Freedom

There are sounds of mirth in the night-air ringing,
    And lamps from every casement shown;
While voices blithe within are singing,
    That seem to say "Come," in every tone.
Ah! once how light, in Life's young season,
    My heart had leapt at that sweet lay;
Nor paused to ask of graybeard Reason
    Should I the syren call obey.

And, see--the lamps still livelier glitter,
    The syren lips more fondly sound;
No, seek, ye nymphs, some victim fitter
    To sink in your rosy bondage bound.
Shall a bard, whom not the world in arms
    Could bend to tyranny's rude control,
Thus quail at sight of woman's charms
    And yield to a smile his freeborn soul?

Thus sung the sage, while, slyly stealing,
    The nymphs their fetters around him cast,

    What art thou doing here, O Imagination?    Go away I entreat thee by the gods, as thou didst come, for I want thee not.    But thou art come according to thy old fashion.    I am not angry with thee - only go away.
    - Marcus Antoninus

Lilac hazes veil the skies.
    Languid sighs
Breathes the mild, caressing air.
Pink as coral's branching sprays,
    Orchard ways
With the blossomed peach are fair.


Sunshine, cordial as a kiss,
    Poureth bliss
In this craving soul of mine,
And my heart her flower-cup
    Lifteth up,
Thirsting for the draught divine.


Swift the liquid golden flame
    Through my frame
Sets my throbbing veins afire.
Bright, alluring dreams arise,
    Brim mine eyes
With the tears of strong desi...

In paths untrodden,
In the growth by margins of pond-waters,
Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,
From all the standards hitherto publish'd - from the pleasures, profits, eruditions, conformities,
Which too long I was offering to feed my soul;
Clear to me, now, standards not yet publish'd - clear to me that my Soul,
That the Soul of the man I speak for, feeds, rejoices most in comrades;
Here, by myself, away from the clank of the world,
Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic,
No longer abash'd - for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere,
Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest,
Resolv'd to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment,
Projecting them along that substantial life,
Bequeat...

Full many a dreary hour have I past,
My brain bewildered, and my mind o'ercast
With heaviness; in seasons when I've thought
No spherey strains by me could e'er be caught
From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze
On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays;
Or, on the wavy grass outstretched supinely,
Pry 'mong the stars, to strive to think divinely:
That I should never hear Apollo's song,
Though feathery clouds were floating all along
The purple west, and, two bright streaks between,
The golden lyre itself were dimly seen:
That the still murmur of the honey bee
Would never teach a rural song to me:
That the bright glance from beauty's eyelids slanting
Would never make a lay of mine enchanting,
Or warm my breast with ardour to unfold
Some tale of lov...

I

O goat-foot God of Arcady!
This modern world is grey and old,
And what remains to us of thee?

No more the shepherd lads in glee
Throw apples at thy wattled fold,
O goat-foot God of Arcady!

Nor through the laurels can one see
Thy soft brown limbs, thy beard of gold,
And what remains to us of thee?

And dull and dead our Thames would be,
For here the winds are chill and cold,
O goat-foot God of Arcady!

Then keep the tomb of Helice,
Thine olive-woods, thy vine-clad wold,
And what remains to us of thee?

Though many an unsung elegy
Sleeps in the reeds our rivers hold,
O goat-foot God of Arcady!
Ah, what remains to us of thee?

II

Ah, leave the hills of Arcady,
Thy satyrs and their wanton ...

"Why urge the long, unequal fight,
Since Truth has fallen in the street,
Or lift anew the trampled light,
Quenched by the heedless million's feet?
"Give o'er the thankless task; forsake
The fools who know not ill from good:
Eat, drink, enjoy thy own, and take
Thine ease among the multitude.
"Live out thyself; with others share
Thy proper life no more; assume
The unconcern of sun and air,
For life or death, or blight or bloom.
"The mountain pine looks calmly on
The fires that scourge the plains below,
Nor heeds the eagle in the sun
The small birds piping in the snow!
"The world is God's, not thine; let Him
Work out a change, if change must be:
The hand that planted best can trim
And nurse the old unfruitful tree."
So spake the Tempter, when ...

