoughtful work in shop and field. 
 
WASHINGTON. 
 
 But England pushed her will so far, 
 She threatened very freedom s life : 
 
 Then flung we loose the flag of war, 
 And leapt resolved into the strife ; 
 
 Where unknit thews such buffets dealt, 
 The unshaken giant heaved with groans, 
 
 And England, startled, bodeful felt 
 
 More than her marrow in our bones. 
 
 That through the Capital was heard 
 A foeman s drum, to us was shame ; 
 
 Deeper to England, that she blurred 
 Such conquest with malignant flame. 
 
 By light of flaring roofs in haste 
 
 Her prows and banners seaward turned ; 
 
 And on Potomac s broadening waste 
 A frigate s signals fearless burned. 
 
WASHINGTON. 
 
 Descending, she with proud disdain 
 Anchored abreast a threatening fort; 
 
 Then stormy poured her iron rain, 
 
 That shook the shores with far report. 
 
 The fort s resistance quickly slept : 
 Dark scornful, on her downward path 
 
 Again the frigate silent swept ; 
 
 Wrath that she could not slake her wrath. 
 
 Summer still warmed the autumn wind, 
 And verdure shared with reddening tints 
 
 The leafy wealth, and breezes kind 
 Shook on the water tenderest prints, 
 
 As with her shade that westward swept, 
 With spars and masts sail-crested all, 
 
 The frowning frigate mutely crept, 
 Like goblin through a festival. 
 
WASHINGTON. 61 
 
 "Whose house stands there?" And he, thus asked, 
 Answered, " Mount Vernon." By the name 
 
 The Captain s recollection tasked 
 
 "The home of Washington ?" The same." 
 
 " And lies he buried there ? " The words 
 
 Stooped, laden with emotion s load. 
 " Beneath those trees, where hymn the birds, 
 
 There is the body s still abode." 
 
 His eyes grew deeper. By degrees, 
 
 As one with vast imaginings 
 Possest, who in high distance sees 
 
 Resplendent forms of palmy things, 
 
 An earnest joy perfused his face : 
 
 Unconsciously his cap he raised 
 With a religious knightly grace, 
 
 As, inward wrought, afar he gazed. 
 
62 WASHINGTON. 
 
 " Beat to quarters." The order flew 
 Swift to the hot pugnacious drum, 
 
 At whose loved voice upsprang the crew, 
 Thinking another fight was come. 
 
 But soon t was whispered mong the men, 
 When each stood braced beside his gun, 
 
 That death was not their duty then, 
 But calm salute to Washington. 
 
 By the strong cannon s measured speech 
 Was tamed the roughness of their pride, 
 
 As wrinkles on a wintry beach 
 
 By sounding blows from landward tide. 
 
 And when had passed the smoke away 
 Passed too was hate and scorn and wrath 
 
 Within her breast was night for day, 
 As swam the frigate down her path. 
 
WASHINGTON. 
 
 His holy strength had conquered strife, 
 Subduing hearts so stout and brave : 
 
 A mighty conqueror in his life, 
 A mightier is he in his grave. 
 
 in. 
 
 TRIBUTE. 
 
 Sublimer man than ever threw 
 To eager Time a virgin name, 
 
 So greatly pure it quickly grew 
 The wisest monitor of fame ; 
 
 A nation s breath is breath of thine, 
 Commingled at each human birth : 
 
 Of our vast freedom s life the wine 
 Is drafts from thy deep manly worth, 
 
64 WASHINGTON. 
 
 The robust beauty of one life 
 Tingles in each unfolding heart, 
 
 A strength forever in the strife 
 
 Of right gainst wrong s compulsive art. 
 
 Sublimest man of all the years, 
 
 The years are proud to walk with thee : 
 
 On Time s hoar brow thy greatness rears 
 His crown of lordliest majesty. 
 
 1858. 
 
PREVISIONS. 65 
 
 PREVISIONS. 
 
 YET shall be waked the slumbering years 
 By the quick tramp of guilty war, 
 
 And blameless eyes be scorched by tears 
 Wrung from new depths of old despair. 
 
 Hate shall yet brew his venom s blight 
 By heat that ne er from vengeance warps. 
 
 Till sleepless, pale, unpitying night 
 Casts at day s door a mangled corpse. 
 
 5 
 
66 PREVISIONS. 
 
 Young truths shall still their counsel keep, 
 Silent mid clack of hoary lies, 
 
 That, servile bold, maskt manhood steep 
 In slime of stale hypocrisies. 
 
 As lightning s breath at tranquil noon 
 Upbuilds beneath the western vault 
 
 Its far-off cloud-based batteries, soon 
 To volley the dread thunderbolt, 
 
 In life s warm lulls shall still be nurst 
 Hot ires, that, foully fed, and pent 
 In Custom s coward cages, burst 
 
 X 
 
 On the rackt world with ghastly rent. 
 
 And still from age s sensual lip 
 Shall ooze the lees of rotted truth, 
 
 Dripping, a daily upas-drip 
 
 In the sweet blood of listening youth. 
 
PREVISIONS. 67 
 
 But truth, though tortured, is truth still, 
 The stanchest tool wherewith doth ply 
 
 In the world s sway his regnant will, 
 The God who can t create a lie. 
 
 Lies are all human, fibres true 
 
 Perversely twisted in the strain 
 Of sense, that lusts beyond its due, 
 
 Stifling high joy with pampered pain. 
 
 Nor in life s swarming womb, where sleep 
 Action s full germs, is there a seed 
 
 But from its vivid core might leap 
 The graces of a sinless deed. 
 
 On Time s green stem the clustered fruit 
 
 Eternity s replenishings 
 With such remedial sap recruit, 
 
 That age to age aye bettering brings. 
 
68 PREVISIONS. 
 
 Thus by the soul s aspiring toil 
 
 Her earthly garment shall be wove 
 
 With ever dwindling taint of soil, 
 Till human life be heavenly love. 
 
 1857. 
 
LOVE. 
 
 i. 
 
 THIS sorrow-shadowed world would sparkle, bright 
 As painless Paradise to its new Eve, 
 If earth s love-woven threads were lines of light ; 
 For not the basest bosom but t will heave 
 At times love-laden, and the many grieve 
 Love-anguished daily, while to most is dear 
 Lone life through one or more to whom they cleave, 
 In thought tracking them hourly, far or near, 
 Sending Love warm o er arctic trail or desert drear. 
 
70 LOVE. 
 
 ii. 
 
 And drearier than Sahara s starless waste, 
 When winds are playing billows with its sands, 
 Colder than frozen moonbeam, pallid traced 
 Through Greenland s slanting snows, the soul in 
 
 bands 
 
 Of rigid self so fortressed it withstands 
 Hot summons of beleaguering troops of woe, 
 That myriad-tongued with thin,briarian hands 
 Upwail and stretch from their dejection low, 
 And moan like tempests that through foundering 
 
 cordage blow. 
 
 in. 
 
 If in such loveless cave could live a soul, 
 And not in deep self-darkened dungeon pent, 
 Uncoupled from the sunn d celestial whole 
 Lose its immortal gait and hardiment, 
 
LOVE. 71 
 
 And, forfeiting the limitless ascent 
 Of the undying, wane to earthy breath, 
 To vex the sea, with wintry blusterings blent, 
 Or creep plague-tainted lusty sheets beneath, 
 Or howl round hearths where love is weeping for a 
 death. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Full blest is only he who warmly weeps; 
 And Love s most sacred fonts are brim with tears, 
 Through which grow visible his voiceless deeps, 
 As heaven s through night s blue gush of farthest 
 
 spheres. 
 
 These drops are jewels stored in toilsome years, 
 Wherein Love glistens on his gala-days 
 Of sorrow, sad despair, and ardent fears, 
 That rouse great Love, who foremost pangs allays ; 
 For his wide glow first fires then soothes them with 
 his blaze, 
 
72 LOVE. 
 
 v. 
 
