Family

I.
Friends of faces unknown and a land
Unvisited over the sea,
Who tell me how lonely you stand
With a single gold curl in the hand
Held up to be looked at by me,

II.
While you ask me to ponder and say
What a father and mother can do,
With the bright fellow-locks put away
Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay
Where the violets press nearer than you.

III.
Shall I speak like a poet, or run
Into weak woman's tears for relief?
Oh, children! I never lost one,
Yet my arm 's round my own little son,
And Love knows the secret of Grief.

IV.
And I feel what it must be and is,
When God draws a new angel so
Through the house of a man up to His,
With a murmur of music, you miss,
And a rapture of light, you forgo.
<...

I

Peradventure of old, some bard in Ionian Islands,
    Walking alone by the sea, hearing the wash of the waves,
Learned the secret from them of the beautiful verse elegiac,
    Breathing into his song motion and sound of the sea.

For as the wave of the sea, upheaving in long undulations,
    Plunges loud on the sands, pauses, and turns, and retreats,
So the Hexameter, rising and singing, with cadence sonorous,
    Falls; and in refluent rhythm back the Pentameter flows?

II

Not in his youth alone, but in age, may the heart of the poet
    Bloom into song, as the gorse blossoms in autumn and spring.

III

Not in tenderness wanting, yet rough are the rhymes of our poet;
    Though it be Jacob's voice, Esau's, alas! are the hands.

And I behold once more
My old familiar haunts; here the blue river,
The same blue wonder that my infant eye
Admired, sage doubting whence the traveller came,--
Whence brought his sunny bubbles ere he washed
The fragrant flag-roots in my father's fields,
And where thereafter in the world he went.
Look, here he is, unaltered, save that now
He hath broke his banks and flooded all the vales
With his redundant waves.
Here is the rock where, yet a simple child,
I caught with bended pin my earliest fish,
Much triumphing,--and these the fields
Over whose flowers I chased the butterfly
A blooming hunter of a fairy fine.
And hark! where overhead the ancient crows
Hold their sour conversation in the sky:--
These are the same, but I am not the same,
But wiser th...

The happiest hour of all the day
    To me, is always last;
When both my studies and my play,
    My walks and work, are past.

When round the bright warm fire we come,
    With hearts so light and free,
And all within our happy home
    Are talking quietly,

Then, by my dear, kind father's side
    I sit, or on his knee,
And then I tell him I have tried
    His gentle girl to be.

And then he says the little child
    Is loved by every one,
Who has a temper sweet and mild
    And smiling as the sun.

Let me do always as I should,
    Nor vex my father dear;
And let me be as glad and good
    As he would have me here.

Sorrow has touched thee, my beautiful boy!
And dimmed the bright eyes that were dancing with joy;
Thy ruby lips tremble, thy soft cheek is wet,
The tears on its roses are lingering yet.
On thy quick-heaving heart is thy little hand pressed;
There is care on thy brow--there is grief in thy breast,
And slowly and darkly the shadow steals o'er thee,
For the first time the vision of death is before thee!

Meet emblem of childhood--that innocent dove
Was the sharer alike of thy sports and thy love;
Thy playmate is dead--and that tenantless cage
Has stamped the first grief upon memory's page.
And oh!--thou art weeping--Life's fountain of tears,
Once unchained, will flow on through the desert of years;
No joy will e'er equal thy first dawn of bliss,
No sorrow blot ou...

He never made a fortune, or a noise
In the world where men are seeking after fame;
But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys
Who loved the very ground on which he trod.
They thought him just a little short of God;
Oh you should have heard the way they said his name -
    'Father.'

There seemed to be a loving little prayer
In their voices, even when they called him 'Dad.'
Though the man was never heard of anywhere,
As a hero, yet you somehow understood
He was doing well his part and making good;
And you knew it, by the way his children had
    Of saying 'Father.'

He gave them neither eminence nor wealth,
But he gave them blood untainted with a vice,
And the opulence of undiluted health.
He was honest, and unpurchable and kind;
He was cl...

You call authority "a grievous thing."
With careless hands you snap the leading string,
And, for a frolic (so it seems to you),
Put off the old love, and put on the new.

For "What does Mother know of love?" you say.
"Did her soul ever thrill?
Did little tendernesses ever creep
Into her dreams, and over-ride her will?
Did her eyes shine, or her heart ever leap
As my heart leaps to-day?
I, who am young; who long to try my wings!

How should she understand,
She, with her calm cool hand?
She never felt such yearnings? And, beside,
It's clear I can't be tied
For ever to my mother's apron strings."

There are Infinities of Knowledge, dear.
And there are mysteries, not yet made clear
To you, the Uninitiate. . . . Life's book
Is open, ye...

There was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.

The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf,
And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side,
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there and the beautiful curious liquid,
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads all became part of him.

The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him;

They grew together side by side,
They filled one house with glee
Their graves are severed far and wide -
By mountain stream and tree.

Mrs. Hemans


They were as fair and bright a band as ever filled with pride
Parental hearts whose task it was children beloved to guide;
And every care that love upon its idols bright may shower
Was lavished with impartial hand upon each fair young flower.

Theirs was the father's merry hour sharing their childish bliss,
The mother's soft breathed benison and tender, nightly kiss;
While strangers who by chance might see their joyous graceful play,
To breathe some word of fondness kind would pause upon their way.

But years rolled on, and in their course Time many changes brought,
And sorrow in that household gay ...