Where the Great Lake's sunny smiles
Dimple round its hundred isles,
And the mountain's granite ledge
Cleaves the water like a wedge,
Ringed about with smooth, gray stones,
Rest the giant's mighty bones.

Close beside, in shade and gleam,
Laughs and ripples Melvin stream;
Melvin water, mountain-born,
All fair flowers its banks adorn;
All the woodland's voices meet,
Mingling with its murmurs sweet.

Over lowlands forest-grown,
Over waters island-strown,
Over silver-sanded beach,
Leaf-locked bay and misty reach,
Melvin stream and burial-heap,
Watch and ward the mountains keep.

Who that Titan cromlech fills?
Forest-kaiser, lord o' the hills?
Knight who on the birchen tree
Carved his savage heraldry?
Priest o' the pine-...

Bright on the banners of lily and rose
Lo! the last sun of our century sets!
Wreathe the black cannon that scowled on our foes,
All but her friendships the nation forgets
All but her friends and their welcome forgets!
These are around her; but where are her foes?
Lo, while the sun of her century sets,
Peace with her garlands of lily and rose!

Welcome! a shout like the war trumpet's swell
Wakes the wild echoes that slumber around
Welcome! it quivers from Liberty's bell;
Welcome! the walls of her temple resound!
Hark! the gray walls of her temple resound
Fade the far voices o'er hillside and dell;
Welcome! still whisper the echoes around;
Welcome I still trembles on Liberty's bell!

Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea
Yours are the garlan...

    (After Robert Schumann.)


    Prelude.


Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July
    Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea:
    Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky.
Shall we not call him Prospero who held
    In his enchanted hands the fateful key
    Of that tempestuous hour's mystery,
And with him to wander by a sun-bright shore,
    To hear fine, fairy voices, and to fly
With disembodied Ariel once more
    Above earth's wrack and ruin?    Far and nigh
The laughter of the thunder echoed loud,
And harmless lightnings leapt from cloud to cloud.



    I.


Floating upon a swelling wave of sound,
    We seemed to overlook an endless sea:
    Poi...

The day's sharp strife is ended now,
Our work is done, God knoweth how!
As on the thronged, unrestful town
The patience of the moon looks down,
I wait to hear, beside the wire,
The voices of its tongues of fire.
Slow, doubtful, faint,they seem at first:
Be strong, my heart, to know the worst!
Hark! there the Alleghanies spoke;
That sound from lake and prairie broke,
That sunset-gun of triumph rent
The silence of a continent!
That signal from Nebraska sprung,
This, from Nevada's mountain tongue!
Is that thy answer, strong and free,
O loyal heart of Tennessee?
What strange, glad voice is that which calls
From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls?
From Mississippi's fountain-head
A sound as of the hisoh's tread!
There rustled freedom's Charter Oa...

Thou who singest through the earth,
    All the earth's wild creatures fly thee,
Everywhere thou marrest mirth.
    Dumbly they defy thee.
There is something they deny thee.

Pines thy fallen nature ever
For the unfallen Nature sweet.
But she shuns thy long endeavour,
    Though her flowers and wheat
Throng and press thy pausing feet.

Though thou tame a bird to love thee,
Press thy face to grass and flowers,
All these things reserve above thee
    Secrets in the bowers,
Secrets in the sun and showers.

Sing thy sorrow, sing thy gladness.
In thy songs must wind and tree
Bear the fictions of thy sadness,
    Thy humanity.
For their truth is not for thee.

Wait, and many a secret nest,
Many a hoarded winter-store

Look! the round-cheeked moon floats high,
In the glowing August sky,
Quenching all her neighbor stars,
Save the steady flame of Mars.
White as silver shines the sea,
Far-off sails like phantoms be,
Gliding o'er that lake of light,
Vanishing in nether night.
Heavy hangs the tasseled corn,
Sighing for the cordial morn;
But the marshy-meadows bare,
Love this spectral-lighted air,
Drink the dews and lift their song,
Chirp of crickets all night long;
Earth and sea enchanted lie
'Neath that moon-usurped sky.