 As the hot helpful Sun Spring s stormy rains, 
 Who with his tender bloom-enkindling heat 
 Strains them to joyous fruit and wipes their stains. 
 High partner of the sovereign Sun, Love s feet 
 Glide like Aurora s arrows that defeat 
 The flying darkness and uplight the dew : 
 Where er he comes, life s beauties rise to greet 
 His flame : the faint expended old renew 
 Their juices, and the young pant for the good and 
 true. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Love is the measure of the more or less 
 
 Of depth in deed, from the brave lonely fall 
 
 Of martyred saint to nursing lioness, 
 
 Who shields her cub with death. Upon the pall, 
 
 Folded in every heart, waiting the call 
 
LOVE. 73 
 
 Of deafchful selfishness, Love throws his spark, 
 And like benignant light that rends the wall 
 Of cloud to hang on high the exultant arc, 
 Love s raj cleaves the bleak tempest and the lurid dark. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The tender breath of timorous spring doth kiss 
 With Love s first joy the wishful earth, that drinks 
 The welcome warmth, and tokens of her bliss 
 Soon gives in blossomed lea, and on the brinks 
 Of quickened brooks, through hyacinths and pinks 
 And violets, in the new bridal coats 
 Of amorous flies, the clinking golden links 
 Of gleesome matin-minstrelsy, that floats 
 From groves thrilled by the quiring of love -swollen 
 throats. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Through the croaked plainings of this jangled life 
 N"o song doth sparkle but its melody 
 
74 LOVE. 
 
 Is Love s, whose music sleeps in hottest strife, 
 And wakes to smooth destruction s deepening sea, 
 Wooes the palled ear of pining misery, 
 The sullen eye of outcast crime endears; 
 So strong, that, were Love banished, earth would be 
 One vast encampment of armed hates and fears, 
 A restless desolation, void of smiles and tears. 
 
 IX. 
 
 History s best beacons, her refulgent torches 
 By Love are lighted, whose empyrean fire 
 Makes Moses sacred mountain smoke, and scorches 
 The bush, stifles the lower with a higher 
 Heroic heat in the doomed Brutus sire, 
 Turns heavenward Dante s fruitful look that roams 
 Through Hell, deep tunes the wistful minstrel-choir, 
 And warmer glows than even in tenderest homes 
 In the dim vaulted sweep of great cathedral domes. 
 
LOVE. 75 
 
 x. 
 
 The starry mazes peopling heaven are gifts 
 Of Love, and by their mystic light we read 
 The cipher of the eternal hand that lifts 
 The film of seeming chaos, plants the seed 
 That grows to suns, by whose great touch is freed 
 The joy of hopeful being, and momently 
 Are loosed souls multitudinous, of breed 
 So lordly they are born immortal, free, 
 Co-heirs from God of hope and faith and charity. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The soul s ascendant recompense t is Love s 
 To heap, urging life s motion toward the heights 
 Where man puts on his majesty and moves 
 Erect, purged to unbarbed free delights ; 
 Where feebler feebler grown the sordid fights 
 Of self activities more calm and wide 
 
76 LOVE. 
 
 And meedful by his breath are fed, and rights 
 To duties high deported so allied, 
 His pulses are with ceaseless benediction plied. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Tempered in us by Love is the great awe 
 
 That else would freeze the swelling thoughts tha 
 
 soar 
 
 To seek the all-holy source of life and law, 
 To which we then are nearest when we pour 
 Ourselves upon our fellows, and our core 
 Grows seedful ripe through self-forgetfulness, 
 And we, feeling Love s health through every pore, 
 Nearer and nearer to the godhead press, 
 And blessed are in that we live to love and bless. 
 
TO A ROSE. 
 
 NOT the honeyed bee doth sip 
 All thy fragrance blossomed rife : 
 
 Sweetest juices from thy lip 
 Go to nourish higher life. 
 
 Human souls are fed by thee : 
 
 What thou draw st from air and earth 
 Is compounded cunningly 
 
 In a gift of moral worth. 
 
78 TO A ROSE. 
 
 Wisest thinker of our kind 
 
 Comes not near thee in his walk, 
 
 But thou dost enrich his mind, 
 Pendant on a tiny stalk. 
 
 Nurseling of the tenderest air, 
 All the life thou hast to live, 
 
 Dearest child of culture s care, 
 Is, to give, and still to give. 
 
ALONE. 
 
 THE widowed mother, one by one 
 Hath seen her children drop away. 
 
 A boy was left : now he is gone, 
 She sits forlorn, that mother gray. 
 
 The captive weeps upon his stone, 
 Chained to the narrow wintry floor 
 
 Nor voice nor eye to him is known, 
 Save when the jailer opes his door. 
 
80 ALONE. 
 
 By wayward shipwreck singly thrown 
 Upon a distant speechless isle, 
 
 A sailor-boy so mute has grown 
 
 That he at last hath ceased to smile. 
 
 Think you that these are all alone, 
 Because bereft of human gaze ? 
 
 Never was aught but on it shone 
 Incessant superhuman blaze. 
 
 The blindest worm, the proudest throne 
 Are ever blest with company : 
 
 Who were an instant left alone, 
 That instant would he cease to be. 
 
 And that first death would shake the stars, 
 With terror rack creation s face, 
 
 That sprung were life s eternal bars, 
 And God no more was in his place. 
 
THE DEMON. 81 
 
 THE DEMON, 
 i. 
 
 CRADLED in earth s diviner wealth, 
 The costly breath of infancy, 
 That orbed the ruddy limbs to be 
 Like dimpled coral tinct with health, 
 A new soul beamed its mortal joy 
 Through the fresh eyelids of a boy. 
 
 ii. 
 
 He lay couched on the silent marge 
 Of boundless mights, that deeply swelled 
 In tune with mights that in him welled, - 
 
THE DEMON. 
 
 A boy of look so lustrous large, 
 That where in inward light he lay 
 The happiest sunbeams came to play. 
 
 in. 
 
 And with them played a sunnier light, 
 Quelling with swollen tides of work 
 The jealous stains of busy murk, 
 
 Beauty s illuminings, clean and bright 
 
 
 As Seraph s phantasies of power, 
 
 And to all being a sumless dower. 
 
 X* 
 
 IV. 
 
 And still another braid of beams 
 
 As her loost hair a maiden s feet 
 
 Enwinds him in their hallowed heat : 
 
 With such electric current streams 
 
 Love on his head, an answering flood 
 
 Leaps through his eyes and rose cheek s blood ; 
 
THE DEMON. 83 
 
 v. 
 
 So that he lay a lump of joy, 
 A fount spouted through hundred jets 
 Of smiles. And Beauty, pausing, lets 
 Love have his will on the dear boy: 
 For Beauty can not do Love s duty, 
 Nor even Love do that of Beauty. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Sunbeam by hasty blackness quenched, 
 Of light were not more swift deflowered 
 Than that blest boy. So low he cowered, 
 As being s pivot had been wrenched, 
 Or he had heard through his mother s kisses 
 Cold whisperings from a serpent s hisses. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Lower and lower quailed the boy. 
 
 Choked by gaunt Pallor s pulseless breath, 
 
THE DEMON. 
 
 Wan wafture from the wastes of death, 
 He lay a new-launched wreck of joy, 
 Wrecked in broad day, and none could see 
 The sudden rock of his misery. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Whence that despiteous covert thrill? 
 Are his young eyeballs glazed by glare 
 Of bristling monster clutched from air ? 
 Or are his terrors ghostlier still ? 
 Do subtler spectres inly creep 
 Through the dim chambers left by sleep ? 
 
 IX. 
 
 Mightier than even the might of thought, 
 That grasps in the gauge of its great seeing 
 The deep magnificence of being, 
 Is love, here to its utmost wrought, 
 Swift filtered through earth s holiest part, 
 A trembling large maternal heart; 
 
THE DEMON. 85 
 
 x. 
 
 Whence now in flood so warm it gushed, 
 Like sane looks poured on madman s eyes, 
 Stilling their lunar ecstasies, 
 The boy s cold terror melted : hushed, 
 His tears ceased falling on her breast, 
 And there he sobbed his moan to rest. 
 
 XI. 
 
 And angered Beauty, quick returned 
 To where the love-rockt infant slept, 
 With Love and Life such vigil kept, 
 That when he waked his rose cheek burned, 
 As o er its joy had never passed 
 A viewless spectre s whitening blast. 
 
 XII. 
 
 And still as on the road he skipped 
 From childhood s smile to boyhood s laugh, 
 
THE DEMON. 
 