(AGED SIXTEEN)

Dear boy unborn: the son but of my dream,
    Promise of yet unrisen day,
Come, sit beside me; let us talk, and seem
    To take such cares and courage for your way,
    As some year yet we may.

As some year yet, when you, my son to be,
    Look out on life, and turn to go,
And I, grown grey, shall wish you well, and see
    Myself imprinted as but she could know
    To make amendment so.

I see you then, your sixteen years alight
    With limbs all true and golden hair,
And you, unborn, I will, this April night,
    Tell of the faith and honour you must wear
    For love, whose light you bear.

Beauty you have; as, mothered so, could face
    Or limbs or hair be otherwise?
Years gone, dear boy, there was a virgin...

Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
    And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene,
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
    Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
    No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
    The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
    I lay upon the ground;
His hoary arms uplifted he,
And all the broad leaves over me
Clapped their little hands in glee,
    With one continuous sound--

A slumberous sound,--a sound that brings
    The feelings of a dream--
As of innumerable wings,
As, when a bell no longer swings,
Paint the holl...

On these green banks, where falls too soon
The shade of Autumn's afternoon,
The south wind blowing soft and sweet,
The water gliding at nay feet,
The distant northern range uplit
By the slant sunshine over it,
With changes of the mountain mist
From tender blush to amethyst,
The valley's stretch of shade and gleam
Fair as in Mirza's Bagdad dream,
With glad young faces smiling near
And merry voices in my ear,
I sit, methinks, as Hafiz might
In Iran's Garden of Delight.
For Persian roses blushing red,
Aster and gentian bloom instead;
For Shiraz wine, this mountain air;
For feast, the blueberries which I share
With one who proffers with stained hands
Her gleanings from yon pasture lands,
Wild fruit that art and culture spoil,
The harvest o...

[Greek poem here--Euripides.]



Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
    And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene.
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
    Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
    No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
    The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
    I lay upon the ground;
His hoary arms uplifted he,
And all the broad leaves over me
Clapped their little hands in glee,
    With one continuous sound;--

A slumberous sound, a sound that brings
    The feelings of a dream,
As of innumerable wings,
A...

        Poetry to us is given,
        As stars beautify the Heaven,
        Or, as the sunbeams when they gleam,
        Sparkling so bright upon the stream,
        And the poetry of motion
        Is ship sailing o'er the ocean;
        Or, when the bird doth graceful fly,
        Seeming to float upon the sky,
        For poetry is the pure cream,
        And essence of the common theme.

        Poetic thoughts the mind doth fill,
        When on broad plain to view a hill,
        On barren heath how it doth cheer,
        To see in distance herd of deer,
        And poetry breathes in each flower,
        Nourished by the gentle shower,
        In song of birds upon the trees,
        And humming of busy bees,
        'Tis solace for the ...

The sunshine of thy Father's fame
Sleeps in the shadows of thy eyes,
And flashes sometimes when his name
Like a lost star seeks its skies.

In the horizons of thy heart
His memory shines for aye,
A light that never shall depart
Nor lose a single ray.

Thou passest thro' the crowds unknown,
So gentle, so sweet, and so shy;
Thy heart throbs fast and sometimes may grow low;
                    Then alone
Art the star in thy Father's sky.

'Tis fame enough for thee to bear his name --
Thou couldst not ask for more;
Thou art the jewel of thy Father's fame,
He waiteth on the bright and golden shore;
He prayeth in the great Eternity
Beside God's throne for thee.

'Mid crowded obelisks and urns
I sought the untimely grave of Burns;
Sons of the Bard, my heart still mourns
With sorrow true;
And more would grieve, but that it turns
Trembling to you!

Through twilight shades of good and ill
Ye now are panting up life's hill,
And more than common strength and skill
Must ye display;
If ye would give the better will
Its lawful sway.

Hath Nature strung your nerves to bear
Intemperance with less harm, beware!
But if the Poet's wit ye share,
Like him can speed
The social hour, of tenfold care
There will be need;

For honest men delight will take
To spare your failings for his sake,
Will flatter you, and fool and rake
Your steps pursue;
And of your Father's name will make
A snare ...

        I into life so full of love was sent
    That all the shadows which fall on the way
    Of every human being could not stay,
        But fled before the light my spirit lent.

        I saw the world through gold and crimson dyes:
    Men sighed and said, "Those rosy hues will fade
    As you pass on into the glare and shade!"
        Still beautiful the way seems to mine eyes.

        They said, "You are too jubilant and glad;
    The world is full of sorrow and of wrong.
    Full soon your lips shall breathe forth sighs - not song."
        The day wears on, and yet I am not sad.

        They said, "You love too largely, and you must,
    Through wound on wound, grow bitter to your kind."
    They were false prophets; day by day I find
  ...

O thicker, deeper, darker growing,
The solemn vista to the tomb
Must know henceforth another shadow,
And give another cypress room.

In love surpassing that of brothers,
We walked, O friend, from childhood’s day;
And, looking back o’er fifty summers,
Our footprints track a common way.

One in our faith, and one our longing
To make the world within our reach
Somewhat the better for our living,
And gladder for our human speech.

Thou heard’st with me the far-off voices,
The old beguiling song of fame,
But life to thee was warm and present,
And love was better than a name.

To homely joys and loves and friendships
Thy genial nature fondly clung;
And so the shadow on the dial
Ran back and left thee always young.

And wh...