This vision comes to me when I unfold The volume of the Poet paramount, Whom all the Muses loved, not one alone;--Into his hands they put the lyre of gold, And, crowned with sacred laurel at their fount, Placed him as Musagetes on their throne.
MILTON
I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold How the voluminous billows roll and run, Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled, And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold All its loose-flowing garments into one, Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold.
So in majestic cadence rise and fall The mighty undulations of thy song, O sightless bard, England's Maeonides!
And ever and anon, high over all Uplifted, a ninth wave superb and strong, Floods all the soul with its melodious seas.
KEATS
The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep;The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told!
The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold To the red rising moon, and loud and deep The nightingale is singing from the steep;It is midsummer, but the air is cold;
Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep.
Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white, On which I read: "Here lieth one whose name Was writ in water." And was this the meed Of his sweet singing? Rather let me write:
"The smoking flax before it burst to flame Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed."THE GALAXY
Torrent of light and river of the air, Along whose bed the glimmering stars are seen Like gold and silver sands in some ravine Where mountain streams have left their channels bare!
The Spaniard sees in thee the pathway, where His patron saint descended in the sheen Of his celestial armor, on serene And quiet nights, when all the heavens were fair.
Not this I see, nor yet the ancient fable Of Phaeton's wild course, that scorched the skies Where'er the hoofs of his hot coursers trod;But the white drift of worlds o'er chasms of sable, The star-dust that is whirled aloft and flies From the invisible chariot-wheels of God.
THE SOUND OF THE SEA
The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep, And round the pebbly beaches far and wide I heard the first wave of the rising tide Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;A voice out of the silence of the deep, A sound mysteriously multiplied As of a cataract from the mountain's side, Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.
So comes to us at times, from the unknown And inaccessible solitudes of being, The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;And inspirations, that we deem our own, Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing Of things beyond our reason or control.
A SUMMER DAY BY THE SEA
The sun is set; and in his latest beams Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold, Slowly upon the amber air unrolled, The falling mantle of the Prophet seems.
From the dim headlands many a lighthouse gleams, The street-lamps of the ocean; and behold, O'erhead the banners of the night unfold;The day hath passed into the land of dreams.
O summer day beside the joyous sea!
O summer day so wonderful and white, So full of gladness and so full of pain!
Forever and forever shalt thou be To some the gravestone of a dead delight, To some the landmark of a new domain.
THE TIDES
I saw the long line of the vacant shore, The sea-weed and the shells upon the sand, And the brown rocks left bare on every hand, As if the ebbing tide would flow no more.
Then heard I, more distinctly than before, The ocean breathe and its great breast expand, And hurrying came on the defenceless land The insurgent waters with tumultuous roar.
All thought and feeling and desire, I said, Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of song Have ebbed from me forever! Suddenly o'er me They swept again from their deep ocean bed, And in a tumult of delight, and strong As youth, and beautiful as youth, upbore me.
A SHADOW
I said unto myself, if I were dead, What would befall these children? What would be Their fate, who now are looking up to me For help and furtherance? Their lives, I said, Would be a volume wherein I have read But the first chapters, and no longer see To read the rest of their dear history, So full of beauty and so full of dread.
Be comforted; the world is very old, And generations pass, as they have passed, A troop of shadows moving with the sun;Thousands of times has the old tale been told;The world belongs to those who come the last, They will find hope and strength as we have done.
A NAMELESS GRAVE
"A soldier of the Union mustered out,"
Is the inscription on an unknown grave At Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave, Nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout Of battle, when the loud artillery drave Its iron wedges through the ranks of brave And doomed battalions, storming the redoubt.
Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea In thy forgotten grave! with secret shame I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn, When I remember thou hast given for me All that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name, And I can give thee nothing in return.
SLEEP
Lull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound Seems from some faint Aeolian harp-string caught;Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound;For I am weary, and am overwrought With too much toil, with too much care distraught, And with the iron crown of anguish crowned.
Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek, O peaceful Sleep! until from pain released I breathe again uninterrupted breath!
Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast Whereof the greater mystery is death!
THE OLD BRIDGE AT FLORENCE