 At times, when just about to quaff 
 The cup from gladness river dipt, 
 Such shadow on him strange would fall 
 The draught grew thick in sudden gall. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 But on the panting hearts of boys 
 E en weight of shadows cannot lie : 
 Betossed on fitful lights they die, 
 Scourged by the nimble whip of joys, 
 Pet brood of omnipresent truth, 
 Th invisible spirit-guard of youth. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The strenuous ploughman s obdurate tread 
 Less cold entombs the suppliant flowers 
 All young and diadem d with showers 
 Than fresh-crowned manhood s vaulting head 
 Scorns the late urchin s puny joys, 
 Counting them but a witless noise. 
 
THE DEMON. 87 
 
 xv. 
 
 The boy has thought himself to man, 
 And stoutly covets manly prizes. 
 As the first ray from sun that rises, 
 Striking a hill or barbacan, 
 Chafes the strong eye of plumed troop, 
 Embattled for the lusted swoop, 
 
 XVI. 
 
 On him, elate and heated, blazed 
 Like beckoning lights in happiest dreams 
 A virgin drift of Hope s brisk beams, 
 As, proud and glad, he dauntless gazed 
 Where, glittering in the dewy sun, 
 Wide lay the victories to be won. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 How trustful broad doth prophesy 
 
 The heart, when new and strong and good ! 
 
THE DEMON. 
 
 And truly too ; for in young blood, 
 As in first Adam s, folded lie 
 The potencies that are to be 
 The all of human destiny. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Yet not for seer fulfilment is. 
 Young hearts are but a magic glass, 
 Whereon just flash, then quickly pass 
 Life s gorgeous possibilities 
 
 Back to the future s calm abyss. 
 
 j 
 
 To sleep till light shall wake their bliss. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Against his thought he soon was sad. 
 Besprent by ceaseless rain of sorrow, 
 He saw each day entoiled by its morrow. 
 Coy good constrained by brazen bad ; 
 Ever beside warm quickening wombs 
 The frosty deeps of infant tombs. 
 
THE DEMON. 89 
 
 xx. 
 
 And now th invisible rays of thought 
 White-heated by beleaguering fires 
 In the quick furnace of desires 
 Are to such plastic temper wrought, 
 They forge, of mingled ores compact, 
 The humming wheels of human act. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 But when, hot from the surgy brain, 
 The generous, guiltless, young ideal 
 First meets the old grim sordid real, 
 Like heated bar immersed, with pain 
 Winces the soul, and dark and cold 
 Inward recoils to griefs untold. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 But love will blench at no ordeal ; 
 And who shall set on thought a cope ? 
 
90 THE DEMON. 
 
 So beauty, love, and happy hope, 
 Young mothers of the hale ideal, 
 Who in benignant longings bask, 
 Grow stronger, younger at their task ; 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Aye, ever stronger, younger, bolder, 
 Till from man s turbid sleep be past 
 The shadow by his day-dreams cast, 
 And wrong in its foul embers smoulder, 
 Fused by the crescent Sun of right, 
 Climbing mankind from height to height. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Like cheery breeze-blest galleon, warm 
 With flusht farewells and valiant hails, 
 That smooth from festive moorings sails 
 Into a noyous night of storm, 
 And, shrieking, straining, leaping, brave, 
 Breasts the close lightning, blast and wave, 
 
THE DEMON. 91 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Was his quick launch into the world, 
 A true, bold, willing man, whose will, 
 Affronted, baffled, wounded, still 
 Waxed braver in the shock, and, whirled 
 On the rude vortex, drew strong breath 
 To gird its ribs gainst inward death. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Unlike the ship, no rest had he. 
 A stout man, with the will to steer, 
 Leaves never tempests in his rear : 
 They front him ever angrily. 
 Co-angered, he struck stronger through, 
 As wilder blacker storm-racks flew. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 On life s mid-path he stood, unbent ; 
 But sad his eye was, and his brow 
 
92 THE DEMON. 
 
 In furrows knit, as if the now 
 
 Despised the past and challenge sent 
 
 To the future. Round his mouth were dates 
 
 Indented there by scorns and hates. 
 
 xxvm. 
 
 Not one was he to flinch or falter : 
 Nor eye of man nor frown of hell 
 Could for a trice his courage quell. 
 And yet, as with himself he d palter, 
 Or that his ruddiest heart-drops paled, 
 At times the spirit in him quailed. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Across clear onward thoughts would fall, 
 
 Like shower on festal cavalcade, 
 
 Or summons on a bridegroom laid, 
 
 A rueful shadow s sudden pall, 
 
 That fixed his eye and blanched his lips, 
 
 And drenched him in malign eclipse. 
 
THE DEMON. 93 
 
 XXX. 
 
 With weird alarms even sleep was shook. 
 Athwart the jointless dreams would crawl 
 A hideous hydra to appall 
 The bravest. Crouched, a dastard look 
 Glared from his wrinkled furtive eyes, 
 
 Greenish and circumfused with lies. 
 
 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 In a long, sinewy, jagged jaw 
 
 Revenge was toothed ; cold avarice pined 
 
 Pale on his forehead, intertwined 
 
 With lurid hate ; in a vast maw 
 
 Were crammed mixt crude things, of the best, 
 
 Which he could gulp, but not digest. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 With such associate to dream on 
 
 Proved bravest nerve. But now gan loom 
 
94 THE DEMON. 
 
 Blacker against the ashy gloom 
 Gigantesque the trembling Demon. 
 Then, weltered in cold sweat, he quaked, 
 And, shrieking, from his torture waked. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 The moving shadow, worded night, 
 Unto the day that made her cleaves, 
 And lives by food her master leaves, 
 Gathering what droppeth in his flight, 
 Whereon, through the veiled hours, she broods, 
 For good or ill, as be her "moods. 
 
 xxxiv. 
 
 Only that form was haggard night s ; 
 Begotten on shy, helpless sleep 
 By wilful day, who bids her weep 
 Or laugh, according as he blights 
 Or blesses her lone hours. What stalks 
 In shade, first in the noontide walks. 
 
THE DEMON. 95 
 
 xxxv. 
 
 The strong man s strength was mastering will, 
 
 Itself o ermastered by the blood 
 
 Of lustful wants, the feverish food 
 
 Of pampered life, which when they fill 
 
 Th imperial orbs of thought, usurp- 
 
 A throne, and linked life discerp 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 With bad contentions, endless, black, 
 Splintering the wholesome man in two, 
 The social both and single, who, 
 Self-tortured, gasps upon the rack 
 Of thwartings, doubtings, plots, and dreads, 
 Like one who in armed darkness treads. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Who is unruled by lustless wants, 
 Knows not his rank, and basely creeps, - - 
 
96 THE DEMON. 
 
 Whate er his front, and craven peeps 
 . For harbor rnong the heart s low haunts. 
 A crownless King is he, his state 
 Sad as were Eve s without her mate, 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Woful as sunless planet reeling 
 Through thickened chaos, or an ocean 
 Heaved in perpetual shade, its motion 
 Untuned by light, or the pale feeling 
 At frantic lion s torrid roar, 
 Heard on far Iceland s arctic shore. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 And thus for him was night in day : 
 The sunshine of the soul was quenched 
 By earth-clouds, and the reason wrenched 
 Its loyal path, the upward way. 
 The worst were not mute slumber s gleams, 
 But in loud noon the conscious dreams ; 
 
THE DEMON. 97 
 
 XL. 
 
 Day-dreams about the night they make 
 In the blank future s awe-hedged realm, 
 Vague misshapes, horrible whims that whelm 
 The minds that breed them, which still take 
 Unholy joy in self-born fright, 
 Hugging with vague and stern delight 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Their terrible imaginations, 
 
 The fro ward offspring, coarse and grim, 
 
 Of sultry passions that bedim 
 
 Their life, lusts and indignations, 
 
 Wherewith they God endow, blaspheming 
 
 With their loose, selfish, dark day-dreaming. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Now sways the ghostly infinite law, 
 
 That the unseen rules the seen. Each hour 
 
98 THE DEMON. 
 
 These phantasms truculent lap power 
 From life s selectest blood, and draw 
 Poison from healthy juice, to kill 
 All generous, loving, kindly will. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 So was his higher being curst 
 
 By mandates from the lower nature 
 
 Of ires, anxieties, each feature 
 
 Dark with a darkness inly nurst, 
 
 That in his steadfast face you spell 
 
 Prints grooved by thoughts of death and hell. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Death is a dream of unripe man, 
 A carnal myth, in being a schism 
 Impossible, a cold egotism 
 Of crude self-busied brains, which plan, 
 That with the ceasing of a breath 
 Ceases God s law, which knows not death. 
 
