Hesperus by Charles Sangster (book club suggestions TXT) 📖

divine Euphrosyne."

When at night, the gleaming heavens
Throb through all their starry veins,
Oft I ponder on Orion,
And I hear celestial strains
Passing through my soul, and flooding
All its green immortal plains.

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Then I pray for strength Promethean,
Pray for power to endure;
Then I say, O soul, be steadfast!
Make the lofty purpose sure;
And that love may be all-worthy,
God of heaven, make me pure!


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THE MYSTERY.

My mind is like a troubled sea
O'er which the winds forever sweep;
Within its depths, eternally,
My being's pulses throb and leap;
There germs of contemplation sleep,
Like stars beyond the Milky Way,--
Like pearls within the gloomy deep,
That never saw the light of day.

Oh, wondrous mind, how little known!
Whence comes the thought that through my brain
Floats weirdlike as the pleasing tone
That quickens a belovèd strain?
It may have graced some sweet refrain
A thousand years ago, or more;
Some Norman Prince, some valiant Dane,
May have imbibed it with their lore.

It may have strengthened Plato's soul,
Its clarion echoes ringing through
His brain, the heaven-reaching goal
Whence wisdom had its starry view;
It may have cheered the gifted few
Whose minds were mints of royal song,
Who toiled where Shakespeare soared, and drew
Down blessings from the grateful throng.

And on for ages yet to come,
Through minds by heavenly impulse fired,
That thought may strike some scorner dumb,
In all its regal guise attired;

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Divinely blest, though uninspired,
Some soul may change its swift career,
Bearing the great truth, long-desired,
In triumph to the highest sphere.

Unbounded universe of Thought!
Illimitable realms of mind!
Regions of Fancy, wonder-fraught!
Imagination unconfined!
Temples of mystery! behind
Whose veils the God-appointed plan
In perfect wisdom is enshrined,
Beyond the pigmy reach of man:

I cannot--dare not--seek to know
What finite vision, to the end,
Through years of strictest search below,
Must ever fail to comprehend!
God! whose intents so far transcend
Our poor discernment, let me see
Some portion of the truths that tend
By slow gradations up to Thee:

That in the less imperfect years,
When human frailty shall have died,
When the vexed riddle of the spheres,
Interpreted and glorified,
Shall be as nothing to the tide
Of light in which Thy hidden ways
Will be revealed: I may abide
Thy meanest instrument of praise,
And from the broad calm ocean of Thy truth
And wisdom drinking, find eternal youth.


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LOVE AND TRUTH.

Young Love sat in a rosy bower,
Towards the close of a summer day;
At the evening's dusky hour,
Truth bent her blessed steps that way;
Over her face
Beaming a grace
Never bestowed on child of clay.

Truth looked on with an ardent joy,
Wondering Love could grow so tired;
Hovering o'er him she kissed the boy,
When, with a sudden impulse fired,
Exquisite pains
Burning his veins,
Wildly he woke, as one inspired.

Eagerly Truth embraced the god,
Filling his soul with a sense divine;
Rightly he knew the paths she trod,
Springing from heaven's royal line;
Far had he strayed
From his guardian maid,
Perilling all for his rash design.

Still as they went, the tricksy youth
Wandered afar from the maiden fair;
Many a plot he laid, in sooth,
Wherein the maid could have no share
Sowing his seeds,
Bringing forth weeds,
Seldom a rose, and many a tare.

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Save when the maiden was by his side,
Love was erratic, and rarely true;
When she smiled on the graceful bride,
Over the old world rose the new,
Into life's skies
Blending her dyes,
Fairer than those of the rainbow's hue.

Sunny-eyed maidens, whom Love decoys,
Mark well the arts of the wayward youth!
Sorrows he bringeth, disguised as joys,
Rose-hued delights with cores of ruth;
Learn to believe
Love will deceive,
Save when he comes with his guardian, Truth.


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THE WREN.

Early each spring the little wren
Came scolding to his nest of moss;
We knew him by his peevish cry,
He always sung so very cross.
His quiet little mate would lay
Her eggs in peace, and think all day.

He was a sturdy little wren;
And when he came in spring, we knew,
Or seemed to know, the flowers would grow
To please him, where they always grew,
Among the rushes, cheerfully;
But not a rush so straight as he!

All summer long that little wren
Would chatter like a saucy thing;
And in the bush attack the thrush
That on the hawthorn perched to sing.
Like many noisy little men,
Lived, bragged, and fought that little wren.

There was a thoughtful maid, and I,
We used to play along the shore,
Searching for shells, and culling flowers,
As at the threshold of life's door,
Through which we had to pass, we stood,
Twin types of childish hardihood.

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Year after year we gathered flowers,
And grew apace, as children do;
And each returning spring we marked
The little wrens, they never grew;
One over-quiet and sedate,
The other, a bird-reprobate.

But now the marsh is overflowed,
The rushes rot beneath the sand;
No spring brings back the little wrens,
No children loiter hand in hand;
The maiden rose-bud, pure and good,
Grown to the flower of womanhood.


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GRANDPERE.

Old Grandpere gat in the corner,
With his grandchild on his knee,
Looking up at his wrinkled visage,
For his winters were ninety-three.

Fair Eleanor's locks were flaxen,
The old man's once were gray,
But now, they were white as the snow-drift
That lay on the bleak highway.

Her summers rolled on as golden
As waves over sunny seas;
But Grandpere could perceive no summers,
The winters alone were his.

He folded his arms around her,
Like Winter embracing Spring;
And the angels looked down from heaven,
And smiled on their slumbering.

But soon the angelic faces
Were filled with seraphic light,
As they gazed on a beauteous spirit
Passing up through the frosty night:

Till it stood serene before them,
A youth most divinely fair;
And they saw that the new-born angel
Was the spirit of old Grandpere.


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ENGLAND'S HOPE AND ENGLAND'S HEIR.

England's Hope and England's Heir!
Head and crown of Britain's glory,
Be thy future half so fair
As her past is famed in story,
Then wilt thou be great, indeed,
Daring, where there's cause to dare;
Greatest in the hour of need,
England's Hope and England's Heir.

By her past, in acts supreme,
By her present grand endeavour,
By her future, which the gleam
Of our fond hopes brings us ever:
We can trust that thou wilt be
Worthy of a fame so rare,
Worthy of thy destiny,
England's Hope and England's Heir.

Be thy spirit fraught with hers,
Queen, whom we revere and honour;
Be thine acts love's messengers,
Brightly flashing back upon her;
Be what most her trust would deem,
Help the answer to her prayer,
Realize her holiest dream,
England's Hope and England's Heir.

Welcome, Prince! the land is wide,
Wider still the love we cherish;
Love that thou shalt find, when tried,
Is not born to droop and perish;

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Welcome to our heart of hearts;
You will find no falsehood there,
But the zeal that truth imparts,
England's Hope and England's Heir.

Welcome to our woodland deeps,