Genre Poetry. Page - 5

e lowly birth of Godhead
In the stable of the passions,
In the manger of the mind-soul;
Silent singer of the secret
Of compassion deep and holy
To the heart with sorrow burdened,
To the soul with waiting weary:--
Star of all-surpassing brightness,
Thou again dost deck the midnight;
Thou again dost cheer the wise ones
Watching in the creedal darkness,
Weary of the endless battle
With the grinding blades of error;
Tired of lifeless, useless idols,
Of the dead forms of religions;
Spent with watching for thy shining;
Thou hast ended their despairing;
Thou hast lighted up their pathway;
Thou hast brought again the old Truths
To the hearts of all thy Watchers;
To the souls of them that love thee
Thou dost speak of Joy and Gladness,
Of the peace that comes of Sorrow.
Blessed are they that can see thee,
Weary wanderers in the Night-time;
Blessed they who feel the throbbing,
In their bosoms feel the pulsing
Of a

increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,Hills peep o'er hills and Alps on Alps arise!

A perfect judge will read each work of witWith the same spirit that its author writSurvey the whole nor seek slight faults to findWhere nature moves and rapture warms the mind,Nor lose for that malignant dull delightThe generous pleasure to be charmed with witBut in such lays as neither ebb nor flow,Correctly cold and regularly lowThat, shunning faults, one quiet tenor keep;We cannot blame indeed--but we may sleep.In wit, as nature, what affects our heartsIs not the exactness of peculiar parts,'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call,But the joint force and full result of all.Thus, when we view some well proportioned dome(The worlds just wonder, and even thine, O Rome!), [248]No single parts unequally surprise,All comes united to the admiring eyes;No monstrous height or breadth, or length, appear;The whole at once is bold, and regular.

Whoever thinks

black marble-made statuette,
And when thou'lt have nought for thy house or alcove,
But a cavernous den and a damp oubliette.

When the tomb-stone, oppressing thy timorous breast,
And thy hips drooping sweetly with listless decay,
The pulse and desires of mine heart shall arrest,
And thy feet from pursuing their adventurous way,

Then the grave, that dark friend of my limitless dreams
(For the grave ever readeth the poet aright),
Amid those long nights, which no slumber redeems

'Twill query " What use to thee, incomplete spright
That thou ne'er hast unfathomed the tears of the dead"?
Then the worms will gnaw deep at thy body, like Dread.

The Balcony

Oh, Mother of Memories! Mistress of Mistresses!
Oh, thou all my pleasures, oh, thou all my prayers!
Can'st thou remember those luscious caresses,
The charm of the hearth and the sweet evening airs?
Oh, Mother of Memories, Mistress of Mistresses!

Those evenings illumed by th

That saw the Possible like a dawn grow pale
On the lost night before it, mute and vast.
It dates remoter than God's birth can reach,
That had no birth but the world's coming after.
So the world's to me as, after whispered speech,
The cause-ignored sudden echoing of laughter.
That 't has a meaning my conjecture knows,
But that 't has meaning's all its meaning shows.

XXV.

We are in Fate and Fate's and do but lack
Outness from soul to know ourselves its dwelling,
And do but compel Fate aside or back
By Fate's own immanence in the compelling.
We are too far in us from outward truth
To know how much we are not what we are,
And live but in the heat of error's youth,
Yet young enough its acting youth to ignore.
The doubleness of mind fails us, to glance
At our exterior presence amid things,
Sizing from otherness our countenance
And seeing our puppet will's act-acting strings.
An unknown language speaks in us,

'd me to seek delays for them and me.
And this it was,--for other means was none.--
The sailors sought for safety by our boat,
And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us;:
My wife, more careful for the latter-born,
Had fast'ned him unto a small spare mast,
Such as sea-faring men provide for storms:
To him one of the other twins was bound,
Whilst I had been like heedful of the other.
The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I,
Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd,
Fast'ned ourselves at either end the mast,
And, floating straight, obedient to the stream,
Were carried towards Corinth, as we thought.
At length the sun, gazing upon the earth,
Dispers'd those vapours that offended us;
And, by the benefit of his wish'd light,
The seas wax'd calm, and we discover'd
Two ships from far making amain to us,--
Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this:
But ere they came--O, let me say no more!--
Gather the sequel by that went before.

"_--Heedless and careless, still the world wags on,
And leaves me broken ... Oh, my son! my son!_"

Yet--think of this!--
Yea, rather think on this!--
He died as few men get the chance to die,--
Fighting to save a world's morality.
He died the noblest death a man may die,
Fighting for God, and Right, and Liberty;--
And such a death is Immortality.

"_He died unnoticed in the muddy trench._"
Nay,--God was with him, and he did not blench;
Filled him with holy fires that nought could quench,
And when He saw his work below was done,
He gently called to him,--"_My son! My son!
I need thee for a greater work than this.
Thy faith, thy zeal, thy fine activities
Are worthy of My larger liberties;_"--
--Then drew him with the hand of welcoming grace,
And, side by side, they climbed the heavenly ways.

LORD, SAVE THEIR SOULS ALIVE!

Lord, save their souls alive!
And--for the rest,--
We leave it all to Thee

They must sacrifice their beauty
Who would do their civic duty,
Who the polling booth would enter,
Who the ballot box would use;
As they drop their ballots in it
Men and women in a minute,
Lose their charm, the antis tell us,
But--the men have less to lose.

Partners

("Our laws have not yet reached the point of holding that property whichis the result of the husband's earnings and the wife's savings becomestheir joint property.... In this most important of all partnershipsthere is no partnership property."--_Recent decision of the New YorkSupreme Court_.)

Lady, lovely lady, come and share

All my care;
Oh how gladly I will hurry
To confide my every worry
(And they're very dark and drear)

In your ear.

Lady, share the praise I obtain

Now and again;
Though I'm shy, it doesn't matter,

erstand my language.

And after seven moons, one day a soothsayer looked at me, and hesaid to my mother, "Your son will be a statesman and a great leaderof men."

But I cried out,--"That is a false prophet; for I shall be amusician, and naught but a musician shall I be."

But even at that age my language was not understood--and great wasmy astonishment.

And after three and thirty years, during which my mother, and thenurse, and the priest have all died, (the shadow of God be upontheir spirits) the soothsayer still lives. And yesterday I met himnear the gates of the temple; and while we were talking togetherhe said, "I have always known you would become a great musician.Even in your infancy I prophesied and foretold your future."

And I believed him--for now I too have forgotten the language ofthat other world.

The Pomegranate

Once when I was living in the heart of a pomegranate, I heard a seedsaying, "Someday I shall become a tree, and the wind will sing inmy

fall and possible demise-- for where was he? what was he? Shading her eyes, she looked along the road for Captain Barfoot--yes, there he was, punctual as ever; the attentions of the Captain--all ripened Betty Flanders, enlarged her figure, tinged her face with jollity, and flooded her eyes for no reason that any one could see perhaps three times a day.

True, there's no harm in crying for one's husband, and the tombstone, though plain, was a solid piece of work, and on summer's days when the widow brought her boys to stand there one felt kindly towards her. Hats were raised higher than usual; wives tugged their husbands' arms. Seabrook lay six foot beneath, dead these many years; enclosed in three shells; the crevices sealed with lead, so that, had earth and wood been glass, doubtless his very face lay visible beneath, the face of a young man whiskered, shapely, who had gone out duck-shooting and refused to change his boots.

"Merchant of this city," the tombstone said; though why Betty Flanders h

ets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'

IX

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes, her husband's shape