THE DEMON. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 The murkiest midnight feels the Sun : 
 In total shade men could not breathe : 
 And when in ghastliest umbrage seethe 
 The passions, like pale silver, spun 
 In the black earth, that unseen glows, 
 Through dreariest bosom secret flows 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 A thread of lucent life, which chance 
 
 Or prosperous stroke of purpose bares ; 
 
 Or, oftener still, spontaneous flares 
 
 An inward flame, that in the dance 
 
 Fresh leaps, the grovelling dance of death, 
 
 And the blind heart illumineth. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 That is a resurrection-day, 
 
 When through the crusted sensual clods 
 
100 THE DEMON. 
 
 Breaks the self-loosened soul, and God s 
 Great smile first greeted shines away 
 The terrors, greeds, and spites that meet 
 Round the numb d heart, its winding-sheet. 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 ! the deep pious ecstasy, 
 
 When, from the smaller self upflown, 
 
 We firmly sail on currents blown 
 
 Love-lifted towards humanity. 
 
 The far Heavens quit their frosty skies, 
 
 And stooping to us warm dur eyes ; 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 And touch the brain with holy calm, 
 
 That all about we patent see 
 
 Divine impulsions working free 
 
 The prisoned world. With chastened palm 
 
 We handle commonest things, and bless 
 
 All ours with the new happiness. 
 
THE DEMON. 
 
 L. 
 
 One he had been who sent abroad 
 Horsed fleeter than the tempest s wind 
 His myriad messengers of mind. 
 Sent far, even to the verge of fraud, 
 For homage, power, delight, and pelf, 
 To gild one petty home for self. 
 
 LI. 
 
 But now, as though fresh sap had shot 
 
 A subtler tide into the brain, 
 
 Making it sparkle in a train 
 
 Of glib imaginings, all hot 
 
 With great desires, the strong man grew 
 
 Transformed to something mildly new. 
 
 LII. 
 
 Another sun rose on his face ; 
 
 And there like unbowed prisoner, free 
 
102 THE DEMON. 
 
 By stir of slow-paced liberty 
 The soul came out, and through the haze 
 Of ebbing darkness glistened glorious 
 In its own light, jubilant, victorious. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 New thoughts gave action wiser bent ; 
 New acts gave life so sweet a grace, 
 That men looked hopeful in his face, 
 And outcasts blest him as he went. 
 If higher joy can be, he proved, 
 Than loving, t is to be beloved. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 For ripened use too late in him 
 These selfless pulses of the heart : 
 Spirit from flesh will quickly part : 
 The soul hies to a home less dim. 
 But not in anguish part the two. 
 Gentle regretful sighs came through, 
 
THE DEMON. 
 
 LV. 
 
 That freer verge he had not here 
 To be his better self, for earth 
 Rebuilding on a cleaner hearth 
 The life he had misbuilt, and rear 
 A name that memory might hold, 
 And warmer grow in growing old. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Soon melt even these unbodied sighs ; 
 For on his willing conscience roll 
 Such pageants of the radiant Whole, 
 The bounded earth-life from him flies 
 A speck. He feels himself to be 
 Parcel of vast Infinity. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 A freer pulse new thought upbears, 
 
 More true than life, more wide than dreams ; 
 
104 THE DEMON. 
 
 What he had been locked childhood seems ; 
 And earth, with its earthy wants and cares, 
 Lies suddenly remote, and cast 
 Behind him in the dusky past ; 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 While he like dawn seizing vast glooms 
 With surges of its easy might 
 Rides forward on majestic light, 
 Mindless of flesh-imagined dooms ; 
 His calm clear spirit-staring eyes 
 Ranged far beyond the visual skies. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 Again the routed gang remuster, 
 
 Minions of venomous desires, 
 
 To sway him back to stealthy mires. 
 
 Only to singe their wings they cluster. 
 
 Himself his panoply, with arms 
 
 Of light he s helmed gainst wily harms. 
 
THE DEMON. 105 
 
 LX. 
 
 Still unabashed, by power unvouched, 
 Through laurelled hopes, through visions blest, 
 Vainly once more the old shades prest ; 
 And at the last beside him crouched, 
 Like baffled buzzard on a bier, 
 Writhing, unmarkt, the Demon, FEAR. 
 
SONG OF BIRDS BEFORE DAWN IN SPRING. 
 
 SWINGING upon the edge of light, 
 As violets on flushed April s edge. 
 They ply their tuneful privilege 
 
 Yet in the chambers of the night. 
 
 As planets speaking from the blue, 
 They sparkle in the silence deep, 
 And their unsullied voices steep 
 
 In moisture of the fragrant dew. 
 
SONG OF BIRDS BEFORE DA WN. 107 
 
 Leap, dreamer, from the dizzy pool, 
 Where wicked fancy drowns thy sense ; 
 Leap to the call of innocence, 
 
 And bathe thy heated instincts cool. 
 
 Sad sleeper, shake thee loose from fears, 
 Old wizard Dream s unfathomed cheat, 
 And hearken how these notes repeat 
 
 The music of enravished spheres. 
 
 And thou, whose slumbered breathings move 
 Concordant with seraphic lyres, 
 Awake, to bless thy ear with choirs 
 
 Of warblers singing songs of love. 
 
CHILDREN. 
 
 WHAT distant fingers knead their clay, 
 What fervors slumber in their sleep, 
 
 Of all they be unweeting they, 
 
 They laugh and prattle, kiss and weep. 
 
 How strong, how great, these little things, 
 Who play among our busy feet; 
 
 They hold us with the gordian strings 
 Tied by the heart s enraptured beat. 
 
CHILDREN. 109 
 
 They are the deep perpetual peace, 
 
 That underlies life s windy war. 
 The limpid unploughed layer where cease 
 
 The rages that the surface mar. 
 
STRIKE NOT A CHILD. 
 
 STRIKE not a child : the Maker s breath 
 Is warmer in its heart 
 Than in or man or woman s. Death 
 To the holy spirit is in the smart 
 Of brutal blows. T is sacrilege 
 To wound a chirping child, 
 In whom God just hath smiled, 
 Free fluttering on life s dreadful edge. 
 
STRIKE NOT A CHILD. Ill 
 
 He trembles ! that great face, so fair 
 
 But now, is quenched ; its flood 
 
 Of beauty ebbed inward to the lair 
 
 Where suckles Anger his mad brood. 
 
 Your blow has thrust him ere his time 
 
 Over .the precipice, 
 
 To the black pit where hiss 
 
 The scalding lusts that chafe to crime. 
 
POETS. 
 
 WE haunt the early mountain heights, 
 Flusht by the dawns of truth; 
 
 Here rustle God s creative mights, 
 Here we can keep our youth : 
 
 Rather the morning s golden flight, 
 With never rested wings, 
 
 O " 
 
 Than the unwholesome ignorant night 
 Which too much resting brings. 
 
POETS. 
 
 We crowd the glad auroral halls, 
 
 Where beautiful Ideals 
 Aje brace and tone themselves for calls 
 
 To earth s abrupt ordeals : 
 Better a day in Beauty s school, 
 
 Beauty the bride of Truth, 
 Than months of seedless, drowsy rule ; 
 
 For thus we keep our youth. 
 
A KING, 
 i. 
 
 SOVEREIGN he is of throned domains, more wide 
 Than Rome s blanched eagles with their boldest 
 
 wing 
 
 O ershadowed ; or than in her sea-nursed pride 
 England, whose ampler arms such realms enring, 
 That round the globe her morning gun 
 Reverberates, chasing the Sun. 
 
 ii. 
 
 The Lydian King was not so rich as mine, 
 
 Whom Solon s wisdom snatched from fiery death, 
 
A KING. 11 
 
 Nor did luxurious, learned Lucullus dine 
 
 With guests so finely choice. Napoleon s breath, 
 When Monarchs trembled at its sound, 
 Was less imperially becrowned. 
 
