Life

If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom
Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,
Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But are their whole of being! If the breath
Be Life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton's can know death;
O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!
Surplus of Nature's dread activity,
Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
She formed with restless hands unconsciously.
Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!
If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears,
The counter-weights! Thy laughter and thy tears
Mean but themselves, eac...

Time's finger on the dial of my life
Points to high noon! and yet the half-spent day
Leaves less than half remaining, for the dark,
Bleak shadows of the grave engulf the end.
To those who burn the candle to the stick,
The sputtering socket yields but little light.
Long life is sadder than an early death.
We cannot count on ravelled threads of age
Whereof to weave a fabric.    We must use
The warp and woof the ready present yields
And toil while daylight lasts.    When I bethink
How brief the past, the future, still more brief
Calls on to action, action!    Not for me
Is time for retrospection or for dreams,
Not time for self-laudation or remorse.
Have I done nobly?    Then I must not let
Dead yesterday unborn to-morrow shame.
Have I done wrong?    Well, l...

    Youth has no fear of ill, by no cloudy days annoyed,
    But the old man's all hath fled, and his hopes have met their doom:
    The bud hath burst to flower, and the flower been long destroyed,
    The root also is withered; I no more can look for bloom.
    So I have said my say, and I have had my day,
    And sorrow, like a young storm, creeps dark upon my brow;
    Hopes, like to summer clouds, have all blown far away,
    And the world's sunny side is turned over with me now,
    And I am left a lame bird upon a withered bough.

    I look upon the past: 't is as black as winter days,
    But the worst is not yet over; there are blacker, days to come.
    O, I would I had but known of the wide world's many ways,
    But youth is ever blind, so I e'en must meet my do...

I

Between extremities
Man runs his course;
A brand, or flaming breath.
Comes to destroy
All those antinomies
Of day and night;
The body calls it death,
The heart remorse.
But if these be right
What is joy?


II

A tree there is that from its topmost bough
Is half all glittering flame and half all green
Abounding foliage moistened with the dew;
And half is half and yet is all the scene;
And half and half consume what they renew,
And he that Attis' image hangs between
That staring fury and the blind lush leaf
May know not what he knows, but knows not grief


III

Get all the gold and silver that you can,
Satisfy ambition, animate
The trivial days and ram them with the sun,
And yet upon t...

I feel the great immensity of life.
All little aims slip from me, and I reach
My yearning soul toward the Infinite.

As when a mighty forest, whose green leaves
Have shut it in, and made it seem a bower
For lovers' secrets, or for children's sports,
Casts all its clustering foliage to the winds,
And lets the eye behold it, limitless,
And full of winding mysteries of ways:
So now with life that reaches out before,
And borders on the unexplained Beyond.

I see the stars above me, world on world:
I hear the awful language of all Space;
I feel the distant surging of great seas,
That hide the secrets of the Universe
In their eternal bosoms; and I know
That I am but an atom of the Whole.

Filled is Life's goblet to the brim;
And though my eyes with tears are dim,
I see its sparkling bubbles swim,
And chant a melancholy hymn
    With solemn voice and slow.

No purple flowers,--no garlands green,
Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen,
Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,
Like gleams of sunshine, flash between
    Thick leaves of mistletoe.

This goblet, wrought with curious art,
Is filled with waters, that upstart,
When the deep fountains of the heart,
By strong convulsions rent apart,
    Are running all to waste.

And as it mantling passes round,
With fennel is it wreathed and crowned,
Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned
Are in its waters steeped and drowned,
    And give a bitter taste.

Above the lowly ...

Of our own selves God makes a glass, wherein
Two shadows image them as might a breath:
And one is Life, whose other name is Sin;
And one is Love, whose other name is Death.

    My honoured colonel, deep I feel
    Your interest in the Poet's weal;
    Ah! now sma' heart hae I to speel
        The steep Parnassus,
    Surrounded thus by bolus, pill,
        And potion glasses.

    O what a canty warld were it,
    Would pain and care and sickness spare it;
    And fortune favour worth and merit,
        As they deserve!
    (And aye a rowth, roast beef and claret;
        Syne, wha wad starve?)

    Dame Life, tho' fiction out may trick her,
    And in paste gems and frippery deck her;
    Oh! flickering, feeble, and unsicker
        I've found her still,
    Ay wavering like the willow-wicker,
        'Tween good and ill.

    Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan,
    Watches, like baudrons by a r...

The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
(Wordsworth, “My Heart Leaps Up”)

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day.
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare,
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

N...

Time's finger on the dial of my life
Points to high noon! and yet the half-spent day
Leaves less than half remaining, for the dark,
Bleak shadows of the grave engulf the end.

To those who burn the candle to the stick,
The sputtering socket yields but little light.
Long life is sadder than an early death.
We cannot count on raveled threads of age
Whereof to weave a fabric. We must use
The warp and woof the ready present yields
And toil while daylight lasts. When I bethink
How brief the past, the future still more brief,
Calls on to action, action! Not for me
Is time for retrospection or for dreams,
Not time for self-laudation or remorse.
Have I done nobly? Then I must not let
Dead yesterday unborn to-morrow shame.
Have I done wrong? Well, let the bit...

A dream that waketh,
Bubble that breaketh,
Song whose burden sigheth,
A passing breath,
Smoke that vanisheth, -
Such is life that dieth.

A flower that fadeth,
Fruit the tree sheddeth,
Trackless bird that flieth,
Summer time brief,
Falling of the leaf, -
Such is life that dieth.

A scent exhaling,
Snow waters failing,
Morning dew that drieth,
A windy blast,
Lengthening shadows cast, -
Such is life that dieth.

A scanty measure,
Rust-eaten treasure,
Spending that nought buyeth,
Moth on the wing,
Toil unprofiting, -
Such is life that dieth.

Morrow by morrow
Sorrow breeds sorrow,
For this my song sigheth;
From day to night
We lapse out of sight, -
Such is life that dieth.

I. Spirit's House

From naked stones of agony
I will build a house for me;
As a mason all alone
I will raise it, stone by stone,
And every stone where I have bled
Will show a sign of dusky red.
I have not gone the way in vain,
For I have good of all my pain;
My spirit's quiet house will be
Built of naked stones I trod
On roads where I lost sight of God.

II. Mastery

I would not have a god come in
To shield me suddenly from sin,
And set my house of life to rights;
Nor angels with bright burning wings
Ordering my earthly thoughts and things;
Rather my own frail guttering lights
Wind blown and nearly beaten out;
Rather the terror of the nights
And long, sick groping after doubt;
Rather be lost than let my soul
Sl...

From Recollections of Early Childhood

The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.


I

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.


II

The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there ha...

I.

His eyes found nothing beautiful and bright,
Nor wealth nor, honour, glory nor delight,
Which he could grasp and keep with might and right.

Flowers bloomed for maidens, swords outflashed for boys,
The world’s big children had their various toys;
He could not feel their sorrows and their joys.

Hills held a secret they would not unfold,
In careless scorn of him the ocean rolled,
The stars were alien splendours high and cold.

He felt himself a king bereft of crown,
Defrauded from his birthright of renown,
Bred up in littleness with churl and clown.



II.

How could he vindicate himself? His eyes,
That found not anywhere their proper prize,
Looked through and through the specious earth and skies,

They prob...

All in the dark we grope along,
    And if we go amiss
We learn at least which path is wrong,
    And there is gain in this.

We do not always win the race
    By only running right;
We have to tread the mountain's base
    Before we reach its height.

The Christs alone no errors made;
    So often had they trod
The paths that lead through light and shade,
    They had become as God.

As Krishna, Buddha, Christ again,
    They passed along the way,
And left those mighty truths which men
    But dimly grasp to-day.

But he who loves himself the last
    And knows the use of pain,
Though strewn with errors all his past,
    He surely shall attain.

Some souls there are that needs must taste
    Of wrong, ere choo...

[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...

Vast was the wealth I carried in life's pack -
    Youth, health, ambition, hope and trust; but Time
    And Fate, those robbers fit for any crime,
Stole all, and left me but the empty sack.
Before me lay a long and lonely track
    Of darkling hills and barren steeps to climb;
    Behind me lay in shadows the sublime
Lost lands of Love's delight.    Alack!    Alack!

Unwearied, and with springing steps elate,
    I had conveyed my wealth along the road.
    The empty sack proved now a heavier load:
I was borne down beneath its worthless weight.
I stumbled on, and knocked at Death's dark gate.
    There was no answer.    Stung by sorrow's goad
    I forced my way into that grim abode,
And laughed, and flung Life's empty sack to Fate.

Unknown ...

        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 ...