To the faces of our friends
Unfamiliar traits she lends -
Quaint, white witch, who looketh down
With a glamour all her own.
Hushed are laughter, jest, and speech,
Mute and heedless each of each,
In the glory wan we sit,<...

Proudly, beneath her glittering dome,
Our three-hilled city greets the morn;
Here Freedom found her virgin home, -
The Bethlehem where her babe was born.

The lordly roofs of traffic rise
Amid the smoke of household fires;
High o'er them in the peaceful skies
Faith points to heaven her clustering spires.

Can Freedom breathe if ignorance reign?
Shall Commerce thrive where anarchs rule?
Will Faith her half-fledged brood retain
If darkening counsels cloud the school?

Let in the light! from every age
Some gleams of garnered wisdom pour,
And, fixed on thought's electric page,
Wait all their radiance to restore.

Let in the light! in diamond mines
Their gems invite the hand that delves;
So learning's treasured jewels shine
Ranged...

How strange, in some brief interval of rest,
    Backward to look on her far-stretching past.
To see how much is conquered and repressed,
    How much is gained in victory at last!
The shadow is not lifted, - but her faith,
Strong from life's miracles, now turns toward death.


Though much be dark where once rare splendor shone,
    Yet the new light has touched high peaks unguessed
In her gold, mist-bathed dawn, and one by one
    New outlooks loom from many a mountain crest.
She breathes a loftier, purer atmosphere,
And life's entangled paths grow straight and clear.


Nor will Death prove an all-unwelcome guest;
    The struggle has been toilsome to this end,
Sleep will be sweet, and after labor rest,
    And all will be atoned with him to fr...

Under the high unclouded sun
That makes the ship and shadow one,
    I sail away as from the fort
Booms sullenly the noonday gun.

The odorous airs blow thin and fine,
The sparkling waves like emeralds shine,
    The lustre of the coral reefs
Gleams whitely through the tepid brine.

And glitters o'er the liquid miles
The jewelled ring of verdant isles,
    Where generous Nature holds her court
Of ripened bloom and sunny smiles.

Encinctured by the faithful seas
Inviolate gardens load the breeze,
    Where flaunt like giant-warders' plumes
The pennants of the cocoa-trees.

Enthroned in light and bathed in balm,
In lonely majesty the Palm
    Blesses the isles with waving hands, -
High-Priest of the eternal Calm.

Yet...

STR. 1

I laid my laurel-leaf
At the white feet of grief,
Seeing how with covered face and plumeless wings,
With unreverted head
Veiled, as who mourns his dead,
Lay Freedom couched between the thrones of kings,
A wearied lion without lair,
And bleeding from base wounds, and vexed with alien air.



STR. 2

Who was it, who, put poison to thy mouth,
Who lulled with craft or chant thy vigilant eyes,
O light of all men, lamp to north and south,
Eastward and westward, under all men’s skies?
For if thou sleep, we perish, and thy name
Dies with the dying of our ephemeral breath;
And if the dust of death o’ergrows thy flame,
Heaven also is darkened with the dust of death.
If thou be mortal, if thou change or cease,
If thine hand...

What man is there so bold that he should say,
"Thus, and thus only, would I have the sea"?
For whether lying calm and beautiful,
Clasping the earth in love, and throwing back
The smile of heaven from waves of amethyst;
Or whether, freshened by the busy winds,
It bears the trade and navies of the world
To ends of use or stern activity;
Or whether, lashed by tempests, it gives way
To elemental fury, howls and roars
At all its rocky barriers, in wild lust
Of ruin drinks the blood of living things,
And strews its wrecks o'er leagues of desolate shore, -
Always it is the sea, and men bow down
Before its vast and varied majesty.

So all in vain will timorous ones essay
To set the metes and bounds of Liberty.
For Freedom is its own eternal law;
It make...

Lo! Victress on the peaks!
Where thou, with mighty brow, regarding the world,
(The world, O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee;)
Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all;
Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee,
Flauntest now unharm'd, in immortal soundness and bloom - lo! in these hours supreme,
No poem proud, I, chanting, bring to thee - nor mastery's rapturous verse;
But a book, containing night's darkness, and blood-dripping wounds,
And psalms of the dead.