 III. 
 
 Not wreckful spendthrift who, like faithless cask, 
 
 Letting rare wine as plenteous water leak, 
 Wastes handfuls daily, nor doth ever ask 
 Whether they be copper or gold, and eke 
 Would rather they were gold, for so 
 He furthers fate at every blow; 
 
 IV. 
 
 Nor he whose ointed palm, like the sky s sluices, 
 
 Opes only for a wise beneficence, 
 Of whose compassionings the flooded juices 
 To gush watch ever for a sweet pretence : 
 These lavish two spend not so fast 
 As he whose horoscope I cast. 
 
16 A KING. 
 
 v. 
 
 fr)t scented darling of gem d women s eyes, 
 
 "With his happy teeth and smooth bemirror d curls, 
 /Vho at the glass, his shrine, doth sacrifice 
 With incense that around himself aye purls, 
 More dainty tended is than he, 
 The pet of my poor minstrelsy. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Bather, of long illustrious lines the last 
 
 But for one tremulous remnant twig, round whom 
 Convolve the chaplet of a princely past, 
 And love, the warmer for the threatened tomb, 
 She like a tarn, secluded, far, 
 That lonely clasps each stooping star : 
 
 VII. 
 
 lich lover, and more rich in love than gold, 
 In bounteousness still richer than in both, 
 
A KING. 11 
 
 Who with his bounteousness makes wealth unfold 
 The plaits of love and his intreasured troth, 
 Whose tributes so his mistress cover, 
 She dreams, a fairy is her lover : 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Not these, nor any of the thousands living, 
 Gifted with spirit s or with body s goods, 
 And with the still more blessed gift of giving, 
 Can give like him, who gives as do the woods, 
 That give a world of leaves in spring 
 That oaks may grow and birds may sing. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The subtlest visitors to the large brain 
 
 Who spirit-like from th Infinite descend, 
 And ever travel with a glittering train 
 Of halos new, that with the old inblend 
 To wield the top of privilege, 
 Whetting of thought the restless edge ; 
 
118 A KING. 
 
 x. 
 
 Of the great heart the dearest intimates, 
 
 Who come because t is warm and warmer make it, 
 Showered with love that from creation dates, 
 
 The Word s winged soul and life of Him who spake 
 
 it; 
 
 These lordly vassals proudly bring 
 Of crowns the proudest to our King. 
 
 XI. 
 
 But King he is not yet, nor to his head 
 
 Will fit the crown, till tween those circled bands 
 A third, afire with gems, outvaults, to wed 
 The two, in glow as of celestial hands. 
 Like Morning s holy rim of light, 
 That welds forever day to night, 
 
 XII. 
 
 And thus sublimely wedged, moves on the earth 
 Creative, Beauty s visionary might 
 
A KING. 
 
 Enfrees, where er it falls, imprisoned worth, 
 The mind s best pioneer, with its lustral light 
 Giving to thought a fleckless eye 
 And chasteness unto sympathy. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Who is encompassed by this tripled crown 
 
 Has solar warmth which he no more can keep 
 Within one bosom, than" the Sun can frown 
 His summer beams to icicles, or sleep 
 While towards him in maternal May 
 Turns the young earth with prayer for day. 
 
 i 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Of the best gifts that knows immortal life 
 
 To yearning man he is the elected giver, 
 Gifts of warm truths, that feed the soul till, rife 
 For better mansions here, they make it shiver 
 Of strongest Kings the strongest will, 
 Obedient to a stronger still. 
 
120 A KING. 
 
 xv. 
 The primal hallowing power is his, to feel 
 
 Throb through his heart the pulse of all that throbs. 
 Dim planets that in space their splendors wheel, 
 Warriors triumphant, bondsmen through their sobs, 
 All trust, as all things do that stir, 
 In him, God s meet interpreter. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 He sits enthroned in Nature, whence to his brain 
 From life s perennial springs run rills of force, 
 Which, filtered there, flow limpid back again, 
 For centuries the fonts of new resource. 
 To one whom God with crown erirings 
 What are a thousand man-made Kings ? 
 
 
 XVII. 
 
 His is the right divine, the puissant lord 
 Of men through all the births of history, 
 
A KING. 121 
 
 Puissant that with a breath he makes the chord 
 Vibrate that s deepest, truest. Who is he ? 
 The Poet-Thinker, he it is, 
 King through his fiery sympathies. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Seek that exhaustless land, whose seedful dower 
 
 Of men the peopled silence of the past 
 Enfolds with stately joy ; whose giant power, 
 Rewaked by Garibaldi s patriot blast, 
 Flushes the classic land with sheen 
 Bright as the grandeurs that have been. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Adown five hundred years of wakeful time, 
 
 Bequeathed from million sires to million sons, 
 Undimmed, unsoiled by centuries of crime, 
 Like Heaven s unwasted fire, translucent runs, 
 Through tyranny s dull desert blight, 
 One quenchless shaft of thoughtful light. 
 
122 A KING. 
 
 ^ ( xx. 
 
 Dead are her datard Kings and putrid Popes, 
 Dead to men s love and wants and memory ; 
 But in Ausonia s inmost thoughts and hopes, 
 A strength and promise yet of victory, 
 Live primal Dante s quivering words, 
 To patriots, inly-flaming swords. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Hark to the organ-swell of thoughts that teach, 
 
 From Luther s home, men foremost in life s race. 
 What gave the pitch to that full concert s reach, 
 What still is strongest those vast chords to brace, 
 Binding a severed land in one, 
 Is the deep rhythm of Goethe s tone. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Wipe from proud England s scroll her highest name, 
 And the sweet manly tongue that clasps the earth 
 
A KING. 123 
 
 With freedom s clamorous voice, were not the same. 
 From him, the Seer, dates its fulgent worth: 
 T is he swells England s brain so wide 
 With his great soul s creative tide. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 And we, a mighty mother s soaring child, 
 Who on self-balanced centre stand apart, 
 Irreverent of her Kings, our sovereign mild 
 Thee we enthrone within our thankful heart, 
 Great Englishman, greatest, most dear, 
 Beloved, revered, becrowned Shakespeare. 
 
 1859. 
 
THE MEETING. 
 
 THEY met again, and they were calm, 
 
 The calm of happy years ; 
 The memories that startled both 
 
 Dissolved them not in tears. 
 
 The past lay still within its deep, 
 
 And came not to the face ; 
 Each saw it, she through his old strength, 
 
 And he through her old grace. 
 
THE MEETING. 125 
 
 He led a daughter by the hand, 
 
 And she by hers a boy ; 
 The children kissed each other cheeks 
 
 With ready childish joy. 
 
 Then in their eyes that swiftly met 
 
 Kindled a tender light, 
 Shot o er the future from the past, 
 
 With nuptial blessing bright. 
 
 She took his girl upon her knee, 
 
 And he on his her boy ; 
 And thus they freely looked and talked, 
 
 Brimmed with parental joy. 
 
DOWNWARD. 
 
 DOWN from great Alps the Rivers leap, 
 Slaking the plain with flooded sweep : 
 Shoots, like an angel on the sight, 
 Thwart the low gloom the Pharos light : 
 Humbly the wise their wisdom speak : 
 Forgiveness stoops to souls that seek : 
 Love looks its strongest downward bent 
 From mother s lid on babe new-sent : 
 The highest joy the highest know, 
 Is to work downward to the low, 
 Melting with daily dawn of love 
 The frosts cold Misery s night hath wove 
 Their sleepless vigil in the skies 
 The spirits keep with earthward eyes. 
 
THE YOUNG MOTHER. 
 
 EARTH has no look more deep 
 Than a young mother s, gazing 
 On her boy asleep ; 
 Her eyes oft raising, 
 Then swift descending, 
 On him again their lustre bending ; 
 As she on him from Him above 
 Would look a sacrament of love. 
 
128 THE YOUNG MOTHER. 
 
 Not so attended is the mate 
 
 Of Monarch in her queenliest state : 
 
 Sovereign omnipotent she is, 
 
 Her subjects peerless fantasies, 
 
 That bend them to her farthest will, 
 
 As, rapt, in wakeful dream she stirs 
 
 Musings that all the mother thrill. 
 
