Hesperus by Charles Sangster (book club suggestions TXT) 📖

Mortals ne'er inherit;
Through the trees
Swept the breeze,
Bringing airs
Unawares
Through the grove,
Until love
Came down upon his heart,
Refusing to depart.

Hungrily he quaffed the strain,
Sweeter still, and clearer,
Drenched with music's mellow rain,
Nearer--nearer--dearer!

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Chains of sound
Gently bound
The lost Youth,
Till, in sooth,
He stood there
A prisoner,
Raised between earth and heaven
By love's divinest leaven.

Was there ever such a face?
Was it not a vision?
Had he climbed the starry space,
To the fields Elysian?
Through the glade
The milk-maid
With her pail,
To the vale
Passed along,
Breathing song
Through all his ravished sense,
To gladden his suspense.

"Love is swift as hawk or hind,
Chamois-like in fleetness,
None are lost that love can find,"
Sang the maid, with sweetness.
"True, in sooth,"
Thought the Youth,
"Strong, as swift,
Love can lift

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Mountain weights
To the gates
Of the celestial skies,
Where all else fades and dies."

Lightly flew the sunny days,
Joy and gladness sending;
Life becomes a song of praise
When true hearts are blending.
Guileless truth
Won the Youth,
Kept him there,
A prisoner;
While dear Love
From above
Poured down enduring dreams,
In calm supernal gleams.


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YOUNG AGAIN.

Young again! Young again!
Beating heart! I deemed that sorrow,
With its torture-rack of pain,
Had eclipsed each bright to-morrow;
And that Love could never rise
Into life's cerulean skies,
Singing the divine refrain--
"Young again! Young again!"

Young again! Young again!
Passion dies as we grow older;
Love that in repose has lain,
Takes a higher flight, and bolder:
Fresh from rest and dewy sleep,
Like the skylark's matin sweep,
Singing the divine refrain--
"Young again! Young again!"

Young again! Young again!
Book of Youth, thy sunny pages
Here and there a tear may stain,
But 'tis Love that makes us sages.
Love, Hope, Youth--blest trinity!
Wanting these, and what were we?
Who would chant the sweet refrain--
"Young again! Young again!"


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GLIMPSES.

Sounds of rural life and labour!
Not the notes of pipe and tabour,
Not the clash of helm and sabre
Bright'ning up the field of glory,
Can compare with thy ovations,
That make glad the hearts of nations;
E'en the poet's fond creations
Pale before thy simple story.

In the years beyond our present,
King was little more than peasant,
Labour was the shining crescent,
Toil, the poor man's crown of glory;
Have we passed from worse to better
Since we wove the silken fetter,
Changed the plough for book and letter.
Truest life for tinsel story?

Up the ladder of the ages
Clomb the patriarchal sages,
Solving nature's secret pages,
Kings of thought's supremest glory;
Eagle-winged, and sight far reaching--
Are we wiser for their teaching?--
Wrangling creeds for gentle preaching!
Falsest life for truest story!

Man is overfraught with culture,
Virtue early finds sepulture,
While our vices sate the vulture

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We misname a bird of glory;
Life is blindly artificial,
Rarely pass we its initial,
All our aims are prejudicial
To its earnest, simple story.

Hail, primeval life and labour!
Martial notes of pipe and tabour,
Gleam of spears and clash of sabre,
Hero march from fields of glory,
All the thundering ovations
Surging from the hearts of nations,
Poet dreams and speculations,
Pale before thy simple story!


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MY PRAYER.

O God! forgive the erring thought,
The erring word and deed,
And in thy mercy hear the Christ
Who comes to intercede.

My sins, like mountain-weights of lead,
Weigh heavy on my soul;
I'm bruised and broken in this strife,
But Thou canst make me whole.

Allay this fever of unrest,
That fights against the Will;
And in Thy still small voice do Thou
But whisper, "Peace, be still!"

Until within this heart of mine
Thy lasting peace come down,
Will all the waves of Passion roll,
Each good resolve to drown.

We walk in blindness and dark night
Through half our earthly way;
Our clouds of weaknesses obscure
The glory of the day.

We cannot lead the lives we would,
But grope in dumb amaze,
Leaving the straight and flowery paths
To tread the crooked ways.

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We are as pilgrims toiling on
Through all the weary hours;
And our poor hands are torn with thorns,
Plucking life's tempting flowers.

We worship at a thousand shrines,
And build upon the sands,
Passing the one great Temple, and
The Rock on which it stands.

O, fading dream of human life!
What can this change portend?
I long for higher walks, and true
Progression without end.

Here I know nothing, and my search
Can find no secret out;
I cannot think a single thought
That is not mixed with doubt.

Relying on the higher source,
The influence divine,
I can but hope that light may dawn
Within this soul of mine.

I ask not wisdom, such as that
To which the world is prone,
Nor knowledge ask, unless it come
Direct from God alone.

Send down then, God! in mercy send
Thy Love and Truth to me,
That I may henceforth walk in light
That comes direct from Thee.


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HER STAR.

When the heavens throb and vibrate
All along their silver veins,
To the mellow storm of music
Sweeping o'er the starry trains,
Heard by few, as erst by shepherds
On the far Chaldean plains:

Not the blazing, torch-like planets,
Not the Pleiads wild and free,
Not Arcturus, Mars, Uranus,
Bring the brightest dreams to me;
But I gaze in rapt devotion
On the central star of three.

Central star of three that tingle
In the balmy southern sky;
One above, and one below it,
Dreamily they pale and die,
As two lesser minds might dwindle,
When some great soul, passing by,

Stops, and reads their cherished secrets,
With a calm and godlike air,
Luring all their radiance from them
Leaving a dim twilight there,
Something vague, and half unreal,
Like the Alpha of despair.

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Gazing thus, and holding converse
With the silence of my heart,
I would speak with famed Orion,
I would question it apart,
Wrest her love's strange secret from it,
If there's strength in human art.

And there come to me sweet whispers,
Half in answer, half in thought:--
"Be but strong, impassioned mortal!
Love will come to thee unsought;
Love is the divine Irene,--
It is given, and not bought.

[Transcriber's note: In the original book,
the e's in the "Irene" in the above verse
were e-macrons, Unicode U+0113.]

Strong of heart. Be wise, be steadfast,
Learn, endeavour, and endure;
Blest with strength and light, in wisdom
Make the higher purpose sure;
Never can her heart receive thee
Till thine own is rendered pure.

I but shone in truth above her;
Psyche-like, she yearned to me,
And her soul, an Aphrodite,
Rose above the ether sea.
Love. Love should and will inherit
The