THEY do but grope in learning's pedant round Who on the phantasies of sense bestow An idol substance, bidding us bow low Before those shades of being which are found, Stirring or still, on man's brief trial-ground; As if such shapes and modes, which come and go, Had aught of truth or life in their poor show, To sway or judge, and skill to sain 1 or wound. Son of immortal seed, high-destined Man! Know thy dread gift, a creature, yet a cause: Each mind is its own center, and it draws Home to itself, and molds in its thought's span, All outward things, the vassals of its will, Aided by Heaven, by earth unthwarted still.
BEHIND thy pasteboard, on thy battered hack,2 Thy lean cheek striped with plaster to and fro, Thy long spear leveled at the unseen foe, And doubtful Sancho trudging at thy back, Thou wert a figure strange enough, good lack! To make wiseacredom,3 both high and low, Rub purblind eyes, and (having watched thee go) Dispatch its Dogberrys upon thy track: Alas! poor Knight! Alas! poor soul possest! Yet would to-day, when Courtesy grows chill,
1 sanctify, bless, protect
2 overworked horse
8 the whole body of would-be wise people
4 Dogberry is the stupid constable of Shakespeare's “Much Ado About Nothing"
And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest, Some fire of thine might burn within us still! Ah! would but one might lay his lance in rest, And charge in earnest
COUNT each affliction, whether light or grave, God's messenger sent down to thee; do thou With courtesy receive him; rise and bow; And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave Permission first his heavenly feet to lave; Then lay before him all thou hast; allow No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,
Or mar thy hospitality; no wave
Of mortal tumult to obliterate
The soul's marmoreal1 calmness: Grief should be, Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate;
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free;
Strong to consume small troubles; to commend
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.
(Sunday night, March 30, 1856 2)
GHOSTS of dead soldiers in the battle slain, Ghosts of dead heroes dying nobler far In the long patience of inglorious war, Of famine, cold, heat, pestilence, and pain, -- All ye whose loss makes up our vigorous gain,
1 from Lat. marmor, marble
2 the close of the Crimean war
This quiet night, as sounds the cannon's tongue, Do ye look down the trembling stars among, Viewing our peace and war with like disdain? Or, wiser grown since reaching those new spheres, Smile ye on those poor bones ye sowed as seed For this our harvest, nor regret the deed? Yet lift one cry with us to Heavenly ears "Strike with Thy bolt the next red flag unfurled, And make all wars to cease throughout the world!" DINAH MARIA CRAIK (MISS MULOCK)
WHEN I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent, which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account,' lest he returning chide,— Doth God exact day-labor, light denied? I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies: God doth not need Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed And post o'er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.2
1 And that one talent. true account, an allusion to Saint Matthew XXV. 14-30
2 How do the rhymes of the sestet differ from those used by Keats and by Wordsworth?
THEY pass me by like shadows, crowds on crowds, Dim ghosts of men that hover to and fro,
Hugging their bodies round them, like thin shrouds Wherein their souls were buried long ago:
They trampled on their youth, and faith, and love, They cast their hope of human-kind away, With heaven's clear messages they madly strove, And conquered, and their spirits turned to clay. Lo! how they wander round the world, their grave, Whose ever-gaping maw by such is fed, Gibbering at living men, and idly rave, "We, only, truly live, but ye are dead." Alas! poor fools, the anointed eye may trace A dead soul's epitaph in every face!
HERE on the steps I sit, as long ago.
Some little change there seems: the vine its leaves O'erhead flings broader, thicker darkness weaves, And heavier branches sweep the path below; While from its fragrant shade I watch the slow Long shadows of the elms creep o'er the grass, And hear the tinkling cow-bells as they pass, Like one who dreams, but neither joys nor grieves.— And still the same, but yet the same no more, As when a girl I looked out through the years.
1 The rhymes of Lowell's sonnets conform to the Elizabethan model.
Some hopes I see fulfilled, and ah! some fears, Since last I sat in this familiar door.
I would not be a girl again, and yet
With sudden tears my folded hands are wet.
THAT he is dead the sons of kings are glad; And in their beds the tyrants sounder sleep. Now he is dead his martyrdom will reap Late harvest of the palms he should have had In life. Too late the tardy lands are sad. His unclaimed crown in secret they will keep For ages, while in chains they vainly weep, And vainly grope to find the roads he bade Them take. O glorious soul, there is no dearth Of worlds! There must be many better worth Thy presence and thy leadership than this. No doubt on some great sun to-day thy birth Is for a race the dawn of Freedom's bliss, Which but for thee it might for ages miss.
EACH Orpheus must unto the depths descend,
For only thus the poet can be wise;
Must make the sad Persephone his friend,
And buried love to second life arise;
1 Italian patriot and political philosopher (1805-1872)
2 What is the type of sonnet?
3 poet and musician of ancient mythology; hence, “Each poet
4 The goddess Persephone (Lat. Proserpina) was according to the fable,
doomed to pass half of each year in the regions of the dead.
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