 And what a dream is hers ! 
 
 Poetic lovers never woo 
 
 Ideal words to paint their loves, 
 
 So warmly, or more lively sue 
 
 Delight for gifts, than she now moves 
 
 Imaginations that upspring 
 
 From her heart s nest, and round the dome 
 
 Of starriest heaven familiar sing 
 
 As finding there his fitter home. 
 
 Across the chasms of time she floats ; 
 She tempts the future s giddiest brinks ; 
 
THE YOUNG MOTHER. 129 
 
 Of space she leaps the shadowy moats ; 
 Only from Hope s fresh cup she drinks. 
 Thus from Fancy s free caressings 
 Gathering for him ripest blessings, 
 She careers where life most glistens, 
 Where to her own heart-wants she listens. 
 
 Her sleeping boy! He stirs, he wakes. 
 
 Quick as a cloud the lightning s bar 
 
 From Fancy free her soul she shakes, 
 
 And swifter than a shooting star 
 
 To Earth from Dream s loved heights she springs, 
 
 A mother with an angel s wings; 
 
 And in her countenance a light 
 
 Struck from creative cores, a glare 
 
 For aught save a young mother s face too bright, 
 
 And here on earth seen only there. 
 
ODE. 
 
 EMOTION AND THOUGHT. 
 ! , 
 
 THE floods of vast EMOTION heave ; 
 
 Then towards the shore of sense outgushing, 
 
 Their trembling billows cleave, 
 
 With a moan-mingled glee, 
 
 To its firm bosom, rushing 
 Thereon, like to a crested sea 
 
 Clasping the brawny land, 
 
 And thence rebounding, 
 
ODE. 131 
 
 Its sunny kisses sounding 
 On the eternal sand. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Not from a rash admiring 
 
 Stir in your amplest deeps, 
 
 But with a calm aspiring, 
 
 That ye may grandly wake 
 Your great twin-brother THOUGHT, who sleeps 
 O ercanopied by visions. Shake 
 
 The dew of common dreams 
 
 From his big eye, which gleams 
 Bold lightning, in the welcome heat 
 
 Surging from fonts that dart 
 
 Creative breath, as beat 
 The swollen pulses of your heart. 
 Rouse ye, your strength with light enwreathing, 
 
 High sovereign Thought, 
 That blest Emotion s procreant breathing 
 
132 ODE. 
 
 Waste not its virtue, wrought 
 To perdurable forms by you, 
 Forms beautiful as true. 
 
 in. 
 
 The measureless waters and the air 
 
 Keep themselves clean with motion, 
 Bathed ever in the ocean 
 
 Of universal light. More fair 
 Than "speech can tell 
 
 Earth rises from her star-watched rest, 
 Resplendent neath the spell 
 
 Of powers within her quickened breast, 
 
 Creation s voiceless powers, that leap 
 
 Forever in warm nature s womb, 
 
 And know nor check nor sleep, 
 Nor death s material doom ; 
 
 Eternally alive and rife 
 
 With affluent life ; 
 
ODE. 133 
 
 Their forging might revealed, 
 Daily on mortal vision wheeled, 
 In beauty s myriad thoughts and forms, 
 And the dark majesty of storms. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In tiniest things 
 Is instant revelation 
 Of this transcendent life, which sings 
 Interminable -jubilation, 
 
 And flings 
 On shore and sea 
 Everlastingly, 
 Ethereal radiance, whose quick glow 
 
 There where its fires 
 Feed infinite desires, 
 Within the bounteous heart of man, 
 Is deeper now than aye, 
 
134 ODE. 
 
 Flashing new light on God s near way, 
 
 Inflaming us to feel and know 
 
 How much we are, how much we can. 
 
 v. 
 
 Upon our opened eyes 
 
 Rushes Infinity, 
 
 Poured in us from the skies : 
 
 Eternity 
 Broods ever on the inward senses : 
 
 The centres we 
 Of such circumferences ! 
 Out of ourselves so far we stretch, 
 In holiest moments we can catch 
 Glimpses of th unimaginable glare 
 Of higher homes, and list their jubilee, 
 Voiced like a million clarions trophied blare 
 Heard faintly o er a subject sea. 
 
ODE. 135 
 
 VI. 
 
 Unhatched abilities, 
 Beautiful possibilities, 
 
 Live in your soundless deeps, 
 Supreme illimitable twain ! 
 Their latent life it is that keeps 
 You profluent towards a higher plane, 
 They who uplift and lave humanity, 
 Which else in swinish trough had lain, 
 Unfeeling of Infinity, 
 Unthinking of Eternity, 
 
 Whose awful presences 
 Transfigure fleshly essences, 
 Swathing in a pellucid zone man s being, 
 Through which he feels the vision of the Allseeing. 
 
136 ODE. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Immeasurable Emotion, 
 
 Unconquerable Thought, 
 
 By whose inmarried motion 
 All best ascendancies are wrought ; 
 
 Upmount ye, interfused 
 
 For mutual beneficence, 
 
 Your diverse strength conjointly used 
 
 Against the downward pufl of sense ; 
 
 Each lifting each, 
 
 So ye may reach 
 
 Into the empyrian day 
 
 Of supersensuous truth, 
 
 Whose indefatigable ray 
 
 Knows not the night of pause, 
 Regendering ceaselessly worn manhood s youth 
 With the ever freshened forces of anointed laws. 
 
ODE. 137 
 
 VIII. 
 
 What a glad awe 
 O erfills the expectant soul, 
 When vaulting thought 
 Of being s courses grasps a new law 
 On the scaled ramparts of the Whole ; 
 And thence supremely taught, 
 
 More festering rags 
 
 From the cold ^ back of ignorance drags, 
 And grown humanely bold, 
 Casts on our nakedness 
 
 Another fold 
 Of warm truth s sacredness. 
 
VEILS. 
 
 ./ 
 
 WE move within a world of veils : 
 They are not cleft by thrust of wil 
 We know them not as such until 
 
 The higher thought o er will prevails. 
 
 With each new throb of inward power 
 Another mesh is softly rent; 
 Then light to dark is quiet blent, 
 
 As rosier tint to ripening flower. 
 
VEILS. 139 
 
 We dimly see till we create 
 
 The things that on our senses rise, 
 Enshrouded in a lone surmise ; 
 
 For all upon the spirit wait. 
 
 The silent soul is ever sending 
 Creative messages to things : 
 On these a yearning ray she flings, 
 
 Their breath with her diviner blending. 
 
 Her life is one long slow prevailing 
 Against recruited sensuous odds, 
 Exalting man s desires, and God s 
 
 Great visage more and more unveiling. 
 
WE. 
 
 WE glimmer specks in shoreless space, 
 But motes the mountains are we see, 
 And digits to immensity 
 
 Whatever here the senses trace. 
 
 But this immensity is ours, 
 Partakers we in sacred rule, 
 If loyally we bide, and school 
 
 Our deep immeasurable powers. 
 
WE. 141 
 
 From astral zones upon us shoot 
 Near eyes with calm parental glow, 
 In whose fine mystic light may grow 
 
 The sourest will to sweetened fruit. 
 
 On spirit spirit ever ray th : 
 
 The free d from their supernal day 
 Beckon to those still bound in clay, 
 
 In them to nurse upcleaving faith. 
 
 And through the folds of living dust 
 From higher life come shafts of love, 
 To link the soul to souls above, 
 
 And strengthen freedom s strength with trust. 
 
 But who to unbelief doth cling, 
 Revolves amid unbodied bands, 
 Twitted and tossed by viewless hands, 
 
 As children blinded in the ring. 
 
FOREVER. 
 
 THEIR flight he watches wkh feathery joy, 
 As high over head is heard 
 The wild flock s cry, then quick the boy 
 Wishes himself a bird. 
 
 The youthful man upon a peak, 
 Amid a mountain-throng, 
 Chafes at his limbs, so wingless weak, 
 While he riots the peaks among. 
 
FOREVER. 143 
 
 The father and grandfather hies, 
 In thought, affection, will, 
 To his scattered progeny; but lies 
 His crippled body still. 
 
