I shall be carried swiftly round.
Or if my life should break
The idle night with doubtful gleams,
Through mossy arches will I go,
Through arches ruinous and low,
And chase the true and false in dreams.
Why should I fall asleep?
When I am still upon my bed
The moon will shine, the winds will rise
And all around and through the skies
The light clouds travel o’er my head!
O busy, busy things,
Ye mock me with your ceaseless life!
For all the hidden springs will flow
And all the blades of grass will grow
When I have neither peace nor strife.
And all the long night through
The restless streams will hurry by;
And round the lands, with endless roar,
The white waves fall upon the shore,
And bit by bit devour the dry.
Even thus, but silently,
Eternity, thy tide shall flow,
And side by side with every star
Thy long-drawn swell shall bear me far,
An idle boat with none to row.
My senses fail with sleep;
My heart beats thick; the night is noon;
And faintly through its misty folds
I hear a drowsy clock that holds
Its converse with the waning moon.
Oh, solemn mystery
That I should be so closely bound
With neither terror nor constraint,
Without a murmur of complaint,
And lose myself upon such ground!
Sharing
On the far horizon there
Heaps of cloudy darkness rest;
Though the wind is in the air
There is stupor east and west.
For the sky no change is making,
Scarce we know it from the plain;
Droop its eyelids never waking,
Blinded by the misty rain;
Save on high one little spot,
Round the baffled moon a space
Where the tumult ceaseth not:
Wildly goes the midnight race!
And a joy doth rise in me
Upward gazing on the sight,
When I think that others see
In yon clouds a like delight;
How perchance an aged man
Struggling with the wind and rain,
In the moonlight cold and wan
Feels his heart grow young again;
As the cloudy rack goes by,
How the life-blood mantles up
Till the fountain deep and dry
Yields once more a sparkling cup.
Or upon the gazing child
Cometh down a thought of glory
Which will keep him undefiled
Till his head is old and hoary.
For it may be he hath woke
And hath raised his fair young form;
Strangely on his eyes have broke
All the splendours of the storm;
And his young soul forth doth leap
With the storm-clouds in the moon;
And his heart the light will keep
Though the vision passeth soon.
Thus a joy hath often laughed
On my soul from other skies,
Bearing on its wings a draught
From the wells of Paradise,
For that not to me alone
Comes a splendour out of fear;
Where the light of heaven hath shone
There is glory far and near.
In Bonds
Of the poor bird that cannot fly
Kindly you think and mournfully;
For prisoners and for exiles all
You let the tears of pity fall;
And very true the grief should be
That mourns the bondage of the free.
The soul—she has a fatherland;
Binds her not many a tyrant’s hand?
And the winged spirit has a home,
But can she always homeward come?
Poor souls, with all their wounds and foes,
Will you not also pity those?
Hunger
Father, I cry to thee for bread
With hungred longing, eager prayer;
Thou hear’st, and givest me instead
More hunger and a half-despair.
O Lord, how long? My days decline,
My youth is lapped in memories old;
I need not bread alone, but wine—
See, cup and hand to thee I hold!
And yet thou givest: thanks, O Lord,
That still my heart with hunger faints!
The day will come when at thy board
I sit, forgetting all my plaints.
If rain must come and winds must blow,
And I pore long o’er dim-seen chart,
Yet, Lord, let not the hunger go,
And keep the faintness at my heart.
To the Clouds
Through the unchanging heaven, as ye have sped,
Speed onward still, a strange wild company,
Fleet children of the waters! Glorious ye,
Whether the sun lift up his shining head,
High throned at noontide and established
Among the shifting pillars, or we see
The sable ghosts of air sleep mournfully
Against the sunlight, passionless and dead!
Take thus a glory, oh thou higher Sun,
From all the cloudy labour of man’s hand—
Whether the quickening nations rise and run,
Or in the market-place we idly stand
Casting huge shadows over these thy plains—
Even thence, O God, draw thy rich gifts of rains.
New Year’s Eve: A Waking Dream
I have not any fearful tale to tell
Of fabled giant or of dragon-claw,
Or bloody deed to pilfer and to sell
To those who feed, with such, a gaping maw;
But what in yonder hamlet there befell,
Or rather what in it my fancy saw,
I will declare, albeit it may seem
Too simple and too common for a dream.
Two brothers were they, and they sat alone
Without a word, beside the winter’s glow;
For it was many years since they had known
The love that bindeth brothers, till the snow
Of age had frozen it, and it had grown
An icy-withered stream that would not flow;
And so they sat with warmth about their feet
And ice about their hearts that would not beat.
And yet it was a night for quiet hope:—
A night the very last of all the year
To many a youthful heart did seem to ope
An eye within the future, round and clear;
And age itself, that travels down the slope,
Sat glad and waiting as the hour drew near,
The dreamy hour that hath the heaviest chime,
Jerking our souls into the coming time.
But they!—alas for age when it is old!
The silly calendar they did not heed;
Alas for age when in its bosom cold
There is not warmth to nurse a bladed weed!
They thought not of the morrow, but did hold
A quiet sitting as their hearts did feed
Inwardly on themselves, as still and mute
As if they were a-cold from head to foot.
O solemn kindly night, she looketh still
With all her moon upon us now and then!
And though she dwelleth most in craggy hill,
She hath an eye unto the hearts of men!
So past a corner of the window-sill
She thrust a long bright finger just as ten
Had struck, and on the dial-plate it came,
Healing each hour’s raw edge with tender flame.
There is a something in the winds of heaven
That stirreth purposely and maketh men;
And