 And what are these but dumb foresight 
 Of acts as yet unfreed, 
 Shoots from a latent life, whose light 
 Foreshines the certain deed ? 
 
 Shall the eye go where the man can not? 
 Shall thought or bolder dreams, 
 Whose range and reach are aye begot 
 By the soul that through them gleams ? 
 
 Does man s deep inward him bemock 
 With sham presentiment, 
 His heart with moony longings rock, 
 And nothing more be meant ? 
 
144 FOREVER. 
 
 Could malice strike from the great source 
 Of order, reason, love ? 
 Does HE give feeling, thought, and force, 
 To balk them from above ? 
 
 Dim prescience these, sweet prophecy, 
 
 Mysterious far foretelling 
 
 Of life disbodied, life to be 
 
 With will, with love aye welling ; 
 
 Faint whisperings from Jhe power that roofs 
 All being unfailingly, 
 Soul-bidden promptings, hints, near proofs 
 Of immortality. 
 
 The present, past, and future clasp 
 Each other in a ring ; 
 And if of one a link you grasp, 
 Through all a thrill you fling. 
 
FOREVER 145 
 
 They end not here our appetites, 
 On earth they but begin ; 
 For though our bodies rot, their rights 
 Survive as bliss or sin. 
 
 A marriage deep without divorce 
 
 * * 
 
 Is that of spirit and flesh, 
 
 And from the cold, relapsing corpse 
 
 Springs life forever fresh. 
 
 The body s members are no toys 
 For the soul s sublunar play; 
 But counters, that in griefs or joys 
 Sum what the soul must pay. 
 
 How fruitful is the littleness 
 Wherewith our souls are vext, 
 When acorns of this world express 
 
 Oaks rooted in the next. 
 10 
 
146 FOREVER. 
 
 Aye, thus by thought and phrase we split 
 An intermelted whole ; 
 But thought and phrase can sunder it 
 No more than speech the soul. 
 
 Our worlds are one, and one are we : 
 That still too close our glance 
 To mete this rounded unity, 
 Is the due of ignorance. 
 
 Could men foreknow that they will live, 
 And ever be themselves, 
 To the self a higher hold t would give, 
 That sordidly now delves. 
 
 To thought what height t would lend, to spy 
 Beyond earth s finite seeing, 
 Life s littleness o erbalanced by 
 Its magnitude of being ! 
 
FOREVER. 147 
 
 Our lusts and pampered tawdry needs 
 Pile dread upon the bier ; 
 With them hard-hearted Christless creeds, 
 That brew the curse of fear. 
 
 The man he feels no blast of age, 
 Is by no sickness torn: 
 After a long earth-pilgrimage 
 The clay coat t is that s worn. 
 
 The spirit keeps its light, a flame 
 That aye illumineth 
 Earth-paths, as well as what we name 
 The shadowed vale of death. 
 
A STAR. 
 
 THE moon lies still beneath the trees, 
 And silver-spots the sleeping moss, 
 And touches with a ghostly gloss 
 
 The leaves unwakened by the breeze. 
 
 A silence as of myriad swoons 
 
 Drives in my feelings to their deeps, 
 Where still more awful silence sleeps, 
 
 Mid lights more ghostly than the moon s. 
 
A STAR. 149 
 
 From th eastward, through a leafy rent, 
 
 Flashes across the moony sleep 
 
 One star upon my inmost deep, 
 Voicing the silence therein pent. 
 
 With holy glances, diamond-hued, 
 About my flickering lights it winds, 
 And all my finite tossings binds 
 
 To fixtures of infinitude. 
 
MONODY ON HORATIO GREENOUGH. 
 
 THE generous hopes of youth 
 Are firstlings of our affluent being ; 
 Born while the heart is newly seeing 
 
 Great visions of the truth. 
 
 Life s morning glows with fires, 
 Reddening the soul with lusty flashes, 
 That, ere its noon, are silent ashes 
 
 Of dead dreams and desires. 
 
MONODY. 151 
 
 He is the highest man, 
 Whose dreams die not ; in whom the ideal, 
 Surging forever, makes life real, 
 
 Ending where it began, 
 
 In visionary deeds, 
 By plastic will deserted never, 
 His life-long joy and sweet endeavor 
 
 To prosper Beauty s seeds. 
 
 T is he helps Nature s might, 
 Echoing her soul, whether it crieth, 
 Or silent speaks ; and when he dieth 
 
 On earth there is less light. 
 
 Then mourn, my country ! Shed 
 Deep tears from thy great lids, and borrow 
 Night s gorgeous gloom to deck thy sorrow ; 
 
 Greenough, thy son, is dead. 
 
152 MONODY. 
 
 A crowned son of Art 
 And thee ; lifted by love and duty 
 To his high work of marble beauty, 
 
 Coining thereon his heart. 
 
 Quick is grief s shadow sped 
 Across the seas to Tuscan mountains, 
 Darkening the depths of living fountains 
 
 By Art and Friendship fed. 
 
 r 
 
 That peopled solitude, 
 The Studio, where, amid his creatures, 
 Broodeth the God, his busy features 
 
 Irradiant with his mood, 
 
 Is orphaned now ; and pale, 
 Each sculptured child seems sadly listening 
 For the warm look, that came in glistening 
 
 With a fresh morning-hail. 
 
MONODY. 153 
 
 These are his inmost heirs ; 
 In them still pulse his heart s best beatings, 
 Of soul and thought deep nuptial greetings : 
 
 What most was his is theirs. 
 
 And they are ours. Our sight 
 Grows strong, as, compassing this gifted 
 Enmarbled life, we are uplifted : 
 
 On Earth there is more light. 
 
 February, 1853. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
SONNETS. 157 
 
 TO KEATS. 
 
 OP the heart s reasons wherefore one would know 
 
 That the departed live, and smile or sigh 
 
 When we do, with a level sympathy, 
 
 There s one I feel an impulse to let flow 
 
 In tuneful words : it is, that I might throw 
 
 Upon thy listening ear, if so may be, 
 
 My thankfulness for what I owe to thee, 
 
 Imperial genius, who, a boy, didst sow 
 
 Fresh seeds, of quickening power to men, great Keats; 
 
 So wisely great in thy unfurnished youth, 
 
 That, what had been thy broad Shakesperian feats 
 
 If ripened, swift imaginations gasp 
 
 To guess, sure only that sublimer truth 
 
 Had more enriched thy larger rhythmic grasp. 
 
158 SONNETS. 
 
 TO SHELLEY. 
 
 UPON thy subtile nature was a bloom, 
 
 Unearthly in its tender, gleamful glow, 
 
 As thou had st strayed from some sane star where 
 
 blow 
 
 But halcyon airs, and here, blinded by gloom, 
 Did st stumble, for the lack of light and room, 
 And strike and wound with purposed good ; and so, 
 Through Highest pity, thou had st leave to go 
 Early to where for each earth-life its doom 
 Awaits it, as the fruit the seed, and where 
 Thy multitudinous imaginings, 
 So truthful pure, on Heaven s fulgent stair 
 Fit issue find, and mid the radiant rings 
 Of mounting Angels thy great spirit s glare 
 Adds to the brightness of the brightest things. 
 
SONNETS. 159 
 
 TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 COLERIDGE, for many a studious year I have been 
 
 Thy thankful mate ; climbing the misty heights 
 
 Of speculation, or when the delights 
 
 Of great imagination s realm serene 
 
 Blessing me through th impassioned visions seen 
 
 By ravished genius thou hast shown me sights, 
 
 Revealed to mighty Poets with the lights 
 
 Struck by creative frenzy ; visions clean, 
 
 That mind in purgatorial surges dip, 
 
 And we come freshened forth, so purified, 
 
 That ever anew thy rich companionship 
 
 I court, to warm me at a holy fire, 
 
 And be with deep soul-logic stoutly plied, 
 
 Or trance-ensteeped by thy melodious lyre. 
 
160 SONNETS. 
 
 TO WORDSWORTH. 
 
 AMONG my unabating joys are these, 
 
 That under thy calm roof I pressed the hand 
 
 Whose life had been obedience to command 
 
 Of rarest genius ; that beneath thy trees 
 
 I shared with thee thy cordial mountain-breeze, 
 
 Answered thy speech, and looked into the bland 
 
 Mysterious eyes that had beshone the land, 
 
 Those inlets to deep beauty s boundless seas, 
 
 And there, beside thy household lakes, did hear 
 
 Thee laugh, and feel thy smile, so kindly blent 
 
 With hospitalities, that since that year 
 
 Thy face hath been a loved accompaniment 
 
 To the grand music, mounting tier on tier, 
 
 That to my thought profounder rhythm hath lent. 
 
SONNETS. 161 
 
 TO GCETHE. 
 
 TEUTONIC leader, in the foremost file 
 Of that pickt corps, whose rapture t is to feel 
 With subtler closer sense all woe and weal, 
 And forge the feeling into rhythmic pile 
 Of words, so tuned they sing the sigh and smile 
 Of all humanity, meek did st thou kneel 
 At Nature s pious altars, midst the peal 
 Of prophet-organs, thy great self the while 
 All ear and eye, thou greatest of the band, 
 Whose voices waked their brooding Luther-land, 
 At last left lone in Weimar, famed through thee, 
 Wearing with stately grace thy triple crown 
 Of science, statesmanship, and poesy, 
 Enrobed in age and love and rare renown. 
 11 
 
162 SONNETS. 
 
 TO MILTON. 
 
 BURNED into History s high beacon-page 
 
 By deed and thought and genius, triple fire, 
 
 Seld-seen on earth, thy wreathed name flares higher 
 
 Than all men s else in the sublimest age 
 
 Of England, where against Time s billowy rage 
 
 None is more fenced than -thou, without thy lyre, 
 
 Whose tones shall ring till pales the last dim pyre, 
 
 And crumbles earth s triumphant equipage, 
 
 Stirring meanwhile, with deep sonorous peals, 
 
 All whom its softer notes have quick entranced, 
 
 Dulcet and manful, first on even keels 
 
 Smooth wafting raptured souls, then in high storms 
 
 Of giant music purging them, advanced 
 
 To where the holier spheral influence warms. 
 
SONNETS. 163 
 
 TO SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 CORUSCANT Presence, who dost ceaseless shine 
 Unbodied benefaction on the blest, 
 Thy lifted myriad-millions, aye possest 
 Of that wide speech, in whose unwearied mine 
 Thou art the richest vein, phrases of thine, 
 The largest, most embossed, the fiery best, 
 He needs who, cheered by gratitude, would crest 
 His love and awe with epithets so fine 
 They shall exhale some flavor of thy worth, 
 A fraction speak of what men owe to thee, 
 Thou lonely one, at whose still modest birth 
 Were born new worlds of truth and ecstasy, 
 Thou great emblazoner of man and earth, 
 Thou secret-holder of humanity. 
 
164 SONNETS. 
 
 TO DANTE. 
 
 MONARCH august, thy solitary throne 
 
 Didst thou with solitary wisdom earn, 
 
 Midst want and gloom and exile, stout and stern 
 
 To master thy great self, and all alone, 
 
 Away from Tuscan hearth and children blown 
 
 By Guelfian tempests, with strange power to turn 
 
 Thy soul s hot tumults into flames that burn 
 
 A world-effulgency, while for thy own 
 
 Dear land thy mighty rhyme hath been a breath 
 
 Breathing from Beatrice s heaven through thee, 
 
 A breath of holier life heaving beneath 
 
 The life of universal Italy, 
 
 Where, sung thy song, thou passedst lone through death, 
 
 Ended thy long sublime soliloquy. 
 
SONNETS. 165 
 
 TO HOMER. 
 
 IN realms beyond young Story s dusky day, 
 Where but for thee were Chaos lightless rule, 
 Thy fresh strong-souled impersonings so fool 
 The senses, that we yield us to their sway, 
 And clasp unto our hearts with earnest play 
 Thy Doric brood, in whose primeval school 
 Poet or sage is glad to fill a stool, 
 And grow beneath thy fruitful quenchless ray, 
 As on thy vast horizon Gods and men 
 Shame history with the grandeurs of their strife, 
 Inbreed delight, wrath, wonder, love, and ruth, 
 And deepen man s outworn fast fading ken 
 With teachings of the dear religious truth, 
 That Heaven and earth live intermingled life. 
 
166 SONNETS. 
 
 TO THE PRINCE OF WALES. 
 
 NOT lonely did a mother s grateful gaze 
 
 Illume thy cradled brow; but from all climes 
 
 And continents of this round earth came chimes 
 
 Of love, that made a globe-enclasping blaze 
 
 Of hearty homage to thy tender days, 
 
 A flame nor quenched nor dimmed by changeful time s 
 
 Assault; but still old loyalty sublimes 
 
 Thy manly person with its steadfast rays; 
 
 Wherewith has now been wreathed a novel fire, 
 
 Long burning in a kindred People s core, 
 
 And by thy presence kindled to desire 
 
 To burst in buoyant greeting and outpour 
 
 A great Republic s welcome from its breast 
 
 To England s future King, our honored guest. 
 
 October, 1860. 
 
SONNETS. 167 
 
 TO ENGLAND. 
 
 ENGLAND, we are proud to be thy eldest child, 
 
 Thankful to God for the rich heritage 
 
 Which thou, ere we were born, from age to age 
 
 With thoughts and deeds of mightiest men up-piled, 
 
 Too great within thy bounds to be misled, 
 
 And thence, wide wafted on the undying page, 
 
 Feeding the soul of hero and of sage 
 
 In every Christian land, on us have smiled, 
 
 Through privilege of tongue, a daily cheer, 
 
 So warmly kindred to our Saxon hearts, 
 
 That we, though sundered from thee, parent dear, 
 
 Have kept our love and reverence through all smarts, 
 
 And now stride with thee in one grand career, 
 
 Sowing the Earth with freedom and with arts. 
 
 October, 1860. 
 
168 SONNETS. 
 
 TO SCOTT. 
 
 WINFIELD, thy prophet-parents named thee, Scott; 
 
 And now at climax of delight they fold 
 
 Thee in celestial vision, and behold 
 
 Their warrior win his highest field ; for not 
 
 Canadian laurels, t was thy youthful lot 
 
 To reap victorious, nor thy wreaths of gold, 
 
 Inwove with Azteck palm, will e er be rolled 
 
 With such sonorous hymn from trumpets hot 
 
 With fame s fresh breathing, as thy present deeds, 
 
 Baffling the blackest treason ever hatched 
 
 In the foul nests where brood the godless greeds, 
 
 Its crime foiled by a steadfast eye that watched 
 
 Thy perilled country, and in its dread needs 
 
 With duteous mastership from ruin snatched. 
 
 Jcanuary 22d, 1861. 
 
SONNETS. 169 
 
 TO ANDERSON. 
 
 GLAD lightning, on his myriad-footed steed, 
 Sped o er the land, as happiest angels ride 
 On blissful errands ; then through the flood tide 
 Of fiery syllables, thy sudden deed 
 Poured on the Nation s troubled heart such seed 
 Of power, the flagging pulse leapt in its side, 
 The eagle soared sunward, again strong-eyed, 
 Stout men looked each on each with freshened pride, 
 And stretched to the utmost admiration s creed 
 Towards mothers that could bear the like of thee, 
 Who mid mad shriek of treason s thwarted brag, 
 With soldier s grasp and true soul s loyalty, 
 Outflung with prayer on Sumpter s martial crag 
 Freedom s broad shield, terrible on land and sea, 
 The world s chief hope, our war-won fulgent flag. 
 
 January 27th, 1861. 
 
170 SONNETS. 
 
 TO LUTHER. 
 
 DEEP in the sanctuaries of the mind, 
 Where, mystically fed, are fiery wrought 
 The exulting miracles of freest thought, 
 Where boldened wills the subtleties unwind 
 That in conspirant coils resistless bind 
 Man to his broadest duties, where are caught 
 Fresh whispers from skyed voice s, where are fought 
 Truth s foremost battles, there art thou enshrined, 
 Forever incensed by new love and light 
 Born daily in the aspiring hearts where glows 
 The fire of freedom, kindled through thy might, 
 Thou Titan of the Conscience, whose vast blows 
 Clove Popedom to the core, and freed the right 
 From Thraldom s lurid spells and deathful throes. 
 
 March 8th, 1862. 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY