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NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

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   10 Ralph Waldo Emerson
   9 Rick Riordan
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1:We find ourselves in this earth as in a tempestuous sea, in a desert, in a vale of tears. Now then, Mary is the Star of the Sea, the solace of our desert, the light that guides us towards heaven." ~ Saint John Bosco,

2:No thought is vain; our very dreams Substantial are; The light we see in fancy, yonder gleams In the star. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Rishi,

3:Be patient, as one who fears no check and does not court success. Fix the gaze of thy soul on the star of which thou art the ray, the flaming star which burns in the obscure depths of the eternal, in the limitless fields of the unknown. ~ Book of Golden Precepts, the Eternal Wisdom

4:Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. ~ Albert Einstein, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein,

5:A DEVOTEE: "Sir, how can one see God?" MASTER: "Can you ever see God if you do not direct your whole mind toward Him? The Bhagavata speaks about Sukadeva. When he walked about he looked like a soldier with fixed bayonet. His gaze did not wander; it had only one goal and that was God. This is the meaning of yoga. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, 2.08 - AT THE STAR THEATRE (II),

6:Through its fiery swoon or clotted knot Rain-tide burst in upon torn wings of heat, Startled with lightnings air's unquiet drowse, Lashed with life-giving streams the torpid soil, Overcast with flare and sound and storm-winged dark The star-defe ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Birth and Childhood of the Flame,

7:The architect of the visible world, At once the art and artist of his works, Spirit and seer and thinker of things seen, Virat, who lights his camp-fires in the suns And the star-entangled ether is his hold, Expressed himself with Matter for his ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day, The Soul's Choice and the Supreme Consummation,

8:The Real made me contemplate the light of the veils as the star of strong backing rose, and He said to me, "Do you know how many veils I have veiled you with?" "No", I replied. He said, "With seventy veils. Even if you raise them you will not see Me, and if you do not raise them you will not see Me." "If you raise them you will see Me and if you do not raise them you will see Me." "Take care of burning yourself!" "You are My sight, so have faith. You are My Face, so veil yourself" ~ Ibn Arabi,

9:SECTION 1. Books for Serious Study    Liber CCXX. (Liber AL vel Legis.) The Book of the Law. This book is the foundation of the New Æon, and thus of the whole of our work.    The Equinox. The standard Work of Reference in all occult matters. The Encyclopaedia of Initiation.    Liber ABA (Book 4). A general account in elementary terms of magical and mystical powers. In four parts: (1) Mysticism (2) Magical (Elementary Theory) (3) Magick in Theory and Practice (this book) (4) The Law.    Liber II. The Message of the Master Therion. Explains the essence of the new Law in a very simple manner.    Liber DCCCXXXVIII. The Law of Liberty. A further explanation of The Book of the Law in reference to certain ethical problems.    Collected Works of A. Crowley. These works contain many mystical and magical secrets, both stated clearly in prose, and woven into the Robe of sublimest poesy.    The Yi King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XVI], Oxford University Press.) The "Classic of Changes"; give the initiated Chinese system of Magick.    The Tao Teh King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XXXIX].) Gives the initiated Chinese system of Mysticism.    Tannhäuser, by A. Crowley. An allegorical drama concerning the Progress of the Soul; the Tannhäuser story slightly remodelled.    The Upanishads. (S. B. E. Series [vols. I & XV.) The Classical Basis of Vedantism, the best-known form of Hindu Mysticism.    The Bhagavad-gita. A dialogue in which Krishna, the Hindu "Christ", expounds a system of Attainment.    The Voice of the Silence, by H.P. Blavatsky, with an elaborate commentary by Frater O.M. Frater O.M., 7°=48, is the most learned of all the Brethren of the Order; he has given eighteen years to the study of this masterpiece.    Raja-Yoga, by Swami Vivekananda. An excellent elementary study of Hindu mysticism. His Bhakti-Yoga is also good.    The Shiva Samhita. An account of various physical means of assisting the discipline of initiation. A famous Hindu treatise on certain physical practices.    The Hathayoga Pradipika. Similar to the Shiva Samhita.    The Aphorisms of Patanjali. A valuable collection of precepts pertaining to mystical attainment.    The Sword of Song. A study of Christian theology and ethics, with a statement and solution of the deepest philosophical problems. Also contains the best account extant of Buddhism, compared with modern science.    The Book of the Dead. A collection of Egyptian magical rituals.    Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Levi. The best general textbook of magical theory and practice for beginners. Written in an easy popular style.    The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. The best exoteric account of the Great Work, with careful instructions in procedure. This Book influenced and helped the Master Therion more than any other.    The Goetia. The most intelligible of all the mediæval rituals of Evocation. Contains also the favourite Invocation of the Master Therion.    Erdmann's History of Philosophy. A compendious account of philosophy from the earliest times. Most valuable as a general education of the mind.    The Spiritual Guide of [Miguel de] Molinos. A simple manual of Christian Mysticism.    The Star in the West. (Captain Fuller). An introduction to the study of the Works of Aleister Crowley.    The Dhammapada. (S. B. E. Series [vol. X], Oxford University Press). The best of the Buddhist classics.    The Questions of King Milinda. (S. B. E. Series [vols. XXXV & XXXVI].) Technical points of Buddhist dogma, illustrated bydialogues.    Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mysticæ Viæ Explicandæ, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicam Sanctissimorum Scientiæ Summæ. A complete Dictionary of the Correspondences of all magical elements, reprinted with extensive additions, making it the only standard comprehensive book of reference ever published. It is to the language of Occultism what Webster or Murray is to the English language.    Varieties of Religious Experience (William James). Valuable as showing the uniformity of mystical attainment.    Kabbala Denudata, von Rosenroth: also The Kabbalah Unveiled, by S.L. Mathers. The text of the Qabalah, with commentary. A good elementary introduction to the subject.    Konx Om Pax [by Aleister Crowley]. Four invaluable treatises and a preface on Mysticism and Magick.    The Pistis Sophia [translated by G.R.S. Mead or Violet McDermot]. An admirable introduction to the study of Gnosticism.    The Oracles of Zoroaster [Chaldæan Oracles]. An invaluable collection of precepts mystical and magical.    The Dream of Scipio, by Cicero. Excellent for its Vision and its Philosophy.    The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, by Fabre d'Olivet. An interesting study of the exoteric doctrines of this Master.    The Divine Pymander, by Hermes Trismegistus. Invaluable as bearing on the Gnostic Philosophy.    The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, reprint of Franz Hartmann. An invaluable compendium.    Scrutinium Chymicum [Atalanta Fugiens]¸ by Michael Maier. One of the best treatises on alchemy.    Science and the Infinite, by Sidney Klein. One of the best essays written in recent years.    Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus [A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus &c. &c. &c.], by Richard Payne Knight [and Thomas Wright]. Invaluable to all students.    The Golden Bough, by J.G. Frazer. The textbook of Folk Lore. Invaluable to all students.    The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Excellent, though elementary, as a corrective to superstition.    Rivers of Life, by General Forlong. An invaluable textbook of old systems of initiation.    Three Dialogues, by Bishop Berkeley. The Classic of Subjective Idealism.    Essays of David Hume. The Classic of Academic Scepticism.    First Principles by Herbert Spencer. The Classic of Agnosticism.    Prolegomena [to any future Metaphysics], by Immanuel Kant. The best introduction to Metaphysics.    The Canon [by William Stirling]. The best textbook of Applied Qabalah.    The Fourth Dimension, by [Charles] H. Hinton. The best essay on the subject.    The Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley. Masterpieces of philosophy, as of prose.    ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Appendix I: Literature Recommended to Aspirants

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:They found the new Messiah by the star. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove

2:The team is the star, never an individual player. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove

3:Disneyland is the star, everything else is in the supporting role. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove

4:The star of the team IS the team. &

5:Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches had bellies with stars. The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars. ~ dr-seuss, @wisdomtrove

6:There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, &

7:Let me light my lamp", says the star, "And never debate if it will help to remove the darkness ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove

8:Maybe the star doesnt even exist any more.Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove

9:Stop holding back and start to strut your stuff. You’re the star of the show, so put in the performance of a lifetime! ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove

10:Every moment of the night Forever changing places And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove

11:Then holding the star aloft and the bright sword advanced, Frodo, hobbit of the Shire, walked steadily down to meet the eyes. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove

12:The star of the unconquered will, He rises in my breast, Serene, and resolute, and still, And calm, and self-possessed. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove

13:Nothing can match the wonderment that comes from staring up into the star-filled canopy above and realizing that you are a part of that creation. ~ tim-ferris, @wisdomtrove

14:Once you understand this, you can stop holding back and start to strut your stuff. You're the star of the show, so put in the performance of a lifetime! ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove

15:Though the day of my Destiny &

16:The wind blows out, the bubble dies; The spring entomb'd in autumn lies; The dew dries up; the star is shot; The flight is past, and man forgot. ~ oliver-wendell-holmes-jr, @wisdomtrove

17:Even when I am gone, I shall remain in people's minds the star of their rights, my name will be the war cry of their efforts, the motto of their hopes. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove

18:The greatest ally you have to get things working well and the players performing as a team is the bench. Don't be afraid to use it, either for the star player or anyone else. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove

19:To any who know the star field well from one certain reference point, stars are as individual as people. Jump ten parsecs, however, and not even your own sun is recognizable. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove

20:It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust,“we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. ~ albert-einstein, @wisdomtrove

21:Each one of us is the hero of our own movie. Isn’t that great?! I’m a walk-on part in your movie. Other people get to play the romantic interest or comic sidekick. But you’re the star who’s in every scene. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove

22:In order to find Jesus, every one of us needs direction. God gives it. The story of the wise men shows us how. The star sign was enough to lead the magi to Jerusalem. But it took Scripture to lead them to Jesus. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove

23:The ‘I am’ is common to us all; beyond the ‘I am’ there is the immensity of light and love. We do not see it because we look elsewhere; I can only point at the sky; seeing of the star is your own work. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove

24:Then he [The Star Child] waited, marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something. ~ arthur-c-carke, @wisdomtrove

25:We take the star from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove

26:If I look at my own experience, Tim is clearly the hero of the story. He’s the star of the show. Other people come and go, but Tim is in every scene. His wife Debbie plays romantic love interest. His best mate Pete plays comic sidekick. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove

27:Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star. It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove

28:It's like a pulsar inside me. There is this great burst of energy, forcing me to write, and then the star goes quiet for a time, and I think it's gone, but it's gathering energy for another burst. And I seem to be almost unwilling participants in this. ~ richard-bach, @wisdomtrove

29:Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust." And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove

30:Matthew loved the magi. He gave their story more square inches of text than he gave the narrative of the birth of Jesus. He never mentions the shepherds or the manger, but he didn't want us to miss the star and the seekers. It's easy to see why. Their story is our story. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove

31:Where roads are made I lose my way.In the wide water, in the blue sky there is no line of a track.The pathway is hidden by the birds' wings, by the star-fires, by the flowers of the wayfaring seasons.And I ask my heart if its blood carries the wisdom of the unseen way. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove

32:But it’s also important to remember that everyone is the star of the show from a different perspective. You need to play a positive part in other people’s story lines, as well as inviting them to play a positive part in your story line. Then we’ll all enjoy this adventure of life. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove

33:When I understand that I am both an irrelevant speck and the star of the show, it makes me feel both humble and empowered. I want to encourage you both to be conscious of the oneness of being and to feel empowered as a unique individual who is the hero of your amazing life adventure. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove

34:Man is slightly nearer to the atom than to the star. … From his central position man can survey the grandest works of Nature with the astronomer, or the minutest works with the physicist. … [K]nowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars. ~ sir-arthur-eddington, @wisdomtrove

35:If I look at my own experience Tim is clearly the hero of the life story. He’s the star of the show. Other people come and go, but Tim is in every scene. His wife, Debbie, plays romantic love interest. His best mate, Pete, plays comic sidekick. There’s a whole load of extras who figure now and then. But Tim’s the main man. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove

36:Man is slightly nearer to the atom than to the star. ... From his central position man can survey the grandest works of Nature with the astronomer, or the minutest works with the physicist. ... [K]nowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars. ~ sir-arthur-eddington, @wisdomtrove

37:Every one is struggling for freedom-from the atom to the star. The ignorant man is satisfied if he can get freedom within a certain limit-if he can get rid of the bondage of hunger or of being thirsty. But that sage feels that there is a stronger bondage which has to be thrown off. He would not consider the freedom of the Red Indian as freedom at all. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove

38:As I sit here bathing in the warm night air, I feel washed by the ebb and flow of the polarities of existence. I'm immersed in the mystery and I'm contemplating my story. I have a timeless perspective on a temporary world. I'm the presence of awareness appreciating the show. I'm insignificant and vulnerable, yet magnificent and secure. I'm a transitory speck of cosmic dust, but I'm the star of the story of Tim. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove

39:Even as a child, she had preferred night to day, had enjoyed sitting out in the yard after sunset, under the star-speckled sky listening to frogs and crickets. Darkness soothed. It softened the sharp edges of the world, toned down the too-harsh colors. With the coming of twilight, the sky seemed to recede; the universe expanded. The night was bigger than the day, and in its realm, life seemed to have more possibilities. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove

40:The paradoxity of life means that every one of us as an individual self is the hero of the story of life. Looked at from one perspective we appear to be irrelevant specks of dust in a vast universe, who are here for a moment and then gone. But from another perspective each one of us is the very centre of the universe. When I understand that I am both an irrelevant speck and the star of the show, it makes me feel both humble and empowered. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove

41:The paradoxity of life means that as a conscious individual each one of us is the hero of the story of life. Looked at from one perspective we appear to be irrelevant specks of dust in a vast universe, who are here for a moment and then gone. But from another perspective everyone is the centre around which the universe revolves. How wonderful! When I understand that I am both an irrelevant speck and the star of the show, it makes me feel both humble and empowered. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove

42:Yet if we would know God and for other's sake tell what we know we must try to speak of his love. All Christians have tried but none has ever done it very well. I can no more do justice to that awesome and wonder-filled theme than a child can grasp a star. Still by reaching toward the star the child may call attention to it and even indicate the direction one must look to see it. So as I stretch my heart toward the high shining love of God someone who has not before known about it may be encouraged to look up and have hope. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove

43:Well for everyone to make a study of astrology for, as indicated, while many individuals have set about to prove the astrological aspects and astrological survey enable one to determine future as well as the past conditions, these are well to the point where the individual understands that these act upon individuals because of their sojourn or correlation of their associations with the environs through which these are shown - see? Rather than the star directing the life, the life of the individual directs the courses of the stars, see? ~ edgar-cayce, @wisdomtrove

44:Time ends. That is the lesson of the “big bang”. It is also the lesson of the black hole, closer at hand and more immediate object of study. The black hole is a completely collapsed object. It is mass without matter. The Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland faded away leaving behind only its grin. A star that falls into an already existing black hole, or that collapses to make a new black hole, fades away. Of the star, of its matter and of its sunspots and solar prominences, all trace disappears. There remains behind only gravitational attraction, the attraction of disembodied mass. ~ john-wheeler, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Call it the Star Gate. ~ Arthur C Clarke,

2:The star-crossed lovers ~ Suzanne Collins,

3:The Star of the Team Is the Team. ~ John Wooden,

4:My wife, the star I steer by. ~ David McCullough,

5:Every day I searched for the star ~ Stevie Wonder,

6:The hero is never the star of the story. ~ Marilyn Manson,

7:The desire of the moth for the star ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley,

8:We are the star and the darkness it peirces ~ Clive Barker,

9:The luck will alter and the star will rise. ~ John Masefield,

10:a mixed blessing, like the Star Wars prequels. ~ Dale E Basye,

11:The bigger the star, the bigger the target. ~ Michael Jackson,

12:Westward the star of empire takes its way. ~ John Quincy Adams,

13:May the star of Bethlehem shine in your path. ~ Samael Aun Weor,

14:I haven't done the Star Wars kind of films. ~ Roger Spottiswoode,

15:Shine Bright Like The Star Wars Jedi You Are. ~ Stephen Richards,

16:C’mon, you know you want to be the star to my burst. ~ K Bromberg,

17:Pray to God and make your heart as pure as the star. ~ Sarada Devi,

18:The star thing, the celebrity thing, is new to me. ~ Jeremy Renner,

19:Like everyone else, he is the star of his own life. ~ Jerry Spinelli,

20:And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, ~ Francis Scott Key,

21:It's good to kind of get away from the star treatment. ~ Jackie Evancho,

22:Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light. ~ Pythagoras,

23:I don't read books. I read the Daily Express and The Star. ~ Tim Sherwood,

24:A designer is only as good as the star who wears her clothes. ~ Edith Head,

25:I wake up every morning singing The Star-Spangled Banner. ~ Terry McAuliffe,

26:Life is a movie, and you're the star. Give it a happy ending. ~ Joan Rivers,

27:tax. When the star stops generating energy, it will collapse. ~ David Christian,

28:Disneyland is the star, everything else is in the supporting role. ~ Walt Disney,

29:If you don't love all the Star Wars movies, you're not a true fan. ~ Kyle Newman,

30:Brooks understood more than ever that she was the star of his life. ~ Lauren Kate,

31:I was only kicking down the Christmas tree to get the star on top. ~ Ray Bradbury,

32:The first female captain in the history of the Star Trek franchise, ~ Kate Mulgrew,

33:you have been the star of each & every one of my nightmares. ~ Amanda Lovelace,

34:From a Himmel Street window, he wrote, the star set fire to my eyes. ~ Markus Zusak,

35:It hurts, I know, but to hold the star in your hand is worth the pain. ~ Staci Hart,

36:I’ve been bathing in the poem of the star-steeped milky flowing sea, ~ Ted Berrigan,

37:In America, people focus on the end result; they focus on the star. ~ Joshua Waitzkin,

38:Son, may you be the star in the sky of knowledge,’ he used to say. We ~ Malala Yousafzai,

39:Smokin weed on the star projectors, I guess we'll never know what Harvard gets us ~ Drake,

40:I needed to become something besides the star everybody had built me up to be. ~ LeAnn Rimes,

41:Powerless But for the star destroyer Unknowing She crash-lands in his heart. ~ Elizabeth Fama,

42:You think I’ll be the dark sky so you can be the star? I’ll swallow you whole. ~ Warsan Shire,

43:As far as my notoriety or whatever, I haven't been the star of a hit film. ~ Alessandro Nivola,

44:can’t be the star in your sky when you’re the only star left shining in mine. ~ Kristen Ashley,

45:It’s easier to be a character in a story than the star of your own tragedy. ~ Jonathan Maberry,

46:You are not an extra in somebody else's film. You are the star in your own life. ~ Faye Dunaway,

47:I can’t be the star in your sky when you’re the only star left shining in mine. ~ Kristen Ashley,

48:In your head, you’re the star of an epic movie based on your amazing fucking life.  ~ Bryan Smith,

49:Long life will sometimes obscure the star of fame. ~ Marie de Rabutin Chantal marquise de Sevigne,

50:Though the day of my destiny’s over, And the star of my fate has declined. —Lord Byron ~ M C Beaton,

51:But the truth is, the star was just on the sidewalk. Where people walk right over it. ~ Ava Dellaira,

52:God is seen God In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod. ~ Robert Browning,

53:I started doing the star turn and making a profit off it. Now I'm kind of one of them. ~ David Spade,

54:There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ~ Virginia Woolf,

55:Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light. Above all things reverence thyself. ~ Pythagoras,

56:You can keep your privacy in the world by keeping your product, not your personality, the star. ~ Sarah Lacy,

57:May the Child Jesus be the star that guides you through the desert of your present life. ~ Pio of Pietrelcina,

58:The audience must be sick to death of the star-crossed lovers from District 12. I know I am. ~ Suzanne Collins,

59:At least I don't look like a Christmas tree." "You look like the star atop the tree. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout,

60:Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches had bellies with stars. The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars. ~ Dr Seuss,

61:It's important to credit the brave people that take chances to stand up to regimes. They're the star. ~ Biz Stone,

62:I sing the Star Spangled Banner, so I can get into football, basketball and baseball games for free. ~ John Cullum,

63:The baby, the star, and the wise men: a story of gifts and radical gratitude. Joy to the world! ~ Diana Butler Bass,

64:There is always light," Morgan said quietly. "The star are always shining, even if we can't see them. ~ Chloe Neill,

65:You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada. ~ Ernest Cline,

66:Let me light my lamp", says the star, "And never debate if it will help to remove the darkness ~ Rabindranath Tagore,

67:I remember Berlin. Berlin to me was the star of the film. I loved for six months that we filmed there. ~ Marton Csokas,

68:The boy can do anything, but to be the star of the World Cup you have got to get to the final and win it! ~ Alan Hansen,

69:The heart needs not for its heaven much space, nor many stars therein, if only the star of love has arisen. ~ Jean Paul,

70:Leave the star on top," said an achingly gen­tle, deep voice. "There's al­ready one angel in the room. ~ Judith McNaught,

71:She’s like the star on top of the Christmas tree— that final glittering touch that brings it all together. ~ Carian Cole,

72:Maybe the star doesnt even exist any more.Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything. ~ Haruki Murakami,

73:Jesus Maria,’ the boy says. ‘The star that guides us to Bethlehem. I thought it was an engine for torture. ~ Hilary Mantel,

74:However, neither he nor anyone else could have become the star Elvis was. Ain't nobody like Elvis. Never was. ~ Johnny Cash,

75:I am not the star of a zombie movie. I am the guy in the background who gets eaten in the first montage. ~ David Wong,

76:So, in the morning light, where they flapped in the drying wind, the bear and the star defied the Saxons. ~ Bernard Cornwell,

77:Why would I make you if I meant to limit myself to the ascendant sign, the star, the fire, the fury? ~ Louise Gl ck,

78:Your boy will break it, or waste it, or lose it. They all do." "Nonetheless," said the star, "he has my heart. ~ Neil Gaiman,

79:When we can see the star of desire in our sky, we can use our wings of hope and our air of love to reach it. ~ Imania Margria,

80:I would LOVE to be in the Star Trek sequel! Yeah! I would love to! I better write that letter to J.J.[Abrahams] ~ Rachel Weisz,

81:Princeton inspired in me the feeling that my life was a film in which I was the star and everything was possible ~ Mohsin Hamid,

82:I'm the star of stage, screen, and television now, but I'm also available for children's parties and bar mitzvahs. ~ Chris Isaak,

83:The captain of a—what did you say?” I asked. “The first female captain in the history of the Star Trek franchise, ~ Kate Mulgrew,

84:Most producers get into it because they were just never handsome or charismatic or talented enough to be the star. ~ Patrick Stump,

85:Talent, will and genius are natural phenomena like the lake, the volcano, the mountain, the wind, the star, the cloud. ~ George Sand,

86:I'm almost like three people. There's me the, Dolly, the person. There's me, the star. And then there's me, the manager. ~ Dolly Parton,

87:She is so conjunctive to my life and soul, that, as the star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her. ~ William Shakespeare,

88:The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn, Till danger's troubled night depart, And the star of peace return. ~ Thomas Campbell,

89:The star player must slay his ego and learn teamwork and communication skills before he can achieve the ultimate in sport ~ Walt Frazier,

90:Charlie Brown is the one person I identify with. C.B. is such a loser. He wasn't even the star of his own Halloween special. ~ Chris Rock,

91:Every moment of the night Forever changing places And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

92:I came into the world under the sign of Saturn -- the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays. ~ Walter Benjamin,

93:She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her. The ~ William Shakespeare,

94:Talent , will , genius are natural phenomena like the lake , the volcano , the mountain , the wind , the star , the cloud . ~ George Sand,

95:Under the night rug, the star rug, moon as lantern, man in the moon watching over us, dog star at his heels, we lay. ~ Jeanette Winterson,

96:Describing comic sensibility is near impossible. It's sort of an abstract silliness, that sometimes the joke isn't the star. ~ Dana Carvey,

97:You saw the star first," she whispered. "You make the wish." "I wish for your wish. For whatever your heart desires. ~ Jillian Hart,

98:Out of all of the Star Trek movies, I happen to like the most recent one the best. I think it was the best one ever done. ~ William Monahan,

99:When twilight dews are falling soft Upon the rosy sea, love, I watch the star whose beam so oft Has lighted me to thee, love. ~ Charles Lamb,

100:Then holding the star aloft and the bright sword advanced, Frodo, hobbit of the Shire, walked steadily down to meet the eyes. ~ J R R Tolkien,

101:Ugh, sorry. Watching parliamentary procedure always makes me bored and angry. I think it has to do with the Star Wars prequels. ~ Scott Meyer,

102:STEPHEN WOZNIAK. The star electronics geek at Homestead High; Jobs figured out how to package and market his amazing circuit ~ Walter Isaacson,

103:This is Wedge Antilles of the New Republic. I am trapped on the Star Destroyer Vigilance in the space above Akiva, and I am in— ~ Chuck Wendig,

104:There's a different film being made in every mind. And of course, the star of the film is the mind, the personality, the self. ~ Frederick Lenz,

105:The star collapsed behind us while the army of refugees dove like moths toward the last lit lamp in the universe. Cheng Jingbo ~ Ken Liu,

106:Ideally, the star will be replaced within eight hours. This sends the message that no single individual is bigger than the company. ~ Jack Welch,

107:Bare, gnarly trees scratched at the star-pricked sky, whispered to me of a thousand childhood fairy tales and adult horror movies. ~ Mark Edwards,

108:Decide which you want to play up: your clothing or your jewelry, but not both. Let one be the star and one the supporting player. ~ Padma Lakshmi,

109:Every moment of the night Forever changing places And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

110:No one is sure how and when the Star of David first came into use as a symbol of Jewry. The first Zionist Congress adopted it in 1897. ~ Leo Rosten,

111:Hitch suggested a name actress to play Marion because the bigger the star the more unbelievable it would be that we would kill her. ~ Joseph Stefano,

112:My whole life I though I was the star of an overly earnest romance movie, and it turns out I was in a goddamned buddy comedy all along. ~ John Green,

113:The star of the unconquered will, He rises in my breast, Serene, and resolute, and still, And calm, and self-possessed. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

114:But as soon as he made her responsible for his happiness, she broke the star because she could not be responsible for his happiness. No ~ Miguel Ruiz,

115:He was impressed, he told Tori Welles, the star of Torrid Without a Cause, by how much nicer porn actors were to one another than writers ~ Anonymous,

116:My whole life I thought I was the star of an overly earnest romance movie, and it turns out I was in a goddamned buddy comedy all along. ~ John Green,

117:Every man does have a star. the star of one's honesty. and you spend your life groping for it, but once its out it never lights again. ~ Arthur Miller,

118:I bet I'm the only person in history who went from being the star of a sitcom to the host of a public-access show in less than a year. ~ Chris Gethard,

119:The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley,

120:I love Marlon Brando and James Dean. That was when it was all about the star and the script. Nowadays, everything has to be action-packed. ~ Ansel Elgort,

121:The future of dance will always be tied up with the public's acceptance of the star. If they accept the star, then they'll accept the dance. ~ Gene Kelly,

122:i can’t always tell what’s better long drives in the star-spangled deserts or long walks along winding tea gardens. ~ Sanober Khan,

123:Instead of a Flying Dutchman—the ghost ship of the space lanes—we were the Flying Battlejumper, limping our way through the star systems. ~ Vaughn Heppner,

124:Whenever I start feeling too arrogant about myself, I always take a trip to the U.S. The immigration guys kick the star out of my stardom. ~ Shahrukh Khan,

125:The Star Trek computer doesn't seem that interesting. They ask it random questions, it thinks for a while. I think we can do better than that. ~ Larry Page,

126:Beyond all the fires of love through which one passes there is the star of Duty, and happy the individual who can live in its serenity. ~ William John Locke,

127:Disco deserved a better name, a beautiful name because it was a beautiful art form. It made the consumer beautiful. The consumer was the star. ~ Barry White,

128:Nothing can match the wonderment that comes from staring up into the star-filled canopy above and realizing that you are a part of that creation. ~ Tim Ferriss,

129:Mamoru, each & every one of us have stars in our hearts, & you know that the star is shining when you feel that heat…-Usagi/Sailor Moon ~ Naoko Takeuchi,

130:No thought is vain; our very dreams Substantial are; The light we see in fancy, yonder gleams In the star. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, The Rishi,

131:Humming the Star Wars theme to encourage myself, I wobbled onto my feet. Sometimes a girl's gotta provide her own trumpet-heavy heroic soundtrack. ~ Shannon Hale,

132:like the bastard offspring of a road drill and an Imperial Stormtrooper from the Star Wars trilogy–all white ceramic and smooth, sculpted curves. But ~ M R Carey,

133:There is a kind of classlessness in the theater. The rehearsal pianist, the head carpenter, the stage manager, the star of the show-all are family. ~ John Kander,

134:The same substance composes us--the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star--we are all one, all moving to the same end. ~ P L Travers,

135:Though the day of my Destiny 's over, And the star of my Fate hath declined, Thy soft heart refused to discover The faults which so many could find. ~ Lord Byron,

136:The hot springs,” I breathed. “It’s going to the hot springs.” Simon, the jerk, actually applauded, like I was the star pupil in a class of one. ~ Melissa F Olson,

137:She thought of sex as the Star Trek transport.You vaporized and found yourself navigating another planet within the second or two it took to realign. ~ Alice Sebold,

138:When Ronald Reagan was elected I was on a bus traveling with a band in France. I wrote a little arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner in a minor key. ~ Carla Bley,

139:She thought of sex as the Star Trek transport. You vaporized and found yourself navigating another planet within the second or two it took to realign. ~ Alice Sebold,

140:light-months—and it was now possible to infer by parainterferometric methods that the star (ZD9817, or simply “our” star) had planets of some sort. ~ Robert A Heinlein,

141:Ugly?” Mateo said in fervent disbelief. “No. You are terribly beautiful, Vera. So beautiful that it hurts. You would outshine her like the star you are. ~ Karina Halle,

142:Almost every actor goes into almost every picture very frightened. He is positive he really can't do it. The bigger the star, the more frightened he is. ~ Paul Mazursky,

143:The star of revolution will rise high above the streets of Moscow, from a sea of blood and fire, and turn into a lodestar to lead a liberated humanity ~ Mikhail Bakunin,

144:Madmen,” he said. “They say I should do no work because the star comes. I tell them stars have never hurt me, I wish I could say the same about people. ~ Terry Pratchett,

145:The star-flooded nights, the dew-soaked dawns, the hushed ambulatories, the enforced asceticism—never has Werner felt part of something so single-minded. ~ Anthony Doerr,

146:When I left Maine, I always wanted to be a working actor. I never cared too much about being the star. I just wanted to do the work and get on with it. ~ Patrick Dempsey,

147:Because thee remains there, it is easier for me to go, for thee can be the shore I look back on, the star that remains fixed." from "The Last Runaway ~ Tracy Chevalier,

148:Doctor Who is like any long-running series in that the cast tend to look to the star to set the general tone. Rehearsals and filming could be a lot of fun. ~ Sarah Sutton,

149:I feel like I’m in one of the Star Wars prequels.” “I know!” Gwen enthused. She proceeded to go on at length about how much she loved the Star Wars prequels, ~ Scott Meyer,

150:If I weren't doing what I'm doing now, the actress thing, the star business, if you want to call it that, whatever it is, I'd be in an asylum. I'm sure of it. ~ Mia Farrow,

151:so am I. I have stumbled enough. I am forgiven. I am abundant. I am certainly insouciant. I’m not your tar baby. You’re the star, baby. Love the lucky well. ~ Maria Semple,

152:The wind blows out, the bubble dies; The spring entomb'd in autumn lies; The dew dries up; the star is shot; The flight is past, and man forgot. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr,

153:You’re the star,” said Tristran, comprehension dawning. “And you’re a clodpoll,” said the girl, bitterly, “and a ninny, a numbskull, a lackwit and a coxcomb! ~ Neil Gaiman,

154:Even when I am gone, I shall remain in people's minds the star of their rights, my name will be the war cry of their efforts, the motto of their hopes. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte,

155:Light died in the west. Night and tears took the Nation. The star of Water drifted among the clouds like a murderer softly leaving the scene of the crime. ~ Terry Pratchett,

156:A massage is just like a movie, really relaxing and a total escape, except in a massage you're the star. And you don't miss anything by falling asleep! ~ Elizabeth Jane Howard,

157:For Balanquans, Ariniel’s star is the wayfarers’ star—the star that always brings you home, no matter how lost you are. The only thing a wanderer can count on. ~ Richelle Mead,

158:I have a hotline to the tabloids. When I get up in the morning, I call the Star, and the last thing at night, I call them. I want them to have the inside track. ~ Kirstie Alley,

159:Look, this CPAC convention is increasingly the Star Wars bar scene of the conservative movement. All that’s missing from that convention is a couple of Wookies. ~ Steve Schmidt,

160:But the star thing I can live with. The music I can't live without. And that's how it lays out for me, you know. I got as big an ego and enjoy the attention. ~ Bruce Springsteen,

161:When the light of the star which flows into my eyes as a drop of gold first pierced the darkness in space, there was not a single eye on earth looking at the sky. ~ Naz m Hikmet,

162:Every tyranny in the world lives - and such systems have always lived - in a perpetual struggle against plain knowledge and illuminating discussion. (The Star-Begotten) ~ H G Wells,

163:The Firefly universe was anchored in a sector adjacent to the Star Wars galaxy, with a detailed re-creation of the Star Trek universe in the sector adjacent to that. ~ Ernest Cline,

164:Like the star that shines afar, Without haste and without rest, Let each one wheel with steady sway Round the task that rules the day, And do their best. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

165:Algebra applies to the clouds; the radiance of the star benefits the rose; no thinker would dare to say that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. ~ Victor Hugo,

166:It's like the Boss always says: they're just meat wrapped around a blazing star. We don't mourn the wrapping once it's discarded, we celebrate the freeing of the star. ~ Stephen Kelman,

167:How does the light of a star set out and plunge into black eternity in its immortal course? The star dies, but the light never dies; such also is the cry of freedom. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis,

168:The Star Families were shrewd. In order for them to make more profit, they introduced the pound and gained 16 multiples of an earning to that of the Mediterranean man. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim,

169:[The] whirlwind fife-and-drum of the storm bends the salt marsh grass, disturbs stars in the sky and the star on the steeple; it is a privilege to see so much confusion. ~ Marianne Moore,

170:Love is the only thing that counts. Love is what keeps the star and the human beings and the world turning around. Love is the force that binds the whole universe together. ~ Paulo Coelho,

171:his wagon to a star. He still thinks he’s the star. And you can’t have two stars in one relationship. Somebody has to be willing to be the wagon…at least some of the time.” Oh! ~ Meg Cabot,

172:Many worlds, but one God His power is the sun in every land, His forgiveness the moon watching over every night, His love the star in every corner of the heavens. ~ Laura Whitcomb,

173:Clearly, if wed had the kind of computer graphics capability then that we have now, the Star Gate sequence would be much more complex than flat planes of light and color. ~ Douglas Trumbull,

174:To any who know the star field well from one certain reference point, stars are as individual as people. Jump ten parsecs, however, and not even your own sun is recognizable. ~ Isaac Asimov,

175:She was the backstage director who worked so hard to make the star shine and without whom there could be no show. She was needed. And that made her feel secure. Marriage ~ Julie Lawson Timmer,

176:I think that Enterprise was getting better and better, actually, and if it had kept going, I think it would've turned into as good a show as any other in the Star Trek franchise. ~ Brent Spiner,

177:The star made a wish while you were asleep, and she hopes you can make it come true. Because just like those times that you've wished on a star, that star made a wish upon you. ~ Dallas Clayton,

178:Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud. ~ Victor Hugo,

179:Every day, I wake up and I'm like, "Oh, I'm the star of my own show that has my name in it and I get to write it and hire actors that I've loved for such a long time!" It's amazing! ~ Mindy Kaling,

180:I saw a point that shone with light so keen, the eye that sees it cannot bear its blazing; the star that is for us the smallest one would seem a moon if placed beside this point. ~ Dante Alighieri,

181:I was the firework. I was the butterfly. I was every analogy you could think of. I didn’t see stars. I became the star. My first kiss was everything it was meant to be and more. ~ Heidi McLaughlin,

182:[Max Askeli] started this very good magazine [The Reporter]. In fact, Meg Greenfield, who's now the editorial page editor of The Washington Post, was one of the star reporters there. ~ Nat Hentoff,

183:I want to die at a hundred years old with an American flag on my back and the star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent on a bicycle at 75 miles per hour. ~ Lance Armstrong,

184:What's wrong with being out there, out there like a star shining in the night when that's the only way the star can be seen? You never tell a star: Hey Tone it down. ~ James Howe,

185:I don't give a damn about "The Missouri Waltz" but I can't say it out loud because it's the song of Missouri. It's as bad as "The Star-Spangled Banner" so far as music is concerned. ~ Harry S Truman,

186:No matter how old he is, or what kind of shape he's in, Hogan believes in his heart that he is the star of the show, and he is wrestling. I don't think he gives a damn about anyone else. ~ Bret Hart,

187:Excerpt: Here are some thoughts from Charlene the Star: “I’ll bet that’s why Mama put the word “Star” in my name. I have a feeling I’m going to be a star as a jumper. ~ Deanie Humphrys Dunne,

188:I firmly believe that Harper's Bazaar is the star. I am there to make it the best it possibly can be, but there should be no confusion. I want to put Harper's Bazaar front and center. ~ Glenda Bailey,

189:There is a solitude in poverty, but a solitude that gives everything back its value. At a certain level of wealth, the heavens themselves and the star-filled night are nature’s riches. ~ Albert Camus,

190:Whatever your circumstances, whatever your past, the forces that determine your future are nowhere but within your own heart and mind. It is here that the star of your destiny shines. ~ Daisaku Ikeda,

191:Why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth, of the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,

192:We have [in Valerian] a bible that's 600 pages. There are five pages on each alien and where they come from. Even the address you can check on the map. On the star map. It's real numbers. ~ Luc Besson,

193:When there's a star on a flag it stands for freedom. The star points in all directions, it means you can go anywhere you want. That's why I love stars, because they stand for freedom. ~ Stephen Kelman,

194:For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground. ~ Lyndon B Johnson,

195:The star-shreds that aggregated into the most improbable and miraculous explosion of your consciousness should be appreciated with more noble sentiments than resentment and depression. ~ Stefan Molyneux,

196:I get inspired when I look at Tom Lennon, who did Reno 911! for six seasons while writing huge movies and directing, and also doing other pilots; he did that FX pilot, the Star Trek thing. ~ Scott Aukerman,

197:Often there is a wall between the journalist and the star because there is usually not much time to get to know a person, and the star is always asked the same questions, and may be defensive. ~ Ruud Gullit,

198:These views were voiced by the school of 'optessimists', i.e. philosophers who derived optimism for the future from a pessimistic appraisal of the present." The 21st Voyage, The Star Diaries ~ Stanis aw Lem,

199:We could talk about totally different things. Like the seasons of the year, for example, or even the star-filled sky of these summer nights: I'm interested in stars and nebulas. Maybe you are, too? ~ Amos Oz,

200:Imagination is the most powerful tool you have. You learn it from all the greats. The Star Wars films are secretive. Anything J.J. Abrams does is secretive. Those guys haven't done too poorly. ~ John Krasinski,

201:My dad would throw me in the picture if they needed an extra. From an early age, I understood the concept that, if you're not the star, then your job is to not pull attention away from the star. ~ Ansel Elgort,

202:If you want to be a professional footballer, you have to respect your profession. You have to respect the people that are making you the star you are. You have to protect the passion every day. ~ Emmanuel Petit,

203:Sport is cultural. What the star athlete does helps to define the culture. What the star athlete does on a Canadian team, especially if he or she is Canadian, helps define Canadian-ness. ~ George Elliott Clarke,

204:For every guy, there is an opportunity to be a lot better than he thought he could be. We can't all be the star of the team, but we can be a star in our life. That's where you set your goal. ~ Sylvester Stallone,

205:The intention of this Book of The Law is perfectly simple. Whatever your sexual predilections may be, you are free, by the Law of Thelema, to the the star you are, to go your own way rejoicing. ~ Aleister Crowley,

206:Am I glowing?" "Like a Christmas tree." "Not just the star?" The bed moved a little, and I felt his hand brush my arm. "No. You're super bright. It's kind of like looking at the sun. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout,

207:Human thought, flying on the trapezes of the star-filled universe, with mathematics stretched beneath, was like an acrobat working with a net but suddenly noticing that in reality there is no net. ~ Vladimir Nabokov,

208:In 2002 Mom and I got a chance to act together in a play called 'Pitching to the Star,' with her brother, Robert Lipton. The three of us on the same stage - that was such a special experience for me. ~ Rashida Jones,

209:Life operates exactly like the Star Wars prequels. It’s boring, bloated, painful when it shouldn’t be, and lacks a cohesive storyline. And ultimately, it only exists to boost the ego of its creator. ~ Jake Vander Ark,

210:The same degree/level of temperature (for water) is that which the Star Families have chosen and which surprisingly matches the standardized unit (for mass) that they laid down and called, the pound. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim,

211:EpitaphMoulded of twilight and the vesper starMidnight in her with noon made quiet war; –Moulded twixt life and death, Love came between;Then the night fell; twilight faded, the star had been. ~ Sri AurobindoShort Poems,

212:This is what men call genius, just as they call a painted face beauty and a richly attired figure majesty. The confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud. ~ Victor Hugo,

213:[I was filmed] against a blue screen [in the Star Wars]. All the rest came later, in Lucasland. They did have me take gun lessons, though. I went to the same guys who taught Robert De Niro for Taxi Driver. ~ Carrie Fisher,

214:The memory of an absent being kindles in the darkness of the heart; the more it has disappeared, the more it beams; the gloomy and despairing soul sees this light on its horizon; the star of the inner night. ~ Victor Hugo,

215:Stars, I have seen them fall, But when they drop and die No star is lost at all From all the star-sown sky. The toil of all that be Helps not the primal fault; It rains into the sea And still the sea is salt. ~ A E Housman,

216:The Reaper The world is drowsy, the winds asleep, On the sward of the sky the star-blossoms peep, And the grey Moon moves with his silver scythe The pallid flowers of light to reap. ~ Arthur Henry Adams,

217:All this is what men call genius, just as they call a painted face beauty and a richly attired figure majesty. They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud. ~ Victor Hugo,

218:I'm working on the Star Wars script today and the people in my office have covered up all my windows with black paper. I guess they wanted to make sure no one could see what I was doing. It seems rather extreme. ~ J J Abrams,

219:In order to find Jesus, every one of us needs direction. God gives it. The story of the wise men shows us how. The star sign was enough to lead the magi to Jerusalem. But it took Scripture to lead them to Jesus. ~ Max Lucado,

220:There are few things more tragic than the desire of the moth for the star; and it is a curious fact that the spectacle of a star almost invariably fills the most sensible moth with thoughts above his station. ~ P G Wodehouse,

221:You are the flame that cannot be put out. You are the star that cannot be lost. You are who you always have been, and that is enough and more than enough. Anyone who looks at you and sees darkness is blind. ~ Cassandra Clare,

222:You are the flame that cannot be put out. You are the star that cannot be lost. You are who you have always been, and that is enough and more than enough. Anyone who looks at you and sees darkness is blind. ~ Cassandra Clare,

223:Pride, desire, compassion, cleverness, belligerence, fruitfulness, loyalty… and guilt. But above it all stands love. And if we desire to be more than human, that is the star by which we must set our sights. ~ Jacqueline Carey,

224:I surrender. Sigh and lean against him, because I have no reason not to. What am I supposed to do? Go home, be a good girl, wake up in the morning, and freaking try to be the star of the University of Deepsilver? ~ Sunniva Dee,

225:I think the next big thing in music, and it's kind of because I come from the tech industry, is actually, I think it's the platform... Spotify is incredibly interesting. I think the platform is becoming the star. ~ Brian Chesky,

226:She wondered what he really saw when he looked at her. God, she hoped she didn’t look like his mother or anything. That would be veering into a Hitchcock shower scene that she really didn’t want to be the star of. ~ Jane Cousins,

227:He had been her sun, the star she circled endlessly. Helpless against the gravity she’d been unable to fight. She’d flown too close and melted her wings made of wax. She’d fallen. Maybe she’d never been meant to fly. ~ Megan Hart,

228:My biggest regret is that my mother didn't see me walk on to that London Palladium stage, being the star she always wanted me to be. But I always say that when she reached Heaven, she had a word with a few agents. ~ Bruce Forsyth,

229:The most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic. ~ John Bradshaw,

230:There is a tiny yellow daffodil, The butterfly can see it from afar, Although one summer evening's dew could fill Its little cup twice over, ere the star Had called the lazy shepherd to his fold, And be no prodigal. ~ Oscar Wilde,

231:We love those beautiful, Latin American stories where there is an element that's more mysterious and wonderful. I think as a child a lot of us love the idea of the star and more of the supernatural elements. ~ Catherine Hardwicke,

232:Then he [The Star Child] waited, marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something. ~ Arthur C Clarke,

233:As for the Yankees, they had no other ambition than to take possession of this new continent of the sky, and to plant upon the summit of its highest elevation the star- spangled banner of the United States of America. ~ Jules Verne,

234:We take the star from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty. ~ George Washington,

235:Passion is so contagious. When you're working on a project where people care, on every level, from the key grips to the main writer to the star of the show, you can't help but want to jump on board and create something. ~ Seth Gabel,

236:No matter what day it is, no matter what time, no matter where I am - I'm always at the star party, staring at the slhouette on the crest of the hill, whishing that one dark shape would split in two. But it never does. ~ Jerry Spinelli,

237:In fact, the most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic. ~ John Bradshaw,

238:They all matter to me, whether I'm working on a Sam Jackson film for a week or I'm the star of my own TV series - I take it all very seriously, and I have a healthy respect for the work in general, despite the role. ~ Anthony Michael Hall,

239:The singing triggers a soft detonation at his core, molten parts of him are flying everywhere and his ears ring to the tune of blast harmonics that only he can hear, but what is “The Star Spangled Banner” if not a love song? ~ Ben Fountain,

240:Adolf Hitler! Ken, it makes me furious. Forty million people die to defeat that megalomaniac, and he's the star of the first broadcast to another civilization? He's representing us. And them. It's that madman's dream come true. ~ Carl Sagan,

241:Seekers? Well, they can only be people of the finest character…strong, fast, intelligent. Oron is a thoughtful god. He sent us this prophecy. He sent us the star, and the seekers he has selected will be perfect for the task. ~ Melissa Pearl,

242:There were a million things, everything, I didn't know. I was stupid, the official descriptive phrase for happy. I took this thing I'm giving you back, this thing you gave me as the star we were waiting for finally emerged. ~ Daniel Handler,

243:At this point, there flashed briefly through Stenton’s horrified mind the memory of that timeless classic, H. G. Wells’s “The Star.” He had first read it as a small boy, and it had helped to spark his interest in astronomy. ~ Arthur C Clarke,

244:And as I looked at the star, I realised what millions of other people have realised when looking at stars. We're tiny. We don't matter. We're here for a second and then gone the next. We're a sneeze in the life of the universe. ~ Danny Wallace,

245:And as I looked at the star, I realised what millions of other people have realised when looking at stars. We’re tiny. We don’t matter. We’re here for a second and then gone the next. We’re a sneeze in the life of the universe. ~ Danny Wallace,

246:I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains. ~ Robert G Ingersoll,

247:It's the primordial characters [of the Star Wars]. It's the beautiful princess and the callow youth and the smartass that I played and the wise old warrior that Alec Guinness played. And it was a fairy tale. It was a fairy tale. ~ Harrison Ford,

248:Most users chose to run a “voyeur channel,” which was like being the star of your own twenty-four-hour reality show. Hovering virtual cameras would follow your avatar around the OASIS as you went about your day-to-day activities. ~ Ernest Cline,

249:They will fall. Soon they will fall and the star people will meet the earth people. There will be heroes among them, and men who will slay monsters and bring knowledge, but none of them will be gods. This is a poor place for gods. ~ Neil Gaiman,

250:I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, - blown and flared by passion's storm, - and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll,

251:When Nokia engineers paid homage to the Star Trek communicator with their 0ip-phone designs, it wasn’t because Gene Roddenberry foresaw a true vision for the future of mobile communications. It was because telcoms geeks watched Star Trek ~ Anonymous,

252:Senator [Tom Cotton] got a ton of blowback. He became the star of fake missing person`s signs, encouraging folks to call if they saw him and also to call him and ask why he had been missing while his constituents were looking for him. ~ Rachel Maddow,

253:Tristan's heart pounded in his chest, as if it was not big enough to contain all the joy that it held, and he opened his eyes as he kissed the star. Her sky-blue eyes stared back into his, and in her eyes he could see no parting from her. ~ Neil Gaiman,

254:They soared with ease, basking in electromagnetic rays from the star Sol, biding their time, grouping, preparing. The planet beneath them was almost perfectly oblivious of their presence, which was just how they wanted it for the moment. ~ Douglas Adams,

255:Someone told me once that the light we see from them is hundreds of thousands of years old. That the star could already be dead and we'd never know it because it still looked alive. I thought that was a terrible thing. That the stars could lie. ~ T J Klune,

256:Someone told me once that the light we see from them is hundreds ot thousands of years old. That the star could already be dead and we'd never know it because it still looked alive. I thought that was a terribel thing. That the stars could lie. ~ T J Klune,

257:All right, all right. Keep your…” Cloak on, I was gonna say, but the sudden realization that he looked like the Emperor from the Star Wars movies kept me from continuing. It wasn’t like I had far to go, but I guess I was off to the dark side. ~ Tim Marquitz,

258:We are all these things [...]. Pride, desire, compassion, cleverness, belligerence, fruitfulness, loyalty...and guilt. But above it all stands love. And if we desire to be more than human, that is the star by which we must set our sights. ~ Jacqueline Carey,

259:We are all these things [...]. Pride, desire, compassion, cleverness, belligerence, fruitfulness, loyalty...and guilt. But above it all stands love. And if we desire to be more than human, that is the star by which we must set our sights. ~ Jacqueline Carey,

260:Pray to the Lord to make your heart as pure as the star. As a result of sincere and regular japa and meditation you will find that the Lord will speak to you. All your desires will be fulfilled and you will experience pure bliss. ~ Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi,

261:Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star. It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything. ~ Haruki Murakami,

262:The simple fact is, you are not the point of your life. You are not the star of your show. If you live for yourself, your own comfort, your own glory, your own fame, you will miss out on your very purpose. God created you to bring glory to him. ~ Tim Challies,

263:Something wrong?” Will asked. “This,” Gabriel said. He held up a broadsheet newspaper called the Star. “It’s awful.” “I agree,” Will said. “Those halfpenny rags are terrible. But you seem to be more upset about them than is appropriate. ~ Cassandra Clare,

264:Television has certain imperatives that CNN had the luxury of ignoring for a long period of time. CNN could take the position that the news would be the star, because in most of the programming day, they were the only all-news operation on the air. ~ Brit Hume,

265:In that brief time between, the night had been a fragrant puzzle, a time when, looking up at the star-strewn sky and listening to the breeze that brought such intoxicating smells, you felt close to the heartbeat of the universe, to love and life. ~ Stephen King,

266:I think they should take everyone who works for The National Enquirer and the Star, and everyone who works for Us Weekly, and put them all to work looking for terrorists. I think they would find the terrorists. All of them. It would be genius! ~ Brittany Murphy,

267:Be patient, as one who fears no check and does not court success. Fix the gaze of thy soul on the star of which thou art the ray, the flaming star which burns in the obscure depths of the eternal, in the limitless fields of the unknown. ~ Book of Golden Precepts,

268:Norm, I’m gonna be straight with you, because I’ve been in this business a long time. If the star of a movie has a personal assistant who, during the production of that movie, butchers over a dozen teenagers, that’s gonna hurt at the box office. ~ Norm Macdonald,

269:The only scenes I can stand in any of the Star Wars films are the quiet scenes in the second one, The Empire Strikes Back. Or rather, it used to be the second one, before the fourth one became the first one, thus making the second one the third one. ~ Nick Hornby,

270:If one who looked from a tower for a new star, watching for years the same part of the sky, suddenly saw it (quite by chance while thinking of other things), and knew it for the star for which he had hoped, how many millions of men would never care? ~ Lord Dunsany,

271:I'm not such a big star. I am just a little planet. In Spain, people don't put so much attention on the star system. But here in America, I can feel it. Mostly, people are very, very nice. But there are also a bunch of fanatics behind the stars. ~ Antonio Banderas,

272:I don't take myself seriously all the time; I have to do quirky things, such as helping football teams, moving the ball away from McAllister's foot, getting into The Sun and The Star - because, you know, I like sensationalism, it's a part of what I do. ~ Uri Geller,

273:Marcus Fuller exuded sex, confidence, and a raw compelling charisma that commanded the attention of those around him . . . which was why the Phoenix Pack enforcer was the star of her every X-rated fantasy. He deserved an Oscar for his performances. ~ Suzanne Wright,

274:Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is, If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry,

275:rights, a physician with his experience and demonstrated skill should have been home in the Star Kingdom on the staff of one of the major base hospitals, or else assigned to one of the lavishly equipped hospital ships which accompanied the Fleet Train. ~ David Weber,

276:Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star. It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything. ~ Haruki Murakami,

277:It's like a pulsar inside me. There is this great burst of energy, forcing me to write, and then the star goes quiet for a time, and I think it's gone, but it's gathering energy for another burst. And I seem to be almost unwilling participants in this. ~ Richard Bach,

278:I got a four year scholarship to Harvard, and while I was there they wanted to groom me for work in the Star Wars program designing weapons ignited by hydrogen bombs. I didn't want to do that. I thought about how many scientists had died in World War II. ~ Michio Kaku,

279:It is all very well and good for Linda Lovelace, the star of the movie, to advocate sexual freedom; but the energy she brings to her role is less awesome than discouraging. If you have to work this hard at sexual freedom, maybe it isn't worth the effort. ~ Roger Ebert,

280:The Sun Boat (or Sun Barque) is the great ship the gods used to travel between the worlds; it was called: The Boat of a Million Years. An intriguing ancient reference to a migratory transaction that is also found in the heritage of the Star Families! ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim,

281:You want me to be a tragic backdrop so that you can appear to be illuminated, so that people can say ‘Wow, isn’t he so terribly brave to love a girl who is so obviously sad?’ You think I’ll be the dark sky so you can be the star? I’ll swallow you whole. ~ Warsan Shire,

282:Do not let any of them tell you who you are. You are the flame that cannot be put out. You are the star that cannot be lost. You are who you have always been, and that is enough and more than enough. Anyone who looks at you and sees darkness is blind. ~ Cassandra Clare,

283:To open the gate for me there was a gravedigger I had already met at the Star of The Sweden."I am looking for Mr. Kauderer," I said to him. He answered, " Mr. Kauderer is not here. But since the cemetery is the home of those who are not here, come in. ~ Italo Calvino,

284:If the chemistry is right between star and photographer and the geometry of the pictures pleases the star, often the two people end up with a long-term professional friendship during which they continue to work together and to produce highly personal images. ~ Eve Arnold,

285:I think people think I'm accessible. I'm never treated as a star, either by fans or other actors, and I like it like that. I don't get the star treatment. I think that means I'm a good actor. They acknowledge me as a human being, and to me, that's invalua. ~ Kate Mulgrew,

286:Finally, I owe a debt to all the writers who've worked in the Star Wars universe to date - and to the millions of readers who've supported their works. The stories we love may not always fit neatly into a single timeline, but they will always matter. ~ John Jackson Miller,

287:I remember the book I was reading. Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector. I remember because there were so many things in Hour of the Star with which I found kinship that I'd brought along a stub of pencil in case I urgently needed to underline. ~ Sara Baume,

288:Donald Trump is a man who was the star of a network reality show that helped to create templates for the abysmally biased way in which women and people of color, in particular women of color, have been treated in reality TV for the last decade and a half. ~ Jennifer Pozner,

289:Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust." And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! ~ F Scott Fitzgerald,

290:The Warrenite Christian is like a Star Wars geek who dressed up in costume and dearly wishes he lived the Star Wars universe. Sometimes such a fan will even spend as much time as he can in weekend costume conventions. For Warrenites, that's going to church. ~ Robert M Price,

291:Stars Stars, I have seen them fall, But when they drop and die No star is lost at all From all the star-sown sky. The toil of all that be Helps not the primal fault; It rains into the sea, And still the sea is salt. ~ Alfred Edward Housman,

292:Everyone who has changed the course of human history, every last one was able to do so only because he was ready for his destiny. That’s true of Moses and the Buddha, Napoleon and Bismarck. The wave that carries us, the star that guides us—we cannot choose it. ~ Hermann Hesse,

293:I never go on a movie set as the star. I always go as the guy who just does his job, like the electrician does his job and the hairdresser does her job. Let's all work together and make this happen, rather than have the star treatment. I don't do that. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger,

294:I only want to catch you,” Michael explained. “I won’t hurt you.” “No! No!” the star crackled desperately. “That’s wrong! I’m supposed to die!” “But I could save you if you’d let me catch you,” Michael told it gently. “No!” cried the star. “I’d rather die! ~ Diana Wynne Jones,

295:Everyone know—or at least, was probably told as a child—that you can make a wish on a shooting star. Not everyone knows that the only way to be sure it will come ture is to speak it aloud before the star disappears, and this is a nearly imposssible fet to manage. ~ Kate Milford,

296:For Peirce, inquiry is always communal—it is the median of many observations that gives the position of the star—and the last analysis really is the last. In Peirce’s cosmology, everyone’s beliefs have to be the same in the end, because all opinion must converge. ~ Louis Menand,

297:How much does the iron in your blood and the calcium in your bones remember of the heart of the star in which they were born? And if they can forget that terrible, magnificent heat and light, what hope do I have of being more than an unremarkable footnote to you? ~ Seanan McGuire,

298:New York is strange in the summer. Life goes on as usual but it’s not, it’s like everyone is just pretending, as if everyone has been cast as the star in a movie about their life, so they’re one step removed from it. And then in September it all gets normal again. ~ Peter Cameron,

299:When Uncle Bob (or Ted or Ray) promised to send a shooting star over the house to mark a young listener's birthday, the young listener, who had hung out the window for an hour without seeing the star, questioned not Uncle Bob (or Ted or Ray), but his own eyesight. ~ Vincent Canby,

300:In that instant when I had seen... the Star Maker, I had glimpsed, in the very eye of that splendor, strange vistas of being; as though in the depths of the hypercosmical past and the hypercosmical future also, yet coexistent in eternity, lay cosmos beyond cosmos. ~ Olaf Stapledon,

301:Unrisen splendour of the brightest sun, To rise upon our darkness, if the star Now beckoning thee out of thy misty throne Could thaw the clouds which wage an obscure war With thy young brightness! ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Unrisen Splendour Of The Brightest Sun ,

302:Kaytoo [from the Star Wars] is more even-keeled. And he's a badass. He comes from the Empire, and he's a security droid. Some people call him an enforcer droid. He has the ability to enforce things. That was what he was built for. He's tall. He has an intimidating frame. ~ Alan Tudyk,

303:Matthew loved the magi. He gave their story more square inches of text than he gave the narrative of the birth of Jesus. He never mentions the shepherds or the manger, but he didn't want us to miss the star and the seekers. It's easy to see why. Their story is our story. ~ Max Lucado,

304:The wizards from the mid-1990s or later refused to discuss any movies at all for fear of letting slip any details of the Star Wars prequels or the fourth Indiana Jones, a group of works that the later wizards would only refer to by the collective title The Unpleasantness. ~ Scott Meyer,

305:I'll rip the fucking asshole's dick off and stuff it down his douche-bag throat. Take my whip and cornhole the bastard peckerheaded fuckwad till his ass whistles "The Star Spangled Banner." Then I'll break the dried-up piece of jackwad's leg off and shove it up his ass. ~ Cherise Sinclair,

306:Ford stared at Arthur, and Arthur was astonished to find his will beginning to weaken. He didn’t realize that this was because of an old drinking game that Ford learned to play in the hyper-space ports that served the madranite mining belts in the star system of Orion Beta. ~ Douglas Adams,

307:A smuggling compartment?” I asked, stunned. “‘I use them for smuggling. I never thought I’d be smuggling myself in them,’” she murmured, knowing I’d catch the Star Wars reference. It was more than appropriate for the situation.GTX was an evil empire of sorts, I supposed. ~ Stacey Kade,

308:Eventually, however, the star will run out of its hydrogen and other nuclear fuels. Paradoxically, the more fuel a star starts off with, the sooner it runs out. This is because the more massive the star is, the hotter it needs to be to balance its gravitational attraction. ~ Stephen Hawking,

309:I watched women file in, hoping each new one in a smart dress suit was a fairy godmother carrying my new fate. I’d catch her glance as she passed, hoping she’d see the star pattern in my eyes. Oh, it’s you. I found you. Does every child have this fantasy—or just the sad ones? ~ Sarah Hepola,

310:Listen, I don’t know what kind of assholes you’ve been with before, but I promise you, your orgasm will not only make an appearance tonight, it will be the star of the show.” … “Really?” “Really … In fact, I will venture to say that there may even be an encore or two. ~ Melanie Harlow,

311:My dad never did anything, though,” Jenna continued. “He never . . . I don’t know, he never went off to join the star force so he could help guard ships, or anything. I don’t know if it was even because he was scared to. I think it’s just that he wouldn’t have got paid enough. ~ Mike Brooks,

312:Where roads are made I lose my way.In the wide water, in the blue sky there is no line of a track.The pathway is hidden by the birds' wings, by the star-fires, by the flowers of the wayfaring seasons.And I ask my heart if its blood carries the wisdom of the unseen way. ~ Rabindranath Tagore,

313:At football games the other students would cheer the star black running back, and then when a black player on the other team got the ball, they’d yell, “Kill that nigger! Kill that nigger!” They would yell this sitting right next to her, as though she really were not there. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates,

314:I can give not what men call love; But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And the heavens reject not: The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow? ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley,

315:What the computer can do in art and design has turned aesthetics on its head... with the computer, things are not so much created as they are produced, with the producer-director becoming the star and the controlling force of much that was in other hands at other times. ~ Nicholas von Hoffman,

316:In fact, the wizards from the mid-1990s or later refused to discuss any movies at all for fear of letting slip any details of the Star Wars prequels or the fourth Indiana Jones, a group of works that the later wizards would only refer to by the collective title The Unpleasantness. ~ Scott Meyer,

317:It's absolutely impossible to have a serious critical discussion about enthusiasms for movie stars. Because a movie star is an animal separate from acting. Sometimes, he or she is a great actor. Sometimes a third-rate one. But the star is something that you fall in love with ... ~ Peter Biskind,

318:We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child. ~ P L Travers,

319:Graham had this sinking feeling in his stomach. It felt like Paris all over again. If Lanie died this whole affair would blow up in his face. Hollywood would want a scapegoat, and he fit the bill to a T. His having tried to help wouldn’t matter. The star machine would crucify him. ~ Alan Russell,

320:There are a lot of comedic actors who are just out to be the funny one and get all the laughs and they'll sacrifice your joke, the scene, the story just to be the star. All they want is attention and to be number one. You can spot those guys from a mile away and they're the worst. ~ Jake M Johnson,

321:The star of Bethlehem was a star of hope that led the wise men to the fulfillment of their expectations, the success of their expedition. Nothing in this world is more fundamental for success in life than hope, and this star pointed to our only source for true hope: Jesus Christ. ~ D James Kennedy,

322:The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water-the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. ~ John the Apostle,

323:...his work has some meaning. When he lights his street lamp, it is as if he brought one more star to life, or one flower. When he puts out his lamp, he sends the flower, or the star, to sleep. That is a beautiful occupation. And since it is beautiful, it is truly useful. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry,

324:Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. ~ Albert Einstein,

325:I am programmed at fifty to perform childishly—to insult “The Star-Spangled Banner,” to scrawl pictures of a Nazi flag and an asshole and a lot of other things with a felt-tipped pen. To give an idea of the maturity of my illustrations for this book, here is my picture of an asshole: ~ Kurt Vonnegut,

326:It was strange to be outside on a summer’s evening. Rachel breathed in the scent of the delicate white flowers on the star jasmine and looked up at the sky. She saw what at first she thought was a bird, then realised it was a bat, and beyond that, in the sky, she saw thousands of stars. ~ Mary Grand,

327:The sun shine comes, you see the shine you see the color, when night comes you the stars you see the dark the blooming moon you choose a star you follow the star it comes in your dreams you follow stars once a light bug dies you see a new star you follow the star your dreams come true. ~ Demi Lovato,

328:You love, and tremble, and burn. Do not let any of them tell you who you are. You are the flame that cannot be put out. You are the star that cannot be lost. You are who you have always been, and that is enough and more than enough. Anyone who looks at you and sees darkness is blind ~ Cassandra Clare,

329:The Shadow of the Emperor The Hooded One Who unmasked night Who laid the stars like paving stones Who rode the Thunderbolt Down the star-cobbled path into day Was Kane, The Emperor's twin Silent, as lightning is silent, Before the thunder speaks. ~ Patricia A McKillip,

330:You love, and tremble, and burn. Do not let any of them tell you who you are. You are the flame that cannot be put out. You are the star that cannot be lost. You are who you have always been, and that is enough and more than enough. Anyone who looks at you and sees darkness is blind. ~ Cassandra Clare,

331:There was something of an unwritten code about working in the office of Rudy Giuliani, as I suppose there is in most organizations. In his case, the message was that Rudy was the star at the top and the successes of the office flowed in his direction. You violated this code at your peril. ~ James Comey,

332:He was walking into Faerie, in search of a fallen star, with no idea how he would find the star, nor how to keep himself safe and whole as he tried. He looked back and fancied that he could see the lights of Wall behind him, wavering and glimmering as if in a heat-haze, but still inviting. ~ Neil Gaiman,

333:Once in their youth the light shone for them; they saw the light and followed the star, but then came reason and the mockery of the world; then came faint-heartedness and apparent failure; then came weariness and disillusionment, and so they lost their way again, they became blind again. ~ Hermann Hesse,

334:She's my alpha," he murmured, with a haunting sadness in his voice. Alpha. "Like the star?" "What star?" "Oh. Um. In a constellation, the brightest star is called the alpha. I thought maybe you meant that she's...like...your brightest star." "Yes, exactly like that. ~ Marissa Meyer,

335:I was stunned. I'm not sure why. I think I just never expected him to be importante enough to make any significant changes in his life, but of course, he doesn't know that he's only a minor character in my life. He's the star of his own life, and I'm the minor character. and fair enough too. ~ Liane Moriarty,

336:Sid Vicious began the age of participation in which everyone could be the artist. Sid proved that you don't have to play well to be the star. You can play badly, or not even at all. I endorsed that attitude. If you can't write songs, no problem - simply steal one and change it to your taste. ~ Malcolm Mclaren,

337:Sometimes the Minutemen got grief for being their own road crew. “But I never thought that you should play up to ‘the princeling,’ ” says Watt, referring to the prototypical pampered rock star. “So what if nobody sees you playing the fuckin’ hero or the star. I never fancied myself like that. ~ Michael Azerrad,

338:Some of us find our way with a single light to guide us; others lose themselves even when the star field is as sharp as a neon ceiling. Ethics may not be situational, but feelings are. We learn to adjust, and, over time, the stars we use to guide ourselves come to reside within rather than without. ~ Robert Crais,

339:Joe knew that all human beings are the star of their own very important film, a film in which they are both camera and actor; a film in which they are always playing the fearful and lonely hero who gets up each day hoping to finally strike upon the life they are meant to lead, though they never do. ~ Jonathan Ames,

340:Soon,” said the crackling voice of the flame, coming from behind him, “they will fall. Soon they will fall and the star people will meet the earth people. There will be heroes among them, and men who will slay monsters and bring knowledge, but none of them will be gods. This is a poor place for gods. ~ Neil Gaiman,

341:When all thermonuclear sources of energy are exhausted a sufficiently heavy star will collapse. Unless fission due to rotation, the radiation of mass, or the blowing off of mass by radiation, reduce the star's mass to the order of that of the sun, this contraction will continue indefinitely. ~ J Robert Oppenheimer,

342:She was broken from moment to moment, watching her world collide she felt lost inside herself. She fell apart for a passion that flamed beneath her. She waited and died a hundred times, it dripped from her pores. The moment she let go, she soared over the stillness like the star she was born to be. ~ Robert M Drake,

343:It's a high honor to be a part of the Star Wars universe and such a long running show. Our talented writers, animators and cast of voice actors have made The Clone Wars truly unique. And of course we wouldn't have hit 100 episodes had it not been for our incredibly dedicated fans who make this possible! ~ Matt Lanter,

344:Physics, mathematics, music, painting, my politics, my love for you, my work, the star-dust of my body, the spirit that impels it, clocks diurnal, time perpetual, the roll, rough, tender, swamping, liberating, breathing, moving, thinking nature, human nature and the cosmos are patterned together. ~ Jeanette Winterson,

345:Sneetches" was what we called the in-crowd at school, the haves as opposed to the have-nots. We named them from a Dr. Suess story in which the Star-Belly Sneetches, who were born with a green star on their bellies, thought they were better than all those who had no green star- or in this case green money. ~ Gwen Hayes,

346:Where do you live, Kaznim?" "In the star tent beside the Moon Pool, beneath the long dune." Marwick looked puzzled. "So, where's that?" he asked. "Um. In the desert," said Kaznim. "The Desert of the Singing Sands." "OK... and whereabouts is that." Kaznim shook her head. "I ... I don't know. ~ Angie Sage,

347:Abe picked up a shiny silver star, now a bit tarnished, the symbol of a happier time. The year after their daughter's death came the joy of a a newborn son,. Jeremy just squeaked into life the day before the holiday. The star was Abe's gift to his wife that Christmas. He smiled as he hung it on a branch. ~ Debra Holland,

348:When you are speaking to your team after a game, never talk about the kid who was the star of the game. Talk about what your other players did to help the team win. Be sure to spread the wealth... Then have individual meetings with one to three players to praise and reinforce. Make sure you touch them. ~ Mike Krzyzewski,

349:No one at fifteen was ever in love, outside of Romeo and Juliet, and maybe not even them. Old Giff used to argue that the star-crossed lovers simply were buzzed on the fumes of forbidden lust. Give them thirty years of togetherness, Old Giff always said, and Juliet would be plunging the dagger into Romeo. ~ Laura Lippman,

350:Develop what you have. Project it to the world. God will put a star up there on you. Then the wise men will look for you as they looked for Christ. They are going to bring the gold, the frankinsence and the myrrh. Even if you are hiding in the sheep's pen, they will find you once the star directs them! ~ Israelmore Ayivor,

351:Which direction do we take? The one prompted by the passions or the one indicated by the star which shines in your conscience? The Magi heard the answer: "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet" (Mt 2: 5), and, enlightened by these words, they chose to press forward to the very end. ~ Pope Benedict XVI,

352:Through its fiery swoon or clotted knot Rain-tide burst in upon torn wings of heat, Startled with lightnings air’s unquiet drowse, Lashed with life-giving streams the torpid soil, Overcast with flare and sound and storm-winged dark The star-defe ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Birth and Childhood of the Flame,

353:[My twin brother] he was the star artist of the family as we - as we were growing up. He eventually lost interest and went more towards literature and then medicine and then business and so on. But for me it became something that I did well. And it felt great being able to make something look like something. ~ Kehinde Wiley,

354:I thought that the world was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket's saw, the star's blink, were nothing but pauses and syllables, scattered phrases from that dialogue. What word could it be, of which I was only a syllable? Who speaks the word? To whom is it spoken? ~ Octavio Paz,

355:Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken." (Sonnet 116) ~ William Shakespeare,

356:Most of the afternoons I would pass looking out at the pasture. I soon began seeing things. A figure emerging from the birch woods and running straight in my direction. Usually it was the Sheep Man, but sometimes it was the Rat, sometimes my girlfriend. Other times it was the sheep with the star on it's back. ~ Haruki Murakami,

357:We need to go back to our relationship with nature and understand that those trees are our lungs. The earth is recycling as our body. The rivers are our circulation. This air is our breath. And the star stuff, the carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen that comes from distant galaxies is actually the molecules of your body. ~ Deepak Chopra,

358:At a time when she was engaged to Stilton Cheesewright, I remember recording in the archives that she was tall and willowy with a terrific profile and luxuriant platinum blond-hair, the sort of girl who might, as far as looks were concerned, have been the star unit of the harem of one of the better-class sultans. ~ P G Wodehouse,

359:One true king knew when to step aside and give up the reins of power—to remove his crown and relinquish his kingdom—all for the sake of glimpsing, just once in a lifetime, the face of a holy child. He was the Fourth to follow the Star. His gift was a secret. The rest of his journey is unknown. ~ Vera Nazarian,

360:And lying there, amid the tall, still grass and beneath the star-drunk sky, listening to the just-this-side-of-inaudible sound of her rhythmic breathing and the noisy silence of the bullfrogs, the grasshoppers, the distant cars rushing endlessly on I-65, I thought it might be a fine time to say the Three Little Words. ~ John Green,

361:Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. ~ Albert Einstein, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein,

362:Man is slightly nearer to the atom than to the star. ... From his central position man can survey the grandest works of Nature with the astronomer, or the minutest works with the physicist. ... [K]nowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars. ~ Arthur Eddington,

363:Whether this is your first Star Wars adventure, or one of many over the years: Thank you. Thank you for your dedication to and passion for the Star Wars galaxy. Because of fans like you around the world, the Force will be with us, always. Dave Filoni Executive Producer and Supervising Director, Star Wars Rebels ~ John Jackson Miller,

364:I suppose that now you'll want to sleep with me?Alas big guy I'm taken.' 'No. you're not,'Regin said. 'Am too,' Nix said. 'Mike Rowe, the star of Dirty Jobs, is soon to realize I'm his beloved.' She sighed dreamily. 'He even got his lawyers to contact me on the pretext of a' she made air quotes 'restraining order. ~ Kresley Cole,

365:I used to think I was like the wicket- keeper, which is like the catcher in base- ball, y'know what I mean? You can call the play a lot from behind the plate, y'know what I mean? You're not necessarily the star, you're not the one that makes the mark, but usually in the end, you're called upon to get a run when it's needed. ~ Eric Idle,

366:In 1924, Ma died, and Lara felt her loss keenly. She noted the profound influence her early life had had on her: "The example set by my mother and father has been something I have tried to follow, with failures here and there, with rebellion at times, but always coming back to it as the compass needle to the star. ~ Yona Zeldis McDonough,

367:Let the Bible be the Bible. It's not about science. It's not accurate history. It is a grab bag of religious fantasies written by many authors. Some of its myths, like the Star of Bethlehem, are very beautiful. Others are dull and ugly. Some express lofty ideals, such as the parables of Jesus. Others are morally disgusting. ~ Martin Gardner,

368:Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on forever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak, winking is the star language, but the little ones still wonder. ~ Shelly Crane,

369:The star rigger’s Flux: a higher-dimensional realm where reality and fantasy became strangely merged, where landscapes of the mind intersected with the real fabric of space, where space itself flowed and surged with movement—and where a rigger’s skills could vault him across light-years, or send him spiraling to his death. ~ Jeffrey A Carver,

370:after a period in which technocrats attempted to become stars and stars to become politicians, the political void has been occupied by the force of mediocrity, which can easily master enough of the star techniques to produce inoffensive personalities and enough of the rational vocabulary to create the sounds of competence. ~ John Ralston Saul,

371:The star Betelgeuse has a diameter of 100 million miles, which is larger than the earth’s orbit around the sun.4 Why the immensity? Why such vast, unmeasured, unexplored, “unused” space? So that you and I, freshly stunned, could be stirred by this resolve: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13 NKJV). ~ Max Lucado,

372:O shoe, leather ship that sails our cement rivers and woven seas, steering by the star of fashion, circumnavigating hostile reefs of tar and bubble gum; one hour, a tanker ferrying champagne to a playboy’s sip; the next, a raft in the slime; bon voyage, bright barge! May you dock in calm closets, safe from the rape of shoe trees. ~ Tom Robbins,

373:The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: "My Companions are as stars. Whomsoever of them you follow, you will be rightly guided." When a man looks at a star, and finds his way by it, the star does not speak any word to that man. Yet, by merely looking at the star, the man knows the road from roadlessness and reaches his goal. ~ Rumi,

374:I think of the moment in time when everything changed. A moment that caused so much evil. The moment the Star fell from the sky. Then, I picture it never falling, disappearing, vanishing into thin air. I concentrate on that moment as warmth spreads throughout my body and I feel time fading, like the morning mist. Evanescence. ~ Jessica Sorensen,

375:My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child.” “But ~ P L Travers,

376:My strength, if it's anything, is that I can lure some big-name actors in. That's probably the strength of almost any director now. On your own, as a director, you've only got so much weight. James Cameron, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay... that's about it. Everybody else depends on the star power that they can draw. ~ Terry Gilliam,

377:Statistically, I'd say comedy writers are perhaps the sanest category of show people. And why not? They make big money, and although it's not an easy trade - particularly when you're at your galley oar five days a week - it's easier on the nerves and the psyche than living with the brain-squeezing pressure and cares of being the Star. ~ Dick Cavett,

378:Where was the star? Take concepts like "distant," "isolate," "faint," and give them precise mathematical expression. They'll vanish under such articulation. But just before they do, that's where it lay. "My star." Lorq swept vanes aside so they could see. "That's my sun. That's my nova, with eight-hundred-year-old-light. ~ Samuel R Delany,

379:The architect of the visible world, At once the art and artist of his works, Spirit and seer and thinker of things seen, Virat, who lights his camp-fires in the suns And the star-entangled ether is his hold, Expressed himself with Matter for his ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day, The Soul’s Choice and the Supreme Consummation,

380:In spite of my great admiration for individual splendid talents I do not accept the star system. Collective creative effort is the root of our kind of art. That requires ensemble acting and whoever mars that ensemble is committing a crime not only against his comrades but also against the very art of which he is the servant. ~ Constantin Stanislavski,

381:I recognized the poem from Maulana Rumi and felt touched to the depths of my heart when I realized that Pari was committing both of us to God’s care. “I will never abandon you. You are the star that I follow always.” Pari’s eyes misted. “Yes,” she said softly, “you alone of all my servants have truly loved me.” “With all my heart. ~ Anita Amirrezvani,

382:I’ve always thought that relationships are kind of like stars. The majority of them burn brightly for a time and then slowly die out, leaving a luminous legacy in their wake. Their residual light shines brightly for years after their dissipation – a dazzling imprint of what once was, that lingers even in the absence of the star itself. ~ Julie Johnson,

383:The butterfly long loved the beautiful rose,  And flirted around all day;  While round him in turn with her golden caress,  Soft fluttered the sun's warm ray.... I know not with whom the rose was in love,  But I know that I loved them all.  The butterfly, rose, and the sun's bright ray,  The star and the bird's sweet call. ~ Heinrich Heine,

384:I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the street car and the star sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. ~ Everett Ruess,

385:And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of the waters; and the name of the star is called wormwood; and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. ~ Frederik Pohl,

386:It was a place nobody wanted to stay and look at, but almost everyone did. Shaped like a long, broken arm, the road contained several houses with lacerated windows and bruised walls. The Star of David was painted on their doors. Those houses were almost like lepers. At the very least, they were infected sores on the injured German terrain. ~ Markus Zusak,

387:So the winter passed, till lambing season was on them, and the work got very heavy for a while as the days lengthened and grew bright. Then the swallows came from the isles under the sun, from the South Reach, where the star Gobardon shines in the constellation of Ending; but all the swallows’ talk with one another was about beginning. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,

388:What is an artistic picture? An artistic picture is very simple. The creator is not the producer. The creator is not the star. The creator is the director, the person who realizes the picture, like a poet, like an artist. The creator of the picture is free to do whatever he wants, how he wants to do it. That is an artistic picture. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky,

389:He that resolves upon any great and good end, has, by that very resolution, scaled the chief barrier to it. He will find such resolution removing difficulties, searching out or making means, giving courage for despondency, and strength for weakness, and like the star to the wise men of old, ever guiding him nearer and nearer to perfection. ~ Tryon Edwards,

390:Participatory eschatology involves a twofold affirmation: we are to do it with God, and we cannot do it without God. In St. Augustine’s brilliant aphorism, God without us will not; we without God cannot. We who have seen the star and heard the angels sing are called to participate in the new birth and new world proclaimed by these stories. ~ Marcus J Borg,

391:Then, as tonight, he had felt lonely, but soon had learnt the bounty of such loneliness. The music had breathed to him its message, to him alone amongst these ordinary folk, whispered its gentle secret. And now the star. Across the shoulders of these people a voice was speaking to him in a tongue that he alone could understand". ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry,

392:She swore she loved and her love fulfilled itself in death and many a mysterious way. Yet it was hard to believe that this passion of hers was more than a spoken part, for how can the star seek the moth although the moth may seek the star? Though the man may worship the goddess, for all her smiles divine, how can the goddess love the man? ~ H Rider Haggard,

393:it may be that to eat and be eaten are the same thing in the end. My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember ~ P L Travers,

394:Advent's intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church's year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart's memory so that it can discern the star of hope. ~ Pope Benedict XVI,

395:China. She will return, standing tall and straight, the milk burned out of her. She will look down on the circle of light we have made in the Pit and she will know that I have kept watch, that I have fought. China will bark and call me sister. In the star-suffocated sky, there is a great waiting silence. She will know that I am a mother. ~ Jesmyn Ward,

396:In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the haughtiest and most mendacious minute of "world history"- yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

397:THE OLD FAITHFUL area was the largest complex in the park, consisting of hundreds of cabins, the Snow Lodge, retail stores, souvenir shops and snack bars, a rambling Park Service visitor center, and the showpiece structure of the entire park: the hundred-plus-year-old Old Faithful Inn that stood in sharp, gabled, epic relief against the star-washed sky. ~ C J Box,

398:In the next few galactic seconds, the fate of the universe will be decided. Life - the ultimate experiment - will either explode into space, and engulf the star-clouds in a fire storm of children, trees, and butterfly wings; or Life will fail, fizzle, and gutter out, leaving the universe shrouded forever in impenetrable blankness, devoid of hope. ~ Marshall Savage,

399:I went to the theatre with the author of a successful play. He insisted on explaining everything. He told me what to watch, the details of the direction, the errors of the property man, the foibles of the star. He anticipated all of my surprises and ruined the evening. Never again! And mark you, the greatest author of all made no such mistake. ~ Christopher Morley,

400:Morgan State University political science professor Jason Johnson recently wrote on “The Root of our National Anthem,” “It is one of the most racist, pro-slavery, anti-black songs in the American lexicon. . . . ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is as much a patriotic song as it is a diss track to black people who had the audacity to fight for their freedom. ~ D L Hughley,

401:They kissed for the first time then in the cold spring rain, though neither one of them now knew that it was raining. Tristran's heart pounded in his chest as if it was not big enough to contain all the joy that it held. He opened his eyes as he kissed the star. Her sky-blue eyes stared back into his, and in her eyes he could see no parting from her. ~ Neil Gaiman,

402:To help create awareness of this new practice, I created an organization called VetSalute.​org and have been attending more sporting events than ever before in my life! I’ve been to a Los Angeles Dodgers game on Memorial Day and to an Angels game on another occasion, and when “The Star-Spangled Banner” is played, I raise my hand in salute of our flag. ~ Buzz Aldrin,

403:Doing my first movie, I realized I could get into real bad habits. If you're the star, all you have to do is show up, and 20 people say, 'Do you want anything? What is it? Let me get it for you.' Believe me, you get spoiled very quickly. I saw some of my contemporaries allow themselves to have that fame, thinking they could handle it. It messed them up. ~ Val Kilmer,

404:Consider: for all the gobbledegook [film studio] executives spout about backstory, all that we, the audience, want to know is what happens next. That's the only thing that's going on. . . . Character is nothing other than action, and character-driven means The plot stinks, and you'd better hope the star is popular enough to open the movie in spite of it. ~ David Mamet,

405:To look at a star by glances - to view it in a side-long way, by turning toward it the exterior portions of the retina (more susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the interior), is to behold the star distinctly - is to have the best appreciation of its lustre - a lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn our vision fully upon it. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

406:Now if you want to look to the medical profession for a true hard bastard, there is none harder, in my opinion, than the man I will now name. I mean, 99.9 per cent of doctors would want to protect their pension and keep in with the in-crowd, not, though, this man amongst men. The star witness against the screws from Barlinnie was Doctor Simon Danson. ~ Stephen Richards,

407:By `God` I mean godliness; the whole existence is full of godliness. And when you will come to know, you will not see a god standing before you, you will see the trees as divine, the rocks as divine, the people as divine, the animals as divine. God is spread all over the place, from the pebble to the star, from the blade of grass to the sun - it is all divine. ~ Rajneesh,

408:Every one is struggling for freedom-from the atom to the star. The ignorant man is satisfied if he can get freedom within a certain limit-if he can get rid of the bondage of hunger or of being thirsty. But that sage feels that there is a stronger bondage which has to be thrown off. He would not consider the freedom of the Red Indian as freedom at all. ~ Swami Vivekananda,

409:The Firefly universe was anchored in a sector adjacent to the Star Wars galaxy, with a detailed re-creation of the Star Trek universe in the sector adjacent to that. Users could now teleport back and forth between their favorite fictional worlds. Middle Earth. Vulcan. Pern. Arrakis. Magrathea. Discworld, Mid-World, Riverworld, Ringworld. Worlds upon worlds. ~ Ernest Cline,

410:How could I have kept out this incredible fiction? That's when it all started for me. I was, and still am, a HUGE Star Trek fan. "Songs Of The Ocean" is my tribute to this great story, and it's based on the Star Trek IV movie, the one in which they go back in time. [The Voyage Home ; It's the one where they bring a pair of whales to the future -ed.] ~ Arjen Anthony Lucassen,

411:People go out to look at sunrises and sunsets who do not recognize their own, quietly and happily, but know that it is foreign to them. As they do by books, so they quote the sunset and the star, and do not make them theirs. Worse yet, they live as foreigners in a world of truth, and quote thoughts, and thus disown them. Quotation confesses inferiority ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,

412:It seemed to me that I now saw the Star Maker in two aspects: as the spirit's particular creative mood that had given rise to me, the cosmos; and also, most dreadfully, as something incomparably greater than creativity, namely as the eternally achieved perfection of the absolute spirit. Barren, barren and trivial are these words. But not barren the experience. ~ Olaf Stapledon,

413:Jack Hogenbaum, a.k.a. "Leo D. Nardo, Your Titanic Lover," was the star of Ladies' Nights at the club. He'd been packing them in since the movie. He looked like Leonardo DiCaprio. Well, sort of. At least his brown hair hung down over his forehead on the left side, he had soulful eyes, and when he danced, he could do stuff with a life preserver you never dreamed. ~ Elaine Viets,

414:The Birth of Yeshua bar Yosef Truly the heavens declare the glory of the Eternal One for great was the sign in the night sky! The star shone, radiant and gleaming, and it foretold of the Anointed One who would be born with the Fishes. The Magi had long awaited the One who would bring the Light of redemption and become a mediator between the Father and his Children. ~ C M Palov,

415:No to spectacle no to virtuosity no to transformations and magic and make believe no to glamour and transcendency of the star image no to the heroic no to the anti-heroic no to trash imagery no to involvement of performer or spectator no to style no to camp no to seduction of spectator by the wiles of the performer no to eccentricity no to moving or being moved. ~ Yvonne Rainer,

416:was throwing at Mood, and attached herself to the star deejay, Frankie Romano. This pissed Bobby off big-time. Why the hell was she going after Frankie? Everyone knew that Frankie was a major womanizing cokehead whom M.J. sometimes hired for the occasional big party. He made an attempt to talk to Serenity, but she blew him off, acting as if she barely knew him. ~ Jackie Collins,

417:Christmas represents love and mercy. It was ushered in by the star of hope and remains forever consecrated by the sacrifice of the cross. Christmas holds its place in the hearts of men because they know that love is the greatest thing in the world. Christmas is celebrated in the true spirit only by those who make some sacrifice for the benefit of their fellow men. ~ Newt Gingrich,

418:I was always told never to wish on the first star at night. If everyone wishes on one star, how will the star keep up? A star with too many wishes will just fall out of the sky. Rain drops are plentiful, and there are thousands. They wash away the filth and carry it to a better place. So when you make a wish, wish on the water and let it carry your problems away. ~ Elizabeth York,

419:The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States. ~ C Wright Mills,

420:I’m not sad, but the boys who are looking for sad girls always find me. I’m not a girl anymore and I’m not sad anymore. You want me to be a tragic backdrop so that you can appear to be illuminated, so that people can say ‘Wow, isn't he so terribly brave to love a girl who is so obviously sad?’ You think I’ll be the dark sky so you can be the star? I’ll swallow you whole. ~ Warsan Shire,

421:The tug of the lodestar slowly grew stronger until, with an abrupt quantum jump, it was a physical force prying at her mind. She felt everything else fall away, felt the same out-of-body swoon she’d experienced on First Foot when she’d stared too long at the star at the edge of the Badlands. Felt as if she was expanding beyond her body the room the ship into everywhere … ~ Paul McAuley,

422:He threw open the shutters and was silent. “There,” he said, pointing to a shooting star. “Wish to stay together. Hurry.” She watched the star’s arc fade and wished, secure in her love’s embrace. “I wish that we’ll be together forever,” she whispered. He pressed his lips against her ear. “I wish that we’ll be together forever,” he echoed. “Now it can’t help but come to pass. ~ Lynn Kurland,

423:If you had done your calculations properly, there would be a moment when you found that the star you were looking for was exactly where it should be on the horizon. In that instant the universe made sense, and you knew no matter what else happened in the world, the stars would always tell you where you were, and when they did, you would always be able to find your way home. ~ Brunonia Barry,

424:Reggie was so sick of it all. The things people knew (or thought they knew) about other people. Maybe everyone had a secret life, not just Vera. She suddenly hated all of it. She wanted people to be as see-through as fish tanks, no more murkiness, no misdirection. No lies and bullshit. No secret rooms or lies about being the star of some goddamn play that didn't even exist. ~ Jennifer McMahon,

425:As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see, So deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion, Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee. As still to the star of its worship, though clouded, The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea, So dark when I roam in this wintry world shrouded, The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee. ~ Charles Lamb,

426:In this sense love is of a different order to any other phenomenon, for it may be both an event and a sign of that invisible mechanism I spoke of before; perhaps the finest sign, the most certain. In it’s throes we need neither luck nor science. We are the wheel, and the man who profits by it. We are the star, and the darkness it pierces. We are the butterfly, brief and beautiful. ~ Clive Barker,

427:I may be permitted, like the doctors, to cure a greater evil by a less, for I shall not fall seriously in love with the young widow, I think, nor she with me - that's certain - but if I find a little pleasure in her society I may surely be allowed to seek it; and if the star of her divinity be bright enough to dim the lustre of Eliza's, so much the better, but I scarcely can think it ~ Anne Bront,

428:O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. ~ William Shakespeare,

429:Rise and enter the lair, where the darkness gives you your stripes. Tell tyrants, to you, their allegiance they owe," Etta read, running her finger beneath the words within the star. "Seek out the unknown gods whose ears were deaf to lecture. Stand on the shoulders of memory. Bring a coin to the widowed queen. Remember, the truth is in the telling, and an ending must be final. ~ Alexandra Bracken,

430:I may be permitted, like the doctors, to cure a greater evil by a less, for I shall not fall seriously in love with the young widow, I think, nor she with me - that's certain - but if I find a little pleasure in her society I may surely be allowed to seek it; and if the star of her divinity be bright enough to dim the lustre of Eliza's, so much the better, but I scarcely can think it ~ Anne Bronte,

431:When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart. ~ Howard Thurman,

432:...he'll come back. We all come back, Kate. These private little revolutions always die. The compromise is always made. In a peculiar way. Frank is right-- every man does have a star. The star of one's honesty. And you spend your life groping for it, but once it's out it never lights again. I don't think he went very far. He probably just wanted to be alone to watch his star go out. ~ Arthur Miller,

433:One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdain'd For thee to disdain it. One hope too like dispair For prudence to smother, I can give not what men call love: But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And heaven rejects not: The desire of the moth for the star, The devotion of something afar From the sphere of our sorrow? ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley,

434:It is the desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us – but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of Time, to attain a portion of that Loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, appertain to eternity alone. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

435:On canvas with paint In the Artist’s school It’s red that is hot And blue that is cool. But in science we show As the heat gets higher That a star will glow red Like the coals of a fire. Raise the heat some more And what is in sight? It’s no longer red It has turned bright white. Yet the hottest of all, Merlin says unto you, Is neither white nor red When the star has turned blue. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson,

436:It may be that to eat and be eaten are the same thing in the end. My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us-the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star-we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child. ~ P L Travers,

437:Trump, in a smart move, picked up his media reputation and relocated it from a hypercritical New York to a more value-free Hollywood, becoming the star of his own reality show, The Apprentice, and embracing a theory that would serve him well during his presidential campaign: in flyover country, there is no greater asset than celebrity. To be famous is to be loved—or at least fawned over. ~ Michael Wolff,

438:Do not tell me that it is not God-like to get angry or go into a fit of rage. God himself when enraged will grasp a star and hurl it through the heavens. And at night, you can see bits of the star flashing through the sky, fallen apart merely by the shear force of which it was thrown. Know when He is angry and stay out of His way… And the same holds true for my grandson.” Yervant Yacoubian. ~ Keri Topouzian,

439:It was one of those rare and beautiful days in winter when England remembers that there is a sun. The star of the day, pale but nevertheless still splendid, was setting in the horizon, glorifying at one the heavens and the sea with bands of fire, and casting upon the tower and the old houses of the city a last ray of gold which made the windows sparkle like the reflection of a conflagration. ~ Alexandre Dumas,

440:Occasionally, he left the compound. I’d figured he must be out hunting, at least some of the time, but he hadn’t returned with a new icon, and I’d heard nothing on Arcana Radio. Plus, Lark’s laminated player list—the little twit actually did keep it on the fridge door—had had no updates since the Star. Well, other than her scratching my title out and scribbling in “The Unclean One.” Har. ~ Kresley Cole,

441:Believe. Believe in your destiny and the star from which it shines. Believe you have been sent from God as an arrow shot from His own bow. It is the single universal trait that the great of this earth have all shared, while the shadows are fraught with ghosts who roam the winds with mournful wails of regret on their lips. Believe as if your life depended on it... for indeed it does. ~ Richard Paul Evans,

442:Alan Butler & Christopher Knight state in their book 'The Hiram Key' that the Star Families brought forth the unit 'avoirdupois pound' which equals to 16 Oz and that Thomas Jefferson was the first to note that 1,000 lbs fill a cubic foot. I therefore believe that the reason behind such a choice was, the same Temperature level of 16 in which the water density takes its place at about 0.9988. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim,

443:Death, the Sun, the Lovers. Lots of major arcana. Your future's controlled by others. There's powerful people playing with it. You're gonna have to fight to get it back...this is the country of truth. There the Devil, the Star, the Tower. In this country of truth, where your spirit lives, your life still isn't your own. Other stronger spirits, or maybe gods--they've got the say in what happens to you. ~ Emma Bull,

444:In other words, a star is a nuclear furnace, burning hydrogen fuel and creating nuclear "ash" in the form of waste helium. A star is also a delicate balancing act between the force of gravity, which tends to crush the star into oblivion, and the nuclear force, which tends to blow the star apart with the force of trillions of hydrogen bombs. A star then matures and ages as it exhausts its nuclear fuel. ~ Michio Kaku,

445:Both are driven to cover up their deep sense of self-rupture, the hole in their soul. They may cover up in ways that look polar opposite, but each is still driven by neurotic shame. In fact, the most paradoxical aspect of neurotic shame is that it is the core motivator of the superachieved and the underachieved, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic. ~ John Bradshaw,

446:If you were the star of the biggest show on television and took a walk down an average American street one night while you were on the air, and if you looked through windows and saw yourself on television in everybody’s living room, taking up some of their space, can you imagine how you would feel? No matter how small he is, he has all the space anyone could ever want, right there in the television box. ~ Olivia Laing,

447:We all, everyone one of us, carry a star inside our chests. ...Light and darkness are always side-by-side. If you show even the slightest fear or tears to the darkness, it will immediately swell and come attacking, and swallow up the light. Serenity, in order to defeat the darkness and dark souls, you must keep the star inside your chest burning brightly at all times. That is your most important charge. ~ Naoko Takeuchi,

448:Then a dark shape would glide across the star-covered sky, everyone would look up and the laughter would stop. It wasn't exactly what you'd call fear, rather a strange sadness--a sadness that had nothing human about it any more, for it lacked both courage and hope. This was how animals waited to die. It was the way fish caught in a net watch the shadow of the fisherman moving back and forth above them. ~ Ir ne N mirovsky,

449:Am I the star in this story or you?” Blake wrinkled his nose and chuckled. “Was that a bad analogy? I meant we’re the star, Livia. Us. This.” He shrugged his shoulders like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Us being in the same atmosphere is either a great cosmic catastrophe or the most serendipitous rendezvous.” Blake pronounced the French word like a closeted foreign language teacher. ~ Debra Anastasia,

450:He died at the house of one Mr Struddock, a grocer, at the Star on Snow Hill, in the parish of St Sepulchre’s, London, on the 12th of August 1688, and in the sixtieth year of his age, after ten days’ sickness; and was buried in the new burying place near the Artillery Ground; where he sleeps to the morning of the resurrection, in hopes of a glorious rising to an incorruptible immortality of joy and happiness; ~ John Bunyan,

451:He pulled to the side and saw, to his chagrin, that Mrs. Prince of the $2,100 bill at the Star Store was just leaving. She waved at him merrily and grinned and Seth waved back gamely. He wondered how Ralph had reacted to the news that his grandson had managed to screw up running the Star Store’s cash register. He could easily imagine Mrs. Prince’s words: “Ralph, I hate to ask, but can that boy even count? ~ Elizabeth George,

452:In the afternoon the ship's company assembled aft, on deck, under the awnings; the flute, the asthmatic meodeon, and the consumptive clarinet crippled the Star Spangled Banner, the choir chased it to cover, and George came in with a peculiarly lacerating screech on the final note and slaughtered it. Nobody mourned. We carried out the corpse on three cheers (that joke was not intentional and I do not endorse it). ~ Mark Twain,

453:O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.' And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! ~ Francis Scott Key,

454:What, the Star Wars?” Mapp said. “If the aliens are trying to control Buffalo Bill’s thoughts from another planet, Senator Martin can protect him—is that the pitch?” Starling nodded. “A lot of paranoid schizophrenics have that specific hallucination—alien control. If that’s the way Bill’s wired, maybe this approach could bring him out. It’s a damn good shot, though, and she stood up there and fired it, didn’t she? ~ Thomas Harris,

455:Is Vollmer saying that cosmic optimism is a luxury reserved for periods between world wars? Do we project our current failure and despair out toward the star clouds, the endless night? After all, he says, where are they? If they exist, why has there been no sign, not one, not any, not a single indication that serious people might cling to, not a whisper, a radio pulse, a shadow? The war tells us it is foolish to believe. ~ Anonymous,

456:Even as a child, she had preferred night to day, had enjoyed sitting out in the yard after sunset, under the star-speckled sky listening to frogs and crickets. Darkness soothed. It softened the sharp edges of the world, toned down the too-harsh colors. With the coming of twilight, the sky seemed to recede; the universe expanded. The night was bigger than the day, and in its realm, life seemed to have more possibilities. ~ Dean Koontz,

457:Ugh, sorry. Watching parliamentary procedure always makes me bored and angry. I think it has to do with the Star Wars prequels.” Phillip furrowed his brow. “Wait a minute. They made prequels to Star Wars?” Martin winced. He remembered that he, Tyler, Gary, and Jeff had all sworn never to tell Phillip about the Star Wars prequels. “There are some things about the future that he’s better off not knowing,” Jeff had argued. ~ Scott Meyer,

458:I think everybody should see ('The Star Wars Holiday Special') to realize how bad something can be. There are some cool things in there, but it's two hours long, and you could probably cut it down to about two minutes and twelve seconds of cool material. The animated Boba Fett sequence is great, and there's some cool stuff, but overall, the whole format of a variety show in the 'Star Wars' universe is just a train wreck. ~ Kyle Newman,

459:A star that appears blue is hotter, while a star that appears red is cooler. This is because the temperature of the star is related to its wavelength through Wien’s law, which says that temperature times wavelength is a constant. Higher temperature means shorter wavelength and lower temperature means longer wavelength. Red light has a longer wavelength than blue light, so blue stars are hotter and red stars are cooler. ~ Chris McMullen,

460:One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdain'd For thee to disdain it. One hope too like dispair For prudence to smother, I can give not what men call love: But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And heaven rejects not: The desire of the moth for the star, The devotion of something afar From the sphere of our sorrow? ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley,

461:Those I love go in the direction of what they call the last hour—what Clarice Lispector calls, “the hour of the star,” “the hour of relinquishing all the lies that have helped us live. Writing or saying the truth is equivalent to death, since we cannot tell the truth. It is forbidden because it hurts everyone. We never say the truth, we must lie, mostly as a result of our two needs: our need for love and cowardice. ~ H l ne Cixous,

462:I want to die at a hundred years old with an American flag on my back and the star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent on a bicycle at 75 miles per hour. I want to cross one last finish line as my wife and my ten children applaud, and then I want to lie down in a field of those famous French sunflowers and gracefully expire, the perfect contradiction to my once anticipated poignant early demise. ~ Lance Armstrong,

463:In this way, his unhappy soul struggled with its anguish. Eighteen hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being, in whom all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity come together, He too, while the olive trees trembled in the fierce breath of the Infinite, had brushed away the fearful cup that appeared before him, streaming with shadow and running over with darkness, in the star-filled depths. (pg. 236) ~ Victor Hugo,

464:Other virtual worlds soon followed suit, from the Metaverse to the Matrix. The Firefly universe was anchored in a sector adjacent to the Star Wars galaxy, with a detailed re-creation of the Star Trek universe in the sector adjacent to that. Users could now teleport back and forth between their favorite fictional worlds. Middle Earth. Vulcan. Pern. Arrakis. Magrathea. Discworld, Mid-World, Riverworld, Ringworld. Worlds upon worlds. ~ Ernest Cline,

465:Our Catholic church here split into three pieces: (1) the American Catholic Church whose new Rome is Cicero, Illinois; (2) the Dutch schismatics who believe in relevance but not God; (3) the Roman Catholic remnant, a tiny scattered flock with no place to go. The American Catholic Church, which emphasizes property rights and the integrity of neighborhoods, retained the Latin mass and plays The Star-Spangled Banner at the elevation. ~ Walker Percy,

466:When we had closed the door to the star room, Amar reached up to brush his fingers against the constellation in my hair. “It suits you,” he said. Warmth crept to my cheeks. For a long moment, we stood in that alcove. The mirror portals faintly shimmered. In the distance, I could see the lines of cities and flush of daybreaks, but everything felt dim compared to the space between us. It felt so charged it could have been alive. ~ Roshani Chokshi,

467:For relatively small stars, the Pauli exclusion principle keeps the electrons in a star sufficiently separated to prevent the star from contracting further after it has spent its fuel. In other words, the electrons counteract the crushing gravitational force. However, for stars more than about 1.5 times the mass of the sun (a mass known as the Chandrasekhar limit), this repulsive force would not be enough to stop stellar collapse. ~ Clifford A Pickover,

468:It was a line in the sand for me, a line past which we just weren’t gon’ go, not on my watch. The badge was to say this land is my land, too, my state, my country, and I’m not gon’ be run off. I can stand my ground, too. My people built this, and we’re not going anywhere. I set my sight on the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, among others, and I turned my life over to the Texas Rangers, to this badge,” he said, pointing to the star on his chest. ~ Attica Locke,

469:Across the dark night, we are not afraid. Our love is the star that guides us. Through the empty desert, we do not thirst. Our love is the water that refreshes. On the long journey, we do not weary. Our love is the truth that offers strength. As the mountains rise before us, we are not discouraged. Our love is the hope that waits on the other side. When we are together, let us hold hands. Our love is the promise that is never broken. ~ William Kent Krueger,

470:I'm always tempted in the back of my mind to continue to write things in the Star Trek universe, in the novels or the comics, just because I don't get to play in that universe and I don't get to hang out with those characters any more. You spend hours upon hours of your life, day after day sitting in writers' rooms, talking about these people and these situations, and it becomes very real to you. They're friends of yours, in a lot of ways. ~ Ronald D Moore,

471:So struggled beneath its anguish this unhappy soul. Eighteen hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being, in whom are aggregated all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity, He also, while the olive trees were shivering in the fierce breathe of the Infinite, had long put away from his hand the fearful chalice that appeared before him, dripping with shadow and running over with darkness, in the star-filled depths. ~ Victor Hugo,

472:Look at it carefully so that you will be sure to recognise it in case you travel some day to the African desert. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on. Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry,

473:The star [Tycho's supernova] was at first like Venus and Jupiter, giving pleasing effects; but as it then became like Mars, there will next come a period of wars, seditions, captivity and death of princes, and destruction of cities, together with dryness and fiery meteors in the air, pestilence, and venomous snakes. Lastly, the star became like Saturn, and there will finally come a time of want, death, imprisonment and all sorts of sad things. ~ Tycho Brahe,

474:Those huge stars have lasted for millions of years by taking care never to absorb any of the fiery rays lovers all over the world send up at them night after night. To avoid that, the star generates so much heat inside itself that it shatters the rays into a thousand pieces. Any look it receives is immediately repulsed, reflected back onto the earth, like a trick done with mirrors. That is the reason the stars shine so brightly at night. ~ Laura Esquivel,

475:Mia.” Lucas took my wrists and pinned them next to my ears on the pillow. “Look at me, please.” “That’s not going to help me slow down.” But I looked up at his handsome face, my heart beating faster still as I took in the full lips, the straight nose, the long lashes. “Listen. I don’t know what kind of assholes you’ve been with before, but I promise you, your orgasm will not only make an appearance tonight, it will be the star of the show.” My ~ Melanie Harlow,

476:Somebody's real voice is probably the hardest one that somebody could attempt. The characters are all, believe it or not, rooted in a reality of some sort. I've met and talked to people, and they're also fusions of showbiz periphery. But the best thing was, if you did your own voice and you were the star of the show - if it came to blows and they had you on the ropes and you had to leave, then they could just get someone to sound exactly like you. ~ Billy West,

477:Driggs gave her a reproachful look, but she didn’t care. She threw herself backwards, did a little flip, then floated to the surface and gazed up at the star-filled sky. How was it possible that only a week ago she had been trapped in such a crappy little life? And now here she was, the happiest she had ever been, surrounded by people she liked and who miraculously liked her back, and possessing a crapload of talents she’d never even known she had. ~ Gina Damico,

478:You cannot look into a cradle and read the secret message traced by a divine hand and wrapped up in that bit of clay, and more than you can see the North Star in the magnetic needle. God has loaded the needle of that young life so it will point to the star which presides over poetry, art, law, medicine, or whatever your own pet calling is, until you have wasted years precious life, yet, when once free, the needle flies back to its own star. ~ Orison Swett Marden,

479:Caspian looked angry. “Did you ever think that things might have changed? We don’t live and die by the sword anymore. I may not have a lifetime of darkness to atone for. Maybe I just need her to be the star in my night sky. To hold back the darkness and to let me see the light.” He looked at me then, and my throat went dry. “Or maybe it really is as simple as something in her fills the hollow in me. The black void disappears when we are together. ~ Jessica Verday,

480:The flare-watch in East Nekhebet had picked up an energy pulse, much brighter than anything seen previously. Briefly, there was the worrying possibility that Delta Pavonis was about to repeat the flare which had wiped out the Amarantin: the vast coronal mass ejection known as the Event. But closer examination revealed that the flare did not originate from the star, but rather from something several light-hours beyond it, on the edge of the system. ~ Alastair Reynolds,

481:Married people, it’s up to you. It’s entirely on your shoulders to keep this sinking institution afloat. It’s a stately old ship, and a lot of people, like me, want to get on board. Please be psyched, and convey that psychedness to us. And always remember: so many, many people are envious of what you have. You’re the star at the end of the Shakespearean play, wearing the wreath of flowers in your hair. The rest of us are just the little side characters. ~ Mindy Kaling,

482:Four effects in this case: that star-wobble is caused by the presence of a planet; that a star's light can be split into spectral lines; that these spectral lines shift if the star moves (wobbles) relative to us; and that light passed through a gas produces fixed absorption lines (that can act as a benchmark for any shift in a star's light spectrum). Captured and organized properly into a working technology, these effects have found 150 new exoplanets. ~ W Brian Arthur,

483:These warm lovers of life, born under dancing stars, how without them was life tolerable for those, such as himself, whose bias was towards sadness, their stars cloud-hidden when their spirits woke to life....In this world, surely, there should always be a mating between the lovers of life and the endurers of it, in couples they should find a causeway for their feet and walk it together, the star-shine of the one comforting the darkness of the other. ~ Elizabeth Goudge,

484:Of course it’s the apparently tranquil periods that deceive us. Though our instruments or our senses or our wits may not be able to see the processes that are leading toward these clusters of events, they’re happening. The star, the wheel, the butterfly—all are in a subtle state of unrest, waiting for the moment when some invisible mechanism signals that the time has come. Then the star explodes; the wheel makes poor men rich; the butterfly mates and dies. ~ Clive Barker,

485:Our skin, our borders, all seem petty compared to alien races and the scale of galaxies. Nobody in the Star Wars universe cares about white or black humans, it seems, and what meaning could physical appearance possibly have when there are sentient beings that look like lobsters or like Jabba the Hutt? Unfortunately, in the real world, such hopeful sentiments are regularly refuted by our stubborn insistence on always finding someone to discriminate against. ~ Garry Kasparov,

486:The Isle Of Portland The star-filled seas are smooth to-night From France to England strown; Black towers above the Portland light The felon-quarried stone. On yonder island, not to rise, Never to stir forth free, Far from his folk a dead lad lies That once was friends with me. Lie you easy, dream you light, And sleep you fast for aye; And luckier may you find the night Than ever you found the day. ~ Alfred Edward Housman,

487:I flip back to the front, and the stamp stares at me. Shakespeare and Company, Kilometer Zero Paris. And I'm back on the star, that first night. Falling in love with him. And I'm back on the star, over Thanksgiving break. Falling in love with him. And I'm back in my room, staring at this ill-timed book — Why didn't he just tell me? Why didn't I open this when he asked me about it last Christmas? — when I'm struck by a need to return to Point Zéro. ~ Stephanie Perkins,

488:If the errors of my life have profited me one great truth it is this: believe. Believe in your destiny and the star from which it shines. Believe you have been sent from God as an arrow pulled from his own bow. It is the single universal trait which the great of this earth have all shared, while the shadows are fraught with ghosts who roam the winds with mournful wails of regret on their lips. Believe as if your life depended upon it, for indeed it does. ~ Richard Paul Evans,

489:Madness rides the star-wind . . . claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses . . . dripping death astride a Bacchanale of bats from night-black ruins of buried temples of Belial. . . . Now, as the baying of that dead, fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those accursed web-wings circles closer and closer, I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnamable. ~ H P Lovecraft,

490:Van... even then, at fourteen, recognized that the old myths, which willed into helpful being a whirl of worlds (no matter how silly and mystical) and situated them within the gray matter of the star-suffused heavens, contained, perhaps, a glowworm of strange truth. His nights in the hammock... were now haunted not so much by the agony of his desire for Ada, as by that meaningless space overhead, underhead, everywhere, the demon counterpart of divine time... ~ Vladimir Nabokov,

491:As a business, the funeral industry has developed by selling a certain type of "dignity." Dignity is having a well-orchestrated final moment for the family, complete with a well-orchestrated corpse. Funeral directors become like directors for the stage, curating the evening's performance. The corpse is the star of the show and pains are taken to make sure the fourth wall is never broken, that the corpse does not interact with the audience and spoil the illusion. ~ Caitlin Doughty,

492:The star families unconsciously triggered the divine balance (i.e., 1,000) by their hexadecimal recalibration system. Their system corresponds to cheating - in stationary financial transactions; and to justice - in migratory ones. Their scheming could be construed as a mischievous act, or simply as an unannounced regulatory procedure. However, the judging of their intention depends thereupon if they were to conduct a migratory transaction therewith or a local one. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim,

493:I never expected Star Wars to all of a sudden become like The Matrix and change perspective on things. I respected it trying to stay close to the style of what George Lucas was originally doing. I don't understand how people can hate them. I think even the most cynical person can find something that reminds them of the Star Wars they loved. They're not void of that. Maybe there are holes, but it's like your family: You accept people's shortcomings, and you still love them. ~ Kyle Newman,

494:He was a finisher who could not finish. He was the heart of a hunter who lacked the heart to kill. In her journal she had written I am humanity, and something in those three words split him in two. She was the may fly, here for a day, then gone. She was the last star, burning bright in a sea of limitless black. Erase the human. In a burst of blinding light, the star Cassiopeia exploded and the world went black. Evan Walker had been undone. ~ Rick Yancey,

495:We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths - that all of us are created equal - is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth. ~ Barack Obama,

496:I was always casting about for role models as a kid and the Star Trek was always available via reruns and also full of possibilities. I wanted to be like Spock because he was unflappable. I wanted to be like Kirk because he had magnetism and the ladies loved him. Bones was a grouch but he was sympathetic. The show worked like a boy band in that way... it had characters who embodied different psychic or emotional positions and that allowed me to see a great range of things. ~ Adrian Matejka,

497:You are the foolish one, if you think you can threaten me,” Elias said, but his voice trembled like his wings. “You will be a prisoner of that pentagram, Agramon, until I release you.” “Will I?” The smoke surged forward, forming and re-forming itself. A tendril took the shape of a human hand and stroked the edge of the burning pentagram that contained it. Then, with a surge, the smoke seethed past the edge of the star, poured over the border like a wave breaching a levee. ~ Cassandra Clare,

498:Love is not love which alters it when alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wandering bark whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out, even to the edge of doom." (Sonnet 116) ~ William Shakespeare,

499:We are getting set to take flight into what has always been our destiny. We’re special. We are not outside the plan. But we’re in a loop of the plan that the rest of organic nature is not participating in. We are the hands of the planetary mind. And the technologies that we have assembled are for the purposes of the planetary mind. Surely, it must sense the finite nature of the life of the planet and the star itself. We are a kind of strategy for moving energy around. ~ Terence McKenna, The Edge Runner,

500:Well, you have adventures. All start out with troubles, but then you admit your problems and become a better person by working really hard, which is what fertilizes the happy ending and allows it to bloom—just like the end of all the Rocky films, Rudy, The Karate Kid, the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies, and The Goonies, which are my favorite films, even though I have sworn off movies until Nikki returns, because now my own life is the movie I will watch, and well, it’s always on. ~ Matthew Quick,

501:1005 The Snow That Never Drifts The Snow that never drifts The transient, fragrant snow That comes a single time a Year Is softly driving now So thorough in the Tree At night beneath the star That it was February's Foot Experience would swear Like Winter as a Face We stern and former knew Repaired of all but Loneliness By Nature's Alibit Were every storm so spice The Value could not be We buy with contrast - Pang is good As near as memory ~ Emily Dickinson,

502:Force was the factor in the government of the world when Christ was born, and force was the source and exercise of authority both by Church and State when Columbus sailed from Palos. The Wise Men traveled from the East toward the West under the guidance of the Star of Bethlehem. The spirit of the equality of all men before God and the law moved westward from Calvary with its revolutionary influence upon old institutions, to the Atlantic Ocean. Columbus carried it westward across the seas. ~ Chauncey Depew,

503:I'll tell you about Ryder. He's the star quarter back of our Division 1A state championship football team. Top student in our class, he doesn't even have to work for it. He plays the piano like some kind of freaking prodigy, and I wouldn't be surprised if he composed sonatas or something in his spare time. Oh, and did I mention that he's gorgeous? Of course he is. Six foot four, two hundred ten pounds of swoon-worthy good looks. Spiky dark hair, chocolate brown eyes, and full-on dimples. ~ Kristi Cook,

504:Somewhere or other there must surely be The face not seen, the voice not heard, The heart that not yet - never yet — ah me! Made answer to my word. Somewhere or other, may be near or far; Past land and sea, clean out of sight; Beyond the wandering moon, beyond the star That tracks her night by night. Somewhere or other, may be far or near; With just a wall, a hedge, between; With just the last leaves of the dying year Fallen on a turf grown green. ~ Christina Rossetti,

505:The Real made me contemplate the light of the veils as the star of strong backing rose, and He said to me, "Do you know how many veils I have veiled you with?" "No", I replied. He said, "With seventy veils. Even if you raise them you will not see Me, and if you do not raise them you will not see Me." "If you raise them you will see Me and if you do not raise them you will see Me." "Take care of burning yourself!" "You are My sight, so have faith. You are My Face, so veil yourself" ~ Ibn Arabi,

506:The Real made me contemplate the light of the veils as the star of strong backing rose, and He said to me, “Do you know how many veils I have veiled you with?” “No”, I replied. He said, “With seventy veils. Even if you raise them you will not see Me, and if you do not raise them you will not see Me.” “If you raise them you will see Me and if you do not raise them you will see Me.” “Take care of burning yourself!” “You are My sight, so have faith. You are My Face, so veil yourself ~ Ibn Arabi,

507:The Silverbird was tracking the Raiel’s gas giant-sized DF spheres as they continued their flight across the star system. Gravity waves spilled out from them with astonishing force, distorting the orbits within the main asteroid rings. A couple of small moons caught in the backwash had also changed inclination. All nine of the DFs were heading in towards the small orange star which Centurion Station’s never-named planet was in orbit around. As the ship watched, the photosphere started to dim. ~ Peter F Hamilton,

508:The fear of today,” he said, “always overrides the fear of tomorrow. It’s a basic fact of the dramatic emotions that the part is greater than the whole. If you see a glamour star on the screen in a position of great danger, you fear for her with one part of your mind, the emotional part. Notwithstanding that your reasoning mind knows that she is the star of the picture and nothing very bad is going to happen to her. If suspense and menace didn’t defeat reason, there would be very little drama. ~ Raymond Chandler,

509:...he wonders by what process virtually any discussion about the war seems to profane these ultimate matters of life and death. As if to talk of such things properly we need a mode of speech near the equal of prayer, otherwise just shut, shut your yap and sit on it, silence being truer to the experience than the star-spangled spasm, the bittersweet sob, the redeeming hug, or whatever this fucking closure is that everybody's always talking about. They want it to be easy and it's just not going to be. ~ Ben Fountain,

510:Emblems A STREAMLET is a bright and beauteous creature In some wide desert, where it keeps apart Of each wayfarer’s heart: The Star of Evening is a gracious feature, Instinct as ’twere with all the love that eyes Have looked through at the skies. And hence one emblems in its beauteous being The memory of a Joy that in my heart Flowed gratefully apart; The other, to my spiritual seeing, The perpetuity of Love’s white grace Yet in some heavenly place. ~ Charles Harpur,

511:I Came To Buy A Smile—today 223 I Came to buy a smile—today— But just a single smile— The smallest one upon your face Will suit me just as well— The one that no one else would miss It shone so very small— I'm pleading at the "counter"—sir— Could you afford to sell— I've Diamonds—on my fingers— You know what Diamonds are? I've Rubies—live the Evening Blood— And Topaz—like the star! 'Twould be "a Bargain" for a Jew! Say—may I have it—Sir? ~ Emily Dickinson,

512:I have named the star Jack's Star. It is beautiful and bright and gives me joy when it is here and pain when it is not, and every year as Summer approaches I have seen it coming over the hills. I used to think that someday i will learn what educated people have called it and why it is only here sometimes, but now i think it wouldn't matter. It is Jack's Star, and they only have to ask and I will tell them it's name. They will have to ask the star itself where it goes and why it is not content to stay. ~ Nancy E Turner,

513:The dark is generous, and it is patient. It is the dark that seeds cruelty into justice, that drips contempt into compassion, that poisons love with grains of doubt. The dark can be patient, because the slightest drop of rain will cause those seeds to sprout. The rain will come, and the seeds will sprout, for the dark is the soil in which they grow, and it is the clouds above them, and it waits behind the star that gives them light. The dark’s patience is infinite. Eventually, even stars burn out. ~ Matthew Woodring Stover,

514:Which is an interactive sport for our family, since Gil likes to groan over the writing and point out the plot twists ahead of time, and Jeremy tears his hair out over the historical inaccuracies, and Dad makes corny jokes, till Mom reminds us, loudly, that some people are trying to watch the movie. Then we'll all quiet down for about five minutes, until Olivia remarks that the costume designer should have dressed the star in kitten heels instead, because it's a lot harder to run in stilettos. ~ Caitlen Rubino Bradway,

515:It is time to remind Sharon that the star of David belongs to all Jews, not to his repulsive Government. His actions are staining the star of David with blood. The Jewish people, whose gifts to civilised discourse include Einstein and Epstein, Mendelssohn and Mahler, Sergei Eisenstein and Billy Wilder, are now symbolised throughout the world by the blustering bully Ariel Sharon, a war criminal implicated in the murder of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila camps and now involved in killing Palestinians once again. ~ Gerald Kaufman,

516:Yet if we would know God and for other's sake tell what we know we must try to speak of his love. All Christians have tried but none has ever done it very well. I can no more do justice to that awesome and wonder-filled theme than a child can grasp a star. Still by reaching toward the star the child may call attention to it and even indicate the direction one must look to see it. So as I stretch my heart toward the high shining love of God someone who has not before known about it may be encouraged to look up and have hope. ~ A W Tozer,

517:[Lennie meets Joe - he works out that she was named after John Lennon] I nod. "Mom was a hippie." This is northern Northern California after all - the final frontier of freakerdom. Just in the eleventh grade we have a girl named Electricity, a guy named Magic Bus, and countless flowers: Tulip, Begonia, and Poppy - all parent-given-on-the-birth-certificate names. Tulip is a two-ton bruiser of a guy who would be the star of out football team if we were the kind of school that has optional morning meditation in the gym ~ Jandy Nelson,

518:What's interesting in scripted TV is different than what's interesting in reality TV. Each of their departments have their development process where they package things and put together the writers and put together the producers and the different elements and develop the projects. By the time you get to a network or to a studio, you're able to say this is the project, here's who the producer is, sometimes even here's who the star is, here's who the writer is. It's a well-developed project by the time it gets to the studios. ~ Dawn Ostroff,

519:And now the same people who'd already infuriated Grayson public opinion had falsely and publicly attacked their greatest planetary hero, who was also the second ranking officer of their navy, the Protector's Champion, only the second person in history to have received the Star of Grayson not merely once, but twice, and one of the eighty-two steadholders. And a woman. Even now, the surviving strictures of Grayson's pre-Alliance social code absolutely precluded public insult to a woman. Any woman. And especially this woman. ~ David Weber,

520:Oak raised his head, and wondering what he could do, listlessly surveyed the scene. By the outer margin of the Pit was an oval pond, and over it hung the attenuated skeleton of a chrome-yellow moon which had only a few days to last—the morning star dogging her on the left hand. The pool glittered like a dead man’s eye, and as the world awoke a breeze blew, shaking and elongating the reflection of the moon without breaking it, and turning the image of the star to a phosphoric streak upon the water. All this Oak saw and remembered. ~ Thomas Hardy,

521:O Ye Seeming Fair Yet Inwardly Foul! Ye are like clear but bitter water, which to outward seeming is crystal pure but of which, when tested by the divine Assayer, not a drop is accepted. Yea the sun beam falls alike upon the dust and the mirror, yet differ they in reflection even as doth the star from the earth: nay, immeasurable is the difference! O My Friend In Word! Ponder awhile. Hast thou ever heard that friend and foe should abide in one heart? Cast out then the stranger, that the Friend may enter his home. ~ Bah u ll h,

522:Somewhere Or Other Somewhere or other there must surely be The face not seen, the voice not heard, The heart that not yet - never yet - ah me! Made answer to my word: Somewhere or other, may be near or far; Past land and sea, clean out of sight; Beyond the wandering moon, beyond the star That tracks her night by night: Somewhere or other, may be far or near; With just a wall, a hedge, between; With just the last leaves of the dying year Fallen on a turf grown green. ~ Christina Georgina Rossetti,

523:We are the Sublime Radiance, the Star of India, and the Sun of Glory," said the emperor, who knew a thing or two about flattery himself, "yet we were raised in that shit-hole dump of a town where men fuck women to make babies but fuck boys to make them men- raised watching out for the attacker who worked from behind as well the warrior straight ahead... Is that how a king should be raised, Bhakti Ram Jain?" the emperor roared, tipping over the basin in his wrath. "Illiterate, ass-guarding, savage- is that what a prince should be? ~ Salman Rushdie,

524:I didn't mean to tell you," Mrs. Whatsit faltered. "I didn't mean ever to let you know. But oh, my dears, I did so love being a star!" "Yyouu are sstill verry yyoungg," Mrs Witch said, her voice faintly chiding. The Medium sat looking happily at the star-filled sky in her ball, smiling, and nodding and chuckling gently. But Meg noticed that her eyes were drooping, and suddenly her head fell forward and she gave a faint snore. "Poor thing," Mrs Whatsit said, "we've worn her out. It's very hard work for her. ~ Madeleine L Engle,

525:I really am the world's shittiest boyfriend. Holding onto something normal for the sake of having it, for nothing other than to keep what is familiar and safe close to me because the alternative is so fucking terrifying I can't begin to wrap my head around it. It has nothing to do with it being another guy and everything to do with it being Chance, and Chance has the ability to shatter me into the minuscule fragments and base elements of the star I supposedly came from. Who walks willingly into something like that? ~ Kelley York,

526:Well for everyone to make a study of astrology for, as indicated, while many individuals have set about to prove the astrological aspects and astrological survey enable one to determine future as well as the past conditions, these are well to the point where the individual understands that these act upon individuals because of their sojourn or correlation of their associations with the environs through which these are shown - see? Rather than the star directing the life, the life of the individual directs the courses of the stars, see? ~ Edgar Cayce,

527:There are storms that are frankly theatrical, all sheet lightning and metallic thunder rolls. There are storms that are tropical and sultry, and incline to hot winds and fireballs. But this was a storm of the Circle Sea plains, and its main ambition was to hit the ground with as much rain as possible. It was the kind of storm that suggests that the whole sky has swallowed a diuretic. The thunder and lightning hung around in the background, supplying a sort of chorus, but the rain was the star of the show. It tap-danced across the land. ~ Terry Pratchett,

528:The Outer—from The Inner 451 The Outer—from the Inner Derives its Magnitude— 'Tis Duke, or Dwarf, according As is the Central Mood— The fine—unvarying Axis That regulates the Wheel— Though Spokes—spin—more conspicuous And fling a dust—the while. The Inner—paints the Outer— The Brush without the Hand— Its Picture publishes—precise— As is the inner Brand— On fine—Arterial Canvas— A Cheek—perchance a Brow— The Star's whole Secret—in the Lake— Eyes were not meant to know. ~ Emily Dickinson,

529:Then again: from the critic's point of view, one of the truly wonderful things about the Star Wars universe is that the territory is so sprawling and borrows from so many sources that it's possible to find just about anything here, if you look hard enough. For example, the story of the original movie can also be summarized as, "A restless young boy chafes at life on the dusty old family farm, until he meets a wizard and is swept away to a wondrous land where he meets some munchkins, a tin man, a cowardly lion and Harrison Ford as the scarecrow. ~ David Brin,

530:Jobs and his team went to a Xerox dealer to look at the Star as soon as it was released. But he deemed it so worthless that he told his colleagues they couldn’t spend the money to buy one. “We were very relieved,” he recalled. “We knew they hadn’t done it right, and that we could—at a fraction of the price.” A few weeks later he called Bob Belleville, one of the hardware designers on the Xerox Star team. “Everything you’ve ever done in your life is shit,” Jobs said, “so why don’t you come work for me?” Belleville did, and so did Larry Tesler. ~ Walter Isaacson,

531:I would argue that the truth of Easter does not depend on whether there was an empty tomb, or whether anything happened to the body of Jesus. ... I do not see the Christian tradition as exclusively true, or the Bible as the unique and infallible revelation of God. ... It makes no historical sense to say, 'Jesus was killed for the sins of the world.' ... I am one of those Christians who does not believe in the virgin birth, nor in the star of Bethlehem, nor in the journeys of the wisemen, nor in the shepherds coming to the manger, as facts of history. ~ Marcus Borg,

532:No manager can make an employee productive. Managers are catalysts. They can speed up the reaction between the talent of the employee and the needs of the customer/company. They can help the employee find his path of least resistance toward his goals. They can help the employee plan his career. But they cannot do any of these without a major effort from the employee. In the world according to great managers, the employee is the star. The manager is the agent. And, as in the world of performing arts, the agent expects a great deal from his stars. ~ Marcus Buckingham,

533:Computer modeling showed the lasers’ twin collimating beams racing away from the Star Destroyer. Then, captured by gravity, the beams become one, changing vector and accelerating beyond lightspeed as it disappeared into the mask’s churning accretion envelope. Krennic watched the monitor in naked awe, wishing there was some way he could screen the results for Galen without sending him into cardiac arrest or fleeing for the farthest reaches of the galaxy. His legacy, in any case, his contribution to the greatest weapon ever constructed, was now assured. ~ James Luceno,

534:We do what we have to, to live. Sometimes that means breaking a rocks heart, or pushing roots down into ground that screams againest the intrusion. As for you-how else should our children climb to the star's but up our branches? We made our peace with that fact a long time ago, that we would be used and maybe forgotten. So be it. What you learn in your climbing will make all the life on this planet greater, more precious. And when it comes to that, who writes the things written in your body, your life? And who reads?-Our cases aren't that much different? ~ Diane Duane,

535:This is the United spirit: you can play everywhere. If you want to win, you have to accept it. You can see Antonio Valencia playing right-back as well. Only because United play like a team. The team is the star, not only one player, that’s why you can put me and Michael Carrick at centre-back; we’re going to win because it’s the team effort and team spirit. That’s why I’m confident. I’ve said that from the beginning – in six years playing here – the Man United spirit… no one team has got that spirit. This is United. This is why I’m so proud to play here. ~ Patrice Evra,

536:I often wondered, by the way, why men, who had their own admirable cooks, and their own elegant abodes, and their own choice, selected wines, were so addicted to coming out to dinner at the Star and Garter, or Ship, or any suburban place, that it was fashionable to dine at in this manner. I often wondered what peculiar attraction existed for them in spending about five times as much on their dinner as it would have cost at home, only for the sake of getting in return a questionable cuisine, lumpy sauces, cold soups, and fifth-rate champagnes at exorbitant prjces. ~ Ouida,

537:Seiko slowly opened one eye. “Don’t be concerned, Doctor Wong, I was merely checking the tidal compensation,” she said, slightly annoyed at being interrupted. “At 406 kilometers from the neutron star, the tidal gravity gradient should be 101 gees per meter. Even though my middle is in free-fall, my arms, legs and head try to go in different orbits. My feet are one meter closer to the star and should feel a pull of 202 gees. My head is one meter further than my middle and should also feel a pull of 202 gees, while my arms should feel a push of 101 gees. ~ Robert L Forward,

538:The man who can face vilification and disgrace, who can stand up against the popular current, even against his friends and his country when he know he is right, who can defy those in authority over him, who can take punishment and prison and remain steadfast-that is a man of courage. The fellow whom you taunt as a 'slacker' because he refuses to turn murderer-he needs courage. But do you need much courage just to obey orders, to do as you are told and to fall in line with thousands of others to the tune of general approval and the Star Spangled Banner? ~ Alexander Berkman,

539:Hey, Gwen. How’s it going?” he asked. “Good, Martin,” she replied. “How are you today?” “Fine. I’m fine. I gotta say though, this meeting, with all of these motions being raised and seconded, I feel like I’m in one of the Star Wars prequels.” “I know!” Gwen enthused. She proceeded to go on at length about how much she loved the Star Wars prequels, and how particularly the parts set in the Galactic Senate gave all of the events much more of a sense of gravitas. Martin drank his coffee as quickly as he could and tried to pretend the conversation wasn’t happening. ~ Scott Meyer,

540:But here’s the secret to success when you possess a much-larger-than-average-size cock. You can’t just wave it around like a big bat. You’ve got to treat it like a baseball manager does a closer. A cock with firepower is your secret weapon, and it’s worth its weight in gold if you know what to do with the rest of the lineup. Meaning, the dick should never be the star of the show. The woman’s name should be the one in lights, and you need to make her feel that way from start to finish. Warm her up right. Use all your tools—hands, fingers, mouth, tongue, words. ~ Lauren Blakely,

541:Religion is not a perpetual moping over good books. Religion is not even prayer, praise, holy ordinances — these are necessary to religion — no man can be religious without them. But religion, I repeat, is, mainly and chiefly the glorifying God amid the duties and trials of the world; the guiding of our course amid adverse winds and currents of temptation by the star-light of duty and the compass of divine truth, the bearing up manfully, wisely, courageously, for the honor of Christ, our great Leader, in the conflict of life. ~ John Caird, Religion in Common Life (1856) pp. 24-25,

542:After the lake everywhere Beth looked there was light. Dad, face bent over her, wore a halo. A tree was on fire with white cockatoos. The dam wall shone like a bride's skirt. The star-covered lake moved inside her. In the car our faces glowed. The sky pressed its bright face to the window. At home our mother noticed the stain on her shorts, and in the toilet even the blood on her underpants shone. 'Do not be afraid,' whispered Nanna at the toilet door. She said the prayer for young girls who are menstruating. 'I'm not afraid,' said Beth. ~ Karen Foxlee,

543:By five minutes of four I was checked into the hotel. They had a lot of room. They had three conventions going and they still had a lot of room. Once inside the hotel, I was right back in Miami. Same scent to the chilled air, same skeptical servility, same glorious decor—as if a Brazilian architect had mated an air terminal with a manufacturer of cotton padding. Lighting, dramatic. At any moment the star of the show will step back from one of the eight (8) bars and break into song and the girlies will come prancing in. Keep those knees high, kids. Keep laughing. ~ John D MacDonald,

544:You will find a spring by the dwelling of the dead, to the left. Next to it stands a white cypress. Do not approach that spring, do not go near it. You will find another spring that pours from the lake of Memory, cool water gushes out of it. There are guards in front of it. Address these words to them: I am daughter of the earth and the star-covered Sky, and I descend from the Sky; and that you know; I burn and die of thirst; let me drink quickly of the cool water that gushes from the lake of Memory. And they will allow you to drink from the sacred spring. ~ Gustaw Herling Grudzinski,

545:In 1941 I was the star in one of the filthiest dramas of all time. I was a seaman, and went to the Imperial Cafe on Scollay Square in Boston to drink; I drank sixty glasses of beer and retired to the toilet, where I wrapped myself around the toilet bowl and went to sleep. During the night at least a hundred seaman and assorted civillians came in and cast their sentient debouchments on me till I was unrecognizably caked. What difference does it make after all? - anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what's heaven? what's earth? All in the mind. ~ Jack Kerouac,

546:The ticket out of the Depression was an education, a college degree. It really didn't matter if you knew anything. You just had to have the degree. My dad, up until the last two years of his life, thought he had failed miserably with me 'cause I didn't go to college. I mean, you've seen postgame interviews with the star of the game and the players always talk about how proud his parents are because he's the first guy in his family ever to attend college. I'm the first in my family not to! I'm the first of my family not to have a degree. It's thrown everybody for a loop. ~ Rush Limbaugh,

547:Explore, and explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatise yourself, nor accept another's dogmatism. Why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth, for the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board. Make yourself necessary to the world, and mankind will give you bread, and if not store of it, yet such as shall not take away your property in all men's possessions, in all men's affections, in art, in nature, and in hope. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,

548:MYSTERY THE MYSTERY OF THE MIDNIGHT DOG THE MYSTERY OF THE SCREECH OWL THE SUMMER CAMP MYSTERY THE COPYCAT MYSTERY THE HAUNTED CLOCK TOWER MYSTERY THE MYSTERY OF THE TIGER’S EYE THE DISAPPEARING STAIRCASE MYSTERY THE MYSTERY ON BLIZZARD MOUNTAIN THE MYSTERY OF THE SPIDER’S CLUE THE CANDY FACTORY MYSTERY THE MYSTERY OF THE MUMMY’S CURSE THE MYSTERY OF THE STAR RUBY THE STUFFED BEAR MYSTERY THE MYSTERY OF ALLIGATOR SWAMP THE MYSTERY AT SKELETON POINT THE TATTLETALE MYSTERY THE COMIC BOOK MYSTERY THE GREAT SHARK MYSTERY THE ICE CREAM MYSTERY THE MIDNIGHT MYSTERY T ~ Gertrude Chandler Warner,

549:Justin Lin is one of the most impressive people I've met professionally. I don't think he sleeps, or I think he sleeps 20 minutes every few hours during the night. Mostly, between shooting days, he was making rough cuts and other decisions with creative things on the Star Trek. He blew me away; in spite of working insane hours most days, his energy is incredibly generous and calm. Within the eye of storm, there was Justin there. He's someone who takes the temperature down and makes you feel calm in the middle of that, which is the greatest asset a huge production could have. ~ Lydia Wilson,

550:If Charley hadn’t shaken and bounced and said “Ftt,” I might have forgotten that every night he gets two dog biscuits and a walk to clear his head. I put on clean clothes and went out with him into the star-raddled night. And the Aurora Borealis was out. I’ve seen it only a few times in my life. It hung and moved with majesty in folds like an infinite traveler upstage in an infinite theater. In colors of rose and lavender and purple it moved and pulsed against the night, and the frost-sharpened stars shone through it. What a thing to see at a time when I needed it so badly! ~ John Steinbeck,

551:I can give not what men call love but wilt thou accept not the worship the heart lifts above and the heavens reject not- the desire of the moth for the star Of the night for the morrow the devotion of something afar from the sphere of our sorrow? ലോകര്‍ പേര്‍ പറയുന്ന പ്രേമമെന്നത് നിന/ ക്കേകുവാന്‍ ഞാനെന്നിരിക്കിലും ഭദ്രേ!/സ്വീകരിക്കുകയില്ലേയെന്‍ ഹൃദ്യോത്സര്‍പ്പണം / സ്വര്‍ഗ്ഗവും നിരാകരിക്കാത്തതാമാരാധനം/ പാറ്റക്ക് വിന്‍താരയോടുള്ളതാമഭിലാഷം/ രാത്രിക്ക് പിറ്റെന്നാളോടുള്ളതാമത്യാസക്തി/ ഹാ വിദൂരതയിലോന്നിനു വേണ്ടി ശോക / ഭൂവില്‍ നിന്നുയരുന്ന ഭക്തിനിര്‍ഭരമോഹം ~ S K Pottekkatt,

552:Now The Star Of Day Is High Now the star of day is high, Fly, my girls, in pity fly, Bring me wine in brimming urns, Cool my lip, it burns, it burns! Sunn'd by the meridian fire, Panting, languid I expire! Give me all those humid flowers, dropp them o'er my brow in showers. Scarce a breathing chaplet now Lives upon my feverish brow; Every dewy rose I wear Sheds its tears, and withers there. But for you, my burning mind! Oh! what shelter shall I find? Can the bowl, or flowret's dew, Cool the flame that scorches you? ~ Anacreon,

553:O how all things are far removed and long have passed away. I do believe the star, whose light my face reflects, is dead and has been so for many thousand years. I had a vision of a passing boat and heard some voices saying disquieting things. I heard a clock strike in some distant house... but in which house?... I long to quiet my anxious heart and stand beneath the sky's immensity. I long to pray... And one of all the stars must still exist. I do believe that I would know which one alone endured, and which like a white city stands at the ray's end shining in the heavens. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,

554:Another important divisional arrangement pertains to the execution of movement and the learning of movement sequences. The cerebellum, basal ganglia, and sensorimotor cortices are the main players here. There are also principal divisions concerned with learning and recall of image-based facts and events—the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex, whose circuitry feeds into it and is reciprocated by it, are the star players. Yet another division permits the construction of verbal language translations for all the nonverbal images that the brain generates and streams in narratives. ~ Ant nio R Dam sio,

555:Opening night is in a week. Already announced to the papers, already sent out in the newsletter in fancy, glossy, full-color glory. Which means I have two days, max, to finish the framing—easily a week’s worth of work—and then four days for drilling the star maps I’ve already marked on the plywood, painting, wiring, installing, and finessing.Leaving me only one day—the day of the evening gala—to clean and get the actual exhibits set up. It’s impossible. I will make it happen or die trying. I don’t realize I’ve said that last part aloud until I notice Michelle’s horrified face. ~ Kiersten White,

556:Milo carefully said nothing when Major de Coverley stepped into the mess hall with his fierce and austere dignity the day he returned and found his way blocked by a wall of officers waiting in line to sign loyalty oaths. At the far end of the food counter, a group of men who had arrived earlier were pledging allegiance to the flag, with trays of food balanced in one hand, in order to be allowed to take seats at the table. Already at the tables, a group that had arrived still earlier was singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' in order that they might use the salt and pepper and ketchup there. ~ Joseph Heller,

557:I. One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it; One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother, And pity from thee more dear Than that from another. II. I can give not what men call love, But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And the Heavens reject not,-- The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow?    ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, To-- One word is too often profaned ,

558:The Circle of Blood its perfection will find, The philosopher's stone shall eternity bind. New strength will arise in the young at that hour, Making one man immortal, for he holds the power. But beware: when the twelfth star shows its own force, His life here on earth runs its natural course. And if youth is destroyed, the the oak tree will stand To the end of all time, rooted fast in the land. As the star dies, the eagle arises supreme, Fulfilling his ancient and magical dream. For a star goes out in the sky above, If it freely chooses to die for love. ~ Kerstin Gier,

559:The Holy Night We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem; The dumb kine from their fodder turning them, Softened their horned faces To almost human gazes Toward the newly Born: The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks Brought visionary looks, As yet in their astonied hearing rung The strange sweet angel-tongue: The magi of the East, in sandals worn, Knelt reverent, sweeping round, With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground, The incense, myrrh, and gold These baby hands were impotent to hold: So let all earthlies and celestials wait Upon thy royal state. Sleep, sleep, my kingly One! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

560:...May I have this damaged bunch for two cents? Speak strongly and it shall be yours for two cents. That is a saved penny that you put in the star bank...Suffer the cold for an hour. Put a shawl around you. Sai, I am cold because I am saving to buy land. That hour will save you three cents' worth of coal... When you are alone at night, do not light the lamp. Sit in the darkness and dream awhile. Reckon out how much oil you saved and put its value in pennies in the bank. The money will grow. Someday there will be fifty dollars and somewhere on this long island is a piece of land that you may buy for that money. ~ Betty Smith,

561:The Web Of Eros Within your magic web of hair, lies furled The fire and splendour of the ancient world; The dire gold of the comet's wind-blown hair; The songs that turned to gold the evening air When all the stars of heaven sang for joy. The flames that burnt the cloud-high city Troy. The mænad fire of spring on the cold earth; The myrrh-lit flame that gave both death and birth To the soul Phoenix; and the star-bright shower That came to Danaë in her brazen tower... Within your magic web of hair lies furled The fire and splendour of the ancient world. ~ Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell,

562:And if sometimes, on the stairs of a palace, or on the green side of a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you, ask of the wind, or of the wave, or of the star, or of the bird, or of the clock, of whatever flies, or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks, ask what hour it is; and the wind, wave star, bird, clock, will answer you: 'it is the hour to be drunken! Be drunken, if you would not be martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will."" (He grins at his father provocatively.) ~ Eugene O Neill,

563:We may also ask the question, why were the Magi brought to Jerusalem at all? If they knew that the star which they saw was the star of Christ Jesus—as the narrative states [145:2]—and were by this knowledge conducted to Jerusalem, why did it not suffice to guide them straight to Bethlehem, and thus prevent the Slaughter of the Innocents? Why did the star desert them after its first appearance, not to be seen again till they issued from Jerusalem? or, if it did not desert them, why did they ask of Herod and the priests the road which they should take, when, by the hypothesis, the star was ready to guide them? [145:3] ~ Thomas William Doane,

564:What were you looking at?" She pointed to a bright star. "Polaris." He shook his head, and pointed to another part of the sky. "That's Polaris. You were looking at Vega." She chuckled. "Ah. No wonder I was finding it unimpressive." He leaned back and stretched his long legs out. "It's the fifth brightest star in the sky." She laughed. "You forget I am one of five sisters. In my world, fifth brightest is last." She looked up. "With apologies to the star in question, of course." "And are you often last?" She shrugged. "Sometimes. It is not a pleasant ranking." "I assure you, Pippa. You are rarely last. ~ Sarah MacLean,

565:Alpha. Cress leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees. “Like the star?” “What star?” She stiffened, instantly embarrassed, and scooted back from him again. “Oh. Um. In a constellation, the brightest star is called the alpha. I thought maybe you meant that she’s … like … your brightest star.” Looking away, she knotted her hands in her lap, aware that she was blushing furiously now and this beast of a man was about to realize what an over-romantic sap she was. But instead of sneering or laughing, Wolf sighed. “Yes,” he said, his gaze climbing up to the full moon that had emerged over the city. “Exactly like that.” With ~ Marissa Meyer,

566:Everything is far and long gone by. I think that the star glittering above me has been dead for a million years. I think there were tears in the car I heard pass and something terrible was said. A clock has stopped striking in the house across the road When did it start? I would like to step out of my heart an go walking beneath the enormous sky. I would like to pray. And surely of all the stars that perished long ago, one still exists. I think that I know which one it is which one, at the end of its beam in the sky, stands like a white city ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Lament ,

567:THE CREEK AND THE STARS Spirit is so mixed with the visible world that giver, gift, and beneficiary are one thing. You are the grace raining down; the grace is you. Creation is a clear, flat, fast-moving creek, where qualities reflect. Generations rush by, while the stars stay still without a splash. When you lose your appetite for food, you'll be given other nourishment. There's well-being that is not bodily and beings that live on fragrance. Don't worry about losing animal energy. Go the way of love and ask provisions. Love more the star region reflected, less the moving medium. ~ Rumi,

568:The Sorrow of Love W. B. Yeats, 1865 - 1939 The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves, The full round moon and the star-laden sky, And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves, Had hid away earth’s old and weary cry. And then you came with those red mournful lips, And with you came the whole of the world’s tears, And all the sorrows of her labouring ships, And all the burden of her myriad years. And now the sparrows warring in the eaves, The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky, And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves Are shaken with earth’s old and weary cry. ~ W B Yeats,

569:Some bears are sold for amazing sums at auction. An example is a very old stuffed individual named Mabel that had belonged to Elvis Presley (as a child or an adult?) and had been sold at auction several times after the King's death; it was made in the Steiff workshop in 1909. Its end was exceedingly sinister. Lent by its owner for an exhibition of stuffed bears in Wells, England, in which it was to be the star attraction, it provoked a hatred or jealousy of a young Doberman accompanying the night watchman after the first day of the exhibition. The dog seized the precious relic and furiously bit and clawed it to pieces. (252) ~ Michel Pastoureau,

570:Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring barque, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. ~ William Shakespeare,

571:The Forgotten He shone in the senate, the camp, and the grove, The mirror of manhood, the darling of love. He fought for his country, the star of the brave, And died for it’s weal when to die was to save. And Wisdom and Valour long over him wept, And Beauty, for ages, strewed flowers where he slept. And the bards of the people inwrought with their lays The light of his glory, the sound of his praise. But afar in the foreworld have faded their strains, And now of his being what record remains? Within a lone valley a tomb crumbles fast, And the name of the Sleeper is lost in the past ~ Charles Harpur,

572:How much happier the wide-awake indolents, the monarchs among men, the rich monstrous brains deriving intense enjoyment and rapturous pangs from the balustrade of a terrace at nightfall, from the lights and the lake below, from the distant mountain shapes melting into the dark apricot of the afterglow, from the black conifers outlined against the pale ink of the zenith, and from the garnet and green flounces of the water along the silent, sad, forbidden shoreline. Oh my sweet Boscobel! And the tender and terrible memories, and the shame, and the glory, and the maddening intimations, and the star that no party member can ever reach. ~ Vladimir Nabokov,

573:It was a single poppy seed...she rolled it between her fingers and raised her eyes past the straining sails, to the star-filled vault above. On any other night she would have scanned the sky for the planet she had always thought to be the arbiter of her fate - but tonight her eyes dropped instead to the tiny sphere she was holding between her thumb and forefinger. She looked at the seed as if she had never seen one before, and suddenly she knew that it was not the planet above that governed her life: it was this minuscule orb - at once bountiful and all-devouring, merciful and destructive, sustaining and vengeful. This was her Shani, her Saturn. ~ Amitav Ghosh,

574:Is that shooting star just a happy accident or has the universe had it planned for a thousand years?” He tilted his face to the sky, his eyes tracking an imaginary star as it screamed to earth. He looked back to her. “Either way, you can’t stop it. You can beg it to slow down or you can just enjoy the show.” “Am I the star in this story or you?” Blake wrinkled his nose and chuckled. “Was that a bad analogy? I meant we’re the star, Livia. Us. This.” He shrugged his shoulders like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Us being in the same atmosphere is either a great cosmic catastrophe or the most serendipitous rendezvous. ~ Debra Anastasia,

575:Let me not to the marriage of true minds   Admit impediments. Love is not love   Which alters when it alteration finds,   Or bends with the remover to remove:   O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,   That looks on tempests and is never shaken;   It is the star to every wandering bark,   Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.   Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks   Within his bending sickle's compass come;   Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,   But bears it out even to the edge of doom.     If this be error and upon me prov'd,     I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd. ~ William Shakespeare,

576:What are the Hanged Man’s powers?” I tried to remember more about that player. “I don’t know,” Aric admitted. “I’ve never faced him, nor seen him mentioned in any chronicles I’ve read. The Star had his icon in the last game. But did the Arcane Navigator take it himself, or harvest it from another?” Aric rotated his shot glass on his desk blotter. “The Hanged Man remains a mystery. That is why he’s called uncanny. In this game, all have been accounted for, but for him.” “Then he’s the inactivated card?” One Arcana was dormant—until he or she killed another player. “Matthew told me to beware of that player but wouldn’t reveal an identity. ~ Kresley Cole,

577:A Paraphrase Of Heine (LYRIC INTERMEZZO) There fell a star from realms above-A glittering, glorious star to see! Methought it was the star of love, So sweetly it illumined me. And from the apple branches fell Blossoms and leaves that time in June; The wanton breezes wooed them well With soft caress and amorous tune. The white swan proudly sailed along And vied her beauty with her note-The river, jealous of her song, Threw up its arms to clasp her throat. But now--oh, now the dream is past-The blossoms and the leaves are dead, The swan's sweet song is hushed at last, And not a star burns overhead. ~ Eugene Field,

578:smuggled away in whispers, by black familiars, unresisting, the beloved one leaves home, without a farewell, to darken those doors no more; henceforward to lie outside, far away, and forsaken, through the drowsy heats of summer, through days of snow and nights of tempest, without light or warmth, without a voice near. Oh, Death, king of terrors! The body quakes and the spirit faints before thee. It is vain, with hands clasped over our eyes, to scream our reclamation; the horrible image will not be excluded. We have just the word spoken eighteen hundred years ago, and our trembling faith. And through the broken vault the gleam of the Star of Bethlehem. ~ J Sheridan Le Fanu,

579:And so on this rainbow day, with storms all around them, and blue sky above, they rode only as far as the valley. But from there, before they turned to go back, the monuments appeared close, and they loomed grandly with the background of purple bank and creamy cloud and shafts of golden lightning. They seemed like sentinels — guardians of a great and beautiful love born under their lofty heights, in the lonely silence of day, in the star-thrown shadow of night. They were like that love. And they held Lucy and Slone, calling every day, giving a nameless and tranquil content, binding them true to love, true to the sage and the open, true to that wild upland home. ~ Zane Grey,

580:By Faith With Thanksgiving LOVE is no bird that nests and flies, No rose that buds and blooms and dies, No star that shines and disappears, No fire whose ashes strew the years: Love is the god who lights the star, Makes music of the lark's desire, Love tells the rose what perfumes are, And lights and feeds the deathless fire. Love is no joy that dies apace With the delight of dear embrace-Love is no feast of wine and bread, Red-vintaged and gold-harvested: Love is the god whose touch divine On hands that clung and lips that kissed, Has turned life's common bread and wine Into the Holy Eucharist. ~ Edith Nesbit,

581:O how all things are far removed and long have passed away. I do believe the star, whose light my face reflects, is dead and has been so for many thousand years. I had a vision of a passing boat and heard some voices saying disquieting things. I heard a clock strike in some distant house... but in which house?... I long to quiet my anxious heart and stand beneath the sky's immensity. I long to pray... And one of all the stars must still exist. I do believe that I would know which one alone endured, and which like a white city stands at the ray's end shining in the heavens. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,

582:History likewise shows that sometimes the 'monetary standard of the victors' can prove to be very bad. There have seldom been more brilliant victories than those eventually achieved by the American insurgents under Washington against the English troops. But the American 'continental" dollar did not benefit from them. The more proudly the star-spangled banner rose on high, the lower did the exchange-rate fall, until, at the very moment when the victory of the rebels was secured, the dollar became entirely valueless. The course of events was no different not long afterwards in France. In spite of the victories of the revolutionary army, the metal premium rose. ~ Ludwig von Mises,

583:This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world. It is the same as that on the preceding page, but I have drawn it again to impress it on your memory. It is here that the little prince appeared on Earth, and disappeared. Look at it carefully so that you will be sure to recognise it in case you travel some day to the African desert. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on. Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry,

584:Verlaine Why do you dig like long-clawed scavengers To touch the covered corpse of him that fled The uplands for the fens, and rioted Like a sick satyr with doom’s worshippers? Come! let the grass grow there; and leave his verse To tell the story of the life he led. Let the man go: let the dead flesh be dead, And let the worms be its biographers. Song sloughs away the sin to find redress In art’s complete remembrance: nothing clings For long but laurel to the stricken brow That felt the Muse’s finger; nothing less Than hell’s fulfilment of the end of things Can blot the star that shines on Paris now. ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,

585:To look at a star by glances—to view it in a side-long way, by turning toward it the exterior portions of the retina (more susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the interior), is to behold the star distinctly—is to have the best appreciation of its lustre—a lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn our vision fully upon it. A greater number of rays actually fall upon the eye in the latter case, but in the former, there is the more refined capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought; and it is possible to make even Venus herself vanish from the firmament by a scrutiny too sustained, too concentrated, or too direct. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

586:Then Alan looked thoughtful and seemed reluctant to speak, perhaps because he had just written the sequel to the Star Wars novelization that Lucas had sold to Ballantine Books, but in his reserved and gentlemanly fashion he told the audience of a day when he had seen a rough cut of the film and had remarked on just this scientific illiteracy to Lucas. He had even suggested a workable alternative. . .no, two workable alternatives. . .and Lucas had said words to the effect of (approximate quote), "There's a lot of money tied up in this film and people expect to hear a boom when something blows up, so I'll give them the boom." And at that moment, the cynicism showed through. ~ Harlan Ellison,

587:Influence The fervent, pale-faced Mother ere she sleep, Looks out upon the zigzag-lighted square, The beautiful bare trees, the blue night-air, The revelation of the star-strewn deep, World above world, and heaven over heaven. Between the tree-tops and the skies, her sight Rests on a steadfast, ruddy-shining light, High in the tower, an earthly star of even. Hers is the faith in saints' and angels' power, And mediating love--she breathes a prayer For yon tired watcher in the gray old tower. He the shrewd, skeptic poet unaware Feels comforted and stilled, and knows not whence Falls this unwonted peace on heart and sense. ~ Emma Lazarus,

588:Sitting there at the Star Lanes Lounge, scribbling, you found the cottage coming back to you at odd moments, along with the lighthouse. Always that riptide compulsion dragging you down into the water, that need to know overriding the fear. The sound of the midnight waves at high tide, how from the window of your room in your mother’s bungalow back then you could see the surf under the moonlight as a series of metallic-blue lines, dark water squeezed between them. Sometimes those lines had been broken by her figure as she walked the beach late at night, kept awake by thoughts she never shared, her face turned away from you. As if searching even then for the answer you seek now. ~ Jeff VanderMeer,

589:Now shall we say that only the first men were well alive, and the existing generation is invalided and degenerate? … A more subtle and severe criticism might suggest that some dislocation has befallen the race; that men are off their centre; that multitudes of men do not live with Nature, but behold it as exiles. People go out to look at sunrises and sunsets who do not recognize their own quietly and happily, but know that it is foreign to them. As they do by books, so they quote the sunset and the star, and do not make them theirs. Worse yet, they live as foreigners in the world of truth, and quote thoughts, and thus disown them. Quotation confesses inferiority. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Quotation and Originality,

590:You've never heard of the Trickster King?" Puck asked, shocked. The girls shook their heads. "The Prince of Fairies? Robin Goodfellow? The Imp?" "Do you work for Santa?" Daphne asked. "I'm a fairy, not an elf!" Puck roared. "You really don't know who I am! Doesn't anyone read the classics anymore? Dozens of writers have warned about me. I'm in the most famous of all of William Shakespeare's plays." "I don't remember any Puck in Romeo and Juliet," Sabrina muttered, feeling a little amused at how the boy was reacting to his non-celebrity. "Besides Romeo and Juliet!" Puck shouted. "I'm the star of a Midsummer Night's Dream!" "Congratulation," Sabrina said flatly. "Never read it. ~ Michael Buckley,

591:Go back to that night when Divine Light, in order to illumine the darkness of men, tabernacled Himself in the world He had made… The angels and a star caught up in the reflection of that Light, as a torch lighted by a torch, and passed it on to the watchers of sheep and the searchers of skies. And lo! As the shepherds watched their flocks about the hills of Bethlehem, they were shaken by the light of the angels And lo! As wise men from beyond the land of Media and Persia searched the heavens, the brilliance of a star, like a tabernacle lamp in the sanctuary of God’s creation, beckoned them on to the stable where the star seemed to lose its light in the unearthly brilliance of the Light of the Word. ~ Fulton J Sheen,

592:Without You" My Pillow gazes upon me at night Empty as a gravestone; I never thought it would be so bitter To be alone, Not to lie down asleep in your hair. I lie alone in a silent house, The hanging lamp darkened, And gently stretch out my hands To gather in yours, And softly press my warm mouth Toward you, and kiss myself, exhausted and weak- Then suddenly I'm awake And all around me the cold night grows still. The star in the window shines clearly- Where is your blond hair, Where your sweet mouth? Now I drink pain in every delight And poison in every wine; I never knew it would be so bitter To be alone, Alone, without you. ~ Hermann Hesse,

593:Dazzlement and enchantment are Bester’s methods. His stories never stand still a moment; they’re forever tilting into motion, veering, doubling back, firing off rockets to distract you. The repetition of the key phrase in “Fondly Fahrenheit,” the endless reappearances of Mr. Aquila in “The Star-comber” are offered mockingly: try to grab at them for stability, and you find they mean something new each time. Bester’s science is all wrong, his characters are not characters but funny hats; but you never notice: he fires off a smoke-bomb, climbs a ladder, leaps from a trapeze, plays three bars of “God Save the King,” swallows a sword and dives into three inches of water. Good heavens, what more do you want? ~ Alfred Bester,

594:Here is just a short glimpse into the elaborate construction of this ANE author:   1 Enoch 18:1-5 And I saw the storerooms of all the winds and saw how with them he has embroidered all creation as well as the foundations of the earth. I saw the cornerstone of the earth; I saw the four winds which bear the earth as well as the firmament of heaven. I saw how the winds ride the heights of heaven and stand between heaven and earth: These are the very pillars of heaven. I saw the winds which turn the heaven and cause the star to set—the sun as well as all the stars. I saw the souls carried by the clouds. I saw the path of the angels in the ultimate end of the earth, and the firmament of the heaven above.[82] ~ Brian Godawa,

595:Speak you too, speak as the last, say out your say. Speak- But don’t split off No from Yes. Give your say this meaning too: Give it the shadow. Give it shadow enough, Give it as much As you know is spread round you from Midnight to midday and midnight. Look around: See how things all come alive- By death! Alive! Speaks true who speaks shadow. But now the place shrinks, where you stand: Where now, shadow-stripped, where? Climb. Grope upwards. Thinner you grow, less knowable, finer! Finer: a thread The star wants to descend on: So as to swim down beliow, down here Where it sees itself shimmer:in the swell Of wandering words. ~ Paul Celan,

596:Cradle My Heart Last night, I was lying on the rooftop, thinking of you. I saw a special Star, and summoned her to take you a message. I prostrated myself to the Star and asked her to take my prostration to that Sun of Tabriz so that with his light, he can turn my dark stones into gold. I opened my chest and showed her my scars, I told her to bring me news of my bloodthirsty Lover. As I waited, I paced back and forth, until the child of my heart became quiet. The child slept, as if I were rocking his cradle. Oh Beloved, give milk to the infant of the heart, and don't hold us from our turning. You have cared for hundreds, don't let it stop with me now. At the end, the town of unity is the place for the heart. ~ Rumi,

597:Come on, baby,” Jake says climbing out of the car. By the time I’m out of the car, the star-struck young guy is taking the car keys from Jake and is walking around to the driver’s side with a huge smile on his face. “You didn’t just give the car to a random stranger did you?” I ask, smirking. “No,” he chuckles, gently swotting my behind with his hand. “He works for the place we’re going to. He’s going to go park the car for us … he’ll probably joy ride it first – can't say I blame him because I would if I was him – but as long as it’s back for when we need it, I’m cool.” “Aww, you’re so sweet, baby, letting the teenager go for a joyride in the hire car.” I nudge him with my hip. ~ Samantha Towle,

598:Ancestral The star dissolved in evening—the one star The silently and night O soon now, soon And still the light now and still now the large Relinquishing and through the pools of blue Still, still the swallows and a wind now and the tree Gathering darkness: I was small. I lay Beside my mother on the grass, and sleep Came— slow hooves and dripping with the dark The velvet muzzles, the white feet that move In a dream water and O soon now soon Sleep and the night. And I was not afraid. Her hand lay over mine. Her fingers knew Darkness,—and sleep—the silent lands, the far Far off of morning where I should awake. ~ Archibald MacLeish,

599:Black holes were invented by J. Robert Oppenheimer and Hartland Snyder in 1939. Starting from Einstein's theory of general relativity, Oppenheimer and Snyder found solutions of Einstein's equations that described what happens to a massive star when it has exhausted its supplies of nuclear energy. The star collapses gravitationally and disappears from the visible universe, leaving behind only an intense gravitational field to mark its presence. The star remains in a state of permanent free fall, collapsing endlessly inward into the gravitational pit without ever reaching the bottom. This solution of Einstein's equations was profoundly novel. It has had enormous impact on the later development of astrophysics. ~ Freeman Dyson,

600:Little Croodlin Doo Ho, pretty bee, did you see my croodlin doo? Ho, little lamb, is she jinkin' on the lea? Ho, bonnie fairy, bring my dearie back to me-Got a lump o' sugar an' a posie for you, Only bring back my wee, wee croodlin doo! Why, here you are, my little croodlin doo! Looked in er cradle, but didn't find you there, Looked f'r my wee, wee croodlin doo ever'where; Ben kind lonesome all er day withouten you; Where you ben, my little wee, wee croodlin doo? Now you go balow, my little croodlin doo; Now you go rockaby ever so far,-Rockaby, rockaby, up to the star That's winkin' an' blinkin' an' singin' to you As you go balow, my wee, wee croodlin doo! ~ Eugene Field,

601:Definition Of Poetry It's It's It's It's a whistle blown ripe in a trice, the cracking of ice in a gale, a night that turns green leaves to ice, a duel of two nightingales. It is sweet-peas run gloriously wild, It's the world's twinking tears in the pod, It is Figaro like hot hail hurled From the flutes on the wet flower bed. It is all that the night hopes to find On the bottom of deep bathing pools, It's the star carried to the fish-pond In your hands, wet and trembling and cool. This close air is as flat as the boards In the pond. The sky's flat on its face. It would be fun if these stars guffawedBut the universe is a dull place. ~ Boris Pasternak,

602:But Ashla is a perversion,” he went on, “for the dark has always preceded the light. The original idea was to capture the power of the Force and make it subservient to the will of sentient life. The ancients—the Celestials, the Rakata—didn’t pronounce judgment on their works. They moved planets, organized star systems, conjured dark side devices like the Star Forge as they saw fit. If millions died in the process, so be it. The lives of most beings are of small consequence. The Jedi have failed to understand this. They are so busy saving lives and striving to keep the powers of the Force in balance that they have lost sight of the fact that sentient life is meant to evolve, not simply languish in contented stasis. ~ James Luceno,

603:Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

604:Throughout the earth there are ancient forms, forms incorruptible and eternal; any one of them could be the symbol I sought. A mountain could be the speech of the god, or a river or the empire or the configuration of the stars. But in the process of the centuries the mountain is levelled and the river will change its course, empires experience mutilation and havoc and the configuration of the stars varies. There is change in the firmament. The mountain and the star are individuals and individuals perish. I sought something more tenacious, more invulnerable. I thought of the generations of cereals, of grasses, or birds, of men. Perhaps the magic would be written on my face, perhaps I myself was the end of my search. ~ Jorge Luis Borges,

605:A star is a body that is massive enough for the gravitational comptession at its centre to produce a temperature great enough for nuclear reactions to occur spontaneously. When this ignition temperature is achieved, nuclear reactions in the central region will produce an energy outflow that is eventually radiated away from its surface in the form of heat and light. The star is kept in equilibrium by the balance between its internal pressure and gravity. This is a stable balance because if the gravitational force were made slightly greater then the star's centre would be squeezed a little more, so producing faster nuclear reactions and hence a corresponding extra pressure pushing outwards. Thus a balance is quickly restored. ~ John D Barrow,

606:Tyler wrote: Dearest Marguerite: You've taught me a great deal about stillness. About the many things that can drift into your mind and heart when you shut down the barricades created by noise. Unexpected gifts of insight, revelation and wisdom. <…> But you taught me that love is found in stillness. It is the space between objects. It's the star you can't see if you look directly at it in the night sky, but if you look away, look forward, you see it in your peripheral vision, beside you, watching over you. If you lie down on the earth it's there, beneath you, cradling you.<…> You're my angel, my tormentor, my woman, my love. God, Tyler is such a gentleman! He is gentle AND a gentleman. ~ Joey W Hill,

607:O how all things are far removed and long have passed away. I do believe the star, whose light my face reflects, is dead and has been so for many thousand years. I had a vision of a passing boat and heard some voices saying disquieting things. I heard a clock strike in some distant house but in which house? I long to quiet my anxious heart and stand beneath the sky's immensity. I long to pray And one of all the stars must still exist. I do believe that I would know which one alone endured, and which like a white city stands at the ray's end shining in the heavens. Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Lament (O how all things are far removed) ,

608:... ongoing care for the soul rather than seek for a cure appreciates the mystery of human suffering and does not offer the illusion of a problem-free life. I sees every fall into ignorance and confusion as an opportunity to discover that the beast residing at the center of the labyrinth is also an angel. To approach this paradoxical point of tension where adjustment and abnormality meet is to move closer to the realization of our mystery-filled, star-born nature. It is a beast this thing that stirs in the core of our being, but it is also the star of our innermost nature. We have to care for this suffering with extreme reverence so that in our fear and anger at the beast, we do not overlook the star. ~ Thomas Moore,

609:The star we're looking for isn't so very friendly," said Moomintroll. "Quite the contrary, in fact." "What did you say?" said Sniff. Moomintroll went a bit red. "I mean -- stars in general," he said, "big and small, friendly and unfriendly, and so on." "Can they be unfriendly?" asked Snufkin. "Yes -- ones with tails," answered Moomintroll. "Comets." At last it dawned on Sniff. "You're hiding something from me!" he said accusingly. "That pattern we saw everywhere, and you said it didn't mean anything!" "You're too small to be told everything," answered Moomintroll. "Too small!" screamed Sniff. "I must say it's a fine thing to take me on an expedition of discovery and not tell me what I'm supposed to be discovering! ~ Tove Jansson,

610:I am a child of the Milky Way. The night is my mother. I am made of the dust of stars. Every atom in my body was forged in a star. When the universe exploded into being, already the bird longed for the wood and the fish for the pool. When the first galaxies fell into luminous clumps, already matter was struggling toward consciousness. The star clouds of Sagittarius are a burning bush. If there is a voice in Sagittarius, I’d be a fool not to listen. If God’s voice in the night is a scrawny cry, then I’ll prick up my ears. If night’s faint lights fail to knock me off my feet, then I’ll sit back on a dark hillside and wait and watch. A hint here and a trait there. Listening and watching. Waiting, always waiting, for the tingle in the spine. ~ Chet Raymo,

611:The Landscape" I dreamt of loving. The dream remains, but love is no longer those lilacs and roses whose breath filled the broad woods, where the sail of a flame lay at the end of each arrow-straight path. I dreamt of loving. The dream remains, but love is no longer that storm whose white nerve sparked the castle towers, or left the mind unrhymed, or flared an instant, just where the road forked. It is the star struck under my heel in the night. It is the vvord no book on earth defines. It is the foam on the wave, the cloud in the sky. As they age, all things grow rigid and bright. The streets fall nameless, and the knots untie. Now, with this landscape, I fix; I shine. ~ Robert Desnos,

612:Man would not be man if his dreams did not exceed his grasp. ... Like John Donne, man lies in a close prison, yet it is dear to him. Like Donne's, his thoughts at times overleap the sun and pace beyond the body. If I term humanity a slime mold organism it is because our present environment suggest it. If I remember the sunflower forest it is because from its hidden reaches man arose. The green world is his sacred center. In moments of sanity he must still seek refuge there. ... If I dream by contrast of the eventual drift of the star voyagers through the dilated time of the universe, it is because I have seen thistledown off to new worlds and am at heart a voyager who, in this modern time, still yearns for the lost country of his birth. ~ Loren Eiseley,

613:We have still a thirst unquenchable... It is the desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us — but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of Time, to attain a portion of that Loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, appertain to eternity alone. And thus... we find ourselves melted into tears — we weep then... through a certain, petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and for ever, those divine and rapturous joys, of which through the poem, or through the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

614:In 2014, we worked together for the last time. We did a Volkswagen commercial—for German television. It was a simple concept to introduce its new electric car. In recognition of the international appeal of Star Trek, a young German boy recognizes me. As the theme plays in the background, he runs into his room, which is filled from floor to ceiling with Star Trek memorabilia. Then, as the Star Trek theme plays, a garage door slowly lifts open to reveal—the new Volkswagen—with me driving. As the two of us drive along, we suddenly stop next to a futuristic concept car—with Leonard driving. He looks at us, looks at the car, and says the one word that so defined Spock: “Fascinating.” It’s hard to believe that was the last time I saw him, but it was. ~ William Shatner,

615:To One in Bedlam With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars, Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine; Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares, Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchaunted wine, And make his melancholy germane to the stars? O, lamentable brother! if those pity thee, Am I not fain of all thy lone eyes promise me; Half a fool's kingdom, far from men who sow and reap, All their days, vanity? Better than mortal flowers, Thy moon-kissed roses seem: better than love or sleep, The star-crowned solitude of thine oblivious hours ~ Ernest Dowson,

616:Begin The Day Begin each morning with a talk to God, And ask for your divine inheritance Of usefulness, contentment, and success. Resign all fear, all doubt, and all despair. The stars doubt not, and they are undismayed, Though whirled through space for countless centuries, And told not why or wherefore: and the sea With everlasting ebb and flow obeys, And leaves the purpose with the unseen Cause. The star sheds its radiance on a million worlds, The sea is prodigal with waves, and yet No lustre from the star is lost, and not One dropp missing from the ocean tides. Oh! brother to the star and sea, know all God’s opulence is held in trust for those Who wait serenely and who work in faith. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

617:... ongoing care for the soul rather than seek for a cure appreciates the mystery of human suffering and does not offer the illusion of a problem-free life. I sees every fall into ignorance and confusion as an opportunity to discover that the beast residing at the center of the labyrinth is also an angel. To approach this paradoxial point of tension where adjustment and abnormality meet is to move closer to the realization of our mystery-filled, star-born nature. It is a beast this thing that stirs in the core of our being, but it is also the star of our innermost nature. We have to care for this suffering with extreme reverence so that in our fear and anger at the beast, we do not overlock the star. ~ Thomas MooreThomas Moore *Care of the Soul* ~ Thomas Moore,

618:The Rainbow Of Promise In the face of the sun are great thunderbolts hurled, And the storm-clouds have shut out its light; But a Rainbow of Promise now shines on the world, And the universe thrills at the sight. Tis the flag of our Union, the red, white, and blue, Our Star-spangled Banner-our pride; Fair symbol of all that is noble and true, Flung out over continents wide. Flung out in its glory o'er land and o'er sea, With a message from God in each star; And a glorious promise of peace yet to be In the fluttering folds of each bar. A Rainbow of Promise, bright emblem of hope, Fair flag of each cause that is just; No longer in doubt or in darkness we gropeIn the Star-spangled Banner we trust. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

619:Even though I was born in America, and my ancestors built its infrastructure for free, I’m not a part of the “Our” when they sing, “Our flag was still there!” I feel like the “Our” doesn’t include blacks, most women, gays, trans, and poor people of all colors. And, sadly, our nation reminds us every day. Some may reject the anthem because Francis Scott Key sang for freedom while enslaving blacks. His hatred even bled into the lyrics of the elongated version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” you won’t hear at a sporting event. The third stanza reads: No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave That line was basically a shot at slaves who agreed to fight with the British during the War of 1812 in exchange for their freedom. ~ D Watkins,

620:He was suddenly thrilled to see his private, personal star arise in the east. This was a particular star his nanny had chosen for him as a child. As a child, he would sometimes talk to this star, but only when he was his most serious, real self, and not being any sort of a show-off or clown. As he grew up, the practice had somehow worn off. He looked up at his old friend as if to say, “You see my predicament.” The star seemed to respond, “I see.” Abel next put the question: “What shall I do?” The star seemed to answer, “You will do what you will do.” For some reason this reply strengthened Abel’s belief in himself. Sleep gently enfolded him. The constellations proceeded across the hushed heavens as if tiptoeing past the dreaming mouse on his high branch. ~ William Steig,

621:The fifth planet was very strange. It was the smallest of all. There was just enough room on it for a street lamp and a lamp-lighter. The little prince was not able to reach any explanation of the use of a street lamp and a lamplighter, somewhere in the heavens, on a planet which had no people, and not one house. But he said to himself, nevertheless: "It may well be that this man is absurd. But he is not so absurd as the king, the conceited man, the businessman, and the tippler. For at least his work has some meaning. When he lights his street lamp, it is as if he brought one more star to life, or one flower. When he puts out his lamp, he sends the flower, or the star, to sleep. That is a beautiful occupation. And since it is beautiful, it is truly useful. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry,

622:During the late 1910s and early ’20s, immigrant workers at the Ford automotive plant in Dearborn, Michigan, were given free, compulsory “Americanization” classes. In addition to English lessons, there were lectures on work habits, personal hygiene, and table manners. The first sentence they memorized was “I am a good American.” During their graduation ceremony they gathered next to a gigantic wooden pot, which their teachers stirred with ten-foot ladles. The students walked through a door into the pot, wearing traditional costumes from their countries of origin and singing songs in their native languages. A few minutes later, the door in the pot opened, and the students walked out again, wearing suits and ties, waving American flags, and singing “The Star-Spangled Banner. ~ Anne Fadiman,

623:Sonnet: The Ghosts Of James And Peirce In Harvard Yard In memory of D. W. Prall The ghosts of James and Peirce in Harvard Yard At star-pierced midnight, after the chapel bell (Episcopalian! palian! the ringing soared!) Stare at me now as if they wish me well. In the waking dream amid the trees which fall, Bar and bough of shadow, by my shadow crossed, They have not slept for long and they know all, Know time's exhaustion and the spirit's cost. "We studied the radiant sun, the star's pure seed: Darkness is infinite! The blind can see Hatred's necessity and love's grave need Now that the poor are murdered across the sea, And you are ignorant, who hear the bell; Ignorant, you walk between heaven and hell." ~ Delmore Schwartz,

624:Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas-time, still let the benignant figure of my childhood stand unchanged! In every cheerful image and suggestion that the season brings, may the bright star that rested above the poor roof, be the star of all the Christian World! A moment’s pause, O vanishing tree, of which the lower boughs are dark to me as yet, and let me look once more! I know there are blank spaces on thy branches, where eyes that I have loved have shone and smiled; from which they are departed. But, far above, I see the raiser of the dead girl, and the Widow’s Son; and God is good! If Age be hiding for me in the unseen portion of thy downward growth, O may I, with a grey head, turn a child’s heart to that figure yet, and a child’s trustfulness and confidence! ~ Charles Dickens,

625:Man’s threefold lower nature—consisting of his physical organism, his emotional nature, and his mental faculties—reflects the light of his threefold Divinity and bears witness of It in the physical world. Man’s three bodies are symbolized by an upright triangle; his threefold spiritual nature by an inverted triangle. These two triangles, when united in the form of a six-pointed star, were called by the Jews “the Star of David,” “the Signet of Solomon,” and are more commonly known today as “the Star of Zion.” These triangles symbolize the spiritual and material universes linked together in the constitution of the human creature, who partakes of both Nature and Divinity. Man’s animal nature partakes of the earth; his divine nature of the heavens; his human nature of the mediator. ~ Manly P Hall,

626:But the earthly humans over which we rule can.” He let that one linger with a sense of foreboding. Belial was good at delivery. He was after all the Accuser in the very courtroom of Yahweh’s divine council. He challenged the Laws of Torah and prosecuted heavenly lawsuits against Yahweh’s people. “I almost had you in the hands of Herod when you were born. How you escaped Herod’s slaughter of the innocents at Bethlehem, now that I must congratulate Yahweh on. The whole flight to Egypt and all. And there you have it, that exodus connection again. Just like Moses escaping the slaughter of Hebrew infants by Pharaoh. Nice touch. If it had not been for those Babylonian Magi literally coming and pointing out the star prophecy to Herod, that rock head would never have figured anything out. ~ Brian Godawa,

627:Do you know who 'twas that first knew our Lord had caused Himself to be born? 'Twas the cock; he saw the star, and so he said–all the beasts could talk Latin in those days; he cried: 'Christus natus est!' " He crowed these words so like a cock that Kristin fell to laughing heartily. And it did her good to laugh, for all the strange things Brother Edvin had just been saying had laid a burden of awe on her heart. The monk laughed himself: "Ay, and when the ox heard that, he began to low: 'Ubi, ubi, ubi.' "But the goat bleated, and said: 'Betlem, Betlem, Betlem.' "And the sheep so longed to see Our Lady and her Son that she baa-ed out at once: 'Eamus, eamus!' "And the new-born calf that lay in the straw, raised itself and stood upon its feet. 'Volo, volo, volo!' it said. ~ Sigrid Undset,

628:Nature is pitiless; she never withdraws her flowers, her music, her fragrance and her sunlight, from before human cruelty or suffering. She overwhelms man by the contrast between divine beauty and social hideousness. She spares him nothing of her loveliness, neither wing or butterfly, nor song of bird; in the midst of murder, vengeance, barbarism, he must feel himself watched by holy things; he cannot escape the immense reproach of universal nature and the implacable serenity of the sky. The deformity of human laws is forced to exhibit itself naked amidst the dazzling rays of eternal beauty. Man breaks and destroys; man lays waste; man kills; but the summer remains summer; the lily remains the lily; and the star remains the star. ... As though it said to man, 'Behold my work. and yours. ~ Victor Hugo,

629:Prayers After World War WANDERING oversea dreamer, Hunting and hoarse, Oh daughter and mother, Oh daughter of ashes and mother of blood, Child of the hair let down, and tears, Child of the cross in the south And the star in the north, Keeper of Egypt and Russia and France, Keeper of England and Poland and Spain, Make us a song for to-morrow. Make us one new dream, us who forget, Out of the storm let us have one star. Struggle, Oh anvils, and help her. Weave with your wool. Oh winds and skies. Let your iron and copper help, Oh dirt of the old dark earth. Wandering oversea singer, Singing of ashes and blood, Child of the scars of fire, Make us one new dream, us who forget. Out of the storm let us have one star. ~ Carl Sandburg,

630:To One In Bedlam With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars, Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine; Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares, Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchanted wine, And make his melancholy germane to the stars'? O lamentable brother! if those pity thee, Am I not fain of all thy lone eyes promise me; Half a fool's kingdom, far from men who sow and reap, All their days, vanity? Better than mortal flowers, Thy moon-kissed roses seem: better than love or sleep, The star-crowned solitude of thine oblivious hours! ~ Ernest Christopher Dowson,

631:Love Song Once in the world’s first prime, When nothing lived or stirred, Nothing but new-born Time, Nor was there even a bird – The Silence spoke to a Star, But do not dare repeat What it said to its love afar: It was too sweet, too sweet. But there, in the fair world’s youth, Ere sorrow had drawn breath, When nothing was known but Truth, Nor was there even death, The Star to Silence wed, And the Sun was priest that day, And they made their bridal-bed High in the Milky Way. For the great white star had heard Her silent lover’s speech; It needed no passionate word To pledge them each to each. O lady fair and far, Hear, oh, hear, and apply! Thou the beautiful Star – The voiceless silence, I. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

632:GGibbie never thought about himself, therefore was there wide room for the entrance of the spirit. Does the questioning thought arise to any reader: How could a man be conscious of bliss without the thought of himself? I answer the doubt: When a man turns to look at himself, that moment the glow of the loftiest bliss begins to fade; the pulsing fire-flies throb paler in the passionate night; an unseen vapour steams up from the marsh and dims the star-crowded sky and the azure sea; and the next moment the very bliss itself looks as if it had never been more than a phosphorescent gleam -- the summer lightning of the brain. For then the man sees himself but in his own dim mirror, whereas ere he turned to look in that, he knew himself in the absolute clarity of God's present thought out-bodying him. ~ George MacDonald,

633:Freedom from fear is the freedom I claim for you my motherland! Freedom from the burden of the ages, bending your head, breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning call of the future; Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewith you fasten yourself in night's stillness, mistrusting the star that speaks of truth's adventurous paths; freedom from the anarchy of destiny whole sails are weakly yielded to the blind uncertain winds, and the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as death. Freedom from the insult of dwelling in a puppet's world, where movements are started through brainless wires, repeated through mindless habits, where figures wait with patience and obedience for the master of show, to be stirred into a mimicry of life. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, Freedom ,

634:Be Drunken, Always. That is the point; nothing else matters. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weigh you down and crush you to the earth, be drunken continually. Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please. But be drunken. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, or on the green grass in a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and find the drunkenness half or entirely gone, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the star, of the bird, of the clock, of all that flies, of all that speaks, ask what hour it is; and wind, wave, star, bird, or clock will answer you: "It is the hour to be drunken! Be Drunken, if you would not be the martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please. ~ Charles Baudelaire,

635:Until now, we may have told many stories to ourselves and others to explain or justify what has happened to us in our lives. We may have thought long and hard about how others caused us to suffer needlessly or unjustly. But if we take the time to look in the mirror, we begin to see through the storylines of our personal drama. We realize that our self-cherishing is the author, the director, and the star of everything that is happening around us. These outer enemies are just our partners in the dance of life, here for a moment and then gone. But our thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the people and events in our lives have endured, making these momentary encounters ever present and vivid within the mind. Thus our attachment to momentary happiness and suffering stays with us, and we have roiled in misery as a result. ~ Anyen Rinpoche,

636:The other thing to remember, of course, is that most people get no help at all. I sure didn't, oh, no: it was just me and Castle, charging, desperate, through the country darkness, and that's how it is for most people who dare to run - no help from no Airlines, no help from no one. They just go, man, after years of planning or in the heat of a sudden moment they go, hurl their skinny bodies over a cyclone fence or purge themselves into a moat, break free of a chain line or a guard's hard grip and run, brother, run, sister, run along back roads and through forests. No planes and no cars or trucks, either. Just brave souls darting across open fields and wading in and out of rivers and stumbling along deer paths through dark woods. Find the star and follow it, as runners have done all the way back to the days of Old Slavery. ~ Ben H Winters,

637:Early Moon THE BABY moon, a canoe, a silver papoose canoe, sails and sails in the Indian west. A ring of silver foxes, a mist of silver foxes, sit and sit around the Indian moon. One yellow star for a runner, and rows of blue stars for more runners, keep a line of watchers. O foxes, baby moon, runners, you are the panel of memory, fire-white writing tonight of the Red Man's dreams. Who squats, legs crossed and arms folded, matching its look against the moonface, the star-faces, of the West? Who are the Mississippi Valley ghosts, of copper foreheads, riding wiry ponies in the night?-no bridles, love-arms on the pony necks, riding in the night a long old trail? Why do they always come back when the silver foxes sit around the early moon, a silver papoose, in the Indian west? ~ Carl Sandburg,

638:I'm not here to solve your problems. I'm here to support you in your own decisions. I'm not going to walk away, Amy. Not now, not when the going gets tough, not ever. I'm right here at your back." "For how long?" "For as long as you'll have me. I love you, Amy." Staggered, she stared at him. "But you don't do love." "I never said that. I said love hasn't worked out for me. But all it takes is the right one. You're the right one." No one had ever said such a thing to her before, and it made her heart swell hard against her ribcage. "I love you, Matt. So much." He smiled like she'd just given him the best gift he'd ever had. She settled against his good side, and they stared up at the star-laden sky. "I knew I'd find something on this journey," she said. "I wasn't sure what, but I knew it'd be something special. ~ Jill Shalvis,

639:Where’s Muriel, Walt?” Mel asked. He was tired of explaining about this, and it hadn’t been all that long. “Making a movie,” he said unhappily. “Really? How exciting! Since she was looking forward to a long break from that, it must be quite an important film.” “Yeah, so she says. Jack Whatshisname is the star.” “Jack What’s… Jack who?” “You know. Big star. Cuckoo’s Nest guy…” “Nicholson? Holy shit,” Mel said. “Melinda, we were going to stop saying shit in front of the kids,” Jack patiently reminded her, glancing over his shoulder toward David in the backpack. “Oh shit, I forgot. But, Walt, that’s really something, isn’t it? I mean, he’s huge. This must be a thrill for her.” Walt got a fairly dangerous gleam in his eye. “I suppose she’s thrilled to the heart of her bottom.” “Well, no wonder you’re so pissy,” Mel said with a laugh. ~ Robyn Carr,

640:Infant Eyes Blood of my blood, bone of my bone, Heart of my being's heart, Strange visitant, yet very son; All this, and more, thou art. In thy soft lineaments I trace, More winning daily grown, The sweetness of thy mother's face Transfiguring my own. That grave but all untroubled gaze, So rapt yet never dim, Seems following o'er their starry ways The wings of cherubim. Two worlds man hardly may descry, (For manhood clouds them o'er), Commingled to mine inward eye Are shadowed forth once more: That lost world, whither man's regret With fictive fancy turns; That world to come, where brighter yet The star of promise burns. Time and his weary offspring Care Fade in that gaze away; One moment mystically fair Lives on, one timeless day. ~ Ernest Myers,

641:Bauval found that the Pyramids/Orion’s Belt correlation was general and obvious in all epochs, but specific and exact in only one: At 10,450 BC – and at that date only – we find that the pattern of the pyramids on the ground provides a perfect reflection of the pattern of the stars in the sky. I mean it’s a perfect match – faultless – and it cannot be an accident because the entire arrangement correctly depicts two very unusual celestial events that occurred only at that time. First, and purely by chance, the Milky Way, as visible from Giza in 10,450 BC, exactly duplicated the meridional course of the Nile Valley; secondly, to the west of the Milky Way, the three stars of Orion’s Belt were at the lowest altitude in their precessional cycle, with Al Nitak, the star represented by the Great Pyramid, crossing the meridien at 11° 08ʹ.8 ~ Graham Hancock,

642:Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually. Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken. And if sometimes, on the stairs of a palace, or on the green side of a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you, ask of the wind, or of the wave, or of the star, or of the bird, or of the clock, of whatever flies, or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks, ask what hour it is; and the wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is the hour to be drunken! ~ Charles Baudelaire,

643:The Missing Star WHY did the star leave the sky, The far, pure sky? Shone she not high and hallowed and fair? Could she not tarry her life-time there? Why must she fall and fade? She had heaven nigh. I of the earth, I would she had stayed In her lonely air. Higher than love lived my star, My clear, cold star. Why must she droop to our mists below? Ah, for the glory of long ago! Ah, for the pride no more! When she stood so far. Would she were lost in the days before, In the perished glow. Star wandered out of my light, Once all my light, Seeing the sky through a dullness of tears, Crying for thee to the empty years, Where should I seek for thee Mid the. desert night? Not on the earth. Ah! the star that nears Has forgotten to be. ~ Augusta Davies Webster,

644:Is there anybody here?" asked he, aloud and in a startled voice. Then he continued with a laugh, which was like the laugh of an idiot: "What a fool I am! there cannot be anybody here." There was One; but He who was there was not of such as the human eye can see. He put the candlesticks on the mantel. Alas! all his irresolutions were again upon him. He was no further advanced than when he began. So struggled beneath its anguish this unhappy soul. Eighteen hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being, in whom are aggregated all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity, He also, while the olive trees were shivering in the fierce breathe of the Infinite, had long put away from his hand the fearful chalice that appeared before him, dripping with shadow and running over with darkness, in the star-filled depths. ~ Victor Hugo,

645:All of our phones were blowing up. It was ridiculous. It was just hard to focus in," Moseley said. "I didn't even want my phone anymore. It was just too much." So Frese asked players what they thought about giving up their phones for the entire length of their NCAA tournament road trips. The locker room agreed. Parents were given contact information for the team's director of basketball operations in case there was an emergency. Terps players told their friends they were going to be unreachable. And then they disappeared into, like, 1995 or something. "To live without your phone that long is really hard, especially for us; we live by our phones," Alyssa Thomas, the star forward who graduated last year, said of her generation. "At first we would all be checking our pockets, thinking we lost our phones or something." But then a weird thing happened, ~ Anonymous,

646:{Calpurnia)"My mother…she’s desperate for a daughter she can dress like a porcelain doll. Sadly, I shall never be such a child. How I long for my sister to come out and distract the countess from my person." He joined her on the bench, asking, "How old is your sister?" "Eight," she said, mournfully. "Ah. Not ideal." "An understatement." She looked up at the star-filled sky. "No, I shall be long on the shelf by the time she makes her debut." "What makes you so certain you’re shelf-bound?" She cast him a sidelong glance. "While I appreciate your chivalry, my lord, your feigned ignorance insults us both." When he failed to reply, she stared down at her hands, and replied, "My choices are rather limited." "How so?" "I seem able to have my pick of the impoverished, the aged, and the deadly dull. ~ Sarah MacLean,

647:As the steamer continued the crossing, Pandora tugged off her left glove to admirer wedding ring, as she'd already done a dozen times that day. Gabriel had chosen a loose sapphire from the collection of Challon family jewels, and had it set in a gold and diamond ring mounting. The Ceylon sapphire, cut and polished into a smooth dome, was a rare stone that gleamed with a twelve-ray star instead of six. To his satisfaction, Pandora seemed inordinately pleased by the ring, and was fascinated by the way the star seemed to move across the surface of the sapphire. The effect, called asterism, was especially noticeable in the sunlight. "What causes the star?" Pandora asked, as she tilted her hand this way and that. Gabriel tucked a kiss behind the soft lobe of her ear. "A few tiny imperfections," he murmured, "that make it all the more beautiful. ~ Lisa Kleypas,

648:Dear Tully-- I know you won't be able to stand my fucking funeral. You're not the star. I hope you at least had the photos of me airbrushed. There are so many things I should say to you, but in our lifetime we've said them all. Take care of Johnny and the kids for me, okay? Teach the boys how to be gentlemen and Marah how to be strong. When they're ready, give them my journal and tell them about me when they ask. The truth, too. I want them to know it all. It's going to be hard on you, now. That's one of the things I regret the most. So, here's what I have to say in my beyond-the-grave letter (very dramatic, don't you think?): I know you'll be thinking that I left you, but it's not true. All you have to do is remember Firefly Lane, and you'll find me. There will always be a TullyandKate. BFF <3 Kate ~ Kristin Hannah,

649:planet could feel the force of the star pulling it in and was only too happy to let the star lead on; finally it had found a new home. And soon enough, it could feel, sometimes even see, its new family members; the small, frozen rocks far from their mother star; the gas giants, the ones with the magnificent rings; the moons dancing happily around their parents. So full of life, perfectly coordinated, such a wonderful family! Yes, this was where Lifebringer would settle, finally, after so long. Then a small red planet appeared, and the rogue immediately realized its dreams of a new home had come to an end. There would be no peace, only destruction, a second cataclysm. For the red one had moved into its path, and none of them would survive such an impact. There was nothing more to do, no way to avoid the impact. An instant of regret, then nothing. ~ Andreas Christensen,

650:I say to those who fail to understand what I write that it is not my fault they do not understand. Suppose they wanted to see the new moon, or not the old one, or a star that was very faint, and I pointed it out with my finger but their eyesight was too weak to see even my finger - surely it would be wrong from the to be annoyed with me for that reason? As for those who manage to learn and assimilate these rules but are still unable to see into the obscure passages of divine scripture, they should consider themselves capable of seeing my finger but not the star to which it points. Both types of objector should stop blaming me and pray for insight to be given to them by God. Although I can move a part of my body as to point to something, I cannot improve their eyesight to make them see even my pointing finger, let alone what I want to point out. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo,

651:Anti-Conception Could I unthink you, little heart, what would I do? throw you out with last night's garbage, undo my own decisions, my own flesh & commit you to the void again? Fortunately, it is not my problem. You hold on, beating like a little clock, Swiss in your precision, Japanese in your tenacity, & already having your own karma, while I, with my halfhearted maternal urges, my uncertainty that any creature ever really creates another (unless it be herself) know you as God's poem & myself merely as publisher, as midwife, as impresario, oh, even, if you will, as loathèd producer of your Grand Spectacle: you are the star, & like your humblest fan, I wonder (gazing at your image on the screen) who you really are. 10 ~ Erica Jong,

652:He froze, becoming stone still. As the hover climbed the hill to the palace, his shoulders sank, and he returned his gaze to the window. "She's my alpha," he murmured, with a haunting sadness in his voice. Alpha. Cress leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees, "Like the star?" "What star?" She stiffened, instantly embarrassed, and scooted back from him again. "Oh. Um. In a constellation, the brightest star is called the alpha. I thought maybe you meant that she's...like...your brightest star." Looking away, she knotted her hands in her lap, aware that she was blushing furiously now and this beast of a man was about to realize what an over-romantic sap she was. But instead of sneering or laughing, Wolf sighed, "Yes," he said, his gaze climbing up to the full moon that had emerged in the blue evening sky. "Exactly like that. ~ Marissa Meyer,

653:This was one of those odd thoughts that came out of the blue and struck me as both clever and logical. Hot chocolate wouldn’t be something desert people would naturally gravitate toward. (There are cold deserts, of course, but with two suns I always assumed Tatooine is mostly pretty warm. Now, of course, the Star Wars Essential Atlas and other official material backs up that assumption.) I also caught way more grief for this than I ever expected. Quite a few people took me to task for putting an Earth-based drink into the Star Wars universe. Of course, those same people apparently weren’t bothered by the Millennium Falcon, or lightsabers. It was, though, a reminder that you never know what word or image might jolt someone out of their suspension of disbelief. Anyway, why would anyone want to live in that Galaxy Far, Far Away if they don’t have chocolate? Inconceivable … ~ Timothy Zahn,

654:Ben is Ryder’s cousin--second cousin, to be specific--and one of his best friends, even though they couldn’t be any more different. Ben is sweet, thoughtful. Kind. Whereas Ryder, well…I’ll tell you about Ryder. He’s the star quarterback of our Division 1A state-championship football team. Top student in our class, and he doesn’t even have to work at it. He plays the piano like some kind of freaking prodigy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he composed sonatas or something in his spare time. Oh, and did I mention that he’s gorgeous? Of course he is. Six foot four, two hundred ten pounds of swoon-worthy good looks. Spiky dark hair, chocolate brown eyes, and full-on dimples. And his future? Right now half the SEC is courting him hard, and the other half is wishing they were. It’s a foregone conclusion that he’ll play for Ole Miss--Mississippi’s golden boy, kept right here at home. ~ Kristi Cook,

655:The key to a black hole's strange properties is the way it curves space-time. A black hole takes up no space at all, but it still has mass. Since the black hole has mass, it causes space-time to curve. Normally, this would not cause a problem. As you approach a heavy star, the curvature gets greater and greater, but once you have passed the outer edge of the star itself, the curvature decreases again, bottoming out at the center of the star. In contrast, a black hole is a point. It takes up zero space, so there is no outer edge, no place where space begins to flatten out again. The curvature of space gets greater and greater as you approach a black hole, and it never bottoms out. The curvature goes off to infinity because the black hole takes up zero space; the star has torn a hole in space-time. The zero of a black hole is a singularity, an open wound in the fabric of the universe. ~ Charles Seife,

656:My mouth is a fire escape. The words coming out don't care that they are naked. There is something burning in here. When it burns I hold my own shell to my ear, listen for the parade from when I was seven, when the man who played the bagpipes wore a skirt. He was from Scotland. I wanted to move there. Wanted my spine to be the spine of an unpublished book, my faith the first and last page. The day my ribcage became monkey bars for a girl hanging on my every word they said, "You are not allowed to love her." Tried to take me by the throat to teach me, "You are not a boy." I had to unlearn their prison speak, refusing to make wishes on the star on the sheriff's chest. I started taking to the stars in the sky instead. I said, "Tell me about the big bang." The stars said, "It hurts to become. ~ Andrea Gibson,

657:In my mind's eye I can still see the first night flight I made in Argentina. It was pitch-dark. Yet in the black void, I could see the lights of man shining down below on the plains, like faintly luminous earthbound stars. Each star was a beacon signaling the presence of a human mind. Here a man was meditating on human happiness, perhaps, or on justice or peace. Lost among this flock of stars was the star of some solitary shepherd. There, perhaps, a man was in communication with the heavens, as he labored over his calculations of the nebula of Andromeda. And there, a pair of lovers. These fires were burning all over the countryside, and each of them, aven the most humble, had to be fed. The fire of the poet, of the teacher, of the carpenter. But among all these living fires, how many closed windows there were, how many dead stars, fires that gave off no light for lack of nourishment. ~ Antoine de Saint Exup ry,

658:If you saw humanity as I can see it, Uncle Jem said, a whisper in his mind, a lifeline. There is very little brightness and warmth in the world for me. I am very distant from you all. There are only four points of warmth and brightness, in the whole world, that burn fiercely enough for me to feel something like the person I was. Your mother, your father, Lucie, and you. You love, and tremble, and burn. Do not let any of them tell you who you are. You are the flame that cannot be put out. You are the star that cannot be lost. You are who you have always been, and that is enough and more than enough. Anyone who looks at you and sees darkness is blind. "Blinder than a Silent Brother?" James asked, and hiccupped. There was a laugh in James’s mind. They would have to be even blinder than a Silent Brother, Uncle Jem agreed. Because I can see you, James. I will always look to you for light. ~ Cassandra Clare,

659:I am nothing but oxygen and hydrogen, A luminous sphere of plasma Held together by helium and gravity, And like a balloon I float on earth, Waiting to be released back into the sky, Waiting to go back in the reverse Direction from which I came, Traveling through a warm tunnel of light, And out into a cold, dark abyss Where I will explode into a thousand pieces. I shall leave behind my body, Just like air abandons the skin of a shattered balloon, And the magnetic dust that carries my Heart and spirit will lift us back To congregate and shine With the stars. Home again, In the fluorescent Kingdom of the constellations, I will once again be called by My soul’s true name. And my heart, It will flicker again, With every memory from its many Lifetimes, And with every wish Made by a child. SONG OF THE STAR by Suzy Kassem ~ Suzy Kassem,

660:Look, without our stories, without the true nature and reality of who we are as People of Color, nothing about fanboy or fangirl culture would make sense. What I mean by that is: if it wasn't for race, X-Men doesn't sense. If it wasn't for the history of breeding human beings in the New World through chattel slavery, Dune doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the history of colonialism and imperialism, Star Wars doesn't make sense. If it wasn't for the extermination of so many Indigenous First Nations, most of what we call science fiction’s contact stories doesn't make sense. Without us as the secret sauce, none of this works, and it is about time that we understood that we are the Force that holds the Star Wars universe together. We’re the Prime Directive that makes Star Trek possible, yeah. In the Green Lantern Corps, we are the oath. We are all of these things—erased, and yet without us—we are essential. ~ Junot D az,

661:Cainan (sometimes the name is spelled Kainam) was the son of Arpachsad: "And the son grew, and his father taught him writing, and he went to seek for himself a place where he might seize for himself a city. And he found a writing, which former generations had carved on the rock, and he read what was thereon, and he transcribed it and sinned owing to it, for it contained the teaching of the Watchers in accordance with which they used to observe the omens of the sun, moon and stars in all the signs of heaven." Here, then, is the origin of the star worship of the Sabians traced all the way back to the mysterious Watchers--whoever they were, whatever they are--who settled in the Near East in antediluvian times, taught our ancestors forbidden knowledge, broke some fundamental commandment by mating with human women and, as a result, were remembered as being responsbile for the great global cataclysm of the Deluge. ~ Graham Hancock,

662:The Star-Bath A place uplifted towards the midnight sky Far, far away among the mountains old, A treeless waste of rocks and freezing cold, Where the dead, cheerless moon rode neighbouring byAnd in the midst a silent tarn there lay, A narrow pool, cold as the tide that flows Where monstrous bergs beyond Varanger stray, Rising from sunless depths that no man knows; Thither as clustering fireflies have I seen At fixed seasons all the stars come down To wash in that cold wave their brightness clean And win the special fire wherewith they crown The wintry heavens in frost. Even as a flock Of falling birds, down to the pool they came. I saw them and I heard the icy shock Of stars engulfed with hissing of faint flame -Ages ago before the birth of men Or earliest beast. Yet I was still the same That now remember, knowing not where or when. ~ Clive Staples Lewis,

663:It was strange to us that none of these three victims made any attempt to resist the attack. Indeed, not one inhabitant in any of these worlds considered for a moment the possibility of resistance. In every case the attitude to disaster seemed to express itself in such terms as these: "To retaliate would be to wound our communal spirit beyond cure. We choose rather to die. The theme of spirit that we have created must inevitably be broken short, whether by the ruthlessness of the invader or by our own resort to arms. It is better to be destroyed than to triumph in slaying the spirit. Such as it is, the spirit that we have achieved is fair; and it is indestructibly woven into the tissue of the cosmos. We die praising the universe in which at least such an achievement as ours can be. We die knowing that the promise of further glory outlives us in other galaxies. We die praising the Star Maker, the Star Destroyer. ~ Olaf Stapledon,

664:When he crossed the line into Shelby County, he removed his badge, tossing the five-point star inside the glove box. It slid against a half-empty pint of Wild Turkey he'd forgotten was in there, clinking softly, a siren call he left unanswered for the moment. He felt naked without his beloved badge but also strangely protected by the anonymity of its absence. Without the star, he would draw no undue attention, make no advertisement of his presence to any rank-and-file Brotherhood in the county, rabid dogs always on the hunt. And no word would get back to Houston, where he was stationed, that he was poking around something, unauthorized by his superiors, something he guessed he did hold an outsize interest in as a cop, as a Texan, and as a man. In fact as long as he wasn't wearing the Rangers star, they couldn't stop him from doing any damn thing. Without the badge, he was just a black man traveling the highway alone. ~ Attica Locke,

665:There is a pretty Indian fable to the effect that if it rains when the star Svati is in the ascendant, and a drop of rain falls into an oyster, that drop will become a pearl. The oysters know this, so they come to the surface when that star shines, and wait to catch the precious rain-drop. When one falls into the shell, quickly the oyster closes it and dives down to the bottom of the sea, there to patiently develop the drop into the pearl. We should be like that. First hear, then understand, and then, leaving all distractions, shut our minds to outside influences, and devote ourselves to developing the truth within us. There is the danger of frittering away our energies by taking up an idea only for its novelty, and then giving it up for another that is newer. Take one thing up and do it, and see the end of it, and before ou have seen the end, do not give it up. He who can become mad upon an idea, he alone will see light. ~ Anonymous,

666:Consider this account from the Ojibwa, a Native American people: The star with the long, wide tail is going to destroy the world some day when it comes low again. That’s the comet called Long-Tailed Heavenly Climbing Star. It came down here once, thousands of years ago. Just like the sun. It had radiation and burning heat in its tail. The comet burned everything to the ground. There wasn’t a thing left. Indian people were here before that happened, living on the earth. But things were wrong; a lot of people had abandoned the spiritual path. The holy spirit warned them a long time before the comet came. Medicine men told everyone to prepare. Things were wrong with nature on the earth … Then that comet went through here. It had a long, wide tail and it burned up everything. It flew so low the tail scorched the earth … The comet made a different world. After that survival was hard work. The weather was colder than before ~ Graham Hancock,

667:That’s the biggest difference between the amateur and the professional, between the wannabe and the star, between the dabbler and the expert. The unsuccessful get halfway to the finish line, then turn around. The successful get halfway, then keep going. Both run the same distance, but only one makes it to the finish line. To win the race, then, having talent, speed, and endurance help, but those things are nothing without commitment. To commit successfully, you don’t have to always believe in yourself—because, let’s face it, we all have our doubts at times. But you do have to believe in something higher than yourself: your purpose. If you believe in your purpose, you can survive the most challenging times, because God or destiny or your will—or whatever you prefer to believe in—is on your side. If you know it’s your purpose to win the race, then you’re not going to turn around, because there is no other option but to win. ~ Kevin Hart,

668:Christmastide I may not go to-night to Bethlehem, Nor follow star-directed ways, nor tread The paths wherein the shepherds walked, that led To Christ, and peace, and God's good will to men. I may not hear the Herald Angel's song Peal through the Oriental skies, nor see The wonder of that Heavenly company Announce the King the world had waited long. The manger throne I may not kneel before, Or see how man to God is reconciled, Through pure St. Mary's purer, holier child; The human Christ these eyes may not adore. I may not carry frankincense and myrrh With adoration to the Holy One; Nor gold have I to give the Perfect Son, To be with those wise kings a worshipper. Not mine the joy that Heaven sent to them, For ages since Time swung and locked his gates, But I may kneel without--the star still waits To guide me on to holy Bethlehem. ~ Emily Pauline Johnson,

669:I am nothing but oxygen and hydrogen, A luminous sphere of plasma Held together by helium and gravity, And like a balloon I float on earth, Waiting to be released back into the sky, Waiting to go back in the reverse Direction from which I came, Traveling through a warm tunnel of light, And out into a cold, dark abyss Where I will explode into a thousand pieces. I shall leave behind my body, Just like air abandons the skin of a shattered balloon, And the magnetic dust that carries my Heart and spirit will lift us back To congregate and shine With the stars. Home again, In the fluorescent Kingdom of the constellations, I will once again be called by My soul’s true name. And my heart, It will flicker again, With every memory from its many Lifetimes, And with every wish Made by a child. SONG OF THE STAR by Suzy Kassem Copyright 1993 ~ Suzy Kassem,

670:Be Drunk You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk. But on what?Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you:"It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish." ~ Charles Baudelaire,

671:Her hand just above my knee, the palm flat and soft against my jeans and her index finger making slow, lazy circles that crept toward the inside of my thigh, and with one layer between us, God I wanted her. And lying there, amid the tall, still grass and beneath the star-drunk sky, listening to the just-this-side-of-inaudible sound of her rhythmic breathing and the noisy silence of the bullfrogs, the grasshoppers, the distant cars rushing endlessly on 1-65, I thought it might be a fine time to say the Three Little Words. And I steeled myself to say them as I stared up at that starriest night, convinced myself that she felt it, too, that her hand so alive and vivid against my leg was more than playful, and fuck Lara and fuck Jake because I do, Alaska Young, I do love you and what else matters but that and my lips parted to speak and before I could even begin to breathe out the words, she said, "It's not life or death, the labyrinth. ~ John Green,

672:Get Drunk Always be drunk. That's it! The great imperative! In order not to feel Time's horrid fardel bruise your shoulders, grinding you into the earth, Get drunk and stay that way. On what? On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever. But get drunk. And if you sometimes happen to wake up on the porches of a palace, in the green grass of a ditch, in the dismal loneliness of your own room, your drunkenness gone or disappearing, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, ask everything that flees, everything that groans or rolls or sings, everything that speaks, ask what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer you: "Time to get drunk! Don't be martyred slaves of Time, Get drunk! Stay drunk! On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!" 184 ~ Charles Baudelaire,

673:He got a good glass for six hundred dollars. His new job gave him leisure for stargazing. Often he bid me come and have a look Up the brass barrel, velvet black inside, At a star quaking in the other end. I recollect a night of broken clouds And underfoot snow melted down to ice, And melting further in the wind to mud. Bradford and I had out the telescope. We spread our two legs as it spread its three, Pointed our thoughts the way we pointed it, And standing at our leisure till the day broke, Said some of the best things we ever said. That telescope was christened the Star-Splitter, Because it didn't do a thing but split A star in two or three the way you split A globule of quicksilver in your hand With one stroke of your finger in the middle. It's a star-splitter if there ever was one, And ought to do some good if splitting stars 'Sa thing to be compared with splitting wood. ~ Robert Frost,

674:[B]y reason of its faster and faster infall [the surface of the imploding star] moves away from the [distant] observer more and more rapidly. The light is shifted to the red. It becomes dimmer millisecond by millisecond, and in less than a second is too dark to see . . . [The star,] like the Cheshire cat, fades from view. One leaves behind only its grin, the other, only its gravitational attraction. Gravitational attraction, yes; light, no. No more than light do any particles emerge. Moreover, light and particles incident from outside ... [and] going down the black hole only add to its mass and increase its gravitational attraction.” Black hole was Wheeler’s new name. Within months it was adopted enthusiastically by relativity physicists, astrophysicists, and the general public, in East as well as West—with one exception: In France, where the phrase trou noir (black hole) has obscene connotations, there was resistance for several years. ~ Kip S Thorne,

675:Mithradates’ own handsome coins featured his idealized portrait—looking very much like his hero Alexander, with parted lips and luxuriant hair. Imagery evoking Mithradates’ Persian connections appeared on the reverse, such as winged Pegasus and the star and crescent. Other coins displayed Dionysus the Liberator (associating him with opposition to Rome by slaves and rebels in Italy). Mithradates made sure his portrait was known to everyone. He employed the best Greek artisans, and he understood the propaganda value of aesthetically pleasing currency. His coinage conveyed the message that Mithradates was the great unifier—and protector—of Greek and Persian civilizations. Knowing that his unsurpassed coins would be admired, collected, and selected for hoards of buried treasure, Mithradates also designed them for posterity. Indeed, Mithradates’ portrait coins are considered by numismatic experts to be the most beautiful of all ancient coins. ~ Adrienne Mayor,

676:A lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It's all about them. They have mastered the Star Wars or Star Trek universes or whatever, but their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a backdrop to their own devotion. Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies. Extreme fandom may serve as a security blanket for the socially inept, who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills. If you are Luke Skywalker and she is Princess Leia, you already know what to say to each other, which is so much safer than having to ad lib it. Your fannish obsession is your beard. If you know absolutely all the trivia about your cubbyhole of pop culture, it saves you from having to know anything about anything else. That's why it's excruciatingly boring to talk to such people: They're always asking you questions they know the answer to. ~ Roger Ebert,

677:I don’t remember well, and in fact I know nothing absolutely nothing at all, about the women I have loved.' Papan answered: That simply means that you have never loved. You simply have no idea of love as an absolute concept. Loving is knowing. It is also like a crime since it involves death, burial, and resurrection. Love is something very serious. Today it is completely forgotten. Love in fact is a strange and secret chemistry, in which the androgynous is born. This is true and complete love; everything else is different. Have you ever noticed how impossible it was to fuse yourself with the person you thought you loved, even though sleeping in the same bed? There is always something separating you, a thread of air, a different dream. Can the lovers be truly united if each one dreams a different dream? If you ever begin to dream the same dreams as your love, then you will be able to create the new star, the star of Him-Her, El-Ella. ~ Miguel Serrano,

678:SONG OF THE STAR I am nothing but oxygen and hydrogen, A luminous sphere of plasma Held together by helium and gravity, And like a balloon I float on earth, Waiting to be released back into the sky, Waiting to go back in the reverse Direction from which I came, Traveling through a warm tunnel of light, And out into a cold, dark abyss Where I will explode into a thousand pieces. I shall leave behind my body, Just like air abandons the skin of a shattered balloon, And the magnetic dust that carries my Heart and spirit will lift us back To congregate and shine With the stars. Home again, In the fluorescent Kingdom of the constellations, I will once again be called by My soul’s true name. And my heart, It will flicker again, With every memory from its many Lifetimes, And with every wish Made by a child. SONG OF THE STAR by Suzy Kassem Copyright 1993 ~ Suzy Kassem,

679:I probably won’t play a song the same way tomorrow as I play it today. Only a pitchman says the same thing the same way twice, without varying a word. If music is a language, why don’t people use it with the same subtlety, nuance, and facility as they do the spoken language? Probably because they don’t verbalize with the same vocabulary and tone they once did. It has been said that a people’s character is reflected in their music. Our culture is a perfect example. If people here walk around using one-syllable words with no color, no variety, no shading, how can we expect our musical language to be any different? It’s like the emperor’s new clothes – sure they can sit and make wild noises on their synthesizers and call it music – who questions? But ask them to pull up a chair and play ‘Gal in Calico’ or Temptation,’ or even a straight dramatic version of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and they can’t do it. They’re too pretentious. They can’t just play songs. ~ Anton Szandor LaVey,

680:To O.E.A. Your voice is the color of a robin's breast, And there's a sweet sob in it like rain--still rain in the night. Among the leaves of the trumpet-tree, close to his nest, The pea-dove sings, and each note thrills me with strange delight Like the words, wet with music, that well from your trembling throat. I'm afraid of your eyes, they're so bold, Searching me through, reading my thoughts, shining like gold. But sometimes they are gentle and soft like the dew on the lips of the eucharis Before the sun comes warm with his lover's kiss. You are sea-foam, pure with the star's loveliness, Not mortal, a flower, a fairy, too fair for the beauty-shorn earth. All wonderful things, all beautiful things, gave of their wealth to your birth. Oh I love you so much, not recking of passion, that I feel it is wrong! But men will love you, flower, fairy, non-mortal spirit burdened with flesh, Forever, life-long. ~ Claude McKay,

681:In fact, Tung himself was also a businessman. Born in Shanghai, Tung took over his family business after his father, shipping magnate Tung Chao Yung, died in 1981 and managed Orient Overseas, one of the world's leading shipping and logistics service providers. Sitting next to Tung at the meeting with President Xi was Li Ka- shing who made a statement on Oct. 15, calling on the Occupy protesters to go home and not to "let today's passion become tomorrow's regrets." The Asia's wealthiest man did not make it clear whether or not he agrees with the appeals of the protesters. Li built his family business empire from plastics manufacturing and accumulated wealth through real estate, supermarket chains and mobile phone network. Other Hong Kong tycoons, such as Lee Shau-kee, nicknamed "Hong Kong's Warrenn Buffett," Kuok Hock Nien known for his sugar refineries in Asia, and Woo Kwong-ching whose businesses range from Hong Kong's cable TV to the Star Ferry, have all remained mute. ~ Anonymous,

682:Villagers all, this frosty tide, Let your doors swing open wide, Though wind may flow and snow betide Yet draw us in by your fire to bide: Joy shall be yours in the morning. Here we stand in the cold and the sleet, Blowing fingers and stamping feet, Come from far away, you to greet— You by the fire and we in the street— Bidding you joy in the morning. For ere one half of the night was gone, Sudden a star has led us on, Raining bliss and benison— Bliss tomorrow and more anon, Joy for every morning. Good man Joseph toiled through the snow— Saw the star o’er the stable low; Mary she might not further go— Welcome thatch and litter below! Joy was hers in the morning. And then they heard the angels tell, “Who were the first to cry Nowell? Animals all as it befell, In the stable where they did dwell! Joy shall be theirs in the morning.” Kenneth Grahame The Wind in the Willows ~ Thomas Kinkade,

683:Welcome true believers, this is Stan Lee. We’re about to embark the exploration of a fantastic new universe and the best part is that you are gonna create it with me. You may know me as a storyteller, but hey on this journey consider me your guide. I provide the widy and wonderful worlds and you create the sights, sounds and adventures. All you need to take part is your brain. So take a listen and think big, no bigger, we make it an epic. Remember when I created characters like the Fantastic Four and the X-Men? We were fascinated by science and awed by the mysteries of the great beyond. Today we consider a nearer deeper unknown one inside ourselves. […] we asked: What is more real? A world that we are born into or the one we create ourselves. As we begin this story, we find humanity lost within is own techno bubble. With each citizen the star of their own digital fantasy. […] But the real conundrum is, just because we have the ability to recreated ourselves, should we? […] Excelsior!”  ~ Stan Lee,

684:Charles Baudelaire: Get Drunk One should always be drunk. That's all that matters; that's our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time's horrible burden that breaks your shoulders and bows you down, you must get drunk without ceasing. But what with? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose. But get drunk. And if, at some time, on the steps of a palace, in the green grass of a ditch, in the bleak solitude of your room, you are waking up when drunkenness has already abated, ask the wind, the wave, a star, the clock, all that which flees, all that which groans, all that which rolls, all that which sings, all that which speaks, ask them what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will reply: 'It is time to get drunk! So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk, and never pause for rest! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose!' -- Charles Baudelaire, tr. Michael Hamburger ~ Charles Baudelaire,

685:BLACK WINGS At the same Olympics, staged by Hitler to consecrate the superiority of his race, the star that shone brightest was black, a grandson of slaves, born in Alabama. Hitler had no choice but to swallow the bitter pill, four of them actually: the four gold medals that Jesse Owens won in sprinting and long jump. The entire world celebrated those victories of democracy over racism. When the champion returned home, he received no congratulations from the president, nor was he invited to the White House. He returned to the usual: he boarded buses by the back door, ate in restaurants for Negroes, used bathrooms for Negroes, stayed in hotels for Negroes. For years, he earned a living running for money. Before the start of baseball games he would entertain the crowd by racing against horses, dogs, cars, or motorcycles. Later on, when his legs were no longer what they had been, Owens took to the lecture circuit. He did pretty well there, praising the virtues of religion, family, and country. ~ Eduardo Galeano,

686:On My Aunt Mrs. A. K. Drown'd under London-bridge, in the Queens Bardge, Anno 1641 The Darling of a Father Good and Wise, The Vertue, which a Vertuous Age did prize; The Beauty Excellent even to those were Faire, Subscrib'd unto, by such as might compare; The Star that 'bove her Orb did always move, And yet the Noblest did not Hate, but Love; And those who most upon their Title stood, Vail'd also to, because she did more Good. To whom the Wrong'd, and Worthy did resort, And held their Sutes obtain'd, if only brought; The highest Saint in all the Heav'n of Court. So Noble was her Aire, so Great her Meen, She seem'd a Friend, not Servant to the Queen. To Sin, if known, she never did give way, Vice could not Storm her, could it not betray. When angry Heav'n extinguisht her fair Light, It seem'd to say, Nought's Precious in my sight; As I in Waves this Paragon have drown'd, The Nation next, and King I will confound. ~ Anne Killigrew,

687:Goodbye GOODBYE - O ungrateful child! You said to me - goodbye -? Madness! better it would be To separate the land from the skies. - Goodbye - somber word! Of a frozen and cold soul You are the last flower. - Goodbye! - misery! lie Of a breast that does not sigh, Of a heart without love. O Lord! The wasteland bird dies without a mate. The lightning that burns the cedar Burnt the parasite. The star flirts with the dew: - One is the star of the twig, - The other is the dew of the amplitude. But, at the light of the rising sun, The star - in the west dies! The dew - dies in the soil! Never the fogs of the valley Learnt how to say - goodbye If together they ascend from the ground, Together they are lost in skies. The wave dies on the shore… But another wave comes soon To die of the same pain… - Goodbye - somber word! Do not say - goodbye -, Maria! Or do not speak to me of love! 68 ~ Antonio de Castro Alves,

688:In 1933, the Indian Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar realized that the Pauli exclusion principle had only a limited ability to fight against the squeeze of gravity. As pressure in the star increases, the Pauli exclusion principle states that ekectrons inside must move faster and faster to avoid one another. But there's a speed limit: electrons cannot move faster than the speed of light, so if you put enough pressure on a lump of matter, electrons cannot move fast enough to stop the matter from collapsing. Chandrasekhar showed that a collapsing star that has about 1.4 times the mass of our sun will have enough gravity to overwhelm the Pauli exclusion principle. Above this Chandrasekhar limit a star's gravity will pull on itself so strongly that electrons can't stop its collapse. The force of gravity is so great that the star's electrons give up their struggle once and for all; the electrons smash into the star's protons, creating neutrons. The massive star winds up being a gigantic ball of neutrons: a neutron star. ~ Charles Seife,

689:I. Moonbeam, leave the shadowy vale, To bathe this burning brow. Moonbeam, why art thou so pale, As thou walkest o'er the dewy dale, Where humble wild-flowers grow? Is it to mimic me? But that can never be; For thine orb is bright, And the clouds are light, That at intervals shadow the star-studded night. II. Now all is deathy still on earth; Natures tired frame reposes; And, ere the golden mornings birth Its radiant hues discloses, Flies forth its balmy breath. But mine is the midnight of Death, And Nature's morn To my bosom forlorn Brings but a gloomier night, implants a deadlier thorn. III. Wretch! Suppress the glare of madness Struggling in thine haggard eye, For the keenest throb of sadness, Pale Despair's most sickening sigh, Is but to mimic me; And this must ever be, When the twilight of care, And the night of despair, Seem in my breast but joys to the pangs that rankle there. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, To The Moonbeam ,

690:At first I couldn't see anything. I fumbled along the cobblestone street. I lit a cigarette. Suddenly the moon appeared from behind a black cloud, lighting a white wall that was crumbled in places. I stopped, blinded by such whiteness. Wind whistled slightly. I breathed the air of the tamarinds. The night hummed, full of leaves and insects. Crickets bivouacked in the tall grass. I raised my head: up there the stars too had set up camp. I thought that the universe was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket's saw, the star's blink, were nothing but pauses and syllables, scattered phrases from that dialogue. What word could it be, of which I was only a syllable? Who speaks the word? To whom is it spoken? I threw my cigarette down on the sidewalk. Falling, it drew a shining curve, shooting out brief sparks like a tiny comet. I walked a long time, slowly. I felt free, secure between the lips that were at that moment speaking me with such happiness. The night was a garden of eyes. ~ Octavio Paz,

691:Citizens, the nineteenth century is grand, but the twentieth century will be happy. Then there will be nothing more like old history. Men will no longer have to fear, as now, a conquest, an invasion, a usurpation, a rivalry of nations with the armed hand, an interruption of civilisation depending on a marriage of kings, a birth in the hereditary tyrannies, a partition of the peoples by a Congress, a dismemberment by the downfall of a dynasty, a combat of two religions meeting head to head, like two goats of darkness, upon the bridge of the infinite; they will no longer have to fear famine, speculation, prostitution from distress, misery from lack of work, and the scaffold, and the sword, and the battle, and all the brigandages of chance in the forest of events. We might almost say: there will be no events more. Men will be happy. The human race will fulfil its law as the terrestrial globe fulfils its; harmony will be re-established between the soul and the star; the soul will gravitate about the truth like the star about the light. ~ Victor Hugo,

692:The Gold Star The star upon their service flag has changed to gleaming gold; It speaks no more of hope and life, as once it did of old, But splendidly it glistens now for every eye to see And softly whispers: 'Here lived one who died for liberty. 'Here once he walked and played and laughed, here oft his smile was known; Within these walls today are kept the toys he used to own. Now I am he who marched away and I am he who fell Of service once I spoke, but now of sacrifice I tell. 'No richer home in all this land is there than this I grace, For here was cradled manhood fine; within this humble place A soldier for the truth was born, and here, beside the door, A mother sits and grieves for him who shall return no more. ''Salute me, stranger, as you pass! I mark a soldier who Gave up the joys of living here, to dare and die for you! This is the home that once he knew, who fought for you and fell; This is a shrine of sacrifice, where faith and courage dwell.' ~ Edgar Albert Guest,

693:Slievenamon Alone, all alone, by the wave-washed strand All alone in the crowded hall The hall it is gay, and the waves they are grand But my heart is not here at all. It flies far away, by night and by day To the times and the joys that are gone. But I never will forget the sweet maiden I met In the valley of Slievenamon. It was not the grace of her queenly air Nor her cheek of the rose's glow Nor her soft black eyes, not her flowing hair Nor was it her lily-white brow, 'Twas the soul of truth, and of melting ruth And the smile like a summer dawn That sold my heart away on a soft summer day In the valley of Slievenamon. In the festival hall, by the star-washed shore, Ever my restless spirit cries. 'My love, oh, my love, shall I ne'er see you more. And my land, will you never uprise?' By night and by day, I ever, ever pray While lonely my life flows on To see our flag unfurled and my true love to enfold In the valley of Slievenamon. ~ Charles Joseph Kickham,

694:I am looking at this shiny star tonight, Wishing wishes could come true... I wonder if by any chance, He sees the same star too!! The overwhelming darkness tickles the lonely heart tonight, I wonder if he sees the star I am watching, May be he would stand within its light! There are many miles between us, but still our souls can meet... At this point when we look at this star together, May be our hearts could find their beat! Don't you feel the need for someone to come, Into your life... I am wishing for the same thing, As I watch this star tonight! This gentle light on my face, Cheers and comforts and holds me tight... I wonder if by some chance, I find you holding me with love and sitting by my side! But this remains a wish as he is still unseen and unknown, I wonder who he might be, to whom I would be prone! A hopeless or born romantic, Everyone is searching for true love, Wishing wishes in the darkness, To this magical star that hangs above! ~ Anamika Mishra,

695:We are one country, and I remain a proud Unionist, happy to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and pledge allegiance, sing about the amber waves of grain, wish I was in the land of cotton, pick my teeth with a carpet tack, be in the kitchen with Dinah, hate to see the evening sun go down, take myself out to the ball game, walk that lonesome valley, and lean on the everlasting arms. I love this country. This is one of those simple dumb discoveries a man makes, like the night I came out of the New York hospital where I, a bystander at my wife’s travail, had held my naked newborn six-pound shining-eyed daughter in my two hands, and I walked around town at midnight stunned by the fact that what I had seen was utterly ordinary, everybody comes into the world pretty much like that. In the same spirit, I walk around St. Paul and think, This is a great country and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger. ~ Garrison Keillor,

696:An Ojibwa tradition seems relevant. It speaks of a comet that 'burned up the earth' in the remote past and that is destined to return: 'The star with the long, wide tail is going to destroy the world some day when it comes low again. That's the comet called Long-Tailed Heavenly Climbing Star. It came down here once, thousands of years ago. Just like the sun. It had radiation and burning heat in its tail ... Indian people were here before that happened, living on the earth. But things were wrong with nature on the earth, and a lot of people had abandoned the spiritual path. The Holy Spirit warned them a long time before the comet came. Medicine men told everyone to prepare. ... The comet burnt everything to the ground. There wasn't a thing left ... There is a prophecy that the comet will destroy the earth again. But it's a restoration. The greatest blessing this island [Turtle Island/America] will ever have. People don't listen to their spiritual guidance today. There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars when the comet comes down again. ~ Graham Hancock,

697:Imagine this: You’re driving. The sky’s bright. You look great. In a word, in a phrase, it’s a movie, you’re the star. so smile for the camera, it’s your big scene, you know your lines. I’m the director. I’m in a helicopter. I have a megaphone and you play along, because you want to die for love, you always have. Imagine this: You’re pulling the car over. Somebody’s waiting. You’re going to die in your best friend’s arms. And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down, you’ve memorized it, it’s all you know. I say the phrases that keep it all going, and everybody plays along. Imagine: Someone’s pulling a gun, and you’re jumping into the middle of it. You didn’t think you’d feel this way. There’s a gun in your hand. It feels hot. It feels oily. I’m the director and i’m screaming at you, I’m waving my arms in the sky, and everyone’s watching, everyone’s curious, everyone’s holding their breath. 'Planet of Love ~ Richard Siken,

698:Several yards away – closer to the cathedral’s legendary carved doorways – Anna and St. Clair are standing on top of Point Zéro. It’s been hand-brushed clear of its dusting of snow. Point Zéro is the bronze marker, a star, which designates the official centre of France. There are at least two superstitions about it. One is that anyone who stands on the star will return to France. The other is that you can use it to make a wish. “Wait for it,” Josh says. Lola stands straighter, excited. “No!” “Yes,” Cricket says. I’m the last one in the dark, until – suddenly – it happens. St. Clair removes something from his pocket. And then he gets down on one knee. Anna’s entire body lights with shock and joy and love. She nods a vigorous yes. St. Clair places the ring on her finger. He stands, she throws her arms around him, and they kiss. He spins her in a circle. They kiss again. Deep, hungry, long. And then he turns to us and waves – with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen – clearly aware that we’ve been standing here the whole time. ~ Stephanie Perkins,

699:exilic prophet Daniel, had followed the final sign in the heavens that pointed to the birth of Messiah. It was written that when the constellation Virgo was on the horizon, clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, with twelve stars above her head, she would give birth to a divine king. This was because the king planet Jupiter aligned in conjunction with the king star Regulus over her head creating a bright star. The Magi observed that sign in the year 750 AUC, seven hundred and fifty years from the founding of the city of Rome. The star Regulus is in the constellation of Leo the Lion. The Magi were taught by their Hebrew prophet that this King of the Jews would be called the Lion of the tribe of Judah. And they were taught he would come from the small town of Bethlehem in Judea. Unfortunately, the second part of the sign was the constellation of Hydra, the red dragon, whose tail was just under Virgo’s feet and entailed a third of the horizon line called the elliptic. This prefigured the Serpent and his fallen ones seeking to devour the Messiah at birth. ~ Brian Godawa,

700:She has opened the door of the square cave where the cake of ice sits; and there it is, inches from Harry’s eyes, lopsided from melting but still big, holding within its metal-black bulk the white partition that the cakes have when they come bumping down the chute at the ice plant. He leans closer into the cold breath of the ice, a tin-smelling coldness he associates with the metal that makes up the walls of the cave and the ribs of its floor, delicate rhinoceros gray, mottled with the same disease the linoleum has. Having leaned closer he sees that under the watery skin are hundreds of clear white veins like the capillaries on a leaf, as if ice too were built up of living cells. And further inside, so ghostly it comes to him last, hangs a jagged cloud, the star of an explosion, whose center is uncertain in refraction but whose arms fly from the core of pallor as straight as long eraser-marks diagonally into all planes of the cube. The rusted ribs the cake rests on wobble through to his eyes like the teeth of a grin. Fear probes him; the cold lump is alive. ~ John Updike,

701:You see," the tourist went on, "you know that thing you do with seaweed?" Bethan, brought up on the Vortex Plains, had only heard of the sea in stories, and had decided she didn't like it. She looked blank. "Eat it?" "No, what you do is, you hang it up outside your door, and it tells you if it's going to rain." Another thing Bethan had learned was that there was no real point in trying to understand anything Twoflower said, and that all anyone could do was run alongside the conversation and hope to jump on it as it turned a corner. "I see," she said. "Rincewind is like that, you see." "Like seaweed." "Yes. If there was anything at all to be frightened about, he'd be frightened. But he's not. The star is just about the only thing I've ever seen him not frightened of. If he's not worried, then take it from me, there's nothing to be worried about." "It's not going to rain?" said Bethan. "Well, no, metaphorically speaking." "Oh." Bethan decided not to ask what "metaphorically" meant, in case it had something to do with seaweed. ~ Terry Pratchett,

702:Except when the freedom is one you don't choose to grant," Memeki said, more loudly this time. She was shaking herself all over, struggling to stand stright again. "You hold our hope with one claw and take it away with her other! I may be weak and doomed soon to die, but I will die as an I, not just one more nameless scarp of shell to be thrown out into the sucking mud! No matter how little a time it lasts, I will be what all these are" -she looked around at Kit and Ponch and Nita and the others-"selves unto themselves and being what matters to each other! Such a life, even a breath's worth of it, is better than anything you've ever given me!" Memeki was trembling again, but with passion with determinatin, desperate and doomed. She took a stem toward the dias, and another, her claw lifted not in that old gesture of submission, but in one more like a warrior's threat. "I will be what the Voice said I was, the Hesper I will be the Aeon of Light, the Power that made a different choice from yours. I will be the Star that did not fall, no matter how little a time the light lasts! ~ Diane Duane,

703:Bet you can't even name one romantic movie you like," she teased. She felt smug when a few minutes went by and Oliver was still unable to name one romantic movie he could profess to enjoy. The Empire Strikes Back," Oliver finally declared, tapping his horn at a Prius that wandered over the line. The Empire Strikes Back? The Star Wars movie? That's not romantic!" Schuyler huffed, fiddling with the air conditioner controls. Au contraire, my dear, it's very romantic. The last scene, you know, when they're about to put Han in that freezing cryogenic chamber or whatever? Remember?" Schuyler mmm-hmmmed. And Leia leans over the ledge and says, 'I love you.'" That's cheesy, not romatic," Schuyler argued, although she did like that part. Let me explain. What's romantic is what Han says back. Remember what he says to her? After she says 'I love you'?" Schuyler grinned. Maybe Oliver had a point. "Han says, 'I know.'" Exactly," Oliver tapped the wheel. "He doesn't have to say anything so trite as 'I love you." Because that's already understood. And that's romantic. ~ Melissa de la Cruz,

704:The Inheritance Since you did depart Out of my reach, my darling, Into the hidden, I see each shadow start With recognition, and I Am wonder-ridden. I am dazed with the farewell, But I scarcely feel your loss. You left me a gift Of tongues, so the shadows tell Me things, and silences toss Me their drift. You sent me a cloven fire Out of death, and it burns in the draught Of the breathing hosts, Kindles the darkening pyre For the sorrowful, till strange brands waft Like candid ghosts. Form after form, in the streets Waves like a ghost along, Kindled to me; The star above the house-top greets Me every eve with a long Song fierily. All day long, the town Glimmers with subtle ghosts Going up and down In a common, prison-like dress; But their daunted looking flickers To me, and I answer, Yes! So I am not lonely nor sad Although bereaved of you, My little love. I move among a kinsfolk clad 141 With words, but the dream shows through As they move. ~ David Herbert Lawrence,

705:In his earliest memories he was sitting on the floor in the family room, in front of the giant stereo his parents had bought themselves as a wedding present, his face pressed into the padded fabric of one speaker. The fabric was prickly against his forehead but his nose fit perfectly into a little groove, and he could feel music spilling like molten gold through his entire body. He'd sit back on his heels when the song was over and his father, an accountant and amateur drummer whose (still-unrealized) dream was to open a jazz club and coffee house, would say, "Order up!" and put another record on the turntable. Rabbit's favorite albums were by Earth, Wind & Fire (syncopation made his brain feel like it was laughing) and Also sprach Zarathustra, its opening rumbling like an earthquake. And he loved The White Album, and when his mother played ABBA on the piano and they'd sing together (though Alice couldn't do it without being a total showoff), and the Star Wars soundtrack, and of course Zeppelin. For six months in 1984, he had asked his parents to play "Stairway to Heaven" instead of a bedtime story. ~ Kate Racculia,

706:Daydream, which is to thought as the nebula is to the star, borders on sleep, and is concerned with it as its frontier. An atmosphere inhabited by living transparencies: there's a beginning of the unknown. But beyond it the Possible opens out, immense. Other beings, other facts, are there. No supernaturalism, only the occult continuation of infinite nature. . . . Sleep is in contact with the Possible, which we also call the improbable. The world of the night is a world. Night, as night, is a universe. . . . The dark things of the unknown world become neighbors of man, whether by true communication or by a visionary enlargement of the distances of the abyss . . . and the sleeper, not quite seeing, not quite unconscious, glimpses the strange animalities, weird vegetations, terrible or radiant pallors, ghosts, masks, figures, hydras, confusions, moonless moonlights, obscure unmakings of miracle, growths and vanishings within a murky depth, shapes floating in shadow, the whole mystery which we call Dreaming, and which is nothing other than the approach of an invisible reality. The dream is the aquarium of Night. ~ Victor Hugo,

707:She smoothed her skirt around her knees. “This Scarlet … you’re in love with her, aren’t you?” He froze, becoming stone still. As the hover climbed the hill to the palace, his shoulders sank, and he returned his gaze to the window. “She’s my alpha,” he murmured, with a haunting sadness in his voice. Alpha. Cress leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees. “Like the star?” “What star?” She stiffened, instantly embarrassed, and scooted back from him again. “Oh. Um. In a constellation, the brightest star is called the alpha. I thought maybe you meant that she’s … like … your brightest star.” Looking away, she knotted her hands in her lap, aware that she was blushing furiously now and this beast of a man was about to realize what an over-romantic sap she was. But instead of sneering or laughing, Wolf sighed. “Yes,” he said, his gaze climbing up to the full moon that had emerged over the city. “Exactly like that.” With a quick twist to her heart, Cress’s fear of him began to subside. She’d been right back at the boutique. He was like the hero of a romance story, and he was trying to rescue his beloved. His alpha. ~ Marissa Meyer,

708:At the Art Students League in New York one of her fellow students advised her that, since he would be a great painter and she would end up teaching painting in a girls' school, any work of hers was less important than modeling for him. Another painted over her work to show her how the Impressionists did trees. She had not before heard how the Impressionists did trees and she did not much care. At thenty-four she left all those opinions behind and went for the first time to live in Texas, where there were no trees to paint and no one to tell her how not to paint them. In Texas there was only the horizon she craved. In Texas she had her sister Claudia with her for a while, and in the late afternoons they would walk away from town and toward the horizon and watch the evening star come out. "That evening star fascinated me," she wrote. "It was in some way very exciting to me. My sister had a gun, and as we walked she would throw bottles into the air and shoot as many as she could before they hit the ground. I had nothing but to walk into nowhere and the wide sunset space with the star. Ten watercolors were made from that star. ~ Joan Didion,

709:Do you ever wonder how we all got here? On Earth, I mean. Forget the song and dance about Adam and Eve, which I know is a load of crap. My father likes the myth of the Pawnee Indians, who say that the star deities populated the world: Evening Star and Morning Star hooked up and gave birth to the first female. The first boy came from the Sun and the Moon. Humans rode in on the back of a tornado. Mr. Hume, my science teacher, taught us about this primordial soup full of natural gases and muddy slop and carbon matter that somehow solidified into one-celled organisms called choanoflagellates... which sound a lot more like a sexually transmitted disease than the start of the evolutionary chain, in my opinion. But even once you get there, it's a huge leap from an amoeba to a monkey to a whole thinking person. The really amazing thing about all this is no matter what you believe, it took some doing to get from a point where there was nothing, to a point where all the right neurons fire and pop so that we can make decisions. More amazing is how even though that's become second nature, we all still manage to screw it up. ~ Jodi Picoult,

710:On New Year's Eve, when the children had gone up the hill to be with their father, I went to a Mensa party in San Francisco, but returned home relatively early, wanting to face the first few hours of the new year away from the noise and lurching of people who had drunk too much. I stood outside on the deck, in darkness, looking up at the star-frosted sky, letting myself feel without censoring the ache and hope that belonged to that night, and I sent out prayer for connection with someone who would be --finally -- the person I'd needed to be with all my life, someone who would have gone through his own changes and wars of the spirit and emerged a true adult. A grown-up man. Who wouldn't mind my being a grandmother, for Pete's sake. A man somewhat like Shura Borodin -- or what Shura seemed to be. I cried a bit because the wanting was so very intense and the clear night sky so very indifferent, and everything I was in body and soul might yet grow old without a lover and friend who could be to me what I was capable of being to him. I toasted myself, hope, the new year and the magnificent cold stars with a bit of wine, then went to bed. ~ Ann Shulgin,

711:Could you explain something for me, then?” She gestured around vaguely. “You gave orders in terms of ‘up’ and ‘down,’ ‘port’ and ‘starboard,’ yet the ships of your fleet are in a wide range of aspects. You are upside down relative to the ships in Captain Tulev’s force, for example. How do they know which way you mean?” Desjani, unseen by Rione, rolled her eyes at the Co-President’s ignorance, but Geary just pointed at the display. “It’s a standard convention, Madam Co-President, one every sailor learns by heart. It had to be established to provide a common frame of reference in an unbounded three-dimensional environment.” He sketched the shape of Kaliban’s system. “Every star system has a plane in which its planets or other objects orbit. One side of that plane is labeled ‘up,’ and the other side ‘down.’ So up and down within the system doesn’t change regardless of how your ship is oriented. By the same token, the direction toward the star is ‘starboard’ while the direction away from the star is ‘port.’” Geary shrugged. “I’ve been told that early on they tried to use ‘starward’ instead of ‘starboard,’ but the older expression stuck. ~ Jack Campbell,

712:Brigham, the greatest and certainly the most able economist and administrator and businessman this nation has ever seen, didn't give a hoot for earthly things: 'I have never walked across the streets to make a trade.' He didn't mean that literally. You always do have to handle things. But in what spirit do we do it? Not the Krishna way, by renunciation, for example... If you refuse to be concerned with these things at all, and say, "I'm above all that," that's as great a fault. The things of the world have got to be administered; they must be taken care of, they are to be considered. We have to keep things clean, and in order. That's required of us. This is a test by which we are being proven. This is the way by which we prepare, always showing that these things will never captivate our hearts, that they will never become our principle concern. That takes a bit of doing, and that is why we have the formula 'with an eye single to his glory.' Keep first your eye on the star, then on all the other considerations of the ship. You will have all sorts of problems on the ship, but unless you steer by the star, forget the ship. Sink it. You won't go anywhere. ~ Hugh Nibley,

713:(About Georgia O'Keeffe) At the Art Students League in New York one of her fellow students advised her that, since he would be a great painter and she would end up teaching painting in a girs' school, any work of hers was less important than modeling for him. Another painted over her work to show her how the Impressionists did trees. She had not before heard how the Impressionists did trees and she did not much care. At twenty-four she left all those opinions behind and went for the first time to live in Texas, where there were no trees to paint and no one to tell her how not to paint them. In Texas there was only the horizon she craved. In Texas she had her sister Claudia with her for a while, and in the late afternoons they would walk away from town and toward the horizon and watch the evening star come out. "That evening star fascinated me," she wrote. "It was in some way very exciting to me. My sister had a gun, and as we walked she would throw bottles into the air and shoot as many as she could before they hit the ground. I had nothing but to walk into nowhere and the wide sunset space with the star. Ten watercolors were made from that star. ~ Joan Didion,

714:In order to become, to be, to move, Imagine leaving here, going to a cliff above the sea. Watch the sea Dive into the air, down into the sea. Dive deep toward the bottom. Feel the entities in the sea, in the cool darkness, the pressure. Listen and communicate with them. They know the secret way of escape from here. Escape into other places far from this planet. Move up from the sea's depths. Slant up through the dark clod, up to the warmth. Move out of the sea's surface, into light. Travel through the earth's air space, out. Accelerate toward our star, the sun. Feel its radiance increase, its energy. This energy started, maintains us, is us. Enter the sun's flaming self, be its light, Be its energy, share the star as you. Be the sun, shining into space. Move away on its energy, become greater that this star. Spread as its light in all directions. Fill the universe with thee, be the universe. Be all the stars, the galaxies are your body. Be empty space spread self to infinity. Be the creative potential in the empty spaces. BE the potential, infinite in the absolute zero of nothing. ~ John C Lilly,

715:I ask your pardon,' replied Bessy, humbly. 'Sometimes, when I've thought o' my life, and the little pleasure I've had in it, I've believed that, maybe, I was one of those doomed to die by the falling of a star from heaven; "And the name of the star is called Wormwood;' and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." One can bear pain and sorrow better if one thinks it has been prophesied long before for one: somehow, then it seems as if my pain was needed for the fulfilment; otherways it seems all sent for nothing.' 'Nay, Bessy—think!' said Margaret. 'God does not willingly afflict. Don't dwell so much on the prophecies, but read the clearer parts of the Bible.' 'I dare say it would be wiser; but where would I hear such grand words of promise—hear tell o' anything so far different fro' this dreary world, and this town above a', as in Revelations? Many's the time I've repeated the verses in the seventh chapter to myself, just for the sound. It's as good as an organ, and as different from every day, too. No, I cannot give up Revelations. It gives me more comfort than any other book i' the Bible. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell,

716:The Red Son I love your faces I saw the many years I drank your milk and filled my mouth With your home talk, slept in your house And was one of you. But a fire burns in my heart. Under the ribs where pulses thud And flitting between bones of skull Is the push, the endless mysterious command, Saying: "I leave you behind-You for the little hills and the years all alike, You with your patient cows and old houses Protected from the rain, I am going away and I never come back to you; Crags and high rough places call me, Great places of death Where men go empty handed And pass over smiling To the star-drift on the horizon rim. My last whisper shall be alone, unknown; I shall go to the city and fight against it, And make it give me passwords Of luck and love, women worth dying for, And money. I go where you wist not of Nor I nor any man nor woman. I only know I go to storms Grappling against things wet and naked." There is no pity of it and no blame. None of us is in the wrong. After all it is only this: You for the little hills and I go away. ~ Carl Sandburg,

717:Who are you?” Luce asked, falling to her knees. “What do you want?” “Show some respect.” The angel’s throat convulsed as if he meant to bark, but his voice came out warbled and faint and old. “Earn my respect,” Luce said. “And I’ll give it to you.” He gave her half an evil smirk and dropped his head low. Then he pulled down the cloak to expose the back of his neck. Luce blinked in the dim light. His neck bore a painted brand, which shimmered gold in the glow of streetlights mingled with the moon. She counted seven points on the star. He was one of the Scale. “Recognize me now?” “Is this how the Throne’s enforcers work? Bludgeoning innocent angels?” “No Outcast is innocent. Nor is anyone else, for that matter, until they are proven to be so.” “You’ve proven yourself innocent of any honor, striking a girl from behind.” “Insolence.” He wrinkled his nose at he. “Won’t get you far with me.” “That’s exactly where I want to be.” Luce’s eyes darted to Olianna, to her pale hand and the starshot clenched in its grip. “But it’s not where you will stay,” the Scale said haltingly, as if having to force himself to commit to heir illogical banter. ~ Lauren Kate,

718:Love's Treasure House I went to Love's old treasure house last night, Alone, when all the world was still -- asleep, And saw the miser Memory, grown gray With years of jealous counting of his gems, There seated. Keen was his eye, his hand Firm as when first his hoarding he began Of precious things of Love, long years ago. "And this," he said, "is gold from out her hair, And this the moonlight that she wandered in, With here a rose, enamelled by her breath, That bloomed in glory 'tween her breasts, and here The brimming sun-cup that she quaffed at noon, And here the star that cheered her in the night; In this great chest, see curiously wrought, Are purest of Love's gems." A ruby key, Enclasped upon a golden ring, he took, With care, from out some secret hiding-place, And delicately touched the lock, whereat I staggered, blinded by the light of things More luminous than stars, and questioned thus -"What are these treasures, miser Memory?" And slowly bending his gray head, he spoke: "These are the multitudes of kisses sweet Love gave so gladly, and I treasure here." ~ David MacDonald Ross,

719:Sometimes driven aground by the photon storms, by the swirling of the galaxies, clockwise and counterclockwise, ticking with light down the dark sea-corridors lined with our silver sails, our demon-haunted sails, our hundred-league masts as fine as threads, as fine as silver needles sewing the threads of starlight, embroidering the stars on black velvet, wet with the winds of Time that go racing by. The bone in her teeth! The spume, the flying spume of Time, cast up on these beaches where old sailors can no longer keep their bones from the restless, the unwearied universe. Where has she gone? My lady, the mate of my soul? Gone across the running tides of Aquarius, of Pisces, of Aries. Gone. Gone in her little boat, her nipples pressed against the black velvet lid, gone, sailing away forever from the star-washed shores, the dry shoals of the habitable worlds. She is her own ship, she is the figurehead of her own ship, and the captain. Bosun, Bosun, put out the launch! Sailmaker, make a sail! She has left us behind. We have left her behind. She is in the past we never knew and the future we will not see. Put out more sail, Captain for the universe is leaving us behind… ~ Gene Wolfe,

720:However, the natural symbol, without our being sufficiently conscious of the fact, is identical with the reality of the world that appears to us, for every object in the natural world is at the same time a symbolic reality to us. The psyche certainly does not use an "object" of nature as a "symbol," but rather the experience of an "object" itself is always already symbolic experience. The star or tree in us is no less real and no less symbolic than it is in outward experience. For each possibility of experience either presupposes a spiritually forming, that is to say a symbolic activity, or is identical with this. That is, everything spiritual appears to us first not just in nature but as nature; or we could formulate this just as well the other way around: everything natural, whether outward or inward, appears to us as an image, that is to say as formed spirit. We are surrounded by images, inwardly and outwardly, but at the same time formed and determined in all our experiences by the natural symbol as though by a unitary natural-spiritual reality, for our psychic system only grasps that which appears to us as the real world through the world of natural symbolism. ~ Erich Neumann,

721:To constantly have at your side a woman,an unmarried woman,a sister,a wonderful person who is there because you need her and because she can't do without you,to know that you are indispensable to the one you need, to be endlessly able to measure her affection by the amount of presence she grants you and to say to your self, "since she devotes all her time to me,that means i have her whole heart";to see her thoughts,if not her face,to weigh one being's faithfulness when the rest of the world has been eclipsed,to detect the rustling of her dress as though it were the sound of wings,to hear her coming and going,going out,coming back,talking,singing,and to know you are the centre of every step she takes,of every word,of every song,to manifest your own gravitational pull every minute of the day,to feel yourself your infirmity,to become in darkness,and through darkness,the star around which this angel revolves-few worms of bliss come anywhere near it!The ultimate happiness in life is the conviction that one is loved;loved for oneself-better still,loved in spite of oneself.And this conviction is what the blind have.In such distress,to be waited on is to be hugged and kissed. ~ Victor Hugo,

722:Further calculations showed that when collapsing stars are a little more massive than the Chandrasekhar limit, the pressure of the resulting neutrons-similar to the pressure of electrons-can stave off collapse for a little while; this is what happens in a neutron star. At this point, the star is so dense that every teaspoon weighs hundreds of millions of tons. There is a limit, though, to even the pressure that neutrons can bear. Some astrophysicists believe that a little more squeezing makes the neutrons break down into their component quarks, creating a quark star. But that is the last stronghold. After that, all hell breaks loose. When an extremely massive star collapses, it disappears. The gravitational attraction is so great that physicists know of no force in the universe that can stop its collapse-not the repulsion of its electrons, not the pressure of neutron against neutron or quark against quark-nothing. The dying star gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Then...zero. The star crams itself into zero space. This is a black hole, an object so paradoxical that some scientists believe that black holes can be used to travel faster than light-and backward in time. ~ Charles Seife,

723:Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas-time, still let the benignant figure of my childhood stand unchanged! In every cheerful image and suggestion that the season brings, may the bright star that rested above the poor roof, be the star of all the Christian World! A moment’s pause, O vanishing tree, of which the lower boughs are dark to me as yet, and let me look once more! I know there are blank spaces on thy branches, where eyes that I have loved have shone and smiled; from which they are departed. But, far above, I see the raiser of the dead girl, and the Widow’s Son; and God is good! If Age be hiding for me in the unseen portion of thy downward growth, O may I, with a grey head, turn a child’s heart to that figure yet, and a child’s trustfulness and confidence! Now, the tree is decorated with bright merriment, and song, and dance, and cheerfulness. And they are welcome. Innocent and welcome be they ever held, beneath the branches of the Christmas Tree, which cast no gloomy shadow! But, as it sinks into the ground, I hear a whisper going through the leaves. “This, in commemoration of the law of love and kindness, mercy and compassion. This, in remembrance of Me! ~ Charles Dickens,

724:Hope Mine is a song of hope For the days that lie before; For the grander things The morrow brings When the struggle days are o'er. Dark be the clouds to-day, Bitter the winds that blow, But falter nor fail, Through the howling galeComes peace in the afterglow. Mine is the song of hope, A song for the mother here, Who lulls to rest The babe at breast, And hopes for a brighter year. Hope is the song she sings, Hope is the prayer she prays; As she rocks her boy, She dreams of the joy He'll bring in the future days. Mine is the song of hope, A song for the father, too, Whose right arm swings, While his anvil sings A song of the journey through. Hope is the star that guides, Hope is the father's sun; Far ahead he sees, Through the waving trees, Sweet peace when his work is done. Mine is the song of hope, Of hope that sustains us all; Be we young or old, Be we weak or bold, Do we falter or even fall, Brightly the star of hope 348 From the distance is shining still; And with courage new We rise to do, For hope is the God of Will. ~ Edgar Albert Guest,

725:Ibn-Ishaq tells how it happened: “When Muhammad saw that his own people turned their backs on him, he was pained by their estrangement from what he brought them from God, and longed for a message that would reconcile him with his own people. He would gladly have seen those things that bore down harshly on them softened, so much so that he kept saying it to himself, fervently wishing for such an outcome. Then God revealed Sura 53, beginning with ‘By the star when it sets, your comrade does not err, nor is he deceived, nor does he speak out of his own caprice.’ But when Muhammad reached the words ‘Have you thought on Lat and Uzza, and the third one, Manat?’10 Satan added this upon his tongue: ‘These are the three great exalted birds, and their intercession is desired indeed.’” And here they were: the infamous Satanic Verses. The three “daughters of God” were no longer false gods, but giant high-flying birds covering the earth with their wingspans, graced with the power to intercede for those who worshipped them. The moment Muhammad recited these newly revealed verses in the Kaaba precinct, the response was overwhelmingly positive. “When they heard them, people rejoiced and were delighted,” ibn-Ishaq ~ Lesley Hazleton,

726:Poem In Memoriam T. S. Eliot I'd been out the night before & hadn't seen the papers or the telly & the next day in a café someone told me you were dead And it was as if a favourite distant uncle had died old hands in the big strange room/new shiny presents at Christmas and I didn't know what to feel. For years I measured out my life with your coffee spoons Your poems on the table in dusty bed sitters Playing an L.P. of you reading on wet interrupted January afternoons Meanwhile, back at the Wasteland: Maureen OHara in a lowcut dress staggers across Rhyl sandhills Lovers in Liverpool pubs eating passion fruit Reading Alfred de Vigny in the lavatory Opening an old grand piano and finding it smelling of curry THE STAR OF INDIA FOUND IN A BUS STATION Making love in a darkened room hearing an old woman having a fit on the landing The first snowflakes of winter falling on her Christmas poem for me in Piccadilly Gardens The first signs of spring in plastic daffodils on city counters Lovers kissing Rain fallin Dogs running Night falling And you `familiar compound spirit' moving silently down Canning St in a night of rain and fog. ~ Adrian Henri,

727:Planting the US flag at the site of the Twin Towers did presage a war. Tom Franklin said that when he took his shot he had been aware of the similarities between it and another famous image from a previous conflict –the Second World War, when US Marines planted the American flag atop Iwo Jima. Many Americans will have recognized the symmetry immediately and appreciated that both moments captured a stirring mix of powerful emotions: sadness, courage, heroism, defiance, collective perseverance and endeavour. Both images, but perhaps more so the 9/ 11 photograph, also evoke the opening stanza of the American national anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, particularly its final lines: O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? At a moment of profound shock for the American people, the sight of their flag yet waving was, for many, reassuring. That the stars of the fifty states were held aloft by men in uniform may have spoken to the streak of militarism that tinges American culture, but to see the red, white and blue amid the awful grey devastation of Ground Zero will also have helped many ordinary citizens to cope with the other deeply disturbing images emerging from New York City that autumn day. ~ Tim Marshall,

728:Ringleted Youth Of My Love RINGLETED youth of my love, With thy locks bound loosely behind thee, You passed by the road above, But you never came in to find me; Where were the harm for you If you came for a little to see me, Your kiss is a wakening dew Were I ever so ill or so dreamy. If I had golden store I would make a nice little boreen, To lead straight up to his door, The door of the house of my stóreen; Hoping to God not to miss The sound of his footfall in it, I have waited so long for his kiss That for days I have not slept a minute. I thought, oh my love! you were so— As the moon is, or the sun on a fountain, And I thought after that you were snow, The cold snow on the top of the mountain; And I thought after that you were more Like God’s lamp shining to find me, Or the bright star of knowledge before, And the star of knowledge behind me. You promised me high-heeled shoes, And satin and silk, my stóreen, And to follow me, never to lose, Though the ocean were round us roaring; Like a bush in a gap in a wall I am now left lonely without thee, And this house I grow dead of, is all That I see around or about me. ~ Douglas Hyde,

729:I suddenly remember being about seven, riding beside him in the car, and asking him how grown-ups found their way to places. After all, I had never seen him pull out a map. "I guess we just get used to taking the same turns," he said, but I wasn't satisfied. "Then what about the first time you go somewhere?" "Well," he said, "we get directions." But what I want to know is who got them the very first time? What if no one's ever been where you're going? "Dad?" I ask, "is it true that you can use stars like a map?" "Yeah, if you understand celestial navigation." "Is it hard?" I'm thinking maybe I should learn. A backup plan, for all those times I feel like I'm just wandering in circles. "It's pretty jazzy math—you have to measure the altitude of a star, figure out its position using a nautical almanac, figure out what you think the altitude should be and what direction the star should be in based on where you think you are, and compare the altitude you measured with the one you calculated. Then you plot this on a chart, as a line of position. You get several lines of position to cross, and that's where you go." My father takes one look at my face and smiles. "Exactly," he laughs. "Never leave home without your GPS. ~ Jodi Picoult,

730:WHEN on the Magpies' Bridge I see The Hoar-frost King has cast His sparkling mantle, well I know The night is nearly past, Daylight approaches fast. The author of this verse was Governor of the Province of Koshu, and Viceroy of the more or less uncivilized northern and eastern parts of Japan; he died A.D. 785. There was a bridge or passageway in the Imperial Palace at Kyoto called the Magpies' Bridge, but there is also an allusion here to the old legend about the Weaver and Herdsman. It is said, that the Weaver (the star Vega) was a maiden, who dwelt on one side of the River of the Milky Way, and who was employed in making clothes for the Gods. But one day the Sun took pity upon her, and gave her in marriage to the Herdboy (the star Aquila), who lived on the other side of the river. But as the result of this was that the supply of clothes fell short, she was only permitted to visit her husband once a year, viz. on the seventh night of the seventh month; and on this night, it is said, the magpies in a dense flock form a bridge for her across the river. The hoar frost forms just before day breaks. The illustration shows the Herdboy crossing on the Bridge of Magpies to his bride. A Hundred Verses from Old Japan (The Hyakunin-isshu), tr. by William N. Porter, [1909], ~ Anonymous,

731:When God finished his work of creation In the vast blue sky All the stars began to shine. In the milky way With this new world in their front All the gods sat in rows and began to sing, O what joy! What perfection! A great piece of music, in perfect rhythm - These planets, this moon and this sun! But someone from the assembly Suddenly told, From this string of lights A star seems to have fallen down! The strings of the lyre snapped And the music came to a stop, A quest began to find out Where the lost star had gone. Everybody said, It was the star which brightened the heavens most It was the biggest and the best. From then on has been going on This quest for this star which has been lost Day and night there is no rest. Everybody says, Among all the stars We have got to find out This particular star. Without it the entire world has become dark. But in the dead of night the silent stars Smiling silently say among themselves, This search is useless For all the stars are there! Transcreation of the poem Haradhan from the collection Kheya (The Ferry) by Rabindranath Tagore. Transcreation by Kumud Biswas. Translated by Kumud Biswas ~ Rabindranath Tagore, The Lost Star ,

732:Janx Spirit : Janx Spirit is a rather potent alcoholic beverage, and is used heavily in drinking games that are played in the hyperspace ports that serve the madranite mining belts in the star system of Orion Beta. The game is not unlike the Earth game called Indian Wrestling, and is played like this: Two contestants sit at either side of a table, with a glass in front of each of them. Between them would be placed a bottle of Janx Spirit — as immortalized in that ancient Orion mining song : “Oh don’t give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit No, don’t you give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die Won’t you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit” Each of the two contestants would then concentrate their will on the bottle and attempt to tip it and pour spirit into the glass of his opponent – who would then have to drink it. The bottle would then be refilled. The game would be played again. And again. Once you started to lose you would probably keep losing, because one of the effects of Janx spirit is to depress telepsychic power. As soon as a predetermined quantity had been consumed, the final loser would have to perform a forfeit, which was usually obscenely biological. ~ Douglas Adams,

733:A Poem Of Love If perchance, you ever remember how we were, Then in the soft glow of same moonlight Cast a glance at a shining star. And if that star Travels the wasteland of space and falls to your feet. Know, it was an image of my heart. And if the star stays on high But then it is inconceivable That you cast a glance at anything But that it would splinter and crack Lose its being. If perchance, you ever remember how we were, Place a soft hand on the passing breeze I shall be there in wafted scents. Search me in petals of rose, In wee mirrors of dewdrops I'll be there. And if you fail to find me in In stars, wafted scents, rosepetals, dewdrops Just look down at your feet. You will find me there. Circling in ceaseless journey to reach you. If ever you see a brightlit lamp. With circling moths daring open flame. Know, I too have been reduced to ashes Like many of them. Pick up that dust, and fling it In some passing river'. The dust of me shall ride the waters. Travel the seas, and come to rest, On some unseen island, Cry out for you. And if you ever voyage out, Do grace that distant island [Translated by Saiyed Mohib Asad] ~ Amjad Islam Amjad,

734:Mary Arden When a simple English maiden, Nested warm in Wilmicote, Sang forth like a lark uprising Heavenward with its morning note, Did no English ear that listened, Even then, foretouched by fame, Tremble to the prophet-music Fountain-headed in thy name, Mary Arden? And to thee thyself, O tell me! Shade of Shakespeare’s mother, tell me! Did no dazzling vision come, Banishing all thoughts of gloom, Of the bardic grandeurs waiting On thy matron fate, when He Who in time should call thee mother Should all time’s subjector be, Mary Arden? Then a mother we behold thee, With that babe upon thy breast, That great nascent soul, so bird-like, Babbling in its fragrant nest: O what spirit sweetly human, O what instincts mildly wise, Sucked he from those mother-fountains, Drew he from those mother-eyes, Mary Arden? But shall we, now spirit-basking In the noonblaze of his fame, Fail to read a sign prophetic In thy lovely maiden name? No; it is the star that trembled O’er a royal poet’s birth; And amongst immortal Maries, Second to but one on earth, Mary Arden! Glory to thee! Mary Arden! 102 Shakespeare’s mother! England’s Mary! ~ Charles Harpur,

735:Our Blessings Sitting to-day in the sunshine, That touched me with fingers of love, I thought of the manifold blessings God scatters on earth, from above; And they seemed, as I numbered them over, Far more than we merit, or need, And all that we lack is the angels To make earth a heaven indeed. The winter brings long, pleasant evenings, The spring brings a promise of flowers That summer breathes to fruition, And autumn brings glad, golden hours. The woodlands re-echo with music, The moonbeams ensilver the sea; There is sunlight and beauty about us, And the world is as fair as can be. But mortals are always complaining, Each one thinks his own a sad lot; And forgetting the good things about him, Goes mourning for those he has not. Instead of the star-spangled heavens, We look on the dust at our feet; We drain out the cup that is bitter, Forgetting the one that is sweet. We mourn o'er the thorn in the flower, Forgetting its odour and bloom; We pass by a garden of blossoms, To weep o'er the dust of the tomb. There are blessings unnumbered about us, Like the leaves of the forest they grow; And the fault is our own - not the Giver's That we have not an Eden below. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

736:Do I Love You" I stand in the night and stare up at a lone star, wondering what love means. You whisper your desire—do I love you? I dare say yes. But my eyes drift back to that solitary star; my mind is plagued with intimate uncertainty. What art thou, Love? Tell me. I contemplate what I know—the qualities that love doth not possess. Love lifts no cruel or unkind hand, for it seeketh no harm. It shirks from constraints and demands, for tyranny is not love. A boisterous voice never crosses love's lips, for to speak with thunder chases its very presence from the heart. Love inflicts no pain, no fear, no misery, but conquers all such foes. It is said that love is not selfish, yet it does not guilt those who are. On a heart unwillingly given it stakes no claim. Love is nothing from Pandora's box; it is no evil, sin, or sorrow unleashed on this world. My eyes glimmer as the star I gaze upon twinkles with brightness that I do not possess. I recognize my smallness—my ignorance of the One whose hands placed that star in the heavens for me. He is love. By His own mouth He proclaimed it. Again the whispered question hits my ear—do I love you? I dare say yes. But my eyes squint tight, wishing on a lonely star, wondering what love means. ~ Richelle E Goodrich,

737:Two Poems From The War Oh, not the loss of the accomplished thing! Not dumb farewells, nor long relinquishment Of beauty had, and golden summer spent, And savage glory of the fluttering Torn banners of the rain, and frosty ring Of moon-white winters, and the imminent Long-lunging seas, and glowing students bent To race on some smooth beach the gull's wing: Not these, nor all we've been, nor all we've loved, The pitiful familiar names, had moved Our hearts to weep for them; but oh, the star The future is! Eternity's too wan To give again that undefeated, far, All-possible irradiance of dawn. Like moon-dark, like brown water you escape, O laughing mouth, O sweet uplifted lips. Within the peering brain old ghosts take shape; You flame and wither as the white foam slips Back from the broken wave: sometimes a start, A gesture of the hands, a way you own Of bending that smooth head above your heart,-Then these are varied, then the dream is gone. Oh, you are too much mine and flesh of me To seal upon the brain, who in the blood Are so intense a pulse, so swift a flood Of beauty, such unceasing instancy. Dear unimagined brow, unvisioned face, All beauty has become your dwelling place. ~ Archibald MacLeish,

738:The star prophecy that Belial alluded to had a long history of importance. When Yahweh had originally created the heavens and earth, he placed the constellations of stars and planets in the sky not merely for seasons but for signs to mankind. And the most imaginative sign was the story of redemption that he embedded within the very structure of the twelve constellations that revolved around the earth. The narrative was of a virgin (Virgo) who would bear the promised seed and pay the price of justice (Libra) to overcome the “wounder of the heel” (Scorpio). This promised one would be a conqueror (Sagittarius the archer), who would be the scapegoat of atonement (Capricorn), and bring living waters for his people (Aquarius the water-bearer). Those people would be blessed though bound (Pisces the fish). Their blessings would be consummated through a ram of sacrifice (Aries) who would become a ruling leader (Taurus the bull), a king with two natures (Gemini the twins). He would hold his people fast in his grip (Cancer the crab), and would ultimately reign as king over the earth (Leo the lion). Yahweh’s enemies eventually subverted the original intent of the constellations and twisted the entire system into a form of idolatry that worshipped the stars instead of Yahweh as the determiner of destinies. ~ Brian Godawa,

739:Winter Twilight ALONG the wintry skyline, Crowning the rocky crest, Stands the bare screen of hardwood trees Against the saffron west,— Its gray and purple network Of branching tracery Outspread upon the lucent air, Like weed within the sea. The scarlet robe of autumn Renounced and put away, The mystic Earth is fairer still, — A Puritan in gray. The spirit of the winter, How tender, how austere! Yet all the ardor of the spring And summer's dream are here. Fear not, O timid lover, The touch of frost and rime! This is the virtue that sustained The roses in their prime. The anthem of the northwind Shall hallow thy despair, The benediction of the snow Be answer to thy prayer. And now the star of evening That is the pilgrim's sign, Is lighted in the primrose dusk, — A lamp before a shrine. Peace fills the mighty minster, Tranquil and gray and old, And all the chancel of the west Is bright with paling gold. A little wind goes sifting Along the meadow floor,— Like steps of lovely penitents Who sighingly adore. Then falls the twilight curtain, And fades the eerie light, And frost and silence turn the keys 223 In the great doors of night. ~ Bliss William Carman,

740:The sap rises and, itself a mixture of elements, flowers in a mixture of tones; the trees, the rocks, the granites cast their reflections in the mirror of the water; all the transparent objects seize and imprison colour reflections, both close and distant, as the light passes through them. As the star of day moves, the tones change in value, but always they respect their mutual sympathies and natural hatreds, and continue to live in harmony by reciprocal concessions. The shadows move slowly and drive before them or blot out the tones as the light itself, changing position, sets others vibrating. These mingle their reflections, and, modifying their qualities by casting over them transparent and borrowed glazes, multiply to infinity their melodious marriages and make them easier to achieve. When the great ball of fire sinks into the waters, red fanfares fly in all directions, a blood-red harmony spreads over the horizon, green turns to a deep red. But soon vast blue shadows chase rhythmically before them the crowd of orange and soft tones, which are like the distant and muted echoes of the light. This great symphony of today, which is the eternally renewed variation of the symphony of yesterday, this succession of melodies, where the variety comes always from the infinite, this complex hymn is called colour. ~ Charles Baudelaire,

741:Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and make allowances. She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can’t speak for delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the wastes of space — none of them is of any practical value, so far as I can see, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them. If she could quiet down and keep still a couple of minutes at a time, it would be a reposeful spectacle. In that cases I think I could enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could, for I am coming to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely creature — lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and once when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder, with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes, watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she was beautiful. ~ Mark Twain,

742:The STAR WARS Novels Timeline OLD REPUBLIC 5000–33 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope Lost Tribe of the Sith* Precipice Skyborn Paragon Savior Purgatory Sentinel 3650 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope The Old Republic: Deceived Lost Tribe of the Sith* Pantheon Secrets Red Harvest The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance 1032 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope Knight Errant Darth Bane: Path of Destruction Darth Bane: Rule of Two Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil RISE OF THE EMPIRE 33–0 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope Darth Maul: Saboteur* Cloak of Deception Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter 32 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope STAR WARS: EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace Rogue Planet Outbound Flight The Approaching Storm 22 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope STAR WARS: EPISODE II: Attack of the Clones 22–19 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope The Clone Wars The Clone Wars: Wild Space The Clone Wars: No Prisoners Clone Wars Gambit Stealth Siege Republic Commando Hard Contact Triple Zero True Colors Order 66 Shatterpoint The Cestus Deception The Hive* MedStar I: Battle Surgeons MedStar II: Jedi Healer Jedi Trial Yoda: Dark Rendezvous Labyrinth of Evil 19 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope STAR WARS: EPISODE III: Revenge of the Sith Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader Imperial Commando 501st Coruscant Nights Jedi Twilight Street of Shadows Patterns of Force The ~ George Lucas,

743:Christmas Hymn Sing, Christmas bells! Say to the earth this is the morn Whereon our Saviour-King is born; Sing to all men,-the bond, the free, The rich, the poor, the high, the low, The little child that sports in glee, The aged folk that tottering go,Proclaim the morn That Christ is born, That saveth them and saveth me! Sing, angel host! Sing of the star that God has placed Above the manger in the east; Sing of the glories of the night, The virgin's sweet humility, The Babe with kingly robes bedight, Sing to all men where'er they be This Christmas morn; For Christ is born, That saveth them and saveth me! Sing, sons of earth! O ransomed seed of Adam, sing! God liveth, and we have a king! The curse is gone, the bond are free,By Bethlehem's star that brightly beamed, By all the heavenly signs that be, We know that Israel is redeemed; That on this morn The Christ is born That saveth you and saveth me! Sing, O my heart! Sing thou in rapture this dear morn Whereon the blessed Prince is born! And as thy songs shall be of love, So let my deeds be charity,By the dear Lord that reigns above, 91 By Him that died upon the tree, By this fair morn Whereon is born The Christ that saveth all and me! ~ Eugene Field,

744:In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of 'world history' — yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die. One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that would lead beyond human life. It is human, rather, and only its owner and producer gives it such importance, as if the world pivoted around it. But if we could communicate with the mosquito, then we would learn that he floats through the air with the same self-importance, feeling within itself the flying center of the world. There is nothing in nature so despicable or insignificant that it cannot immediately be blown up like a bag by a slight breath of this power of knowledge; and just as every porter wants an admirer, the proudest human being, the philosopher, thinks that he sees on the eyes of the universe telescopically focused from all sides on his actions and thoughts. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

745:Fairy-Land Dim vales- and shadowy floodsAnd cloudy-looking woods, Whose forms we can't discover For the tears that drip all over! Huge moons there wax and waneAgain- again- againEvery moment of the nightForever changing placesAnd they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces. About twelve by the moon-dial, One more filmy than the rest (A kind which, upon trial, They have found to be the best) Comes down- still down- and down, With its centre on the crown Of a mountain's eminence, While its wide circumference In easy drapery falls Over hamlets, over halls, Wherever they may beO'er the strange woods- o'er the seaOver spirits on the wingOver every drowsy thingAnd buries them up quite In a labyrinth of lightAnd then, how deep!- O, deep! Is the passion of their sleep. In the morning they arise, And their moony covering Is soaring in the skies, With the tempests as they toss, Like- almost anythingOr a yellow Albatross. They use that moon no more For the same end as beforeVidelicet, a tentWhich I think extravagant: Its atomies, however, 41 Into a shower dissever, Of which those butterflies Of Earth, who seek the skies, And so come down again, (Never-contented things!) Have brought a specimen Upon their quivering wings. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

746:The decision by the ruling elites in ancient Rome—dominated by a bloated military and a corrupt oligarchy, much like the United States—to strangle the vain and idiotic Emperor Commodus in his bath in the year 192 did not halt the growing chaos and precipitous decline of the Roman Empire. Commodus, like a number of late-Roman emperors, and like Trump, was incompetent and consumed by his own vanity. He commissioned innumerable statues of himself as Hercules and had little interest in governance. He used his position as head of state to make himself the star of his own ongoing public show. He fought victoriously as a gladiator in the arena in fixed bouts. Power for Commodus, as it is for Trump, was primarily about catering to his bottomless narcissism. He sold public offices to the ancient equivalents of Betsy DeVos and Steven Mnuchin. Commodus was replaced by the reformer Pertinax, the Bernie Sanders of his day, who attempted in vain to curb the power of the Praetorian Guards, the ancient version of the military-industrial complex. The Praetorian Guards assassinated Pertinax three months after he became emperor. The Guards then auctioned off his position to the highest bidder. The next emperor, Didius Julianus, lasted sixty-six days. There would be five emperors in AD 193, the year after the assassination of Commodus. Trump and our decaying empire have ominous historical precedents. ~ Chris Hedges,

747:The Star I HAD a star to sing by, a beautiful star that led, But when I sang of its splendour the world in its wisdom said: 'Sweet are your songs, yet the singer sings but in madness when He hymns but stars unbeholden of us his fellows of men; Glow-worms we see and marshlights; sing us sweet songs of those For the guerdons we have to give you, laurel and gold and rose; Or if you must sing of stars, unseen of your brother man, Go, starve with your eyes on your vision; your star may save if it can!' So I said, 'If I starve and die I never again shall see The glory, the high white radiance that hallows the world for me; I will sing their songs, if it must be, and when I have golden store, I will turn from the marsh and the glow-worms, and sing of my star once more.' So I walked in the warm wet by-ways, not daring to lift my eyes Lest love should drive me to singing my star supreme in the skies, And the world cried out, 'We will crown him, he sings of the lights that are, Glories of marshlight and glow-worms, not visions vain of a star!' I said, 'Now my brows are laurelled, my hands filled full of their gold, I will sing the starry songs that these earthworms bade withhold. It is time to sing of my star!' for I dreamed that my star still shone, Then I lifted my eyes in my triumph. Night! night! and my star was gone. ~ Edith Nesbit,

748:And Galahad fled along them bridge by bridge, And every bridge as quickly as he crost Sprang into fire and vanish'd, tho' I yearn'd To follow; and thrice above him all the heavens Open'd and blazed with thunder such as seem'd Shoutings of all the sons of God: and first At once I saw him far on the great Sea, In silver-shining armour starry-clear; And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung Clothed in white samite or a luminous cloud. And with exceeding swiftness ran the boat, If boat it were -- I saw not whence it came. And when the heavens open'd and blazed again Roaring, I saw him like a silver star -- And had he set the sail, or had the boat Become a living creature clad with wings? And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung Redder than any rose, a joy to me, For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn. Then in a moment when they blazed again Opening, I saw the least of little stars Down on the waste, and straight beyond the star I saw the spiritual city and all her spires And gateways in a glory like one pearl -- No larger, tho' the goal of all the saints -- Strike from the sea; and from the star there shot A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there Dwelt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail, Which never eyes on earth again shall see. [2490.jpg] -- from The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, Edited by D. H. S. Nicholson / Edited by A. H. E. Lee ~ Alfred Tennyson, And Galahad fled along them bridge by bridge (from The Holy Grail) ,

749:Only last Sunday, when poor wretches were gay—within the walls playing with children among the clipped trees and the statues in the Palace Garden; walking, a score abreast, in the Elysian Fields, made more Elysian by performing dogs and wooden horses; between whiles filtering (a few) through the gloomy Cathedral of Our Lady to say a word or two at the base of a pillar within flare of a rusty little gridiron-full of gusty little tapers; without the walls encompassing Paris with dancing, love-making, wine-drinking, tobacco-smoking, tomb-visiting, billiard card and domino playing, quack-doctoring, and much murderous refuse, animate and inanimate—only last Sunday, my Lady, in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant Despair, almost hated her own maid for being in spirits. She cannot, therefore, go too fast from Paris. Weariness of soul lies before her, as it lies behind—her Ariel has put a girdle of it round the whole earth, and it cannot be unclasped—but the imperfect remedy is always to fly from the last place where it has been experienced. Fling Paris back into the distance, then, exchanging it for endless avenues and cross-avenues of wintry trees! And, when next beheld, let it be some leagues away, with the Gate of the Star a white speck glittering in the sun, and the city a mere mound in a plain—two dark square towers rising out of it, and light and shadow descending on it aslant, like the angels in Jacob's dream! ~ Charles Dickens,

750:JONATHAN “RUBY” RUBINSTEIN. Worked with Jobs at NeXT, became chief hardware engineer at Apple in 1997. MIKE SCOTT. Brought in by Markkula to be Apple’s president in 1977 to try to manage Jobs. JOHN SCULLEY. Pepsi executive recruited by Jobs in 1983 to be Apple’s CEO, clashed with and ousted Jobs in 1985. JOANNE SCHIEBLE JANDALI SIMPSON. Wisconsin-born biological mother of Steve Jobs, whom she put up for adoption, and Mona Simpson, whom she raised. MONA SIMPSON. Biological full sister of Jobs; they discovered their relationship in 1986 and became close. She wrote novels loosely based on her mother Joanne (Anywhere but Here), Jobs and his daughter Lisa (A Regular Guy), and her father Abdulfattah Jandali (The Lost Father). ALVY RAY SMITH. A cofounder of Pixar who clashed with Jobs. BURRELL SMITH. Brilliant, troubled hardware designer on the original Mac team, afflicted with schizophrenia in the 1990s. AVADIS “AVIE” TEVANIAN. Worked with Jobs and Rubinstein at NeXT, became chief software engineer at Apple in 1997. JAMES VINCENT. A music-loving Brit, the younger partner with Lee Clow and Duncan Milner at the ad agency Apple hired. RON WAYNE. Met Jobs at Atari, became first partner with Jobs and Wozniak at fledgling Apple, but unwisely decided to forgo his equity stake. STEPHEN WOZNIAK. The star electronics geek at Homestead High; Jobs figured out how to package and market his amazing circuit boards and became his partner in founding Apple. ~ Walter Isaacson,

751:Evening Song Of Senlin from Senlin: A Biography It is moonlight. Alone in the silence I ascend my stairs once more, While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight, Crash on a white sand shore. It is moonlight. The garden is silent. I stand in my room alone. Across my wall, from the far-off moon, A rain of fire is thrown . . . There are houses hanging above the stars, And stars hung under a sea: And a wind from the long blue vault of time Waves my curtain for me . . . I wait in the dark once more, Swung between space and space: Before my mirror I lift my hands And face my remembered face. Is it I who stand in a question here, Asking to know my name? . . . It is I, yet I know not whither I go, Nor why, nor whence I came. It is I, who awoke at dawn And arose and descended the stair, Conceiving a god in the eye of the sun,— In a woman's hands and hair. It is I whose flesh is gray with the stones I builded into a wall: With a mournful melody in my brain Of a tune I cannot recall . . . There are roses to kiss: and mouths to kiss; And the sharp-pained shadow of death. I remember a rain-drop on my cheek,— A wind like a fragrant breath . . . And the star I laugh on tilts through heaven; And the heavens are dark and steep . . . I will forget these things once more In the silence of sleep. 32 ~ Conrad Potter Aiken,

752:The Old Pole Star BEFORE the clepsydra had bound the days Man tethered Change to his fixed star, and said: 'The elder races, that long since are dead, Marched by that light; it swerves not from its base Though all the worlds about it wax and fade.' When Egypt saw it, fast in reeling spheres, Her Pyramids shaft-centred on its ray She reared and said: 'Long as this star holds sway In uninvaded ether, shall the years Revere my monuments - ' and went her way. The Pyramids abide; but through the shaft That held the polar pivot, eye to eye, Look now - blank nothingness! As though Change laughed At man's presumption and his puny craft, The star has slipped its leash and roams the sky. Yet could the immemorial piles be swung A skyey hair's breadth from their rooted base, Back to the central anchorage of space, Ah, then again, as when the race was young, Should they behold the beacon of the race! Of old men said: 'The Truth is there: we rear Our faith full-centred on it. It was known Thus of the elders who foreran us here, Mapped out its circuit in the shifting sphere, And found it, 'mid mutation, fixed alone.' Change laughs again, again the sky is cold, And down that fissure now no star-beam glides. Yet they whose sweep of vision grows not old Still at the central point of space behold 78 Another pole-star: for the Truth abides. ~ Edith Wharton,

753:A Voice From The West What is the voice I hear On the wind of the Western Sea? Sentinel, listen from out Cape Clear And say what the voice may be. ``'Tis a proud, free people calling loud to a people proud and free. ``And it says to them, `Kinsmen, hail! We severed have been too long. Now let us have done with a worn-out taleThe tale of an ancient Wrong; And our friendship last long as Love doth last, and be stronger than Death is strong!''' Answer them, ``Sons of the self-same race, And blood of the self-same clan, Let us speak with each other face to face, And answer man to man; And loyally love and trust each other as none but free men can. ``So fling them out to the breeze, Shamrock, Thistle, and Rose! And the Star-Spangled Banner unfurl with these, A message to friends and foes, Wherever the sails of peace are seen and wherever the war-wind blows. ``A message to bond and thrall to wake: For wherever we come, we twain, The throne of the tyrant shall rock and quake, And his menace be void and vain; For you are lords of a strong, young land, and we are lords of the main.'' Yes, this is the voice on the bluff March gale: ``We severed have been too long. But now we have done with a worn-out tale, The tale of an ancient Wrong; And our friendship shall last long as Love doth last, and be stronger than Death is strong!'' 117 ~ Alfred Austin,

754:Let us say in passing, to be blind and to be loved, is in fact--on this earth where nothing is complete--one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. To have continually at your side a woman, a girl, a sister, a charming being, who is there because you need her, and because she cannot do without you, to know you are indispensable to someone necessary to you, to be able at all times to measure her affection by the degree of the presence that she gives you, and to say to yourself: She dedicates all her time to me, because I possess her whole love; to see the thought if not the face; to be sure of the fidelity of one being in a total eclipse of the world; to imagine the rustling of her dress as the rustling of wings; to hear her moving to and fro, going out, coming in, talking, singing, to think that you are the cause of those steps, those words, that song; to show your personal attraction at every moment; to feel even more powerful as your infirmity increases; to become in darkness, and by reason of darkness, the star around which this angel gravitates; few joys can equal that. The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves--say rather, loved in spite of ourselves; the conviction the blind have. In their calamity, to be served is to be caressed. Are they deprived of anything? No. Light is not lost where love enters. And what a love! A love wholly founded in purity. There is no blindness where there is certainty. ~ Victor Hugo,

755:Especially When The October Wind Especially when the October wind With frosty fingers punishes my hair, Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire And cast a shadow crab upon the land, By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds, Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks, My busy heart who shudders as she talks Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words. Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark On the horizon walking like the trees The wordy shapes of women, and the rows Of the star-gestured children in the park. Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches, Some of the oaken voices, from the roots Of many a thorny shire tell you notes, Some let me make you of the water's speeches. Behind a pot of ferns the wagging clock Tells me the hour's word, the neural meaning Flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning And tells the windy weather in the cock. Some let me make you of the meadow's signs; The signal grass that tells me all I know Breaks with the wormy winter through the eye. Some let me tell you of the raven's sins. Especially when the October wind (Some let me make you of autumnal spells, The spider-tongued, and the loud hill of Wales) With fists of turnips punishes the land, Some let me make you of the heartless words. The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury. By the sea's side hear the dark-vowelled birds. ~ Dylan Thomas,

756:Mother of Light, and the Gods! Mother of Music, awake! Silence and speech are at odds; Heaven and Hell are at stake. By the Rose and the Cross I conjure; I constrain by the Snake and the Sword; I am he that is sworn to endure -Bring us the word of the Lord! By the brood of the Bysses of Brightening, whose God was my sire; By the Lord of the Flame and Lightning, the King of the Spirits of Fire; By the Lord of the Waves and the Waters, the King of the Hosts of the Sea, The fairest of all of whose daughters was mother to me; By the Lord of the Winds and the Breezes, the king of the Spirits of Air, In whose bosom the infinite ease is that cradled me there; By the Lord of the Fields and the Mountains, the King of the Spirits of Earth That nurtured my life at his fountains from the hour of my birth; By the Wand and the Cup I conjure; by the Dagger and Disk I constrain; I am he that is sworn to endure; make thy music again! I am Lord of the Star and the Seal; I am Lord of the Snake and the Sword; Reveal us the riddle, reveal! Bring us the word of the Lord! As the flame of the sun, as the roar of the sea, as the storm of the air, As the quake of the earth -let it soar for a boon, for a bane, for a snare, For a lure, for a light, for a kiss, for a rod, for a scourge, for a sword - Bring us thy burden of bliss -Bring us the word of the Lord! PERDURABO. ~ Aleister Crowley, The Interpreter ,

757:The Interpreter Mother of Light, and the Gods! Mother of Music, awake! Silence and speech are at odds; Heaven and Hell are at stake. By the Rose and the Cross I conjure; I constrain by the Snake and the Sword; I am he that is sworn to endure -Bring us the word of the Lord! By the brood of the Bysses of Brightening, whose God was my sire; By the Lord of the Flame and Lightning, the King of the Spirits of Fire; By the Lord of the Waves and the Waters, the King of the Hosts of the Sea, The fairest of all of whose daughters was mother to me; By the Lord of the Winds and the Breezes, the king of the Spirits of Air, In whose bosom the infinite ease is that cradled me there; By the Lord of the Fields and the Mountains, the King of the Spirits of Earth That nurtured my life at his fountains from the hour of my birth; By the Wand and the Cup I conjure; by the Dagger and Disk I constrain; I am he that is sworn to endure; make thy music again! I am Lord of the Star and the Seal; I am Lord of the Snake and the Sword; Reveal us the riddle, reveal! Bring us the word of the Lord! As the flame of the sun, as the roar of the sea, as the storm of the air, As the quake of the earth -let it soar for a boon, for a bane, for a snare, For a lure, for a light, for a kiss, for a rod, for a scourge, for a sword Bring us thy burden of bliss -Bring us the word of the Lord! 78 PERDURABO. ~ Aleister Crowley,

758:THE unpurged images of day recede; The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed; Night resonance recedes, night walkers' song After great cathedral gong; A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains All that man is, All mere complexities, The fury and the mire of human veins. Before me floats an image, man or shade, Shade more than man, more image than a shade; For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth May unwind the winding path; A mouth that has no moisture and no breath Breathless mouths may summon; I hail the superhuman; I call it death-in-life and life-in-death. Miracle, bird or golden handiwork, More miracle than bird or handiwork, Planted on the star-lit golden bough, Can like the cocks of Hades crow, Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud In glory of changeless metal Common bird or petal And all complexities of mire or blood. At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit Flames that no **** feeds, nor steel has lit, Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame, Where blood-begotten spirits come And all complexities of fury leave, Dying into a dance, An agony of trance, An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve. Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood, Spirit after Spirit! The smithies break the flood. The golden smithies of the Emperor! Marbles of the dancing floor Break bitter furies of complexity, Those images that yet Fresh images beget, That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea. ~ William Butler Yeats, Byzantium ,

759:For The New Year FLUSHED with a crimson sunrise beauty, The fair new year its promise gave; Such dreams we had of love, of duty, Of heights to scale, of foes to brave! Oh, how hope's fire our future lighted-How much to do, how much to know, Yet on its brink we shrank affrighted A year ago. And now the year is done--its pleasure So brief, so bright--its hours of pain; Some moments' memories we treasure, Some recollections loathe in vain. Oh, for a brain where could not waken Remembrances of purpose crossed, Of trusts abandoned, aims forsaken, And chances lost! The changing seasons thrust upon us Another year, fair-faced and new; What evil have the old years done us That this in its turn will not do? This, too, will die, and leave us grieving For all the ills its arms enfold-For faiths betrayed, for friends deceiving, And love grown cold. We have been fooled. The hopes that fooled us-We know them now--have been a lie; The star that led, the light that ruled us-We scorn them, and we pass them by. Shut out hope's light; past is the season When rose-red glow seemed good to see. Look--by the cold white light of reason, These things shall be: 122 A long, dim vista, blank and dreary-The same hard failure, small success; The same tired heart, the brain still weary Of its intense self-consciousness; The old despair, the old repining, And, through the future's deepest night, Down life's untrodden ways still shining, The old hope's light! ~ Edith Nesbit,

760:Elijah Browning I was among multitudes of children Dancing at the foot of a mountain. A breeze blew out of the east and swept them as leaves, Driving some up the slopes.... All was changed. Here were flying lights, and mystic moons, and dream-music. A cloud fell upon us. When it lifted all was changed. I was now amid multitudes who were wrangling. Then a figure in shimmering gold, and one with a trumpet, And one with a sceptre stood before me. They mocked me and danced a rigadoon and vanished.... All was changed again. Out of a bower of poppies A woman bared her breasts and lifted her open mouth to mine. I kissed her. The taste of her lips was like salt. She left blood on my lips. I fell exhausted. I arose and ascended higher, but a mist as from an iceberg Clouded my steps. I was cold and in pain. Then the sun streamed on me again, And I saw the mists below me hiding all below them. And I, bent over my staff, knew myself Silhouetted against the snow. And above me Was the soundless air, pierced by a cone of ice, Over which hung a solitary star! A shudder of ecstasy, a shudder of fear Ran through me. But I could not return to the slopes -Nay, I wished not to return. For the spent waves of the symphony of freedom Lapped the ethereal cliffs about me. Therefore I climbed to the pinnacle. I flung away my staff. I touched that star With my outstretched hand. I vanished utterly. For the mountain delivers to Infinite Truth Whosoever touches the star! ~ Edgar Lee Masters,

761:My English Letter When each white moon, her lantern idly swinging, Comes out to join the star night-watching band, Across the grey-green sea, a ship is bringing For me a letter, from the Motherland. Naught would I care to live in quaint old Britain, These wilder shores are dearer far to me, Yet when I read the words that hand has written, The parent sod more precious seems to be. Within that folded note I catch the savour Of climes that make the Motherland so fair, Although I never knew the blessed favour That surely lies in breathing English air. Imagination's brush before me fleeing, Paints English pictures, though my longing eyes Have never known the blessedness of seeing The blue that lines the arch of English skies. And yet my letter brings the scenes I covet, Framed in the salt sea winds, aye more in dreams I almost see the face that bent above it, I almost touch that hand, so near it seems. Near, for the very grey-green sea that dashes 'Round these Canadian coasts, rolls out once more To Eastward, and the same Atlantic splashes Her wild white spray on England's distant shore. Near, for the same young moon so idly swinging Her threadlike crescent bends the selfsame smile On that old land from whence a ship is bringing My message from the transatlantic Isle. Thus loves my heart that far old country better, Because of those dear words that always come, With love enfolded in each English letter That drifts into my sun-kissed Western home. 62 ~ Emily Pauline Johnson,

762:THE days of absence and the bitter nights Of separation, all are at an end! Where is the influence of the star that blights My hope? The omen answers: At an end! Autumn's abundance, creeping Autumn's mirth, Are ended and forgot when o'er the earth The wind of Spring with soft warm feet doth wend. The Day of Hope, hid beneath Sorrow's veil, Has shown its face--ah, cry that all may hear: Come forth! the powers of night no more prevail! Praise be to God, now that the rose is near With long-desired and flaming coronet, The cruel stinging thorns all men forget, The wind of Winter ends its proud career. The long confusion of the nights that were, Anguish that dwelt within my heart, is o'er; 'Neath the protection of my lady's hair Grief nor disquiet come to me no more. What though her curls wrought all my misery, My lady's gracious face can comfort me, And at the end give what I sorrow for. Light-hearted to the tavern let me go, Where laughs the pipe, the merry cymbals kiss; Under the history of all my woe, My mistress sets her hand and writes: Finis. Oh, linger not, nor trust the inconstant days That promised: Where thou art thy lady stays-- The tale of separation ends with this! Joy's certain path, oh Saki, thou hast shown-- Long may thy cup be full, thy days be fair! Trouble and sickness from my breast have flown, Order and health thy wisdom marshals there. Not one that numbered Hafiz' name among The great-unnumbered were his tears, unsung; Praise him that sets an end to endless care! ~ Hafiz, The Day Of Hope ,

763:to Memphis." So Abi returned to the white-walled city of Memphis and sat there sullenly, putting it about that a plot was on foot to deprive him of his heritage. But Kaku shook his head, saying in secret that the Star, Neter-Tua, would arise, for so it was decreed by Amen, father of the gods. CHAPTER III RAMES, THE PRINCESS, AND THE CROCODILE At the appointed time to Ahura, the royal wife, was born a child, a girl with a fresh and lovely face and waving hair and eyes that from the first were blue like the summer sky at even. Also on her breast was a mole of the length of a finger nail, which mole was shaped like the holy Sign of Life. Now Pharaoh and his house and the priests in every temple, and indeed all Egypt went mad with joy, though there were many who in secret mourned over the sex of the infant, whispering that a man and not a woman should wear the Double Crown. But in public they said nothing, since the story of this child had gone abroad and folk declared that it was sent by the gods, and divine, and that the goddesses, Isis, Nepthys, and Hathor, with Khemu, the Maker of Mankind, were seen in the birth chamber, glowing like gold. Also Pharaoh issued a decree that wherever the name of the Queen Ahura was graven in all the land, to it should be added the title "By the will of Amen, Mother of his Morning Star," and that a new hall should be built in the temple of Amen in the Northern Apt, and all about it carved the story of the coming of Prince Abi and of the vision of the Queen. But Ahura never lived to see this glorious place, since from the hour of her daughter's birth she began to sink. On the fourteenth day, the ~ H Rider Haggard,

764:to Memphis." So Abi returned to the white-walled city of Memphis and sat there sullenly, putting it about that a plot was on foot to deprive him of his heritage. But Kaku shook his head, saying in secret that the Star, Neter-Tua, would arise, for so it was decreed by Amen, father of the gods. CHAPTER III RAMES, THE PRINCESS, AND THE CROCODILE At the appointed time to Ahura, the royal wife, was born a child, a girl with a fresh and lovely face and waving hair and eyes that from the first were blue like the summer sky at even. Also on her breast was a mole of the length of a finger nail, which mole was shaped like the holy Sign of Life. Now Pharaoh and his house and the priests in every temple, and indeed all Egypt went mad with joy, though there were many who in secret mourned over the sex of the infant, whispering that a man and not a woman should wear the Double Crown. But in public they said nothing, since the story of this child had gone abroad and folk declared that it was sent by the gods, and divine, and that the goddesses, Isis, Nepthys, and Hathor, with Khemu, the Maker of Mankind, were seen in the birth chamber, glowing like gold. Also Pharaoh issued a decree that wherever the name of the Queen Ahura was graven in all the land, to it should be added the title "By the will of Amen, Mother of his Morning Star," and that a new hall should be built in the temple of Amen in the Northern Apt, and all about it carved the story of the coming of Prince Abi and of the vision of the Queen. But Ahura never lived to see this glorious place, since from the hour of her daughter's birth she began to sink. On the fourteenth day, the day ~ H Rider Haggard,

765:Among them is a renegade king, he who sired five royal heirs without ever unzipping his pants. A man to whom time has imparted great wisdom and an even greater waistline, whose thoughtless courage is rivalled only by his unquenchable thirst. At his shoulder walks a sorcerer, a cosmic conversationalist. Enemy of the incurable rot, absent chairman of combustive sciences at the university in Oddsford, and the only living soul above the age of eight to believe in owlbears. Look here at a warrior born, a scion of power and poverty whose purpose is manifold: to shatter shackles, to murder monarchs, and to demonstrate that even the forces of good must sometimes enlist the service of big, bad motherfuckers. His is an ancient soul destined to die young. And now comes the quiet one, the gentle giant, he who fights his battles with a shield. Stout as the tree that counts its age in aeons, constant as the star that marks true north and shines most brightly on the darkest nights. A step ahead of these four: our hero. He is the candle burnt down to the stump, the cutting blade grown dull with overuse. But see now the spark in his stride. Behold the glint of steel in his gaze. Who dares to stand between a man such as this and that which he holds dear? He will kill, if he must, to protect it. He will die, if that is what it takes. “Go get the boss,” says one guardsman to another. “This bunch looks like trouble.” And they do. They do look like trouble, at least until the wizard trips on the hem of his robe. He stumbles, cursing, and fouls the steps of the others as he falls face-first onto the mud-slick hillside. ~ Nicholas Eames,

766:Stars are bright, hot, rotating masses of gas which emit large quantities of light and heat as a result of nuclear reactions. Most newly-forming large stars begin to collapse under the weight of their own gravitational pull. That means that their centres are hotter and denser. When the matter in the centre of the star is sufficiently heated-when it reaches at least 10 million degrees Celsius (18 million degrees Fahrenheit)-nuclear reactions begin.56 What happens inside a star is that with enormous energy (fusion), hydrogen turns into helium. Nuclear fusion takes the particles that make up hydrogen and sticks them together to make helium (1 helium atom is made from 4 hydrogen atoms). In order to make the protons and neutrons in the helium stick together, the atom gives off tremendous energy. The energy released in the process is radiated from the surface of the star as light and heat. When the hydrogen is consumed, the star then begins to burn with helium, in exactly the same way, and heavier elements are formed. These reactions continue until the mass of the star has been consumed. However, since oxygen is not used in these reactions inside stars, the result is not ordinary combustion, such as that takes place when burning a piece of wood. The combustion seen as giant flames in stars does not actually derive from fire. Indeed, burning of just this kind is described in the verse. If one also thinks that the verse refers to a star, its fuel and combustion without fire, then one can also think that it is referring to the emission of light and mode of combustion in stars. (Allah knows best.) ~ Harun Yahya,

767:Danny’s life strategy of not trusting himself. “His defining emotion is doubt,” said one of his former students. “And it’s very useful. Because it makes him go deeper and deeper and deeper.” Or maybe he just wanted another line of defense against anyone hoping to figure him out. In any case, he kept at a great distance the forces and events that had shaped him. He might not trust his memories, but he still had a few. For instance, he remembered the time in late 1941 or early 1942—at any rate, a year or more after the start of the German occupation of Paris—when he was caught on the streets after curfew. The new laws required him to wear the yellow Star of David on the front of his sweater. His new badge caused him such deep shame that he took to going to school half an hour early so that the other children wouldn’t see him walking into the building wearing it. After school, on the streets, he’d turn his sweater inside out. Heading home too late one evening, he saw a German soldier approaching. “He was wearing the black uniform that I had been told to fear more than others—the one worn by specially recruited SS soldiers,” he recalled, in the autobiographical statement required of him by the Nobel Committee. “As I came closer to him, trying to walk fast, I noticed that he was looking at me intently. Then he beckoned me over, picked me up, and hugged me. I was terrified that he would notice the star inside my sweater. He was speaking to me with great emotion, in German. When he put me down, he opened his wallet, showed me a picture of a boy, and gave me some money. I went home more certain than ever that my mother was right: people were endlessly complicated and interesting.” He ~ Michael Lewis,

768:Dearest Mac, I love you. I will always love you. But I can live with you no longer. I've tried to be strong for you, for three years I have tried. I have failed. You tried to remake me in your image, dear Mac, and I tried to be what you wanted, but I no longer can. I am sorry. I want to write that my heart is breaking, but it is not. It broke some time ago, and I have just now realised that I can leave me heartbreak behind and go on. The decision to live without you was a painful one and not lightly made. I realise you can legally cause me much harm for taking this step, and I ask you, for the love we once shared, not to. It could be that I will not need to leave forever, but I know that I need time apart, alone, to heal. You have explained that you sometimes leave me for my own good, so I will have a chance to recover from life with you. Now I am doing the same, leaving so that both of us have a chance to breath, a chance to cool. Living with you is like being with a shooting star, one that burns so brightly that it scorches me. And I am watching the star burn out. In the end, Mac, I fear there will be nothing left of you. I know you will be angry when you read this, because you can grow so angry! But when you stop being angry, you will realize that my decision is sound. Together, we are destroying each other. Apart, I can remember my love for you. But you are burning me. You have exhausted me, and I have nothing left to give. Ian has agreed to bring this letter to you, and he will inform me of what steps you decide to take. I trust Ian to help us through. Please do not try to seek me yourself. I love you, Mac. I will always love you. Please be well. Isabella ~ Jennifer Ashley,

769:The Seed-At-Zero The seed-at-zero shall not storm That town of ghosts, the trodden womb, With her rampart to his tapping, No god-in-hero tumble down Like a tower on the town Dumbly and divinely stumbling Over the manwaging line. The seed-at-zero shall not storm That town of ghosts, the manwaged tomb With her rampart to his tapping, No god-in-hero tumble down Like a tower on the town Dumbly and divinely leaping Over the warbearing line. Through the rampart of the sky Shall the star-flanked seed be riddled, Manna for the rumbling ground, Quickening for the riddled sea; Settled on a virgin stronghold He shall grapple with the guard And the keeper of the key. May a humble village labour And a continent deny? A hemisphere may scold him And a green inch be his bearer; Let the hero seed find harbour, Seaports by a drunken shore Have their thirsty sailors hide him. May be a humble planet labour And a continent deny? A village green may scold him And a high sphere be his bearer; Let the hero seed find harbour, Seaports by a thirsty shore Have their drunken sailors hide him. 147 Man-in-seed, in seed-at-zero, From the foreign fields of space, Shall not thunder on the town With a star-flanked garrison, Nor the cannons of his kingdom Shall the hero-in-tomorrow Range on the sky-scraping place. Man-in-seed, in seed-at-zero, From the star-flanked fields of space, Thunders on the foreign town With a sand-bagged garrison, Nor the cannons of his kingdom Shall the hero-in-to-morrow Range from the grave-groping place. ~ Dylan Thomas,

770:Beautiful,” said Amar. “I found it gruesome,” I said, shivering. Amar rose and walked to where I stood. “I was not talking about the story.” “Oh.” “Why do you like such a gruesome tale?” In Bharata, we were taught that it was a tale of the god’s might. But I saw another story within it: the play of interpretation that turned something terrifying and iron-clad into something that could be conquered. I was reminded of the star room where Amar had taken me only days ago. The story was like a different way of seeing. “It gave me hope…that maybe there was some way around the horoscope. It was a lesson in language too, almost like a riddle…” Amar stared at me and then he laughed. “Only my queen would find hope in horror.” He took my hand in his and his gaze was burning. “You are my hope and more.” “What does that make you? My horror?” “And more,” he said. All I saw were his eyes. Velvet dark. The kind of umbra that shadows envy. Amar stared at me and his gaze was desperate with hope. Reckless. I should’ve stopped. I should’ve stepped away. But I didn’t. I leaned forward, and a soft growl--like surrender--escaped his throat. He dug his fingers into my back and pulled me into a kiss. Amar’s kiss was furious. No heat. Just lightning. Or maybe that was what his touch teased out of me--vivid streaks of light, dusk and all her violent glory. I was lost. I leaned into his kiss and the world around us peeled into nothing. I felt like I could stand over chasms empty of time, and this moment, like a chain of soft-blooming stars, would still be ours. We kissed until we couldn’t breathe. And then we kissed until we needed the touch of one another like breath itself. ~ Roshani Chokshi,

771:If the total energy of the universe must always remain zero, and it costs energy to create a body, how can a whole universe be created from nothing? That is why there must be a law like gravity. Because gravity is attractive, gravitational energy is negative: One has to do work to separate a gravitationally bound system, such as the earth and moon. This negative energy can balance the positive energy needed to create matter, but it’s not quite that simple. The negative gravitational energy of the earth, for example, is less than a billionth of the positive energy of the matter particles the earth is made of. A body such as a star will have more negative gravitational energy, and the smaller it is (the closer the different parts of it are to each other), the greater this negative gravitational energy will be. But before it can become greater than the positive energy of the matter, the star will collapse to a black hole, and black holes have positive energy. That’s why empty space is stable. Bodies such as stars or black holes cannot just appear out of nothing. But a whole universe can. Because gravity shapes space and time, it allows space-time to be locally stable but globally unstable. On the scale of the entire universe, the positive energy of the matter can be balanced by the negative gravitational energy, and so there is no restriction on the creation of whole universes. Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing in the manner described in Chapter 6. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going. ~ Stephen Hawking,

772:Suffice it to say I was compelled to create this group in order to find everyone who is, let's say, borrowing liberally from my INESTIMABLE FOLIO OF CANONICAL MASTERPIECES (sorry, I just do that sometimes), and get you all together. It's the least I could do. I mean, seriously. Those soliloquies in Moby-Dick? Sooo Hamlet and/or Othello, with maybe a little Shylock thrown in. Everyone from Pip in Great Expectations to freakin' Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre mentions my plays, sometimes completely mangling my words in nineteenth-century middle-American dialect for humorous effect (thank you, Sir Clemens). Many people (cough Virginia Woolf cough) just quote me over and over again without attribution. I hear James Joyce even devoted a chapter of his giant novel to something called the "Hamlet theory," though do you have some sort of newfangled English? It looks like gobbledygook to me. The only people who don't seek me out are like Chaucer and Dante and those ancient Greeks. For whatever reason. And then there are the titles. The Sound and the Fury? Mine. Infinite Jest? Mine. Proust, Nabokov, Steinbeck, and Agatha Christie all have titles that are me-inspired. Brave New World? Not just the title, but half the plot has to do with my work. Even Edgar Allan Poe named a character after my Tempest's Prospero (though, not surprisingly, things didn't turn out well for him!). I'm like the star to every wandering bark, the arrow of every compass, the buzzard to every hawk and gillyflower ... oh, I don't even know what I'm talking about half the time. I just run with it, creating some of the SEMINAL TOURS DE FORCE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. You're welcome. ~ Sarah Schmelling,

773:Bannon and the Breitbart editors had the same reaction and immediately turned on Megyn Kelly, with a fusillade of negative articles. She became the newest Breitbart narrative: the back-stabbing, self-promoting betrayer-of-the-cause. And Breitbart became the locus of pro-Trump, anti-Fox conservative anger. Between Thursday night, when the debate took place, and Sunday evening, Breitbart published twenty-five stories on Kelly, and the site’s editor in chief, Alex Marlow, went on CNN to accuse Fox News of “trying to take out Donald Trump” and staging “a gotcha debate.” The intensity of Republican anger stunned Fox News executives. The debate had drawn a record 24 million viewers. Now many of them were apoplectic at the network’s top talent. “In the beginning, virtually 100 percent of the emails were against Megyn Kelly,” a Fox source told New York’s Gabriel Sherman. “Roger was not happy. Most of the Fox viewers were taking Trump’s side.” Word spread through the building that Kelly was furious and had personally complained to Ailes. By Sunday, the attacks against her showed no sign of letting up, as other conservative opinion makers, such as radio host Mark Levin, agreed that her questions to Trump had been “unfair.” In a panic, Ailes called Bannon and begged him to call off the attacks. “Steve, this isn’t fair, and it’s killing us,” Ailes said. “You have to stop it.” “Fuck that, that was outrageous what she did!” Bannon retorted. “She pulled every trick out of the leftist playbook.” “You’ve gotta knock this crap off, Steve.” “Not until she backs off Trump—she’s still going after him on her show.” “She’s the star of this network! Cut it out!” The call ended without resolution. Bannon and Ailes would not speak again for almost a year. ~ Joshua Green,

774:This book is dedicated to the Ancient Ones, to the Lord of Abominations, Humwawa, whose face is a mass of entrails, whose breath is the stench of dung and the perfume of death, Dark Angel of all that is excreted and sours, Lord of Decay, Lord of the Future, who rides on a whispering south wind, to Pazuzu, Lord of Fevers and Plagues, Dark Angel of the Four Winds with rotting genitals from which he howls through sharpened teeth over stricken cities, to Kutulu, the Sleeping Serpent who cannot be summoned, to the Akhkharu, who such the blood of men since they desire to become men, to the Lalussu, who haunt the places of men, to Gelal and Lilit, who invade the beds of men and whose children are born in secret places, to Addu, raiser of storms who can fill the night sky with brightness, to Malah, Lord of Courage and Bravery, to Zahgurim, whose number is twenty-three and who kills in an unnatural fashion, to Zahrim, a warrior among warriors, to Itzamna, Spirit of Early Mists and Showers, to Ix Chel, the Spider-Web-that-Catches-the-Dew-of-Morning, to Zuhuy Kak, Virgin Fire, to Ah Dziz, the Master of Cold, to Kak U Pacat, who works in fire, to Ix Tab, Goddess of Ropes and Snares, patroness of those who hang themselves, to Schmuun, the Silent One, twin brother of Ix Tab, to Xolotl the Unformed, Lord of Rebirth, to Aguchi, Master of Ejaculations, to Osiris and Amen in phallic form, to Hex Chun Chan, the Dangerous One, to Ah Pook, the Destroyer, to the Great Old One and the Star Beast, to Pan, God of Panic, to the nameless gods of dispersal and emptiness, to Hassan i Sabbah, Master of Assassins. To all the scribes and artists and practitioners of magic through whom these spirits have been manifested…. NOTHING IS TRUE. EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED. ~ William S Burroughs,

775:Forgotten Lords of the Nursery Wait in a row, Five on the high wall, And four on the low; Big Kings and Little Kings, Brown Bears and Black, All of them waiting Till John comes back. Some think that John boy Is lost in the wood, Some say he couldn’t be, Some say he could. Some think that John boy Hides on the hill; Some say he won’t come back, Some say he will. High was the sun, when John went away . . . Here they’ve been waiting All through the day; Big Bears and Little Bears, White Kings and Black, All of them waiting Till John comes back. Lords of the Nursery Looked down the hill, Some saw the sheep-fold, Some say the mill; Some saw the roofs Of the little grey town . . . And their shadows grew long As the sun slipt down. Gold between the poplars An old moon shows; Silver up the star-way 15 The full moon rose; Silver down the star-way The old moon crept . . . And, one by another, The grey fields slept. Lords of the Nursery Their still watch keep . . . They hear from the sheep-fold The rustle of sheep. A young bird twitters And hides its head; A little wind suddenly Breathes, and is dead. Slowly and slowly Dawns the new day . . . What’s become of John boy? No one can say. Some think that John boy Is lost on the hill; Some say he won’t come back, Some say he will. What's become of John boy? Nothing at all, He played with his skipping rope, He played with his ball. He ran after butterflies, Blue ones and red; He did a hundred happy things— And then went to bed. ~ Alan Alexander Milne,

776:Not only the iron on Earth, but also the iron in the entire Solar System, comes from outer space, since the temperature in the Sun is inadequate for the formation of iron. The Sun has a surface temperature of 6,000 degrees Celsius (11,000oF), and a core temperature of approximately 20 million degrees (36 million degrees Fahrenheit). Iron can only be produced in much larger stars than the Sun, where the temperature reaches a few hundred million degrees. When the amount of iron exceeds a certain level in a star, the star can no longer accommodate it, and it eventually explodes in what is called a "nova" or a "supernova." These explosions make it possible for iron to be given off into space.40 One scientific source provides the following information on this subject: There is also evidence for older supernova events: Enhanced levels of iron-60 in deep-sea sediments have been interpreted as indications that a supernova explosion occurred within 90 light-years of the sun about 5 million years ago. Iron-60 is a radioactive isotope of iron, formed in Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an 85 supernova explosions, which decays with a half life of 1.5 million years. An enhanced presence of this isotope in a geologic layer indicates the recent nucleosynthesis of elements nearby in space and their subsequent transport to the earth (perhaps as part of dust grains).41 All this shows that iron did not form on the Earth, but was carried from supernovas, and was "sent down," as stated in the verse. It is clear that this fact could not have been known in the 7th century, when the Qur'an was revealed. Nevertheless, this fact is related in the Qur'an, the word of Allah, Who encompasses all things in His infinite knowledge. ~ Harun Yahya,

777:Alcyone In the silent depth of space, Immeasurably old, immeasurably far, Glittering with a silver flame Through eternity, Rolls a great and burning star, With a noble name, Alcyone! In the glorious chart of heaven It is marked the first of seven; 'Tis a Pleiad: And a hundred years of earth With their long-forgotten deeds have come and gone, Since that tiny point of light, Once a splendour fierce and bright, Had its birth In the star we gaze upon. It has travelled all that time-Thought has not a swifter flight-Through a region where no faintest gust Of life comes ever, but the power of night Dwells stupendous and sublime, Limitless and void and lonely, A region mute with age, and peopled only With the dead and ruined dust Of worlds that lived eternities ago. Man! when thou dost think of this, And what our earth and its existence is, The half-blind toils since life began, The little aims, the little span, With what passion and what pride, And what hunger fierce and wide, Thou dost break beyond it all, Seeking for the spirit unconfined In the clear abyss of mind A shelter and a peace majestical. For what is life to thee, 25 Turning toward the primal light, With that stern and silent face, If thou canst not be Something radiant and august as night, Something wide as space? Therefore with a love and gratitude divine Thou shalt cherish in thine heart for sign A vision of the great and burning star, Immeasurably old, immeasurably far, Surging forth its silver flame Through eternity; And thine inner heart shall ring and cry With the music strange and high, The grandeur of its name Alcyone! ~ Archibald Lampman,

778:I HAVE loved; for the first time with passion I rave! I then was the servant, but now am the slave; I then was the servant of all: By this creature so charming I now am fast bound, To love and love's guerdon she turns all around, And her my sole mistress I call. l've had faith; for the first time my faith is now strong! And though matters go strangely, though matters go wrong, To the ranks of the faithful I'm true: Though ofttimes 'twas dark and though ofttimes 'twas drear, In the pressure of need, and when danger was near, Yet the dawning of light I now view. I have eaten; but ne'er have thus relish'd my food! For when glad are the senses, and joyous the blood, At table all else is effaced As for youth, it but swallows, then whistles an air; As for me, to a jovial resort I'd repair, Where to eat, and enjoy what I taste. I have drunk; but have never thus relish'd the bowl! For wine makes us lords, and enlivens the soul, And loosens the trembling slave's tongue. Let's not seek to spare then the heart-stirring drink, For though in the barrel the old wine may sink, In its place will fast mellow the young. I have danced, and to dancing am pledged by a vow! Though no caper or waltz may be raved about now, In a dance that's becoming, whirl round. And he who a nosegay of flowers has dress'd, And cares not for one any more than the rest, With a garland of mirth is aye crown'd. Then once more be merry, and banish all woes! For he who but gathers the blossoming rose. By its thorns will be tickled alone. To-day still, as yesterday, glimmers the star; Take care from all heads that hang down to keep far, And make but the future thine own. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wont And Done ,

779:Milton's Eve! Milton's Eve! ... Milton tried to see the first woman; but Cary, he saw her not ... I would beg to remind him that the first men of the earth were Titans, and that Eve was their mother: from her sprang Saturn, Hyperion, Oceanus; she bore Prometheus" -- "Pagan that you are! what does that signify?" "I say, there were giants on the earth in those days: giants that strove to scale heaven. The first woman's breast that heaved with life on this world yielded the daring which could contend with Omnipotence: the stregth which could bear a thousand years of bondage, -- the vitality which could feed that vulture death through uncounted ages, -- the unexhausted life and uncorrupted excellence, sisters to immortality, which after millenniums of crimes, struggles, and woes, could conceive and bring forth a Messiah. The first woman was heaven-born: vast was the heart whence gushed the well-spring of the blood of nations; and grand the undegenerate head where rested the consort-crown of creation. ... I saw -- I now see -- a woman-Titan: her robe of blue air spreads to the outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing; a veil white as an avalanche sweeps from hear head to her feet, and arabesques of lighting flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple like that horizon: through its blush shines the star of evening. Her steady eyes I cannot picture; they are clear -- they are deep as lakes -- they are lifted and full of worship -- they tremble with the softness of love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers: she reclines her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro' Moor; her mighty hands are joined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks with God. That Eve is Jehova's daughter, as Adam was His son. ~ Charlotte Bront,

780:Her hand just above my knee, the palm flat and soft against my jeans and her index finger making slow, lazy circles that crept toward the inside of my thigh, and with one layer between us, God I wanted her. And lying there, amid the tall, still grass and beneath the star-drunk sky, listening to the just-this-side-of-inaudible sound of her rhythmic breathing and the noisy silence of the bullfrogs, the grasshoppers, the distant cars rushing endlessly on I-65, I thought it might be a fine time to say the Three Little Words. And I steeled myself to say them as I stared up at that starriest night, convinced myself that she felt it, too, that her hand so alive and vivid against my leg was more than playful, and fuck Lara and fuck Jake because I do, Alaska Young, I do love you and what else matters but that and my lips parted to speak and before I could even begin to breathe out the words, she said, “It’s not life or death, the labyrinth.” “Um, okay. So what is it?” “Suffering,” she said. “Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That’s the problem. Bolívar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?” “What’s wrong?” I asked. And I felt the absence of her hand on me. “Nothing’s wrong. But there’s always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there’s a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal. It’s the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about.” I turned to her. “Oh, so maybe Dr. Hyde’s class isn’t total bullshit.” And both of us lying on our sides, she smiled, our noses almost touching, my unblinking eyes on hers, her face blushing from the wine, and I opened my mouth again but this time not to speak, and she reached up and put a finger to my lips and said, “Shh. Shh. Don’t ruin it. ~ John Green,

781:Selfhood can demolish the magic of this world; But our belief in The One is not comprehended by all. Have a seer's eye, and light will dawn on thee; As a river and its waves cannot remain apart. The light of God and knowledge are not in rivalry, But so the pulpit believes, afraid of Hallaj's rope. Contentment is the shield for the pure and the noble A shield in slavery, and a shield in power. In the East the soul looks in vain for light; In the West the light is a faded cloud of dust. The fakirs who could shatter the power and pelf of kings No longer tread this earth, in climes far or near. The spirit of this age is brimful with negations, And drained to the last drop is the power of faith. Muted is Europe's lament on its crumbling pageant, Muted by the delirious beats, the clangour of its music. A sleepy ripple awaits, to swell into a wave A wave that will swallow up monsters of the sea. What is slavery but a loss of the sense of beauty? What the free call beautiful, is beautiful indeed. The present belongs to him who explores, in their depths, The fathomless seas of time, to find the future's pearl. The alchemist of the West has turned stone into glass But my alchemy has transmuted glass into flint Pharaohs of today have stalked me in vain; But I fear not; I am blessed with Moses' wand. The flame that can set afire a dark, sunless wood, Will not be throttled by a straw afloat in the wind. Love is self-awareness; love is self-knowledge; Love cares not for the palaces and the power of kings. I will not wonder if I reach even the moon and the stars, For I have hitched my wagon to the star of all stars. First among the wise, last of the Prophets, Who gave a speck of dust the brightness of the Mount. He is the first and last in the eyes of love; He is the Word of God. He is the Word of God. ~ Allama Muhammad Iqbal, Selfhood can demolish the magic of this world (from Baal-i-Jibreel) ,

782:Of the not very many ways known of shedding one's body, falling, falling, falling is the supreme method, but you have to select your sill or ledge very carefully so as not to hurt yourself or others. Jumping from a high bridge is not recommended even if you cannot swim, for wind and water abound in weird contingencies, and tragedy ought not to culminate in a record dive or a policeman's promotion. If you rent a cell in the luminous waffle, room 1915 or 1959, in a tall business centre hotel browing the star dust, and pull up the window, and gently - not fall, not jump - but roll out as you should for air comfort, there is always the chance of knocking clean through into your own hell a pacific noctambulator walking his dog; in this respect a back room might be safer, especially if giving on the roof of an old tenacious normal house far below where a cat may be trusted to flash out of the way. Another popular take-off is a mountaintop with a sheer drop of say 500 meters but you must find it, because you will be surprised how easy it is to miscalculate your deflection offset, and have some hidden projection, some fool of a crag, rush forth to catch you, causing you to bounce off it into the brush, thwarted, mangled and unnecessarily alive. The ideal drop is from an aircraft, your muscles relaxed, your pilot puzzled, your packed parachute shuffled off, cast off, shrugged off - farewell, shootka (little chute)! Down you go, but all the while you feel suspended and buoyed as you somersault in slow motion like a somnolent tumbler pigeon, and sprawl supine on the eiderdown of the air, or lazily turn to embrace your pillow, enjoying every last instant of soft, deep, death-padded life, with the earth's green seesaw now above, now below, and the voluptuous crucifixion, as you stretch yourself in the growing rush, in the nearing swish, and then your loved body's obliteration in the Lap of the Lord. ~ Vladimir Nabokov,

783:It may be remarked in passing that success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit. To the crowd, success ears almost the features of true mastery, and the greatest dupe of this counterfeit talent is History. Juvenal and Tacitus alone mistrust it. In these days an almost official philosophy has come to dwell in the house of Success, wear its livery, receive callers in its ante-chamber. Success in principle and for its own sake. Prosperity presupposes ability. Win a lottery-prize and you are a clever man. Winners are adulated. To be born with a caul is everything; luck is what matters. Be fortunate and you will be thought great. With a handful of tremendous exceptions which constitute the glory of a century, the popular esteem is singularly short-sighted. Gilt is as good as gold. No harm in being a chance arrival provided you arrive. The populace is an aged Narcissus which worships itself and applauds the commonplace. The tremendous qualities of Moses, an Aeschylus, a Dante, a Michelangelo or a Napoleon are readily ascribed by the multitude to any man, in any sphere, who has got what he set out to get - the notary who becomes a deputy, the hack playwright who produces a mock-Corneille, the eunuch who acquires a harem, the journeyman-general who by accident wins the decisive battle of an epoch. The profiteer who supplies the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse with boot-soles of cardboard and earns himself an income of four hundred thousand a year; the huckster who espouses usury and brings her to bed of seven or eight millions; the preacher who becomes bishop by loudly braying; the bailiff of a great estate who so enriches himself that on retirement he is made Minister of Finance - all this is what men call genius, just as they call a painted face beauty and a richly attired figure majesty. The confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud. ~ Victor Hugo,

784:According to the traditional philosophy of the Magicians, every man is a unique autonomous center of individual consciousness, energy, and will—a soul, in a word. Like a star shining and existing by its own inward light, it pursues its way in the star-spangled heavens, solitary, uninterfered with, except in so far as its heavenly course is gravitationally modified by the presence, near or far, of other stars. Since in the vast stellar spaces seldom are there conflicts between the celestial bodies, unless one happens to stray from its appointed course—a very rare occurrence—so in the realms of humankind there would lie no chaos, little conflict, and no mutual disturbance were each individual content to be grounded in the reality of his own high consciousness, aware of his ideal nature In the his true purpose in life, and eager to pursue the road which he must follow. Because men have strayed from the dynamic sources inhering within themselves and the universe, and have forsaken their true spiritual wills, because they have divorced themselves from the celestial essences, betrayed by a mess of more sickly pottage than ever Jacob did sell to Esau, the world in this day presents a people with so hopeless an aspect, and a humanity impressed with so despondent a mien. Ignorance of the course of the celestial orbit, and the significance of that orbit inscribed in the skies forever, is the root which is at the bottom of universal dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and race-nostalgia. And because of this the living soul cries for help to the dead, and the creature to a silent God. Of all this crying there comes usually—nothing. The lifting up of the hands in supplication brings no inkling of salvation. The frantic gnashing of teeth results but in mute despair and loss of vital energy. Redemption is only from within and is wrought out by the soul itself with suffering and through time, with much endeavor and strain of the spirit. ~ Israel Regardie,

785:A Souless Singer Hail! throstle, by thy ringing voice descried, Not by the wanderings of the tuneless wing! Now once again where forkëd boughs divide, Lost in green leafage thou dost perch and sing: Trilling, shrilling, far and wide, ``It is Spring.'' Thy matins peal long ere the rosy dawn Unfolds its hull and burgeons into light; Nor cease thy vespers till from darkling lawn The silent shadows steal away in flight, And the star-lit tent is drawn Round the Night. Is it in Heaven, or mid-way of the Earth, Thou learn'st to outvoice, outnumber all the Nine? What is the secret of thy madcap mirth? Wilt thou not tell it me, and make it mine? What is all my singing worth, Matched with thine? If heedless mortals only understood What the prerogatives of real renown, Hearing thee warble in umbrageous wood, Or in the dingles of the rolling down, It is thou, not I, that should Wear the Crown. And yet perchance more deep and more divine The insufficiency of my poor strain. One single solitary note is thine: Weak though they haply be, yet I have twain. Joy is all thy song; of mine Half is pain. Thou with thy carol flatterest the Year But when it frolics into happy bloom: Only those notes hast thou, wild chanticleer, That with their thoughtlessness can banish gloom 89 From its cradle; I, a tear For its tomb. Thou with the blossom and bud and baby leaf, Heartless of woe, dost revel and rejoice, But for sere sorrow and the pensive sheaf Lackest, for all thy minstrelsy, the voice: There are seasons when sweet grief Is our choice. So, throstle, be the very voice of Spring, And bring back rapture to the wrinkled bole! Of all life's chords joy is the leading string, And happiness is much, but not the whole. Leave it then to me to sing To the soul! ~ Alfred Austin,

786:Night Hymns On Lake Nipigon Here in the midnight, where the dark mainland and island Shadows mingle in shadow deeper, profounder, Sing we the hymns of the churches, while the dead water Whispers before us. Thunder is travelling slow on the path of the lightning; One after one the stars and the beaming planets Look serene in the lake from the edge of the storm-cloud, Then have they vanished. While our canoe, that floats dumb in the bursting thunder, Gathers her voice in the quiet and thrills and whispers, Presses her prow in the star-gleam, and all her ripple Lapses in blackness. Sing we the sacred ancient hymns of the churches, Chanted first in old-world nooks of the desert, While in the wild, pellucid Nipigon reaches Hunted the savage. Now have the ages met in the Northern midnight, And on the lonely, loon-haunted Nipigon reaches Rises the hymn of triumph and courage and comfort, Adeste Fideles. Tones that were fashioned when the faith brooded in darkness, Joined with sonorous vowels in the noble Latin, Now are married with the long-drawn Ojibwa, Uncouth and mournful. Soft with the silver drip of the regular paddles Falling in rhythm, timed with the liquid, plangent Sounds from the blades where the whirlpools break and are carried Down into darkness; Each long cadence, flying like a dove from her shelter Deep in the shadow, wheels for a throbbing moment, Poises in utterance, returning in circles of silver To nest in the silence. 72 All wild nature stirs with the infinite, tender Plaint of a bygone age whose soul is eternal, Bound in the lonely phrases that thrill and falter Back into quiet. Back they falter as the deep storm overtakes them, Whelms them in splendid hollows of booming thunder, Wraps them in rain, that, sweeping, breaks and onrushes Ringing like cymbals. ~ Duncan Campbell Scott,

787:If life is a movie most people would consider themselves the star of their own feature. Guys might imagine they're living some action adventure epic. Chicks maybe are in a rose-colored fantasy romance. And homosexuals are living la vida loca in a fabulous musical. Still others may take the indie approach and think of themselves as an anti-hero in a coming of age flick. Or a retro badass in an exploitation B movie. Or the cable man in a very steamy adult picture. Some people's lives are experimental student art films that don't make any sense. Some are screwball comedies. Others resemble a documentary, all serious and educational. A few lives achieve blockbuster status and are hailed as a tribute to the human spirit. Some gain a small following and enjoy cult status. And some never got off the ground due to insufficient funding. I don't know what my life is but I do know that I'm constantly squabbling with the director over creative control, throwing prima donna tantrums and pouting in my personal trailor when things don't go my way. Much of our lives is spent on marketing. Make-up, exercise, dieting, clothes, hair, money, charm, attitude, the strut, the pose, the Blue Steel look. We're like walking billboards advertising ourselves. A sneak peek of upcoming attractions. Meanwhile our actual production is in disarray--we're over budget, doing poorly at private test screenings and focus groups, creatively stagnant, morale low. So we're endlessly tinkering, touching up, editing, rewriting, tailoring ourselves to best suit a mass audience. There's like this studio executive in our heads telling us to cut certain things out, make it "lighter," give it a happy ending, and put some explosions in there too. Kids love explosions. And the uncompromising artist within protests: "But that's not life!" Thus the inner conflict of our movie life: To be a palatable crowd-pleaser catering to the mainstream... or something true to life no matter what they say? ~ Tatsuya Ishida,

788:Carbon originates in the Universe via a two-step process from nuclei of helium, or alpha particles as we usually call them. Two alpha particles combine under stellar conditions to make a nucleus of the element beryllium. The addition of a further alpha particle is necessary to transform this into a carbon nucleus. One would have expected this two-step process to be extremely improbable, but remarkably the last step happens to possess a rare property called 'resonance' which enables it to proceed at a rate far in excess of our naive expectation. In effect, the energies of the participating particles plus the ambient heat energy in the star add to a value that lies just above a natural energy level of the carbon nucleus and so the product of the nuclear reaction finds a natural state to drop into. It amounts to something akin to the astronomical equivalent of a hole-in-one. But this is not all. While it is doubly striking enough for there to exist not only a carbon resonance level but one positioned just above the incoming energy total within the interior of the star, it is well-nigh miraculous to discover that there exists a further resonance level in the oxygen nucleus that would be made in the next step of the nuclear reaction chain when a carbon nucleus interacts with a further alpha particle. But this resonance level lies just above the total energy of the alpha particle, the carbon nucleus, and the ambient environment of the star. Hence, the precious carbon fails to be totally destroyed by a further resonant nuclear reaction. This multiple coincidence of the resonance levels is a necessary condition for our existence. The carbon atoms in our bodies which are responsible for the marvellous flexibility of the DNA molecules at the heart of our complexity have all originated in the stars as a result of these coincidences. The positioning of the resonance levels are determined in a complicated way by the precise numerical values of the constants of physics. ~ John D Barrow,

789:Remember me. I will be with you in the grave on the night you leave behind your shop and your family. When you hear my soft voice echoing in your tomb, you will realize that you were never hidden from my eyes. I am the pure awareness within your heart, with you during joy and celebration, suffering and despair. On that strange and fateful night you will hear a familar voice -- you'll be rescued from the fangs of snakes and the searing sting of scorpions. The euphoria of love will sweep over your grave; it will bring wine and friends, candles and food. When the light of realization dawns, shouting and upheaval will rise up from the graves! The dust of ages will be stirred by the cities of ecstasy, by the banging of drums, by the clamor of revolt! Dead bodies will tear off their shrouds and stuff their ears in fright-- What use are the senses and the ears before the blast of that Trumpet? Look and you will see my form whether you are looking at yourself or toward that noise and confusion. Don't be blurry-eyed, See me clearly- See my beauty without the old eyes of delusion. Beware! Beware! Don't mistake me for this human form. The soul is not obscured by forms. Even if it were wrapped in a hundred folds of felt the rays of the soul's light would still shine through. Beat the drum, Follow the minstrels of the city. It's a day of renewal when every young man walks boldly on the path of love. Had everyone sought God Instead of crumbs and copper coins T'hey would not be sitting on the edge of the moat in darkness and regret. What kind of gossip-house have you opened in our city? Close your lips and shine on the world like loving sunlight. Shine like the Sun of Tabriz rising in the East. Shine like the star of victory. Shine like the whole universe is yours! ~ Rumi,

790:The nations of the earth through the centuries of time have waged war to gain territory. I think ours is the only nation on the face of the earth which has not claimed territory gained out of conflict. I have stood in the American Military Cemetery in Suresnes, France, where are buried some who died in the First World War. Among those was my eldest brother. It is a quiet and hallowed place, a remembrance of great sacrifice 'to make the world safe for democracy.' No territory was claimed by America as recompense for the sacrifices of those buried there. I have stood in reverence in the beautiful American military cemetery on the outskirts of Manila in the Philippines. There marble crosses and the Star of David stand in perfect symmetry marking the burial places of some 17,000 Americans who lost their lives in the Second World War. Surrounding that sacred ground are marble colonnades on which are incised the names of another 35,000 who were lost in the battles of the Pacific during that terrible conflict. After so great a sacrifice there was victory, but there was never a claim for territory except for some small islands over which we have had guardianship. I have been up and down South Korea from the 38th parallel in the North to Pusan in the South, and I have seen the ridges and the valleys where Americans fought and died, not to save their own land but to preserve freedom for people who were strangers to them but whom they acknowledged to be brothers under the fatherhood of God. Not an inch of territory was sought for nor added to the area of the United States out of that conflict. I have been from one end of South Vietnam to the other in the days of war. More than 55,000 Americans died in the sultry, suffocating heat of that strange and foreign place fighting in the cause of human liberty without ambition for territory. In no instance--not in the First World War or the Second, not in the Korean War or in Vietnam--did our nation seize and hold territory for itself as a prize of war. ~ Gordon B Hinckley,

791:Comus. The Star that bids the Shepherd fold, Now the top of Heav'n doth hold, And the gilded Car of Day, [ 95 ] His glowing Axle doth allay In the steep Atlantick stream, And the slope Sun his upward beam Shoots against the dusky Pole, Pacing toward the other gole [ 100 ] Of his Chamber in the East. Mean while welcom Joy, and Feast, Midnight shout, and revelry, Tipsie dance and Jollity. Braid your Locks with rosie Twine [ 105 ] Dropping odours, dropping Wine. Rigor now is gone to bed, And Advice with scrupulous head, Strict Age, and sowre Severity, With their grave Saws in slumber ly. [ 110 ] We that are of purer fire Imitate the Starry Quire, Who in their nightly watchfull Sphears, Lead in swift round the Months and Years. The Sounds, and Seas with all their finny drove [ 115 ] Now to the Moon in wavering Morrice move, And on the Tawny Sands and Shelves, Trip the pert Fairies and the dapper Elves; By dimpled Brook, and Fountain brim, The Wood-Nymphs deckt with Daisies trim, [ 120 ] Their merry wakes and pastimes keep: What hath night to do with sleep? Night hath better sweets to prove, Venus now wakes, and wak'ns Love. Com let us our rights begin, [ 125 ] Tis onely day-light that makes Sin, Which these dun shades will ne're report. Hail Goddesse of Nocturnal sport Dark vaild Cotytto, t' whom the secret flame Of mid-night Torches burns; mysterious Dame [ 130 ] That ne're art call'd, but when the Dragon woom Of Stygian darknes spets her thickest gloom, And makes one blot of all the ayr, Stay thy cloudy Ebon chair, Wherin thou rid'st with Hecat', and befriend [ 135 ] Us thy vow'd Priests, till utmost end Of all thy dues be done, and none left out, Ere the blabbing Eastern scout, The nice Morn on th' Indian steep From her cabin'd loop hole peep, [ 140 ] And to the tel-tale Sun discry Our conceal'd Solemnity. Com, knit hands, and beat the ground, In a light fantastick round. ~ John Milton,

792:Well, it was a kind of back-to-front program. It’s funny how many of the best ideas are just an old idea back-to-front. You see there have already been several programs written that help you to arrive at decisions by properly ordering and analysing all the relevant facts so that they then point naturally towards the right decision. The drawback with these is that the decision which all the properly ordered and analysed facts point to is not necessarily the one you want.’ ‘Yeeeess...’ said Reg’s voice from the kitchen. ‘Well, Gordon’s great insight was to design a program which allowed you to specify in advance what decision you wished it to reach, and only then to give it all the facts. The program’s task, which it was able to accomplish with consummate ease, was simply to construct a plausible series of logical-sounding steps to connect the premises with the conclusion. ‘And I have to say that it worked brilliantly. Gordon was able to buy himself a Porsche almost immediately despite being completely broke and a hopeless driver. Even his bank manager was unable to find fault with his reasoning. Even when Gordon wrote it off three weeks later.’ ‘Heavens. And did the program sell very well?’ ‘No. We never sold a single copy.’ ‘You astonish me. It sounds like a real winner to me.’ ‘It was,’ said Richard hesitantly. ‘The entire project was bought up, lock, stock and barrel, by the Pentagon. The deal put WayForward on a very sound financial foundation. Its moral foundation, on the other hand, is not something I would want to trust my weight to. I’ve recently been analysing a lot of the arguments put forward in favour of the Star Wars project, and if you know what you’re looking for, the pattern of the algorithms is very clear. ‘So much so, in fact, that looking at Pentagon policies over the last couple of years I think I can be fairly sure that the US Navy is using version 2.00 of the program, while the Air Force for some reason only has the beta-test version of 1.5. Odd, that. ~ Douglas Adams,

793:So let’s talk a little about April May’s theory of tiered fame. Tier 1: Popularity You are a big deal in your high school or neighborhood. You have a peculiar vehicle that people around town recognize, you are a pastor at a medium-to-large church, you were once the star of the high school football team. Tier 2: Notoriety You are recognized and/or well-known within certain circles. Maybe you’re a preeminent lepidopterist whom all the other lepidopterists idolize. Or you could be the mayor or meteorologist in a medium-sized city. You might be one of the 1.1 million living people who has a Wikipedia page. Tier 3: Working-Class Fame A lot of people know who you are and they are distributed around the world. There’s a good chance that a stranger will approach you to say hi at the grocery store. You are a professional sports player, musician, author, actor, television host, or internet personality. You might still have to hustle to make a living, but your fame is your job. You’ll probably trend on Twitter if you die. Tier 4: True Fame You get recognized by fans enough that it is a legitimate burden. People take pictures of you without your permission, and no one would scoff if you called yourself a celebrity. When you start dating someone, you wouldn’t be surprised to read about it in magazines. You are a performer, politician, host, or actor whom the majority of people in your country would recognize. Your humanity is so degraded that people are legitimately surprised when they find out that you’re “just like them” because, sometimes, you buy food. You never have to worry about money again, but you do need a gate with an intercom on your driveway. Tier 5: Divinity You are known by every person in your world, and you are such a big deal that they no longer consider you a person. Your story is much larger than can be contained within any human lifetime, and your memory will continue long after your earthly form wastes away. You are a founding father of a nation, a creator of a religion, an emperor, or an idea. You are not currently alive. ~ Hank Green,

794:SCULLEY. Pepsi executive recruited by Jobs in 1983 to be Apple’s CEO, clashed with and ousted Jobs in 1985. JOANNE SCHIEBLE JANDALI SIMPSON. Wisconsin-born biological mother of Steve Jobs, whom she put up for adoption, and Mona Simpson, whom she raised. MONA SIMPSON. Biological full sister of Jobs; they discovered their relationship in 1986 and became close. She wrote novels loosely based on her mother Joanne (Anywhere but Here), Jobs and his daughter Lisa (A Regular Guy), and her father Abdulfattah Jandali (The Lost Father). ALVY RAY SMITH. A cofounder of Pixar who clashed with Jobs. BURRELL SMITH. Brilliant, troubled hardware designer on the original Mac team, afflicted with schizophrenia in the 1990s. AVADIS “AVIE” TEVANIAN. Worked with Jobs and Rubinstein at NeXT, became chief software engineer at Apple in 1997. JAMES VINCENT. A music-loving Brit, the younger partner with Lee Clow and Duncan Milner at the ad agency Apple hired. RON WAYNE. Met Jobs at Atari, became first partner with Jobs and Wozniak at fledgling Apple, but unwisely decided to forgo his equity stake. STEPHEN WOZNIAK. The star electronics geek at Homestead High; Jobs figured out how to package and market his amazing circuit boards and became his partner in founding Apple. DEL YOCAM. Early Apple employee who became the General Manager of the Apple II Group and later Apple’s Chief Operating Officer. INTRODUCTION How This Book Came to Be In the early summer of 2004, I got a phone call from Steve Jobs. He had been scattershot friendly to me over the years, with occasional bursts of intensity, especially when he was launching a new product that he wanted on the cover of Time or featured on CNN, places where I’d worked. But now that I was no longer at either of those places, I hadn’t heard from him much. We talked a bit about the Aspen Institute, which I had recently joined, and I invited him to speak at our summer campus in Colorado. He’d be happy to come, he said, but not to be onstage. He wanted instead to take a walk so that we could talk. That seemed a bit odd. I didn’t yet ~ Walter Isaacson,

795:Linoz Isidoz Lo! I lament. Fallen is the sixfold Star: Slain is Asar. O twinned with me in the womb of Night! O son of my bowels to the Lord of Light! O man of mine that hast covered me From the shame of my virginity! Where art thou? Is it not Apep thy brother, The snake in my womb that am thy mother, That hath slain thee by violence girt with guile, And scattered thy limbs on the Nile? Lo! I lament. I have forged a whirling Star: I seek Asar. O Nepti, sister! Arise in the dusk From thy chamber of mystery and musk! Come with me, though weary the way, To bring back his life to the rended clay! See! are not these the hands that wove Delight, and these the arms that strove With me? And these the feet, the thighs That were lovely in mine eyes? Lo! IO lament. I gather in my car Thine head, Asar. And this -is this not the trunk he rended? But -oh! oh! oh! -the task transcended, Where is the holy idol that stood For the god of thy queen's beatitude? Here is the tent -but where is the pole? Here is the body -but where is the soul? Nepti, sister, the work is undone For lack of the needed One! Lo! I lament. There is no god so far As mine Asar! There is no hope, none, in the corpse, in the tomb. But these -what are these that war in my womb? There is vengeance and triumph at last of Maat In Ra-Hoor-Khut and in Hoor-pa-Kraat! 40 Twins they shall rise; being twins they are one, The Lord of the Sword and the Son of the Sun! Silence, coeval colleague of the Voice, The plumes of Amoun -rejoice! Lo! I rejoice. I heal the sanguine scar Of slain Asar. I was the Past, Nature the Mother. He was the Present, Man my brother. Look to the Future, the Child -oh paean The Child that is crowned in the Lion-Aeon! The sea-dawns surge an billow and break Beneath the scourge of the Star and the Snake. To my lord I have borne in my womb deep-vaulted This babe for ever exalted. ~ Aleister Crowley,

796:Verses Written In An Alcove NOW the moon-beam's trembling lustre Silvers o'er the dewy green, And in soft and shadowy colours Sweetly paints the checquer'd scene. Here between the opening branches Streams a flood of soften'd light, There the thick and twisted foliage Spreads the browner gloom of night. There is sure the haunt of fairies, In yon cool Alcove they play; Care can never cross the threshold, Care was only made for day. Far from hence be noisy clamour, Sick disgust and anxious fear; Pining grief and wasting anguish Never keep their vigils here. Tell no tales of sheeted spectres, Rising from the quiet tomb; Fairer forms this cell shall visit, Brighter visions gild the gloom. Choral songs and sprightly voices Echo from her cell shall call; Sweeter, sweeter than the murmur Of the distant water fall. Every ruder gust of passion Lull'd with music dies away, Till within the charmed bosom None but soft affections play: Soft, as when the evening breezes Gently stir the poplar grove; Brighter than the smile of summer, Sweeter than the breath of love. 191 Thee, th' inchanted Muse shall follow, LISSY! to the rustic cell, And each careless note repeating Tune them to her charming shell. Not the Muse who wreath'd with laurel, Solemn stalks with tragic gait, And in clear and lofty vision Sees the future births of fate; Not the maid who crown'd with cypress Sweeps along in scepter'd pall, And in sad and solemn accents Mourns the crested heroe's fall; But that other smiling sister, With the blue and laughing eye, Singing, in a lighter measure, Strains of woodland harmony: All unknown to fame or glory, Easy, blith and debonair, Crown'd with flowers, her careless tresses Loosely floating on the air. Then, when next the star of evening Softly sheds the silent dew, Let me in this rustic temple, LISSY ! meet the Muse and you. ~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,

797:A Royal Home-Coming Welcome, right welcome home, to these blest Isles, Where, unforgotten, loved Victoria sleeps, But now with happy pride your Father smiles, Your Mother weeps. You went as came the swallow, homeward draw Now it hath winged its way to winters green; But never swallow or wandering sea-bird saw What You have seen. For You have circled the earth with pinions fleet, The seasons through, and everywhere a throng Of glowing hearts your coming trooped to greet With flowers and song. Over the unchanging sea eight changeful moons Have moved from shield to sickle, seed to sheaves, And twice a hundred dawns, a hundred noons, A hundred eves, Waned to their slumber in the star-lit night, And ever from land or lake, from wave or crag, From fixed or floating fort, You had in sight The British Flag. And wider, further, onward round the world, Scouring the field or furrowing the sea, You found that Emblem, which, where'er unfurled, Floats o'er the Free: So that on man, and man's laborious hand, Nor manacle nor hindrance shall be laid, But mind with mind, and strand with generous strand, Contend and trade. And, though the shade of treasonable strife Falls on our homes and theirs, You, wandering, saw, Young Commonwealths You found, surging with life, Yet ruled by Law: 82 Whose blood, infused in ours in War's emprise, To vindicate one Sceptre, sword, and tongue,As ours perchance may help to keep them wise,Hath made us young. Fountain of Youth England in mellower years Hath found and drained, so that She ne'er need know What Nature feels when Autumn stacks and seres, Or Yule-gusts blow. You sailed from us to them, from them to us, Love at the prow and wisdom at the helm, August Ambassadors, who strengthen thus Her Rule and Realm. Round You to-day a People stand arrayed, That fain with Peace two wedded worlds would dower, Therefore rejoicing mightier hath been made Imperial Power. ~ Alfred Austin,

798:Citizens, the nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century will be happy. Then, there will be nothing more like the history of old, we shall no longer, as to-day, have to fear a conquest, an invasion, a usurpation, a rivalry of nations, arms in hand, an interruption of civilization depending on a marriage of kings, on a birth in hereditary tyrannies, a partition of peoples by a congress, a dismemberment because of the failure of a dynasty, a combat of two religions meeting face to face, like two bucks in the dark, on the bridge of the infinite; we shall no longer have to fear famine, farming out, prostitution arising from distress, misery from the failure of work and the scaffold and the sword, and battles and the ruffianism of chance in the forest of events. One might almost say: There will be no more events. We shall be happy. The human race will accomplish its law, as the terrestrial globe accomplishes its law; harmony will be re-established between the soul and the star; the soul will gravitate around the truth, as the planet around the light. Friends, the present hour in which I am addressing you, is a gloomy hour; but these are terrible purchases of the future. A revolution is a toll. Oh! the human race will be delivered, raised up, consoled! We affirm it on this barrier. Whence should proceed that cry of love, if not from the heights of sacrifice? Oh my brothers, this is the point of junction, of those who think and of those who suffer; this barricade is not made of paving-stones, nor of joists, nor of bits of iron; it is made of two heaps, a heap of ideas, and a heap of woes. Here misery meets the ideal. The day embraces the night, and says to it: 'I am about to die, and thou shalt be born again with me.' From the embrace of all desolations faith leaps forth. Sufferings bring hither their agony and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality are about to join and constitute our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn. ~ Victor Hugo,

799:For Christmas Day In The Morning The first Nowell the Angel did say Was to three poor Shepherds in the fields as they lay; In fields where they lay keeping their sheep In a cold winter's night that was so deep. Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Born is the King of Israel. They looked up and saw a Star Shining in the East beyond them far, And to the earth it gave great light, And so it continued both day and night. Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Born is the King of Israel. And by the light of that same Star, Three Wise Men came from country far; To seek for a King was their intent, And to follow the Star wherever it went. Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Born is the King of Israel. This Star drew nigh to the North West, O'er Bethlehem it took its rest, And there it did both stop and stay Right over the place where Jesus lay. Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Born is the King of Israel. Then did they know assuredly Within the house the King did lie: One entered in then for to see, And found the Babe in poverty. Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Born is the King of Israel. Then enter'd in those Wise Men three Most reverently upon their knee, And offer'd there in his presence, Both gold, and myrrh, and frankincense. Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Born is the King of Israel. 135 Between an ox stall and an ass, This Child truly there born he was; For want of clothing they did him lay All in the manger, among the hay. Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Born is the King of Israel. Then let us all with one accord Sing praises to our heavenly Lord, That hath made heaven and earth of nought, And with his blood mankind hath bought. Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Born is the King of Israel. If we in our time shall do well, We shall be free from death and Hell, For God hath prepared for us all A resting place in general. Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Born is the King of Israel. ~ Anonymous Americas,

800:Earth Voices I heard the spring wind whisper Above the brushwood fire, 'The world is made forever Of transport and desire. 'I am the breath of being, The primal urge of things; I am the whirl of star dust, I am the lift of wings. 'I am the splendid impulse That comes before the thought, The joy and exaltation Wherein the life is caught. 'Across the sleeping furrows I call the buried seed, And blade and bud and blossom Awaken at my need. 'Within the dying ashes I blow the sacred spark, And make the hearts of lovers To leap against the dark.'II I heard the spring light whisper Above the dancing stream, 'The world is made forever In likeness of a dream. 'I am the law of planets, I am the guide of man; The evening and the morning Are fashioned to my plan. 'I tint the dawn with crimson, I tinge the sea with blue; My track is in the desert, My trail is in the dew. 80 'I paint the hills with color, And in my magic dome I light the star of evening To steer the traveller home. 'Within the house of being, I feed the lamp of truth With tales of ancient wisdom And prophecies of youth.'III I heard the spring rain murmur Above the roadside flower, 'The world is made forever In melody and power. 'I keep the rhythmic measure That marks the steps of time, And all my toil is fashioned To symmetry and rhyme. 'I plow the untilled upland, I ripe the seeding grass, And fill the leafy forest With music as I pass. 'I hew the raw, rough granite To loveliness of line, And when my work is finished, Behold, it is divine! 'I am the master-build er In whom the ages trust. I lift the lost perfection To blossom from the dust.'IV Then Earth to them made answer, As with a slow refrain Born of the blended voices Of wind and sun and rain, 'This is the law of being 81 That links the threefold chain: The life we give to beauty Returns to us again.' ~ Bliss William Carman,

801:The dark is generous. Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still. But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from the truths of others. The dark protects us from what we dare not know. Its second gift is comforting illusion: the ease of gentle dreams in night’s embrace, the beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in the day’s harsh light. But the greatest of its comforts is the illusion that dark is temporary: that every night brings a new day. Because it’s the day that is temporary. Day is the illusion. Its third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light, and brings it forth from the center of its own self. With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins. The dark is generous, and it is patient. It is the dark that seeds cruelty into justice, that drips contempt into compassion, that poisons love with grains of doubt. The dark can be patient, because the slightest drop of rain will cause those seeds to sprout. The rain will come, and the seeds will sprout, for the dark is the soil in which they grow, and it is the clouds above them, and it waits behind the star that gives them light. The dark’s patience is infinite. Eventually, even stars burn out. The dark is generous, and it is patient, and it always wins. It always wins because it is everywhere. It is in the wood that burns in your hearth, and in the kettle on the fire; it is under your chair and under your table and under the sheets on your bed. Walk in the midday sun, and the dark is with you, attached to the soles of your feet. The brightest light casts the darkest shadow. The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back. Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars. ~ Matthew Woodring Stover,

802:Is . . . everything proceeding as it should? With . . . the baby?” The smile in her eyes deepened. “Yes, everything is fine. It’s normal to have these pains. I had the same with Andrew.” “And how many weeks are left before the baby is expected?” “Five, at least. Andrew came three weeks early but I’d been sick with him. The doctor said that had a lot to do with it. And as you can see, I’m fit as a fiddle now.” She shrugged. “A very big fiddle.” He smiled at the look on her face. “I can’t imagine you being any more beautiful than you are right now, Aletta. You . . . shine from the inside out.” She shook her head. “That’s probably just perspiration from building the nativity.” They laughed, then she looked down at her hand still tucked in his. She gently started to pull away, but he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. Once, twice, her skin like silk. Her gaze lowered from his eyes to his mouth, and the simple gesture sent something akin to a thunderbolt through him. There’d been plenty of times when he’d looked at her and wished he’d earned the liberty to kiss her, to hold her close. But never more so than right at that moment. As though she’d read his thoughts, her cheeks flushed crimson. Jake traced a feather path with his thumb across her lower lip, and her mouth opened slightly. He told himself to move slowly where this woman was concerned. But when she closed her eyes, that was all the answer he needed. He kissed her gently at first, her mouth softer, sweeter than he’d imagined. But when a soft sigh rose in her throat, he drew her closer and she slipped her arms around his neck. He deepened the kiss, weaving his hands into her hair and— “Mama! We’re here to help with the star!” Jake drew back slightly and broke the kiss, hearing the boys barreling in their direction. Aletta looked up at him and smiled, and whatever determination he’d had to move slowly where she was concerned vanished completely. “Mama?” Andrew called. “I’m coming,” she answered and stood, smoothing the sides of her hair then the front of her dress. Jake rose along with her and reached over and tucked a wayward curl back into place, then kissed her on the forehead. ~ Tamera Alexander,

803:Haunted In Old Japan Music of the star-shine shimmering o’er the sea Mirror me no longer in the dusk of memory: Dim and white the rose-leaves drift along the shore Wind among the roses, blow no more! II All along the purple creek, lit with silver foam, Silent, silent voices, cry no more of home; Soft beyond the cherry-trees, o’er the dim lagoon, Dawns the crimson lantern of the large low moon. III We that loved in April, we that turned away Laughing, ere the wood-dove crooned across the May, Watch the withered rose-leaves drift along the shore. Wind among the roses, blow no more! IV We that saw the winter waste the weeping bower, We that saw the young love perish like a flower, We that saw the dark eyes deepening with tears, Hear the vanished voices in the land beyond the years. We that hurt the thing we loved; we that went astray, We that in the darkness idly dreamed of day . . . . . . Ah! The dreary rose-leaves drift along the shore. Wind among the roses, blow no more! VI Lonely starry faces, wonderful and white, Yearning with a cry across the dim sweet night, All our dreams are blown a-drift as flowers before a fan, All our hearts are haunted in the heart of old Japan. VII Haunted, haunted, haunted; we that mocked and sinned Hear the vanished voices wailing down the wind, 46 Watch the ruined rose-leaves drift along the shore; Wind among the roses, blow no more! VIII We, the sons of reason, we that chose to bride Knowledge and rejected the Dream that we denied, We that mocked the Holy Ghost and chose the Son of Man, [1] Now must wander haunted in the heart of old Japan IX Haunted, haunted, haunted, by the sound of falling tears, Haunted, haunted, haunted, by the yearning of the years; Ah! the phantom rose-leaves drift along the shore; Wind among the roses, blow no more! All along the purple creek, lit with silver foam, Sobbing, sobbing voices, cry no more of home: Soft beyond the cherry trees, o’er the dim lagoon, Dawns the crimson lantern of the large, low moon. ~ Alfred Noyes,

804:False False! Good God, I am dreaming! No, no, it never can beYou who are so true in seeming, You, false to your vows and me? My wife and my fair boy's mother The star of my life-my queenTo yield herself to another Like some light Magdalene! Proofs! what are proofs-I defy them! They never can shake my trust; If you look in my face and deny them I will trample them into the dust. For whenever I read of the glory Of the realms of Paradise, I sought for the truth of the story And found it in your sweet eyes. Why, you are the shy young creature I wooed in her maiden grace; There was purity in each feature, And my heaven I found in your face. And, 'not only married but mated,' I would say in my pride and joy; And our hopes were all consummated When the angels gave us our boy. Now you could not blot that beginning So beautiful, pure and true, With a record of wicked sinning As a common woman might do. Look up in your old frank fashion, With your smile so free from art; And say that no guilty passion Has ever crept into your heart. 237 How pallid you are, and you tremble! You are hiding your face from view! 'Tho' a sinner, you cannot dissemble'My God! then the tale is true? True and the sun above us Shines on in the summer skies? And men say the angels love us, And that God is good and wise. Yet he lets a wanton thing like you Ruin my home and my name! Get out of my sight ere I strike you Dead in your shameless shame! No, no, I was wild, I was brutal; I would not take your life, For the efforts of death would be futile To wipe out the sin of a wife. Wife-why, that word has seemed sainted, I uttered it like a prayer. And now to think it is taintedChrist! how much we can bear! 'Slay you!' my boy's stained motherNay, that would not punish, or save; A soul that has outraged another Finds no sudden peace in the grave. I will leave you here to remember The Eden that was your own, While on toward my life's December I walk in the dark alone. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

805:I will persist until I succeed. I was not delivered unto this world in defeat, nor does failure course in my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep. I will hear not those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious. Let them join the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny. I will persist until I succeed. The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning; and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal. Failure I may still encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road. Never will I know how close it lies unless I turn the corner. Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult. I will persist until I succeed. Henceforth, I will consider each day’s effort as but one blow of my blade against a mighty oak. The first blow may cause not a tremor in the wood, nor the second, nor the third. Each blow, of itself, may be trifling, and seem of no consequence. Yet from childish swipes the oak will eventually tumble. So it will be with my efforts of today. I will be liken to the rain drop which washes away the mountain; the ant who devours a tiger; the star which brightens the earth; the slave who builds a pyramid. I will build my castle one brick at a time for I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking. I will persist until I succeed. I will never consider defeat and I will remove from my vocabulary such words and phrases as quit, cannot, unable, impossible, out of the question, improbable, failure, unworkable, hopeless, and retreat; for they are words of fools. I will avoid despair but if this disease of the mind should infect me then I will work on in despair. I will toil and I will endure. I will ignore the obstacles at my feet and keep mine eyes on the goals above my head, for I know that where dry desert ends, green grass grows. I will persist until I succeed. The Greatest Salesman in the World Og Mandino ~ Og Mandino,

806:See in the babe two loveliest flowers unitedyet in truth, While in the bud they seem the samethe virgin and the youth! But loosened is the gentle bond, no longer side by side From holy shame the fiery strength will soon itself divide. Permit the youth to sport, and still the wild desire to chase, For, but when sated, weary strength returns to seek the grace. Yet in the bud, the double flowers the future strife begin, How precious allyet naught can still the longing heart within. In ripening charms the virgin bloom to woman shape hath grown, But round the ripening charms the pride hath clasped its guardian zone; Shy, as before the hunter's horn the doe all trembling moves, She flies from man as from a foe, and hates before she loves! From lowering brows this struggling world the fearless youth observes, And hardened for the strife betimes, he strains the willing nerves; Far to the armed throng and to the race prepared to start, Inviting glory calls him forth, and grasps the troubled heart: Protect thy work, O Nature now! one from the other flies, Till thou unitest each at last that for the other sighs. There art thou, mighty one! where'er the discord darkest frown, Thou call'st the meek harmonious peace, the god-like soother down. The noisy chase is lulled asleep, day's clamor dies afar, And through the sweet and veiled air in beauty comes the star. Soft-sighing through the crisped reeds, the brooklet glides along, And every wood the nightingale melodious fills with song. O virgin! now what instinct heaves thy bosom with the sigh? O youth! and wherefore steals the tear into thy dreaming eye? Alas! they seek in vain within the charm around bestowed, The tender fruit is ripened now, and bows to earth its load. And restless goes the youth to feed his heart upon its fire, All, where the gentle breath to cool the flame of young desire! And now they meetthe holy love that leads them lights their eyes, And still behind the winged god the winged victory flies. O heavenly love!'tis thy sweet task the human flowers to bind, For ay apart, and yet by thee forever intertwined! ~ Friedrich Schiller, The Sexes ,

807:Daylight Saving In Cactus Center Down here in Cactus Center we believe in savin' time; Unlike the waste of powder, wastin' daylight is a crime; So we held a solemn meetin', down in Poker Johnson's place, And agreed that here in Cactus every clock must change its face; 'For,' Bear Hawkins said, reflective, 'it will give one hour more For the studyin' by sunlight of this here draw poker lore. We are proud of all the sunshine that suffuses yonder range; If we was n't boosters for it, it's be almighty strange.' But a shadder fell upon us when old Pegleg brought the mail And he stumped in, from his stage seat, with his customary hail, For he said, when we had told him of our daylight savin' plan: 'This is rough on pore old Pegleg-you have got me on the pan, For they've just sent word from Lone Wolf that the old-time schedule stays, And they say I'll run this bus line just as on all previous days, So I'd like to have you tell me how I'll land among you here At the time I'm leavin' Lone Wolf. Do I make my meanin' clear? We are peaceful here in Cactus-it takes lots to stir our ireBut this impudence from Lone Wolf set our fightin' blood afire; So we 'phoned the Two-Bar foreman, and the Star, and Lazy Y, And we got word to the round-ups and they let the brand-irons lie, And the top hands come a-peltin' from the wide and dusty plain, And we even took a sheepman, though it went against the grain. Whereupon, when all assembled, we sent word: 'Hunt trees to climb, For we're comin' over, Lone Wolf, and we'll make you change your time!' There's been battles over poker, there's been bloodshed over booze, There's been men who've gone to Boot Hill 'cause of words that they would use; Men have been turned into lead mines for remarks misunderstood; Men who would n't drink have perished-men have died because they would' But the fight of fights was started when we entered Lone Wolf's streets And we carried daylight savin' to the uttermost retreats. Though we lost some ten good gunmen, we was pleased, on takin' stock, When we found that we had shot holes in each laggin' Lone Wolf clock. ~ Arthur Chapman,

808:It’s for you from Miss Tempy.” Aletta stood and stretched from side to side, then accepted the offered treat. She started to take a drink, then paused and looked back at him, doing her best to make her frown look real. “If it’s for me, then why is half of it gone?” He grinned. “I didn’t want to spill any on the way so I drank a little.” She laughed and took a sip. Delicious as usual. She’d finally managed to watch Tempy mixing a batch one day and had learned the woman’s secret—a little salt and vanilla. And, of course, a generous amount of cream. “Are we ready to hang the star yet, Mama?” “Almost. But I’m to the point now where I’m going to need some help putting it all together.” He jumped up. “I’ll help.” She tousled his hair. “I appreciate that. But I think you and I might require a third person for this next part.” Just then Aletta looked over to see Jake walking from the house, past the barn and toward his cabin. “Captain Winston!” she called. He turned, gave a quick wave, and headed in their direction. “Evening, Aletta.” He knelt and gave Andrew a playful poke in the tummy. “Hey, buddy, how you doing?” “I’m good, Ja—” Andrew cut his eyes in her direction. “I mean . . . Captain Winston, sir. You want some cocoa? Tempy made some just now.” Jake smiled. “That sounds good, thank you.” Aletta caught her son’s gaze, appreciating how he’d corrected his mistake. “Do you plan on drinking half of the Captain’s too?” With an impish grin, Andrew darted back to the kitchen. “Fine boy you’ve got there, Aletta.” “Thank you. I think I’ll keep him.” “With good reason.” Jake eyed the booth lying in pieces on the barn floor beside the manger, and knelt to examine her work. “Very impressive. Your father taught you well.” “I only wish I’d learned how to carve like he could. He would’ve taught me, but I didn’t consider it important enough at the time.” He ran a hand over the manger and looked up at her, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “It’s never too late to learn something new.” “I’ve got yours, Captain Winston!” They looked up to see Andrew slowly walking toward them, his attention homed in on the cup in his hands. Captain Winston took the cup from him but eyed it suspiciously. “Tell me now . . . how much of mine did you drink?” Andrew grinned. “Not as much as Mama’s. ~ Tamera Alexander,

809:In The Manner Of Spenser So long estranged from every Muse's lyre, And groveling in the tangled net of Care; What powerful breath shall kindle up that fire Smothered with damps of most unkindly air? Ah, how is quenched the lamp that burnt so fair! Come, sweet seducers, late too far away, Once more to my deserted cell repair; Your rebel courts again your gentle sway;— Come, soothe the winter's night, and charm the summer's day. Come, dear companions of my youthful hour, Fill my fond breast with your majestic themes; Meet me again on hill, by stream, or bower, And bathe my fancy in the bliss of dreams. Vain wish! no more the star of Fancy gleams; They with becoming scorn reject thy prayer: Nor will they haunt thy bower, or bless thy streams, No more to thy deserted cell repair:— “Go, court the world,” they cry, “thou art not worth our care.” Bustle and hurry, noise and thrall they hate, And plodding Method with her leaden rule; And all that swells the' unwieldy pomp of state, And all that binds to earth the golden fool; And creeping Labour with his patient tool: Free like the birds they wander unconfined, Nor dip their wings in Lucre's muddy pool; Business they hate, in crowded nook enshrined, That spins her dirty web, and clouds the' ethereal mind. Ah, why should man, in hard unsocial strife, And withering care whose vigils never cease, Fretting away this little thread of life, Of his sad birthright reap such large increase! Why should he toil for aught but bread and peace? Why rear to heaven his clay-built pyramids? Nor from his tasks himself, poor slave! release; With anxious thought, which wholesome rest forbids, Drying the balm of sleep from sorrow's swollen lids. Despising cheap delights, he loves to scoop 75 His marble palace from the rock's hard breast, And in close dungeon walls himself to coop, On golden couches wooing pale unrest; With foreign looms his stately halls are drest, And grim-wrought tapestry clothes the darkened room; While in the flowery vale Peace builds her nest, Amidst the purple heath or yellow broom, Or where midst rustling corn the nodding poppies bloom. ~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,

810:This Thing <i>For/with Penny </i> How to begin to define it this momentous thing between us? A monosyllable rhyming with “dove” and “above”, so dull and dubiously religious compared to the spirit of our connection. Not that talk of the numinous wouldn’t apply. Your penchant for the Tarot, mine for the Sufis, altogether I suspect more transcendental than the babble of necessity and hope desired by our former selves. Now I can’t say if “love” ever belonged to my former lexicon of merely being with someone. A confession? That wouldn’t become my professed agnosticism; but fate always the star of your astrological ciphers and my horoscope no doubt a serendipity 99 in the house of your heart. Mine, (forgive the war metaphors) a fortress reigned by the tyrant of solipsism until your ram battered the gates and your vanguard scaled the ramparts. Now the untied captives laze on the fields of your victory. The tyrant a cross between theologian and troubadour, no longer a threat to my peasants. But what have you gained from this conquest? Do I make you happy? What do you call this earth-shaking thing between us? I suspect your images altogether sharper than my medievalist detours, say animals—am I salamander to your unicorn or you a yellow crane perched on my tortoise? Or fairytale: you see yourself as a compassionate Little Red Riding Hood to my repentant wolf? Not very likely. I’ve never really 100 queried eating you; but you must’ve glanced the dangers of sharing life with a confused and brooding loner. A person of your insight doesn’t mess around in Blue Beard’s chamber. And I’m frankly just a diffused dragon. So do we call this thing domestication? What about the euphoria of escaping our house together and boarding planes? Am I your accomplice or live cargo? Does it sound like complaint? It’s in fact a celebration of the ecstatic thing between us. I ask you to comment. You say: “It’s a magical ever-changing intertwining of two lives on levels mundane and divine.” ~ Ali Alizadeh,

811:Even if the press were dying to report on the Hmong gang-rape spree, the police won’t tell them about it. A year before the Hmong gang rape that reminded the Times of a rape in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the police in St. Paul issued a warning about gang rapists using telephone chat lines to lure girls out of their homes. Although the warning was issued only in Hmong, St. Paul’s police department refused to confirm to the St. Paul Pioneer Press that the suspects were Hmong, finally coughing up only the information that they were “Asian.”20 And the gang rapes continue. The Star Tribune counted nearly one hundred Hmong males charged with rape or forced prostitution from 2000 to June 30, 2005. More than 80 percent of the victims were fifteen or younger. A quarter of their victims were not Hmong.21 The police say many more Hmong rapists have gone unpunished—they have no idea how many—because Hmong refuse to report rape. Reporters aren’t inclined to push the issue. The only rapes that interest the media are apocryphal gang rapes committed by white men. Was America short on Hmong? These backward hill people began pouring into the United States in the seventies as a reward for their help during the ill-fated Vietnam War. That war ended forty years ago! But the United States is still taking in thousands of Hmong “refugees” every year, so taxpayers can spend millions of dollars on English-language and cultural-assimilation classes, public housing, food stamps, healthcare, prosecutors, and prisons to accommodate all the child rapists.22 By now, there are an estimated 273,000 Hmong in the United States.23 Canada only has about eight hundred.24 Did America lose a bet? In the last few decades, America has taken in more Hmong than Czechs, Danes, French, Luxembourgers, New Zealanders, Norwegians, or Swiss. We have no room for them. We needed to make room for a culture where child rape is the norm.25 A foreign gang-rape culture that blames twelve-year-old girls for their own rapes may not be a good fit with American culture, especially now that political correctness prevents us from criticizing any “minority” group. At least when white males commit a gang rape the media never shut up about it. The Glen Ridge gang rape occurred more than a quarter century ago, and the Times still thinks the case hasn’t been adequately covered. ~ Ann Coulter,

812:In Exile Twilight is here, soft breezes bow the grass, Day's sounds of various toil break slowly off, The yoke-freed oxen low, the patient ass Dips his dry nostril in the cool, deep trough. Up from the prairie the tanned herdsmen pass With frothy pails, guiding with voices rough Their udder-lightened kine. Fresh smells of earth, The rich, black furrows of the glebe send forth. After the Southern day of heavy toil, How good to lie, with limbs relaxed, brows bare To evening's fan, and watch the smoke-wreaths coil Up from one's pipe-stem through the rayless air. So deem these unused tillers of the soil, Who stretched beneath the shadowing oak tree, stare Peacefully on the star-unfolding skies, And name their life unbroken paradise. The hounded stag that has escaped the pack, And pants at ease within a thick-leaved dell; The unimprisoned bird that finds the track Through sun-bathed space, to where his fellows dwell; The martyr, granted respite from the rack, The death-doomed victim pardoned from his cell,Such only know the joy these exiles gain,Life's sharpest rapture is surcease of pain. Strange faces theirs, wherethrough the Orient sun Gleams from the eyes and glows athwart the skin. Grave lines of studious thought and purpose run From curl-crowned forehead to dark-bearded chin. And over all the seal is stamped thereon Of anguish branded by a world of sin, In fire and blood through ages on their name, Their seal of glory and the Gentiles' shame. Freedom to love the law that Moses brought, To sing the songs of David, and to think The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught, 95 Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink The universal air-for this they sought Refuge o'er wave and continent, to link Egypt with Texas in their mystic chain, And truth's perpetual lamp forbid to wane. Hark! through the quiet evening air, their song Floats forth with wild sweet rhythm and glad refrain. They sing the conquest of the spirit strong, The soul that wrests the victory from pain; The noble joys of manhood that belong To comrades and to brothers. In their strain Rustle of palms and Eastern streams one hears, And the broad prairie melts in mist of tears. ~ Emma Lazarus,

813:The Sending Of The Magi IN a far Eastern country It happened long of yore, Where a lone and level sunrise Flushes the desert floor, That three kings sat together And a spearman kept the door. Gaspar, whose wealth was counted By city and caravan; With Melchior, the seer Who read the starry plan; And Balthasar, the blameless, Who loved his fellow man. There while they talked, a sudden Strange rushing sound arose, And as with startled faces They thought upon their foes, Three figures stood before them In imperial repose. One in flame-gold and one in blue And one in scarlet clear, With the almighty portent Of sunrise they drew near! And the kings made obeisance With hand on breast, in fear. 'Arise,' said they, 'we bring you Good tidings of great peace! To-day a power is wakened Whose working must increase, Till fear and greed and malice And violence shall cease.' The messengers were Michael, By whom all things are wrought To shape and hue; and Gabriel Who is the lord of thought; And Rafael without whose love All toil must come to nought. Then Rafael said to Balthasar, 'In a country west from here A lord is born in lowliness, 190 In love without a peer. Take grievances and gifts to him And prove his kingship clear! 'By this sign ye shall know him; Within his mother's arm Among the sweet-breathed cattle He slumbers without harm, While wicked hearts are troubled And tyrants take alarm.' And Gabriel said to Melchior, 'My comrade, I will send My star to go before you, That ye may comprehend Where leads your mystic learning In a humaner trend.' And Michael said to Gaspar, 'Thou royal builder, go With tribute of thy riches! Though time shall overthrow Thy kingdom, no undoing His gentle might shall know.' Then while the kings' hearts greatened And all the chamber shone, As when the hills at sundown Take a new glory on And the air thrills with purple, Their visitors were gone. Then straightway up rose Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar, And passed out through the murmur Of palace and bazar, To make without misgiving The journey of the Star. ~ Bliss William Carman,

814:Unofficial ONE morning, my heart can remember, I sat dreaming there, In the 'governor's' chair In the office. The month was November, And the weather a subject for prayer. My mind strayed through visions unbounded-Far-off seemed the din That King William Street's in, And the quill of the 'junior' sounded Like the squeak of an elf's violin. I was roused with a start--some one entered. Though ground-glass divide Off the sanctum inside, The star where my homage was centred In the office without I descried. 'Oh, kind Fate, to bring me my Kitty! The boy I can send At the bank to attend: One partner's just gone from the City, And the other is at the West End. 'Change two pounds, boy, for threepenny pieces! And there isn't a franc In the place!--I will thank You to take down these coupons from Creasy's To the London and Westminster Bank.' He is gone! This can never be Kitty, Alone here with me! Can this ever be she, Laughing here in the heart of the City, 454 With the old office cat on her knee? 'I hope, Ben,' she says, 'you are stronger, And I hope it's not true Work is injuring you; And I'd better not stay any longer, As you seem to have so much to do!' But she does not go yet. Still she lingers, Dry deed-boxes press The crisp folds of her dress, While the desk feels inquisitive fingers In a touch that is half a caress. Now, dreary and quiet the place is; Here's the space on the floor I remember of yore, Which was brushed by her ribbons and laces As she smiled her 'good-bye' at the door. The violets she wore in her bosom, So scented, dew-wet, Are hard to forget; The dim office grew fair with each blossom, And their fragrance seems haunting it yet. I'm in partnership now with old Bradley; His brother is dead, So I stand as the Head Of affairs; and I'm thinking thus sadly Of the sweetness of days that have fled. My Wimbledon house--all that's in it-My life, with its dower Of money-bag power-I would throw to the dogs in a minute, 455 To recall from those days but one hour. Lost light of my eyes, little Kitty! Too late now, too late; But I'd give my estate To be once more a clerk in the City-In the office with you tête-à-tête. ~ Edith Nesbit,

815:A Christmas Eve Choral Halleluja! What sound is this across the dark While all the earth is sleeping? Hark! Halleluja! Halleluja! Halleluja! Why are thy tender eyes so bright, Mary, Mary? On the prophetic deep of night Joseph, Joseph, I see the borders of the light, And in the day that is to be An aureoled man-child I see, Great love's son, Joseph. Halleluja! He hears not, but she hears afar, The Minstrel Angel of the star. Halleluja! Halleluja! Halleluja! Why is thy gentle smile so deep, Mary, Mary? It is the secret I must keep, Joseph, Joseph, — The joy that will not let me sleep, The glory of the coming days, When all the world shall turn to praise God's goodness, Joseph. Halleluja! Clear as the bird that brings the morn She hears the heavenly music borne. Halleluja! Halleluja! Halleluja! Why is thy radiant face so calm, Mary, Mary? His strength is like a royal palm, Joseph, Joseph; His beauty like the victor's psalm, He moves like morning o'er the lands And there is healing in his hands For sorrow, Joseph. Halleluja! Tender as dew-fall on the earth She hears the choral of love's birth. Halleluja! Halleluja! Halleluja! What is the message come to thee, Mary, Mary? I hear like wind within the tree, Joseph, Joseph, Or like a far-off melody His deathless voice proclaiming peace, And bidding ruthless wrong to cease, For love's sake, Joseph. Halleluja! Moving as rain-wind in the spring She hears the angel chorus ring. Halleluja! Halleluja! Halleluja! Why are thy patient hands so still, Mary, Mary? I see the shadow on the hill, Joseph, Joseph, And wonder if it is God's will That courage, service, and glad youth Shall perish in the cause of truth Forever, Joseph. Halleluja! Her heart in that celestial chime Has heard the harmony of time. Halleluja! Halleluja! Halleluja! Why is thy voice so strange and far, Mary, Mary? I see the glory of the star, Joseph, Joseph, And in its light all things that are Made glad and wise beyond the sway Of death and darkness and dismay, In God's time, Joseph. Halleluja! To every heart in love 't is given To hear the ecstasy of heaven. Halleluja! Halleluja! Halleluja! ~ Bliss William Carman,

816:[T]here was a prophetic medieval Italian abbot, Joachim of Floris, who in the early thirteenth century foresaw the dissolution of the Christian Church and dawn of a terminal period of earthly spiritual life, when the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, would speak directly to the human heart without ecclesiastical mediation. His view, like that of Frobenius, was of a sequence of historic stages, of which our own was to be the last; and of these he counted four. The first was, of course, that immediately following the Fall of Man, before the opening of the main story, after which there was to unfold the whole great drama of Redemption, each stage under the inspiration of one Person of the Trinity. The first was to be of the Father, the Laws of Moses and the People of Israel; the second of the Son, the New Testament and the Church; and now finally (and here, of course, the teachings of this clergyman went apart from the others of his communion), a third age, which he believed was about to commence, of the Holy Spirit, that was to be of saints in meditation, when the Church, become superfluous, would in time dissolve. It was thought by not a few in Joachim’s day that Saint Francis of Assisi might represent the opening of the coming age of direct, pentecostal spirituality. But as I look about today and observe what is happening to our churches in this time of perhaps the greatest access of mystically toned religious zeal our civilization has known since the close of the Middle Ages, I am inclined to think that the years foreseen by the good Father Joachim of Floris must have been our own. For there is no divinely ordained authority any more that we have to recognize. There is no anointed messenger of God’s law. In our world today all civil law is conventional. No divine authority is claimed for it: no Sinai; no Mount of Olives. Our laws are enacted and altered by human determination, and within their secular jurisdiction each of us is free to seek his own destiny, his own truth, to quest for this or for that and to find it through his own doing. The mythologies, religions, philosophies, and modes of thought that came into being six thousand years ago and out of which all the monumental cultures both of the Occident and of the Orient - of Europe, the Near and Middle East, the Far East, even early America - derived their truths and lives, are dissolving from around us, and we are left, each on his own to follow the star and spirit of his own life. ~ Joseph Campbell,

817:I remember standing in the wings when Mother’s voice cracked and went into a whisper. The audience began to laugh and sing falsetto and to make catcalls. It was all vague and I did not quite understand what was going on. But the noise increased until Mother was obliged to walk off the stage. When she came into the wings she was very upset and argued with the stage manager who, having seen me perform before Mother’s friends, said something about letting me go on in her place. And in the turmoil I remember him leading me by the hand and, after a few explanatory words to the audience, leaving me on the stage alone. And before a glare of footlights and faces in smoke, I started to sing, accompanied by the orchestra, which fiddled about until it found my key. It was a well-known song called Jack Jones that went as follows: Jack Jones well and known to everybody Round about the market, don’t yer see, I’ve no fault to find with Jack at all, Not when ’e’s as ’e used to be. But since ’e’s had the bullion left him ’E has altered for the worst, For to see the way he treats all his old pals Fills me with nothing but disgust. Each Sunday morning he reads the Telegraph, Once he was contented with the Star. Since Jack Jones has come into a little bit of cash, Well, ’e don’t know where ’e are. Half-way through, a shower of money poured on to the stage. Immediately I stopped and announced that I would pick up the money first and sing afterwards. This caused much laughter. The stage manager came on with a handkerchief and helped me to gather it up. I thought he was going to keep it. This thought was conveyed to the audience and increased their laughter, especially when he walked off with it with me anxiously following him. Not until he handed it to Mother did I return and continue to sing. I was quite at home. I talked to the audience, danced, and did several imitations including one of Mother singing her Irish march song that went as follows: Riley, Riley, that’s the boy to beguile ye, Riley, Riley, that’s the boy for me. In all the Army great and small, There’s none so trim and neat As the noble Sergeant Riley Of the gallant Eighty-eight. And in repeating the chorus, in all innocence I imitated Mother’s voice cracking and was surprised at the impact it had on the audience. There was laughter and cheers, then more money-throwing; and when Mother came on the stage to carry me off, her presence evoked tremendous applause. That night was my first appearance on the stage and Mother’s last. ~ Charlie Chaplin,

818:The Morning Sun Far from the ignoble strife of Man's tavern you are The wine-cup adorning the sky's assemblage you are The jewel which should be the pearl of the morning's bride's ear you are The ornament which would be the pride of horizon's forehead you are The blot of night's ink from time's page has been removed! The star from sky like a spurious picture has been removed! When from the roof of the sky your beauty appears Effect of sleep's wine suddenly from eyes disappears Perception's expanse gets filled with light Though opens only the material eye your light The spectacle which the eyes seek is desired The effulgence which would open the insight is desired The desires for freedom were not fulfilled in this life We remained imprisoned in chains of dependence all life The high and the low are alike for your eye I too have longing for such a discerning eye May my eye shedding tears in sympathy for others' woes be! May my heart free from the prejudice of nation and customs be! May my tongue be not bound with discrimination of color May mankind be my nation, the whole world my country be May secret of Nature's organization clear to my insight be May smoke of my imagination's candle rising to the sky be May search for secrets of opposites not make me restless! May the Love-creating Beauty in everything appear to me! If the rose petals get damaged by the breeze May its pain dropping from my eye as a tear be 54 May the heart contain that little spark of Love's fire The light of which may contain the secret of the Truth May my heart not mine but the Beloved's mirror be! May no thought in my mind except human sympathy be! If you cannot endure the hardships of the tumultuous world O the Great Luminary that is not the mark of greatness! As you are not aware of your world-decorating beauty You cannot be equal to a speck of dust at the Man's door! The light of Man eager for the Spectacle ever remained And you obligated to the tomorrow's morning ever remained Longing for the Light of the Truth is only in our hearts Abode of Lailah of desire for search is only in this litter Opening of the difficult knot, Oh what a pleasure it is! The pleasure of universal gain in our endless effort is! Your bosom is unacquainted with the pain of investigation You are not familiar with searching of the secrets of Nature ~ Allama Muhammad Iqbal,

819:Algebra applies to the clouds, the radiance of the star benefits the rose--no thinker would dare to say that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who could ever calculate the path of a molecule? How do we know that the creations of worlds are not determined by falling grains of sand? Who can understand the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely small, the echoing of causes in the abyss of being and the avalanches of creation? A mite has value; the small is great, the great is small. All is balanced in necessity; frightening vision for the mind. There are marvelous relations between beings and things, in this inexhaustible whole, from sun to grub, there is no scorn, each needs the other. Light does not carry terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths without knowing what it does with them; night distributes the stellar essence to the sleeping plants. Every bird that flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw. Germination includes the hatching of a meteor and the tap of a swallow's beak breaking the egg, and it guides the birth of the earthworm, and the advent of Socrates. Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has a greater view? Choose. A bit of mold is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an anthill of stars. The same promiscuity, and still more wonderful, between the things of the intellect and material things. Elements and principles are mingled, combined, espoused, multiplied one by another, to the point that the material world, and the moral world are brought into the same light. Phenomena are perpetually folded back on themselves. In the vast cosmic changes, universal life comes and goes in unknown quantities, rolling everything up in the invisible mystery of the emanations, using everything, losing no dream from any single sleep, sowing a microscopic animal here, crumbling a star there, oscillating and gyrating, making a force of light, and an element of thought, disseminated and indivisible dissolving all, that geometric point, the self; reducing everything to the soul-atom; making everything blossom into God; entangling from the highest to the lowest, all activities in the obscurity of a dizzying mechanism, linking the flight of an insect to the movement of the earth, subordinating--who knows, if only by the identity of the law--the evolutions of the comet in the firmament to the circling of the protozoa in the drop of water. A machine made of mind. Enormous gearing, whose first motor is the gnat, and whose last is the zodiac. ~ Victor Hugo,

820:Almost overnight the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was in full flower, and Captain Black was enraptured to discover himself spearheading it. He had really hit on something. All the enlisted men and officers on combat duty had to sign a loyalty oath to get their map cases from the intelligence tent, a second loyalty oath to receive their flak suits and parachutes from the parachute tent, a third loyalty oath for Lieutenant Balkington, the motor vehicle officer, to be allowed to ride from the squadron to the airfield in one of the trucks. Every time they turned around there was another loyalty oath to be signed. They signed a loyalty oath to get their pay from the finance officer, to obtain their PX supplies, to have their hair cut by the Italian barbers. To Captain Black, every officer who supported his Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a competitor, and he planned and plotted twenty-four hours a day to keep one step ahead. He would stand second to none in his devotion to country. When other officers had followed his urging and introduced loyalty oaths of their own, he went them one better by making every son of a bitch who came to his intelligence tent sign two loyalty oaths, then three, then four; then he introduced the pledge of allegiance, and after that 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' one chorus, two choruses, three choruses, four choruses. Each time Captain Black forged ahead of his competitors, he swung upon them scornfully for their failure to follow his example. Each time they followed his example, he retreated with concern and racked his brain for some new stratagem that would enable him to turn upon them scornfully again. Without realizing how it had come about, the combat men in the squadron discovered themselves dominated by the administrators appointed to serve them. They were bullied, insulted, harassed and shoved about all day long by one after the other. When they voiced objection, Captain Black replied that people who were loyal would not mind signing all the loyalty oaths they had to. To anyone who questioned the effectiveness of the loyalty oaths, he replied that people who really did owe allegiance to their country would be proud to pledge it as often as he forced them to. And to anyone who questioned the morality, he replied that 'The Star-Spangled Banner' was the greatest piece of music ever composed. The more loyalty oaths a person signed, the more loyal he was; to Captain Black it was as simple as that, and he had Corporal Kolodny sign hundreds with his name each day so that he could always prove he was more loyal than anyone else. ~ Joseph Heller,

821:A man on his deathbed left instructions For dividing up his goods among his three sons. He had devoted his entire spirit to those sons. They stood like cypress trees around him, Quiet and strong. He told the town judge, 'Whichever of my sons is laziest, Give him all the inheritance.' Then he died, and the judge turned to the three, 'Each of you must give some account of your laziness, so I can understand just how you are lazy.' Mystics are experts in laziness. They rely on it, Because they continuously see God working all around them. The harvest keeps coming in, yet they Never even did the plowing! 'Come on. Say something about the ways you are lazy.' Every spoken word is a covering for the inner self. A little curtain-flick no wider than a slice Of roast meat can reveal hundreds of exploding suns. Even if what is being said is trivial and wrong, The listener hears the source. One breeze comes From across a garden. Another from across the ash-heap. Think how different the voices of the fox And the lion, and what they tell you! Hearing someone is lifting the lid off the cooking pot. You learn what's for supper. Though some people Can know just by the smell, a sweet stew From a sour soup cooked with vinegar. A man taps a clay pot before he buys it To know by the sound if it has a crack. The eldest of the three brothers told the judge, 'I can know a man by his voice, and if he won't speak, I wait three days, and then I know him intuitively.' The second brother, 'I know him when he speaks, And if he won't talk, I strike up a conversation.' 'But what if he knows that trick?' asked the judge. Which reminds me of the mother who tells her child 'When you're walking through the graveyard at night and you see a boogeyman, run at it, and it will go away.' 'But what,' replies the child, 'if the boogeyman's Mother has told it to do the same thing? Boogeymen have mothers too.' The second brother had no answer. 'I sit in front of him in silence, And set up a ladder made of patience, And if in his presence a language from beyond joy And beyond grief begins to pour from my chest, I know that his soul is as deep and bright As the star Canopus rising over Yemen. And so when I start speaking a powerful right arm Of words sweeping down, I know him from what I say, And how I say it, because there's a window open Between us, mixing the night air of our beings.' The youngest was, obviously, The laziest. He won. ~ Rumi,

822:The Vindictive How should we praise those lads of the old Vindictive Who looked Death straight in the eyes, Till his gaze fell, In those red gates of hell? England, in her proud history, proudly enrolls them, And the deep night in her remembering skies With purer glory Shall blazon their grim story. There were no throngs to applaud that hushed adventure. They were one to a thousand on that fierce emprise. The shores they sought Were armoured, past all thought. O, they knew fear, be assured, as the brave must know it, With youth and its happiness bidding their last good-byes; Till thoughts, more dear Than life, cast out all fear. For if, as we think, they remembered the brown-roofed homesteads, And the scent of the hawthorn hedges when daylight dies, Old happy places, Young eyes and fading faces; One dream was dearer that night than the best of their boyhood, One hope more radiant than any their hearts could prize. The touch of your hand, The light of your face, England! So, age to age shall tell how they sailed through the darkness Where, under those high, austere, implacable stars, Not one in ten Might look for a dawn again. They saw the ferry-boats, Iris 169 and Daffodil , creeping Darkly as clouds to the shimmering mine-strewn bars, Flash into light! Then thunder reddened the night. The wild white swords of the search-lights blinded and stabbed them, The sharp black shadows fought in fantastic wars. Black waves leapt whitening, Red decks were washed with lightning. But, under the twelve-inch guns of the black land-batteries The hacked bright hulk, in a glory of crackling spars, Moved to her goal Like an immortal soul; That, while the raw rent flesh in a furnace is tortured, Reigns by a law no agony ever can shake, And shines in power Above all shocks of the hour. O, there, while the decks ran blood, and the star-shells lightened The old broken ship that the enemy never could break, Swept through the fire And grappled her heart's desire. There, on a wreck that blazed with the soul of England, The lads that died in the dark for England's sake Knew, as they died, Nelson was at their side; Nelson, and all the ghostly fleets of his island, Fighting beside them there, and the soul of Drake!Dreams, as we knew, Till these lads made them true. _How should we praise you, lads of the old Vindictive, Who looked death straight in the eyes, Till his gaze fell In those red gates of hell?_ 170 ~ Alfred Noyes,

823:The Will To Live SINCE Faith is a veil that has nothing behind it, And Hope wanders lost where no mortal can find it, Since Love is a mirror we break in a minute In snatching the image our soul has cast in it, What is the use of the Summers and Springs, The wave of the woods and the waft of the wings-Since all means nothing, and good things and ill Make madness,--a mirage tormenting us still? Since all the fighting, the ardent endeavour, The heart cast bleeding to feed the Ideal, Are vain, vain, vain, and the one thing real Is that all's vain, for ever and ever; Why then, be a man and stand back from the strife, Fall by the sword, but keep out of the snare; Will but to be--and be willing to bear All that the gods may lay on your of life! In the far East, where light ever dawns first, There has man learned how the Fates may be cheated, How by our craft may their strength be defeated, Though all our best be no match for their worst! Kill the desire that they set in your bosom, Long not for fruit when you gaze on the blossom, Dream not of flowers when you gaze on the bud, Kill all the rebels that shout in your blood. Sorrow and sickness, disease and decay-These toll the hours of Life's desolate day; Hopes unfulfilled and forbidden delight These are the dreams of Life's treacherous night. So let me image an infinite peace Touched with no joy but the ease of release. Out of the eddies I climb and I cease Keeping, in change for this man's soul of me, Something which, by the eternal decree, Is as like Nothing as Something can be! Not to desire, to admit, to adore, Casting the robe of the soul that you wore 417 Just This This This as the soul casts the body's robe down. is man's destiny, this is man's crown. is the splendour, the end of the feast; is the light of the Star in the East. So, Silence reconciles Life's jarring phrases Far in the future, austere and august: Meanwhile, the buds of the poplars are falling, Spring's on the lawn, and a little voice calling: 'Daddy, come out! Daddy darling, you must! Daddy come out and help Molly pick daisies!' And, since one's here, and the Spring's in the garden (How many lives hence will that thought earn pardon?) Since one's a man and man's heart is insistent, And, since Nirvana is doubtful and distant, Though life's a hard road and thorny to travel-Stones in the borders and grass on the gravel, Still there's the wisdom that wise men call folly, Still one can go and pick daisies with Molly! ~ Edith Nesbit,

824:Yesterday on Boston Common I saw a young man on a skateboard collide with a child. The skateboarder was racing down the promenade and smashed into the child with full force. I saw this happen from a considerable distance. It happened without a sound. It happened in dead silence. The cry of the terrified child as she darted to avoid the skateboard and the scream of the child’s mother at the moment of impact were absorbed by the gray wool of the November day. The child’s body simply lifted up into the air and, in slow motion, as if in a dream, floated above the promenade, bounced twice like a rubber ball, and lay still. All of this happened in perfect silence. It was as if I were watching the tragedy through a telescope. It was as if the tragedy were happening on another planet. I have seen stars exploding in space, colossal, planet-shattering, distanced by light-years, framed in the cold glass of a telescope, utterly silent. It was like that. During the time the child was in the air, the spinning Earth carried her half a mile to the east. The motion of the Earth about the sun carried her back again forty miles westward. The drift of the solar system among the stars of the Milky Way bore her silently twenty miles toward the star Vega. The turning pinwheel of the Milky Way Galaxy carried her 300 miles in a great circle about the galactic center. After that huge flight through space she hit the ground and bounced like a rubber ball. She lifted up into the air and flew across the Galaxy and bounced on the pavement. It is a thin membrane that separates us from chaos. The child sent flying by the skateboarder bounced in slow motion and lay still. There was a long pause. Pigeons froze against the gray sky. Promenaders turned to stone. Traffic stopped on Beacon Street. The child’s body lay inert on the asphalt like a piece of crumpled newspaper. The mother’s cry was lost in the space between the stars. How are we to understand the silence of the universe? They say that certain meteorites, upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere, disintegrate with noticeable sound, but beyond the Earth’s skin of air the sky is silent. There are no voices in the burning bush of the Galaxy. The Milky Way flows across the dark shoals of the summer sky without an audible ripple. Stars blow themselves to smithereens; we hear nothing. Millions of solar systems are sucked into black holes at the centers of the galaxies; they fall like feathers. The universe fattens and swells in a Big Bang, a fireball of Creation exploding from a pinprick of infinite energy, the ultimate firecracker; there is no soundtrack. The membrane is ruptured, a child flies through the air, and the universe is silent. ~ Chet Raymo,

825:Let us remark by the way, that to be blind and to be loved, is, in fact, one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness upon this earth, where nothing is complete. To have continually at one's side a woman, a daughter, a sister, a charming being, who is there because you need her and because she cannot do without you; to know that we are indispensable to a person who is necessary to us; to be able to incessantly measure one's affection by the amount of her presence which she bestows on us, and to say to ourselves, "Since she consecrates the whole of her time to me, it is because I possess the whole of her heart"; to behold her thought in lieu of her face; to be able to verify the fidelity of one being amid the eclipse of the world; to regard the rustle of a gown as the sound of wings; to hear her come and go, retire, speak, return, sing, and to think that one is the centre of these steps, of this speech; to manifest at each instant one's personal attraction; to feel one's self all the more powerful because of one's infirmity; to become in one's obscurity, and through one's obscurity, the star around which this angel gravitates,—few felicities equal this. The supreme happiness of life consists in the conviction that one is loved; loved for one's own sake—let us say rather, loved in spite of one's self; this conviction the blind man possesses. To be served in distress is to be caressed. Does he lack anything? No. One does not lose the sight when one has love. And what love! A love wholly constituted of virtue! There is no blindness where there is certainty. Soul seeks soul, gropingly, and finds it. And this soul, found and tested, is a woman. A hand sustains you; it is hers: a mouth lightly touches your brow; it is her mouth: you hear a breath very near you; it is hers. To have everything of her, from her worship to her pity, never to be left, to have that sweet weakness aiding you, to lean upon that immovable reed, to touch Providence with one's hands, and to be able to take it in one's arms,—God made tangible,—what bliss! The heart, that obscure, celestial flower, undergoes a mysterious blossoming. One would not exchange that shadow for all brightness! The angel soul is there, uninterruptedly there; if she departs, it is but to return again; she vanishes like a dream, and reappears like reality. One feels warmth approaching, and behold! she is there. One overflows with serenity, with gayety, with ecstasy; one is a radiance amid the night. And there are a thousand little cares. Nothings, which are enormous in that void. The most ineffable accents of the feminine voice employed to lull you, and supplying the vanished universe to you. One is caressed with the soul. One sees nothing, but one feels that one is adored. It is a paradise of shadows. ~ Victor Hugo,

826:They had shared much of their pasts, most of their fears, and all of their tenuous and fragile hopes, but Deborah had noticed over the years that whenever she mentioned her art, or something on which she was working, a subtle change would come over Carla. Her face would harden almost imperceptibly; her manner would edge toward coolness. Because it was a subtle emotion in a world of erratic oscillations of feeling, of violence, and of lies told by every sense of perception, Deborah had not noticed it in their sick times. But one day the world had cleared enough so that she realised that at any mention of her art, her friend drew back. In their new eagerness for experience and reality, the strange aloofness stood out clearly. [...] She had a dream. In the dream it was winter and night. The sky was thick blue-black and the stars were frozen in it, so that they glimmered. Over the clean white and windswept hills the shadows of snowdrifts drew long. She was walking on the crust of snow, watching the star-glimmer and the snow-glimmer and the cold tear-glimmer in her own eyes. A deep voice said to her, "You know, don't you, that the stars are sound as well as light?" She listened and heard a lullaby made by the voices of the stars, sounding so beautiful together that she began to cry with it. The voice said, "Look out there." She looked toward the horizon. "See, it is a sweep, a curve." Then the voice said, "This night is a curve of darkness and the space beyond it is a curve of human history, with every single life an arch from birth to death. The apex of all of these single curves determines the curve of history and, at last, of man." "I cannot show you yours," the voice said, "but I can show you Carla's. Dig here, deep in the snow. It is buried and frozen - Dig deep." Deborah pushed the snow aside with her hands. It was very cold, but she worked with a great intensity as if there were salvation in it. At last her hand struck something and she tore it up from burial. It was a piece of bone, thick and very strong and curved in a long, high, steady curve. "Is this Carla's life?" she asked. "Her creativity?" "It is bone-deep with her, though buried and frozen." The voice paused a moment and then said, "It's a fine one - a fine solid one!" [...] "Please don't be angry," she said, and then told Carla the dream. [...] She wiped her eyes. "It was only a dream, your dream..." "It's true anyway," Deborah said. "The one place I could never go..." Carla said musing, "...the one hunger I could never admit." When Deborah finished, Furii said, "You always took your art for granted, didn't you? I used to read in the ward reports all the time how you managed to do your drawing in spite of every sort of inconvenience and restriction. ~ Joanne Greenberg,

827:The Hanging Judge I am the Judge, the flower of the law, Bolstered in, privileged, all men’s awe; When I am pleased to display my wit The court is a-cackle with joy of it; When my liver is slightly out of order Woe to who crosses me—barrister, warder! How do I rule the obsequious gang? The secret is simple—I always hang! One plant in my legal garden grows: The mandrake’s shriek is the solace I chose; And I water my treasure whenever I can With the blood that drips from a gibbeted man. Justice? Fiddlesticks! Mercy? Fudge! I am the Judge! I am the Judge. I like to dine Before I charge: then, flushed with wine, I bully the jury into submission And rise to the height of judicial ambition. O how I thrill deliciously At the wretch in his anguish under me! I gather my brows in a terrible frown, The slow beads drop from his forehead down; I lower my voice, and my eyes I roll: “The Lord have mercy upon your soul!” He lifts his hands; but—“Sheriff!” I shout, And his knees give way as they drag him out. Into eternity he shall trudge. I am the Judge! I am the Judge. A Judge should be A pattern of humble piety. A week well spent brings Sabbath content: To church my steps are piously bent. When the holy man reads the holy book I grieve for the god, by gods forsook, So clumsily crucified: pity rises He was not a remanet to My assizes! But when at the door they stand aside To watch me pass, how I swell with pride To hear them say, “That’s Him all right! He hanged another one yesterday night! The jury cried mercy, he wouldn’t budge, He is the Judge!” I am the Judge. When at Michael’s trump The dead from their mouldering sepulchres jump, And the Great Judge sits on his jewelled throne To give each man the crop he has sown, Up I’ll come with my little lot Taut in the loop of a hangman’s knot! I will bring them trooping, trooping in With my quaint black halter-mark under each chin: “Sweet Lord! the fruit of my gallows tree; The images I have made of Thee!”… Lo, he doffs his robes and his golden crown; He kneels at my feet in obeisance down— “Make me your servant, usher, drudge: You are the Judge!” I shall be Judge. And O, ’t will be merry With Space one vast gaol cemetery! For I’ll choke the choir at their morning hymn And I’ll stifle the star-eyed seraphim: I will hang the gods, I will hang the devils, I’ll throttle the imps in the midst of their revels; And when remains of all Creation, But one alive from strangulation, To my own soul’s throat a garrote I’ll fit With a long drop into the bottomless Pit: I’ll leap from the dais exultingly, And while I smother in agony Of the whole hushed Universe I will swear I am the Executioner. ~ Alfred George Stephens,

828:Hello, Soldier! Back again 'n' nothin' missin' barrin' arf a hand, Where an Abdul bit me, chokin' in the Holy Land. 'Struth, they got some dirty fighters in the Moslem pack, Bull-nosed slugs their sneakin' snipers spat ters in yer back Blows a gapin' sort iv pit in What a helephant could sit in. Bounced their bullets, if yeh please, Like the 'oppers in a cheese, Off me rubber pelt in droves, Moppin' up the other coves. So here's me once more at large in Bay-street, Port, a bloomin' Sargin'. “Cri, it jumbo.” “Have a beer.” “Wot-o, Anzac; you're a dear.” Back once more on Moley's corner, loafin' like a dook; Back on Bourke, me livin' image, not a slinkin' spook; Solid ez the day I started, medals on me chest, Switchin' with me pert melacca, swankin' with the best Where the little wimmen's flowin', With their veils 'n' ribbons blowin'See their eyes of bloo 'n' brown Butterflyin' 'bout the town! Back at 'ome-oh, 'struth, it's good! Long, cold lagers from the wood, Ev'ry cobber jumpin' at you, Strangers duckin' in to bat you“Good ole Jumbo, how're you?” “'Ello, soldier, howja do?” Back at Grillo's where the nigger googs his 44 whitey eyes, Plucks his black ole greasy banjo while the cod-steak fries; Fish 'n' chips, a pint iv local, and the tidy girl Dancin' glad attendance on yeh 'zif yeh was an earl; Trailin' round the blazin' city, Feelin' all content 'n' pretty, Where the smart procession goes, Prinked 'n' polished to the shows, One among the happy drive'Sworth the world to be alive! Dames ez smilin' ez a mother, Ev'ry man ver fav'rit brother: “'Ello, Jumbo, how is it ?” “Arr there, soldier! Good 'n' fit?” Takin' hozone at St. Kilder's good enough for me, Seein' Summer and the star-blink simmer in the sea; Cantin' up me bloomin' cady, toyin' with a cig., Blowin' out me pout a little, chattin' wide 'n' big When there's skirt around to skite to. Say, 'oo has a better right to? Done me bit 'n' done it well, Got the tag iv plate to tell; Square Gallipoli surviver, With a touch iv Colonel's guyver. “Sargin' Jumbo, good ole son!” “Soldier, soldier, you're the one!” Back again, a wounded hero, moochin' up 'n' down, Feelin' 'sthough I'd got a fond arf-Nelson on the town; Never was so gay, so 'elp me, never felt so kind; Fresh from 'ell a paradise ain't very hard to 45 find. After filth, 'n' flies, 'n' slaughter Fat brown babies in the water, Singin' people on the sand Makes a boshter Happy Land! War what toughened hone 'n' hide Turned a feller soft inside! Great it is, the 'earty greetin's, Friendly digs, 'n' cheerful meetin's “'Ello, Jumbo, howja do?” “Soldier, soldier, how're you?” ~ Edward George Dyson,

829:St. Clair tucks the tips of his fingers into his pockets and kicks the cobblestones with the toe of his boots. "Well?" he finally asks. "Thank you." I'm stunned. "It was really sweet of you to bring me here." "Ah,well." He straightens up and shrugs-that full-bodied French shrug he does so well-and reassumes his usual, assured state of being. "Have to start somewhere. Now make a wish." "Huh?" I have such a way with words. I should write epic poetry or jingles for cat food commercials. He smiles. "Place your feet on the star, and make a wish." "Oh.Okay,sure." I slide my feet together so I'm standing in the center. "I wish-" "Don't say it aloud!" St. Clair rushes forward, as if to stop my words with his body,and my stomach flips violently. "Don't you know anything about making wishes? You only get a limited number in life. Falling stars, eyelashes,dandelions-" "Birthday candles." He ignores the dig. "Exactly. So you ought to take advantage of them when they arise,and superstition says if you make a wish on that star, it'll come true." He pauses before continuing. "Which is better than the other one I've heard." "That I'll die a painful death of poisoning, shooting,beating, and drowning?" "Hypothermia,not drowning." St. Clair laughs. He has a wonderful, boyish laugh. "But no. I've heard anyone who stands here is destined to return to Paris someday. And as I understand it,one year for you is one year to many. Am I right?" I close my eyes. Mom and Seany appear before me. Bridge.Toph.I nod. "All right,then.So keep your eyes closed.And make a wish." I take a deep breath. The cool dampness of the nearby trees fills my lungs. What do I want? It's a difficult quesiton. I want to go home,but I have to admit I've enjoyed tonight. And what if this is the only time in my entire life I visit Paris? I know I just told St. Clair that I don't want to be here, but there's a part of me-a teeny, tiny part-that's curious. If my father called tomorrow and ordered me home,I might be disappointed. I still haven't seen the Mona Lisa. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower.Walked beneath the Arc de Triomphe. So what else do I want? I want to feel Toph's lips again.I want him to wait.But there's another part of me,a part I really,really hate,that knows even if we do make it,I'd still move away for college next year.So I'd see him this Christmas and next summer,and then...would that be it? And then there's the other thing. The thing I'm trying to ignore. The thing I shouldn't want,the thing I can't have. And he's standing in front of me right now. So what do I wish for? Something I'm not sure I want? Someone I'm not sure I need? Or someone I know I can't have? Screw it.Let the fates decide. I wish for the thing that is best for me. How's that for a generalization? I open my eyes,and the wind is blowing harder. St. Clair pushes a strand of hair from his eyes. "Must have been a good one," he says. ~ Stephanie Perkins,

830:I My Soul , I summon to the winding ancient stair; Set all your mind upon the steep ascent, Upon the broken, crumbling battlement, Upon the breathless starlit air, "Upon the star that marks the hidden pole; Fix every wandering thought upon That quarter where all thought is done: Who can distinguish darkness from the soul My Self . The consecretes blade upon my knees Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was, Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass Unspotted by the centuries; That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn From some court-lady's dress and round The wodden scabbard bound and wound Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn My Soul . Why should the imagination of a man Long past his prime remember things that are Emblematical of love and war? Think of ancestral night that can, If but imagination scorn the earth And intellect is wandering To this and that and t'other thing, Deliver from the crime of death and birth. My self . Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it Five hundred years ago, about it lie Flowers from I know not what embroidery Heart's purple and all these I set For emblems of the day against the tower Emblematical of the night, And claim as by a soldier's right A charter to commit the crime once more. My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows And falls into the basin of the mind That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind, For intellect no longer knows I, Is from the I, Ought, or I knower from the I Known That is to say, ascends to Heaven; Only the dead can be forgiven; But when I think of that my tongue's a stone. II My Self . A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more? Endure that toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain Brought face to face with his own clumsiness; The finished man among his enemies? How in the name of Heaven can he escape That defiling and disfigured shape The mirror of malicious eyes Casts upon his eyes until at last He thinks that shape must be his shape? And what's the good of an escape If honour find him in the wintry blast? I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch, A blind man battering blind men; Or into that most fecund ditch of all, The folly that man does Or must suffer, if he woos A proud woman not kindred of his soul. I am content to follow to its source Every event in action or in thought; Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot! When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blest. ~ William Butler Yeats, A Dialogue Of Self And Soul ,

831:To the Fire-Fly of Jamaica, Seen in a Collection How art thou alter'd! since afar, Thou seem'dst a bright earth wandering star; When thy living lustre ran, Tall majestic trees between, And Guazume, or Swietan, Or the Pimento's glossy green, As caught their varnish'd leaves, thy glancing light Reflected flying fires, amid the moonless night. From shady heights, where currents spring, Where the ground dove dips her wing, Winds of night reviving blow, Thro' rustling fields of maize and cane, And wave the Coffee's fragrant bough; But winds of night, for thee in vain May breathe, of the Plumeria's luscious bloom, Or Granate's scarlet buds, or Plinia's mild perfume. The recent captive, who in vain, Attempts to break his heavy chain, And find his liberty in flight; Shall no more in terror hide, From thy strange and doubtful light, In the mountain's cavern'd side, Or gully deep, where gibbering monkies cling, And broods the giant bat, on dark funereal wing. Nor thee his darkling steps to aid, Thro' the forest's pathless shade, Shall the sighing Slave invoke; Who, his daily task perform'd, Would forget his heavy yoke; And by fond affections warm'd, Glide to some dear sequester'd spot, to prove, Friendship's consoling voice, or sympathising love. Now, when sinks the Sun away, And fades at once the sultry day, Thee, as falls the sudden night, 207 Never Naturalist shall view, Dart with corruscation bright, Down the cocoa avenue; Or see thee give, with transient gleams to glow, The green Banana's head, or Shaddock's loaded bough. Ah! never more shalt thou behold, The midnight Beauty, slow unfold Her golden zone, and thro' the gloom To thee her radiant leaves display, More lovely than the roseate bloom Of flowers, that drink the tropic day; And while thy dancing flames around her blaze, Shed odours more refin'd, and beam with brighter rays. The glass thy faded form contains, But of thy lamp no spark remains; That lamp, which through the palmy grove, Floated once with sapphire beam, As lucid as the star of Love, Reflected in the bickering stream; Transient and bright! so human meteors rise, And glare and sink, in pensive Reason 's eyes. Ye dazzling comets that appear In Fashion's rainbow atmosphere, Lightning and flashing for a day; Think ye, how fugitive your fame? How soon from her light scroll away, Is wafted your ephemeron name? Even tho' on canvas still your forms are shewn, Or the slow chisel shapes the pale resembling stone. Let vaunting O STENTATION trust The pencil's art, or marble bust, While long neglected modest worth Unmark'd, unhonor'd, and unknown, Obtains at length a little earth, Where kindred merit weeps alone; Yet there, tho' V ANITY no trophies rear, Is Friendship 's long regret, and true A FFECTION 's tear! 208 ~ Charlotte Smith,

832:The Winding Stair My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair; Set all your mind upon the steep ascent, Upon the broken, crumbling battlement, Upon the breathless starlit air, 'Upon the star that marks the hidden pole; Fix every wandering thought upon That quarter where all thought is done: Who can distinguish darkness from the soul My Self. The consecretes blade upon my knees Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was, Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass Unspotted by the centuries; That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn From some court-lady's dress and round The wodden scabbard bound and wound Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn My Soul. Why should the imagination of a man Long past his prime remember things that are Emblematical of love and war? Think of ancestral night that can, If but imagination scorn the earth And intellect is wandering To this and that and t'other thing, Deliver from the crime of death and birth. My Self. Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it Five hundred years ago, about it lie Flowers from I know not what embroidery - Heart's purple - and all these I set For emblems of the day against the tower Emblematical of the night, And claim as by a soldier's right A charter to commit the crime once more. My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows And falls into the basin of the mind That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind, For intellect no longer knows Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known - That is to say, ascends to Heaven; Only the dead can be forgiven; But when I think of that my tongue's a stone. II My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more? Endure that toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain Brought face to face with his own clumsiness; The finished man among his enemies? - How in the name of Heaven can he escape That defiling and disfigured shape The mirror of malicious eyes Casts upon his eyes until at last He thinks that shape must be his shape? And what's the good of an escape If honour find him in the wintry blast? I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch, A blind man battering blind men; Or into that most fecund ditch of all, The folly that man does Or must suffer, if he woos A proud woman not kindred of his soul. I am content to follow to its source Every event in action or in thought; Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot! When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blest ~ W B Yeats,

833:My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair; Set all your mind upon the steep ascent, Upon the broken, crumbling battlement, Upon the breathless starlit air, 'Upon the star that marks the hidden pole; Fix every wandering thought upon That quarter where all thought is done: Who can distinguish darkness from the soul My Self. The consecretes blade upon my knees Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was, Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass Unspotted by the centuries; That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn From some court-lady's dress and round The wodden scabbard bound and wound Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn My Soul. Why should the imagination of a man Long past his prime remember things that are Emblematical of love and war? Think of ancestral night that can, If but imagination scorn the earth And intellect is wandering To this and that and t'other thing, Deliver from the crime of death and birth. My Self. Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it Five hundred years ago, about it lie Flowers from I know not what embroidery - Heart's purple - and all these I set For emblems of the day against the tower Emblematical of the night, And claim as by a soldier's right A charter to commit the crime once more. My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows And falls into the basin of the mind That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind, For intellect no longer knows Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known - That is to say, ascends to Heaven; Only the dead can be forgiven; But when I think of that my tongue's a stone. II My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop. What matter if the ditches are impure? What matter if I live it all once more? Endure that toil of growing up; The ignominy of boyhood; the distress Of boyhood changing into man; The unfinished man and his pain Brought face to face with his own clumsiness; The finished man among his enemies? - How in the name of Heaven can he escape That defiling and disfigured shape The mirror of malicious eyes Casts upon his eyes until at last He thinks that shape must be his shape? And what's the good of an escape If honour find him in the wintry blast? I am content to live it all again And yet again, if it be life to pitch Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch, A blind man battering blind men; Or into that most fecund ditch of all, The folly that man does Or must suffer, if he woos A proud woman not kindred of his soul. I am content to follow to its source Every event in action or in thought; Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot! When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blest. ~ William Butler Yeats, The Winding Stair ,

834:Enniskillen Oh my heart beat high with joy elate, When Danny rode in the Hunters’ Plate On Enniskillen, the raking greyA mighty jumper, with power to stay! Velvet muzzled, with eye of fire, Clean-legged, slant –shouldered, and tough as wire, Oh, the joy that can fill a colleen’s breast, When her man and horse are dong their best! The summer skies were without a cloud O’er the heads of the frantic, cheering crowd, As he led the field right into the straight, And his eyes met mine, at the five-barred gate. Then they thundered by, like a roaring flood, And oh, good luck to the Irish blood! The Irish blood that in horse or man Has never ‘caved in’ since the world began. He took the last leap, like a bird in the air, Clearing the hurdle, straight and fair, And Enniskillen won! We’d been married for one long blissful year Of hope and struggle, of joy and fear; Our hearts were young, and our hopes were high, And the star of love shone bright in our sky. And I felt like a queen as I hushed to rest The little bright head that lay on my breast; But the air was stifling close and strange With a scent of smoke from the burning range, And I prayed for Danny, riding away On a cattle hunt, on the gallant grey— The smoke came down like a cloud of night, And ranges and trees were blotted from sight, When Enniskillen came galloping home, His grey coat mottled and flecked with foam, And Danny’s face was rigid and white, “Come Sweetheart, we ride for our lives to-night; Wrap this cloak around you, hold Baby fast, And pray, till the danger be overpassed, For the wind has arisen with whirling force, 17 And our lives depend on the dear, grey horse. And on God’s good mercy.” – A streak of light, Enniskillen went racing into the night The dim stars peered from a reeling sky, And wild bush creatures came rushing by; As crash on crash the timber fell, And the burning wind was a blast of hell. But Danny held me with steady arm, And the Babe, between us, slept safe from harm. We were nearly through, and the battle won, When Danny drew rein with “Ah God! – We’re done!” For before us the flames met roaring wide, Though safety lay on the other side, One moment, a tremble, the grey horse stood, Then oh, thank God for the Irish blood, The Irish blood that in horse and man Has never ‘ caved in’ since the world began! With a snort of defiance to smoke and flame, Through the raging furnace the grey horse came, Though laboured sobs shook his trembling side, And falling cinders scorched his hide, And Enniskillen won! The grass is waving on hill and plain, And peace and plenty are here again; Our little home rebuilt once more, And the lean struggling year are o’er. There’s a paddock green on the river flat, Where a dear grey horse roams strong ans fat, Though on his back the scars still show, Deep scars where never a hair can grow. But still he holds his head with pride, And treads the earth with a kingly stride, Proud of his Irish blood! ~ Alice Guerin Crist,

835:A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune (I think such hearts yet never came to good) Hated to hear, under the stars or moon, One nightingale in an interfluous wood Satiate the hungry dark with melody;-- And as a vale is watered by a flood, Or as the moonlight fills the open sky Struggling with darknessas a tuberose Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie Like clouds above the flower from which they rose, The singing of that happy nightingale In this sweet forest, from the golden close Of evening till the star of dawn may fail, Was interfused upon the silentness; The folded roses and the violets pale Heard her within their slumbers, the abyss Of heaven with all its planets; the dull ear Of the night-cradled earth; the loneliness Of the circumfluous waters,every sphere And every flower and beam and cloud and wave, And every wind of the mute atmosphere, And every beast stretched in its rugged cave, And every bird lulled on its mossy bough, And every silver moth fresh from the grave Which is its cradleever from below Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far, To be consumed within the purest glow Of one serene and unapproached star, As if it were a lamp of earthly light, Unconscious, as some human lovers are, Itself how low, how high beyond all height The heaven where it would perish!and every form That worshipped in the temple of the night Was awed into delight, and by the charm Girt as with an interminable zone, Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion Out of their dreams; harmony became love In every soul but one. ... And so this man returned with axe and saw At evening close from killing the tall treen, The soul of whom by Natures gentle law Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green The pavement and the roof of the wild copse, Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene With jagged leaves,and from the forest tops Singing the winds to sleepor weeping oft Fast showers of aereal water-drops Into their mothers bosom, sweet and soft, Natures pure tears which have no bitterness;-- Around the cradles of the birds aloft They spread themselves into the loveliness Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers Hang like moist clouds:or, where high branches kiss, Make a green space among the silent bowers, Like a vast fane in a metropolis, Surrounded by the columns and the towers All overwrought with branch-like traceries In which there is religionand the mute Persuasion of unkindled melodies, Odours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute, Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has passed To such brief unison as on the brain One tone, which never can recur, has cast, One accent never to return again. ... The world is full of Woodmen who expel Loves gentle Dryads from the haunts of life, And vex the nightingales in every dell. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Woodman And The Nightingale ,

836:The Last Giustianini O WIFE, wife, wife! As if the sacred name Could weary one with saying! Once again Laying against my brow your lips' soft flame, Join with me, Sweetest, in love's new refrain, Since the whole music of my late-found life Is that we call each other 'husband -- wife.' And yet, stand back, and let your cloth of gold Straighten its sumptuous lines from waist to knee, And, flowing firmly outward, fold on fold, Invest your slim young form with majesty As when, in those calm bridal robes arrayed, You stood beside me, and I was afraid. I was afraid -- O sweetness, whiteness, youth, Best gift of God, I feared you! I, indeed, For whom all womanhood has been, forsooth, Summed up in the sole Virgin of the Creed, I thought that day our Lady's self stood there And bound herself to me with vow and prayer. Ah, yes, that day. I sat, remember well, Half-crook'd above a missal, and laid in The gold-leaf slowly; silence in my cell; The picture, Satan tempting Christ to sin Upon the mount's blue, pointed pinnacle, The world outspread beneath as fair as hell -When suddenly they summoned me. I stood Abashed before the Abbot, who reclined Full-bellied in his chair beneath the rood, And roseate with having lately dined; And then -- I standing there abashed -- he said: 'The house of Giustiniani all lie dead.' It scarcely seemed to touch me (I had led A grated life so long) that oversea My kinsmen in their knighthood should lie dead, Nor that this sudden death should set me free, 71 Me, the last Giustiniani -- well, what then? A monk! -- The Giustiniani had been men. So when the Abbot said: 'The state decrees That you, the latest scion of the house Which died in vain for Venice overseas, Should be exempted from your sacred vows, And straightway, when you leave this cloistered place, Take wife, and add new honors to the race,' I hardly heard him -- would have crept again To the warped missal -- but he snatched a sword And girded me, and all the heart of men Rushed through me, as he laughed and hailed me lord, And, with my hand upon the hilt, I cried, 'Viva San Marco!' like my kin who died. But, straightway, when, a new-made knight, I stood Beneath the bridal arch, and saw you come, A certain monkish warping of the blood Ran up and struck the man's heart in me dumb; I breathed an Ave to our Lady's grace, And did not dare to look upon your face. And when we swept the waters side by side, With timbrelled gladness clashing on the air, I trembled at your image in the tide, And warded off the devil with a prayer, Still seeming in a golden dream to move Through fiendish labyrinths of forbidden love. But when they left us, and we stood alone, I, the last Giustiniani, face to face With your unvisioned beauty, made my own In this, the last strange bridal of our race, And, looking up at last to meet your eyes, Saw in their depths the star of love arise, Ah, then the monk's garb shrivelled from my heart, And left me man to face your womanhood. Without a prayer to keep our lips apart I turned about and kissed you where you stood, 72 And gathering all the gladness of my life Into a new-found word, I called you 'wife!' ~ Edith Wharton,

837:The goblet is sparkling with purpled-tinged wine, Bright glistens the eye of each guest, When into the hall comes the Minstrel divine, To the good he now brings what is best; For when from Elysium is absent the lyre, No joy can the banquet of nectar inspire. He is blessed by the gods, with an intellect clear, That mirrors the world as it glides; He has seen all that ever has taken place here, And all that the future still hides. He sat in the god's secret councils of old And heard the command for each thing to unfold. He opens in splendor, with gladness and mirth, That life which was hid from our eyes; Adorns as a temple the dwelling of earth, That the Muse has bestowed as his prize, No roof is so humble, no hut is so low, But he with divinities bids it o'erflow. And as the inventive descendant of Zeus, On the unadorned round of the shield, With knowledge divine could, reflected, produce Earth, sea, and the star's shining field, So he, on the moments, as onward they roll, The image can stamp of the infinite whole. From the earliest age of the world he has come, When nations rejoiced in their prime; A wanderer glad, he has still found a home With every race through all time. Four ages of man in his lifetime have died, And the place they once held by the fifth is supplied. Saturnus first governed, with fatherly smile, Each day then resembled the last; Then flourished the shepherds, a race without guile Their bliss by no care was o'ercast, They loved,and no other employment they had, And earth gave her treasures with willingness glad. Then labor came next, and the conflict began With monsters and beasts famed in song; And heroes upstarted, as rulers of man, And the weak sought the aid of the strong. And strife o'er the field of Scamander now reigned, But beauty the god of the world still remained. At length from the conflict bright victory sprang, And gentleness blossomed from might; In heavenly chorus the Muses then sang, And figures divine saw the light; The age that acknowledged sweet phantasy's sway Can never return, it has fleeted away. The gods from their seats in the heavens were hurled, And their pillars of glory o'erthrown; And the Son of the Virgin appeared in the world For the sins of mankind to atone. The fugitive lusts of the sense were suppressed, And man now first grappled with thought in his breast. Each vain and voluptuous charm vanished now, Wherein the young world took delight; The monk and the nun made of penance a vow, And the tourney was sought by the knight. Though the aspect of life was now dreary and wild, Yet love remained ever both lovely and mild. An altar of holiness, free from all stain, The Muses in silence upreared; And all that was noble and worthy, again In woman's chaste bosom appeared; The bright flame of song was soon kindled anew By the minstrel's soft lays, and his love pure and true. And so, in a gentle and ne'er-changing band, Let woman and minstrel unite; They weave and they fashion, with hand joined to hand, The girdle of beauty and right. When love blends with music, in unison sweet, The lustre of life's youthful days ne'er can fleet. ~ Friedrich Schiller, The Four Ages Of The World ,

838:Her Last Letter Sitting alone by the window, Watching the moonlit street, Bending my head to listen To the well-known sound of your feet, I have been wondering, darling, How I can bear the pain, When I watch, with sighs and tear-wet eyes; And wait for your coming in vain. For I know that a day approaches When your heart will tire of me; When by door and gate I may watch and wait For a form I shall not see. When the love that is now my heaven, The kisses that make my life, You will bestow on another, And that other will be-your wife. You will grow weary of sinning (Though you do not call it so), You will long for a love that is purer Than the love that we two know. God knows I have loved you dearly, With a passion strong as true; But you will grow tired and leave me, Though I gave up all for you. I was as pure as the morning When I first looked on your face; I knew I never could reach you In your high, exalted place. But I looked and loved and worshiped As a flower might worship a star, And your eyes shone down upon me, And you seemed so far-so far. 286 And then? Well, then, you loved me, Loved me with all your heart; But we could not stand at the altar, We were so far apart. If a star should wed with a flower The star must drop from the sky, Or the flower in trying to reach it Would droop on its stalk and die. But you said that you loved me, darling, And swore by the heavens above That the Lord and all of His angels Would sanction and bless our love. And I? I was weak, not wicked. My love was as pure as true, And sin itself seemed a virtue If only shared by you. We have been happy together, Though under the cloud of sin, But I know that the day approaches When my chastening must begin. You have been faithful and tender, But you will not always be, And I think I had better leave you While your thoughts are kind of me. I know my beauty is fadingSin furrows the fairest browAnd I know that your heart will weary Of the face you smile on now. You will take a bride to your bosom After you turn from me; You will sit with your wife in the moonlight, And hold her babe on your knee. Oh, God! I never could bear it; 287 It would madden my brain, I know; And so while you love me dearly I think I had better go. It is sweeter to feel, my darlingTo know as I fall asleepThat some one will mourn me and miss me, That some one is left to weep, Than to die as I should in the future, To drop in the street some day, Unknown, unwept and forgotten After you cast me away. Perhaps the blood of the Saviour Can wash my garments clean; Perchance I may drink of the waters That flow through pastures green. Perchance we may meet in heaven, And walk in the streets above, With nothing to grieve us or part us Since our sinning was all through love. God says, 'Love one another,' And down to the depths of hell Will he send the soul of a women Because she loved-and fell? And so in the moonlight he found her, Or found her beautiful clay, Lifeless and pallid as marble, For the spirit had flown away. The farewell words she had written She held to her cold, white breast, And the buried blade of a dagger Told how she had gone to rest. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

839:Woman And The Weed (FOUNDED ON A NEW ZEALAND MYTH.) In the Morning of Time, when his fortunes began, How bleak, how un-Greek, was the Nature of Man! From his wigwam, if ever he ventured to roam, There was nobody waiting to welcome him home; For the Man had been made, but the woman had NOT, And Earth was a highly detestable spot. Man hated his neighbours; they met and they scowled, They did not converse but they struggled and howled, For Man had no tact--he would ne'er take a hint, And his notions he backed with a hatchet of flint. So Man was alone, and he wished he could see On the Earth some one like him, but fairer than he, With locks like the red gold, a smile like the sun, To welcome him back when his hunting was done. And he sighed for a voice that should answer him still, Like the affable Echo he heard on the hill: That should answer him softly and always agree, AND OH, Man reflected, HOW NICE IT WOULD BE! So he prayed to the Gods, and they stooped to his prayer, And they spoke to the Sun on his way through the air, And he married the Echo one fortunate morn, And Woman, their beautiful daughter, was born! The daughter of Sunshine and Echo she came With a voice like a song, with a face like a flame; With a face like a flame, and a voice like a song, And happy was Man, but it was not for long! For weather's a painfully changeable thing, Not always the child of the Echo would sing; And the face of the Sun may be hidden with mist, And his child can be terribly cross if she list. And unfortunate Man had to learn with surprise That a frown's not peculiar to masculine eyes; That the sweetest of voices can scold and can sneer, And cannot be answered--like men--with a spear. 254 So Man went and called to the Gods in his woe, And they answered him--'Sir, you would needs have it so: And the thing must go on as the thing has begun, She's immortal--your child of the Echo and Sun. But we'll send you another, and fairer is she, This maiden with locks that are flowing and free. This maiden so gentle, so kind, and so fair, With a flower like a star in the night of her hair. With her eyes like the smoke that is misty and blue, With her heart that is heavenly, and tender, and true. She will die in the night, but no need you should mourn, You shall bury her body and thence shall be born A weed that is green, that is fragrant and fair, With a flower like the star in the night of her hair. And the leaves must ye burn till they offer to you Soft smoke, like her eyes that are misty and blue. 'And the smoke shall ye breathe and no more shall ye fret, But the child of the Echo and Sun shall forget: Shall forget all the trouble and torment she brings, Shall bethink ye of none but delectable things; And the sound of the wars with your brethren shall cease, While ye smoke by the camp-fire the great pipe of peace.' So the last state of Man was by no means the worst, The second gift softened the sting of the first. Nor the child of the Echo and Sun doth he heed When he dreams with the Maid that was changed to the weed; Though the Echo be silent, the Sun in a mist, The Maid is the fairest that ever was kissed. And when tempests are over and ended the rain, And the child of the Sunshine is sunny again, He comes back, glad at heart, and again is at one With the changeable child of the Echo and Sun. ~ Andrew Lang,

840:To -- -- --. Ulalume: A Ballad The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crisped and sereThe leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of WeirIt was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. Here once, through an alley Titanic, Of cypress, I roamed with my SoulOf cypress, with Psyche, my Soul. There were days when my heart was volcanic As the scoriac rivers that rollAs the lavas that restlessly roll Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek In the ultimate climes of the poleThat groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek In the realms of the boreal pole. Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sereOur memories were treacherous and sereFor we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year(Ah, night of all nights in the year!) We noted not the dim lake of Auber(Though once we had journeyed down here), Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. And now, as the night was senescent, And star-dials pointed to mornAs the star-dials hinted of mornAt the end of our path a liquescent And nebulous lustre was born, Out of which a miraculous crescent Arose with a duplicate horn- 105 Astarte's bediamonded crescent Distinct with its duplicate horn. And I said- 'She is warmer than Dian: She rolls through an ether of sighsShe revels in a region of sighs: She has seen that the tears are not dry on These cheeks, where the worm never dies, And has come past the stars of the Lion, To point us the path to the skiesTo the Lethean peace of the skiesCome up, in despite of the Lion, To shine on us with her bright eyesCome up through the lair of the Lion, With love in her luminous eyes.' But Psyche, uplifting her finger, Said- 'Sadly this star I mistrustHer pallor I strangely mistrust:Oh, hasten!- oh, let us not linger! Oh, fly!- let us fly!- for we must.' In terror she spoke, letting sink her Wings until they trailed in the dustIn agony sobbed, letting sink her Plumes till they trailed in the dustTill they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. I replied- 'This is nothing but dreaming: Let us on by this tremulous light! Let us bathe in this crystalline light! Its Sybilic splendor is beaming With Hope and in Beauty to-night:See!- it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us arightWe safely may trust to a gleaming That cannot but guide us aright, Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night.' Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloomAnd conquered her scruples and gloom; 106 And we passed to the end of the vista, But were stopped by the door of a tombBy the door of a legended tomb; And I said- 'What is written, sweet sister, On the door of this legended tomb?' She replied- 'Ulalume- Ulalume'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!' Then my heart it grew ashen and sober As the leaves that were crisped and sereAs the leaves that were withering and sereAnd I cried- 'It was surely October On this very night of last year That I journeyed- I journeyed down hereThat I brought a dread burden down hereOn this night of all nights in the year, Ah, what demon has tempted me here? Well I know, now, this dim lake of AuberThis misty mid region of WeirWell I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber, This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.' ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

841:Cathair Fhargus (FERGUS'S SEAT.) A mountain in the Island of Arran, the summit of which resembles a gigantic human profile. WITH face turned upward to the changeful sky, I, Fergus, lie, supine in frozen rest; The maiden morning clouds slip rosily Unclasped, unclasping, down my granite breast; The lightning strikes my brow and passes by. There's nothing new beneath the sun, I wot: I, 'Fergus' called,--the great pre-Adamite, Who for my mortal body blindly sought Rash immortality, and on this height Stone-bound, forever am and yet am not,-There's nothing new beneath the sun, I say. Ye pigmies of a later race, who come And play out your brief generation's play Below me, know, I too spent my life's sum, And revelled through my short tumultuous day. O, what is man that he should mouth so grand Through his poor thousand as his seventy years? Whether as king I ruled a trembling land, Or swayed by tongue or pen my meaner peers, Or earth's whole learning once did understand,-What matter? The star-angels know it all. They who came sweeping through the silent night And stood before me, yet did not appal: Till, fighting 'gainst me in their courses bright,* Celestial smote terrestrial.--Hence, my fall. Hence, Heaven cursed me with a granted prayer; Made my hill-seat eternal: bade me keep My pageant of majestic lone despair, While one by one into the infinite deep Sank kindred, realm, throne, world: yet I lay there. 69 There still I lie. Where are my glories fled? My wisdom that I boasted as divine? My grand primeval women fair, who shed Their whole life's joy to crown one hour of mine, And live to curse the love they coveted? ___________________ 'The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.' Gone--gone. Uncounted æons have rolled by, And still my ghost sits by its corpse of stone, And still the blue smile of the new-formed sky Finds me unchanged. Slow centuries crawling on Bring myriads happy death:--I cannot die. My stone shape mocks the dead man's peaceful face, And straightened arm that will not labor more; And yet I yearn for a mean six-foot space To moulder in, with daisies growing o'er, Rather than this unearthly resting-place;-Where pinnacled, my silent effigy Against the sunset rising clear and cold, Startles the musing mstranger sailing by, And calls up thoughts that never can be told, Of life, and death, and immortality. While I?--I watch this after world that creeps Nearer and nearer to the feet of God: Ay, though it labors, struggles, sins, and weeps, Yet, love-drawn, follows ever Him who trod Through dim Gethsemane to Cavalry's steeps. O glorious shame! O royal servitude! High lowliness, and ignorance all-wise! Pure life with death, and death with life imbued;-My centuried splendors crumble 'neath Thine eyes, Thou Holy One who died upon the Rood! Therefore, face upward to the Christian heaven, I, Fergus, lie: expectant, humble, calm; 70 Dumb emblem of the faith to me not given; The clouds drop chrism, the stars their midnight psalm Chant over one, who passed away unshriven. 'I am the Resurrection and the Life.', So from yon mountain graveyard cries the dust Of child to parent, husband unto wife, Consoling, and believing in the Just:-Christ lives, though all the universe died in strife. Therefore my granite lips forever pray, 'O rains, wash out my sin of self abhorred: O sun, melt thou my heart of stone away, Out of Thy plenteous mercy save me, Lord.' And thus I wait till Resurrection-day. ~ Dinah Maria Mulock Craik,

842:Ulalume The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crisped and sere The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. Here once, through an alley Titanic, Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul. These were days when my heart was volcanic As the scoriac rivers that roll As the lavas that restlessly roll Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek In the ultimate climes of the pole That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek In the realms of the boreal pole. Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere Our memories were treacherous and sere, For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year (Ah, night of all nights in the year!) We noted not the dim lake of Auber (Though once we had journey down here), Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. And now, as the night was senescent, And star-dials pointed to morn As the star-dials hinted of morn At the end of our path a liquescent And nebulous lustre was born, Out of which a miraculous crescent Arose with a duplicate horn - 122 Astarte's bediamonded crescent Distinct with its duplicate horn. And I said - "She is warmer than Dian: She rolls through an ether of sighs She revels in a region of sighs: She has seen that the tears are not dry on These cheeks, where the worm never dies, And has come past the stars of the Lion To point us the path to the skies To the Lethean peace of the skies Come up, in despite of the Lion, To shine on us with her bright eyes Come up through the lair of the Lion, With love in her luminous eyes." But Psyche, uplifting her finger, Said - "Sadly this star I mistrust Her pallor I strangely mistrust: Oh, hasten! - oh, let us not linger! Oh, fly! - let us fly! - for we must." In terror she spoke, letting sink her Wings until they trailed in the dust In agony sobbed, letting sink her Plumes till they trailed in the dust Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. I replied - "This is nothing but dreaming: Let us on by this tremulous light! Let us bathe in this crystalline light! Its Sybilic splendor is beaming With Hope and in Beauty to-night! See! - it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us aright We safely may trust to a gleaming, That cannot but guide us aright, Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night." Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloom And conquered her scruples and gloom; 123 And we passed to the end of the vista, But were stopped by the door of a tomb By the door of a legended tomb; And I said - "What is written, sweet sister, On the door of this legended tomb?" She replied - "Ulalume - Ulalume ‘Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!" Then my heart it grew ashen and sober As the leaves that were crisped and sere As the leaves that were withering and sere, And I cried - "It was surely October On this very night of last year That I journeyed - I journeyed down here That I brought a dread burden down here! On this night of all nights in the year, Ah, what demon has tempted me here? Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber This misty mid region of Weir Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber, This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir." ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

843:Senlin: His Cloudy Destiny Senlin sat before us and we heard him. He smoked his pipe before us and we saw him. Was he small, with reddish hair, Did he light his pipe with a meditative stare And a twinkling flame reflected in blue eyes? 'I am alone': said Senlin; 'in a forest of leaves The single leaf that creeps and falls. The single blade of grass in a desert of grass That none foresaw and none recalls. The single shell that a green wave shatters In tiny specks of whiteness on brown sands . . . How shall you understand me with your hearts, Who cannot reach me with your hands? . . .' The city dissolves about us, and its walls Are the sands beside a sea. We plunge in a chaos of dunes, white waves before us Crash on kelp tumultuously, Gulls wheel over foam, the clouds blow tattered, The sun is swallowed . . . Has Senlin become a shore? Is Senlin a grain of sand beneath our footsteps, A speck of shell upon which waves will roar? . . . Senlin! we cry . . . Senlin! again . . . no answer, Only the crash of sea on a shell-white shore. Yet, we would say, this is no shore at all, But a small bright room with lamplight on the wall; And the familiar chair Where Senlin sat, with lamplight on his hair. Senlin, alone before us, played a music. Was it himself he played? . . . We sat and listened, Perplexed and pleased and tired. 'Listen!' he said, 'and you will learn a secret-Though it is not the secret you desired. 115 I have not found a meaning that will praise you! Out of the heart of silence comes this music, Quietly speaks and dies. Look! there is one white star above black houses! And a tiny man who climbs toward the skies! Where does he walk to? What does he leave behind him? What was his foolish name? What did he stop to say, before he left you As simply as he came? "Death?" did it sound like, "love and god, and laughter, Sunlight, and work, and pain . . .?" No--it appears to me that these were symbols Of simple truths he found no way to explain. He spoke, but found you could not understand him-You were alone, and he was alone. "He sought to touch you, and found he could not reach you,-He sought to understand you, and could not hear you. And so this music, which I play before you,-Does it mean only what it seems to mean? Or is it a dance of foolish waves in sunlight Above a desperate depth of things unseen? Listen! Do you not hear the singing voices Out of the darkness of this sea? But no: you cannot hear them; for if you heard them You would have heard and captured me. Yet I am here, talking of laughter. Laughter and love and work and god; As I shall talk of these same things hereafter In wave and sod. Walk on a hill and call me: "Senlin! . . . Senlin! . . ." Will I not answer you as clearly as now? Listen to rain, and you will hear me speaking. Look for my heart in the breaking of a bough . . .' Senlin stood before us in the sunlight, And laughed, and walked away. Did no one see him leaving the doors of the city, Looking behind him, as if he wished to stay? Has no one, in the forests of the evening, 116 Heard the sad horn of Senlin slowly blown? For somewhere, in the worlds-in-worlds about us, He changes still, unfriended and alone. Is he the star on which we walk at daybreak, The light that blinds our eyes? 'Senlin!' we cry. 'Senlin!' again . . . no answer: Only the soulless brilliance of blue skies. Yet we would say, this was no man at all, But a dream we dreamed, and vividly recall; And we are mad to walk in wind and rain Hoping to find, somewhere, that dream again. ~ Conrad Potter Aiken,

844:Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal, Offspring of Elysium, Mad with rapture, to the portal Of thy holy fame we come! Fashion's laws, indeed, may sever, But thy magic joins again; All mankind are brethren ever 'Neath thy mild and gentle reign. CHORUS Welcome, all ye myriad creatures! Brethren, take the kiss of love! Yes, the starry realms above Hide a Father's smiling features! He, that noble prize possessing He that boasts a friend that's true, He whom woman's love is blessing, Let him join the chorus too! Aye, and he who but one spirit On this earth can call his own! He who no such bliss can merit, Let him mourn his fate alone! CHORUS All who Nature's tribes are swelling Homage pay to sympathy; For she guides us up on high, Where the unknown has his dwelling. From the breasts of kindly Nature All of joy imbibe the dew; Good and bad alike, each creature Would her roseate path pursue. 'Tis through her the wine-cup maddens, Love and friends to man she gives! Bliss the meanest reptile gladdens, Near God's throne the cherub lives! CHORUS Bow before him, all creation! Mortals, own the God of love! Seek him high the stars above, Yonder is his habitation! Joy, in Nature's wide dominion, Mightiest cause of all is found; And 'tis joy that moves the pinion, When the wheel of time goes round; From the bud she lures the flower Suns from out their orbs of light; Distant spheres obey her power, Far beyond all mortal sight. CHORUS As through heaven's expanse so glorious In their orbits suns roll on, Brethren, thus your proud race run, Glad as warriors all-victorious! Joy from truth's own glass of fire Sweetly on the searcher smiles; Lest on virtue's steeps he tire, Joy the tedious path beguiles. High on faith's bright hill before us, See her banner proudly wave! Joy, too, swells the angels' chorus, Bursts the bondage of the grave! CHORUS Mortals, meekly wait for heaven Suffer on in patient love! In the starry realms above, Bright rewards by God are given. To the Gods we ne'er can render Praise for every good they grant; Let us, with devotion tender, Minister to grief and want. Quenched be hate and wrath forever, Pardoned be our mortal foe May our tears upbraid him never, No repentance bring him low! CHORUS Sense of wrongs forget to treasure Brethren, live in perfect love! In the starry realms above, God will mete as we may measure. Joy within the goblet flushes, For the golden nectar, wine, Every fierce emotion hushes, Fills the breast with fire divine. Brethren, thus in rapture meeting, Send ye round the brimming cup, Yonder kindly spirit greeting, While the foam to heaven mounts up! CHORUS He whom seraphs worship ever; Whom the stars praise as they roll, Yes to him now drain the bowl Mortal eye can see him never! Courage, ne'er by sorrow broken! Aid where tears of virtue flow; Faith to keep each promise spoken! Truth alike to friend and foe! 'Neath kings' frowns a manly spirit! Brethren, noble is the prize Honor due to every merit! Death to all the brood of lies! CHORUS Draw the sacred circle closer! By this bright wine plight your troth To be faithful to your oath! Swear it by the Star-Disposer! Safety from the tyrant's power! Mercy e'en to traitors base! Hope in death's last solemn hour! Pardon when before His face! Lo, the dead shall rise to heaven! Brethren hail the blest decree; Every sin shall be forgiven, Hell forever cease to be! CHORUS When the golden bowl is broken, Gentle sleep within the tomb! Brethren, may a gracious doom By the Judge of man be spoken! ~ Friedrich Schiller, Hymn To Joy ,

845:The Three Kings WHEN the star in the East was lit to shine The three kings journeyed to Palestine; They came from the uttermost parts of earth With long trains laden with gifts of worth. The first king rode on a camel's back, He came from the land where the kings are black, Bringing treasures desired of kings, Rubies and ivory and precious things. An elephant carried the second king, He came from the land of the sun-rising, And gems and gold and spices he bare With broidered raiment for kings to wear. The third king came without steed or train From the misty land where the white kings reign. He bore no gifts save the myrrh in his hand, For he came on foot from a far-off land. Now when they had travelled a-many days Through tangled forests and desert ways, By angry seas and by paths thorn-set On Christmas Vigil the three kings met. And over their meeting a shrouded sky Made dark the star they had travelled by. Then the first king spake and he frowned and said: 'By some ill spell have our feet been led, 'Now I see in the darkness the fools we are To follow the light of a lying star. 400 'Let us fool no more, but like kings and men Each get him home to his land again!' Then the second king with the weary face, Gold-tinct as the sun of his reigning place, Lifted sad eyes to the clouds and said, 'It was but a dream and the dream is sped. 'We dreamed of a star that rose new and fair, But it sets in the night of the old despair. 'Yet night is faithful though stars betray, It will lead to our kingdoms far away.' Then spake the king who had fared alone From the far-off kingdom, the white-hung throne: 'O brothers, brothers, so very far Ye have followed the light of the radiant star, 'And because for a while ye see it not Shall its faithful shining be all forgot? 'On the spirit's pathway the light still lies Though the star be hid from our longing eyes. 'To-morrow our star will be bright once more The little pin-hole in heaven's floor-'The Angels pricked it to let it bring Our feet to the throne of the new-born King!' And the first king heard and the second heard And their hearts grew humble before the third. And they laid them down beside bale and beast and their sleeping eyes saw light in the East. For the Angels fanned them with starry wings And the waft of visions of unseen things. 401 And the next gold day waned trembling and white And the star was born of the waxing night. And the three kings came where the Great King lay, A little baby among the hay, The ox and the ass were standing near And Mary Mother beside her Dear. Then low in the litter the kings bowed down, They gave Him gold for a kingly crown, And frankincense for a great God's breath and Myrrh to sweeten the day of death. The Maiden Mother she stood and smiled And she took from the manger her little child. On the dark king's head she laid His hand And anger died at that dear command. She laid His hand on the gold king's head And despair itself was comforted. But when the pale king knelt in the stall She heard on the straw his tears down fall. And she stooped where he knelt beside her feet And laid on his bosom her baby sweet. And the king in the holy stable-place Felt the little lips through the tears on his face. ******* Christ! lay Thy hand on the angry king Who reigns in my breast to my undoing, And lay thy hands on the king who lays The spell of sadness on all my days, And give the white king my soul, Thy soul, 402 Of these other kings the high control. That soul and spirit and sense may meet In adoration before Thy feet! Now Glory to God the Father Most High, And the Star, the Spirit, He leads us by. And to God's dear Son, the Babe who was born And laid in the manger on Christmas morn! ~ Edith Nesbit,

846:Invocation Goddess of Liberty! O thou Whose tearless eyes behold the chain, And look unmoved upon the slain, Eternal peace upon thy brow,- Before thy shrine the races press, Thy perfect favor to imploreThe proudest tyrant asks no more, The ironed anarchist no less. Thine altar-coals that touch the lips Of prophets kindle, too, the brand By Discord flung with wanton hand Among the houses and the ships. Upon thy tranquil front the star Burns bleak and passionless and white, Its cold inclemency of light More dreadful than the shadows are. Thy name we do not here invoke Our civic rites to sanctify: Enthroned in thy remoter sky, Thou heedest not our broken yoke. Thou carest not for such as we: Our millions die to serve the still And secret purpose of thy will. They perish-what is that to thee? The light that fills the patriot's tomb Is not of thee. The shining crown Compassionately offered down 317 To those who falter in the gloom, And fall, and call upon thy name, And die desiring-'tis the sign Of a diviner love than thine, Rewarding with a richer fame. To him alone let freemen cry Who hears alike the victor's shout, The song of faith, the moan of doubt, And bends him from his nearer sky. God of my country and my race! So greater than the gods of oldSo fairer than the prophets told Who dimly saw and feared thy face,- Who didst but half reveal thy will And gracious ends to their desire, Behind the dawn's advancing fire Thy tender day-beam veiling still,- To whom the unceasing suns belong, And cause is one with consequence,To whose divine, inclusive sense The moan is blended with the song,- Whose laws, imperfect and unjust, Thy just and perfect purpose serve: The needle, howsoe'er it swerve, Still warranting the sailor's trust,- God, lift thy hand and make us free To crown the work thou hast designed. O, strike away the chains that bind 318 Our souls to one idolatry! The liberty thy love hath given We thank thee for. We thank thee for Our great dead fathers' holy war Wherein our manacles were riven. We thank thee for the stronger stroke Ourselves delivered and incurred When-thine incitement half unheardThe chains we riveted we broke. We thank thee that beyond the sea Thy people, growing ever wise, Turn to the west their serious eyes And dumbly strive to be as we. As when the sun's returning flame Upon the Nileside statue shone, And struck from the enchanted stone The music of a mighty fame, Let Man salute the rising day Of Liberty, but not adore. 'Tis Opportunity-no moreA useful, not a sacred, ray. It bringeth good, it bringeth ill, As he possessing shall elect. He maketh it of none effect Who walketh not within thy will. Give thou more or less, as we Shall serve the right or serve the wrong. Confirm our freedom but so long 319 As we are worthy to be free. But when (O, distant be the time!) Majorities in passion draw Insurgent swords to murder Law, And all the land is red with crime; Or-nearer menace!-when the band Of feeble spirits cringe and plead To the gigantic strength of Greed, And fawn upon his iron hand;- Nay, when the steps to state are worn In hollows by the feet of thieves, And Mammon sits among the sheaves And chuckles while the reapers mourn: Then stay thy miracle!-replace The broken throne, repair the chain, Restore the interrupted reign And veil again thy patient face. Lo! here upon the world's extreme We stand with lifted arms and dare By thine eternal name to swear Our country, which so fair we deem- Upon whose hills, a bannered throng, The spirits of the sun display Their flashing lances day by day And hear the sea's pacific song- Shall be so ruled in right and grace That men shall say: 'O, drive afield The lawless eagle from the shield, 320 And call an angel to the place!' ~ Ambrose Bierce,

847:author class:Sri Aurobindo A Vision of Science I dreamed that in myself the world I saw, Wherein three Angels strove for mastery. Law Was one, clear vision and denial cold, Yet in her limits strong, presumptuous, bold; The second with enthusiasm bright, Flame in her heart but round her brows the night, Faded as this advanced. She could not bear That searching gaze, nor the strong chilling air These thoughts created, nourishing our parts Of mind, but petrifying human hearts. Science was one, the other gave her name, Religion. But a third behind them came, Veiled, vague, remote, and had as yet no right Upon the world, but lived in her own light. Wide were the victories of the Angel proud Who conquered now and in her praise were loud The nations. Few even yet to the other clove, - And some were souls of night and some were souls of love. But this was confident and throned. Her heralds ranged Claiming that night was dead and all things changed; For all things opened, all seemed clear, seemed bright - Save the vast ranges that they left in night. However, the light they shed upon the earth Was great indeed, a firm and mighty birth. A century's progress lived before my eyes. Delivered from amazement and surprise, Man's spirit measuring his worlds around The laws of sight divined and laws of sound. Light was not hidden from her searching gaze, Nor matter could deny its myriad maze To the cold enquiry; for the far came near, The small loomed large, the intricate grew clear. Measuring and probing the strong Angel strode, Dissolving and combining, till she trod Firmly among the stars, could weigh their forms, Foretold the earthquakes, analysed the storms. Doubt seemed to end and wonder's reign was closed. The stony pages of the earth disclosed Their unremembered secrets. Horses of steam Were bitted and the lightnings made a team To draw our chariots. Heaven was scaled at last And the loud seas subdued. Distance resigned Its strong obstructions to the mastering mind. So moved that spirit trampling; then it laid Its hand at last upon itself, how this was made Wondering, and sought to class and sought to trace Mind by its forms, the wearer by the dress. Then the other arose and met that spirit robust, Who laboured; she now grew a shade who must Fade wholly away, yet to her fellow cried, "I pass, for thou hast laboured well and wide. Thou thinkest term and end for thee are not; But though thy pride is great, thou hast forgot The Sphinx that waits for man beside the way. All questions thou mayst answer, but one day Her question shall await thee. That reply, As all we must; for they who cannot, die. She slays them and their mangled bodies lie Upon the highways of eternity. Therefore, if thou wouldst live, know first this thing, Who thou art in this dungeon labouring." And Science confidently, "Nothing am I but earth, Tissue and nerve and from the seed a birth, A mould, a plasm, a gas, a little that is much. In these grey cells that quiver to each touch The secret lies of man; they are the thing called I. Matter insists and matter makes reply. Shakespeare was this; this force in Jesus yearned And conquered by the cross; this only learned The secret of the suns that blaze afar; This was Napoleon's giant mind of war." I heard and marvelled in myself to see The infinite deny infinity. Yet the weird paradox seemed justified; Even mysticism shrank out-mystified. But the third Angel came and touched my eyes; I saw the mornings of the future rise, I heard the voices of an age unborn That comes behind us and our pallid morn, And from the heart of an approaching light One said to man, "Know thyself infinite, Who shalt do mightier miracles than these, Infinite, moving mid infinities." Then from our hills the ancient answer pealed, "For Thou, O Splendour, art myself concealed, And the grey cell contains me not, the star I outmeasure and am older than the elements are. Whether on earth or far beyond the sun, I, stumbling, clouded, am the Eternal One." ~ Sri Aurobindo, - A Vision of Science ,

848:Lord Walter's Wife 'But where do you go?' said the lady, while both sat under the yew, And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue. II 'Because I fear you,' he answered;--'because you are far too fair, And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your golfd-coloured hair.' III 'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone, And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun.' IV 'Yet farewell so,' he answered; --'the sunstroke's fatal at times. I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the limes. 'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason. You smell a rose through a fence: If two should smell it what matter? who grumbles, and where's the pretense? VI 'But I,' he replied, 'have promised another, when love was free, To love her alone, alone, who alone from afar loves me.' VII 'Why, that,' she said, 'is no reason. Love's always free I am told. Will you vow to be safe from the headache on Tuesday, and think it will hold? VIII 'But you,' he replied, 'have a daughter, a young child, who was laid In your lap to be pure; so I leave you: the angels would make me afraid." 64 IX 'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason. The angels keep out of the way; And Dora, the child, observes nothing, although you should please me and stay.' At which he rose up in his anger,--'Why now, you no longer are fair! Why, now, you no longer are fatal, but ugly and hateful, I swear.' XI At which she laughed out in her scorn: 'These men! Oh these men overnice, Who are shocked if a colour not virtuous is frankly put on by a vice.' XII Her eyes blazed upon him--'And you! You bring us your vices so near That we smell them! You think in our presence a thought 'twould defame us to hear! XIII 'What reason had you, and what right,--I appel to your soul from my life,-To find me so fair as a woman? Why, sir, I am pure, and a wife. XIV 'Is the day-star too fair up above you? It burns you not. Dare you imply I brushed you more close than the star does, when Walter had set me as high? XV 'If a man finds a woman too fair, he means simply adapted too much To use unlawful and fatal. The praise! --shall I thank you for such? XVI 'Too fair?--not unless you misuse us! and surely if, once in a while, You attain to it, straightaway you call us no longer too fair, but too vile. 65 XVII 'A moment,--I pray your attention!--I have a poor word in my head I must utter, though womanly custom would set it down better unsaid. XVIII 'You grew, sir, pale to impertinence, once when I showed you a ring. You kissed my fan when I dropped it. No matter! I've broken the thing. XIX 'You did me the honour, perhaps, to be moved at my side now and then In the senses--a vice, I have heard, which is common to beasts and some men. XX 'Love's a virtue for heroes!--as white as the snow on high hills, And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and fulfils. XXI 'I love my Walter profoundly,--you, Maude, though you faltered a week, For the sake of . . . what is it--an eyebrow? or, less still, a mole on the cheek? XXII 'And since, when all's said, you're too noble to stoop to the frivolous cant About crimes irresistable, virtues that swindle, betray and supplant. XXIII 'I determined to prove to yourself that, whate'er you might dream or avow By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of me than you have now. XXIV 'There! Look me full in the face!--in the face. Understand, if you can, That the eyes of such women as I am are clean as the palm of a man. XXV 'Drop his hand, you insult him. Avoid us for fear we should cost you a scar-You take us for harlots, I tell you, and not for the women we are. 66 XXVI 'You wronged me: but then I considered . . . there's Walter! And so at the end I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me, in the hand of a friend. XXVII 'Have I hurt you indeed? We are quits then. Nay, friend of my Walter, be mine! Come, Dora, my darling, my angel, and help me to ask him to dine.' ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

849:. Pale, at its ghastly noon,   Pauses above the death-still woodthe moon;   The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs;    The clouds descend in rain;    Mourning, the wan stars wane,   Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres!   Haggard as spectresvision-like and dumb,    Dark with the pomp of death, and moving slow,   Towards that sad lair the pale procession come    Where the grave closes on the night below.   With dim, deep-sunken eye,   Crutched on his staff, who trembles tottering by?   As wrung from out the shattered heart, one groan   Breaks the deep hush alone!   Crushed by the iron fate, he seems to gather    All life's last strength to stagger to the bier,   And hearkenDo these cold lips murmur "Father?"    The sharp rain, drizzling through that place of fear,   Pierces the bones gnawed fleshless by despair,   And the heart's horror stirs the silver hair.   Fresh bleed the fiery wounds    Through all that agonizing heart undone   Still on the voiceless lips "my Father" sounds,    And still the childless Father murmurs "Son!"   Ice-coldice-cold, in that white shroud he lies    Thy sweet and golden dreams all vanished there   The sweet and golden name of "Father" dies   Into thy curse,ice-coldice-coldhe lies!    Dead, what thy life's delight and Eden were!   Mild, as when, fresh from the arms of Aurora,    While the air like Elysium is smiling above,   Steeped in rose-breathing odors, the darling of Flora    Wantons over the blooms on his winglets of love.   So gay, o'er the meads, went his footsteps in bliss,    The silver wave mirrored the smile of his face;   Delight, like a flame, kindled up at his kiss,    And the heart of the maid was the prey of his chase.   Boldly he sprang to the strife of the world,    As a deer to the mountain-top carelessly springs;   As an eagle whose plumes to the sun are unfurled,    Swept his hope round the heaven on its limitless wings.   Proud as a war-horse that chafes at the rein,    That, kingly, exults in the storm of the brave;   That throws to the wind the wild stream of its mane,    Strode he forth by the prince and the slave!   Life like a spring day, serene and divine,    In the star of the morning went by as a trance;   His murmurs he drowned in the gold of the wine,    And his sorrows were borne on the wave of the dance.   Worlds lay concealed in the hopes of his youth!    When once he shall ripen to manhood and fame!   Fond father exult!In the germs of his youth    What harvests are destined for manhood and fame!   Not to be was that manhood!The death-bell is knelling,    The hinge of the death-vault creaks harsh on the ears   How dismal, O Death, is the place of thy dwelling!    Not to be was that manhood!Flow on, bitter tears!   Go, beloved, thy path to the sun,    Rise, world upon world, with the perfect to rest;   Goquaff the delight which thy spirit has won,    And escape from our grief in the Halls of the Blest.   Again (in that thought what a healing is found!)    To meet in the Eden to which thou art fled!   Hark, the coffin sinks down with a dull, sullen sound,    And the ropes rattle over the sleep of the dead.   And we cling to each other!O Grave, he is thine!    The eye tells the woe that is mute to the ears   And we dare to resent what we grudge to resign,    Till the heart's sinful murmur is choked in its tears.   Pale at its ghastly noon,   Pauses above the death-still woodthe moon!   The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs:    The clouds descend in rain;    Mourning, the wan stars wane,   Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres.   The dull clods swell into the sullen mound;    Earth, one look yet upon the prey we gave!   The grave locks up the treasure it has found;   Higher and higher swells the sullen mound    Never gives back the grave!    ~ Friedrich Schiller, A Funeral Fantasie ,

850:My Cousin From Pall Mall There’s nothing so exasperates a true Australian youth, Whatever be his rank in life, be he cultured or uncouth, As the manner of a London swell. Now it chanced, the other day, That one came out, consigned to me—a cousin, by the way. As he landed from the steamer at the somewhat dirty pier, He took my hand; and lispingly remarked, ‘How very queer! I’m glad, of course, to see you—but you must admit this place, With all its mixed surroundings, is a national disgrace.’ I defended not that dirty pier, not a word escaped my lips; I pointed not—though well I might—to the huge three-masted ships; For, although with patriotic pride my soul was all aglow, I remembered Trollope’s parting words, ‘Victorians do not blow.’ On the morrow through the city we sauntered, arm in arm; I strove to do the cicerone—my style was grand and calm. I showed him all the lions—but I noted with despair His smile, his drawl, his eye-glass, and his supercilious air. As we strolled along that crowded street, where Fashion holds proud sway, He deigned to glance at every thing, but not one word did say; I really thought he was impressed by its well-deserved renown Till he drawled, ‘Not bad—not bad at all—for a provincial town.’ Just as he spoke there chanced to pass a most bewitching girl, And I said, ‘Dear cousin, is she not fit bride for any earl?’ He glanced, with upraised eyebrows and a patronizing smile, Then lisped, ‘She’s pretty, not a doubt, but what a want of style!’ We paused a moment just before a spacious House of Prayer; Said he, ‘Dear me! Good gracious! What’s this ugly brick affair— A second-rate gin-palace?’ ‘Cease, cease,’ I said; ‘you must— O spare me,’— here my sobs burst forth, I was humbled to the dust. But, unmindful of my agonies, in the slowest of slow drawls, He lisped away for hours of the Abbey and St. Paul’s, Till those grand historic names had for me a hateful sound, And I wished the noble piles themselves were levelled to the ground, 13 My young bright life seemed blasted, my hopes were dead and gone, No blighted lover ever felt so gloomy and forlorn; I’d reached the suicidal stage—and the reason of it all, This supercilious London swell, his eye-glass and his drawl. But, though hidden, still there’s present, in out darkest hour of woe, A sense of respite and relief, although we may not know The way that gracious Providence will choose to right the wrong, So I forthwith ceased my bitter tears—I suffered and was strong. Then we strolled into the Club, where he again commenced to speak, But I interrupted saying, ‘Let us leave town for a week. I see that Melbourne bores you—nay, nay, I know it’s true; Let us wander ’midst the gum-trees, and observe the kangaroo.’ My words were soft and gentle, and none could have discerned How, beneath my calm demeanour, volcanic fury burned. And my cousin straight consented, as his wine he slowly sipped, To see the gay Marsupial and the gloomy Eucalypt. Ah! who has ever journeyed on a glorious summer night Through the weird Australian bush-land without feeling of delight? The dense untrodden forest, in the moonlight coldly pale, Brings before our wondering eyes again the scenes of fairy tale. No sound is heard, save where one treads upon the lonely track; We lose our dull grey manhood, and to early youth go back— To scenes and days long passed away, and seem again to greet Our youthful dreams, so rudely crushed like the grass beneath our feet. ’Twas such a night we wandered forth; we never spoke a word (I was too full of thought for speech—to him no thought occurred) When, gazing from the silent earth to the star-lit silent sky, My cousin in amazement dropped his eye-glass from his eye. At last, I thought his soul was moved by the grandeur of the scene (As the most prosaic Colonist’s I’m certain would have been), Till he replaced his eye-glass, and remarked—‘This may be well, But one who’s civilized prefers the pavement of Pall Mall.’ I swerved not from that moment from my purpose foul and grim; 14 I never deigned to speak one word, nor even glanced at him; But suddenly I seized his throat,…he gave one dreadful groan, And I, who had gone forth with him, that night returned alone. ~ Arthur Patchett Martin,

851:The Longbeard's Saga: A.D. 400 Over the camp-fires Drank I with heroes, Under the Donau bank, Warm in the snow trench: Sagamen heard I there, Men of the Longbeards, Cunning and ancient, Honey-sweet-voiced. Scaring the wolf cub, Scaring the horn-owl, Shaking the snow-wreaths Down from the pine-boughs, Up to the star roof Rang out their song. Singing how Winil men, Over the ice-floes Sledging from Scanland Came unto Scoring; Singing of Gambara, Freya's beloved, Mother of Ayo, Mother of Ibor. Singing of Wendel men, Ambri and Assi; How to the Winilfolk Went they with war-words,'Few are ye, strangers, And many are we: Pay us now toll and fee, Cloth-yarn, and rings, and beeves: Else at the raven's meal Bide the sharp bill's doom.' Clutching the dwarfs work then, Clutching the bullock's shell, Girding gray iron on, Forth fared the Winils all, Fared the Alruna's sons, Ayo and Ibor. Mad at heart stalked they: 108 Loud wept the women all, Loud the Alruna wife; Sore was their need. Out of the morning land, Over the snow-drifts, Beautiful Freya came, Tripping to Scoring. White were the moorlands, And frozen before her: Green were the moorlands, And blooming behind her. Out of her gold locks Shaking the spring flowers, Out of her garments Shaking the south wind, Around in the birches Awaking the throstles, And making chaste housewives all Long for their heroes home, Loving and love-giving, Came she to Scoring. Came unto Gambara, Wisest of Valas,'Vala, why weepest thou? Far in the wide-blue, High up in the Elfin-home, Heard I thy weeping.' 'Stop not my weeping, Till one can fight seven. Sons have I, heroes tall, First in the sword-play; This day at the Wendels' hands Eagles must tear them. Their mothers, thrall-weary, Must grind for the Wendels.' Wept the Alruna wife; Kissed her fair Freya:'Far off in the morning land, High in Valhalla, A window stands open; Its sill is the snow-peaks, Its posts are the waterspouts, 109 Storm-rack its lintel; Gold cloud-flakes above Are piled for the roofing, Far up to the Elfin-home, High in the wide-blue. Smiles out each morning thence Odin Allfather; From under the cloud-eaves Smiles out on the heroes, Smiles on chaste housewives all, Smiles on the brood-mares, Smiles on the smiths' work: And theirs is the sword-luck, With them is the glory,So Odin hath sworn it,Who first in the morning Shall meet him and greet him.' Still the Alruna wept:'Who then shall greet him? Women alone are here: Far on the moorlands Behind the war-lindens, In vain for the bill's doom Watch Winil heroes all, One against seven.' Sweetly the Queen laughed:'Hear thou my counsel now; Take to thee cunning, Beloved of Freya. Take thou thy women-folk, Maidens and wives: Over your ankles Lace on the white war-hose; Over your bosoms Link up the hard mail-nets; Over your lips Plait long tresses with cunning;So war-beasts full-bearded King Odin shall deem you, When off the gray sea-beach At sunrise ye greet him.' 110 Night's son was driving His golden-haired horses up; Over the eastern firths High flashed their manes. Smiled from the cloud-eaves out Allfather Odin, Waiting the battle-sport: Freya stood by him. 'Who are these heroes tall,Lusty-limbed Longbeards? Over the swans' bath Why cry they to me? Bones should be crashing fast, Wolves should be full-fed, Where such, mad-hearted, Swing hands in the sword-play.' Sweetly laughed Freya:'A name thou hast given them, Shames neither thee nor them, Well can they wear it. Give them the victory, First have they greeted thee; Give them the victory, Yokefellow mine! Maidens and wives are these,Wives of the Winils; Few are their heroes And far on the war-road, So over the swans' bath They cry unto thee.' Royally laughed he then; Dear was that craft to him, Odin Allfather, Shaking the clouds. 'Cunning are women all, Bold and importunate! Longbeards their name shall be, Ravens shall thank them: Where women are heroes, What must the men be? 111 Theirs is the victory; No need of me!' Eversley, 1852. From Hypatia. ~ Charles Kingsley,

852:Franciscae Meae Laudes (Praises Of My Francesca) Novis te cantabo chordis, O novelletum quod ludis In solitudine cordis. Esto sertis implicata, Ô femina delicata Per quam solvuntur peccata! Sicut beneficum Lethe, Hauriam oscula de te, Quae imbuta es magnete. Quum vitiorum tempegtas Turbabat omnes semitas, Apparuisti, Deitas, Velut stella salutaris In naufragiis amaris..... Suspendam cor tuis aris! Piscina plena virtutis, Fons æternæ juventutis Labris vocem redde mutis! Quod erat spurcum, cremasti; Quod rudius, exaequasti; Quod debile, confirmasti. In fame mea taberna In nocte mea lucerna, Recte me semper guberna. Adde nunc vires viribus, Dulce balneum suavibus Unguentatum odoribus! Meos circa lumbos mica, O castitatis lorica, Aqua tincta seraphica; 179 Patera gemmis corusca, Panis salsus, mollis esca, Divinum vinum, Francisca! In Praise of My Frances I'll sing to you on a new note, O young hind that gambols gaily In the solitude of my heart. Be adorned with wreaths of flowers, O delightful woman By whom our sins are washed away! As from a benign Lethe, I shall drink kisses from you, Who were given a magnet's strength. When a tempest of vices Was sweeping down on every path, You appeared, O divinity! Like the star of salvation Above a disastrous shipwreck... I shall place my heart on your altar! Reservoir full of virtue, Fountain of eternal youth, Restore the voice to my mute lips! You have burned that which was filthy, Made smooth that which was rough, Strengthened that which was weak. In my hunger you are the inn, In the darkness my lamp, Lead me always on virtue's path. Add your strength now to my strength, Sweet bath scented With pleasant perfumes! 180 Shine forth from my loins, O cuirass of chastity, That was dipped in seraphic water, Cup glittering with precious stones, Bread seasoned with salt, delectable dish, Heavenly wine — My Frances. — Translated by William Aggeler Praises of My Francesca (Verses to a learned and devout Milliner) Upon new chords of you I sing. And the new-born bud you bring From solitude, the pure heart's Spring. Your brows should be with garlands twined Woman of delightful mind, Who our trespasses unbind. As the wondrous balm of Lethe, Through thy kisses, I will breathe thee. All are magnetised who see thee. When my vices, wild and stormy, From my wonted courses bore me It was You appeared before me, Star of Oceans! you that alter Courses, when the pilots falter — Take my heart upon your altar. Cistern full of virtuous ruth, Fountain of eternal youth, Give to dumbness speech and truth! 181 What was dirty, you cremated, What uneven — you equated, What was weak you re-created. Inn, on the hungry roads I tramp, And, in the dark, a guiding lamp To steer the lost one back to camp. To my strength add strength, O sweet Bath, where scents and unguents meet! Anoint me for some peerless feat! Holy water most seraphic, On the lusts in which I traffic Flash your chastity ecstatic. Bowl of gems where radiance dances. Salt that the holy bread enhances, And sacred wine — your name is Frances! — Translated by Roy Campbell Francescae Meae Laudes I shall sing new chords, O hind, As you gambol unconfined Through my solitary mind. Rest, adorned with wreaths of flowers, Comely woman whose vast powers Wash away these sins of ours As from Lethe's stream I shall Drink your kisses, one and all, Magnet-like and magical. When our vices stormily Swept down every path with glee, You approved, O Deity! Like the bright star of salvation 182 Amid shipwreck's desolation — Take my heart in rapt oblation. Source of every good and store Of eternal youth, restore Song to my mute lips once more. What was foul you calcinated What was rough you Ievigated, What was weak you stimulated. In my hunger, you the inn, In my dark, the lamp; and in Your pale hands, an end to sin. Add your strength to mine, new-sent, Sweet bath ever redolent Of the suaver perfumes blent. From my loins, gleam radiantly O cuirass of chastity Steeped in balm seraphically. Cup with precious gems ashine, Savory bread, celestial wine, Blessed food, Francesca mine! — Translated by Jacques LeClercq ~ Charles Baudelaire,

853:Dominions Of The Boundary The Survival Of The Gods 1 Twilight The gods of Nature abdicate When man intrudes too far: The Dryad leaves her woodland state, And Jove his thunder-car: No more Apollo reins the sun Or Neptune rides the sea, The race of Oread is run, And Pan has ceased to be: The formless Winds are roaming through Druidic grove and vale: Deserted Asgard and Meru For Thor and Indra wail: Majestic Forms oblivion 'scape As kelpie, sylph, and gnome, Astarte hides in gentler shape, And Vestals hearthless roam: Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Fall from Their Mystic Tree, And sacrilegious Time devours Each Principality. 2 Sceptic: Whatever dramas of the Vast About our drama play, Or necromancies from the past Project their gloom to-day, We seem to hear the Uncreate Slowly let this be knownThat man has fashioned all his fate And stands, on earth, alone: 17 That all he needs was in him stored, Material and plan; That ne'er was deity adored But first was made by man. 3 The Abiding Gods: But tho' we mumble sceptic saw, Or sweet old prayers forget; And tho' we dream of Higher Law, The gods are living yet: For they who will no Monitor, Save One Unnamed, allow, Allegiance deep to Love or War, Or Chance or Wind avow: Avow by no mere cult of names, No pattering of creeds, But by the sacrificial flames Of lifelong thoughts and deeds. When mediaeval hurricane The gods in exile drove, 'Thrice-greatest' Hermes and his train Usurped the seats of Jove: Where still their Wisdom rules the spheres Of yet uncharted Law, By building in our nerves the fears Our sires in Nature saw: In other garments everywhere, Behold, the prophetess, Clairaudient interpreter, Clairvoyant Pythoness! Suburban Delphis for the rich, The Gnosis for the staid! Perennial by the road, the witch Of Endor plies her trade! 18 4 Mystic: All is not daylight in the day, Or knowledge in the known; The life we are, the prayer we pray, From deep, to deep, is blown. Though Reason claim omniscient worth And lush her dogmas thrive: Our present home is more than earth, Our senses more than five. And the mystic who sees the star-folk throng, Where we but the noonday blue, Knows no religion yet was wrong And never a myth untrue. The wrong road now was the old high way Of young Truth's caravan; To-morrow is not to-day, to-day, Or the baby yet a man. Though mountain watchmen daily see Horizons widen far, Dominions of the Boundary Have ever ruled, and are. 5 Heracleitic: The lines of godhood all converge At last to unity: And the images of all emerge From every god we see. So Hermes here and Venus there Are Memory, are Fate; And all are Winds; and the Sirens fair Mute in the Wisdoms wait. All life is a stream and mortals stand On a heaving and passing earth: And the land of gods is a changing land As the land that gave it birth. 19 Life is a stream: through a gorge we go 'Tween a deep and a living deep: Form is the gorge, and change is the flow, And the source and the mouth are sleep. 6 Historic: Torrential barbarisms need Charioteers of Pain: And wise gods sleep when men recede To callow youth again. But in that age-long sleep have waned A myriad gods, or fled: Olympic altars are disdained And Gnostic Wisdom dead. For what to Vandals or to Huns, When Rome's red lips were ripe, Were calm Hellenic Shining Ones, Or Gnostic Archetype? Yet Time matured to mellow wine The Roman-Gothic must, For Mercy and a Maid Divine Subdued the hate and lust: Till Hedonist and Stoic hold Antique debates anew: And hither return the virtues old (Alas! and old vice too!). Marooned no more, we sail the sea, Ere sad gods were, we knew: And from Platonic prows decree'The gods are Me, are You!' 7 Omni-Benevolence: Yet, shaping slowly through the storm And bidding darkness fade, Evolving eyes discern a Form No clay-creator made: 20 A Symbol Form that mirrors ours, That is, yet is not, we, That seems to hint of Higher Powers Than Fate or Memory: That takes the image as we gaze Of the Holiest Ones that were: For here It looks from Jesus' face, And from Mohammed's, there: 'Tis Moses, yea, 'tis Krishna's form; 'Tis fire, 'tis star, 'tis sun: A myriad now Its faces swarm, Now, All and It are One: The Chinese 'Way' one watcher sees, And one a Brooding Dove, One Baldur, Buddh or SocratesBut always It is Love. ~ Bernard O'Dowd,

854: For Margot Snow that fallest from heaven, bear me aloft on thy wings To the domes of the star-girdled Seven, the abode of ineffable things, Quintessence of joy and of strength, that, abolishing future and past, Mak'st the Present an infinite length, my soul all-One with the Vast, The Lone, the Unnameable God, that is ice of His measureless cold, Without being or form or abode, without motion or matter, the fold Where the shepherded Universe sleeps, with nor sense nor delusion nor dream, No spirit that wantons or weeps, no thought in its silence supreme. I sit, and am utterly still; in mine eyes is my fathomless lust Ablaze to annihilate Will, to crumble my being to dust, To calcine the dust to an ash, to burn up the ash to an air, To abolish the air with a flash of the final, the fulminant flare. All this I have done, and dissolved the primordial germ of my thought; I have rolled myself up, and revolved the wheel of my being to Naught. Is there even the memory left? That I was, that I am? It is lost. As I utter the Word, I am cleft by the last swift spear of the frost. Snow! I am nothing at last; I sit, and am utterly still; They are perished, the phantoms, and past; they were born of my weariness-will When I craved, craved being and form, when the con- sciousness-cloud was a mist Precurser of stupor and storm, when I and my shadow had kissed, And brought into life all the shapes that confused the clear space with their marks, Vain spectres whose vapour escapes, a whirlwind of ruinous sparks, No substance have any of these; I have dreamed them in sickness of lust, Delirium born of disease-ah, whence was the master, the "must" Imposed on the All? is it true, then, that something in me Is subject to fate? Are there two, after all, that can be? I have brought all that is to an end; for myself am suffic- ient and sole. Do I trick myself now? Shall I rend once again this homologous Whole? I have stripped every garment from space; I have strangled the secre of Time, All being is fled from my face, with Motion's inhibited rime. Stiller and stiller I sit, till even Infinity fades; 'Tis an idol-'tis weakness of wit that breeds, in inanity, shades! Yet the fullness of Naught I become, the deepest and steadiest Naught, Contains in its nature the sum of the functions of being and thought. Still as I sit, and destroy all possible trace of the past, All germ of the future, nor joy nor knowledge alive at the last, It is vain, for the Silence is dowered with a nature, the seed of a name: Necessity, fearfully flowered with the blossom of possible Aim. I am Necessity? Scry Necessity mother of Fate! And Fate determines me "I"; and I have the Will to create. Vast is the sphere, but it turns on itself like the pettiest star. And I am the looby that learns that all things equally are. Inscrutable Nothing, the Gods, the cosmos of Fire and of Mist. Suns,atoms, the clouds and the clouds ineluctably dare to exist- I have made the Voyage of Thought, the Voyage of Vision, I swam To the heart of the Ocean of Naught from the source of the Spring of I am: I know myself wholly the brother alike of the All and the One; I know that all things are each other, that their sum and their substance is None; But the knowledge itself can excel, its fulness hath broken its bond; All's Truth, and all's falsehood as well, and-what of the region beyond? So, still though I sit, as for ever, I stab to the heart of my spine; I destroy the last seed of endeavour to seal up my soul in the shrine Of Silence, Eternity, Peace; I abandon the Here and the Now; I cease from the effort to cease; I absolve the dead I from its Vow, I am wholly content to be dust, whether that be a mote or a star, To live and to love and to lust, acknowledge what seem for what are, Not to care what I am, if I be, whence I came, whither go, how I thrive, If my spirit be bound or be free, save as Nature contrive. What I am, that I am, 'tis enough. I am part of a glorious game. Am I cast for madness or love? I am cast to esteem them the same. Am I only a dream in the sleep of some butterfly? Phantom of fright Conceived, who knows how, or how deep, in the measure- less womb of the night? I imagine impossible thought, metaphysical voids that beget Ideas intagible wrought to things less conceivable yet. It may be. Little I reck -but, assume the existence of earth. Am I born to be hanged by the neck, a curse from the hour of my birth? Am I born to abolish man's guilt? His horrible heritage, awe? Or a seed in his wantoness spilt by a jester? I care not a straw, For I understand Do what thou wilt; and that is the whole of the Law. ~ Aleister Crowley, Happy Dust ,

855:Mother And Poet I. Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east, And one of them shot in the west by the sea. Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast And are wanting a great song for Italy free, Let none look at me ! II. Yet I was a poetess only last year, And good at my art, for a woman, men said ; But this woman, this, who is agonized here, -- The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head For ever instead. III. What art can a woman be good at ? Oh, vain ! What art is she good at, but hurting her breast With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain ? Ah boys, how you hurt ! you were strong as you pressed, And I proud, by that test. IV. What art's for a woman ? To hold on her knees Both darlings ! to feel all their arms round her throat, Cling, strangle a little ! to sew by degrees And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat ; To dream and to doat. V. To teach them ... It stings there ! I made them indeed Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt, That a country's a thing men should die for at need. I prated of liberty, rights, and about The tyrant cast out. VI. And when their eyes flashed ... O my beautiful eyes ! ... I exulted ; nay, let them go forth at the wheels 71 Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise When one sits quite alone ! Then one weeps, then one kneels ! God, how the house feels ! VII. At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled With my kisses, -- of camp-life and glory, and how They both loved me ; and, soon coming home to be spoiled In return would fan off every fly from my brow With their green laurel-bough. VIII. Then was triumph at Turin : `Ancona was free !' And some one came out of the cheers in the street, With a face pale as stone, to say something to me. My Guido was dead ! I fell down at his feet, While they cheered in the street. IX. I bore it ; friends soothed me ; my grief looked sublime As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained To the height he had gained. X. And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong, Writ now but in one hand, `I was not to faint, -One loved me for two -- would be with me ere long : And Viva l' Italia ! -- he died for, our saint, Who forbids our complaint." XI. My Nanni would add, `he was safe, and aware Of a presence that turned off the balls, -- was imprest It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear, And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed, To live on for the rest." XII. On which, without pause, up the telegraph line Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta : -- Shot. 72 Tell his mother. Ah, ah, ` his, ' ` their ' mother, -- not ` mine, ' No voice says "My mother" again to me. What ! You think Guido forgot ? XIII. Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven, They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe ? I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven Through THAT Love and Sorrow which reconciled so The Above and Below. XIV. O Christ of the five wounds, who look'dst through the dark To the face of Thy mother ! consider, I pray, How we common mothers stand desolate, mark, Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away, And no last word to say ! XV. Both boys dead ? but that's out of nature. We all Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one. 'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall ; And, when Italy 's made, for what end is it done If we have not a son ? XVI. Ah, ah, ah ! when Gaeta's taken, what then ? When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men ? When the guns of Cavalli with final retort Have cut the game short ? XVII. When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee, When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red, When you have your country from mountain to sea, When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head, (And I have my Dead) -XVIII. What then ? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low, And burn your lights faintly ! My country is there, 73 Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow : My Italy 's THERE, with my brave civic Pair, To disfranchise despair ! XIX. Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength, And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn ; But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length Into wail such as this -- and we sit on forlorn When the man-child is born. XX. Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east, And one of them shot in the west by the sea. Both ! both my boys ! If in keeping the feast You want a great song for your Italy free, Let none look at me ! [This was Laura Savio, of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sonswere killed at Ancona and Gaeta.] ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

856:Two Voices COUNTRY 'SWEET are the lanes and the hedges, the fields made red with the clover, With tall field-sorrel, and daisies, and golden buttercups glowing; Sweet is the way through the woods, where at sundown maiden and lover Linger by stile or by bank where wild clematis is growing. Fair is our world when the dew and the dawn thrill the half-wakened roses, Fair when the corn-fields grow warm with poppies in noonlight gleaming, Fair through the long afternoon, when hedges and hay-fields lie dreaming, Fair as in lessening light the last convolvulus closes 'Scent of geranium and musk that in cottage windows run riot, Breath from the grass that is down in the meadows each side the highway, Slumberous hush of the churchyard where we one day may lie quiet, Murmuring wind through the leaves bent over the meadow byway, Deeps of cool shadow, and gleams of light on high elm-tops shining, Such peace in the dim green brake as the town, save in dreams, knows never, But in, through, under it all, the old pain follows us ever-Ever the old despair, the old unrest and repining. 'Dark is the City's face; but her children who know her find her Mother to them who are brothers, mindful of brotherhood's duty; To each of us, lonely, unhelped, the grave would be warmer, kinder, Than the cold unloving face of our world of blossom and beauty. Poverty deep and dark cowers under the thatch with the swallows, Cruel disease lies hid in the changeful breast of the waters, Drink sets snares for our sons, and shame digs graves for our daughters, Want and care crush the flower of a youth that no life-fruit follows. 'What are the woodland sweets--the meadow's fair flowery treasure-When we are hungry and sad, and stupid with work and with sorrows? Leisure for nothing but sleep, and with heart but for sleep in our leisure; The work of to-day still the same as yesterday's work, and to-morrow's. Ever the weary round--the treadmill of innocent lives-Hopeless and helpless, and bowing our backs like a hound's to the lashes; What can seem fair to the eyes that are smarting and sore with the ashes 451 Blown from the fires that consume the souls of our children and wives? 'Dreams sometimes we have had of an hour when we might speak plainly, Raise the mantle and show how the iron eats into our bosom, The rotting root of the Nation, the worm at the heart of its blossom, Dreaming we said, 'We will speak, when the time for it comes, not vainly.' Ah--but the time comes never--Life, we are used to bear it, Starved are our brains and grow not, our hands are fit but for toiling, If we stretched them out their touch to our masters' hand would be soiling; Weak is our voice with disuse--too weak for our lords to hear it!' CITY 'So has the spark died out that the torch of hope dropped among you? So is the burden bound more fast to the shrinking shoulder? Far too faint are your cries to be heard by the men who wrong you? And if they heard they are high, and the air as men rise grows colder! Yet you are men though so weak, and in mine and workshop your brothers, Stronger in head, and in heart not less sad, for deliverance are striving; These will stand fast, and will face the cruel unjust and ungiving, And you in our ranks shall be 'listed, our hands fast clasped in each other's! 'For in the night of our sorrow cold lights are breaking and brightening Out in the eastern sky; through the drifting clouds, wind-driven, Over the earth new gleams and glories are laughing and lightening, Clearer the air grows each moment, brighter the face of the heaven. Turn we our face to the east--oh, wind of the dawn, blow to us Freshness and strength and resolve! The star of old faith grows paler Before the eyes of our Freedom, though still wrath's red mists veil her, For this is our battle day; revenge, like our blood, runs through us. 'This is our vengeance day. Our masters, made fat with our fasting, Shall fall before us like corn when the sickle for harvest is strong: Old wrong shall give might to our arm--remembrance of wrong shall make lasting The graves we will dig for the tyrants we bore with too much and too long. The sobs of our starving children, the tears of our heart-sick mothers, 452 The moan of your murdered manhood crushed out by their wanton pressure, The wail of the life-long anguish that paid the price of their pleasure, These will make funeral music to speed the lost souls of them, brothers! 'Shoulder to shoulder we march, and for those who go down mid the fighting With rifles in hand and pikes, and the red flag over them flying, Glad shall our hearts be for them--who die when our sun is lighting The warm, wide heavens, and sheds its lovely light on their dying. Fight, though we lose our dearest--fight, though the battle rages Fiercer and hotter than ever was fight in the world before: We must fight--how can men do less? If we die, what can men do more? And the sun of Freedom shall shine across our graves to the ages!' ~ Edith Nesbit,

857:O True And Tried O true and tried, so well and long, Demand not thou a marriage lay; In that it is thy marriage day Is music more than any song. Nor have I felt so much of bliss Since first he told me that he loved A daughter of our house; nor proved Since that dark day a day like this; Tho’ I since then have number’d o’er Some thrice three years: they went and came, Remade the blood and changed the frame, And yet is love not less, but more; No longer caring to embalm In dying songs a dead regret, But like a statue solid-set, And moulded in colossal calm. Regret is dead, but love is more Than in the summers that are flown, For I myself with these have grown To something greater than before; Which makes appear the songs I made As echoes out of weaker times, As half but idle brawling rhymes, The sport of random sun and shade. But where is she, the bridal flower, That must he made a wife ere noon? She enters, glowing like the moon Of Eden on its bridal bower: On me she bends her blissful eyes And then on thee; they meet thy look And brighten like the star that shook Betwixt the palms of paradise. 408 O when her life was yet in bud, He too foretold the perfect rose. For thee she grew, for thee she grows For ever, and as fair as good. And thou art worthy; full of power; As gentle; liberal-minded, great, Consistent; wearing all that weight Of learning lightly like a flower. But now set out: the noon is near, And I must give away the bride; She fears not, or with thee beside And me behind her, will not fear. For I that danced her on my knee, That watch’d her on her nurse’s arm, That shielded all her life from harm At last must part with her to thee; Now waiting to be made a wife, Her feet, my darling, on the dead; Their pensive tablets round her head, And the most living words of life Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, The ‘wilt thou’ answer’d, and again The ‘wilt thou’ ask’d, till out of twain Her sweet ‘I will’ has made you one. Now sign your names, which shall be read, Mute symbols of a joyful morn, By village eyes as yet unborn; The names are sign’d, and overhead Begins the clash and clang that tells The joy to every wandering breeze; The blind wall rocks, and on the trees The dead leaf trembles to the bells. O happy hour, and happier hours Await them. Many a merry face 409 Salutes them–maidens of the place, That pelt us in the porch with flowers. O happy hour, behold the bride With him to whom her hand I gave. They leave the porch, they pass the grave That has to-day its sunny side. To-day the grave is bright for me, For them the light of life increased, Who stay to share the morning feast, Who rest to-night beside the sea. Let all my genial spirits advance To meet and greet a whiter sun; My drooping memory will not shun The foaming grape of eastern France. It circles round, and fancy plays, And hearts are warm’d and faces bloom, As drinking health to bride and groom We wish them store of happy days. Nor count me all to blame if I Conjecture of a stiller guest, Perchance, perchance, among the rest, And, tho’ in silence, wishing joy. But they must go, the time draws on, And those white-favour’d horses wait; They rise, but linger; it is late; Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. A shade falls on us like the dark From little cloudlets on the grass, But sweeps away as out we pass To range the woods, to roam the park, Discussing how their courtship grew, And talk of others that are wed, And how she look’d, and what he said, And back we come at fall of dew. 410 Again the feast, the speech, the glee, The shade of passing thought, the wealth Of words and wit, the double health, The crowning cup, the three-times-three, And last the dance;–till I retire: Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, And high in heaven the streaming cloud, And on the downs a rising fire: And rise, O moon, from yonder down, Till over down and over dale All night the shining vapour sail And pass the silent-lighted town, The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, And catch at every mountain head, And o’er the friths that branch and spread Their sleeping silver thro’ the hills; And touch with shade the bridal doors, With tender gloom the roof, the wall; And breaking let the splendour fall To spangle all the happy shores By which they rest, and ocean sounds, And, star and system rolling past, A soul shall draw from out the vast And strike his being into bounds, And, moved thro’ life of lower phase, Result in man, be born and think, And act and love, a closer link Betwixt us and the crowning race Of those that, eye to eye, shall look On knowledge; under whose command Is Earth and Earth’s, and in their hand Is Nature like an open book; No longer half-akin to brute, 411 For all we thought and loved and did, And hoped, and suffer’d, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit; Whereof the man, that with me trod This planet, was a noble type Appearing ere the times were ripe, That friend of mine who lives in God, That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

858:Recollection Of The Arabian Nights WHEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free In the silken sail of infancy, The tide of time flow'd back with me, The forward-flowing tide of time; And many a sheeny summer-morn, Adown the Tigris I was borne, By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, High-walled gardens green and old; True Mussulman was I and sworn, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Anight my shallop, rustling thro' The low and bloomed foliage, drove The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove The citron-shadows in the blue: By garden porches on the brim, The costly doors flung open wide, Gold glittering thro' lamplight dim, And broider'd sofas on each side: In sooth it was a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Often where clear-stemm'd platans guard The outlet, did I turn away The boat-head down a broad canal From the main river sluiced, where all The sloping of the moon-lit sward Was damask-work, and deep inlay Of braided blooms unmown, which crept Adown to where the water slept. A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. A motion from the river won Ridged the smooth level, bearing on My shallop thro' the star-strown calm, 540 Until another night in night I enter'd, from the clearer light, Imbower'd vaults of pillar'd palm, Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb Heavenward, were stay'd beneath the dome Of hollow boughs.--A goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Still onward; and the clear canal Is rounded to as clear a lake. From the green rivage many a fall Of diamond rillets musical, Thro' little crystal arches low Down from the central fountain's flow Fall'n silver-chiming, seemed to shake The sparkling flints beneath the prow. A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Above thro' many a bowery turn A walk with vary-colour'd shells Wander'd engrain'd. On either side All round about the fragrant marge From fluted vase, and brazen urn In order, eastern flowers large, Some dropping low their crimson bells Half-closed, and others studded wide With disks and tiars, fed the time With odour in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Far off, and where the lemon grove In closest coverture upsprung, The living airs of middle night Died round the bulbul as he sung; Not he: but something which possess'd The darkness of the world, delight, Life, anguish, death, immortal love, Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd, Apart from place, withholding time, 541 But flattering the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Black the garden-bowers and grots Slumber'd: the solemn palms were ranged Above, unwoo'd of summer wind: A sudden splendour from behind Flush'd all the leaves with rich gold-green, And, flowing rapidly between Their interspaces, counterchanged The level lake with diamond-plots Of dark and bright. A lovely time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead, Distinct with vivid stars inlaid, Grew darker from that under-flame: So, leaping lightly from the boat, With silver anchor left afloat, In marvel whence that glory came Upon me, as in sleep I sank In cool soft turf upon the bank, Entranced with that place and time, So worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Thence thro' the garden I was drawn-A realm of pleasance, many a mound, And many a shadow-chequer'd lawn Full of the city's stilly sound, And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round The stately cedar, tamarisks, Thick rosaries of scented thorn, Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks Graven with emblems of the time, In honour of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. With dazed vision unawares From the long alley's latticed shade Emerged, I came upon the great 542 Pavilion of the Caliphat. Right to the carven cedarn doors, Flung inward over spangled floors, Broad-based flights of marble stairs Ran up with golden balustrade, After the fashion of the time, And humour of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. The fourscore windows all alight As with the quintessence of flame, A million tapers flaring bright From twisted silvers look'd to shame The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream'd Upon the mooned domes aloof In inmost Bagdat, till there seem'd Hundreds of crescents on the roof Of night new-risen, that marvellous time To celebrate the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Then stole I up, and trancedly Gazed on the Persian girl alone, Serene with argent-lidded eyes Amorous, and lashes like to rays Of darkness, and a brow of pearl Tressed with redolent ebony, In many a dark delicious curl, Flowing beneath her rose-hued zone; The sweetest lady of the time, Well worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Six columns, three on either side, Pure silver, underpropt a rich Throne of the massive ore, from which Down-droop'd, in many a floating fold, Engarlanded and diaper'd With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold. Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr'd With merriment of kingly pride, Sole star of all that place and time, 543 I saw him--in his golden prime, The good Haroun Alraschid. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

859:In Country Sleep Never and never, my girl riding far and near In the land of the hearthstone tales, and spelled asleep, Fear or believe that the wolf in a sheepwhite hood Loping and bleating roughly and blithely shall leap, My dear, my dear, Out of a lair in the flocked leaves in the dew dipped year To eat your heart in the house in the rosy wood. Sleep, good, for ever, slow and deep, spelled rare and wise, My girl ranging the night in the rose and shire Of the hobnail tales: no gooseherd or swine will turn Into a homestall king or hamlet of fire And prince of ice To court the honeyed heart from your side before sunrise In a spinney of ringed boys and ganders, spike and burn, Nor the innocent lie in the rooting dingle wooed And staved, and riven among plumes my rider weep. From the broomed witch's spume you are shielded by fern And flower of country sleep and the greenwood keep. Lie fast and soothed, Safe be and smooth from the bellows of the rushy brood. Never, my girl, until tolled to sleep by the stern Bell believe or fear that the rustic shade or spell Shall harrow and snow the blood while you ride wide and near, For who unmanningly haunts the mountain ravened eaves Or skulks in the dell moon but moonshine echoing clear From the starred well? A hill touches an angel. Out of a saint's cell The nightbird lauds through nunneries and domes of leaves Her robin breasted tree, three Marys in the rays. _Sanctum sanctorum_ the animal eye of the wood In the rain telling its beads, and the gravest ghost The owl at its knelling. Fox and holt kneel before blood. Now the tales praise 92 The star rise at pasture and nightlong the fables graze On the lord's-table of the bowing grass. Fear most For ever of all not the wolf in his baaing hood Nor the tusked prince, in the ruttish farm, at the rind And mire of love, but the Thief as meek as the dew. The country is holy: O bide in that country kind, Know the green good, Under the prayer wheeling moon in the rosy wood Be shielded by chant and flower and gay may you Lie in grace. Sleep spelled at rest in the lowly house In the squirrel nimble grove, under linen and thatch And star: held and blessed, though you scour the high four Winds, from the dousing shade and the roarer at the latch, Cool in your vows. Yet out of the beaked, web dark and the pouncing boughs Be you sure the Thief will seek a way sly and sure And sly as snow and meek as dew blown to the thorn, This night and each vast night until the stern bell talks In the tower and tolls to sleep over the stalls Of the hearthstone tales my own, lost love; and the soul walks The waters shorn. This night and each night since the falling star you were born, Ever and ever he finds a way, as the snow falls, As the rain falls, hail on the fleece, as the vale mist rides Through the haygold stalls, as the dew falls on the windMilled dust of the apple tree and the pounded islands Of the morning leaves, as the star falls, as the winged Apple seed glides, And falls, and flowers in the yawning wound at our sides, As the world falls, silent as the cyclone of silence. II Night and the reindeer on the clouds above the haycocks And the wings of the great roc ribboned for the fair! The leaping saga of prayer! And high, there, on the hareHeeled winds the rooks 93 Cawing from their black bethels soaring, the holy books Of birds! Among the cocks like fire the red fox Burning! Night and the vein of birds in the winged, sloe wrist Of the wood! Pastoral beat of blood through the laced leaves! The stream from the priest black wristed spinney and sleeves Of thistling frost Of the nightingale's din and tale! The upgiven ghost Of the dingle torn to singing and the surpliced Hill of cypresses! The din and tale in the skimmed Yard of the buttermilk rain on the pail! The sermon Of blood! The bird loud vein! The saga from mermen To seraphim Leaping! The gospel rooks! All tell, this night, of him Who comes as red as the fox and sly as the heeled wind. Illumination of music! the lulled black-backed Gull, on the wave with sand in its eyes! And the foal moves Through the shaken greensward lake, silent, on moonshod hooves, In the winds' wakes. Music of elements, that a miracle makes! Earth, air, water, fire, singing into the white act, The haygold haired, my love asleep, and the rift blue Eyed, in the haloed house, in her rareness and hilly High riding, held and blessed and true, and so stilly Lying the sky Might cross its planets, the bell weep, night gather her eyes, The Thief fall on the dead like the willy nilly dew, Only for the turning of the earth in her holy Heart! Slyly, slowly, hearing the wound in her side go Round the sun, he comes to my love like the designed snow, And truly he Flows to the strand of flowers like the dew's ruly sea, And surely he sails like the ship shape clouds. Oh he Comes designed to my love to steal not her tide raking Wound, nor her riding high, nor her eyes, nor kindled hair, But her faith that each vast night and the saga of prayer He comes to take 94 Her faith that this last night for his unsacred sake He comes to leave her in the lawless sun awaking Naked and forsaken to grieve he will not come. Ever and ever by all your vows believe and fear My dear this night he comes and night without end my dear Since you were born: And you shall wake, from country sleep, this dawn and each first dawn, Your faith as deathless as the outcry of the ruled sun. ~ Dylan Thomas,

860:In Memoriam 131: O Living Will That Shalt Endure O living will that shalt endure When all that seems shall suffer shock, Rise in the spiritual rock, Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure, That we may lift from out of dust A voice as unto him that hears, A cry above the conquer'd years To one that with us works, and trust, With faith that comes of self-control, The truths that never can be proved Until we close with all we loved, And all we flow from, soul in soul. O true and tried, so well and long, Demand not thou a marriage lay; In that it is thy marriage day Is music more than any song. Nor have I felt so much of bliss Since first he told me that he loved A daughter of our house; nor proved Since that dark day a day like this; Tho' I since then have number'd o'er Some thrice three years: they went and came, Remade the blood and changed the frame, And yet is love not less, but more; No longer caring to embalm In dying songs a dead regret, But like a statue solid-set, And moulded in colossal calm. Regret is dead, but love is more Than in the summers that are flown, For I myself with these have grown To something greater than before; 232 Which makes appear the songs I made As echoes out of weaker times, As half but idle brawling rhymes, The sport of random sun and shade. But where is she, the bridal flower, That must be made a wife ere noon? She enters, glowing like the moon Of Eden on its bridal bower: On me she bends her blissful eyes And then on thee; they meet thy look And brighten like the star that shook Betwixt the palms of paradise. O when her life was yet in bud, He too foretold the perfect rose. For thee she grew, for thee she grows For ever, and as fair as good. And thou art worthy; full of power; As gentle; liberal-minded, great, Consistent; wearing all that weight Of learning lightly like a flower. But now set out: the noon is near, And I must give away the bride; She fears not, or with thee beside And me behind her, will not fear. For I that danced her on my knee, That watch'd her on her nurse's arm, That shielded all her life from harm At last must part with her to thee; Now waiting to be made a wife, Her feet, my darling, on the dead; Their pensive tablets round her head, And the most living words of life Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, 233 The "wilt thou" answer'd, and again The "wilt thou" ask'd, till out of twain Her sweet "I will" has made you one. Now sign your names, which shall be read, Mute symbols of a joyful morn, By village eyes as yet unborn; The names are sign'd, and overhead Begins the clash and clang that tells The joy to every wandering breeze; The blind wall rocks, and on the trees The dead leaf trembles to the bells. O happy hour, and happier hours Await them. Many a merry face Salutes them--maidens of the place, That pelt us in the porch with flowers. O happy hour, behold the bride With him to whom her hand I gave. They leave the porch, they pass the grave That has to-day its sunny side. To-day the grave is bright for me, For them the light of life increased, Who stay to share the morning feast, Who rest to-night beside the sea. Let all my genial spirits advance To meet and greet a whiter sun; My drooping memory will not shun The foaming grape of eastern France. It circles round, and fancy plays, And hearts are warm'd and faces bloom, As drinking health to bride and groom We wish them store of happy days. Nor count me all to blame if I Conjecture of a stiller guest, Perchance, perchance, among the rest, 234 And, tho' in silence, wishing joy. But they must go, the time draws on, And those white-favour'd horses wait; They rise, but linger; it is late; Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. A shade falls on us like the dark From little cloudlets on the grass, But sweeps away as out we pass To range the woods, to roam the park, Discussing how their courtship grew, And talk of others that are wed, And how she look'd, and what he said, And back we come at fall of dew. Again the feast, the speech, the glee, The shade of passing thought, the wealth Of words and wit, the double health, The crowning cup, the three-times-three, And last the dance,--till I retire: Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, And high in heaven the streaming cloud, And on the downs a rising fire: And rise, O moon, from yonder down, Till over down and over dale All night the shining vapour sail And pass the silent-lighted town, The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, And catch at every mountain head, And o'er the friths that branch and spread Their sleeping silver thro' the hills; And touch with shade the bridal doors, With tender gloom the roof, the wall; And breaking let the splendour fall To spangle all the happy shores 235 By which they rest, and ocean sounds, And, star and system rolling past, A soul shall draw from out the vast And strike his being into bounds, And, moved thro' life of lower phase, Result in man, be born and think, And act and love, a closer link Betwixt us and the crowning race Of those that, eye to eye, shall look On knowledge; under whose command Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand Is Nature like an open book; No longer half-akin to brute, For all we thought and loved and did, And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit; Whereof the man, that with me trod This planet, was a noble type Appearing ere the times were ripe, That friend of mine who lives in God, That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

861:In Memoriam A. H. H.: 131. O Living Will That Shalt Endure O living will that shalt endure When all that seems shall suffer shock, Rise in the spiritual rock, Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure, That we may lift from out of dust A voice as unto him that hears, A cry above the conquer'd years To one that with us works, and trust, With faith that comes of self-control, The truths that never can be proved Until we close with all we loved, And all we flow from, soul in soul.-----O true and tried, so well and long, Demand not thou a marriage lay; In that it is thy marriage day Is music more than any song. Nor have I felt so much of bliss Since first he told me that he loved A daughter of our house; nor proved Since that dark day a day like this; Tho' I since then have number'd o'er Some thrice three years: they went and came, Remade the blood and changed the frame, And yet is love not less, but more; No longer caring to embalm In dying songs a dead regret, But like a statue solid-set, And moulded in colossal calm. Regret is dead, but love is more Than in the summers that are flown, For I myself with these have grown To something greater than before; 249 Which makes appear the songs I made As echoes out of weaker times, As half but idle brawling rhymes, The sport of random sun and shade. But where is she, the bridal flower, That must be made a wife ere noon? She enters, glowing like the moon Of Eden on its bridal bower: On me she bends her blissful eyes And then on thee; they meet thy look And brighten like the star that shook Betwixt the palms of paradise. O when her life was yet in bud, He too foretold the perfect rose. For thee she grew, for thee she grows For ever, and as fair as good. And thou art worthy; full of power; As gentle; liberal-minded, great, Consistent; wearing all that weight Of learning lightly like a flower. But now set out: the noon is near, And I must give away the bride; She fears not, or with thee beside And me behind her, will not fear. For I that danced her on my knee, That watch'd her on her nurse's arm, That shielded all her life from harm At last must part with her to thee; Now waiting to be made a wife, Her feet, my darling, on the dead; Their pensive tablets round her head, And the most living words of life Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, 250 The "wilt thou" answer'd, and again The "wilt thou" ask'd, till out of twain Her sweet "I will" has made you one. Now sign your names, which shall be read, Mute symbols of a joyful morn, By village eyes as yet unborn; The names are sign'd, and overhead Begins the clash and clang that tells The joy to every wandering breeze; The blind wall rocks, and on the trees The dead leaf trembles to the bells. O happy hour, and happier hours Await them. Many a merry face Salutes them--maidens of the place, That pelt us in the porch with flowers. O happy hour, behold the bride With him to whom her hand I gave. They leave the porch, they pass the grave That has to-day its sunny side. To-day the grave is bright for me, For them the light of life increased, Who stay to share the morning feast, Who rest to-night beside the sea. Let all my genial spirits advance To meet and greet a whiter sun; My drooping memory will not shun The foaming grape of eastern France. It circles round, and fancy plays, And hearts are warm'd and faces bloom, As drinking health to bride and groom We wish them store of happy days. Nor count me all to blame if I Conjecture of a stiller guest, Perchance, perchance, among the rest, 251 And, tho' in silence, wishing joy. But they must go, the time draws on, And those white-favour'd horses wait; They rise, but linger; it is late; Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. A shade falls on us like the dark From little cloudlets on the grass, But sweeps away as out we pass To range the woods, to roam the park, Discussing how their courtship grew, And talk of others that are wed, And how she look'd, and what he said, And back we come at fall of dew. Again the feast, the speech, the glee, The shade of passing thought, the wealth Of words and wit, the double health, The crowning cup, the three-times-three, And last the dance,--till I retire: Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, And high in heaven the streaming cloud, And on the downs a rising fire: And rise, O moon, from yonder down, Till over down and over dale All night the shining vapour sail And pass the silent-lighted town, The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, And catch at every mountain head, And o'er the friths that branch and spread 252 Their sleeping silver thro' the hills; And touch with shade the bridal doors, With tender gloom the roof, the wall; And breaking let the splendour fall To spangle all the happy shores By which they rest, and ocean sounds, And, star and system rolling past, A soul shall draw from out the vast And strike his being into bounds, And, moved thro' life of lower phase, Result in man, be born and think, And act and love, a closer link Betwixt us and the crowning race Of those that, eye to eye, shall look On knowledge; under whose command Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand Is Nature like an open book; No longer half-akin to brute, For all we thought and loved and did, And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit; Whereof the man, that with me trod This planet, was a noble type Appearing ere the times were ripe, That friend of mine who lives in God, That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, 253 To which the whole creation moves. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

862:SECTION 1. Books for Serious Study    Liber CCXX. (Liber AL vel Legis.) The Book of the Law. This book is the foundation of the New Æon, and thus of the whole of our work.    The Equinox. The standard Work of Reference in all occult matters. The Encyclopaedia of Initiation.    Liber ABA (Book 4). A general account in elementary terms of magical and mystical powers. In four parts: (1) Mysticism (2) Magical (Elementary Theory) (3) Magick in Theory and Practice (this book) (4) The Law.    Liber II. The Message of the Master Therion. Explains the essence of the new Law in a very simple manner.    Liber DCCCXXXVIII. The Law of Liberty. A further explanation of The Book of the Law in reference to certain ethical problems.    Collected Works of A. Crowley. These works contain many mystical and magical secrets, both stated clearly in prose, and woven into the Robe of sublimest poesy.    The Yi King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XVI], Oxford University Press.) The "Classic of Changes"; give the initiated Chinese system of Magick.    The Tao Teh King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XXXIX].) Gives the initiated Chinese system of Mysticism.    Tannhäuser, by A. Crowley. An allegorical drama concerning the Progress of the Soul; the Tannhäuser story slightly remodelled.    The Upanishads. (S. B. E. Series [vols. I & XV.) The Classical Basis of Vedantism, the best-known form of Hindu Mysticism.    The Bhagavad-gita. A dialogue in which Krishna, the Hindu "Christ", expounds a system of Attainment.    The Voice of the Silence, by H.P. Blavatsky, with an elaborate commentary by Frater O.M. Frater O.M., 7°=48, is the most learned of all the Brethren of the Order; he has given eighteen years to the study of this masterpiece.    Raja-Yoga, by Swami Vivekananda. An excellent elementary study of Hindu mysticism. His Bhakti-Yoga is also good.    The Shiva Samhita. An account of various physical means of assisting the discipline of initiation. A famous Hindu treatise on certain physical practices.    The Hathayoga Pradipika. Similar to the Shiva Samhita.    The Aphorisms of Patanjali. A valuable collection of precepts pertaining to mystical attainment.    The Sword of Song. A study of Christian theology and ethics, with a statement and solution of the deepest philosophical problems. Also contains the best account extant of Buddhism, compared with modern science.    The Book of the Dead. A collection of Egyptian magical rituals.    Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Levi. The best general textbook of magical theory and practice for beginners. Written in an easy popular style.    The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. The best exoteric account of the Great Work, with careful instructions in procedure. This Book influenced and helped the Master Therion more than any other.    The Goetia. The most intelligible of all the mediæval rituals of Evocation. Contains also the favourite Invocation of the Master Therion.    Erdmann's History of Philosophy. A compendious account of philosophy from the earliest times. Most valuable as a general education of the mind.    The Spiritual Guide of [Miguel de] Molinos. A simple manual of Christian Mysticism.    The Star in the West. (Captain Fuller). An introduction to the study of the Works of Aleister Crowley.    The Dhammapada. (S. B. E. Series [vol. X], Oxford University Press). The best of the Buddhist classics.    The Questions of King Milinda. (S. B. E. Series [vols. XXXV & XXXVI].) Technical points of Buddhist dogma, illustrated bydialogues.    Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mysticæ Viæ Explicandæ, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicam Sanctissimorum Scientiæ Summæ. A complete Dictionary of the Correspondences of all magical elements, reprinted with extensive additions, making it the only standard comprehensive book of reference ever published. It is to the language of Occultism what Webster or Murray is to the English language.    Varieties of Religious Experience (William James). Valuable as showing the uniformity of mystical attainment.    Kabbala Denudata, von Rosenroth: also The Kabbalah Unveiled, by S.L. Mathers. The text of the Qabalah, with commentary. A good elementary introduction to the subject.    Konx Om Pax [by Aleister Crowley]. Four invaluable treatises and a preface on Mysticism and Magick.    The Pistis Sophia [translated by G.R.S. Mead or Violet McDermot]. An admirable introduction to the study of Gnosticism.    The Oracles of Zoroaster [Chaldæan Oracles]. An invaluable collection of precepts mystical and magical.    The Dream of Scipio, by Cicero. Excellent for its Vision and its Philosophy.    The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, by Fabre d'Olivet. An interesting study of the exoteric doctrines of this Master.    The Divine Pymander, by Hermes Trismegistus. Invaluable as bearing on the Gnostic Philosophy.    The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, reprint of Franz Hartmann. An invaluable compendium.    Scrutinium Chymicum [Atalanta Fugiens]¸ by Michael Maier. One of the best treatises on alchemy.    Science and the Infinite, by Sidney Klein. One of the best essays written in recent years.    Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus [A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus &c. &c. &c.], by Richard Payne Knight [and Thomas Wright]. Invaluable to all students.    The Golden Bough, by J.G. Frazer. The textbook of Folk Lore. Invaluable to all students.    The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Excellent, though elementary, as a corrective to superstition.    Rivers of Life, by General Forlong. An invaluable textbook of old systems of initiation.    Three Dialogues, by Bishop Berkeley. The Classic of Subjective Idealism.    Essays of David Hume. The Classic of Academic Scepticism.    First Principles by Herbert Spencer. The Classic of Agnosticism.    Prolegomena [to any future Metaphysics], by Immanuel Kant. The best introduction to Metaphysics.    The Canon [by William Stirling]. The best textbook of Applied Qabalah.    The Fourth Dimension, by [Charles] H. Hinton. The best essay on the subject.    The Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley. Masterpieces of philosophy, as of prose.    ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Appendix I: Literature Recommended to Aspirants #reading list,

863:Brother Benedict Brother Benedict rose and left his cell With the last slow swing of the evening bell. In his hand he carried his only book, And he followed the path to the Abbey brook, And, crossing the stepping-stones, paused midway, For the journeying water seemed to say, Benedicite. But when he stood on the other bank, The flags rose tall, and the grass grew rank, And the sorrel red and the white meadow-sweet Shook their dust on his sandalled feet, And, lifting their heads where his girdle hung, Would surely have said had they found a tongue, Benedicite. Onward and upward he clomb and wound, Bruising the thyme on the nibbled ground Here and there, in the untrimmed brake, The dog-rose bloomed for its own sweet sake; The woodbine clambered up out of reach, But the scent of them all breathed as plain as speech, Benedicite. Shortly he came to a leafy nook, Where wind never entered nor branch ever shook. Itself was the only thing in sight, And the rest of the world was shut out quite. 'Twas as self-contained as the holy place Where the children quire with upturned face, Benedicite. A dell so curtained with trunks and boughs, That in hours when the ringdove coos to his spouse, The sun to its heart scarce a way could win. But the trees now had drawn all their shadows in; There was nothing but scent in the dewy air, And the silence seemed saying in mental prayer, Benedicite. 197 'Gainst the trunk of a beech, round, smooth, and gray, Brother Benedict leaned, with intent to pray, And opened his book: with vellum bound; Within, red letters on faded ground; Pater, and Ave, and saving Creed:But look where you would, you seemed to read, Benedicite. He scarce had a verse of his office said, Ere a bird in the branches overhead Began to warble so sweet a strain, That, strive as he would, still he strove in vain To close his ears; so he closed his book, While the unseen throat to the air outshook Benedicite. 'Twas a song that rippled, and revelled, and ran Ever back to the note whence it began; Rising, and falling, and never did stay, Like a fountain that feeds on itself all day, Wanting no answer, answering none, But beginning again as each verse was done, Benedicite. It brought an ecstasy into his face, It weaned his senses from time and space, It carried him off to worlds unseen, And showed him what is not and ne'er has been, Transporting his soul to those realms of calm, More blessëd and blessing than even the psalm, Benedicite. Then, carolling still, it drew him thence Slowly back to the spheres of sense, But held him awhile where self expires, And vague recollections and vague desires Banish the burden of things that are, And angels seem canticling, faint and far, Benedicite. Then across him there flitted the days that are dead, 198 And those that will follow when these are fled; Generations of sorrow, wave after wave, With their samesome journey from womb to grave; Men's love of the fleshly sweets that sting, And the comfort that comes when we kneel and sing, Benedicite. He suddenly started and gazed around, For silence can waken as well as sound, And the bird had ceased singing. The dewy air Still was immersed in mental prayer. Time seemed to have stopped. So he quickened pace, But forgot not to say ere he left the lone place, Benedicite. Downward he wended, and under his feet, As on mounting, the bruised thyme answered sweet; As before, in the brake the dog-rose bloomed, And the woodbine with fragrance the hedge perfumed; And the white meadow-sweet and the sorrel red, Had they found a tongue, would still surely have said, Benedicite. But where were the flags and the tall rank grass, And the stepping-stones smooth for his feet to pass? Were they swept away? Did he wake or dream? A bridge that he knew not spanned the stream; Though under its archway he still could hear The journeying water purling clear, Benedicite. Where had he wandered? This never could Be the spot where the Abbey orchard stood? Where the filberts once mellowed, lay tumbled blocks, And cherry stumps peered through tares and docks; A rough plot stretched where in times gone by The plump apples dropped to the joyous cry, Benedicite. The gateway had vanished, the portal flown, The walls of the Abbey were ivy-grown; The arches were shattered, the roof was gone, 199 The mullions were mouldering one by one; Wrecked was the oriel's tracery light That the sun streamed through when they met to recite Benedicite. Chancel and choir and nave and aisle Were but one ruinous vacant pile. So utter the havoc, you could not tell Which was corridor, cloister, cell. Cow-grass, and foxglove, and waving weed, Covered the scrolls where you used to read, Benedicite. High up where of old the belfry towered, An elder had rooted and whitely flowered: Surviving ruin and rain and wind, Below it a lichened gurgoyle grinned. Though birds were chirping and flitting about, They paused not to treble the anthem devout, Benedicite. Then he went where the Abbot was wont to lay His children to rest till the Judgment Day, And at length in the grass the name he found Of a friar he fancied alive and sound. The slab was hoary, the carving blurred, And he rather guessed than could read the word, Benedicite. He sate him down on a fretted stone, Where rains had beaten and winds had blown, And opened his office-book, and read The prayers that we read for our loved ones dead, While nightfall crept on the twilight air, And darkened the page of the final prayer, Benedicite. But to murkiest gloom when the gloaming did wane, In the air there still floated a shadowy strain. 'Twas distilled with the dew, it was showered from the star, It was murmuring near, it was tingling afar; In silence it sounded, in darkness it shone, 200 And in sleep that is deepest it wakeful dreamed on, Benedicite. Do you ask what had witched Brother Benedict's ears? The bird had been singing a thousand years: Sweetly confounding in its sweet lay To-day, to-morrow, and yesterday. Time? What is Time but a fiction vain, To him that o'erhears the Eternal strain, Benedicite? ~ Alfred Austin,

864:After Sixty Years RING, bells! flags, fly! and let the great crowd roar Its ecstasy. Let the hid heart in prayer Lift up your name. God bless you evermore, Lady, who have the noblest crown to wear That ever woman wore. A jewel, in the front of time, shall blaze This day, of all your days commemorate; With Time's white bays your brows are laureate, And England's love shall garland all your days. When England's crown, to Love's acclaim, was laid On the soft brightness of a maiden's hair, Amid delight, Love trembled, half afraid, To give that little head such weight to bear,-Bind on so slight a maid A kingdom's purple--bid her hands hold high The sceptre and the heavy orb of power, To give to youth and beauty for a dower Care and a crown, sorrow and sovereignty. But from our hearts sprang an intenser flame When loyal Love met tender Love half way, And, in love's script, wrote on the scroll of fame, Entwined with all the splendour of that day, The letters of her name. Then as fair roses grow 'mid leaves of green, Love amid loyalty grew strong and close, To hedge a pleasaunce round our Royal rose, Our sovereign maiden flower, our child, our Queen. The trumpets spake--in sonorous triumph shout, Their speech found echo in the hundred guns; From countless towers the answering bells rang out, And England's heart spoke clamorous, through her sons, The exulting land throughout. Down streets ablaze with light the flags unfurled, 51 Along dark, lonely hills the joy-fires crept, And eager swords within their scabbards leapt To guard our Lady and Queen against the world. Those swords are rusted now. Good men and true Dust in the dust are laid who held her dear; But from their grave the bright flower springs anew, Which for her festival we bring her here, The long years' meed and due; The bud of homage grafted on chivalry. God took the souls that shrined the jewel of love, But made their sons inheritors thereof, In endless gold entail of loyalty. Time, compensating life, the fruit bestowed When in spent perfume passed the flower of youth; Her feet were set upon the upward road, Her face was turned towards the star of truth That in her soul abode. With youth the maid's bright brow was garlanded But richer crowns adorn the dear white hair; The gathered love of all the years lies there, In coronal benediction on her head. She is of our blood, for hath not she, too, met The angels of delight and of despair? Does not she, too, remember and forget How bitter or how bright the lost days were? Her eyes have tears made wet; She has seen joy unveilèd even as we, Has laid upon cold clay the heart-warm kiss, She has known Sorrow for the king he is; She has held little children on her knee. Mother, dear Mother, these your children rise And call you blessèd, and shall we not, too, Who are your children in the greater wise, And love you for our land and her for you? 52 The blessing sanctifies Your children as they breathe it at your knees, And, bringing little gifts from very far, Where the great nurseries of your Empire are, Your children's blessings throng from over seas. On Love's spread wings, and over leagues of space, Homage is borne from far-off sun-steeped lands; From many a domed mysterious Eastern place, Where Secresy holds Time between her hands, The children of your race Reach English hands towards your English throne; And from the far South turn blue English eyes, That never saw the blue of English skies, Yet call you Mother, and your land their own. Where 'mid great trees the mighty waters flow In arrogant submission to your sway, In fur of price your northern hunters go, And shafts of ardent greeting fly your way Across the splendid snow; And isles that with their coral, safe and small, Rock in the cradle of the tropic seas, In soft, strange speech join in the litanies That pride and prayer breathe at your festival. All round the world, on every far-off sea, In wind-ploughed oceans and in sun-kissed bays, By every busy wharf and chattering quay, Some cantle of your Empire sails or stays-Flaunts your supremacy Against the winds of all the world, and flies Your flag triumphant between blue and blue, Blazons to sun and star the name of you, And spreads your glory between seas and skies, There is no cottage garden, sunny-sweet, There is no pasture where our shepherds tend 53 Their quiet flocks, no red-roofed village street, But holds for you the love-wish of a friend, Blent with high homage meet; No little farm among the cornfields lone, No little cot upon the uplands bare, But hears to-day in blessing and in prayer One name, Victoria, and that name your own. From the vast cities where the giant's might, Pauseless, resistless, moves by night and day, From hidden mines where day is one with night, From weary lives whose days and nights are grey And empty of delight, From lives that rhyme to sunshine and the spring, From happiness at flood and hope at ebb, Rose the magnificent and mingled web That floats, your banner, at your thanksgiving. Throned on the surety of a splendid past, With present glory clothed as with the sun, Crowned with the future's hopes, you know at last What treasure from the years your life has won; Behold, your hands hold fast The moon of Empire, and its sway controls The tides of war and peace, while in those hands Lies tender homage out of all the lands Against whose feet your furthest ocean rolls. How seems your life, looked back at through the years? Much love, much sorrow, dead desires, lost dreams, A great life lived out greatly; hidden tears, And smiles for daily wear; strong plans and schemes, And mighty hopes and fears; War in the South and murder in the East, And England's heart-throbs echoed by your heart When loss, and labour, and sorrow were her part, Or when Fate bade her to some flower-crowned feast. 54 Red battle-fields whereon your soldiers died, Green pastoral fields saved by the blood of these, Duty that bade mere sorrow stand aside, And love transforming anguish into ease; Long longing satisfied, Great secrets wrenched from Nature's grudging breast, The fruit of knowledge plucked for all to eat,-These have you known, Life's circle is complete, And, knowing these, you know what is Life's best: The dear small secrets of our common life, The English woods and hills, the English home, The common joys and griefs of Mother and wife, Joy coming, going--griefs that go and come, Soul's peace amid world's strife; Hours when the Queen's cares leave the woman free; Dear friendships, where the friend forgets the Queen And stoops to wear a dearer, homelier mien, And be more loved than mere Queens rise to be. And, in your hour of triumph, when you shine The centre of our triumph's blazing star, And, gazing down your long life's lustrous line, Behold how great your life-long glories are, Yet, in your heart's veiled shrine, No splendour of all splendours that have been Will brim your eyes with tremulous thanksgivings, But little memories of little things-The treasures of the woman, not the Queen. Yet, Queen, because the love of you hath wound A golden girdle all about the earth, Because your name is as a trumpet sound To call toward you men of English birth From the world's outmost bound, Because old kinsmen, long estranged from home, Come, with old foes, to greet you, friend and kin, With kindly eyes behold your guests come in, See from afar the long procession come! 55 No Emperor in Rome's Imperial days Knew ever such a triumph day as this, Though captive kings bore chains along his ways, Though tribute from the furthest isles was his, With pageant and with praise. For you--free kings and free republics grace Your triumph, and across the conquered waves Come gifts from friends, not tributes wrung from slaves, And praise kneels, clothed in love, before your face. Ring, bells! flags, fly! and let the great crowd roar Its ecstasy! Let the hid heart in prayer Lift up your name! God bless you evermore, Lady, who have the noblest crown to wear That ever monarch wore. For, 'mid this day's triumphal voluntaries, Your name shines like the splendour of the sun, Because your name with England's name is one, As Hers, thank God! is one with Liberty's. ~ Edith Nesbit,

865:Phantasies I. Evening. Rest, beauty, stillness: not a waif of a cloud From gray-blue east sheer to the yellow westNo film of mist the utmost slopes to shroud. The earth lies grace, by quiet airs caressed, And shepherdeth her shadows, but each stream, Free to the sky, is by that glow possessed, And traileth with the splendors of a dream Athwart the dusky land. Uplift thine eyes! Unbroken by a vapor or a gleam, The vast clear reach of mild, wan twilight skies. But look again, and lo, the evening star! Against the pale tints black the slim elms rise, The earth exhales sweet odors nigh and far, And from the heavens fine influences fall. Familiar things stand not for what they are: What they suggest, foreshadow, or recall The spirit is alert to apprehend, Imparting somewhat of herself to all. Labor and thought and care are at an end: The soul is filled with gracious reveries, And with her mood soft sounds and colors blend; For simplest sounds ring forth like melodies In this weird-lighted air-the monotone Of some far bell, the distant farmyard cries, A barking dog, the thin, persistent drone Of crickets, and the lessening call of birds. The apparition of yon star alone Breaks on the sense like music. Beyond word The peace that floods the soul, for night is here, 158 And Beauty still is guide and harbinger. II. Aspiration. Dark lies the earth, and bright with worlds the sky: That soft, large, lustrous star, that first outshone, Still holds us spelled with potent sorcery. Dilating, shrinking, lightening, it hath won Our spirit with its strange strong influence, And sways it as the tides beneath the moon. What impulse this, o'ermastering heart and sense? Exalted, thrilled, the freed soul fain would soar Unto that point of shining prominence, Craving new fields and some unheard-of shore, Yea, all the heavens, for her activity, To mount with daring flight, to hover o'er Low hills of earth, flat meadows, level sea, And earthly joy and trouble. In this hour Of waning light and sound, of mystery, Of shadowed love and beauty-veiled power, She feels her wings: she yearns to grasp her own, Knowing the utmost good to be her dower. A dream! a dream! for at a touch 't is gone. O mocking spirit! thy mere fools are we, Unto the depths from heights celestial thrown. From these blind gropings toward reality, This thirst for truth, this most pathetic need Of something to uplift, to justify, To help and comfort while we faint and bleed, May we not draw, wrung from the last despair, Some argument of hope, some blessed creed, That we can trust the faith which whispers prayer, 159 The vanishings, the ecstasy, the gleam, The nameless aspiration, and the dream? III. Wherefore? Deep languor overcometh mind and frame: A listless, drowsy, utter weariness, A trance wherein no thought finds speech or name, The overstrained spirit doth possess. She sinks with drooping wing-poor unfledged bird, That fain had flown!-in fluttering breathlessness. To what end those high hopes that wildly stirred The beating heart with aspirations vain? Why proffer prayers unanswered and unheard To blank, deaf heavens that will not heed her pain? Where lead these lofty, soaring tendencies, That leap and fly and poise, to fall again, Yet seem to link her with the utmost skies? What mean these clinging loves that bind to earth, And claim her with beseeching, wistful eyes? This little resting-place 'twixt death and birth, Why is it fretted with the ceaseless flow Of flood and ebb, with overgrowth and dearth, And vext with dreams, and clouded with strange woe? Ah! she is tired of thought, she yearns for peace, Seeing all things one equal end must know. Wherefore this tangle of perplexities, The trouble or the joy? the weary maze Of narrow fears and hopes that may not cease? A chill falls on her from the skyey ways, Black with the night-tide, where is none to hear The ancient cry, the Wherefore of our days. 160 IV. Fancies. The ceaseless whirr of crickets fills the ear From underneath each hedge and bush and tree, Deep in the dew-drenched grasses everywhere. The simple sound dispels the fantasy Of gloom and terror gathering round the mind. It seems a pleasant thing to breathe, to be, To hear the many-voiced, soft summer wind Lisp through the dark thick leafage overheadTo see the rosy half-moon soar behind The black slim-branching elms. Sad thoughts have fled, Trouble and doubt, and now strange reveries And odd caprices fill us in their stead. From yonder broken disk the redness dies, Like gold fruit through the leaves the half-sphere gleams, Then over the hoar tree-tops climbs the skies, Blanched ever more and more, until it beams Whiter than crystal. Like a scroll unfurled, And shadowy as a landscape seen in dreams, Reveals itself the sleeping, quiet world, Painted in tender grays and whites subduedThe speckled stream with flakes of light impearled, The wide, soft meadow and the massive wood. Naught is too wild for our credulity In this weird hour: our finest dreams hold good. Quaint elves and frolic flower-sprites we see, And fairies weaving rings of gossamer, And angels floating through the filmy air. V. In the Night. 161 Let us go in: the air is dank and chill With dewy midnight, and the moon rides high O'er ghostly fields, pale stream, and spectral hill. This hour the dawn seems farthest from the sky So weary long the space that lies between That sacred joy and this dark mystery Of earth and heaven: no glimmering is seen, In the star-sprinkled east, of coming day, Nor, westward, of the splendor that hath been. Strange fears beset us, nameless terrors sway The brooding soul, that hungers for her rest, Out worn with changing moods, vain hopes' delay, With conscious thought o'erburdened and oppressed. The mystery and the shadow wax too deep; She longs to merge both sense and thought in sleep. VI. Faerie. From the oped lattice glance once more abroad While the ethereal moontide bathes with light Hill, stream, and garden, and white-winding road. All gracious myths born of the shadowy night Recur, and hover in fantastic guise, Airy and vague, before the drowsy sight. On yonder soft gray hill Endymion lies In rosy slumber, and the moonlit air Breathes kisses on his cheeks and lips and eyes. 'Twixt bush and bush gleam flower-white limbs, left bare, Of huntress-nymphs, and flying raiment thin, Vanishing faces, and bright floating hair. The quaint midsummer fairies and their kin, Gnomes, elves, and trolls, on blossom, branch, and grass Gambol and dance, and winding out and in 162 Leave circles of spun dew where'er they pass. Through the blue ether the freed Ariel flies; Enchantment holds the air; a swarming mass Of myriad dusky, gold-winged dreams arise, Throng toward the gates of sense, and so possess The soul, and lull it to forgetfulness. VII. Confused Dreams. O strange, dim other-world revealed to us, Beginning there where ends reality, Lying 'twixt life and death, and populous With souls from either sphere! now enter we Thy twisted paths. Barred is the silver gate, But the wild-carven doors of ivory Spring noiselessly apart: between them straight Flies forth a cloud of nameless shadowy things, With harpies, imps, and monsters, small and great, Blurring the thick air with darkening wings. All humors of the blood and brain take shape, And fright us with our own imaginings. A trouble weighs upon us: no escape From this unnatural region can there be. Fixed eyes stare on us, wide mouths grin and gape, Familiar faces out of reach we see. Fain would we scream, to shatter with a cry The tangled woof of hideous fantasy, When, lo! the air grows clear, a soft fair sky Shines over head: sharp pain dissolves in peace; Beneath the silver archway quietly We float away: all troublous visions cease. By a strange sense of joy we are possessed, 163 Body and spirit soothed in perfect rest. VIII. The End of the Song. What dainty note of long-drawn melody Athwart our dreamless sleep rings sweet and clear, Till all the fumes of slumber are brushed by, And with awakened consciousness we hear The pipe of birds? Look forth! The sane, white day Blesses the hilltops, and the sun is near. All misty phantoms slowly roll away With the night's vapors toward the western sky. The Real enchants us, the fresh breath of hay Blows toward us; soft the meadow-grasses lie, Bearded with dew; the air is a caress; The sudden sun o'ertops the boundary Of eastern hills, the morning joyousness Thrills tingling through the frame; life's pulse beats strong; Night's fancies melt like dew. So ends the song! ~ Emma Lazarus,

866:I.   The everlasting universe of things   Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,   Now darknow glittering--now reflecting gloom--   Now lending splendour, where from secret springs   The source of human thought its tribute brings   Of waters--with a sound but half its own,   Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,   In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,   Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves. II. Thus thou, Ravine of Arvedark, deep Ravine-- Thou many-colour'd, many-voiced vale, Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene, Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne, Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame Of lightning through the tempest;--thou dost lie, Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, Children of elder time, in whose devotion The chainless winds still come and ever came To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging To hearan old and solemn harmony; Thine earthly rainbows stretch'd across the sweep Of the aethereal waterfall, whose veil Robes some unsculptur'd image; the strange sleep Which when the voices of the desert fail Wraps all in its own deep eternity; Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion, A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame; Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, Thou art the path of that unresting sound Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange To muse on my own separate fantasy, My own, my human mind, which passively Now renders and receives fast influencings, Holding an unremitting interchange With the clear universe of things around; One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings Now float above thy darkness, and now rest Where that or thou art no unbidden guest, In the still cave of the witch Poesy, Seeking among the shadows that pass by Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee, Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast From which they fled recalls them, thou art there! III. Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber, And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber Of those who wake and live.I look on high; Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl'd The veil of life and death? or do I lie In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep Spread far around and inaccessibly Its circles? For the very spirit fails, Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep That vanishes among the viewless gales!   Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, Mont Blanc appearsstill, snowy, and serene; Its subject mountains their unearthly forms Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread And wind among the accumulated steeps; A desert peopled by the storms alone, Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, And the wolf tracks her there--how hideously Its shapes are heap'd around! rude, bare, and high, Ghastly, and scarr'd, and riven. --Is this the scene Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea Of fire envelop once this silent snow? None can reply -- all seems eternal now. The wilderness has a mysterious tongue Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, So solemn, so serene, that man may be, But for such faith, with Nature reconcil'd; Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood By all, but which the wise, and great, and good Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel. IV. The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, Ocean, and all the living things that dwell Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain, Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, The torpor of the year when feeble dreams Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep Holds every future leaf and flower; the bound With which from that detested trance they leap; The works and ways of man, their death and birth, And that of him and all that his may be; All things that move and breathe with toil and sound Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell. Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, Remote, serene, and inaccessible: And this, the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power Have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, A city of death, distinct with many a tower And wall impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing Its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil Branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down From yon remotest waste, have overthrown The limits of the dead and living world, Never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-place Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; Their food and their retreat for ever gone, So much of life and joy is lost. The race Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, And their place is not known. Below, vast caves Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling Meet in the vale, and one majestic River, The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever Rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves, Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air. V. Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:--the power is there, The still and solemn power of many sights, And many sounds, and much of life and death. In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, In the lone glare of day, the snows descend Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there, Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds contend Silently there, and heap the snow with breath Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home The voiceless lightning in these solitudes Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods Over the snow. The secret Strength of things Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee! And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, If to the human mind's imaginings Silence and solitude were vacancy? Composed in Switzerland, July, 1816 (see date below). Printed at the end of the History of a Six Weeks' Tour published by Shelley in 1817, and reprinted with Posthumous Poems, 1824. Amongst the Boscombe manuscripts is a draft of this Ode, mainly in pencil, which has been collated by Dr. Garnett. 1. In the preface of Mary Shelley's History of a Six Weeks Tour (1817), Shelley writes: "the poem was composed under the immediate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe\; and, as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang." Shelley's prose account of his reaction to the first sight of Mont Blanc is in a letter written on July 24 to T. L. Peacock. 1-2. For a prose exposition of what Shelley calls "the intellectual philosophy," see his essay On Life: "I confess that I am one of those who am unable to refuse my assent to the conclusions of those philosophers who assert that nothing exists but as it is perceived .... The difference is merely nominal between those two classes of thought which are vulgarly distinguished by the names of ideas and of external objects. ... The existence of distinct individual minds ... is likewise found to be a delusion. The words, I, you, they, are ... merely marks employed to denote the different modifications of the one mind. ... By the word things is to be understood any object of thought. ... The relations of things remain unchanged [in the intellectual philosophy]\; and such is the material of our knowledge." 53. Unfurl'd. "Rolled back" or merely "furled" is the meaning required by the sense of the passage. "Upfurled" has been suggested as the word Shelley intended. 76-83. For a related argument see Queen Mab, VI, 197-219. 79. But for such faith. A surviving pencil draft of the poem reads "in such a faith," which confirms the likelihood that this phrase is intended to mean "even with such faith alone," rather than "except for such faith." ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mont Blanc - Lines Written In The Vale of Chamouni ,

867:The Star-Apple Kingdom There were still shards of an ancient pastoral in those shires of the island where the cattle drank their pools of shadow from an older sky, surviving from when the landscape copied such objects as 'Herefords at Sunset in the valley of the Wye.' The mountain water that fell white from the mill wheel sprinkling like petals from the star-apple trees, and all of the windmills and sugar mills moved by mules on the treadmill of Monday to Monday, would repeat in tongues of water and wind and fire, in tongues of Mission School pickaninnies, like rivers remembering their source, Parish Trelawny, Parish St David, Parish St Andrew, the names afflicting the pastures, the lime groves and fences of marl stone and the cattle with a docile longing, an epochal content. And there were, like old wedding lace in an attic, among the boas and parasols and the tea-colored daguerreotypes, hints of an epochal happiness as ordered and infinite to the child as the great house road to the Great House down a perspective of casuarinas plunging green manes in time to the horses, an orderly life reduced by lorgnettes day and night, one disc the sun, the other the moon, reduced into a pier glass: nannies diminished to dolls, mahogany stairways no larger than those of an album in which the flash of cutlery yellows, as gamboge as the piled cakes of teatime on that latticed bougainvillea verandah that looked down toward a prospect of Cuyp-like Herefords under a sky lurid as a porcelain souvenir with these words: 'Herefords at Sunset in the Valley of the Wye.' Strange, that the rancor of hatred hid in that dream of slow rivers and lily-like parasols, in snaps of fine old colonial families, curled at the edge not from age of from fire or the chemicals, no, not at all, but because, off at its edges, innocently excluded stood the groom, the cattle boy, the housemaid, the gardeners, 74 the tenants, the good Negroes down in the village, their mouth in the locked jaw of a silent scream. A scream which would open the doors to swing wildly all night, that was bringing in heavier clouds, more black smoke than cloud, frightening the cattle in whose bulging eyes the Great House diminished; a scorching wind of a scream that began to extinguish the fireflies, that dried the water mill creaking to a stop as it was about to pronounce Parish Trelawny all over, in the ancient pastoral voice, a wind that blew all without bending anything, neither the leaves of the album nor the lime groves; blew Nanny floating back in white from a feather to a chimerical, chemical pin speck that shrank the drinking Herefords to brown porcelain cows on a mantelpiece, Trelawny trembling with dusk, the scorched pastures of the old benign Custos; blew far the decent servants and the lifelong cook, and shriveled to a shard that ancient pastoral of dusk in a gilt-edged frame now catching the evening sun in Jamaica, making both epochs one. He looked out from the Great House windows on clouds that still held the fragrance of fire, he saw the Botanical Gardens officially drown in a formal dusk, where governors had strolled and black gardeners had smiled over glinting shears at the lilies of parasols on the floating lawns, the flame trees obeyed his will and lowered their wicks, the flowers tightened their fists in the name of thrift, the porcelain lamps of ripe cocoa, the magnolia's jet dimmed on the one circuit with the ginger lilies and left a lonely bulb on the verandah, and, had his mandate extended to that ceiling of star-apple candelabra, he would have ordered the sky to sleep, saying, I'm tired, save the starlight for victories, we can't afford it, leave the moon on for one more hour,and that's it. But though his power, the given mandate, extended from tangerine daybreaks to star-apple dusks, his hand could not dam that ceaseless torrent of dust 75 that carried the shacks of the poor, to their root-rock music, down the gullies of Yallahs and August Town, to lodge them on thorns of maca, with their rags crucified by cactus, tins, old tires, cartons; from the black Warieka Hills the sky glowed fierce as the dials of a million radios, a throbbing sunset that glowed like a grid where the dread beat rose from the jukebox of Kingston. He saw the fountains dried of quadrilles, the water-music of the country dancers, the fiddlers like fifes put aside. He had to heal this malarial island in its bath of bay leaves, its forests tossing with fever, the dry cattle groaning like winches, the grass that kept shaking its head to remember its name. No vowels left in the mill wheel, the river. Rock stone. Rock stone. The mountains rolled like whales through phosphorous stars, as he swayed like a stone down fathoms into sleep, drawn by that magnet which pulls down half the world between a star and a star, by that black power that has the assassin dreaming of snow, that poleaxes the tyrant to a sleeping child. The house is rocking at anchor, but as he falls his mind is a mill wheel in moonlight, and he hears, in the sleep of his moonlight, the drowned bell of Port Royal's cathedral, sees the copper pennies of bubbles rising from the empty eye-pockets of green buccaneers, the parrot fish floating from the frayed shoulders of pirates, sea horses drawing gowned ladies in their liquid promenade across the moss-green meadows of the sea; he heard the drowned choirs under Palisadoes, a hymn ascending to earth from a heaven inverted by water, a crab climbing the steeple, and he climbed from that submarine kingdom as the evening lights came on in the institute, the scholars lamplit in their own aquarium, he saw them mouthing like parrot fish, as he passed upward from that baptism, their history lessons, the bubbles like ideas which he could not break: Jamaica was captured by Penn and Venables, 76 Port Royal perished in a cataclysmic earthquake. Before the coruscating façades of cathedrals from Santiago to Caracas, where penitential archbishops washed the feet of paupers (a parenthetical moment that made the Caribbean a baptismal font, turned butterflies to stone, and whitened like doves the buzzards circling municipal garbage), the Caribbean was borne like an elliptical basin in the hands of acolytes, and a people were absolved of a history which they did not commit; the slave pardoned his whip, and the dispossessed said the rosary of islands for three hundred years, a hymn that resounded like the hum of the sea inside a sea cave, as their knees turned to stone, while the bodies of patriots were melting down walls still crusted with mute outcries of La Revolucion! 'San Salvador, pray for us,St. Thomas, San Domingo, ora pro nobis, intercede for us, Sancta Lucia of no eyes,' and when the circular chaplet reached the last black bead of Sancta Trinidad they began again, their knees drilled into stone, where Colon had begun, with San Salvador's bead, beads of black colonies round the necks of Indians. And while they prayed for an economic miracle, ulcers formed on the municipal portraits, the hotels went up, and the casinos and brothels, and the empires of tobacco, sugar, and bananas, until a black woman, shawled like a buzzard, climbed up the stairs and knocked at the door of his dream, whispering in the ear of the keyhole: 'Let me in, I'm finished with praying, I'm the Revolution. I am the darker, the older America.' She was as beautiful as a stone in the sunrise, her voice had the gutturals of machine guns across khaki deserts where the cactus flower detonates like grenades, her sex was the slit throat of an Indian, her hair had the blue-black sheen of the crow. She was a black umbrella blown inside out by the wind of revolution, La Madre Dolorosa, a black rose of sorrow, a black mine of silence, 77 raped wife, empty mother, Aztec virgin transfixed by arrows from a thousand guitars, a stone full of silence, which, if it gave tongue to the tortures done in the name of the Father, would curdle the blood of the marauding wolf, the fountain of generals, poets, and cripples who danced without moving over their graves with each revolution; her Caesarean was stitched by the teeth of machine guns,and every sunset she carried the Caribbean's elliptical basin as she had once carried the penitential napkins to be the footbath of dictators, Trujillo, Machado, and those whose faces had yellowed like posters on municipal walls. Now she stroked his hair until it turned white, but she would not understand that he wanted no other power but peace, that he wanted a revolution without any bloodshed, he wanted a history without any memory, streets without statues, and a geography without myth. He wanted no armies but those regiments of bananas, thick lances of cane, and he sobbed,'I am powerless, except for love.' She faded from him, because he could not kill; she shrunk to a bat that hung day and night in the back of his brain. He rose in his dream. ~ Derek Walcott,

868:At The Gate Of The Convent Beside the Convent Gate I stood, Lingering to take farewell of those To whom I owed the simple good Of three days' peace, three nights' repose. My sumpter-mule did blink and blink; Was nothing more to munch or quaff; Antonio, far too wise to think, Leaned vacantly upon his staff. It was the childhood of the year: Bright was the morning, blithe the air; And in the choir I plain could hear The monks still chanting matin prayer. The throstle and the blackbird shrilled, Loudly as in an English copse, Fountain-like note that, still refilled, Rises and falls, but never stops. As lush as in an English chase, The hawthorn, guessed by its perfume, With folds on folds of snowy lace Blindfolded all its leaves with bloom. Scarce seen, and only faintly heard, A torrent, 'mid far snow-peaks born, Sang kindred with the gurgling bird, Flowed kindred with the foaming thorn. The chanting ceased, and soon instead Came shuffling sound of sandalled shoon; Each to his cell and narrow bed Withdrew, to pray and muse till noon. Only the Prior-for such their RuleInto the morning sunshine came. Antonio bared his locks; the mule Kept blinking, blinking, just the same. 175 I thanked him with a faltering tongue; I thanked him with a flowing heart. ``This for the poor.'' His hand I wrung, And gave the signal to depart. But still in his he held my hand, As though averse that I should go. His brow was grave, his look was bland, His beard was white as Alpine snow. And in his eye a light there shone, A soft, subdued, but steadfast ray, Like to those lamps that still burn on In shrines where no one comes to pray. And in his voice I seemed to hear The hymns that novice-sisters sing, When only anguished Christ is near, And earth and life seem vanishing. ``Why do you leave us, dear my son? Why from calm cloisters backward wend, Where moil is much and peace is none, And journeying hath nor bourne nor end? ``Read I your inmost soul aright, Heaven hath to you been strangely kind; Gave gentle cradle, boyhood bright, A fostered soul, a tutored mind. ``Nor wealth did lure, nor penury cramp, Your ripening soul; it lived and throve, Nightly beside the lettered lamp, Daily in field, and glade, and grove. ``And when the dawn of manhood brought The hour to choose to be of those Who serve for gold, or sway by thought, You doubted not, and rightly chose. ``Loving your Land, you face the strife; 176 Loved by the Muse, you shun the throng; And blend within your dual life The patriot's pen, the poet's song. ``Hence now, in gaze mature and wise, Dwells scorn of praise, dwells scorn of blame; Calm consciousness of surer prize Than dying noise of living fame. ``Have you not loved, been loved, as few Love, or are loved, on loveless earth? How often have you felt its dew? Say, have you ever known its dearth? ``I speak of love divorced from pelf, I speak of love unyoked and free, Of love that deadens sense of self, Of love that loveth utterly. ``And this along your life hath flowed In full and never-failing stream, Fresh from its source, unbought, unowed, Beyond your boyhood's fondest dream.'' He paused. The cuckoo called. I thought Of English voices, English trees. The far-off fancy instant brought The tears; and he, misled by these, With hand upon my shoulder, said, ``You own 'tis true. The richest years Bequeath the beggared heart, when fled, Only this legacy of tears. ``Why is it that all raptures cloy? Though men extol, though women bless, Why are we still chagrined with joy, Dissatisfied with happiness? ``Yes, the care-flouting cuckoo calls, And yet your smile betokens grief, Like meditative light that falls 177 Through branches fringed with autumn leaf. ``Whence comes this shadow? You are now In the full summer of the soul. The answer darkens on your brow: `Winter the end, and death the goal.' ``Yes, vain the fires of pride and lust Fierce in meridian pulses burn: Remember, Man, that thou art dust, And unto dust thou shalt return. ``Rude are our walls, our beds are rough, But use is hardship's subtle friend. He hath got all that hath enough; And rough feels softest, in the end. ``While luxury hath this disease, It ever craves and pushes on. Pleasures, repeated, cease to please, And rapture, once 'tis reaped, is gone. ``My flesh hath long since ceased to creep, Although the hairshirt pricketh oft. A plank my couch; withal, I sleep Soundly as he that lieth soft. ``And meagre though may be the meal That decks the simple board you see, At least, my son, we never feel The hunger of satiety. ``You have perhaps discreetly drunk: O, then, discreetly, drink no more! Which is the happier, worldling, monk, When youth is past, and manhood o'er? ``Of life beyond I speak not yet. 'Tis solitude alone can e'er, By hushing controversy, let Man catch earth's undertone of prayer. 178 ``Your soul which Heaven at last must reap, From too much noise hath barren grown; Long fallow silence must it keep, Ere faith revive, and grace be sown. ``Let guide and mule alone return. For you I will prepare a cell, In whose calm silence you will learn, Living or dying, All is well!'' Again the cuckoo called; again The merle and mavis shook their throats; The torrent rambled down the glen, The ringdove cooed in sylvan cotes. The hawthorn moved not, but still kept As fixedly white as far cascade; The russet squirrel frisked and leapt From breadth of sheen to breadth of shade. I did not know the words had ceased, I thought that he was speaking still, Nor had distinguished sacred priest From pagan thorn, from pagan rill. Not that I had not harked and heard; But all he bade me shun or do, Seemed just as sweet as warbling bird, But not more grave and not more true. So deep yet indistinct my bliss, That when his counsels ceased to sound, That one sweet note I did not miss From other sweet notes all around. But he, misreading my delight, Again with urging accents spoke. Then I, like one that's touched at night, From the deep swoon of sweetness woke. And just as one that, waking, can Recall the thing he dreamed, but knows 179 'Twas of the phantom world that man Visits in languors of repose; So, though I straight repictured plain All he had said, it seemed to me, Recalled from slumber, to retain No kinship with reality. ``Father, forgive!'' I said; ``and look! Who taught its carolling to the merle? Who wed the music to the brook? Who decked the thorn with flakes of pearl? ``'Twas He, you answer, that did make Earth, sea, and sky: He maketh all; The gleeful notes that flood the brake, The sad notes wailed in Convent stall. ``And my poor voice He also made; And like the brook, and like the bird, And like your brethren mute and staid, I too can but fulfil His word. ``Were I about my loins to tie A girdle, and to hold in scorn Beauty and Love, what then were I But songless stream, but flowerless thorn? ``Why do our senses love to list When distant cataracts murmur thus? Why stealeth o'er your eyes a mist When belfries toll the Angelus? ``It is that every tender sound Art can evoke, or Nature yield, Betokens something more profound, Hinted, but never quite revealed. ``And though it be the self-same Hand That doth the complex concert strike, The notes, to those that understand, Are individual, and unlike. 180 ``Allow my nature. All things are, If true to instinct, well and wise. The dewdrop hinders not the star; The waves do not rebuke the skies. ``So leave me free, good Father dear, While you on humbler, holier chord Chant your secluded Vespers here, To fling my matin notes abroad. ``While you with sacred sandals wend To trim the lamp, to deck the shrine, Let me my country's altar tend, Nor deem such worship less divine. ``Mine earthly, yours celestial love: Each hath its harvest; both are sweet. You wait to reap your Heaven, above; I reap the Heaven about my feet. ``And what if I-forgive your guest Who feels, so frankly speaks, his qualmThough calm amid the world's unrest, Should restless be amid your calm? ``But though we two be severed quite, Your holy words will sound between Our lives, like stream one hears at night, Louder, because it is not seen. ``Father, farewell! Be not distressed; And take my vow, ere I depart, To found a Convent in my breast, And keep a cloister in my heart.'' The mule from off his ribs a fly Flicked, and then zigzagged down the road. Antonio lit his pipe, and I Behind them somewhat sadly strode. Just ere the Convent dipped from view, 181 Backward I glanced: he was not there. Within the chapel, well I knew, His lips were now composed in prayer. But I have kept my vow. And when The cuckoo chuckleth o'er his theft, When throstles sing, again, again, And runnels gambol down the cleft, With these I roam, I sing with those, And should the world with smiles or jeers Provoke or lure, my lids I close, And draw a cowl about my ears. ~ Alfred Austin,

869:The south-wind brings Life, sunshine, and desire, And on every mount and meadow Breathes aromatic fire, But over the dead he has no power, The lost, the lost he cannot restore, And, looking over the hills, I mourn The darling who shall not return. I see my empty house, I see my trees repair their boughs, And he, the wondrous child, Whose silver warble wild Outvalued every pulsing sound Within the air's cerulean round, The hyacinthine boy, for whom Morn well might break, and April bloom, The gracious boy, who did adorn The world whereinto he was born, And by his countenance repay The favor of the loving Day, Has disappeared from the Day's eye; Far and wide she cannot find him, My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him. Returned this day the south-wind searches And finds young pines and budding birches, But finds not the budding man; Nature who lost him, cannot remake him; Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him; Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain. And whither now, my truant wise and sweet, Oh, whither tend thy feet? I had the right, few days ago, Thy steps to watch, thy place to know; How have I forfeited the right? Hast thou forgot me in a new delight? I hearken for thy household cheer, O eloquent child! Whose voice, an equal messenger, Conveyed thy meaning mild. What though the pains and joys Whereof it spoke were toys Fitting his age and ken; Yet fairest dames and bearded men, Who heard the sweet request So gentle, wise, and grave, Bended with joy to his behest, And let the world's affairs go by, Awhile to share his cordial game, Or mend his wicker wagon frame, Still plotting how their hungry ear That winsome voice again might hear, For his lips could well pronounce Words that were persuasions. Gentlest guardians marked serene His early hope, his liberal mien, Took counsel from his guiding eyes To make this wisdom earthly wise. Ah! vainly do these eyes recall The school-march, each day's festival, When every morn my bosom glowed To watch the convoy on the road; The babe in willow wagon closed, With rolling eyes and face composed, With children forward and behind, Like Cupids studiously inclined, And he, the Chieftain, paced beside, The centre of the troop allied, With sunny face of sweet repose, To guard the babe from fancied foes, The little Captain innocent Took the eye with him as he went, Each village senior paused to scan And speak the lovely caravan. From the window I look out To mark thy beautiful parade Stately marching in cap and coat To some tune by fairies played; A music heard by thee alone To works as noble led thee on. Now love and pride, alas, in vain, Up and down their glances strain. The painted sled stands where it stood, The kennel by the corded wood, The gathered sticks to stanch the wall Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall, The ominous hole he dug in the sand, And childhood's castles built or planned. His daily haunts I well discern, The poultry yard, the shed, the barn, And every inch of garden ground Paced by the blessed feet around, From the road-side to the brook; Whereinto he loved to look. Step the meek birds where erst they ranged, The wintry garden lies unchanged, The brook into the stream runs on, But the deep-eyed Boy is gone. On that shaded day, Dark with more clouds than tempests are, When thou didst yield thy innocent breath In bird-like heavings unto death, Night came, and Nature had not thee, I said, we are mates in misery. The morrow dawned with needless glow, Each snow-bird chirped, each fowl must crow, Each tramper started, but the feet Of the most beautiful and sweet Of human youth had left the hill And garden,they were bound and still, There's not a sparrow or a wren, There's not a blade of autumn grain, Which the four seasons do not tend, And tides of life and increase lend, And every chick of every bird, And weed and rock-moss is preferred. O ostriches' forgetfulness! O loss of larger in the less! Was there no star that could be sent, No watcher in the firmament, No angel from the countless host, That loiters round the crystal coast, Could stoop to heal that only child, Nature's sweet marvel undefiled, And keep the blossom of the earth, Which all her harvests were not worth? Not mine, I never called thee mine, But nature's heir, if I repine, And, seeing rashly torn and moved, Not what I made, but what I loved. Grow early old with grief that then Must to the wastes of nature go, 'Tis because a general hope Was quenched, and all must doubt and grope For flattering planets seemed to say, This child should ills of ages stay, By wondrous tongue and guided pen Bring the flown muses back to men. Perchance, not he, but nature ailed, The world, and not the infant failed, It was not ripe yet, to sustain A genius of so fine a strain, Who gazed upon the sun and moon As if he came unto his own, And pregnant with his grander thought, Brought the old order into doubt. Awhile his beauty their beauty tried, They could not feed him, and he died, And wandered backward as in scorn To wait an on to be born. Ill day which made this beauty waste; Plight broken, this high face defaced! Some went and came about the dead, And some in books of solace read, Some to their friends the tidings say, Some went to write, some went to pray, One tarried here, there hurried one, But their heart abode with none. Covetous death bereaved us all To aggrandize one funeral. The eager Fate which carried thee Took the largest part of me. For this losing is true dying, This is lordly man's down-lying, This is slow but sure reclining, Star by star his world resigning. O child of Paradise! Boy who made dear his father's home In whose deep eyes Men read the welfare of the times to come; I am too much bereft; The world dishonored thou hast left; O truths and natures costly lie; O trusted, broken prophecy! O richest fortune sourly crossed; Born for the future, to the future lost! The deep Heart answered, Weepest thou? Worthier cause for passion wild, If I had not taken the child. And deemest thou as those who pore With aged eyes short way before? Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast Of matter, and thy darling lost? Taught he not thee, the man of eld, Whose eyes within his eyes beheld Heaven's numerous hierarchy span The mystic gulf from God to man? To be alone wilt thou begin, When worlds of lovers hem thee in? To-morrow, when the masks shall fall That dizen nature's carnival, The pure shall see, by their own will, Which overflowing love shall fill, 'Tis not within the force of Fate The fate-conjoined to separate. But thou, my votary, weepest thou? I gave thee sight, where is it now? I taught thy heart beyond the reach Of ritual, Bible, or of speech; Wrote in thy mind's transparent table As far as the incommunicable; Taught thee each private sign to raise Lit by the supersolar blaze. Past utterance and past belief, And past the blasphemy of grief, The mysteries of nature's heart, And though no muse can these impart, Throb thine with nature's throbbing breast, And all is clear from east to west. I came to thee as to a friend, Dearest, to thee I did not send Tutors, but a joyful eye, Innocence that matched the sky, Lovely locks a form of wonder, Laughter rich as woodland thunder; That thou might'st entertain apart The richest flowering of all art; And, as the great all-loving Day Through smallest chambers takes its way, That thou might'st break thy daily bread With Prophet, Saviour, and head; That thou might'st cherish for thine own The riches of sweet Mary's Son, Boy-Rabbi, Israel's Paragon: And thoughtest thou such guest Would in thy hall take up his rest? Would rushing life forget its laws, Fate's glowing revolution pause? High omens ask diviner guess, Not to be conned to tediousness. And know, my higher gifts unbind The zone that girds the incarnate mind, When the scanty shores are full With Thought's perilous whirling pool, When frail Nature can no more, Then the spirit strikes the hour, My servant Death with solving rite Pours finite into infinite. Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow, Whose streams through nature circling go? Nail the star struggling to its track On the half-climbed Zodiack? Light is light which radiates, Blood is blood which circulates, Life is life which generates, And many-seeming life is one, Wilt thou transfix and make it none, Its onward stream too starkly pent In figure, bone, and lineament? Wilt thou uncalled interrogate Talker! the unreplying fate? Nor see the Genius of the whole Ascendant in the private soul, Beckon it when to go and come, Self-announced its hour of doom. Fair the soul's recess and shrine, Magic-built, to last a season, Masterpiece of love benign! Fairer than expansive reason Whose omen 'tis, and sign. Wilt thou not ope this heart to know What rainbows teach and sunsets show, Verdict which accumulates From lengthened scroll of human fates, Voice of earth to earth returned, Prayers of heart that inly burned; Saying, what is excellent, As God lives, is permanent Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain, Heart's love will meet thee again. Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye Up to His style, and manners of the sky. Not of adamant and gold Built He heaven stark and cold, No, but a nest of bending reeds, Flowering grass and scented weeds, Or like a traveller's fleeting tent, Or bow above the tempest pent, Built of tears and sacred flames, And virtue reaching to its aims; Built of furtherance and pursuing, Not of spent deeds, but of doing. Silent rushes the swift Lord Through ruined systems still restored, Broad-sowing, bleak and void to bless, Plants with worlds the wilderness, Waters with tears of ancient sorrow Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow; House and tenant go to ground, Lost in God, in Godhead found. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Threnody ,

870:Alma Venus! [excerpt] Trembling Creation's omnipresent sun, Immanent Harmonist, Whose rhythms run. Alike where midge pursues his swift romance, Or grave stars cluster for their midnight dance 1 Bringer of fire, from what far fane despoiled? Potter of grace, by what fell finger soiled? In temple throned of old, or here in shame Lurking, to Deathless YOU, of many a namePaphia, Freya, Aphrodite, Fand, Cabiri vague, or in the fairy band Titania, Niamh, or that Morgan fay Our simpler eyes in. Sicily to-day Catch at her sorcery-to YOU, whose breath To a rippling rapture stirs the pool of Death, I bring this coronal of rose and rue, With golden wattle twined-and she-oak too. The living wheels we call Creation roll Whither and while You lead. Who are their soul! Wheels within wheels, and whose the whirl of eyes But Love's, Who was. Who is. Who never dies? Wheels within wheels, but ever at the nave Venus Pandemos, She for Whom we crave! Wheels within wheels, but glowing from the tires Venus Immaculate's Uranian fires! If lovelight played not round the misty bourn Could Life her marshy perils thread unworn? Were Heaven's many mansions built to hold Women and men seraphically cold? Or does annihilation mean but this'Tristram no more desires Isolda's kiss'? Fountains of Art that keep this old Earth fresh Ascend to God from cisterns of the flesh: Angel and phoenix flowered from the fires Of virgin Ishtar's ravenous desires: In good Nile mud incestuous Isis set Many a tree of knowledge bearing yet: Austere Mohammed meets at Heaven's door Fond phantoms of his desert dreams of yore: The shrine, the song, the picture and the bust Are diamonds doubles of the charcoal, lust. . . Your ruby billows floated to our ken Many a rite that soothes the souls of men; Swastik of Ind as once Egyptian Tau In shining symbol utters yet Your law: And coldest fanes for eunuch gods designed Reveal Your girdle with their chaplets twined. Around the Maypole, aeon-old, they dance, Maiden and youth of Britain and of France, Obedient to the law, forgot to-day, That fertile gods, unshackled by their play, From winter death will duly be reborn And with their foison fill the ears of corn: Or where, horizonward, Australian sand Billows monotonous, behold Your band Of leaf-clad lubras, swaying to the hum Of droning wizard and barbaric drum, In strange Unthippa dance to conjure there, With warm wild posturing and coy despair, Some dream-time god of golden ages dim, That with the drama of their love for him The waste in sympathy will fertile grow, Emu be plentiful, the dry creeks flow, And all the wild be rich with nut and plant, Witchetty grub and root and honey-ant: Virgins and boys, who with the bridal pair And hymeneal chant through Athens bear That casket strange, unknowing that inside The mysteries of Aphrodite hide, Ye will acknowledge too, in turn, ere long, Omnipotent the goddess of my song: And, childless ones of Ind, with prayer ye pour Oil on that shrine to-day, as wives of yore On wayside Jahv or god of boundary, For benison of grudged fertility. . . . Let pale usurpers of Your old domain In crumbling book and vapid hymn maintain That You, great Queen, are dead, that nevermore Shall devotee Your majesty adore, Or sad Meander wail as long ago For torn Adonis and Your helpless woe: We hear in beating hearts another rune, In hymn of man and maid another tune: On every road Your living creatures draw, Whither You list, the Tables of Your Law: Wherever tree hath sap or being breath, Ubiquitous, You bruise the head of Death: Here, pallid cuckoo's great crescendos call His coy companion to Your festival: There, magpie warbles to the morning star The advent of the rapture that You are: And desolate the spirit unaware Of quivering enchantment in the air When August struggles from his gaoler's power, And gleaming envoys from each wooing flower Cajole the bees to waft his tender dues To some dear tabernacle's secret cruse; When listening almonds weary of the night Hearing You coming blossom into white; When wattle waking from her torpor cold Knowing You near her trembles into gold; When, ancient symbols realizing here, Gabriel Spring announces every year To expectant Nature's myriad maidenhood, In rolling plain or solitary wood, The miracle that maketh Life complete, The brooding Presence of the Paraclete. * Magi profounder than the Eastern Three Followed the Star of Your Epiphany: Isis had hidden with a sullen pall The secret of the Universe from all, Until Lucretius wondering found a fold, It swayed to Goethe's eyes, and, growing bold, Darwin stooped down and groping patiently Out of the dust lifted the hem, till we Staggering saw against the eternal blue The secret Builder of Creation-You I ... 'When Love was driven from the world by stark And sexless mattoids of the Ages Dark, Disgusted lore to Moorish havens fled, The Muses nine with eunuch monks were wed: Primordial terror to the day returned, The witch in hordes and great Servetus burned: Celibate piety with thumb uncouth Plastered a fig-leaf over Plato's truth: Aquinas thinned, to make a draught divine, With holy water, Aristotle's wine; Round every comer eft or devil stares, And very Dante mumbles craven prayers; The childish painter daubs his maudlin fears, And song forgets to sing a thousand years. Yet You had lingered cunningly concealed Now in an altar-piece, now in a field With shards of pillared grandeur buried deep, Until the nightmare passed. Yea, did You peep A moment now and then, ere rose the sun, Under the hood of a rose-hearted nun At Abelard, or told the tale so well Of Launcelot that even glowering hell Drove not Francesca from her lover's wraith; Yea, visored chivalry unhorsed his faith, And far Jerusalem and Paynim tryst Forgot, for victory in a gender list Where with the provocation of a smile Your ambushed omnipresence would beguile Crusader sullen to a softer creed, Knight errant to an errant knight indeed.... As what strange god did You entice the King Through brave Uriah's comely wife to fling Harp and the psaltery aside to plan As mean a deed as had polluted man Till Sextus lusted, or her father's knife Rescued Virginia from the hell of life? Yea, there is that in You man dare not face: A dark star dogs Your limpid planet's grace: Jetsam from old pollution stales Your shore: Lewd gargoyles grin above Your temple door. ... Wormwood is waiter at Your choicest feast, Your Beauty shadowed ever by the Beast. Yon feudal lord of mediaeval France, Your devotee of many a Rose Romance, Hath on his peasants' daughters' bridal nights Exacted to the full his shameful rights: Your cuckoo calling Spring into the wood Was stark nest-brother to a robin's brood: And, tragi-comedy of humble life, That doting husband of the buxom wife Is fondling (while You laugh) the child she gave At Your still altar to some passing knave. . .. Was it a glimpse of phases fell that mar The radiant round of Your auspicious star, That drove the hermit to the wilderness From demons lurking in Your least caress, And bade the nun, as once the vestal too, Renounce Your works and all Your pomps-and You? Yea, those whose eyes can pierce the dazzling veil Of Light that is Your mask have told a tale Of how we in the world were once expelled From Paradise, and now, in prison held, On moaning treadmills of repeated lives Work out our crimes, until the hour arrives For life to cease on earth and You to fade With all the woe Your temptress wiles have made. You are the gaoler of that prison, Who (For so they say) inveigle all to woo, Be won, that so by our own ardours we Keep lit Your hell, yea, for eternity, Unless, until, ignoring all You say, As monk, as nun, we dare to disobey. If so it be, then were the barren one Blest of all women underneath the sun, An angel of the Lord sent here to ray The midnight of the soul with coming day; The tower impregnable that masters Fate Is not the Caesar but the celibate; And he at whom no woman ever smiled Is everlasting Heaven's favoured child Ordained (who knows?) in what benignant star As Baptist of some glorious Avatar, Whose Word shall cause all flesh to cease to be And man be one again with Deity!. . . Or when the veil we call Reality Rifts, and the meaning of it all we see, Will Good and Evil kiss and understand? God walk with brother Satan hand in hand? The cool-haired Night repose beside the Sun? Pandemos prove with Love Uranian one? The Tree of Life mature its golden fruits From bark so sinister and those wan roots? Slowly our interrogating eyes Sobered with long deception recognize, 'Mid older clues dissolved to flecks, at last One signal flashing from the Outer Vast, Fell or benign (as falls or rises faith), Comet or guiding star-Your rosy wraith! Your rosy wraith that both in man and weed 'Writes deep and undeniable Your creed'Beget or hear, though ye to-morrow die, Beget or bear, nor ask the reason why 1 Though sun and earth shall duly pass away, Though all the gods shall ripen and decay, It is Their Will Who bade the world exist: And woe to him or her who doth not list The sole clear mandate from the Otherwhere Flushed through the Universe-Beget or bear 1' Love we or dread we may not all ignore The single beacon on the circling shore Where Being laps upon the caverned steep Wherefrom we drifted and whereto we creep. Beacon 1 although You lead us but to gloom! A guiding star, it may be, to the tomb! Comet flung from the Void through trackless Light! Yet is Your rosy flame in ion mite And great pathetic man the only trace Of something more than chance in Time and Space, That purpose dimly threads the crazy web, That tides of anguish ultimately ebb, That green hope signals underground a Nile, That faith is wiser than an ostrich wile, That there is something in us will elude The withering fingers of vicissitude, And man's ripe earth by a guttering sun betrayed Will not in cold and useless ruin fade. Question the sibyl grottoes near or far Whither or whence we sail or why we are! Listen at Nature's beating heart for clue, And every oracle we know or knew! From Zodiac round of older destiny, From tiny orbit of an atomy, From Pythoness or oak or Magian fire, Augur antique or wizard new inquire, Austral churinga or the crystal ball, 'Wherefore does anything exist at all?' Of star or fungus seek, of life or death, Whence Being came and whither wandereth! 10 Ask of the gloom that locks the secret in, Ask of the light that saw the world begin! The day, the night, and death and life are dumb: From fungus, star or ball no answers come: Silent, churinga, table, passing bird: From fire or Druid oak no guiding word: The Pythoness ambiguously sighs: Orbit minute nor Zodiac house replies: But dim the beating heart amid its sobs With 'Alma Venus!' 'Alma Venus!' throbs; While on two sibyl leaves, by a world-wind strange Blown to our shore across the gulf of Change, 'Increase and multiply' on one is scrolled In ochre crude, on one, in glowing gold Around the pearly nimbus of a dove, The script imperishable-'God is Love.' ~ Bernard O'Dowd,

871:The Happiest Girl In The World A week ago; only a little week: it seems so much much longer, though that day is every morning still my yesterday; as all my life 'twill be my yesterday, for all my life is morrow to my love. Oh fortunate morrow! Oh sweet happy love! A week ago; and I am almost glad to have him now gone for this little while, that I may think of him and tell myself what to be his means, now that I am his, and know if mine is love enough for him, and make myself believe it all is true. A week ago; and it seems like a life, and I have not yet learned to know myself: I am so other than I was, so strange, grown younger and grown older all in one; and I am not so sad and not so gay; and I think nothing, only hear him think. That morning, waking, I remembered him "Will he be here to-day? he often comes; -and is it for my sake or to kill time?" and, wondering "Will he come?" I chose the dress he seemed to like the best, and hoped for him; and did not think I could quite love him yet. And did I love him then with all my heart? or did I wait until he held my hands and spoke "Say, shall it be?" and kissed my brow, and I looked at him and he knew it all? And did I love him from the day we met? but I more gladly danced with some one else who waltzed more smoothly and was merrier: and did I love him when he first came here? but I more gladly talked with some one else whose words were readier and who sought me more. When did I love him? How did it begin? 156 The small green spikes of snowdrops in the spring are there one morning ere you think of them; still we may tell what morning they pierced up: June rosebuds stir and open stealthily, and every new blown rose is a surprise; still we can date the day when one unclosed: but how can I tell when my love began? Oh, was it like the young pale twilight star that quietly breaks on the vacant sky, is sudden there and perfect while you watch, and, though you watch, you have not seen it dawn, the star that only waited and awoke? But he knows when he loved me; for he says the first time we had met he told a friend "The sweetest dewy daisy of a girl, but not the solid stuff to make a wife;" and afterwards the first time he was here, when I had slipped away into our field to watch alone for sunset brightening on and heard them calling me, he says he stood and saw me come along the coppice walk beneath the green and sparkling arch of boughs, and, while he watched the yellow lights that played with the dim flickering shadows of the leaves over my yellow hair and soft pale dress, flitting across me as I flitted through, he whispered inly, in so many words, "I see my wife; this is my wife who comes, and seems to bear the sunlight on with her:" and that was when he loved me, so he says. Yet is he quite sure? was it only then? and had he had no thought which I could feel? for why was it I knew that he would watch, and all the while thought in my silly heart, as I advanced demurely, it was well I had on the pale dress with sweeping folds which took the light and shadow tenderly, and that the sunlights touched my hair and cheek, 157 because he'd note it all and care for it? Oh vain and idle poor girl's heart of mine, content with that coquettish mean content! He, with his man's straight purpose, thinking "wife," and I but that 'twas pleasant to be fair and that 'twas pleasant he should count me fair. But oh, to think he should be loving me and I be no more moved out of myself! The sunbeams told him, but they told me nought, except that maybe I was looking well. And oh had I but known! Why did no bird, trilling its own sweet lovesong, as I passed, so musically marvellously glad, sing one for me too, sing me "It is he," sing "Love him," and "You love him: it is he," that I might then have loved him when he loved, that one dear moment might be date to both? And must I not be glad he hid his thought and did not tell me then, when it was soon and I should have been startled, and not known how he is just the one man I can love, and, only with some pain lest he were pained, and nothing doubting, should have answered "No." How strange life is! I should have answered "No." Oh, can I ever be half glad enough he is so wise and patient and could wait! He waited as you wait the reddening fruit which helplessly is ripening on the tree, and not because it tries or longs or wills, only because the sun will shine on it: but he who waited was himself that sun. Oh was it worth the waiting? was it worth? For I am half afraid love is not love, this love which only makes me rest in him and be so happy and so confident, this love which makes me pray for longest days that I may have them all to use for him, this love which almost makes me yearn for pain 158 that I might have borne something for his sake, this love which I call love, is less than love. Where are the fires and fevers and the pangs? where is the anguish of too much delight, and the delirious madness at a kiss, the flushing and the paling at a look, and passionate ecstasy of meeting hands? where is the eager weariness at time that will not bate a single measured hour to speed to us the far-off wedding day? I am so calm and wondering, like a child who, led by a firm hand it knows and trusts along a stranger country beautiful with a bewildering beauty to new eyes if they be wise to know what they behold, finds newness everywhere but no surprise, and takes the beauty as an outward part of being led so kindly by the hand. I am so cold: is mine but a child's heart, and not a woman's fit for such a man? Alas am I too cold, am I too dull, can I not love him as another could? And oh, if love be fire, what love is mine that is but like the pale subservient moon who only asks to be earth's minister? And, oh, if love be whirlwind, what is mine that is but like a little even brook which has no aim but flowing to the sea, and sings for happiness because it flows? Ah well, I would that I could love him more and not be only happy as I am; I would that I could love him to his worth, with that forgetting all myself in him, that subtle pain of exquisite excess, that momentary infinite sharp joy, I know by books but cannot teach my heart: and yet I think my love must needs be love, since he can read me through -- oh happy strange, my thoughts that were my secrets all for me grown instantly his open easy book! -since he can read me through, and is content. 159 And yesterday, when they all went away, save little Amy with her daisy chains, and left us in that shadow of tall ferns, and the child, leaning on me, fell asleep, and I, tired by the afternoon long walk, said "I could almost gladly sleep like her," did he not answer, drawing down my head, "Sleep, darling, let me see you rest on me," and when the child, awaking, wakened me, did he not say "Dear, you have made me glad, for, seeing you so sleeping peacefully, I feel that you do love me utterly, no questionings, no regrettings, but at rest." Oh yes, my good true darling, you spoke well "No questionings, no regrettings, but at rest:" what should I question, what should I regret, now I have you who are my hope and rest? I am the feathery wind-wafted seed that flickered idly half a merry morn, now thralled into the rich life-giving earth to root and bud and waken into leaf and make it such poor sweetness as I may; the prisoned seed that never more shall float the frolic playfellow of summer winds and mimic the free changeful butterfly; the prisoned seed that prisoned finds its life and feels its pulses stir, and grows, and grows. Oh love, who gathered me into yourself, oh love, I am at rest in you, and live. And shall I for so many coming days be flower and sweetness to him? Oh pale flower, grow, grow, and blossom out, and fill the air, feed on his richness, grow, grow, blossom out, and fill the air, and be enough for him. Oh crystal music of the air-borne lark, so falling, nearer, nearer, from the sky, are you a message to me of dear hopes? 160 oh trilling gladness, flying down to earth, have you brought answer of sweet prophecy? have you brought answer to the thoughts in me? Oh happy answer, and oh happy thoughts! and which is the bird's carol, which my heart's? My love, my love, my love! And I shall be so much to him, so almost everything: and I shall be the friend whom he will trust, and I shall be the child whom he will teach, and I shall be the servant he will praise, and I shall be the mistress he will love, and I shall be his wife. Oh days to come, will ye not pass like gentle rhythmic steps that fall to sweetest music noiselessly? But I have known the lark's song half sound sad, and I have seen the lake, which rippled sun, toss dimmed and purple in a sudden wind; and let me laugh a moment at my heart that thinks the summer-time must all be fair, that thinks the good days always must be good: yes let me laugh a moment -- may be weep. But no, but no, not laugh; for through my joy I have been wise enough to know the while some tears and some long hours are in all lives, in every promised land some thorn plants grow, some tangling weeds as well as laden vines: and no, not weep; for is not my land fair, my land of promise flushed with fruit and bloom? and who would weep for fear of scattered thorns? and very thorns bear oftentimes sweet fruits. Oh the black storm that breaks across the lake ruffles the surface, leaves the deeps at rest -deep in our hearts there always will be rest: oh summer storms fall sudden as they rose, the peaceful lake forgets them while they die -our hearts will always have it summer time. All rest, all summer time. My love, my love, 161 I know it will be so; you are so good, and I, near you, shall grow at last like you; and you are tender, patient -- oh I know you will bear with me, help me, smile to me, and let me make you happy easily; and I, what happiness could I have more than that dear labour of a happy wife? I would not have another. Is it wrong, and is it selfish that I cannot wish, that I, who yet so love the clasping hand and innocent fond eyes of little ones, I cannot wish that which I sometimes read is women's dearest wish hid in their love, to press a baby creature to my breast? Oh is it wrong? I would be all for him, not even children coming 'twixt us two to call me from his service to serve them; and maybe they would steal too much of love, for, since I cannot love him now enough, what would my heart be halved? or would it grow? But he perhaps would love me something less, finding me not so always at his side. Together always, that was what he said; together always. Oh dear coming days! O dear dear present days that pass too fast, although they bring such rainbow morrows on! that pass so fast, and yet, I know not why, seem always to encompass so much time. And I should fear I were too happy now, and making this poor world too much my Heaven, but that I feel God nearer and it seems as if I had learned His love better too. So late already! The sun dropping down, and under him the first long line of red -my truant should be here again by now, is come maybe. I will not seek him, I; he would be vain and think I cared too much; I will wait here, and he shall seek for me, and I will carelessly -- Oh his dear step -he sees me, he is coming; my own love! 162 ~ Augusta Davies Webster,

872:Inferno Canto02 Lo giorno se n'andava, e l'aere bruno toglieva li animai che sono in terra da le fatiche loro; e io sol uno The day was now departing; the dark air released the living beings of the earth from work and weariness; and I myself m'apparecchiava a sostener la guerra sì del cammino e sì de la pietate, che ritrarrà la mente che non erra . alone prepared to undergo the battle both of the journeying and of the pity, which memory, mistaking not, shall show. O muse, o alto ingegno, or m'aiutate; o mente che scrivesti ciò ch'io vidi, qui si parrà la tua nobilitate . O Muses, o high genius, help me now; o memory that set down what I saw, here shall your excellence reveal itself! Io cominciai: «Poeta che mi guidi, guarda la mia virtù s'ell'è possente, prima ch'a l'alto passo tu mi fidi . I started: "Poet, you who are my guide, see if the force in me is strong enough before you let me face that rugged pass. Tu dici che di Silvio il parente, corruttibile ancora, ad immortale secolo andò, e fu sensibilmente . 251 You say that he who fathered Sylvius, while he was still corruptible, had journeyed into the deathless world with his live body. Però, se l'avversario d'ogne male cortese i fu, pensando l'alto effetto ch'uscir dovea di lui e 'l chi e 'l quale , For, if the Enemy of every evil was courteous to him, considering all he would cause and who and what he was, non pare indegno ad omo d'intelletto; ch'e' fu de l'alma Roma e di suo impero ne l'empireo ciel per padre eletto : that does not seem incomprehensible, since in the empyrean heaven he was chosen to father honored Rome and her empire; la quale e 'l quale, a voler dir lo vero, fu stabilita per lo loco santo u' siede il successor del maggior Piero . and if the truth be told, Rome and her realm were destined to become the sacred place, the seat of the successor of great Peter. Per quest'andata onde li dai tu vanto, intese cose che furon cagione di sua vittoria e del papale ammanto . And through the journey you ascribe to him, he came to learn of things that were to bring his victory and, too, the papal mantle. 252 Andovvi poi lo Vas d'elezione, per recarne conforto a quella fede ch'è principio a la via di salvazione . Later the Chosen Vessel travelled there, to bring us back assurance of that faith with which the way to our salvation starts. Ma io perché venirvi? o chi 'l concede? Io non Enea, io non Paulo sono: me degno a ciò né io né altri 'l crede . But why should I go there? Who sanctions it? For I am not Aeneas, am not Paul; nor I nor others think myself so worthy. Per che, se del venire io m'abbandono, temo che la venuta non sia folle. Se' savio; intendi me' ch'i' non ragiono ». Therefore, if I consent to start this journey, I fear my venture may be wild and empty. You're wise; you know far more than what I say." E qual è quei che disvuol ciò che volle e per novi pensier cangia proposta, sì che dal cominciar tutto si tolle , And just as he who unwills what he wills and shifts what he intends to seek new ends so that he's drawn from what he had begun, tal mi fec'io 'n quella oscura costa, perché, pensando, consumai la 'mpresa che fu nel cominciar cotanto tosta. so was I in the midst of that dark land, because, with all my thinking, I annulled 253 the task I had so quickly undertaken. «S'i' ho ben la parola tua intesa», rispuose del magnanimo quell'ombra; «l'anima tua è da viltade offesa ; "If I have understood what you have said," replied the shade of that great-hearted one, "your soul has been assailed by cowardice, la qual molte fiate l'omo ingombra sì che d'onrata impresa lo rivolve, come falso veder bestia quand'ombra . which often weighs so heavily on a mandistracting him from honorable trialsas phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall. Da questa tema acciò che tu ti solve, dirotti perch'io venni e quel ch'io 'ntesi nel primo punto che di te mi dolve . That you may be delivered from this fear, I'll tell you why I came and what I heard when I first felt compassion for your pain. Io era tra color che son sospesi, e donna mi chiamò beata e bella, tal che di comandare io la richiesi . I was among those souls who are suspended; a lady called to me, so blessed, so lovely that I implored to serve at her command. Lucevan li occhi suoi più che la stella; e cominciommi a dir soave e piana, con angelica voce, in sua favella : 254 Her eyes surpassed the splendor of the star's; and she began to speak to me-so gently and softly-with angelic voice. She said: "O anima cortese mantoana, di cui la fama ancor nel mondo dura, e durerà quanto 'l mondo lontana , 'O spirit of the courteous Mantuan, whose fame is still a presence in the world and shall endure as long as the world lasts, l'amico mio, e non de la ventura, ne la diserta piaggia è impedito sì nel cammin, che volt'è per paura ; my friend, who has not been the friend of fortune, is hindered in his path along that lonely hillside; he has been turned aside by terror. e temo che non sia già sì smarrito, ch'io mi sia tardi al soccorso levata, per quel ch'i' ho di lui nel cielo udito . From all that I have heard of him in Heaven, he is, I fear, already so astray that I have come to help him much too late. Or movi, e con la tua parola ornata e con ciò c'ha mestieri al suo campare l'aiuta, sì ch'i' ne sia consolata . Go now; with your persuasive word, with all that is required to see that he escapes, bring help to him, that I may be consoled. 255 I' son Beatrice che ti faccio andare; vegno del loco ove tornar disio; amor mi mosse, che mi fa parlare . For I am Beatrice who send you on; I come from where I most long to return; Love prompted me, that Love which makes me speak. Quando sarò dinanzi al segnor mio, di te mi loderò sovente a lui". Tacette allora, e poi comincia' io : When once again I stand before my Lord, then I shall often let Him hear your praises.' Now Beatrice was silent. I began: "O donna di virtù, sola per cui l'umana spezie eccede ogne contento di quel ciel c'ha minor li cerchi sui , 'O Lady of virtue, the sole reason why the human race surpasses all that lies beneath the heaven with the smallest spheres, tanto m'aggrada il tuo comandamento, che l'ubidir, se già fosse, m'è tardi; più non t'è uo' ch'aprirmi il tuo talento . so welcome is your wish, that even if it were already done, it would seem tardy; all you need do is let me know your will. Ma dimmi la cagion che non ti guardi de lo scender qua giuso in questo centro de l'ampio loco ove tornar tu ardi ". But tell me why you have not been more prudentdescending to this center, moving from 256 that spacious place where you long to return?' "Da che tu vuo' saver cotanto a dentro, dirotti brievemente", mi rispuose, "perch'io non temo di venir qua entro . 'Because you want to fathom things so deeply, I now shall tell you promptly,' she replied, 'why I am not afraid to enter here. Temer si dee di sole quelle cose c'hanno potenza di fare altrui male; de l'altre no, ché non son paurose . One ought to be afraid of nothing other than things possessed of power to do us harm, but things innocuous need not be feared. I' son fatta da Dio, sua mercé, tale, che la vostra miseria non mi tange, né fiamma d'esto incendio non m'assale . God, in His graciousness, has made me so that this, your misery, cannot touch me; I can withstand the fires flaming here. Donna è gentil nel ciel che si compiange di questo 'mpedimento ov'io ti mando, sì che duro giudicio là sù frange . In Heaven there's a gentle lady-one who weeps for the distress toward which I send you, so that stern judgment up above is shattered. Questa chiese Lucia in suo dimando e disse: - Or ha bisogno il tuo fedele di te, e io a te lo raccomando -. 257 And it was she who called upon Lucia, requesting of her: "Now your faithful one has need of you, and I commend him to you." Lucia, nimica di ciascun crudele, si mosse, e venne al loco dov'i' era, che mi sedea con l'antica Rachele . Lucia, enemy of every cruelty, arose and made her way to where I was, sitting beside the venerable Rachel. Disse: - Beatrice, loda di Dio vera, ché non soccorri quei che t'amò tanto, ch'uscì per te de la volgare schiera ? She said: "You, Beatrice, true praise of God, why have you not helped him who loves you so that-for your sake-he's left the vulgar crowd? non odi tu la pieta del suo pianto? non vedi tu la morte che 'l combatte su la fiumana ove 'l mar non ha vanto ? Do you not hear the anguish in his cry? Do you not see the death he wars against upon that river ruthless as the sea?" Al mondo non fur mai persone ratte a far lor pro o a fuggir lor danno, com'io, dopo cotai parole fatte, No one within this world has ever been so quick to seek his good or flee his harm as I-when she had finished speaking thusvenni qua giù del mio beato scanno, 258 fidandomi del tuo parlare onesto, ch'onora te e quei ch'udito l'hanno ". to come below, down from my blessed station; I trusted in your honest utterance, which honors you and those who've listened to you.' Poscia che m'ebbe ragionato questo, li occhi lucenti lagrimando volse; per che mi fece del venir più presto ; When she had finished with her words to me, she turned aside her gleaming, tearful eyes, which only made me hurry all the more. e venni a te così com'ella volse; d'inanzi a quella fiera ti levai che del bel monte il corto andar ti tolse . And, just as she had wished, I came to you: I snatched you from the path of the fierce beast that barred the shortest way up the fair mountain. Dunque: che è? perché, perché restai? perché tanta viltà nel core allette? perché ardire e franchezza non hai ? What is it then? Why, why do you resist? Why does your heart host so much cowardice? Where are your daring and your openness poscia che tai tre donne benedette curan di te ne la corte del cielo, e 'l mio parlar tanto ben ti promette? ». as long as there are three such blessed women concerned for you within the court of Heaven and my words promise you so great a good?" 259 Quali fioretti dal notturno gelo chinati e chiusi, poi che 'l sol li 'mbianca si drizzan tutti aperti in loro stelo , As little flowers, which the chill of night has bent and huddled, when the white sun strikes grow straight and open fully on their stems, tal mi fec'io di mia virtude stanca, e tanto buono ardire al cor mi corse, ch'i' cominciai come persona franca : so did I, too, with my exhausted force; and such warm daring rushed into my heart that I-as one who has been freed-began: «Oh pietosa colei che mi soccorse! e te cortese ch'ubidisti tosto a le vere parole che ti porse ! "O she, compassionate, who has helped me! And you who, courteous, obeyed so quickly the true words that she had addressed to you! Tu m'hai con disiderio il cor disposto sì al venir con le parole tue, ch'i' son tornato nel primo proposto . You, with your words, have so disposed my heart to longing for this journey-I return to what I was at first prepared to do. Or va, ch'un sol volere è d'ambedue: tu duca, tu segnore, e tu maestro». Così li dissi; e poi che mosso fue , 260 Now go; a single will fills both of us: you are my guide, my governor, my master." These were my words to him; when he advanced intrai per lo cammino alto e silvestro . I entered on the steep and savage path. ~ Dante Alighieri,

873:The Four Seasons Of The Year. Spring. Another four I've left yet to bring on, Of four times four the last Quaternion, The Winter, Summer, Autumn & the Spring, In season all these Seasons I shall bring: Sweet Spring like man in his Minority, At present claim'd, and had priority. With smiling face and garments somewhat green, She trim'd her locks, which late had frosted been, Nor hot nor cold, she spake, but with a breath, Fit to revive, the nummed earth from death. Three months (quoth she) are 'lotted to my share March, April, May of all the rest most fair. Tenth of the first, Sol into Aries enters, And bids defiance to all tedious winters, Crosseth the Line, and equals night and day, (Stil adds to th'last til after pleasant May) And now makes glad the darkned northern wights Who for some months have seen but starry lights. Now goes the Plow-man to his merry toyle, He might unloose his winter locked soyl: The Seeds-man too, doth lavish out his grain, In hope the more he casts, the more to gain: The Gardner now superfluous branches lops, And poles erects for his young clambring hops. Now digs then sowes his herbs, his flowers & roots And carefully manures his trees of fruits. The Pleiades their influence now give, And all that seem'd as dead afresh doth live. The croaking frogs, whom nipping winter kil'd Like birds now chirp, and hop about the field, The Nightingale, the black-bird and the Thrush Now tune their layes, on sprayes of every bush. The wanton frisking Kid, and soft-fleec'd Lambs Do jump and play before their feeding Dams, The tender tops of budding grass they crop, They joy in what they have, but more in hope: For though the frost hath lost his binding power, Yet many a fleece of snow and stormy shower 116 Doth darken Sol's bright eye, makes us remember The pinching North-west wind of cold December. My second moneth is April, green and fair, Of longer dayes, and a more temperate Air: The Sun in Taurus keeps his residence, And with his warmer beams glanceth from thence This is the month whose fruitful showrs produces All set and sown for all delights and uses: The Pear, the Plum, and Apple-tree now flourish The grass grows long the hungry beast to nourish. The Primrose pale, and azure violet Among the virduous grass hath nature set, That when the Sun on's Love (the earth) doth shine These might as lace set out her garment fine. The fearfull bird his little house now builds In trees and walls, in Cities and in fields. The outside strong, the inside warm and neat; A natural Artificer compleat. The clocking hen her chirping chickins leads With wings & beak defends them from the gleads My next and last is fruitfull pleasant May, Wherein the earth is clad in rich aray, The Sun now enters loving Gemini, And heats us with the glances of his eye, Our thicker rayment makes us lay aside Lest by his fervor we be torrifi'd. All flowers the Sun now with his beams discloses, Except the double pinks and matchless Roses. Now swarms the busy, witty, honey-Bee, VVhose praise deserves a page from more then me The cleanly Huswifes Dary's now in th'prime, Her shelves and firkins fill'd for winter time. The meads with Cowslips, Honey-suckles dight, One hangs his head, the other stands upright: But both rejoyce at th'heavens clear smiling face, More at her showers, which water them a space. For fruits my Season yields the early Cherry, The hasty Peas, and wholsome cool Strawberry. More solid fruits require a longer time, Each Season hath his fruit, so hath each Clime: Each man his own peculiar excellence, But none in all that hath preheminence. 117 Sweet fragrant Spring, with thy short pittance fly Let some describe thee better then can I. Yet above all this priviledg is thine, Thy dayes still lengthen without least decline: Summer. When Spring had done, the Summer did begin, With melted tauny face, and garments thin, Resembling Fire, Choler, and Middle age, As Spring did Air, Blood, Youth in's equipage. Wiping the sweat from of her face that ran, With hair all wet she puffing thus began; Bright June, July and August hot are mine, In'th first Sol doth in crabbed Cancer shine. His progress to the North now's fully done, Then retrograde must be my burning Sun, Who to his southward Tropick still is bent, Yet doth his parching heat but more augment Though he decline, because his flames so fair, Have throughly dry'd the earth, and heat the air. Like as an Oven that long time hath been heat, Whose vehemency at length doth grow so great, That if you do withdraw her burning store, Tis for a time as fervent as before. Now go those frolick Swains, the Shepherd Lads To wash the thick cloth'd flocks with pipes full glad In the cool streams they labour with delight Rubbing their dirty coats till they look white: Whose fleece when finely spun and deeply dy'd With Robes thereof Kings have been dignifi'd. Blest rustick Swains, your pleasant quiet life, Hath envy bred in Kings that were at strife, Careless of worldly wealth you sing and pipe, Whilst they'r imbroyl'd in wars & troubles rise: VVhich made great Bajazet cry out in's woes, Oh happy shepherd which hath not to lose. Orthobulus, nor yet Sebastia great, But whist'leth to thy flock in cold and heat. Viewing the Sun by day, the Moon by night Endimions, Dianaes dear delight, Upon the grass resting your healthy limbs, By purling Brooks looking how fishes swims. If pride within your lowly Cells ere haunt, 118 Of him that was Shepherd then King go vaunt. This moneth the Roses are distil'd in glasses, VVhose fragrant smel all made perfumes surpasses The Cherry, Gooseberry are now in th'prime, And for all sorts of Pease, this is the time. July my next, the hott'st in all the year, The sun through Leo now takes his Career, VVhose flaming breath doth melt us from afar, Increased by the star Canicular. This Month from Julius Cæsar took its name, By Romans celebrated to his fame. Now go the Mowers to their slashing toyle, The Meadowes of their riches to dispoyle, VVith weary strokes, they take all in their way, Bearing the burning heat of the long day. The forks and Rakes do follow them amain, VVhich makes the aged fields look young again. The groaning Carts do bear away this prize. To Stacks and Barns where it for Fodder lyes. My next and last is August fiery hot (For much, the Southward Sun abateth not) This Moneth he keeps with Virgo for a space, The dryed Earth is parched with his face. August of great Augustus took its name, Romes second Emperour of lasting fame, With sickles now the bending Reapers goe The russling tress of terra down to mowe; And bundles up in sheaves, the weighty wheat, Which after Manchet makes for Kings to eat: The Barly, Rye and Pease should first had place, Although their bread have not so white a face. The Carter leads all home with whistling voyce, He plow'd with pain, but reaping doth rejoyce; His sweat, his toyle, his careful wakeful nights, His fruitful Crop abundantly requites. Now's ripe the Pear, Pear-plumb, and Apricock, The prince of plumbs, whose stone's as hard as Rock The Summer seems but short, the Autumn hasts To shake his fruits, of most delicious tasts Like good old Age, whose younger juicy Roots Hath still ascended, to bear goodly fruits. Until his head be gray, and strength be gone. 119 Yet then appears the worthy deeds he'th done: To feed his boughs exhausted hath his sap, Then drops his fruits into the eaters lap. Autumn. Of Autumn moneths September is the prime, Now day and night are equal in each Clime, The twelfth of this Sol riseth in the Line, And doth in poizing Libra this month shine. The vintage now is ripe, the grapes are prest, Whose lively liquor oft is curs'd and blest: For nought so good, but it may be abused, But its a precious juice when well its used. The raisins now in clusters dryed be, The Orange, Lemon dangle on the tree: The Pomegranate, the Fig are ripe also, And Apples now their yellow sides do show. Of Almonds, Quinces, Wardens, and of Peach, The season's now at hand of all and each. Sure at this time, time first of all began, And in this moneth was made apostate Man: For then in Eden was not only seen, Boughs full of leaves, or fruits unripe or green, Or withered stocks, which were all dry and dead, But trees with goodly fruits replenished; Which shews nor Summer, Winter nor the Spring Our Grand-Sire was of Paradice made King: Nor could that temp'rate Clime such difference make, If scited as the most Judicious take. October is my next, we hear in this The Northern winter-blasts begin to hiss. In Scorpio resideth now the Sun, And his declining heat is almost done. The fruitless Trees all withered now do stand, Whose sapless yellow leavs, by winds are fan'd, Which notes when youth and strength have past their prime Decrepit age must also have its time. The Sap doth slily creep towards the Earth There rests, until the Sun give it a birth. So doth old Age still tend unto his grave, Where also he his winter time must have; But when the Sun of righteousness draws nigh, His dead old stock, shall mount again on high. 120 November is my last, for Time doth haste, We now of winters sharpness 'gins to tast. This moneth the Sun's in Sagitarius, So farre remote, his glances warm not us. Almost at shortest is the shorten'd day, The Northern pole beholdeth not one ray. Now Greenland, Groanland, Finland, Lapland, see No Sun, to lighten their obscurity: Poor wretches that in total darkness lye, With minds more dark then is the dark'ned Sky. Beaf, Brawn, and Pork are now in great request, And solid meats our stomacks can digest. This time warm cloaths, full diet, and good fires, Our pinched flesh, and hungry mawes requires: Old, cold, dry Age and Earth Autumn resembles, And Melancholy which most of all dissembles. I must be short, and shorts, the short'ned day, What winter hath to tell, now let him say. Winter. Cold, moist, young flegmy winter now doth lye In swadling Clouts, like new born Infancy Bound up with frosts, and furr'd with hail & snows, And like an Infant, still it taller grows; December is my first, and now the Sun To th'Southward Tropick, his swift race doth run: This moneth he's hous'd in horned Capricorn, From thence he 'gins to length the shortned morn, Through Christendome with great Feastivity, Now's held, (but ghest) for blest Nativity. Cold frozen January next comes in, Chilling the blood and shrinking up the skin; In Aquarius now keeps the long wisht Sun, And Northward his unwearied Course doth run: The day much longer then it was before, The cold not lessened, but augmented more. Now Toes and Ears, and Fingers often freeze, And Travellers their noses sometimes leese. Moist snowie February is my last, I care not how the winter time doth haste. In Pisces now the golden Sun doth shine, And Northward still approaches to the Line, The Rivers 'gin to ope, the snows to melt, 121 And some warm glances from his face are felt; Which is increased by the lengthen'd day, Until by's heat, he drive all cold away, And thus the year in Circle runneth round: Where first it did begin, in th'end its found. My Subjects bare, my Brain is bad, Or better Lines you should have had: The first fell in so nat'rally, I knew not how to pass it by; The last, though bad I could not mend, Accept therefore of what is pen'd, And all the faults that you shall spy Shall at your feet for pardon cry. ~ Anne Bradstreet,

874:Senlin: His Dark Origins Senlin sits before us, and we see him. He smokes his pipe before us, and we hear him. Is he small, with reddish hair, Does he light his pipe with meditative stare, And a pointed flame reflected in both eyes? Is he sad and happy and foolish and wise? Did no one see him enter the doors of the city, Looking above him at the roofs and trees and skies? 'I stepped from a cloud', he says, 'as evening fell; I walked on the sound of a bell; I ran with winged heels along a gust; Or is it true that I laughed and sprang from dust? . . . Has no one, in a great autumnal forest, When the wind bares the trees, Heard the sad horn of Senlin slowly blown? Has no one, on a mountain in the spring, Heard Senlin sing? Perhaps I came alone on a snow-white horse,-Riding alone from the deep-starred night. Perhaps I came on a ship whose sails were music,-Sailing from moon or sun on a river of light.' He lights his pipe with a pointed flame. 'Yet, there were many autumns before I came, And many springs. And more will come, long after There is no horn for me, or song, or laughter. The city dissolves about us, and its walls Become an ancient forest. There is no sound Except where an old twig tires and falls; Or a lizard among the dead leaves crawls; Or a flutter is heard in darkness along the ground. Has Senlin become a forest? Do we walk in Senlin? Is Senlin the wood we walk in, --ourselves,--the world? Senlin! we cry . . . Senlin! again . . . No answer, Only soft broken echoes backward whirled . . . 118 Yet we would say: this is no wood at all, But a small white room with a lamp upon the wall; And Senlin, before us, pale, with reddish hair, Lights his pipe with a meditative stare. Senlin, walking beside us, swings his arms And turns his head to look at walls and trees. The wind comes whistling from shrill stars of winter, The lights are jewels, black roots freeze. 'Did I, then, stretch from the bitter earth like these, Reaching upward with slow and rigid pain To seek, in another air, myself again?' (Immense and solitary in a desert of rocks Behold a bewildered oak With white clouds screaming through its leafy brain.) 'Or was I the single ant, or tinier thing, That crept from the rocks of buried time And dedicated its holy life to climb From atom to beetling atom, jagged grain to grain, Patiently out of the darkness we call sleep Into a hollow gigantic world of light Thinking the sky to be its destined shell, Hoping to fit it well!--' The city dissolves about us, and its walls Are mountains of rock cruelly carved by wind. Sand streams down their wasting sides, sand Mounts upward slowly about them: foot and hand We crawl and bleed among them! Is this Senlin? In the desert of Senlin must we live and die? We hear the decay of rocks, the crash of boulders, Snarling of sand on sand. 'Senlin!' we cry. 'Senlin!' again . . . Our shadows revolve in silence Under the soulless brilliance of blue sky. Yet we would say: there are no rocks at all, Nor desert of sand . . . here by a city wall 119 White lights jewell the evening, black roots freeze, And Senlin turns his head to look at trees. It is evening, Senlin says, and in the evening, By a silent shore, by a far distant sea, White unicorns come gravely down to the water. In the lilac dusk they come, they are white and stately, Stars hang over the purple waveless sea; A sea on which no sail was ever lifted, Where a human voice was never heard. The shadows of vague hills are dark on the water, The silent stars seem silently to sing. And gravely come white unicorns down to the water, One by one they come and drink their fill; And daisies burn like stars on the darkened hill. It is evening Senlin says, and in the evening The leaves on the trees, abandoned by the light, Look to the earth, and whisper, and are still. The bat with horned wings, tumbling through the darkness, Breaks the web, and the spider falls to the ground. The starry dewdrop gathers upon the oakleaf, Clings to the edge, and falls without a sound. Do maidens spread their white palms to the starlight And walk three steps to the east and clearly sing? Do dewdrops fall like a shower of stars from willows? Has the small moon a ghostly ring? . . . White skeletons dance on the moonlit grass, Singing maidens are buried in deep graves, The stars hang over a sea like polished glass . . . And solemnly one by one in the darkness there Neighing far off on the haunted air White unicorns come gravely down to the water. No silver bells are heard. The westering moon Lights the pale floors of caverns by the sea. Wet weed hangs on the rock. In shimmering pools Left on the rocks by the receding sea Starfish slowly turn their white and brown Or writhe on the naked rocks and drown. 120 Do sea-girls haunt these caves--do we hear faint singing? Do we hear from under the sea a faint bell ringing? Was that a white hand lifted among the bubbles And fallen softly back? No, these shores and caverns are all silent, Dead in the moonlight; only, far above, On the smooth contours of these headlands, White amid the eternal black, One by one in the moonlight there Neighing far off on the haunted air The unicorns come down to the sea. Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight, Bending his small legs in a peculiar way, Goes to his work with thoughts of the universe. His hands are in his pockets, he smokes his pipe, He is happily conscious of roofs and skies; And, without turning his head, he turns his eyes To regard white horses drawing a small white hearse. The sky is brilliant between the roofs, The windows flash in the yellow sun, On the hard pavement ring the hoofs, The light wheels softly run. Bright particles of sunlight fall, Quiver and flash, gyrate and burn, Honey-like heat flows down the wall, The white spokes dazzle and turn. Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight, Regards the hearse with an introspective eye. 'Is it my childhood there,' he asks, 'Sealed in a hearse and hurrying by?' He taps his trowel against a stone; The trowel sings with a silver tone. 'Nevertheless I know this well. Bury it deep and toll a bell, Bury it under land or sea, You cannot bury it save in me.' 121 It is as if his soul had become a city, With noisily peopled streets, and through these streets Senlin himself comes driving a small white hearse . . . 'Senlin!' we cry. He does not turn his head. But is that Senlin?--Or is this city Senlin,-Quietly watching the burial of the dead? Dumbly observing the cortège of its dead? Yet we would say that all this is but madness: Around a distant corner trots the hearse. And Senlin walks before us in the sunlight Happily conscious of his universe. In the hot noon, in an old and savage garden, The peach-tree grows. Its cruel and ugly roots Rend and rifle the silent earth for moisture. Above, in the blue, hang warm and golden fruits. Look, how the cancerous roots crack mould and stone! Earth, if she had a voice, would wail her pain. Is she the victim, or is the tree the victim? Delicate blossoms opened in the rain, Black bees flew among them in the sunlight, And sacked them ruthlessly; and no a bird Hangs, sharp-eyed, in the leaves, and pecks the fruit; And the peach-tree dreams, and does not say a word. . . . Senlin, tapping his trowel against a stone, Observes this tree he planted: it is his own. 'You will think it strange,' says Senlin, 'but this tree Utters profound things in this garden; And in its silence speaks to me. I have sensations, when I stand beneath it, As if its leaves looked at me, and could see; And those thin leaves, even in windless air, Seem to be whispering me a choral music, Insubstantial but debonair. "Regard," they seem to say, "Our idiot root, which going its brutal way Has cracked your garden wall! Ugly, is it not? 122 A desecration of this place . . . And yet, without it, could we exist at all?" Thus, rustling with importance, they seem to me To make their apology; Yet, while they apologize, Ask me a wary question with their eyes. Yes, it is true their origin is low-Brutish and dull and cruel . . . and it is true Their roots have cracked the wall. But do we know The leaves less cruel--the root less beautiful? Sometimes it seems as if there grew In the dull garden of my mind A tree like this, which, singing with delicate leaves, Yet cracks the wall with cruel roots and blind. Sometimes, indeed, it appears to me That I myself am such a tree . . .' . . . And as we hear from Senlin these strange words So, slowly, in the sunlight, he becomes this tree: And among the pleasant leaves hang sharp-eyed birds While cruel roots dig downward secretly. Rustling among his odds and ends of knowledge Suddenly, to his wonder, Senlin finds How Cleopatra and Senebtisi Were dug by many hands from ancient tombs. Cloth after scented cloth the sage unwinds: Delicious to see our futile modern sunlight Dance like a harlot among these Dogs and Dooms! First, the huge pyramid, with rock on rock Bloodily piled to heaven; and under this A gilded cavern, bat festooned; And here in rows on rows, with gods about them, Cloudily lustrous, dim, the sacred coffins, Silver starred and crimson mooned. What holy secret shall we now uncover? Inside the outer coffin is a second; Inside the second, smaller, lies a third. 123 This one is carved, and like a human body; And painted over with fish and bull and bird. Here are men walking stiffly in procession, Blowing horns or lifting spears. Where do they march to? Where do they come from? Soft whine of horns is in our ears. Inside, the third, a fourth . . . and this the artist,-A priest, perhaps--did most to make resemble The flesh of her who lies within. The brown eyes widely stare at the bat-hung ceiling. The hair is black, The mouth is thin. Princess! Secret of life! We come to praise you! The torch is lowered, this coffin too we open, And the dark air is drunk with musk and myrrh. Here are the thousand white and scented wrappings, The gilded mask, and jeweled eyes, of her. And now the body itself, brown, gaunt, and ugly, And the hollow scull, in which the brains are withered, Lie bare before us. Princess, is this all? Something there was we asked that is not answered. Soft bats, in rows, hang on the lustered wall. And all we hear is a whisper sound of music, Of brass horns dustily raised and briefly blown, And a cry of grief; and men in a stiff procession Marching away and softly gone. 'And am I then a pyramid?' says Senlin, 'In which are caves and coffins, where lies hidden Some old and mocking hieroglyph of flesh? Or am I rather the moonlight, spreading subtly Above those stones and times? Or the green blade of grass that bravely grows Between to massive boulders of black basalt Year after year, and fades and blows? Senlin, sitting before us in the lamplight, Laughs, and lights his pipe. The yellow flame 124 Minutely flares in his eyes, minutely dwindles. Does a blade of grass have Senlin for a name? Yet we would say that we have seen him somewhere, A tiny spear of green beneath the blue, Playing his destiny in a sun-warmed crevice With the gigantic fates of frost and dew. Does a spider come and spin his gossamer ladder Rung by silver rung, Chaining it fast to Senlin? Its faint shadow Flung, waveringly, where his is flung? Does a raindrop dazzle starlike down his length Trying his futile strength? A snowflake startle him? The stars defeat him? Through aeons of dusk have birds above him sung? Time is a wind, says Senlin; time, like music, Blows over us its mournful beauty, passes, And leaves behind a shadowy reflection,-A helpless gesture of mist above the grasses. In cold blue lucid dusk before the sunrise, One yellow star sings over a peak of snow, And melts and vanishes in a light like roses. Through slanting mist, black rocks appear and glow. The clouds flow downward, slowly as grey glaciers, Or up to a pale rose-azure pass. Blue streams tinkle down from snow to boulders, From boulders to white grass. Icicles on the pine tree melt And softly flash in the sun: In long straight lines the star-drops fall One by one. Is a voice heard while the shadows still are long, Borne slowly down on the sparkling air? Is a thin bell heard from the peak of silence? Is someone among the high snows there? 125 Where the blue stream flows coldly among the meadows And mist still clings to rock and tree Senlin walks alone; and from that twilight Looks darkly up, to see The calm unmoving peak of snow-white silence, The rocks aflame with ice, the rose-blue sky . . . Ghost-like, a cloud descends from twinkling ledges, To nod before the dwindling sun and die. 'Something there is,' says Senlin, 'in that mountain, Something forgotten now, that once I knew . . .' We walk before a sun-tipped peak in silence, Our shadows descend before us, long and blue. ~ Conrad Potter Aiken,

875:Malmaison How the slates of the roof sparkle in the sun, over there, over there, beyond the high wall! How quietly the Seine runs in loops and windings, over there, over there, sliding through the green countryside! Like ships of the line, stately with canvas, the tall clouds pass along the sky, over the glittering roof, over the trees, over the looped and curving river. A breeze quivers through the linden-trees. Roses bloom at Malmaison. Roses! Roses! But the road is dusty. Already the Citoyenne Beauharnais wearies of her walk. Her skin is chalked and powdered with dust, she smells dust, and behind the wall are roses! Roses with smooth open petals, poised above rippling leaves . . . Roses . . . They have told her so. The Citoyenne Beauharnais shrugs her shoulders and makes a little face. She must mend her pace if she would be back in time for dinner. Roses indeed! The guillotine more likely. The tiered clouds float over Malmaison, and the slate roof sparkles in the sun. II Gallop! Gallop! The General brooks no delay. Make way, good people, and scatter out of his path, you, and your hens, and your dogs, and your children. The General is returned from Egypt, and is come in a `caleche' and four to visit his new property. Throw open the gates, you, Porter of Malmaison. Pull off your cap, my man, this is your master, the husband of Madame. Faster! Faster! A jerk and a jingle and they are arrived, he and she. Madame has red eyes. Fie! It is for joy at her husband's return. Learn your place, Porter. A gentleman here for two months? Fie! Fie, then! Since when have you taken to gossiping. Madame may have a brother, I suppose. That -- all green, and red, and glitter, with flesh as dark as ebony -- that is a slave; a bloodthirsty, stabbing, slashing heathen, come from the hot countries to cure your tongue of idle whispering. A fine afternoon it is, with tall bright clouds sailing over the trees. 125 'Bonaparte, mon ami, the trees are golden like my star, the star I pinned to your destiny when I married you. The gypsy, you remember her prophecy! My dear friend, not here, the servants are watching; send them away, and that flashing splendour, Roustan. Superb -- Imperial, but . . . My dear, your arm is trembling; I faint to feel it touching me! No, no, Bonaparte, not that -- spare me that -- did we not bury that last night! You hurt me, my friend, you are so hot and strong. Not long, Dear, no, thank God, not long.' The looped river runs saffron, for the sun is setting. It is getting dark. Dark. Darker. In the moonlight, the slate roof shines palely milkily white. The roses have faded at Malmaison, nipped by the frost. What need for roses? Smooth, open petals -- her arms. Fragrant, outcurved petals -- her breasts. He rises like a sun above her, stooping to touch the petals, press them wider. Eagles. Bees. What are they to open roses! A little shivering breeze runs through the linden-trees, and the tiered clouds blow across the sky like ships of the line, stately with canvas. III The gates stand wide at Malmaison, stand wide all day. The gravel of the avenue glints under the continual rolling of wheels. An officer gallops up with his sabre clicking; a mameluke gallops down with his charger kicking. `Valets de pied' run about in ones, and twos, and groups, like swirled blown leaves. Tramp! Tramp! The guard is changing, and the grenadiers off duty lounge out of sight, ranging along the roads toward Paris. The slate roof sparkles in the sun, but it sparkles milkily, vaguely, the great glass-houses put out its shining. Glass, stone, and onyx now for the sun's mirror. Much has come to pass at Malmaison. New rocks and fountains, blocks of carven marble, fluted pillars uprearing antique temples, vases and urns in unexpected places, bridges of stone, bridges of wood, arbours and statues, and a flood of flowers everywhere, new flowers, rare flowers, parterre after parterre of flowers. Indeed, the roses bloom at Malmaison. It is youth, youth untrammeled and advancing, trundling a country ahead of it as though it were a hoop. Laughter, and spur janglings in tessellated vestibules. Tripping of clocked 126 and embroidered stockings in little low-heeled shoes over smooth grass-plots. India muslins spangled with silver patterns slide through trees -mingle -- separate -- white day fireflies flashing moon-brilliance in the shade of foliage. 'The kangaroos! I vow, Captain, I must see the kangaroos.' 'As you please, dear Lady, but I recommend the shady linden alley and feeding the cockatoos.' 'They say that Madame Bonaparte's breed of sheep is the best in all France.' 'And, oh, have you seen the enchanting little cedar she planted when the First Consul sent home the news of the victory of Marengo?' Picking, choosing, the chattering company flits to and fro. Over the trees the great clouds go, tiered, stately, like ships of the line bright with canvas. Prisoners'-base, and its swooping, veering, racing, giggling, bumping. The First Consul runs plump into M. de Beauharnais and falls. But he picks himself up smartly, and starts after M. Isabey. Too late, M. Le Premier Consul, Mademoiselle Hortense is out after you. Quickly, my dear Sir! Stir your short legs, she is swift and eager, and as graceful as her mother. She is there, that other, playing too, but lightly, warily, bearing herself with care, rather floating out upon the air than running, never far from goal. She is there, borne up above her guests as something indefinably fair, a rose above periwinkles. A blown rose, smooth as satin, reflexed, one loosened petal hanging back and down. A rose that undulates languorously as the breeze takes it, resting upon its leaves in a faintness of perfume. There are rumours about the First Consul. Malmaison is full of women, and Paris is only two leagues distant. Madame Bonaparte stands on the wooden bridge at sunset, and watches a black swan pushing the pink and silver water in front of him as he swims, crinkling its smoothness into pleats of changing colour with his breast. Madame Bonaparte presses against the parapet of the bridge, and the crushed roses at her belt melt, petal by petal, into the pink water. 127 IV A vile day, Porter. But keep your wits about you. The Empress will soon be here. Queer, without the Emperor! It is indeed, but best not consider that. Scratch your head and prick up your ears. Divorce is not for you to debate about. She is late? Ah, well, the roads are muddy. The rain spears are as sharp as whetted knives. They dart down and down, edged and shining. Clop-trop! Clop-trop! A carriage grows out of the mist. Hist, Porter. You can keep on your hat. It is only Her Majesty's dogs and her parrot. Clop-trop! The Ladies in Waiting, Porter. Clop-trop! It is Her Majesty. At least, I suppose it is, but the blinds are drawn. 'In all the years I have served Her Majesty she never before passed the gate without giving me a smile!' You're a droll fellow, to expect the Empress to put out her head in the pouring rain and salute you. She has affairs of her own to think about. Clang the gate, no need for further waiting, nobody else will be coming to Malmaison to-night. White under her veil, drained and shaking, the woman crosses the antechamber. Empress! Empress! Foolish splendour, perished to dust. Ashes of roses, ashes of youth. Empress forsooth! Over the glass domes of the hot-houses drenches the rain. Behind her a clock ticks -- ticks again. The sound knocks upon her thought with the echoing shudder of hollow vases. She places her hands on her ears, but the minutes pass, knocking. Tears in Malmaison. And years to come each knocking by, minute after minute. Years, many years, and tears, and cold pouring rain. 'I feel as though I had died, and the only sensation I have is that I am no more.' Rain! Heavy, thudding rain! 128 The roses bloom at Malmaison. And not only roses. Tulips, myrtles, geraniums, camelias, rhododendrons, dahlias, double hyacinths. All the year through, under glass, under the sky, flowers bud, expand, die, and give way to others, always others. From distant countries they have been brought, and taught to live in the cool temperateness of France. There is the `Bonapartea' from Peru; the `Napoleone Imperiale'; the `Josephinia Imperatrix', a pearl-white flower, purple-shadowed, the calix pricked out with crimson points. Malmaison wears its flowers as a lady wears her gems, flauntingly, assertively. Malmaison decks herself to hide the hollow within. The glass-houses grow and grow, and every year fling up hotter reflections to the sailing sun. The cost runs into millions, but a woman must have something to console herself for a broken heart. One can play backgammon and patience, and then patience and backgammon, and stake gold napoleons on each game won. Sport truly! It is an unruly spirit which could ask better. With her jewels, her laces, her shawls; her two hundred and twenty dresses, her fichus, her veils; her pictures, her busts, her birds. It is absurd that she cannot be happy. The Emperor smarts under the thought of her ingratitude. What could he do more? And yet she spends, spends as never before. It is ridiculous. Can she not enjoy life at a smaller figure? Was ever monarch plagued with so extravagant an ex-wife. She owes her chocolate-merchant, her candle-merchant, her sweetmeat purveyor; her grocer, her butcher, her poulterer; her architect, and the shopkeeper who sells her rouge; her perfumer, her dressmaker, her merchant of shoes. She owes for fans, plants, engravings, and chairs. She owes masons and carpenters, vintners, lingeres. The lady's affairs are in sad confusion. And why? Why? Can a river flow when the spring is dry? Night. The Empress sits alone, and the clock ticks, one after one. The clock nicks off the edges of her life. She is chipped like an old bit of china; she is frayed like a garment of last year's wearing. She is soft, crinkled, like a fading rose. And each minute flows by 129 brushing against her, shearing off another and another petal. The Empress crushes her breasts with her hands and weeps. And the tall clouds sail over Malmaison like a procession of stately ships bound for the moon. Scarlet, clear-blue, purple epauletted with gold. It is a parade of soldiers sweeping up the avenue. Eight horses, eight Imperial harnesses, four caparisoned postilions, a carriage with the Emperor's arms on the panels. Ho, Porter, pop out your eyes, and no wonder. Where else under the Heavens could you see such splendour! They sit on a stone seat. The little man in the green coat of a Colonel of Chasseurs, and the lady, beautiful as a satin seed-pod, and as pale. The house has memories. The satin seed-pod holds his germs of Empire. We will stay here, under the blue sky and the turreted white clouds. She draws him; he feels her faded loveliness urge him to replenish it. Her soft transparent texture woos his nervous fingering. He speaks to her of debts, of resignation; of her children, and his; he promises that she shall see the King of Rome; he says some harsh things and some pleasant. But she is there, close to him, rose toned to amber, white shot with violet, pungent to his nostrils as embalmed rose-leaves in a twilit room. Suddenly the Emperor calls his carriage and rolls away across the looping Seine. VI Crystal-blue brightness over the glass-houses. Crystal-blue streaks and ripples over the lake. A macaw on a gilded perch screams; they have forgotten to take out his dinner. The windows shake. Boom! Boom! It is the rumbling of Prussian cannon beyond Pecq. Roses bloom at Malmaison. Roses! Roses! Swimming above their leaves, rotting beneath them. Fallen flowers strew the unraked walks. Fallen flowers for a fallen Emperor! The General in charge of him draws back and watches. Snatches of music -snarling, sneering music of bagpipes. They say a Scotch regiment is besieging Saint-Denis. The Emperor wipes his face, or is it his eyes. His tired eyes which see nowhere the grace they long for. Josephine! Somebody asks him a question, he does not answer, somebody else does that. There are voices, but one voice he does not hear, and yet he hears it all the time. Josephine! The Emperor puts up his hand to screen his face. The white light of a bright cloud spears sharply through the linden-trees. 130 `Vive l'Empereur!' There are troops passing beyond the wall, troops which sing and call. Boom! A pink rose is jarred off its stem and falls at the Emperor's feet. 'Very well. I go.' Where! Does it matter? There is no sword to clatter. Nothing but soft brushing gravel and a gate which shuts with a click. 'Quick, fellow, don't spare your horses.' A whip cracks, wheels turn, why burn one's eyes following a fleck of dust. VII Over the slate roof tall clouds, like ships of the line, pass along the sky. The glass-houses glitter splotchily, for many of their lights are broken. Roses bloom, fiery cinders quenching under damp weeds. Wreckage and misery, and a trailing of petty deeds smearing over old recollections. The musty rooms are empty and their shutters are closed, only in the gallery there is a stuffed black swan, covered with dust. When you touch it, the feathers come off and float softly to the ground. Through a chink in the shutters, one can see the stately clouds crossing the sky toward the Roman arches of the Marly Aqueduct. ~ Amy Lowell,

876:Ii. The Quest Of Silence Secreta Silvarum: Prelude Oh yon, when Holda leaves her hill of winter, on the quest of June, black oaks with emerald lamplets thrill that flicker forth to her magic tune. At dawn the forest shivers whist and all the hidden glades awake; then sunshine gems the milk-white mist and the soft-swaying branches make along its edge a woven sound of legends that allure and flit and horns wound towards the enchanted ground where, in the light moon-vapours lit, all night, while the black woods in mass, serried, forbid with goblin fear, fay-revels gleam o'er the pale grass till shrill-throats ring the matins near. Oh there, oh there in the sweet o' the year, adventurous in the witching green, last feal of the errant spear, to seek the eyes of lost Undine clear blue above the blue cold stream that lingers till her plaint be done, oh, and perchance from that sad dream to woo her, laughing, to the sun and that glad blue that seems to flow far up, where dipping branches lift sidelong their soft-throng'd frondage slow and slow the thin cloud-fleecelets drift. Oh, there to drowse the summer thro' deep in some odorous twilit lair, swoon'd in delight of golden dew within the sylvan witches hair; the while on half-veil'd eyes to feel the yellow sunshafts broken dim, and seldom waftures moth-like steal and settle, on the bare-flung limb: or under royal autumn, pall'd 27 in smouldering magnificence, to feel the olden heart enthrall'd in wisdoms of forgotten sense, and mad desire and pain that fill'd red August's heart of throbbing bloom in one grave hour of knowledge still'd where glory ponders o'er its doom: and, when the boughs are sombre lace and silence chisels silver rime, o'er some old hearth, with dim-lit face, to dream the vanish'd forest prime, the springtime's sweet and June's delight, more precious now that hard winds chill the dews that made their mornings bright, and Holda sleeps beneath her hill. What tho' the outer day be brazen rude not here the innocence of morn is fled: this green unbroken dusk attests it wed with freshness, where the shadowy breasts are nude, hers guess'd, whose looks, felt dewy-cool, elude — save this reproach that smiles on foolish dread: wood-word, grave gladness in its heart, unsaid, knoweth the guarded name of Quietude. Nor start, if satyr-shapes across the path tumble; it is but children: lo, the wrath couchant, heraldic, of her beasts that pierce with ivory single horn whate'er misplaced outrageous nears, or whinny of the fierce Centaur, or mailed miscreant unchaste. II O friendly shades, where anciently I grew! me entering at dawn a child ye knew, all little welcoming leaves, and jealous wove your roof of lucid emerald above, that scarce therethro' the envious sun might stray, save smiling dusk or, lure for idle play, such glancing finger your chance whim allows, all that long forenoon of the tuneful boughs; which growing on, the myriad small noise 28 and flitting of the wood-life's busy joys, thro' tenuous weft of sound, had left, divined, the impending threat of silence, clear, behind: and, noon now past, that hush descended large in the wood's heart, and caught me in its marge of luminous foreboding widely flung; so hourlong I have stray'd, and tho' among the glimpsing lures of all green aisles delays that revelation of its wondrous gaze, yet am I glad to wander, glad to seek and find not, so the gather'd tufts bespeak, naked, reclined, its friendly neighbourhood — as in this hollow of the rarer wood where, listening, in the cool glen-shade, with me, white-bloom'd and quiet, stands a single tree; rich spilth of gold is on the eastward rise; westward the violet gloom eludes mine eyes. This is the house of Pan, not whom blind craze and babbling wood-wits tell, where bare flints blaze, noon-tide terrific with the single shout, but whom behind each bole sly-peering out the traveller knows, but turning, disappear'd with chuckle of laughter in his thicket-beard, and rustle of scurrying faun-feet where the ground each autumn deeper feels its yellow mound. Onward: and lo, at length, the secret glade, soft-gleaming grey, what time the grey trunks fade in the white vapours o'er its further rim. 'Tis no more time to linger: now more dim the woods are throng'd to ward the haunted spot where, as I turn my homeward face, I wot the nymphs of twilight have resumed, unheard, their glimmering dance upon the glimmering sward. III The point of noon is past, outside: light is asleep; brooding upon its perfect hour: the woods are deep and solemn, fill'd with unseen presences of light that glint, allure, and hide them; ever yet more bright (it seems) the turn of a path will show them: nay, but rest; seek not, and think not; dream, and know not; this is best: the hour is full; be lost: whispering, the woods are bent, 29 This is the only revelation; be content. IIII The forest has its horrors, as the sea: and ye that enter from the staling lea into the early freshness kept around the waiting trunks that watch its rarer bound, after the glistening song that, sprinkled, leaves an innocence upon the glancing leaves; O ye that dream to find the morning yet secret and chaste, beside her mirror set, some glimmering source o'ershadow'd, where the light is coolness felt, whom filter'd glints invite thro' the slow-shifting green transparency; O ye that hearken towards pale mystery a rustle of hidden pinions, and obey the beckoning of each little leaf asway: return, return, or e'er to warn you back the shadow bend along your rearward track longer and longer from the brooding west; return, and evening shall bosom your rest in the warm gloom that wraps the blazing hearth: there hear from wither'd lips long wean'd of mirth the tale that lulls old watches; — How they rode, brave-glittering once, where the brave morning glow'd along the forest-edges, and were lost for ever, where the crossing trunks are most; and, far beyond the dim arcades of song, where moon-mist weaves a dancing elfin throng, and far beyond the luring glades that brood around a maiden thought of Quietude, the savage realm begins, of lonely dread, black branches from the fetid marish bred that lurks to trap the loyal careless foot, and gaping trunks protrude a snaky root o'er slinking paths that centre, where beneath a sudden rock on the short blasted heath, bare-set, a cavern lurks and holds within its womb, obscene with some corroding sin, coil'd on itself and stirring, a squat shade before the entrance rusts a broken blade. The forest hides its horrors, as the sea. 30 V No emerald spring, no royal autumn-red, no glint of morn or sullen vanquish'd day might venture against this obscene horror's sway blackly from the witch-blasted branches shed. No silver bells around the bridle-head ripple, and on no quest the pennons play: the path's romance is shuddering disarray, or eaten by the marsh: the knights are dead. The Lady of the Forest was a tale: of the white unicorns that round her sleep gamboll'd, no turf retains a print; and man, rare traveller, feels, athwart the knitted bale watching, now lord of loathly deaths that creep, maliciously the senile leer of Pan. Fire in the heavens, and fire along the hills, and fire made solid in the flinty stone, thick-mass'd or scatter'd pebble, fire that fills the breathless hour that lives in fire alone. This valley, long ago the patient bed of floods that carv'd its antient amplitude, in stillness of the Egyptian crypt outspread, endures to drown in noon-days tyrant mood. Behind the veil of burning silence bound, vast life's innumerous busy littleness is hush'd in vague-conjectured blur of sound that dulls the brain with slumbrous weight, unless some dazzling puncture let the stridence throng in the cicada's torture-point of song. Peace dwells in blessing o'er a place folded within the hills to keep and under dark boughs seawind-frayd: and the kind slopes where soothings creep, in the gold light or the green shade, wear evermore the ancient face of silence, and the eyes of sleep; because they are listening evermore unto the seawinds what they tell to the wise, nodding, indifferent trees high on the ridge that guard the dell, 31 of wars on many a far grey shore and how the shores decay and fade before the obstinate old seas: and all their triumphing is made a tale that dwindles with the eves, while the soft dusk lingers, delay'd, and drifts between the indolent leaves. A gray and dusty daylight flows athwart the shatter'd traceries, pale absence of the ruin'd rose. Here once, on labour-harden'd knees, beneath the kindly vaulted gloom that gather'd them in quickening ease, they saw the rose of heaven bloom, alone, in heights of musky air, with many an angel's painted plume. So, shadowing forth their dim-felt prayer, the daedal glass compell'd to grace the outer days indifferent stare, where now its disenhallow'd face beholds the petal-ribs enclose nought, in their web of shatter'd lace, save this pale absence of the rose. Breaking the desert's tawny level ring three columns, an oasis; but no shade falls from the curl'd acanthus-leaves; no spring bubbles soft laughter for its leaning maid. The cell is waste: where once the god abode a burning desolation furls its wing: enter, and lo! once more, the hopeless road world-wide, the tawny desert's level ring. Before she pass'd behind the glacier wall that hides her white eternal sorceries the northern witch, in clinging ermine pall, cast one last look along the shallow seas, a look that held them in its numbing thrall and melted onward to the sandy leas where our lorn city lives its lingering fall and wistful summer shrinks in scant-clad trees. 32 Hence came one greyness over grass and stone: the silent-lapping waters fade and tone into the air and into them the land; and all along our stagnant waterways a drown'd and dusky gleaming sleeps, unbann'd, the lurking twilight of her vanish'd gaze. Out of no quarter of the charted sky flung in the bitter wind intolerably, abrupt, the trump that sings behind the end exults alone. Here grass is none to bend: the stony plain blackens with rapid night that best reveals the land's inflicted blight since in the smitten hero-hand the sword broke, and the hope the long-dumb folk adored, and over all the north a tragic flare told Valhall perish'd and the void's despair to dwell as erst, all disinhabited, a vault above the heart its hungering led. The strident clangour cuts; but space is whole, inert, absorb'd in dead regret. Here, sole, on the bare uplands, stands, vast thro' the gloom staring, to mark an irretrievable doom, the stranger stone, sphinx-couchant, thunder-hurl'd from red star-ruin o'er the elder world. This night is not of gentle draperies or cluster'd banners where the star-breaths roam, nor hangs above the torch a lurching dome of purple shade that slips with phantom ease; but, on our apathy encroaching, these, stable, whose smooth defiance none hath clomb, basalt and jade, a patience of the gnome, polish'd and shadow-brimm'd transparencies. Far, where our oubliette is shut, above, we guess the ample lids that never move beneath her brows, each massive arch inert hung high-contemptuous o'er the blatant wars we deem'd well waged for her, who may avert some Janus-face that smiles on hidden stars. Lightning: and, momently, the silhouette, 33 flat on the far horizon, comes and goes of that night-haunting city; minaret, dome, spire, all sharp while yet the levin glows. Day knows it not; whether fierce noon-tide fuse earth's rim with sky in throbbing haze, or clear gray softness tinge afresh the enamell'd hues of mead and stream, it shows no tipping spear. Night builds it: now upon the marbled plain a blur, discern'd lurking, ever more nigh; now close against the walls that hem my reign a leaguer-town, threatening my scope of sky. So late I saw it; in a misty moon it bulk'd, all dusky and transparent, dumb as ever, fast in some prodigious swoon: its battlements deserted — who might come? — ay, one! his eyes, 'neath the high turban's plume, watch'd mine, intent, behind the breast-high stone: his face drew mine across the milky gloom: a sudden moonbeam show'd it me, my own! ONE! an iron core, shock'd and dispers'd in throbs of sound that ebb across the bay: I shudder: the one clang smites disarray thro' all my sense, that starts awake, inhears'd in the whole lifeless world: and some accurs'd miasma steals, resumed from all decay, where the dead tide lies flat round the green quay, hinting what self-fordone despairs it nurs'd. The corpse of time is stark upon the night: my soul is coffin'd, staring, grave-bedight, upon some dance of death that reels and feasts around its living tomb, with vampire grin, inverted sacraments of Satan's priests — and, mask'd no more, the maniac face of sin. There is a far-off thrill that troubles me: a faint thin ripple of shadow, momently, dies out across my lucid icy cell. I am betrayed by winter to the spell of morbid sleep, that somewhere rolls its waves insidiously, gather'd from unblest graves, to creep above each distant crumbled mole. 34 When that assault is full against my soul, I must go down, thro' chapels black with mould, past ruin'd doors, whose arches, ridged with gold, catch, in their grooves, a gloom more blackly dript, some stairway winding hours-long towards the crypt where panic night lies stricken 'neath the curse exuding from the dense enormous hearse of some old vampire-god, whose bulk, within, lies gross and festering in his shroud of sin. ~ Christopher John Brennan,

877:The Charnel Rose: A Symphony She rose in moonlight, and stood, confronting sea, With her bare arms uplifted, And lifted her voice in the silence foolishly: And her face was small, and her voice was small. 'O moon!' she cried, 'I think how you must tire Forever circling earth, so silently; Earth, who is dark and makes you no reply.' She only heard the little waves rush and fall; And saw the moon go quietly down the sky. Like a white figurehead in the seafaring wind, She stood in the moonlight, And heard her voice cry, ghostly and thinned, Over the seethe of foam, Saying, 'O numberless waters, I think it strange How you can always shadow her face, and change And yet never weary of her, having no ease.' But the sea said nothing, no word at all: Unquietly, as in sleep, she saw it rise and fall; And the moon spread a net of silver over the foam. She lifted her hands and let them fall again, Impatient of the silence. And in despair, Hopeless of final answer against her pain, She said, to the stealthy air, 'O air, far traveller, who from the stars are blown, Float pollen of suns, you are an unseen sea Lifting and bearing the words, eternally. O air, do you not weary of your task?' - She stood in the silence, frightened and alone, And heard her syllables ask and ask. And then, as she walked in the moonlight, so alone, Lost and small in a soulless sea, Hearing no voice make answer to her own, From that infinity, Suddenly she was aware of a low whisper, A dreadful heartless sound; and she stood still, There in the beach grass, on a sandy hill, - 145 And heard the stars, making a ghostly whisper; And the soulless whisper of sun and moon and tree; And the sea, rising and falling with a blind moan. And as she faded into the night, A glimmer of white, With her arms uplifted and her face bowed down; Sinking, again, into the sleep of sands, The sea-sands white and brown; Or among the sea-grass rustling as one more blade, Pushing before her face her cinquefoil hands; Or sliding, stealthy as foam, into the sea, With a slow seethe and whisper: Too late to find her, yet not too late to see, Came he, who sought forever unsatisfied, And saw her enter and shut the darkness, Desired and swift, And caught at the rays of the moon, yet found but darkness, Caught at the flash of his feet, to fill his hands With the sleepy pour of sands. 'O moon!' he said: 'was it you I followed? You, who put silver madness into my eyes? -' But he only heard, in the dark, a stifled laughter, And the rattle of dead leaves blowing. 'O wind! -' he said - 'was it you I followed? Your hand I felt against my face? -' But he only heard, in the dark, a stifled laughter, And shadows crept past him. with furtive pace, Breathing night upon him; and one by one The ghosts of leaves flew past him, seeking the sun. And a silent star slipped golden down the darkness, Down the great wall, leaving no trace in the sky, And years went with it, and worlds. And he dreamed still Of a fleeter shadow among the shadows running, Foam into foam, without a gesture or cry, Leaving him there, alone, on a lonely hill. I. Part 2 146 Evening: in the twilight town One by one the stars stepped down, Each to assume his destined place: And there he saw the destined face. Her eyes were void, here eyes were deep: She came like one who moved in sleep: And when she looked across the night Beneath, among, those points of light, Into his heart she shot a pang, As if a voice within him sang, Sang and was silent. Down the street, And lost in darkness, fled the feet; Ambiguous, the street-lamp's gleam Mocked at her eyes, and then the dream From shuttered window, shadowed hall, Chuckled beyond a lampless wall. Among the crowding lights he went, Where faces massed like lillies blent, And this time plucked and made his own Above snarled music's undertone: Breathing the perfume of her hair, He touched her arm, but suddenly there As in a dance of shadows fleeing (His eyes were shut for fear of seeing) He watched red roses dropt apart Each to disclose a charnel heart. Ghostly with powder in the night, Her hand upon his arm was white: Her gown was light, and lightly blew, A gauze of flame it burned him through. Under the singing lamp she stood, And smiled in subtly fugitive mood, From depth to depth of wingless skies Withdrawing batlike down her eyes: And in his heart an echo came Of quick dust quaking under flame. Pale walls enclosed light shed A yellow flicker across the bed. 147 Loud steps rang through the street, and then The hush of night grew deep again. Two shadows on the wall made one What human walls were here flung down, The light extinguished as in pain, The weak light dying in the brain? Green leaves pushed up through yielding air Greedy for life she loosed her hair With conscious and indifferent hands. . . . High on his cliff, above hard sands, He saw the moonlit ocean come In ever-inward rings of foam, Heard them break to shoot and seethe Ever inward far beneath: The ringed horizon rhythmic coming And in the moonlight silent foaming: But the dream changed: thick minutes dripped: Between his fingers a fleet light slipped: Was gone, was lost: And on the sand, or in his brain, He saw red roses fall again: Rose-wreathed skeletons advanced And clumsily lifted foot and danced: And he saw the roses drop apart Each to disclose a charnel heart. Whose were these loathed and empty eyes? Who, falling, in these wingless skies? This was not she: he rose, withdrew: One shadow on the wall made two, The human walls stood up again: Far in the night, or in his brain, He heard her whisper, felt her pass, Shadow of spirit over glass. I. Part 3 And a silent star slipped golden down the darkness, Taking his life with it, like a little cloud Consumed in fire and speed, diffused in darkness: Tangled and caught together, the days, the years, His voice, his lifted hands, 148 Were ravelled and sped; where, by the sea, he bowed And dreamed of the foam that crept back into the sea, And the wandering leaves that crept back into the tree. I. Part 4 Roses, he thought, were kin to her, Pure text of dust; and learning these He might more surely win to her, Speak her own tongue to pledge and please. What vernal kinship, then, was this That spoke and perished in a breath? In leaves, she was near enough to kiss, And yet, impalpable as death. Spading dark earth, he tore apart Exquisite roots: she fled from him. Her stigma, in the crocus heart, Probed for delicately, would swim Lazily faint away on air, Not to be caught or held: she fled Before him, wavering, everywhere, A summer's secret behind he shed. Music? He found it under earth, Quick veins of fire: he heard her sing. Upward it broke, a springing mirth, A fugitive and amazing thing, It flashed before his crazy feet, He danced upon it, it would not stay, His hands against its brightness beat, But still it broke in light away. O bird - he cried - if bird you are, Keep still those frantic wings a while! . . . Thus dancing for the evening star, In hope to capture it by guile. I. Part 5 The moon rose, and the moon set; And the stars rushed up and whirled and set; And again they swarmed, after a shaft of sunlight; And the dark blue dusk closed above him, like an ocean of regret. 149 White trident fires were lit on the tops of towers; Monstrous and black the towers broke the sky. The ghostly fountain shot and tumbled in showers; Gaunt leaves turned down above it, thirstily. The gold fish, and the fish with fins of silver, Quivered in lamplight, rose with sinister eye, And darted into the darkness, silently. The faces that looked at him were his own faces, They streamed along the streets, they licked like fire, Flowed with undulant paces, Reflected in the darkness stared at him, Contemplative, despairing, Swept silently aside, becoming dim, With a vague impotent gesture at the sky, Uncontrolled and little caring; And he watched them with an introspective eye. To shape this world of leaderless ghostly passions Or else be mobbed by it - there was the question: Green leaves above him whispered the slow question, Black ripples on the pool chuckled of passions. And between the uneasy shoulders of two trees, Huge, against impalpable gust of blue, A golden star slid down to leafy seas, A star he somehow knew. Youths tripped after him, laughing, but he fled them: He heard them mock him, in affected tones. Their lamia mouthes, so smiling, bade him fear them. His own face leered at him, with timid lust, Was overwhelmed in night. He turned aside, and walked in graveyard dust, In the dew-dabbled, clinging dust, And terror seized him, seeing the stones so white; And the wet grass, frozen and motionless in the moonlight; And the green-tongued moonlight, crawling in thick dust. Was it murky vapor, here, that dulled the stars? Or his own guilty breath that clouded heaven? Pale hands struck down with spades. And it was he, with dew upon his face, 150 Who dug the foul earth in that dripping place, Turning his back on heaven. And it was he who found the desired dead; And kissed the languid head; While shadows frisked about him in moonlight, Whirled and capered and leapt, Caught each other and mimicked lust in the moonlight, In the dew-wet dust, above the dead who slept. But this - was it this he rose from and desired? Black mould of leaves clung wetly about his feet. He was lost, and alone, and tired, A mist curled round him coldly, touched his face, Shadows with eyes were gathering in that place; And he dreamed of a lamplit street. But roses fell through the darkness, They writhed before him out of the mould, Opened their hearts to pour out darkness, Darkness of flesh, of lust grown old. He struggled against them, beat, Broke them with hands to feel the blood flow warm, Reeled, when they opened their hearts, Feeling them with their eyes closed push and swarm, Thronging about his throat, pressing his mouth, Beating his temples, choking his breath . . . Help, you stars! - wet darkness showered upon him. He was dissolved in a deep cold dream of death. White fires were lit upon the tops of towers, The towers shouldered the sky: The ghostly fountain shot and tumbled in showers, Gaunt leaves leaned down above it, thirstily. And he looked with laughter upon the lamplit ripples Each with its little image of the light, And thought the minds of men were like black ripples, Ripples of darkness, darkly huddled in night, Each of them with its image of lamp or star, Thinking itself the star. And it seemed to him, as he looked upon them, laughing, That he was the star they all in light reflected. He was the god who had been rejected, 151 Stoned and trampled upon a filthy street, Hung up in lamplight for young men to beat, Cursed and spat upon; and all for saying There was no life save life of fast and praying. Or had he been a beggar, with bare feet? Or a cruel ascetic, trampling roses down? . . . Roses are death! he cried. He turned in hatred, And saw red fires burst up above the town; And a swarm of faces rising, green with hatred. And silence descended, on dripping trees: And dew-spats slowly spat from leaves to stones. He had walked these gardens, he thought, before. The fountain chuckled; The leaves rustled, in whispers, along a shore. And the moon rose, and the moon set; And the stars rushed up, and swarmed, and set; And again they swarmed, after a shaft of sunlight; And the blue dusk closed above him, like an ocean of regret. II. Part 1 And at times it seemed, Walking with her of whom he subtly dreamed, That her young body was ringed with flame, Hover of fire, And that she went and came, Impalpable fiery blossom of desire, Into his heart and out of his heart again, With every breath, and every breath was pain. And if he touched her hand, she drew away, Becoming something vast; and stretched her hair Suddenly, like black rain, across the sun. Till he grew fearful, seeing her there, To think that he loved such a one, Who rose against the sky to shut out day. But at times it seemed, Walking with her of whom he subtly dreamed, (Music beneath the sea) That she was texture of earth no less than he; Among the leaves her face 152 Gleamed with familiar grace; And walking slowly through old gardens, Among the cool blue cedars, Spreading her hands in the silent dazzle of sunlight, Her voice and the air were sweetly married; Her laughter trembled like music out of the earth; her body was like the cool blue cedars, Fragrant in sunlight. And he quivered, to think that he was the blade, in sunlight, To flash, and strip these boughs, and spill their fragrance. Wind hurried the last year's leaves, their shadows hurried, And clouds blew down the sky. Where would they be with a year gone by? Let us be quick: there is time to overcome: The earth grows old, the moon is already dead, But you are young, you tremble because you love me, It is all we have. Let nothing more be said. What do we care for a star that floats down heaven, That fiery tear of time? It spoke to us once, it will not speak again, It will be no more remembered than last year's rain; There will be other dusks for us to walk through, And other stars will float down heaven. Time is undone: Between our hands it slips, Goes out between us, the breath upon our lips. Do not look over your shoulder to see it falling! Shadows gather and brood, under the trees. The world grows silent, it listens to hear us walking; Let the star perish: we wander as we please. Or is the earth beneath us an old star falling, Falling through twilight to leafy seas? The night grows damp: I will take your arm. Follow the lanterns, lest we come to harm. IV. Part 6 Twilight: a cold green sky. Low massed clouds, with dazzling sinister edges, And a sea gull, falling in high pale sunlight. 153 Dusk, - the encroachment of poisonous shadows, The leisurely lighting of lamps; And a gradual silence of restless trees. Mist of twilight in my heart: I who was always catching at fire. Mould of black leaves under my feet; I, whose star was desire. Earth spins in her shadow. Let us turn and go back To the first of out loves The one who was moonlight and the fall of white roses! We are struck down, we hear no music. The moisture of night is in our hands. Time takes us. We are eternal. ~ Conrad Potter Aiken,

878:Fled foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke, High as the Saddle-girth, covering away from our glances the tide; And those that fled, and that followed, from the foam-pale distance broke; The immortal desire of Immortals we saw in their faces, and sighed. I mused on the chase with the Fenians, and Bran, Sceolan, Lomair, And never a song sang Niamh, and over my finger-tips Came now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist-cold hair, And now the warmth of sighs, and after the quiver of lips. Were we days long or hours long in riding, when, rolled in a grisly peace, An isle lay level before us, with dripping hazel and oak? And we stood on a sea's edge we saw not; for whiter than new-washed fleece Fled foam underneath us, and round us, a wandering and milky smoke. And we rode on the plains of the sea's edge; the sea's edge barren and grey, Grey sand on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees, Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away, Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas. But the trees grew taller and closer, immense in their wrinkling bark; Dropping; a murmurous dropping; old silence and that one sound; For no live creatures lived there, no weasels moved in the dark: Long sighs arose in our spirits, beneath us bubbled the ground. And the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow night, For, as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world and the sun, Ceased on our hands and our faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light, And the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world was one. Till the horse gave a whinny; for, cumbrous with stems of the hazel and oak, A valley flowed down from his hoofs, and there in the long grass lay, Under the starlight and shadow, a monstrous slumbering folk, Their naked and gleaming bodies poured out and heaped in the way. And by them were arrow and war-axe, arrow and shield and blade; And dew-blanched horns, in whose hollow a child of three years old Could sleep on a couch of rushes, and all inwrought and inlaid, And more comely than man can make them with bronze and silver and gold. And each of the huge white creatures was huger than fourscore men; The tops of their ears were feathered, their hands were the claws of birds, And, shaking the plumes of the grasses and the leaves of the mural glen, The breathing came from those bodies, long warless, grown whiter than curds. The wood was so Spacious above them, that He who has stars for His flocks Could fondle the leaves with His fingers, nor go from His dew-cumbered skies; So long were they sleeping, the owls had builded their nests in their locks, Filling the fibrous dimness with long generations of eyes. And over the limbs and the valley the slow owls wandered and came, Now in a place of star-fire, and now in a shadow-place wide; And the chief of the huge white creatures, his knees in the soft star-flame, Lay loose in a place of shadow: we drew the reins by his side. Golden the nails of his bird-clawS, flung loosely along the dim ground; In one was a branch soft-shining with bells more many than sighs In midst of an old man's bosom; owls ruffling and pacing around Sidled their bodies against him, filling the shade with their eyes. And my gaze was thronged with the sleepers; no, not since the world began, In realms where the handsome were many, nor in glamours by demons flung, Have faces alive with such beauty been known to the salt eye of man, Yet weary with passions that faded when the sevenfold seas were young. And I gazed on the bell-branch, sleep's forebear, far sung by the Sennachies. I saw how those slumbererS, grown weary, there camping in grasses deep, Of wars with the wide world and pacing the shores of the wandering seas, Laid hands on the bell-branch and swayed it, and fed of unhuman sleep. Snatching the horn of Niamh, I blew a long lingering note. Came sound from those monstrous sleepers, a sound like the stirring of flies. He, shaking the fold of his lips, and heaving the pillar of his throat, Watched me with mournful wonder out of the wells of his eyes. I cried, 'Come out of the shadow, king of the nails of gold! And tell of your goodly household and the goodly works of your hands, That we may muse in the starlight and talk of the battles of old; Your questioner, Oisin, is worthy, he comes from the Fenian lands.' Half open his eyes were, and held me, dull with the smoke of their dreams; His lips moved slowly in answer, no answer out of them came; Then he swayed in his fingers the bell-branch, slow dropping a sound in faint streams Softer than snow-flakes in April and piercing the marrow like flame. Wrapt in the wave of that music, with weariness more than of earth, The moil of my centuries filled me; and gone like a sea-covered stone Were the memories of the whole of my sorrow and the memories of the whole of my mirth, And a softness came from the starlight and filled me full to the bone. In the roots of the grasses, the sorrels, I laid my body as low; And the pearl-pale Niamh lay by me, her brow on the midst of my breast; And the horse was gone in the distance, and years after years 'gan flow; Square leaves of the ivy moved over us, binding us down to our rest. And, man of the many white croziers, a century there I forgot How the fetlocks drip blood in the battle, when the fallen on fallen lie rolled; How the falconer follows the falcon in the weeds of the heron's plot, And the name of the demon whose hammer made Conchubar's sword-blade of old. And, man of the many white croziers, a century there I forgot That the spear-shaft is made out of ashwood, the shield out of osier and hide; How the hammers spring on the anvil, on the spearhead's burning spot; How the slow, blue-eyed oxen of Finn low sadly at evening tide. But in dreams, mild man of the croziers, driving the dust with their throngs, Moved round me, of seamen or landsmen, all who are winter tales; Came by me the kings of the Red Branch, with roaring of laughter and songs, Or moved as they moved once, love-making or piercing the tempest with sails. Came Blanid, Mac Nessa, tall Fergus who feastward of old time slunk, Cook Barach, the traitor; and warward, the spittle on his beard never dry, Dark Balor, as old as a forest, car-borne, his mighty head sunk Helpless, men lifting the lids of his weary and death making eye. And by me, in soft red raiment, the Fenians moved in loud streams, And Grania, walking and smiling, sewed with her needle of bone. So lived I and lived not, so wrought I and wrought not, with creatures of dreams, In a long iron sleep, as a fish in the water goes dumb as a stone. At times our slumber was lightened. When the sun was on silver or gold; When brushed with the wings of the owls, in the dimness they love going by; When a glow-worm was green on a grass-leaf, lured from his lair in the mould; Half wakening, we lifted our eyelids, and gazed on the grass with a sigh. So watched I when, man of the croziers, at the heel of a century fell, Weak, in the midst of the meadow, from his miles in the midst of the air, A starling like them that forgathered 'neath a moon waking white as a shell When the Fenians made foray at morning with Bran, Sceolan, Lomair. I awoke: the strange horse without summons out of the distance ran, Thrusting his nose to my shoulder; he knew in his bosom deep That once more moved in my bosom the ancient sadness of man, And that I would leave the Immortals, their dimness, their dews dropping sleep. O, had you seen beautiful Niamh grow white as the waters are white, Lord of the croziers, you even had lifted your hands and wept: But, the bird in my fingers, I mounted, remembering alone that delight Of twilight and slumber were gone, and that hoofs impatiently stept. I died, 'O Niamh! O white one! if only a twelve-houred day, I must gaze on the beard of Finn, and move where the old men and young In the Fenians' dwellings of wattle lean on the chessboards and play, Ah, sweet to me now were even bald Conan's slanderous tongue! 'Like me were some galley forsaken far off in Meridian isle, Remembering its long-oared companions, sails turning to threadbare rags; No more to crawl on the seas with long oars mile after mile, But to be amid shooting of flies and flowering of rushes and flags.' Their motionless eyeballs of spirits grown mild with mysterious thought, Watched her those seamless faces from the valley's glimmering girth; As she murmured, 'O wandering Oisin, the strength of the bell-branch is naught, For there moves alive in your fingers the fluttering sadness of earth. 'Then go through the lands in the saddle and see what the mortals do, And softly come to your Niamh over the tops of the tide; But weep for your Niamh, O Oisin, weep; for if only your shoe Brush lightly as haymouse earth's pebbles, you will come no more to my side. 'O flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?' I saw from a distant saddle; from the earth she made her moan: 'I would die like a small withered leaf in the autumn, for breast unto breast We shall mingle no more, nor our gazes empty their sweetness lone 'In the isles of the farthest seas where only the spirits come. Were the winds less soft than the breath of a pigeon who sleeps on her nest, Nor lost in the star-fires and odours the sound of the sea's vague drum? O flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?' The wailing grew distant; I rode by the woods of the wrinkling bark, Where ever is murmurous dropping, old silence and that one sound; For no live creatures live there, no weasels move in the dark: In a reverie forgetful of all things, over the bubbling' ground. And I rode by the plains of the sea's edge, where all is barren and grey, Grey sand on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees, Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away', Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas. And the winds made the sands on the sea's edge turning and turning go, As my mind made the names of the Fenians. Far from the hazel and oak, I rode away on the surges, where, high aS the saddle-bow, Fled foam underneath me, and round me, a wandering and milky smoke. Long fled the foam-flakes around me, the winds fled out of the vast, Snatching the bird in secret; nor knew I, embosomed apart, When they froze the cloth on my body like armour riveted fast, For Remembrance, lifting her leanness, keened in the gates of my heart. Till, fattening the winds of the morning, an odour of new-mown hay Came, and my forehead fell low, and my tears like berries fell down; Later a sound came, half lost in the sound of a shore far away, From the great grass-barnacle calling, and later the shore-weeds brown. If I were as I once was, the strong hoofs crushing the sand and the shells, Coming out of the sea as the dawn comes, a chaunt of love on my lips, Not coughing, my head on my knees, and praying, and wroth with the bells, I would leave no saint's head on his body from Rachlin to Bera of ships. Making way from the kindling surges, I rode on a bridle-path Much wondering to see upon all hands, of wattles and woodwork made, Your bell-mounted churches, and guardless the sacred cairn and the rath, And a small and a feeble populace stooping with mattock and spade, Or weeding or ploughing with faces a-shining with much-toil wet; While in this place and that place, with bodies unglorious, their chieftains stood, Awaiting in patience the straw-death, croziered one, caught in your net: Went the laughter of scorn from my mouth like the roaring of wind in a wood. And before I went by them so huge and so speedy with eyes so bright, Came after the hard gaze of youth, or an old man lifted his head: And I rode and I rode, and I cried out, 'The Fenians hunt wolves in the night, So sleep thee by daytime.' A voice cried, 'The Fenians a long time are dead.' A whitebeard stood hushed on the pathway, the flesh of his face as dried grass, And in folds round his eyes and his mouth, he sad as a child without milk- And the dreams of the islands were gone, and I knew how men sorrow and pass, And their hound, and their horse, and their love, and their eyes that glimmer like silk. And wrapping my face in my hair, I murmured, 'In old age they ceased'; And my tears were larger than berries, and I murmured, 'Where white clouds lie spread On Crevroe or broad Knockfefin, with many of old they feast On the floors of the gods.' He cried, 'No, the gods a long time are dead.' And lonely and longing for Niamh, I shivered and turned me about, The heart in me longing to leap like a grasshopper into her heart; I turned and rode to the westward, and followed the sea's old shout Till I saw where Maeve lies sleeping till starlight and midnight part. And there at the foot of the mountain, two carried a sack full of sand, They bore it with staggering and sweating, but fell with their burden at length. Leaning down from the gem-studded saddle, I flung it five yards with my hand, With a sob for men waxing so weakly, a sob for the Fenians' old strength. The rest you have heard of, O croziered man; how, when divided the girth, I fell on the path, and the horse went away like a summer fly; And my years three hundred fell on me, and I rose, and walked on the earth, A creeping old man, full of sleep, with the spittle on his beard never dry'. How the men of the sand-sack showed me a church with its belfry in air; Sorry place, where for swing of the war-axe in my dim eyes the crozier gleams; What place have Caoilte and Conan, and Bran, Sceolan, Lomair? Speak, you too are old with your memories, an old man surrounded with dreams. S. Patrick. Where the flesh of the footsole clingeth on the burning stones is their place; Where the demons whip them with wires on the burning stones of wide Hell, Watching the blessed ones move far off, and the smile on God's face, Between them a gateway of brass, and the howl of the angels who fell. Oisin. Put the staff in my hands; for I go to the Fenians, O cleric, to chaunt The war-songs that roused them of old; they will rise, making clouds with their Breath, Innumerable, singing, exultant; the clay underneath them shall pant, And demons be broken in pieces, and trampled beneath them in death. And demons afraid in their darkness; deep horror of eyes and of wings, Afraid, their ears on the earth laid, shall listen and rise up and weep; Hearing the shaking of shields and the quiver of stretched bowstrings, Hearing Hell loud with a murmur, as shouting and mocking we sweep. We will tear out the flaming stones, and batter the gateway of brass And enter, and none sayeth 'No' when there enters the strongly armed guest; Make clean as a broom cleans, and march on as oxen move over young grass; Then feast, making converse of wars, and of old wounds, and turn to our rest. S. Patrick. On the flaming stones, without refuge, the limbs of the Fenians are lost; None war on the masters of Hell, who could break up the world in their rage; But kneel and wear out the flags and pray for your soul that is lost Through the demon love of its youth and its godless and passionate age. Oisin. Ah me! to be Shaken with coughing and broken with old age and pain, Without laughter, a show unto children, alone with remembrance and fear; All emptied of purple hours as a beggar's cloak in the rain, As a hay-cock out on the flood, or a wolf sucked under a weir. It were sad to gaze on the blessed and no man I loved of old there; I throw down the chain of small stones! when life in my body has ceased, I will go to Caoilte, and Conan, and Bran, Sceolan, Lomair, And dwell in the house of the Fenians, be they in flames or at feast. ~ William Butler Yeats, The Wanderings Of Oisin - Book III ,

879:. Fast, in its prison-walls of earth, Awaits the mould of baked clay. Up, comrades, up, and aid the birth The bell that shall be born to-day! Who would honor obtain, With the sweat and the pain, The praise that man gives to the master must buy. But the blessing withal must descend from on high! And well an earnest word beseems The work the earnest hand prepares; Its load more light the labor deems, When sweet discourse the labor shares. So let us pondernor in vain What strength can work when labor wills; For who would not the fool disdain Who ne'er designs what he fulfils? And well it stamps our human race, And hence the gift to understand, That man within the heart should trace Whate'er he fashions with the hand. From the fir the fagot take, Keep it, heap it hard and dry, That the gathered flame may break Through the furnace, wroth and high. When the copper within Seeths and simmersthe tin, Pour quick, that the fluid that feeds the bell May flow in the right course glib and well. Deep hid within this nether cell, What force with fire is moulding thus, In yonder airy tower shall dwell, And witness wide and far of us! It shall, in later days, unfailing, Rouse many an ear to rapt emotion; Its solemn voice with sorrow wailing, Or choral chiming to devotion. Whatever fate to man may bring, Whatever weal or woe befall, That metal tongue shall backward ring, The warning moral drawn from all. See the silvery bubbles spring! Good! the mass is melting now! Let the salts we duly bring Purge the flood, and speed the flow. From the dross and the scum, Pure, the fusion must come; For perfect and pure we the metal must keep, That its voice may be perfect, and pure, and deep. That voice, with merry music rife, The cherished child shall welcome in; What time the rosy dreams of life, In the first slumber's arms begin. As yet, in Time's dark womb unwarning, Repose the days, or foul or fair; And watchful o'er that golden morning, The mother-love's untiring care! And swift the years like arrows fly No more with girls content to play, Bounds the proud boy upon his way, Storms through loud life's tumultuous pleasures, With pilgrim staff the wide world measures; And, wearied with the wish to roam, Again seeks, stranger-like, the father-home. And, lo, as some sweet vision breaks Out from its native morning skies With rosy shame on downcast cheeks, The virgin stands before his eyes. A nameless longing seizes him! From all his wild compassions flown; Tears, strange till then, his eyes bedim; He wanders all alone. Blushing, he glides where'er she move; Her greeting can transport him; To every mead to deck his love, The happy wild flowers court him! Sweet hopeand tender longingye The growth of life's first age of gold; When the heart, swelling, seems to see The gates of heaven unfold! O love, the beautiful and brief! O prime, Glory, and verdure, of life's summer time! Browning o'er, the pipes are simmering, Dip this wand of clay [45] within; If like glass the wand be glimmering, Then the casting may begin. Brisk, brisk now, and see If the fusion flow free; If(happy and welcome indeed were the sign!) If the hard and the ductile united combine. For still where the strong is betrothed to the weak, And the stern in sweet marriage is blent with the meek, Rings the concord harmonious, both tender and strong So be it with thee, if forever united, The heart to the heart flows in one, love-delighted; Illusion is brief, but repentance is long. Lovely, thither are they bringing. With the virgin wreath, the bride! To the love-feast clearly ringing, Tolls the church-bell far and wide! With that sweetest holiday, Must the May of life depart; With the cestus loosedaway Flies illusion from the heart! Yet love lingers lonely, When passion is mute, And the blossoms may only Give way to the fruit. The husband must enter The hostile life, With struggle and strife To plant or to watch. To snare or to snatch, To pray and importune, Must wager and venture And hunt down his fortune! Then flows in a current the gear and the gain, And the garners are filled with the gold of the grain, Now a yard to the court, now a wing to the centre! Within sits another, The thrifty housewife; The mild one, the mother Her home is her life. In its circle she rules, And the daughters she schools And she cautions the boys, With a bustling command, And a diligent hand Employed she employs; Gives order to store, And the much makes the more; Locks the chest and the wardrobe, with lavender smelling, And the hum of the spindle goes quick through the dwelling; And she hoards in the presses, well polished and full, The snow of the linen, the shine of the wool; Blends the sweet with the good, and from care and endeavor Rests never! Blithe the master (where the while From his roof he sees them smile) Eyes the lands, and counts the gain; There, the beams projecting far, And the laden storehouse are, And the granaries bowed beneath The blessed golden grain; There, in undulating motion, Wave the cornfields like an ocean. Proud the boast the proud lips breathe: "My house is built upon a rock, And sees unmoved the stormy shock Of waves that fret below!" What chain so strong, what girth so great, To bind the giant form of fate? Swift are the steps of woe. Now the casting may begin; See the breach indented there: Ere we run the fusion in, Haltand speed the pious prayer! Pull the bung out See around and about What vapor, what vaporGod help us!has risen? Ha! the flame like a torrent leaps forth from its prison! What friend is like the might of fire When man can watch and wield the ire? Whate'er we shape or work, we owe Still to that heaven-descended glow. But dread the heaven-descended glow, When from their chain its wild wings go, When, where it listeth, wide and wild Sweeps free Nature's free-born child. When the frantic one fleets, While no force can withstand, Through the populous streets Whirling ghastly the brand; For the element hates What man's labor creates, And the work of his hand! Impartially out from the cloud, Or the curse or the blessing may fall! Benignantly out from the cloud Come the dews, the revivers of all! Avengingly out from the cloud Come the levin, the bolt, and the ball! Harka wail from the steeple!aloud The bell shrills its voice to the crowd! Looklookred as blood All on high! It is not the daylight that fills with its flood The sky! What a clamor awaking Roars up through the street, What a hell-vapor breaking. Rolls on through the street, And higher and higher Aloft moves the column of fire! Through the vistas and rows Like a whirlwind it goes, And the air like the stream from the furnace glows. Beams are cracklingposts are shrinking Walls are sinkingwindows clinking Children crying Mothers flying And the beast (the black ruin yet smouldering under) Yells the howl of its pain and its ghastly wonder! Hurry and skurryawayaway, The face of the night is as clear as day! As the links in a chain, Again and again Flies the bucket from hand to hand; High in arches up-rushing The engines are gushing, And the flood, as a beast on the prey that it hounds With a roar on the breast of the element bounds. To the grain and the fruits, Through the rafters and beams, Through the barns and garners it crackles and streams! As if they would rend up the earth from its roots, Rush the flames to the sky Giant-high; And at length, Wearied out and despairing, man bows to their strength! With an idle gaze sees their wrath consume, And submits to his doom! Desolate The place, and dread For storms the barren bed. In the blank voids that cheerful casements were, Comes to and fro the melancholy air, And sits despair; And through the ruin, blackening in its shroud Peers, as it flits, the melancholy cloud. One human glance of grief upon the grave Of all that fortune gave The loiterer takesthen turns him to depart, And grasps the wanderer's staff and mans his heart Whatever else the element bereaves One blessing more than all it reftit leaves, The faces that he loves!He counts them o'er, Seenot one look is missing from that store! Now clasped the bell within the clay The mould the mingled metals fill Oh, may it, sparkling into day, Reward the labor and the skill! Alas! should it fail, For the mould may be frail And still with our hope must be mingled the fear And, ev'n now, while we speak, the mishap may be near! To the dark womb of sacred earth This labor of our hands is given, As seeds that wait the second birth, And turn to blessings watched by heaven! Ah, seeds, how dearer far than they, We bury in the dismal tomb, Where. hope and sorrow bend to pray That suns beyond the realm of day May warm them into bloom! From the steeple Tolls the bell, Deep and heavy, The death-knell! Guiding with dirge-notesolemn, sad, and slow, To the last home earth's weary wanderers know. It is that worshipped wife It is that faithful mother! Whom the dark prince of shadows leads benighted, From that dear arm where oft she hung delighted Far from those blithe companions, born Of her, and blooming in their morn; On whom, when couched her heart above, So often looked the mother-love! Ah! rent the sweet home's union-band, And never, never more to come She dwells within the shadowy land, Who was the mother of that home! How oft they miss that tender guide, The carethe watchthe facethe mother And where she sate the babes beside, Sits with unloving looksanother! While the mass is cooling now, Let the labor yield to leisure, As the bird upon the bough, Loose the travail to the pleasure. When the soft stars awaken, Each task be forsaken! And the vesper-bell lulling the earth into peace, If the master still toil, chimes the workman's release! Homeward from the tasks of day, Through the greenwood's welcome way Wends the wanderer, blithe and cheerly, To the cottage loved so dearly! And the eye and ear are meeting, Now, the slow sheep homeward bleating Now, the wonted shelter near, Lowing the lusty-fronted steer; Creaking now the heavy wain, Reels with the happy harvest grain. While with many-colored leaves, Glitters the garland on the sheaves; For the mower's work is done, And the young folks' dance begun! Desert street, and quiet mart; Silence is in the city's heart; And the social taper lighteth; Each dear face that home uniteth; While the gate the town before Heavily swings with sullen roar! Though darkness is spreading O'er earththe upright And the honest, undreading, Look safe on the night Which the evil man watches in awe, For the eye of the night is the law! Bliss-dowered! O daughter of the skies, Hail, holy order, whose employ Blends like to like in light and joy Builder of cities, who of old Called the wild man from waste and wold. And, in his hut thy presence stealing, Roused each familiar household feeling; And, best of all the happy ties, The centre of the social band, The instinct of the Fatherland! United thuseach helping each, Brisk work the countless hands forever; For naught its power to strength can teach, Like emulation and endeavor! Thus linked the master with the man, Each in his rights can each revere, And while they march in freedom's van, Scorn the lewd rout that dogs the rear! To freemen labor is renown! Who worksgives blessings and commands; Kings glory in the orb and crown Be ours the glory of our hands. Long in these wallslong may we greet Your footfalls, peace and concord sweet! Distant the day, oh! distant far, When the rude hordes of trampling war Shall scare the silent vale; And where, Now the sweet heaven, when day doth leave The air, Limns its soft rose-hues on the veil of eve; Shall the fierce war-brand tossing in the gale, From town and hamlet shake the horrent glare! Now, its destined task fulfilled, Asunder break the prison-mould; Let the goodly bell we build, Eye and heart alike behold. The hammer down heave, Till the cover it cleave: For not till we shatter the wall of its cell Can we lift from its darkness and bondage the bell. To break the mould, the master may, If skilled the hand and ripe the hour; But woe, when on its fiery way The metal seeks itself to pour. Frantic and blind, with thunder-knell, Exploding from its shattered home, And glaring forth, as from a hell, Behold the red destruction come! When rages strength that has no reason, There breaks the mould before the season; When numbers burst what bound before, Woe to the state that thrives no more! Yea, woe, when in the city's heart, The latent spark to flame is blown; And millions from their silence start, To claim, without a guide, their own! Discordant howls the warning bell, Proclaiming discord wide and far, And, born but things of peace to tell, Becomes the ghastliest voice of war: "Freedom! Equality!"to blood Rush the roused people at the sound! Through street, hall, palace, roars the flood, And banded murder closes round! The hyena-shapes (that women were!), Jest with the horrors they survey; They houndthey rendthey mangle there As panthers with their prey! Naught rests to hollowburst the ties Of life's sublime and reverent awe; Before the vice the virtue flies, And universal crime is law! Man fears the lion's kingly tread; Man fears the tiger's fangs of terror; And still the dreadliest of the dread, Is man himself in error! No torch, though lit from heaven, illumes The blind!Why place it in his hand? It lights not himit but consumes The city and the land! Rejoice and laud the prospering skies! The kernel bursts its huskbehold From the dull clay the metal rise, Pure-shining, as a star of gold! Neck and lip, but as one beam, It laughs like a sunbeam. And even the scutcheon, clear-graven, shall tell That the art of a master has fashioned the bell! Come income in My merry menwe'll form a ring The new-born labor christening; And "Concord" we will name her! To union may her heartfelt call In brother-love attune us all! May she the destined glory win For which the master sought to frame her Aloft(all earth's existence under), In blue-pavillioned heaven afar To dwellthe neighbor of the thunder, The borderer of the star! Be hers above a voice to rise Like those bright hosts in yonder sphere, Who, while they move, their Maker praise, And lead around the wreathed year! To solemn and eternal things We dedicate her lips sublime! As hourly, calmly, on she swings Fanned by the fleeting wings of time! No pulseno heartno feeling hers! She lends the warning voice to fate; And still companions, while she stirs, The changes of the human state! So may she teach us, as her tone But now so mighty, melts away That earth no life which earth has known From the last silence can delay! Slowly now the cords upheave her! From her earth-grave soars the bell; Mid the airs of heaven we leave her! In the music-realm to dwell! Upupwards yet raise She has risenshe sways. Fair bell to our city bode joy and increase, And oh, may thy first sound be hallowed to peace! ~ Friedrich Schiller, The Lay Of The Bell ,

880:Al Aaraaf PART I O! nothing earthly save the ray (Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye, As in those gardens where the day Springs from the gems of CircassyO! nothing earthly save the thrill Of melody in woodland rillOr (music of the passion-hearted) Joy's voice so peacefully departed That like the murmur in the shell, Its echo dwelleth and will dwellOh, nothing of the dross of oursYet all the beauty- all the flowers That list our Love, and deck our bowersAdorn yon world afar, afarThe wandering star. 'Twas a sweet time for Nesace- for there Her world lay lolling on the golden air, Near four bright suns- a temporary restAn oasis in desert of the blest. Away- away- 'mid seas of rays that roll Empyrean splendor o'er th' unchained soulThe soul that scarce (the billows are so dense) Can struggle to its destin'd eminence,To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode And late to ours, the favor'd one of GodBut, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm, She throws aside the sceptre- leaves the helm, And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns, Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs. Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth, Whence sprang the 'Idea of Beauty' into birth, (Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star, Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar, It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt) She looked into Infinity- and knelt. 15 Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curledFit emblems of the model of her worldSeen but in beauty- not impeding sight Of other beauty glittering thro' the lightA wreath that twined each starry form around, And all the opal'd air in color bound. All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed Of flowers: of lilies such as rear'd the head On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang So eagerly around about to hang Upon the flying footsteps of- deep prideOf her who lov'd a mortal- and so died. The Sephalica, budding with young bees, Upreared its purple stem around her knees:And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'dInmate of highest stars, where erst it sham'd All other loveliness:- its honied dew (The fabled nectar that the heathen knew) Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven, And fell on gardens of the unforgiven In Trebizond- and on a sunny flower So like its own above that, to this hour, It still remaineth, torturing the bee With madness, and unwonted reverie: In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf And blossom of the fairy plant in grief Disconsolate linger- grief that hangs her head, Repenting follies that full long have Red, Heaving her white breast to the balmy air, Like guilty beauty, chasten'd and more fair: Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light She fears to perfume, perfuming the night: And Clytia, pondering between many a sun, While pettish tears adown her petals run: And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth, And died, ere scarce exalted into birth, Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king: And Valisnerian lotus, thither flown' From struggling with the waters of the Rhone: And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante! 16 Isola d'oro!- Fior di Levante! And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever With Indian Cupid down the holy riverFair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given To bear the Goddess' song, in odors, up to Heaven: 'Spirit! that dwellest where, In the deep sky, The terrible and fair, In beauty vie! Beyond the line of blueThe boundary of the star Which turneth at the view Of thy barrier and thy barOf the barrier overgone By the comets who were cast From their pride and from their throne To be drudges till the lastTo be carriers of fire (The red fire of their heart) With speed that may not tire And with pain that shall not partWho livest- that we knowIn Eternity- we feelBut the shadow of whose brow What spirit shall reveal? Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace, Thy messenger hath known Have dream'd for thy Infinity A model of their ownThy will is done, O God! The star hath ridden high Thro' many a tempest, but she rode Beneath thy burning eye; And here, in thought, to theeIn thought that can alone Ascend thy empire and so be A partner of thy throneBy winged Fantasy, My embassy is given, Till secrecy shall knowledge be In the environs of Heaven.' 17 She ceas'd- and buried then her burning cheek Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to seek A shelter from the fervor of His eye; For the stars trembled at the Deity. She stirr'd not- breath'd not- for a voice was there How solemnly pervading the calm air! A sound of silence on the startled ear Which dreamy poets name 'the music of the sphere.' Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call 'Silence'- which is the merest word of all. All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wingsBut ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high The eternal voice of God is passing by, And the red winds are withering in the sky:'What tho 'in worlds which sightless cycles run, Linked to a little system, and one sunWhere all my love is folly and the crowd Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud, The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath(Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?) What tho' in worlds which own a single sun The sands of Time grow dimmer as they run, Yet thine is my resplendency, so given To bear my secrets thro' the upper Heaven! Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly, With all thy train, athwart the moony skyApart- like fire-flies in Sicilian night, And wing to other worlds another light! Divulge the secrets of thy embassy To the proud orbs that twinkle- and so be To ev'ry heart a barrier and a ban Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man!' Up rose the maiden in the yellow night, The single-mooned eve!- on Earth we plight Our faith to one love- and one moon adoreThe birth-place of young Beauty had no more. As sprang that yellow star from downy hours Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers, 18 And bent o'er sheeny mountains and dim plain Her way, but left not yet her Therasaean reign. PART II High on a mountain of enamell'd headSuch as the drowsy shepherd on his bed Of giant pasturage lying at his ease, Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees With many a mutter'd 'hope to be forgiven' What time the moon is quadrated in HeavenOf rosy head that, towering far away Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray Of sunken suns at eve- at noon of night, While the moon danc'd with the fair stranger lightUprear'd upon such height arose a pile Of gorgeous columns on th' unburthen'd air, Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile Far down upon the wave that sparkled there, And nursled the young mountain in its lair. Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall Of their own dissolution, while they dieAdorning then the dwellings of the sky. A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down, Sat gently on these columns as a crownA window of one circular diamond, there, Look'd out above into the purple air, And rays from God shot down that meteor chain And hallow'd all the beauty twice again, Save, when, between th' empyrean and that ring, Some eager spirit Flapp'd his dusky wing. But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen The dimness of this world: that greyish green That Nature loves the best Beauty's grave Lurk'd in each cornice, round each architraveAnd every sculptur'd cherub thereabout That from his marble dwelling peered out, Seem'd earthly in the shadow of his nicheAchaian statues in a world so rich! Friezes from Tadmor and PersepolisFrom Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss 19 Of beautiful Gomorrah! O, the wave Is now upon thee- but too late to save! Sound loves to revel in a summer night: Witness the murmur of the grey twilight That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco, Of many a wild star-gazer long agoThat stealeth ever on the ear of him Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim, And sees the darkness coming as a cloudIs not its form- its voice- most palpable and loud? But what is this?- it cometh, and it brings A music with it- 'tis the rush of wingsA pause- and then a sweeping, falling strain And Nesace is in her halls again. From the wild energy of wanton haste Her cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart; And zone that clung around her gentle waist Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart. Within the centre of that hall to breathe, She paused and panted, Zanthe! all beneath, The fairy light that kiss'd her golden hair And long'd to rest, yet could but sparkle there. Young flowers were whispering in melody To happy flowers that night- and tree to tree; Fountains were gushing music as they fell In many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell; Yet silence came upon material thingsFair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wingsAnd sound alone that from the spirit sprang Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang: ''Neath the blue-bell or streamerOr tufted wild spray That keeps, from the dreamer, The moonbeam awayBright beings! that ponder, With half closing eyes, On the stars which your wonder Hath drawn from the skies, 20 Till they glance thro' the shade, and Come down to your brow Like- eyes of the maiden Who calls on you nowArise! from your dreaming In violet bowers, To duty beseeming These star-litten hoursAnd shake from your tresses Encumber'd with dew The breath of those kisses That cumber them too(O! how, without you, Love! Could angels be blest?) Those kisses of true Love That lull'd ye to rest! Up!- shake from your wing Each hindering thing: The dew of the nightIt would weigh down your flight And true love caressesO, leave them apart! They are light on the tresses, But lead on the heart. Ligeia! Ligeia! My beautiful one! Whose harshest idea Will to melody run, O! is it thy will On the breezes to toss? Or, capriciously still, Like the lone Albatros, Incumbent on night (As she on the air) To keep watch with delight On the harmony there? Ligeia! wherever Thy image may be, No magic shall sever Thy music from thee. 21 Thou hast bound many eyes In a dreamy sleepBut the strains still arise Which thy vigilance keepThe sound of the rain, Which leaps down to the flowerAnd dances again In the rhythm of the showerThe murmur that springs From the growing of grass Are the music of thingsBut are modell'd, alas!Away, then, my dearest, Oh! hie thee away To the springs that lie clearest Beneath the moon-rayTo lone lake that smiles, In its dream of deep rest, At the many star-isles That enjewel its breastWhere wild flowers, creeping, Have mingled their shade, On its margin is sleeping Full many a maidSome have left the cool glade, and Have slept with the beeArouse them, my maiden, On moorland and leaGo! breathe on their slumber, All softly in ear, Thy musical number They slumbered to hearFor what can awaken An angel so soon, Whose sleep hath been taken Beneath the cold moon, As the spell which no slumber Of witchery may test, The rhythmical number Which lull'd him to rest?' Spirits in wing, and angels to the view, 22 A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean thro', Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flightSeraphs in all but 'Knowledge,' the keen light That fell, refracted, thro' thy bounds, afar, O Death! from eye of God upon that star: Sweet was that error- sweeter still that deathSweet was that error- even with us the breath Of Science dims the mirror of our joyTo them 'twere the Simoom, and would destroyFor what (to them) availeth it to know That Truth is Falsehood- or that Bliss is Woe? Sweet was their death- with them to die was rife With the last ecstasy of satiate lifeBeyond that death no immortalityBut sleep that pondereth and is not 'to be'!And there- oh! may my weary spirit dwellApart from Heaven's Eternity- and yet how far from Hell! What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim, Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn? But two: they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts To those who hear not for their beating hearts. A maiden-angel and her seraph-loverO! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over) Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known? Unguided Love hath fallen- 'mid 'tears of perfect moan.' He was a goodly spirit- he who fell: A wanderer by moss-y-mantled wellA gazer on the lights that shine aboveA dreamer in the moonbeam by his love: What wonder? for each star is eye-like there, And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hairAnd they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy To his love-haunted heart and melancholy. The night had found (to him a night of woe) Upon a mountain crag, young AngeloBeetling it bends athwart the solemn sky, And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie. Here sat he with his love- his dark eye bent With eagle gaze along the firmament: Now turn'd it upon her- but ever then It trembled to the orb of EARTH again. 23 'Ianthe, dearest, see- how dim that ray! How lovely 'tis to look so far away! She seem'd not thus upon that autumn eve I left her gorgeous halls- nor mourn'd to leave. That eve- that eve- I should remember wellThe sun-ray dropp'd in Lemnos, with a spell On th' arabesque carving of a gilded hall Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wallAnd on my eyelids- O the heavy light! How drowsily it weigh'd them into night! On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan: But O that light!- I slumber'd- Death, the while, Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle So softly that no single silken hair Awoke that slept- or knew that he was there. 'The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon Was a proud temple call'd the Parthenon; More beauty clung around her column'd wall Than ev'n thy glowing bosom beats withal, And when old Time my wing did disenthral Thence sprang I- as the eagle from his tower, And years I left behind me in an hour. What time upon her airy bounds I hung, One half the garden of her globe was flung Unrolling as a chart unto my viewTenantless cities of the desert too! Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then, And half I wish'd to be again of men.' 'My Angelo! and why of them to be? A brighter dwelling-place is here for theeAnd greener fields than in yon world above, And woman's loveliness- and passionate love.' 'But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft Fail'd, as my pennon'd spirit leapt aloft, Perhaps my brain grew dizzy- but the world I left so late was into chaos hurl'dSprang from her station, on the winds apart. And roll'd, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart. 24 Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar And fell- not swiftly as I rose before, But with a downward, tremulous motion thro' Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto! Nor long the measure of my falling hours, For nearest of all stars was thine to oursDread star! that came, amid a night of mirth, A red Daedalion on the timid Earth.' 'We came- and to thy Earth- but not to us Be given our lady's bidding to discuss: We came, my love; around, above, below, Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go, Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod She grants to us, as granted by her GodBut, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl'd Never his fairy wing O'er fairier world! Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes Alone could see the phantom in the skies, When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be Headlong thitherward o'er the starry seaBut when its glory swell'd upon the sky, As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye, We paused before the heritage of men, And thy star trembled- as doth Beauty then!' Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away The night that waned and waned and brought no day. They fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts Who hear not for the beating of their hearts. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

881:Above The Gaspereau To H. E. C. THERE are sunflowers too in my garden on top of the hill, Where now in the early September the sun has his will— The slow autumn sun that goes leisurely, taking his fill Of life in the orchards and fir-woods so moveless and still; As if, should they stir, they might break some illusion and spill The germ of their long summer musing on top of the hill. The crowds of black spruces in tiers from the valley below, Ranged round their sky-roofed coliseum, mount row after row. How often there, rank above rank, they have watched for the slow Silver-lanterned processions of twilight—the moon's come and go! How often, as if they expected some bugle to blow, Announcing a bringer of news they were breathless to know, They have hushed every leaf,—to hear only the murmurous flow Of the small mountain river sent up from the valley below! How still through the sweet summer sun, through the soft summer rain, They have stood there awaiting the summons should bid them attain The freedom of knowledge, the last touch of truth to explain The great golden gist of their brooding, the marvellous train Of thought they have followed so far, been so strong to sustain,— The white gospel of sun and the long revelations of rain! Then the orchards that dot, all in order, the green valley floor, Every tree with its boughs weighed to earth, like a tent from whose door Not a lodger looks forth,—yet the signs are there gay and galore, The great ropes of red fruitage and russet, crisp snow to the core. Can the dark-eyed Romany here have deserted of yore Their camp at the coming of frost? Will they seek it no more? Who dwells in St. Eulalie's village? Who knows the fine lore Of the tribes of the apple-trees there on the green valley floor? Who, indeed? From the blue mountain gorge to the dikes by the sea, Goes that stilly wanderer, small Gaspereau; who but he Should give the last hint of perfection, the touch that sets free From the taut string of silence the whisper of beauties to be! The very sun seems to have tarried, turned back a degree, To lengthen out noon for the apple folk here by the sea. 34 What is it? Who comes? What's abroad on the blue mountain side? A hush has been laid on the leaves and will not be defied. Is the great Scarlet Hunter at last setting out on his ride From the North with deliverance now? Were the lights we descried Last night in the heavens his camp-fire seen far and wide, The white signal of peace for whose coming the ages have cried? 'Expectancy lingers; fulfilment postponed,' I replied, When soul said uneasily,'Who is it haunts your hillside?' All the while not a word from my sunflowers here on the hill. And to-night when the stars over Blomidon flower and fill The blue Northern garden of heaven, so pale and so still, From the lordly king-aster Aldebaran there by the sill Of the East, where the moonlight will enter, not one will fulfil A lordlier lot than my sunflowers here on the hill. So much for mere fact, mere impression. So much I portray Of the atmosphere, colour, illusion of one autumn day In the little Acadian valley above the Grand Pré; Just the quiet of orchards and firs, where the sun had full sway, And the river went trolling his soft wander-song to the bay, While roseberry, aster, and sagaban tangled his way. Be you their interpreter, reasoner; tell what they say, These children of silence whose patient regard I portray. You Londoner, walking in Bishopsgate, strolling the Strand, Some morning in autumn afford, at a fruit-dealer's stand, The leisure to look at his apples there ruddy and tanned. Then ask, when he's smiling to serve you, if choice can command A Gravenstein grown oversea on Canadian land. (And just for the whim's sake, for once, you'll have no other brand!) How teach you to tell them? Pick one, and with that in your hand, Bethink you a while as you turn again into the Strand. 'What if,' you will say,—so smooth in your hand it will lie, So round and so firm, of so rich a red to the eye, Like a dash of Fortuny, a tinge of some Indian dye, While you turn it and toss, mark the bloom, ere you taste it and try— 'Now what if this grew where the same bright pavilion of sky Is stretched o'er the valley and hillside he bids me descry, The windless valley of peace, where the seasons go by, 35 And the river goes down through the orchards where long shadows lie!' There's the fruit in your hand, in your ears is the roar of the street, The pulse of an empire keeping its volume and beat, Its sure come and go day and night, while we sleep or we eat. Taste the apple, bite in to the juice—how abundant and sweet! As sound as your own English heart, and wholesome as wheat,— There grow no such apples as that in your Bishopsgate Street. Or perhaps in St. Helen's Place, when your business is done And the ledgers put by, you will think of the hundred and one Commissions and errands to do; but what under the sun Was that, so important? Ah, yes! the new books overrun The old shelves. It is high time to order a new set begun. Then off to the joiner's. You enter, to see his plane run With a long high shriek through the lumber he's working upon. Then he turns from his shavings to query what you would have done. But homeward 'tis you who make question. That song of the blade! And the sharp sweet cry of the wood, what an answer it made! What stories the joiner must hear, as he plies his clean trade, Of all the wild life of the forest where long shadows wade The untrodden moss, and the firs send a journeying shade So slow through the valley so far from the song of his blade. Come back to my orchards a moment. They're waiting for you. How still are the little gray leaves where the pippins peep through! The boughs where the ribstons hang red are half breaking in two. Above them September in magical soft Northern blue Has woven the spell of her silence, like frost or like dew, Yet warm as a poppy's red dream. When All Saints shall renew The beauty of summer a while, will their dreaming come true? Ah, not of my Grand Pré they dream, nor your London and you! Their life is their own, and the surge of it. All through the spring They pushed forth their buds, and the rainbirds at twilight would sing. They put forth their bloom, and the world was as fairy a thing As a Japanese garden. Then midsummer came with the zing And the clack of the locust; then fruit time and coolness, to bring This aftermath deep underfoot with its velvety spring. And they all the while with the fatherly, motherly care, 36 Taking sap from the strength of the ground, taking sun from the air, Taking chance of the frost and the worm, taking courage to dare, Have given their life that the life might be goodly and fair In their kind for the seasons to come, with good witness to bear How the sturdy old race of the apples could give and not spare. To-morrow the harvest begins. We shall rifle them there Of the beautiful fruit of their bodies, the crown of their care. How lovingly then shall the picker set hand to the bough!— Bid it yield, ere the seed come to earth or the graft to the plough, Not only sweet life for its kind, as the instincts allow, That savour and shape may survive generations from now, But life to its kin who can say, 'I am stronger than thou,'— Fulfilling a lordlier law than the law of the bough. I heard before dawn, with planets beginning to quail,— 'Whoso hath life, let him give, that my purpose prevail; Whoso hath none, let him take, that his strength may be hale. Behold, I have reckoned the tally, I keep the full tale. Whoso hath love, let him give, lest his spirit grow stale; Whoso hath none, let him die; he shall wither and fail. Behold, I will plenish the loss at the turn of the scale. He hath law to himself, who hath love; ye shall hope and not quail.' Then the sun arose, and my sunflowers here on the hill, Like good little Catholics, turned to the East to fulfil Their daily observance, receiving his peace and his will,— The lord of their light who alone bids the darkness be nil, The lord of their love who alone bids the life in them thrill; Undismayed and serene, they awaited him here on the hill. Ah, the patience of earth! Look down at the dark pointed firs; They are carved out of blackness; one pattern recurs and recurs. They crowd all the gullies and hillsides, the gashes and spurs, As silent as death. What an image! How nature avers The goodness of calm with that taciturn beauty of hers! As silent as sleep. Yet the life in them climbs and stirs. They too have received the great law, know that haste but defers The perfection of time,—the initiate gospeller firs. So year after year, slow ring upon ring, they have grown, Putting infinite long-loving care into leafage and cone, 37 By the old ancient craft of the earth they have pondered and known In the dead of the hot summer noons, as still as a stone. Not for them the gay fruit of the thorn, nor the high scarlet roan, Nor the plots of the deep orchard land where the apples are grown. In winter the wind, all huddled and shuddering, came To warm his old bones by the fires of sunset aflame Behind the black house of the firs. When the moose-birds grew tame In the lumberers' camps in the woods, what marvellous fame His talk and the ice of his touch would spread and proclaim, Of the berg and the floe and the lands without nation or name, Where the earth and the sky, night and noon, north and south are the same, The white and awful Nirvana of cold whence he came! Then April, some twilight picked out with a great yellow star, Returning, like Hylas long lost and come back with his jar Of sweet living water at last, having wandered so far, Leads the heart out of doors, and the eye to the point of a spar, At whose base in the half-melted snow the first Mayflowers are,— And there the first robin is pealing below the great star. So soon, over-soon, the full summer. Within those dark boughs, Deliberate and far, a faltering reed-note will rouse The shy transports of earth, till the wood-creatures hear where they house, And grow bold as the tremble-eared rabbits that nibble and mouse. While up through the pasture-lot, startling the sheep as they browse, Where kingbirds and warblers are piercing the heat's golden drowse, Some girl, whom the sun has made tawny, the wind had to blowse, Will come there to gentle her lover beneath those dark boughs. Then out of the hush, when the grasses are frosty and old, Will the chickadee's tiny alarm against winter be rolled; And soon, when the ledges and ponds are bitten with cold, The honk of the geese, that wander-cry stirring and bold, Will sound through the night, where those hardy mariners hold The uncharted course through the dark, as it was from of old. Ah, the life of the woods, how they share and partake of it all, These evergreens, silent as Indians, solemn and tall! From the goldenwing's first far-heard awakening call, The serene flute of the thrush in his high beech hall, And the pipe of the frog, to the bannered approach of the fall, 38 And the sullen wind, when snow arrives on a squall, Trooping in all night from the North with news would appal Any outposts but these; with a zest they partake of it all. Lo, out of the hush they seem to mount and aspire! From basement to tip they have builded, with heed to go higher, One circlet of branches a year with their lift of green spire. Nay, rather they seem to repose, having done with desire, Awaiting the frost, with the fruit scarlet-bright on the brier, Each purpose fulfilled, each ardour that bade them aspire. Then hate be afar from the bite of the axe that shall fell These keepers of solitude, makers of quiet, who dwell On the Slopes of the North. And clean be the hand that shall quel The tread of the sap that was wont to go mounting so well, Round on round with the sun in a spiral, slow cell after cell, As a bellringer climbs in a turret. That resinous smell From the eighth angel's hand might have risen with the incense to swell His offering in heaven, when the half-hour's silence befell. Behold, as the prayers of the saints that went up to God's knees In John's Revelation, the silence and patience of these Our brothers of orchard and hill, the unhurrying trees, To better the burden of earth till the dark suns freeze, Shall go out to the stars with the sound of Acadian seas, And the scent of the wood-flowers blowing about their great knees. To-night when Altair and Alshain are ruling the West, Whence Boötes is driving his dogs to long hunting addressed; With Alioth sheer over Blomidon standing at rest; When Algol is leading the Pleiades over the crest Of the magical East, and the South puts Alpherat to test With Menkar just risen; will come, like a sigh from Earth's breast, The first sob of the tide turning home,—one distraught in his quest For ever, and calling for ever the wind in the west. And to-night there will answer the ghost of a sigh on the hill, So small you would say, Is it wind, or the frost with a will Walking down through the woods, and to-morrow shall show us his skill In yellows and reds? So noiseless, it hardly will thrill The timorous aspens, which tremble when all else is still; Yet the orchards will know, and the firs be aware on the hill. 39 'O Night, I am old, I endure. Since my being began, When out of the dark thy aurora spread up like a fan, I have founded the lands and the islands; the hills are my plan. I have covered the pits of the earth with my bridge of one span. From the Horn to Dunedin unbroken my long rollers ran, From Pentland and Fastnet and Foyle to Bras d'Or and Manan, To dredge and upbuild for the creatures of tribe and of clan. Lo, now who shall end the contriving my fingers began?' Then the little wind that blows from the great star-drift Will answer: 'Thou tide in the least of the planets I lift, Consider the journeys of light. Are thy journeyings swift? Thy sands are as smoke to the star-banks I huddle and shift. Peace! I have seeds of the grasses to scatter and sift. I have freighting to do for the weed and the frail thistle drift. 'O ye apples and firs, great and small are as one in the end. Because ye had life to the full, and spared not to spend; Because ye had love of your kind, to cherish and fend; Held hard the good instinct to thrive, cleaving close to life's trend; Nor questioned where impulse had origin,—purpose might tend; Now, beauty is yours, and the freedom whose promptings transcend Attainment for ever, in death with new being to blend. O ye orchards and woods, death is naught, love is all in the end.' Ah, friend of mine over the sea, shall we not discern, In the life of our brother the beech and our sister the fern, As St. Francis would call them (his Minorites, too, would we learn!) In death but a door to new being no creature may spurn, But must enter for beauty's completion,—pass up in his turn To the last round of joy, yours and mine, whence to think and discern? Who shall say 'the last round'? Have I passed by the exit of soul? From behind the tall door that swings outward, replies no patrol To our restless Qui vive? when is paid each implacable toll. Not a fin of the tribes shall return, having cleared the great shoal; Not a wing of the migrants come back from below the dark knoll; Yet the zest of the flight and the swimming who fails to extol? Saith the Riddle, 'The parts are all plain; ye may guess at the whole.' I guess, 'Immortality, knowledge, survival of Soul.' 40 To-night, with the orchards below and the firs on the hill Asleep in the long solemn moonlight and taking no ill, A hand will open the sluice of the great sea-mill,— Start the gear and the belts of the tide. Then a murmur will fill The hollows of midnight with sound, when all else is still, And stray through the dream of the sunflowers here on the hill. ~ Bliss William Carman,

882:I WHEN the pine tosses its cones To the song of its waterfall tones, Who speeds to the woodland walks? To birds and trees who talks? Csar of his leafy Rome, There the poet is at home. He goes to the river-side, Not hook nor line hath he; He stands in the meadows wide, Nor gun nor scythe to see. Sure some god his eye enchants: What he knows nobody wants. In the wood he travels glad, Without better fortune had, Melancholy without bad. Knowledge this man prizes best Seems fantastic to the rest: Pondering shadows, colors, clouds, Grass-buds and caterpillar-shrouds, Boughs on which the wild bees settle, Tints that spot the violet's petal, Why Nature loves the number five, And why the star-form she repeats: Lover of all things alive, Wonderer at all he meets, Wonderer chiefly at himself, Who can tell him what he is? Or how meet in human elf Coming and past eternities? 2 And such I knew, a forest seer, A minstrel of the natural year, Foreteller of the vernal ides, Wise harbinger of spheres and tides, A lover true, who knew by heart Each joy the mountain dales impart; It seemed that Nature could not raise A plant in any secret place, In quaking bog, on snowy hill, Beneath the grass that shades the rill, Under the snow, between the rocks, In damp fields known to bird and fox. But he would come in the very hour It opened in its virgin bower, As if a sunbeam showed the place, And tell its long-descended race. It seemed as if the breezes brought him, It seemed as if the sparrows taught him; As if by secret sight he knew Where, in far fields, the orchis grew. Many haps fall in the field Seldom seen by wishful eyes, But all her shows did Nature yield, To please and win this pilgrim wise. He saw the partridge drum in the woods; He heard the woodcock's evening hymn; He found the tawny thrushes' broods; And the shy hawk did wait for him; What others did at distance hear, And guessed within the thicket's gloom, Was shown to this philosopher, And at his bidding seemed to come. 3 In unploughed Maine he sought the lumberers' gang Where from a hundred lakes young rivers sprang; He trod the unplanted forest floor, whereon The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone; Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear, And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker. He saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds, The slight Linna hang its twin-born heads, And blessed the monument of the man of flowers, Which breathes his sweet fame'through the northern bowers. He heard, when in the grove, at intervals, With sudden roar the aged pine-tree falls, One crash, the death-hymn of the perfect tree, Declares the close of its green century. Low lies the plant to whose creation went Sweet influence from every element; Whose living towers the years conspired to build, Whose giddy top the morning loved to gild. Through these green tents, by eldest Nature dressed, He roamed, content alike with man and beast. Where darkness found him he lay glad at night; There the red morning touched him with its light. Three moons his great heart him a hermit made, So long he roved at will the boundless shade. The timid it concerns to ask their way, And fear what foe in caves and swamps can stray, To make no step until the event is known, And ills to come as evils past bemoan. Not so the wise; no coward watch he keeps To spy what danger on his pathway creeps; Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth,his hall the azure dome; Where his clear spirit leads him, there's his road By God's own light illumined and foreshowed. 4 'T was one of the charmd days When the genius of God doth flow; The wind may alter twenty ways, A tempest cannot blow; It may blow north, it still is warm; Or south, it still is clear; Or east, it smells like a clover-farm; Or west, no thunder fear. The musing peasant, lowly great, Beside the forest water sate; The rope-like pine-roots crosswise grown Composed the network of his throne; The wide lake, edged with sand and grass, Was burnished to a floor of glass, Painted with shadows green and proud Of the tree and of the cloud. He was the heart of all the scene; On him the sun looked more serene; To hill and cloud his face was known, It seemed the likeness of their own; They knew by secret sympathy The public child of earth and sky. 'You ask,' he said,'what guide Me through trackless thickets led, Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide. I found the water's bed. The watercourses were my guide; I travelled grateful by their side, Or through their channel dry; They led me through the thicket damp, Through brake and fern, the beavers' camp, Through beds of granite cut my road, And their resistless friendship showed. The falling waters led me, The foodful waters fed me, And brought me to the lowest land Unerring to the ocean sand. The moss upon the forest bark Was pole-star when the night was dark; The purple berries in the wood Supplied me necessary food; For Nature ever faithful is To such as trust her faithfulness. When the forest shall mislead me, When the night and morning lie, When sea and land refuse to feed me, 'T will be time enough to die; Then will yet my mother yield A pillow in her greenest field, Nor the June flowers scorn to cover The clay of their departed lover.' II As sunbeams stream through liberal space And nothing jostle or displace, So waved the pine-tree through my thought And fanned the dreams it never brought. 'Whether is better, the gift or the donor? Come to me,' Quoth the pine-tree, 'I am the giver of honor. My garden is the cloven rock, And my manure the snow; And drifting sand-heaps feed my stock, In summer's scorching glow. He is great who can live by me: The rough and bearded forester Is better than the lord; God fills the scrip and canister, Sin piles the loaded board. The lord is the peasant that was, The peasant the lord that shall be; The lord is hay, the peasant grass, One dry, and one the living tree. Who liveth by the ragged pine Foundeth a heroic line; Who liveth in the palace hall Waneth fast and spendeth all. He goes to my savage haunts, With his chariot and his care; My twilight realm he disenchants, And finds his prison there. 'What prizes the town and the tower? Only what the pine-tree yields; Sinew that subdued the fields; The wild-eyed boy, who in the woods Chants his hymn to hills and floods, Whom the city's poisoning spleen Made not pale, or fat, or lean; Whom the rain and the wind purgeth, Whom the dawn and the day-star urgeth, In whose cheek the rose-leaf blusheth, In whose feet the lion rusheth, Iron arms, and iron mould, That know not fear, fatigue, or cold. I give my rafters to his boat, My billets to his boiler's throat, And I will swim the ancient sea To float my child to victory, And grant to dwellers with the pine Dominion o'er the palm and vine. Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend, Unnerves his strength, invites his end. Cut a bough from my parent stem, And dip it in thy porcelain vase; A little while each russet gem Will swell and rise with wonted grace; But when it seeks enlarged supplies, The orphan of the forest dies. Whoso walks in solitude And inhabiteth the wood, Choosing light, wave, rock and bird, Before the money-loving herd, Into that forester shall pass, From these companions, power and grace. Clean shall he be, without, within, From the old adhering sin, All ill dissolving in the light Of his triumphant piercing sight: Not vain, sour, nor frivolous; Not mad, athirst, nor garrulous; Grave, chaste, contented, though retired, And of all other men desired. On him the light of star and moon Shall fall with purer radiance down; All constellations of the sky Shed their virtue through his eye. Him Nature giveth for defence His formidable innocence; The mounting sap, the shells, the sea, All spheres, all stones, his helpers be; He shall meet the speeding year, Without wailing, without fear; He shall be happy in his love, Like to like shall joyful prove; He shall be happy whilst he wooes, Muse-born, a daughter of the Muse. But if with gold she bind her hair, And deck her breast with diamond, Take off thine eyes, thy heart forbear, Though thou lie alone on the ground. ' Heed the old oracles, Ponder my spells; Song wakes in my pinnacles When the wind swells. Soundeth the prophetic wind, The shadows shake on the rock behind, And the countless leaves of the pine are strings Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings. Hearken! Hearken! If thou wouldst know the mystic song Chanted when the sphere was young. Aloft, abroad, the pan swells; O wise man! hear'st thou half it tells? O wise man! hear'st thou the least part? 'T is the chronicle of art. To the open ear it sings Sweet the genesis of things, Of tendency through endless ages, Of star-dust, and star-pilgrimages, Of rounded worlds, of space and time, Of the old flood's subsiding slime, Of chemic matter, force and form, Of poles and powers, cold, wet, and warm: The rushing metamorphosis Dissolving all that fixture is, Melts things that be to things that seem, And solid nature to a dream. O, listen to the undersong, The ever old, the ever young; And, far within those cadent pauses, The chorus of the ancient Causes! Delights the dreadful Destiny To fling his voice into the tree, And shock thy weak ear with a note Breathed from the everlasting throat. In music he repeats the pang Whence the fair flock of Nature sprang. O mortal! thy ears are stones; These echoes are laden with tones Which only the pure can hear; Thou canst not catch what they recite Of Fate and Will, of Want and Right, Of man to come, of human life, Of Death and Fortune, Growth and Strife.' Once again the pine-tree sung: ' Speak not thy speech my boughs among: Put off thy years, wash in the breeze; My hours are peaceful centuries. Talk no more with feeble tongue; No more the fool of space and time, Come weave with mine a nobler rhyme. Only thy Americans Can read thy line, can meet thy glance, But the runes that I rehearse Understands the universe; The least breath my boughs which tossed Brings again the Pentecost; To every soul resounding clear In a voice of solemn cheer, "Am I not thine? Are not these thine?" And they reply, "Forever mine!" My branches speak Italian, English, German, Basque, Castilian, Mountain speech to Highlanders, Ocean tongues to islanders, To Fin and Lap and swart Malay, To each his bosom-secret say. 'Come learn with me the fatal song Which knits the world in music strong, Come lift thine eyes to lofty rhymes, Of things with things, of times with times, Primal chimes of sun and shade, Of sound and echo, man and maid, The land reflected in the flood, Body with shadow still pursued. For Nature beats in perfect tune, And rounds with rhyme her every rune, Whether she work in land or sea, Or hide underground her alchemy. Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, Or dip thy paddle in the lake, But it carves the bow of beauty there, And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake. The wood is wiser far than thou; The wood and wave each other know Not unrelated, unaffied, But to each thought and thing allied, Is perfect Nature's every part, Rooted in the mighty Heart. But thou, poor child! unbound, unrhymed, Whence camest thou, misplaced, mistimed, Whence, O thou orphan and defrauded? Is thy land peeled, thy realm marauded? Who thee divorced, deceived and left? Thee of thy faith who hath bereft, And torn the ensigns from thy brow, And sunk the immortal eye so low? Thy cheek too white, thy form too slender, Thy gait too slow, thy habits tender For royal man;they thee confess An exile from the wilderness, The hills where health with health agrees, And the wise soul expels disease. Hark! in thy ear I will tell the sign By which thy hurt thou may'st divine. 'When thou shalt climb the mountain cliff, Or see the wide shore from thy skiff, To thee the horizon shall express But emptiness on emptiness; There lives no man of Nature's worth In the circle of the earth; And to thine eye the vast skies fall, Dire and satirical, On clucking hens and prating fools, On thieves, on drudges and on dolls. And thou shalt say to the Most High, "Godhead! all this astronomy, And fate and practice and invention, Strong art and beautiful pretension, This radiant pomp of sun and star, Throes that were, and worlds that are, Behold! were in vain and in vain; It cannot be,I will look again. Surely now will the curtain rise, And earth's fit tenant me surprise; But the curtain doth not rise, And Nature has miscarried wholly Into failure, into folly." 'Alas! thine is the bankruptcy, Blessed Nature so to see. Come, lay thee in my soothing shade, And heal the hurts which sin has made. I see thee in the crowd alone; I will be thy companion. Quit thy friends as the dead in doom, And build to them a final tomb; Let the starred shade that nightly falls Still celebrate their funerals, And the bell of beetle and of bee Knell their melodious memory. Behind thee leave thy merchandise, Thy churches and thy charities; And leave thy peacock wit behind; Enough for thee the primal mind That flows in streams, that breathes in wind: Leave all thy pedant lore apart; God hid the whole world in thy heart. Love shuns the sage, the child it crowns, Gives all to them who all renounce. The rain comes when the wind calls; The river knows the way to the sea; Without a pilot it runs and falls, Blessing all lands with its charity; The sea tosses and foams to find Its way up to the cloud and wind; The shadow sits close to the flying ball; The date fails not on the palm-tree tall; And thou,go burn thy wormy pages, Shalt outsee seers, and outwit sages. Oft didst thou thread the woods in vain To find what bird had piped the strain: Seek not, and the little eremite Flies gayly forth and sings in sight. 'Hearken once more! I will tell thee the mundane lore. Older am I than thy numbers wot, Change I may, but I pass not. Hitherto all things fast abide, And anchored in the tempest ride. Trenchant time behoves to hurry All to yean and all to bury: All the forms are fugitive, But the substances survive. Ever fresh the broad creation, A divine improvisation, From the heart of God proceeds, A single will, a million deeds. Once slept the world an egg of stone, And pulse, and sound, and light was none; And God said, "Throb!" and there was motion And the vast mass became vast ocean. Onward and on, the eternal Pan, Who layeth the world's incessant plan, Halteth never in one shape, But forever doth escape, Like wave or flame, into new forms Of gem, and air, of plants, and worms. I, that to-day am a pine, Yesterday was a bundle of grass. He is free and libertine, Pouring of his power the wine To every age, to every race;. Unto every race and age He emptieth the beverage; Unto each, and unto all, Maker and original. The world is the ring of his spells, And the play of his miracles. As he giveth to all to drink, Thus or thus they are and think. With one drop sheds form and feature; With the next a special nature; The third adds heat's indulgent spark; The fourth gives light which eats the dark; Into the fifth himself he flings, And conscious Law is King of kings. As the bee through the garden ranges, From world to world the godhead changes; As the sheep go feeding in the waste, From form to form He maketh haste; This vault which glows immense with light Is the inn where he lodges for a night. What reeks such Traveller if the bowers Which bloom and fade like meadow flowers A bunch of fragrant lilies be, Or the stars of eternity? Alike to him the better, the worse, The glowing angel, the outcast corse. Thou metest him by centuries, And lo! he passes like the breeze; Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy, He hides in pure transparency; Thou askest in fountains and in fires, He is the essence that inquires. He is the axis of the star; He is the sparkle of the spar; He is the heart of every creature; He is the meaning of each feature; And his mind is the sky. Than all it holds more deep, more high.' by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Woodnotes ,

883:Jubilate Agno: Fragment B, Part 3 For a Man is to be looked upon in that which he excells as on a prospect. For there be twelve cardinal virtues -- three to the East -- Greatness, Valour, Piety. For there be three to the West -- Goodness, Purity and Sublimity. For there be three to the North -- Meditation, Happiness, Strength. For there be three to the South -- Constancy, Pleasantry and Wisdom. For the Argument A PRIORI is GOD in every man's CONSCIENCE. For the Argument A POSTERIORI is God before every man's eyes. For the Four and Twenty Elders of the Revelation are Four and Twenty Eternities. For their Four and Twenty Crowns are their respective Consummations. For a CHARACTER is the votes of the Worldlings, but the seal is of Almighty GOD alone. For there is no musick in flats and sharps which are not in God's natural key. For where Accusation takes the place of encouragement a man of Genius is driven to act the vices of a fool. For the Devil can set a house on fire, when the inhabitants find combustibles. For the old account of time is the true -- Decr 28th 1759-60 -- -- -For Faith as a grain of mustard seed is to believe, as I do, that an Eternity is such in respect to the power and magnitude of Almighty God. For a DREAM is a good thing from GOD. For there is a dream from the adversary which is terror. For the phenomenon of dreaming is not of one solution, but many. 81 For Eternity is like a grain of mustard as a growing body and improving spirit. For the malignancy of fire is oweing to the Devil's hiding of light, till it became visible darkness. For the Circle may be SQUARED by swelling and flattening. For the Life of God is in the body of man and his spirit in the Soul. For there was no rain in Paradise because of the delicate construction of the spiritual herbs and flowers. For the Planet Mercury is the WORD DISCERNMENT. For the Scotchman seeks for truth at the bottom of a well, the Englishman in the Heavn of Heavens. For the Planet Venus is the WORD PRUDENCE or providence. For GOD nevertheless is an extravagant BEING and generous unto loss. For there is no profit in the generation of man and the loss of millions is not worth God's tear. For this is the twelfth day of the MILLENNIUM of the MILLENNIUM foretold by the prophets -- give the glory to God ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY For the Planet Mars is the word FORTITUDE. For to worship naked in the Rain is the bravest thing for the refreshing and purifying the body. For the Planet Jupiter is the WORD DISPENSATION. For Tully says to be generous you must be first just, but the voice of Christ is distribute at all events. For Kittim is the father of the Pygmies, God be gracious to Pigg his family. For the Soul is divisible and a portion of the Spirit may be cut off from one and 82 applied to another. For NEW BREAD is the most wholesome especially if it be leaven'd with honey. For a NEW SONG also is best, if it be to the glory of God; and taken with the food like the psalms. For the Planet Saturn is the word TEMPERANCE or PATIENCE. For Jacob's Ladder are the steps of the Earth graduated hence to Paradice and thence to the throne of God. For a good wish is well but a faithful prayer is an eternal benefit. For SPICA VIRGINIS is the star that appeared to the wise men in the East and directed their way before it was yet insphered. For an IDEA is the mental vision of an object. For Lock supposes that an human creature, at a given time may be an atheist i.e. without God, by the folly of his doctrine concerning innate ideas. For it is not lawful to sell poyson in England any more than it is in Venice, the Lord restrain both the finder and receiver. For the ACCENTS are the invention of the Moabites, who learning the GREEK tongue marked the words after their own vicious pronuntiation. For the GAULS (the now-French and original Moabites) after they were subdued by Cæsar became such Grecians at Rome. For the Gaullic manuscripts fell into the hands of the inventors of printing. For all the inventions of man, which are good, are the communications of Almighty God. For all the stars have satellites, which are terms under their respective words. For tiger is a word and his satellites are Griffin, Storgis, Cat and others. For my talent is to give an Impression upon words by punching, that when the reader casts his eye upon 'em, he takes up the image from the mould which I 83 have made. For JOB was the son of Issachar and patience is the child of strength. For the Names of the DAYS, as they now stand, are foolish and abominable. For the Days are the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh. For the names of the months are false -- the Hebrew appellatives are of God. For the Time of the Lord's temptation was in early youth and imminent danger. For an equivocal generation is a generation and no generation. For putrifying matter nevertheless will yield up its life in diverse creatures and combinations of creatures. For a TOAD can dwell in the centre of a stone, because -- there are stones whose constituent life is of those creatures. For a Toad hath by means of his eye the most beautiful prospects of any other animal to make him amends for his distance from his Creator in Glory. For FAT is the fruit of benevolence, therefore it was the Lord's in the Mosaic sacrifices. For the very particular laws of Moses are the determinations of CASES that fell under his cognizance. For the Devil can make the shadow thicker by candlelight by reason of his pow'r over malignant fire. For the Romans clipped their words in the Augustan thro idleness and effeminacy and paid foreign actors for speaking them out. For when the weight and the pow'r are equivalent the prop is of none effect. For shaving of the beard was an invention of the people of Sodom to make men look like women. For the ends of the world are the accomplishment of great events, and the consummation of periods. 84 For ignorance is a sin because illumination is to be obtained by prayer. For Preferment is not from the East, West or South, but from the North, where Satan has most power. For the ministers of the Devil set the hewer of wood over the head of God's free Man. For this inverting God's good order, edifice and edification, and appointing place, where the Lord has not appointed. For the Ethiopian question is already solved in that the Blacks are the children of Cain. For the phenomenon of the horizontal moon is the truth -- she appears bigger in the horizon because she actually is so. For it was said of old 'can the Ethiopian change his skin?' the Lord has answered the question by his merit and death he shall. -For the moon is magnified in the horizon by Almighty God, and so is the Sun. For she has done her day's-work and the blessing of God upon her, and she communicates with the earth. For when she rises she has been strength'ned by the Sun, who cherishes her by night. For man is born to trouble in the body, as the sparks fly upwards in the spirit. For man is between the pinchers while his soul is shaping and purifying. For the ENGLISH are the seed of Abraham and work up to him by Joab, David, and Naphtali. God be gracious to us this day. General Fast March 14th 1760. For the Romans and the English are one people the children of the brave man who died at the altar praying for his posterity, whose death was the type of our Saviour's. For the WELCH are the children of Mephibosheth and Ziba with a mixture of David in the Jones's. 85 For the Scotch are the children of Doeg with a mixture of Cush the Benjamite, whence their innate antipathy to the English. For the IRISH are the children of Shimei and Cush with a mixture of something lower -- the Lord raise them! For the FRENCH are Moabites even the children of Lot. For the DUTCH are the children of Gog. For the Poles are the children of Magog. For the Italians are the children of Samuel and are the same as the Grecians. For the Spaniards are the children of Abishai Joab's brother, hence is the goodwill between the two nations. For the Portuguese are the children of Amman -- God be gracious to Lisbon and send good angels amongst them! For the Hottentots are the children of Gog with a Black mixture. For the Russians are the Children of Ishmael. For the Turks are the children of Esaw, which is Edom. For the Wallachians are the children of Huz. God be gracious to Elizabeth Hughes, as she was. For the Germans are the children of the Philistins even the seed of Anak. For the Prussians are the children of Goliah -- but the present, whom God bless this hour, is a Campbell of the seed of Phinees. For the Hanoverians are Hittites of the seed of Uriah. God save the king. For the Hessians are Philistines with a mixture of Judah. For the Saxons are Benjamites, men of great subtlety and Marshal Saxe was direct from Benjamin. 86 For the Danes are of the children of Zabulon. For the Venetians are the children of Mark and Romans. For the Swiss are Philistins of a particular family. God be gracious to Jonathan Tyers his family and to all the people at Vaux Hall. For the Sardinians are of the seed of David -- The Lord forward the Reformation amongst the good seed first. -For the Mogul's people are the children of Phut. For the Old Greeks and the Italians are one people, which are blessed in the gift of Mustek by reason of the song of Hannah and the care of Samuel with regard to divine melody. For the Germans and the Dutch are the children of the Goths and Vandals who did a good in destruction books written by heathen Free-Thinkers against God. For there are Americans of the children of Toi. -For the Laplanders are the children of Gomer. For the Phenomena of the Diving Bell are solved right in the schools. For NEW BREAD is the most wholesome -- God be gracious to Baker. For the English are the children of Joab, Captain of the host of Israel, who was the greatest man in the world to GIVE and to ATCHIEVE. For TEA is a blessed plant and of excellent virtue. God give the Physicians more skill and honesty! For nutmeg is exceeding wholesome and cherishing, neither does it hurt the liver. For The Lightning before death is God's illumination in the spirit for preparation and for warning. For Lavender Cotton is exceeding good for the teeth. God be gracious to Windsmore. 87 For the Fern is exceeding good and pleasant to rub the teeth. For a strong preparation of Mandragora is good for the gout. For the Bark was a communication from God and is sovereign. For the method of curing an ague by terror is exaction. For Exaction is the most accursed of all things, because it brought the Lord to the cross, his betrayers and murderers being such from their exaction. For an Ague is the terror of the body, when the blessing of God is withheld for a season. For benevolence is the best remedy in the first place and the bark in the second. For, when the nation is at war, it is better to abstain from the punishment of criminals especially, every act of human vengeance being a check to the grace of God. For the letter ל [Hebrew character lamed] which signifies GOD by himself is on the fibre of some leaf in every Tree. For ל is the grain of the human heart and on the network of the skin. For ל is in the veins of all stones both precious and common. For ל is upon every hair both of man and beast. For ל is in the grain of wood. For ל is in the ore of all metals. For ל is on the scales of all fish. For ל is on the petals of all flowers. For ל is upon on all shells. For ל is in the constituent particles of air. For ל is on the mite of the earth. 88 For ל is in the water yea in every drop. For ל is in the incomprehensible ingredients of fire. For ל is in the stars the sun and in the Moon. For ל is upon the Sapphire Vault. For the doubling of flowers is the improvement of the gardners talent. For the flowers are great blessings. For the Lord made a Nosegay in the meadow with his disciples and preached upon the lily. For the angels of God took it out of his hand and carried it to the Height. For a man cannot have publick spirit, who is void of private benevolence. For there is no Height in which there are not flowers. For flowers have great virtues for all the senses. For the flower glorifies God and the root parries the adversary. For the flowers have their angels even the words of God's Creation. For the warp and woof of flowers are worked by perpetual moving spirits. For flowers are good both for the living and the dead. For there is a language of flowers. For there is a sound reasoning upon all flowers. For elegant phrases are nothing but flowers. For flowers are peculiarly the poetry of Christ. For flowers are medicinal. 89 For flowers are musical in ocular harmony. For the right names of flowers are yet in heaven. God make gard'ners better nomenclators. For the Poorman's nosegay is an introduction to a Prince. For it were better for the SERVICE, if only select psalms were read. For the Lamentations of Jeremiah, Songs from other scriptures, and parts of Esdras might be taken to supply the quantity. For A is the beginning of learning and the door of heaven. For B is a creature busy and bustling. For C is a sense quick and penetrating. For D is depth. For E is eternity -- such is the power of the English letters taken singly. For F is faith. For G is God -- whom I pray to be gracious to Liveware my fellow prisoner. For H is not a letter, but a spirit -- Benedicatur Jesus Christus, sic spirem! For I is identity. God be gracious to Henry Hatsell. For K is king. For L is love. God in every language. For M is musick and Hebrew מ [Hebrew character mem] is the direct figure of God's harp. For N is new. For O is open. For P is power. 90 For Q is quick. For R is right. For S is soul. For T is truth. God be gracious to Jermyn Pratt and to Harriote his Sister. For U is unity, and his right name is Uve to work it double. For W is word. For X [drawn as a backwards G and a G stuck together] is hope -- consisting of two check G -- God be gracious to Anne Hope. For Y is yea. God be gracious to Eennet and his family! For Z is zeal. For in the education of children it is necessary to watch the words, -which they pronounce with difficulty, for such are against them in their consequences. For A is awe, if pronounced full. Stand in awe and sin not. For B pronounced in the animal is bey importing authority. For C pronounced hard is ke importing to shut. For D pronounced full is day. For E is east particularly when formed little e with his eye. For F in it's secondary meaning is fair. For G in a secondary sense is good. For H is heave. For I is the organ of vision. For K is keep. 91 For L is light, and ל [Hebrew character lamed] is the line of beauty. For M is meet. For N is nay. For O is over. For P is peace. For Q is quarter. For R is rain, or thus reign, or thus rein. For S is save. For T is take. For V is veil. For W is world. For X [drawn as a backwards G and a G stuck together] beginneth not, but connects and continues. For Y is young -- the Lord direct me in the better way of going on in the Fifth year of my jeopardy June the 17th N.S. 1760. God be gracious to Dr YOUNG. For Z is zest. God give us all a relish of our duty. For Action and Speaking are one according to God and the Ancients. For the approaches of Death are by illumination. For a man cannot have Publick Spirit, who is void of private benevolence. For the order of Alamoth is first three, second six, third eighteen, fourth fifty four, and then the whole band. For the order of Sheminith is first ten, second twenty, third thirty and then the whole band. 92 For the first entrance into Heaven is by complement. For Flowers can see, and Pope's Carnations knew him. For the devil works upon damps and lowth and causes agues. For Ignorance is a sin, because illumination is to be had by prayer. For many a genius being lost at the plough is a false thought -- the divine providence is a better manager. For a man's idleness is the fruit of the adversary's diligence. For diligence is the gift of God, as well as other good things. For it is a good NOTHING in one's own eyes and in the eyes of fools. For æra in its primitive sense is but a weed amongst corn. For there is no knowing of times and seasons, in submitting them to God stands the Christian's Chronology. For Jacob's brown sheep wore the Golden fleece. For Shaving of the face was the invention of the Sodomites to make men look like women. ~ Christopher Smart,

884:Raschi In Prague Raschi of Troyes, the Moon of Israel, The authoritative Talmudist, returned From his wide wanderings under many skies, To all the synagogues of the Orient, Through Spain and Italy, the isles of Greece, Beautiful, dolorous, sacred Palestine, Dead, obelisked Egypt, floral, musk-breathed Persia, Laughing with bloom, across the Caucasus, The interminable sameness of bare steppes, Through dark luxuriance of Bohemian woods, And issuing on the broad, bright Moldau vale, Entered the gates of Prague. Here, too, his fame, Being winged, preceded him. His people swarmed Like bees to gather the rich honey-dew Of learning from his lips. Amazement filled All eyes beholding him. No hoary sage, He who had sat in Egypt at the feet Of Moses ben-Maimuni, called him friend; Raschi the scholiast, poet, and physician, Who bore the ponderous Bible's storied wisdom, The Mischna's tangled lore at tip of tongue, Light as a garland on a lance, appeared In the just-ripened glory of a man. From his clear eye youth flamed magnificent; Force, masked by grace, moved in his balanced frame; An intellectual, virile beauty reigned Dominant on domed brow, on fine, firm lips, An eagle profile cut in gilded bronze, Strong, delicate as a head upon a coin, While, as an aureole crowns a burning lamp, Above all beauty of the body and brain Shone beauty of a soul benign with love. Even as a tawny flock of huddled sheep, Grazing each other's heels, urged by one will, With bleat and baa following the wether's lead, Or the wise shepherd, so o'er the Moldau bridge Trotted the throng of yellow-caftaned Jews, Chattering, hustling, shuffling. At their head Marched Rabbi Jochanan ben-Eleazar, 165 High priest in Prague, oldest and most revered, To greet the star of Israel. As a father Yearns toward his son, so toward the noble Raschi Leapt at first sight the patriarch's fresh old heart. 'My home be thine in Prague! Be thou my son, Who have no offspring save one simple girl. See, glorious youth, who dost renew the days Of David and of Samuel, early graced With God's anointing oil, how Israel Delights to honor who hath honored him.' Then Raschi, though he felt a ball of fire Globe itself in his throat, maintained his calm, His cheek's opaque, swart pallor while he kissed Silent the Rabbi's withered hand, and bowed Divinely humble, his exalted head Craving the benison. For each who asked He had the word of counsel, comfort, help; For all, rich eloquence of thanks. His voice, Even and grave, thrilled secret chords and set Plain speech to music. Certain folk were there Sick in the body, dragging painful limbs, To the physician. These he solaced first, With healing touch, with simples from his pouch, Warming and lulling, best with promises Of constant service till their ills were cured. And some, gray-bearded, bald, and curved with age, Blear-eyed from poring over lines obscure And knotty riddles of the Talmud, brought Their problems to this youth, who cleared and solved, Yielding prompt answer to a lifetime's search. Then, followed, pushed by his obsequious tribe, Who fain had pedestaled him on their backs, Hemming his steps, choking the airs of heaven With their oppressive honors, he advanced, Midst shouts, tumultuous welcomes, kisses showered Upon his road-stained garments, through Prague's streets, Gaped at by Gentiles, hissed at and reviled, But no whit altering his majestic mien For overwhelming plaudits or contempt. Glad tidings Raschi brought from West and East Of thriving synagogues, of famous men, 166 And flourishing academies. In Rome The Papal treasurer was a pious Jew, Rabbi Jehiel, neath whose patronage Prospered a noble school. Two hundred Jews Dwelt free and paid no tributary mark. Three hundred lived in peace at Capua, Shepherded by the learned Rabbi David, A prince of Israel. In Babylon The Jews established their Academy. Another still in Bagdad, from whose chair Preached the great rabbi, Samuel Ha-levi, Versed in the written and the oral law, Who blindfold could repeat the whole vast text Of Mischna and Gemara. On the banks Of Eden-born Euphrates, one day's ride From Bagdad, Raschi found in the wilderness, Which once was Babylon, Ezekiel's tomb. Thrice ten perpetual lamps starred the dim shrine, Two hundred sentinels held the sleepless vigil, Receiving offerings. At the Feast of Booths Here crowded Jews by thousands, out of Persia, From all the neighboring lands, to celebrate The glorious memories of the golden days. Ten thousand Jews with their Academy Damascus boasted, while in Cairo shone The pearl, the crown of Israel, ben-Maimuni, Physician at the Court of Saladin, The second Moses, gathering at his feet Sages from all the world. As Raschi spake, Forgetting or ignoring the chief shrine, The Exile's Home, whereunto yearned all hearts, All ears were strained for tidings. Some one asked: 'What of Jerusalem? Speak to us of Zion.' The light died from his eyes. From depths profound Issued his grave, great voice: 'Alas for Zion! Verily is she fallen! Where our race Dictated to the nations, not a handful, Nay, not a score, not ten, not two abide! One, only one, one solitary Jew, The Rabbi Abraham Haceba, flits Ghostlike amid the ruins; every year 167 Beggars himself to pay the idolaters The costly tax for leave to hold a-gape His heart's live wound; to weep, a mendicant, Amidst the crumbled stones of palaces Where reigned his ancestors, upon the graves Where sleep the priests, the prophets, and the kings Who were his forefathers. Ask me no more!' Now, when the French Jew's advent was proclaimed, And his tumultuous greeting, envious growls And ominous eyebeams threatened storm in Prague. 'Who may this miracle of learning be? The Anti-Christ! The century-long-awaited, The hourly-hoped Messiah, come at last! Else dared they never wax so arrogant, Flaunting their monstrous joy in Christian eyes, And strutting peacock-like, with hideous screams, Who are wont to crawl, mute reptiles underfoot.' A stone or two flung at some servile form, Liveried in the yellow gaberdine (With secret happiness but half suppressed On features cast for misery), served at first For chance expression of the rabble's hate; But, swelling like a snow-ball rolled along By mischief-plotting boys, the rage increased, Grew to a mighty mass, until it reached The palace of Duke Vladislaw. He heard With righteous wrath his injured subjects' charge Against presumptuous aliens: how these blocked His avenues, his bridges; bared to the sun The canker-taint of Prague's obscurest coigne; Paraded past the churches of the Lord One who denied Him, one by them hailed Christ. Enough! This cloud, no bigger than one's hand, Gains overweening bulk. Prague harbored, first, Out of contemptuous ruth, a wretched band Of outcast paupers, gave them leave to ply Their money-lending trade, and leased them land On all too facile terms. Behold! to-day, Like leeches bloated with the people's blood, They batten on Bohemia's poverty; 168 They breed and grow; like adders, spit back hate And venomed perfidy for Christian love. Thereat the Duke, urged by wise counsellorsNarzerad the statesman (half whose wealth was pledged To the usurers), abetted by the priest, Bishop of Olmutz, who had visited The Holy Sepulchre, whose long, full life Was one clean record of pure pietyThe Duke, I say, by these persuasive tongues, Coaxed to his darling aim, forbade his guards To hinder the just anger of his town, And ordered to be led in chains to him The pilgrim and his host. At noontide meal Raschi sat, full of peace, with Jochanan, And the sole daughter of the house, Rebekah, Young, beautiful as her namesake when she brought Her firm, frail pitcher balanced on her neck Unto the well, and gave the stranger drink, And gave his camels drink. The servant set The sparkling jar's refreshment from his lips, And saw the virgin's face, bright as the moon, Beam from the curled luxuriance of black locks, And cast-back linen veil's soft-folded cloud, Then put the golden ear-ring by her cheek, The bracelets on her hands, his master's pledge, Isaac's betrothal gift, whom she should wed, And be the mother of millions-one whose seed Dwells in the gates of those which hate them. So Yearned Raschi to adorn the radiant girl Who sat at board before him, nor dared lift Shy, heavy lids from pupils black as grapes That dart the imprisoned sunshine from their core. But in her ears keen sense was born to catch, And in her heart strange power to hold, each tone O' the low-keyed, vibrant voice, each syllable O' the eloquent discourse, enriched with tales Of venturous travel, brilliant with fine points Of delicate humor, or illustrated With living portraits of world-famoused men, 169 Jews, Saracens, Crusaders, Islamites, Whose hand he had grasped-the iron warrior, Godfrey of Bouillon, the wise infidel Who in all strength, wit, courtesy excelled The kings his foes-imperial Saladin. But even as Raschi spake an abrupt noise Of angry shouts, of battering staves that shook The oaken portal, stopped the enchanted voice, The uplifted wine spilled from the nerveless hand Of Rabbi Jochanan. 'God pity us! Our enemies are upon us once again. Hie thee, Rebekah, to the inmost chamber, Far from their wanton eyes' polluting gaze, Their desecrating touch! Kiss me! Begone! Raschi, my guest, my son'-But no word more Uttered the reverend man. With one huge crash The strong doors split asunder, pouring in A stream of soldiers, ruffians, armed with pikes, Lances, and clubs-the unchained beast, the mob. 'Behold the town's new guest!' jeered one who tossed The half-filled golden wine-cup's contents straight In the noble pure young face. 'What, master Jew! Must your good friends of Prague break bolts and bars To gain a peep at this prodigious pearl You bury in your shell? Forth to the day! Our Duke himself claims share of your new wealth; Summons to court the Jew philosopher!' Then, while some stuffed their pokes with baubles snatched From board and shelf, or with malignant sword Slashed the rich Orient rugs, the pictured woof That clothed the wall; others had seized and bound, And gagged from speech, the helpless, aged man; Still others outraged, with coarse, violent hands, The marble-pale, rigid as stone, strange youth, Whose eye like struck flint flashed, whose nether lip Was threaded with a scarlet line of blood, Where the compressed teeth fixed it to forced calm. He struggled not while his free limbs were tied, His beard plucked, torn and spat upon his robeSeemed scarce to know these insults were for him; But never swerved his gaze from Jochanan. Then, in God's language, sealed from these dumb brutes, 170 Swiftly and low he spake: 'Be of good cheer, Reverend old man. I deign not treat with these. If one dare offer bodily hurt to thee, By the ineffable Name! I snap my chains Like gossamer, and in his blood, to the hilt, Bathe the prompt knife hid in my girdle's folds. The Duke shall hear me. Patience. Trust in me.' Somewhat the authoritative voice abashed, Even hoarse and changed, the miscreants, who feared Some strong curse lurked in this mysterious tongue, Armed with this evil eye. But brief the spell. With gibe and scoff they dragged their victims forth, The abused old man, the proud, insulted youth, O'er the late path of his triumphal march, Befouled with mud, with raiment torn, wild hair And ragged beard, to Vladislaw. He sat Expectant in his cabinet. On one side His secular adviser, Narzerad, Quick-eyed, sharp-nosed, red-whiskered as a fox; On the other hand his spiritual guide, Bishop of Olmutz, unctuous, large, and bland. 'So these twain are chief culprits!' sneered the Duke, Measuring with the noble's ignorant scorn His masters of a lesser caste. 'Stand forth! Rash, stubborn, vain old man, whose impudence Hath choked the public highways with thy brood Of nasty vermin, by our sufferance hid In lanes obscure, who hailed this charlatan With sky-flung caps, bent knees, and echoing shouts, Due to ourselves alone in Prague; yea, worse, Who offered worship even ourselves disclaim, Our Lord Christ's meed, to this blaspheming JewThy crimes have murdered patience. Thou hast wrecked Thy people's fortune with thy own. But first (For even in anger we are just) recount With how great compensation from thy store Of hoarded gold and jewels thou wilt buy Remission of the penalty. Be wise. Hark how my subjects, storming through the streets, Vent on thy tribe accursed their well-based wrath.' And, truly, through closed casements roared the noise Of mighty surging crowds, derisive cries, 171 And victims' screams of anguish and affright. Then Raschi, royal in his rags, began: 'Hear me, my liege!' At that commanding voice, The Bishop, who with dazed eyes had perused The grieved, wise, beautiful, pale face, sprang up, Quick recognition in his glance, warm joy Aflame on his broad cheeks. 'No more! No more! Thou art the man! Give me the hand to kiss That raised me from the shadow of the grave In Jaffa's lazar-house! Listen, my liege! During my pilgrimage to Palestine I, sickened with the plague and nigh to death, Languished 'midst strangers, all my crumbling flesh One rotten mass of sores, a thing for dogs To shy from, shunned by Christian as by Turk, When lo! this clean-breathed, pure-souled, blessed youth, Whom I, not knowing for an infidel, Seeing featured like the Christ, believed a saint, Sat by my pillow, charmed the sting from pain, Quenched the fierce fever's heat, defeated Death; And when I was made whole, had disappeared, No man knew whither, leaving no more trace Than a re-risen angel. This is he!' Then Raschi, who had stood erect, nor quailed From glances of hot hate or crazy wrath, Now sank his eagle gaze, stooped his high head, Veiling his glowing brow, returned the kiss Of brother-love upon the Christian's hand, And dropping on his knees implored the three, 'Grace for my tribe! They are what ye have made. If any be among them fawning, false, Insatiable, revengeful, ignorant, meanAnd there are many such-ask your own hearts What virtues ye would yield for planted hate, Ribald contempt, forced, menial servitude, Slow centuries of vengeance for a crime Ye never did commit? Mercy for these! Who bear on back and breast the scathing brand Of scarlet degradation, who are clothed In ignominious livery, whose bowed necks Are broken with the yoke. Change these to men! That were a noble witchcraft simply wrought, 172 God's alchemy transforming clods to gold. If there be one among them strong and wise, Whose lips anoint breathe poetry and love, Whose brain and heart served ever Christian needAnd there are many such-for his dear sake, Lest ye chance murder one of God's high priests, Spare his thrice-wretched tribe! Believe me, sirs, Who have seen various lands, searched various hearts, I have yet to touch that undiscovered shore, Have yet to fathom that impossible soul, Where a true benefit's forgot; where one Slight deed of common kindness sown yields not As now, as here, abundant crop of love. Every good act of man, our Talmud says, Creates an angel, hovering by his side. Oh! what a shining host, great Duke, shall guard Thy consecrated throne, for all the lives Thy mercy spares, for all the tears thy ruth Stops at the source. Behold this poor old man, Last of a line of princes, stricken in years, As thy dead father would have been to-day. Was that white beard a rag for obscene hands To tear? a weed for lumpish clowns to pluck? Was that benignant, venerable face Fit target for their foul throats' voided rheum? That wrinkled flesh made to be pulled and pricked, Wounded by flinty pebbles and keen steel? Behold the prostrate, patriarchal form, Bruised, silent, chained. Duke, such is Israel!' 'Unbind these men!' commanded Vladislaw. 'Go forth and still the tumult of my town. Let no Jew suffer violence. Raschi, rise! Thou who hast served the Christ-with this priest's life, Who is my spirit's counselor-Christ serves thee. Return among thy people with my seal, The talisman of safety. Let them know The Duke's their friend. Go, publish the glad news!' Raschi the Saviour, Raschi the Messiah, Back to the Jewry carried peace and love. But Narzerad fed his venomed heart with gall, Vowing to give his fatal hatred vent, Despite a world of weak fantastic Dukes 173 And heretic bishops. He fulfilled his vow. ~ Emma Lazarus,

885: The Rishi King Manu in the former ages of the world, when the Arctic continent still subsisted, seeks knowledge from the Rishi of the Pole, who after long baffling him with conflicting side-lights of the knowledge, reveals to him what it chiefly concerns man to know. MANU Rishi who trance-held on the mountains old Art slumbering, void Of sense or motion, for in the spirit's hold Of unalloyed Immortal bliss thou dreamst protected! Deep Let my voice glide Into thy dumb retreat and break thy sleep Abysmal. Hear! The frozen snows that heap thy giant bed Ice-cold and clear, The chill and desert heavens above thee spread Vast, austere, Are not so sharp but that thy warm limbs brook Their bitter breath, Are not so wide as thy immense outlook On life and death: Their vacancy thy silent mind and bright Outmeasureth. But ours are blindly active and thy light We have forgone. RISHI Who art thou, warrior armed gloriously Like the sun? Thy gait is as an empire and thine eye Dominion. Poems from Ahana and Other Poems MANU King Manu, of the Aryan peoples lord, Greets thee, Sage. RISHI I know thee, King, earth to whose sleepless sword Was heritage. The high Sun's distant glories gave thee forth On being's edge: Where the slow skies of the auroral North Lead in the morn And flaming dawns for ever on heaven's verge Wheel and turn, Thundering remote the clamorous Arctic surge Saw thee born. There 'twas thy lot these later Fates to build, This race of man New-fashion. O watcher with the mountains wild, The icy plain, Thee I too, asleep, have watched, both when the Pole Was brightening wan And when like a wild beast the darkness stole Prowling and slow Alarming with its silent march the soul. O King, I know Thy purpose; for the vacant ages roll Since man below Conversed with God in friendship. Thou, reborn For men perplexed, Seekest in this dim aeon and forlorn With evils vexed The vanished light. For like this Arctic land Death has annexed To sleep, our being's summits cold and grand Where God abides, Repel the tread of thought. I too, O King, 221 222 Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 - 1909 In winds and tides Have sought Him, and in armies thundering, And where Death strides Over whole nations. Action, thought and peace Were questioned, sleep, And waking, but I had no joy of these, Nor ponderings deep, And pity was not sweet enough, nor good My will could keep. Often I found Him for a moment, stood Astonished, then It fell from me. I could not hold the bliss, The force for men, My brothers. Beauty ceased my heart to please, Brightness in vain Recalled the vision of the light that glows Suns behind: I hated the rich fragrance of the rose; Weary and blind, I tired of the suns and stars; then came With broken mind To heal me of the rash devouring flame, The dull disease, And sojourned with this mountain's summits bleak, These frozen seas. King, the blind dazzling snows have made me meek, Cooled my unease. Pride could not follow, nor the restless will Come and go; My mind within grew holy, calm and still Like the snow. MANU O thou who wast with chariots formidable And with the bow! Voiceless and white the cold unchanging hill, Poems from Ahana and Other Poems Has it then A mightier presence, deeper mysteries Than human men? The warm low hum of crowds, towns, villages, The sun and rain, The village maidens to the water bound, The happy herds, The fluting of the shepherd lads, the sound Myriad of birds, Speak these not clearer to the heart, convey More subtle words? Here is but great dumb night, an awful day Inert and dead. RISHI The many's voices fill the listening ear, Distract the head: The One is silence; on the snows we hear Silence tread. MANU What hast thou garnered from the crags that lour, The icy field? RISHI O King, I spurned this body's death; a Power There was, concealed, That raised me. Rescued from the pleasant bars Our longings build, My winged soul went up above the stars Questing for God. 223 224 Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 - 1909 MANU Oh, didst thou meet Him then? in what bright field Upon thy road? RISHI I asked the heavenly wanderers as they wheeled For His abode. MANU Could glorious Saturn and his rings of hue Direct thy flight? RISHI Sun could not tell, nor any planet knew Its source of light, Nor could I glean that knowledge though I paced The world's beyond And into outer nothingness have gazed. Time's narrow sound I crossed, the termless flood where on the Snake One slumbers throned, Attempted. But the ages from Him break Blindly and Space Forgets its origin. Then I returned Where luminous blaze Deathless and ageless in their ease unearned The ethereal race. MANU Did the gods tell thee? Has Varuna seen The high God's face? Poems from Ahana and Other Poems RISHI How shall they tell of Him who marvel at sin And smile at grief? MANU Did He not send His blissful Angels down For thy relief? RISHI The Angels know Him not, who fear His frown, Have fixed belief. MANU Is there no heaven of eternal light Where He is found? RISHI The heavens of the Three have beings bright Their portals round, And I have journeyed to those regions blest, Those hills renowned. In Vishnu's house where wide Love builds his nest, My feet have stood. MANU Is he not That, the blue-winged Dove of peace, Father of Good? RISHI Nor Brahma, though the suns and hills and seas Are called his brood. 225 226 Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 - 1909 MANU Is God a dream then? are the heavenly coasts Visions vain? RISHI I came to Shiva's roof; the flitting ghosts Compelled me in. MANU ls He then God whom the forsaken seek, Things of sin? RISHI He sat on being's summit grand, a peak Immense of fire. MANU Knows He the secret of release from tears And from desire? RISHI His voice is the last murmur silence hears, Tranquil and dire. MANU The silence calls us then and shall enclose? RISHI Our true abode Is here and in the pleasant house He chose To harbour God. Poems from Ahana and Other Poems MANU In vain thou hast travelled the unwonted stars And the void hast trod! RISHI King, not in vain. I knew the tedious bars That I had fled, To be His arms whom I have sought; I saw How earth was made Out of His being; I perceived the Law, The Truth, the Vast, From which we came and which we are; I heard The ages past Whisper their history, and I knew the Word That forth was cast Into the unformed potency of things To build the suns. Through endless Space and on Time's iron wings A rhythm runs Our lives pursue, and till the strain's complete That now so moans And falters, we upon this greenness meet, That measure tread. MANU Is earth His seat? this body His poor hold Infirmly made? RISHI I flung off matter like a robe grown old; Matter was dead. 227 228 Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 - 1909 MANU Sages have told of vital force behind: It is God then? RISHI The vital spirits move but as a wind Within men. MANU Mind then is lord that like a sovereign sways Delight and pain? RISHI Mind is His wax to write and, written, rase Form and name. MANU Is Thought not He who has immortal eyes Time cannot dim? RISHI Higher, O King, the still voice bade me rise Than thought's clear dream. Deep in the luminous secrecy, the mute Profound of things, Where murmurs never sound of harp or lute And no voice sings, Light is not, nor our darkness, nor these bright Thunderings, In the deep steady voiceless core of white And burning bliss, The sweet vast centre and the cave divine Called Paradise, Poems from Ahana and Other Poems He dwells within us all who dwells not in Aught that is. MANU Rishi, thy thoughts are like the blazing sun Eye cannot face. How shall our souls on that bright awful One Hope even to gaze Who lights the world from His eternity With a few rays? RISHI Dare on thyself to look, thyself art He, O Aryan, then. There is no thou nor I, beasts of the field, Nor birds, nor men, But flickerings on a many-sided shield Pass, or remain, And this is winged and that with poisonous tongue Hissing coils. We love ourselves and hate ourselves, are wrung With woes and toils To slay ourselves or from ourselves to win Shadowy spoils. And through it all, the rumour and the din, Voices roam, Voices of harps, voices of rolling seas, That rarely come And to our inborn old affinities Call us home. Shadows upon the many-sided Mind Arrive and go, Shadows that shadows see; the vain pomps wind Above, below, While in their hearts the single mighty God Whom none can know, 229 230 Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 - 1909 Guiding the mimic squadrons with His nod Watches it all - Like transient shapes that sweep with half-guessed truth A luminous wall. MANU Alas! is life then vain? Our gorgeous youth Li the and tall, Our sweet fair women with their tender eyes Outshining stars, The mighty meditations of the wise, The grandiose wars, The blood, the fiery strife, the clenched dead hands, The circle sparse, The various labour in a hundred lands, Are all these shows To please some audience cold? as in a vase Lily and rose, Mixed snow and crimson, for a moment blaze Till someone throws The withered petals in some outer dust, Heeding not, - The virtuous man made one with the unjust, Is this our lot? RISHI O King, sight is not vain, nor any sound. Weeds that float Upon a puddle and the majestic round Of the suns Are thoughts eternal, - what man loves to laud And what he shuns; Through glorious things and base the wheel of God For ever runs. O King, no thought is vain; our very dreams Substantial are; Poems from Ahana and Other Poems The light we see in fancy, yonder gleams In the star. MANU Rishi, are we both dreams and real? the near Even as the far? RISHI Dreams are we not, O King, but see dreams, fear Therefore and strive. Like poets in a wondrous world of thought Always we live, Whose shapes from out ourselves to being brought Abide and thrive. The poet from his vast and labouring mind Brings brilliant out A living world; forth into space they wind, The shining rout, And hate and love, and laugh and weep, enjoy, Fight and shout, King, lord and beggar, tender girl and boy, Foemen, friends; So to His creatures God's poetic mind A substance lends. The Poet with dazzling inspiration blind, Until it ends, Forgets Himself and lives in what He forms; For ever His soul Through chaos like a wind creating storms, Till the stars roll Through ordered space and the green lands arise, The snowy Pole, Ocean and this great heaven full of eyes, And sweet sounds heard, Man with his wondrous soul of hate and love, And beast and bird, - 231 232 Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 - 1909 Yes, He creates the worlds and heaven above With a single word; And these things being Himself are real, yet Are they like dreams, For He awakes to self He could forget In what He seems. Yet, King, deem nothing vain: through many veils This Spirit gleams. The dreams of God are truths and He prevails. Then all His time Cherish thyself, O King, and cherish men, Anchored in Him. MANU Upon the silence of the sapphire main Waves that sublime Rise at His word and when that fiat's stilled Are hushed again, So is it, Rishi, with the Spirit concealed, Things and men? RISHI Hear then the truth. Behind this visible world The eyes see plain, Another stands, and in its folds are curled Our waking dreams. Dream is more real, which, while here we wake, Unreal seems. From that our mortal life and thoughts we take. Its fugitive gleams Are here made firm and solid; there they float In a magic haze, Melody swelling note on absolute note, A lyric maze, Beauty on beauty heaped pell-mell to chain The enchanted gaze, Poems from Ahana and Other Poems Thought upon mighty thought with grandiose strain Weaving the stars. This is that world of dream from which our race Came; by these bars Of body now enchained, with laggard pace, Borne down with cares, A little of that rapture to express We labour hard, A little of that beauty, music, thought With toil prepared; And if a single strain is clearly caught, Then our reward Is great on earth, and in the world that floats Lingering awhile We hear the fullness and the jarring notes Reconcile, - Then travel forwards. So we slowly rise, And every mile Of our long journey mark with eager eyes; So we progress With gurge of revolution and recoil, Slaughter and stress Of anguish because without fruit we toil, Without success; Even as a ship upon the stormy flood With fluttering sails Labours towards the shore; the angry mood Of Ocean swells, Calms come and favouring winds, but yet afar The harbour pales In evening mists and Ocean threatens war: Such is our life. Of this be sure, the mighty game goes on, The glorious strife, Until the goal predestined has been won. Not on the cliff To be shattered has our ship set forth of old, 233 234 Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 - 1909 Nor in the surge To founder. Therefore, King, be royal, bold, And through the urge Of winds, the reboant thunders and the close Tempestuous gurge Press on for ever laughing at the blows Of wind and wave. The haven must be reached; we rise from pyre, We rise from grave, We mould our future by our past desire, We break, we save, We find the music that we could not find, The thought think out We could not then perfect, and from the mind That brilliant rout Of wonders marshal into living forms. End then thy doubt; Grieve not for wounds, nor fear the violent storms, For grief and pain Are errors of the clouded soul; behind They do not stain The living spirit who to these is blind. Torture, disdain, Defeat and sorrow give him strength and joy: 'Twas for delight He sought existence, and if pains alloy, 'Tis here in night Which we call day. The Yogin knows, O King, Who in his might Travels beyond the mind's imagining, The worlds of dream. For even they are shadows, even they Are not, - they seem. Behind them is a mighty blissful day From which they stream. The heavens of a million creeds are these: Peopled they teem Poems from Ahana and Other Poems By creatures full of joy and radiant ease. There is the mint From which we are the final issue, types Which here we print In dual letters. There no torture grips, Joy cannot stint Her streams, - beneath a more than mortal sun Through golden air The spirits of the deathless regions run. But we must dare To still the mind into a perfect sleep And leave this lair Of gross material flesh which we would keep Always, before The guardians of felicity will ope The golden door. That is our home and that the secret hope Our hearts explore. To bring those heavens down upon the earth We all descend, And fragments of it in the human birth We can command. Perfect millenniums are sometimes, until In the sweet end All secret heaven upon earth we spill, Then rise above Taking mankind with us to the abode Of rapturous Love, The bright epiphany whom we name God, Towards whom we drove In spite of weakness, evil, grief and pain. He stands behind The worlds of Sleep; He is and shall remain When they grow blind To individual joys; for even these Are shadows, King, And gloriously into that lustre cease 235 236 Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 - 1909 From which they spring. We are but sparks of that most perfect fire, Waves of that sea: From Him we come, to Him we go, desire Eternally, And so long as He wills, our separate birth Is and shall be. Shrink not from life, O Aryan, but with mirth And joy receive His good and evil, sin and virtue, till He bids thee leave. But while thou livest, perfectly fulfil Thy part, conceive Earth as thy stage, thyself the actor strong, The drama His. Work, but the fruits to God alone belong, Who only is. Work, love and know, - so shall thy spirit win Immortal bliss. Love men, love God. Fear not to love, O King, Fear not to enjoy; For Death's a passage, grief a fancied thing Fools to annoy. From self escape and find in love alone A higher joy. MANU O Rishi, I have wide dominion, The earth obeys And heaven opens far beyond the sun Her golden gaze. But Him I seek, the still and perfect One, - The Sun, not rays. Poems from Ahana and Other Poems RISHI Seek Him upon the earth. For thee He set In the huge press Of many worlds to build a mighty state For man's success, Who seeks his goal. Perfect thy human might, Perfect the race. For thou art He, O King. Only the night Is on thy soul By thy own will. Remove it and recover The serene whole Thou art indeed, then raise up man the lover To God the goal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, - The Rishi ,

886: XXI - WALPURGIS-NIGHT THE HARTZ MOUNTAINS. District of Schierke and Elend. FAUST MEPHISTOPHELES MEPHISTOPHELES DOST thou not wish a broomstick-steed's assistance? The sturdiest he-goat I would gladly see: The way we take, our goal is yet some distance. FAUST So long as in my legs I feel the fresh existence. This knotted staff suffices me. What need to shorten so the way? Along this labyrinth of vales to wander, Then climb the rocky ramparts yonder, Wherefrom the fountain flings eternal spray, Is such delight, my steps would fain delay. The spring-time stirs within the fragrant birches, And even the fir-tree feels it now: Should then our limbs escape its gentle searches? MEPHISTOPHELES I notice no such thing, I vow! 'Tis winter still within my body: Upon my path I wish for frost and snow. How sadly rises, incomplete and ruddy, The moon's lone disk, with its belated glow, And lights so dimly, that, as one advances, At every step one strikes a rock or tree! Let us, then, use a Jack-o'-lantern's glances: I see one yonder, burning merrily. Ho, there! my friend! I'll levy thine attendance: Why waste so vainly thy resplendence? Be kind enough to light us up the steep! WILL-O'-THE-WISP My reverence, I hope, will me enable To curb my temperament unstable; For zigzag courses we are wont to keep. MEPHISTOPHELES Indeed? he'd like mankind to imitate! Now, in the Devil's name, go straight, Or I'll blow out his being's flickering spark! WILL-O'-THE-WISP You are the master of the house, I mark, And I shall try to serve you nicely. But then, reflect: the mountain's magic-mad to-day, And if a will-o'-the-wisp must guide you on the way, You mustn't take things too precisely. FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, WILL-O'-THE-WISP (in alternating song) We, it seems, have entered newly In the sphere of dreams enchanted. Do thy bidding, guide us truly, That our feet be forwards planted In the vast, the desert spaces! See them swiftly changing places, Trees on trees beside us trooping, And the crags above us stooping, And the rocky snouts, outgrowing, Hear them snoring, hear them blowing! O'er the stones, the grasses, flowing Stream and streamlet seek the hollow. Hear I noises? songs that follow? Hear I tender love-petitions? Voices of those heavenly visions? Sounds of hope, of love undying! And the echoes, like traditions Of old days, come faint and hollow. Hoo-hoo! Shoo-hoo! Nearer hover Jay and screech-owl, and the plover, Are they all awake and crying? Is't the salamander pushes, Bloated-bellied, through the bushes? And the roots, like serpents twisted, Through the sand and boulders toiling, Fright us, weirdest links uncoiling To entrap us, unresisted: Living knots and gnarls uncanny Feel with polypus-antennae For the wanderer. Mice are flying, Thousand-colored, herd-wise hieing Through the moss and through the heather! And the fire-flies wink and darkle, Crowded swarms that soar and sparkle, And in wildering escort gather! Tell me, if we still are standing, Or if further we're ascending? All is turning, whirling, blending, Trees and rocks with grinning faces, Wandering lights that spin in mazes, Still increasing and expanding! MEPHISTOPHELES Grasp my skirt with heart undaunted! Here a middle-peak is planted, Whence one seeth, with amaze, Mammon in the mountain blaze. FAUST How strangely glimmers through the hollows A dreary light, like that of dawn! Its exhalation tracks and follows The deepest gorges, faint and wan. Here steam, there rolling vapor sweepeth; Here burns the glow through film and haze: Now like a tender thread it creepeth, Now like a fountain leaps and plays. Here winds away, and in a hundred Divided veins the valley braids: There, in a corner pressed and sundered, Itself detaches, spreads and fades. Here gush the sparkles incandescent Like scattered showers of golden sand; But, see! in all their height, at present, The rocky ramparts blazing stand. Under the old ribs of the rock retreating Under the old ribs of the rock retreating MEPHISTOPHELES Has not Sir Mammon grandly lighted His palace for this festal night? 'Tis lucky thou hast seen the sight; The boisterous guests approach that were invited. FAUST How raves the tempest through the air! With what fierce blows upon my neck 'tis beating! MEPHISTOPHELES Under the old ribs of the rock retreating, Hold fast, lest thou be hurled down the abysses there! The night with the mist is black; Hark! how the forests grind and crack! Frightened, the owlets are scattered: Hearken! the pillars are shattered. The evergreen palaces shaking! Boughs are groaning and breaking, The tree-trunks terribly thunder, The roots are twisting asunder! In frightfully intricate crashing Each on the other is dashing, And over the wreck-strewn gorges The tempest whistles and surges! Hear'st thou voices higher ringing? Far away, or nearer singing? Yes, the mountain's side along, Sweeps an infuriate glamouring song! WITCHES (in chorus) The witches ride to the Brocken's top, The stubble is yellow, and green the crop. There gathers the crowd for carnival: Sir Urian sits over all. And so they go over stone and stock; The witch she-s, and-s the buck. A VOICE Alone, old Baubo's coming now; She rides upon a farrow-sow. CHORUS Then honor to whom the honor is due! Dame Baubo first, to lead the crew! A tough old sow and the mother thereon, Then follow the witches, every one. A VOICE Which way com'st thou hither? VOICE O'er the Ilsen-stone. I peeped at the owl in her nest alone: How she stared and glared! VOICE Betake thee to Hell! Why so fast and so fell? VOICE She has scored and has flayed me: See the wounds she has made me! WITCHES (chorus) The way is wide, the way is long: See, what a wild and crazy throng! The broom it scratches, the fork it thrusts, The child is stifled, the mother bursts. WIZARDS (semichorus) As doth the snail in shell, we crawl: Before us go the women all. When towards the Devil's House we tread, Woman's a thousand steps ahead. OTHER SEMICHORUS We do not measure with such care: Woman in thousand steps is theft. But howsoe'er she hasten may, Man in one leap has cleared the way. VOICE (from above) Come on, come on, from Rocky Lake! VOICE (from below) Aloft we'd fain ourselves betake. We've washed, and are bright as ever you will, Yet we're eternally sterile still. BOTH CHORUSES The wind is hushed, the star shoots by. The dreary moon forsakes the sky; The magic notes, like spark on spark, Drizzle, whistling through the dark. VOICE (from below) Halt, there! Ho, there! VOICE (from above) Who calls from the rocky cleft below there? VOICE (below) Take me, too! take me, too! I'm climbing now three hundred years, And yet the summit cannot see: Among my equals I would be. BOTH CHORUSES Bears the broom and bears the stock, Bears the fork and bears the buck: Who cannot raise himself to-night Is evermore a ruined wight. HALF-WITCH (below) So long I stumble, ill bestead, And the others are now so far ahead! At home I've neither rest nor cheer, And yet I cannot gain them here. CHORUS OF WITCHES To cheer the witch will salve avail; A rag will answer for a sail; Each trough a goodly ship supplies; He ne'er will fly, who now not flies. BOTH CHORUSES When round the summit whirls our flight, Then lower, and on the ground alight; And far and wide the heather press With witchhood's swarms of wantonness! (They settle down.) MEPHISTOPHELES They crowd and push, they roar and clatter! They whirl and whistle, pull and chatter! They shine, and spirt, and stink, and burn! The true witch-element we learn. Keep close! or we are parted, in our turn, Where art thou? FAUST (in the distance) Here! MEPHISTOPHELES What! whirled so far astray? Then house-right I must use, and clear the way. Make room! Squire Voland comes! Room, gentle rabble, room! Here, Doctor, hold to me: in one jump we'll resume An easier space, and from the crowd be free: It's too much, even for the like of me. Yonder, with special light, there's something shining clearer Within those bushes; I've a mind to see. Come on! we'll slip a little nearer. FAUST Spirit of Contradiction! On! I'll follow straight. 'Tis planned most wisely, if I judge aright: We climb the Brocken's top in the Walpurgis-Night, That arbitrarily, here, ourselves we isolate. MEPHISTOPHELES But see, what motley flames among the heather! There is a lively club together: In smaller circles one is not alone. FAUST Better the summit, I must own: There fire and whirling smoke I see. They seek the Evil One in wild confusion: Many enigmas there might find solution. MEPHISTOPHELES But there enigmas also knotted be. Leave to the multitude their riot! Here will we house ourselves in quiet. It is an old, transmitted trade, That in the greater world the little worlds are made. I see stark-nude young witches congregate, And old ones, veiled and hidden shrewdly: On my account be kind, nor treat them rudely! The trouble's small, the fun is great. I hear the noise of instruments attuning, Vile din! yet one must learn to bear the crooning. Come, come along! It must be, I declare! I'll go ahead and introduce thee there, Thine obligation newly earning. That is no little space: what say'st thou, friend? Look yonder! thou canst scarcely see the end: A hundred fires along the ranks are burning. They dance, they chat, they cook, they drink, they court: Now where, just tell me, is there better sport? FAUST Wilt thou, to introduce us to the revel, Assume the part of wizard or of devil? MEPHISTOPHELES I'm mostly used, 'tis true, to go incognito, But on a gala-day one may his orders show. The Garter does not deck my suit, But honored and at home is here the cloven foot. Perceiv'st thou yonder snail? It cometh, slow and steady; So delicately its feelers pry, That it hath scented me already: I cannot here disguise me, if I try. But come! we'll go from this fire to a newer: I am the go-between, and thou the wooer. (To some, who are sitting around dying embers:) Old gentlemen, why at the outskirts? Enter! I'd praise you if I found you snugly in the centre, With youth and revel round you like a zone: You each, at home, are quite enough alone. GENERAL Say, who would put his trust in nations, Howe'er for them one may have worked and planned? For with the people, as with women, Youth always has the upper hand. MINISTER They're now too far from what is just and sage. I praise the old ones, not unduly: When we were all-in-all, then, truly, Then was the real golden age. PARVENU We also were not stupid, either, And what we should not, often did; But now all things have from their bases slid, Just as we meant to hold them fast together. AUTHOR Who, now, a work of moderate sense will read? Such works are held as antiquate and mossy; And as regards the younger folk, indeed, They never yet have been so pert and saucy. MEPHISTOPHELES (who all at once appears very old) I feel that men are ripe for Judgment-Day, Now for the last time I've the witches'-hill ascended: Since to the lees my cask is drained away, The world's, as well, must soon be ended. HUCKSTER-WITCH Ye gentlemen, don't pass me thus! Let not the chance neglected be! Behold my wares attentively: The stock is rare and various. And yet, there's nothing I've collected No shop, on earth, like this you'll find! Which has not, once, sore hurt inflicted Upon the world, and on mankind. No dagger's here, that set not blood to flowing; No cup, that hath not once, within a healthy frame Poured speedy death, in poison glowing: No gems, that have not brought a maid to shame; No sword, but severed ties for the unwary, Or from behind struck down the adversary. MEPHISTOPHELES Gossip! the times thou badly comprehendest: What's done has happedwhat haps, is done! 'Twere better if for novelties thou sendest: By such alone can we be won. FAUST Let me not lose myself in all this pother! This is a fair, as never was another! MEPHISTOPHELES The whirlpool swirls to get above: Thou'rt shoved thyself, imagining to shove. FAUST But who is that? MEPHISTOPHELES Note her especially, Tis Lilith. FAUST Who? MEPHISTOPHELES Adam's first wife is she. Beware the lure within her lovely tresses, The splendid sole adornment of her hair! When she succeeds therewith a youth to snare, Not soon again she frees him from her jesses. FAUST Those two, the old one with the young one sitting, They've danced already more than fitting. MEPHISTOPHELES No rest to-night for young or old! They start another dance: come now, let us take hold! FAUST (dancing with the young witch) A lovely dream once came to me; I then beheld an apple-tree, And there two fairest apples shone: They lured me so, I climbed thereon. THE FAIR ONE Apples have been desired by you, Since first in Paradise they grew; And I am moved with joy, to know That such within my garden grow. MEPHISTOPHELES (dancing with the old one) A dissolute dream once came to me: Therein I saw a cloven tree, Which had a; Yet,as 'twas, I fancied it. THE OLD ONE I offer here my best salute Unto the knight with cloven foot! Let him aprepare, If himdoes not scare. PROKTOPHANTASMIST Accursd folk! How dare you venture thus? Had you not, long since, demonstration That ghosts can't stand on ordinary foundation? And now you even dance, like one of us! THE FAIR ONE (dancing) Why does he come, then, to our ball? FAUST (dancing) O, everywhere on him you fall! When others dance, he weighs the matter: If he can't every step bechatter, Then 'tis the same as were the step not made; But if you forwards go, his ire is most displayed. If you would whirl in regular gyration As he does in his dull old mill, He'd show, at any rate, good-will, Especially if you heard and heeded his hortation. PROKTOPHANTASMIST You still are here? Nay, 'tis a thing unheard! Vanish, at once! We've said the enlightening word. The pack of devils by no rules is daunted: We are so wise, and yet is Tegel haunted. To clear the folly out, how have I swept and stirred! Twill ne'er be clean: why, 'tis a thing unheard! THE FAIR ONE Then cease to bore us at our ball! PROKTOPHANTASMIST I tell you, spirits, to your face, I give to spirit-despotism no place; My spirit cannot practise it at all. (The dance continues) Naught will succeed, I see, amid such revels; Yet something from a tour I always save, And hope, before my last step to the grave, To overcome the poets and the devils. MEPHISTOPHELES He now will seat him in the nearest puddle; The solace this, whereof he's most assured: And when upon his rump the leeches hang and fuddle, He'll be of spirits and of Spirit cured. (To FAUST, who has left the dance:) Wherefore forsakest thou the lovely maiden, That in the dance so sweetly sang? FAUST Ah! in the midst of it there sprang A red mouse from her mouthsufficient reason. MEPHISTOPHELES That's nothing! One must not so squeamish be; So the mouse was not gray, enough for thee. Who'd think of that in love's selected season? FAUST Then saw I. MEPHISTOPHELES What? FAUST Mephisto, seest thou there, Alone and far, a girl most pale and fair? She falters on, her way scarce knowing, As if with fettered feet that stay her going. I must confess, it seems to me As if my kindly Margaret were she. MEPHISTOPHELES Let the thing be! All thence have evil drawn: It is a magic shape, a lifeless eidolon. Such to encounter is not good: Their blank, set stare benumbs the human blood, And one is almost turned to stone. Medusa's tale to thee is known. FAUST Forsooth, the eyes they are of one whom, dying, No hand with loving pressure closed; That is the breast whereon I once was lying, The body sweet, beside which I reposed! MEPHISTOPHELES Tis magic all, thou fool, seduced so easily! Unto each man his love she seems to be. FAUST The woe, the rapture, so ensnare me, That from her gaze I cannot tear me! And, strange! around her fairest throat A single scarlet band is gleaming, No broader than a knife-blade seeming! MEPHISTOPHELES Quite right! The mark I also note. Her head beneath her arm she'll sometimes carry; Twas Perseus lopped it, her old adversary. Thou crav'st the same illusion still! Come, let us mount this little hill; The Prater shows no livelier stir, And, if they've not bewitched my sense, I verily see a theatre. What's going on? SERVIBILIS 'Twill shortly recommence: A new performance'tis the last of seven. To give that number is the custom here: 'Twas by a Dilettante written, And Dilettanti in the parts appear. That now I vanish, pardon, I entreat you! As Dilettante I the curtain raise. MEPHISTOPHELES When I upon the Blocksberg meet you, I find it good: for that's your proper place. Faust ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, WALPURGIS-NIGHT ,

887:The Conference Grace said in form, which sceptics must agree, When they are told that grace was said by me; The servants gone to break the scurvy jest On the proud landlord, and his threadbare guest; 'The King' gone round, my lady too withdrawn; My lord, in usual taste, began to yawn, And, lolling backward in his elbow-chair, With an insipid kind of stupid stare, Picking his teeth, twirling his seals about-Churchill, you have a poem coming out: You've my best wishes; but I really fear Your Muse, in general, is too severe; Her spirit seems her interest to oppose, And where she makes one friend, makes twenty foes. _C_. Your lordship's fears are just; I feel their force, But only feel it as a thing of course. The man whose hardy spirit shall engage To lash, the vices of a guilty age, At his first setting forward ought to know That every rogue he meets must be his foe; That the rude breath of satire will provoke Many who feel, and more who fear the stroke. But shall the partial rage of selfish men From stubborn Justice wrench the righteous pen? Or shall I not my settled course pursue, Because my foes are foes to Virtue too? _L_. What is this boasted Virtue, taught in schools, And idly drawn from antiquated rules? What is her use? Point out one wholesome end. Will she hurt foes, or can she make a friend? When from long fasts fierce appetites arise, Can this same Virtue stifle Nature's cries? Can she the pittance of a meal afford, Or bid thee welcome to one great man's board? When northern winds the rough December arm With frost and snow, can Virtue keep thee warm? Canst thou dismiss the hard unfeeling dun Barely by saying, thou art Virtue's son? Or by base blundering statesmen sent to jail, 128 Will Mansfield take this Virtue for thy bail? Believe it not, the name is in disgrace; Virtue and Temple now are out of place. Quit then this meteor, whose delusive ray Prom wealth and honour leads thee far astray. True virtue means--let Reason use her eyes-Nothing with fools, and interest with the wise. Wouldst thou be great, her patronage disclaim, Nor madly triumph in so mean a name: Let nobler wreaths thy happy brows adorn, And leave to Virtue poverty and scorn. Let Prudence be thy guide; who doth not know How seldom Prudence can with Virtue go? To be successful try thy utmost force, And Virtue follows as a thing of course. Hirco--who knows not Hirco?--stains the bed Of that kind master who first gave him bread; Scatters the seeds of discord through the land, Breaks every public, every private band; Beholds with joy a trusting friend undone; Betrays a brother, and would cheat a son: What mortal in his senses can endure The name of Hirco? for the wretch is poor! Let him hang, drown, starve, on a dunghill rot, By all detested live, and die forgot; Let him--a poor return--in every breath Feel all Death's pains, yet be whole years in death, Is now the general cry we all pursue. Let Fortune change, and Prudence changes too; Supple and pliant, a new system feels, Throws up her cap, and spaniels at his heels: Long live great Hirco, cries, by interest taught, And let his foes, though I prove one, be nought. _C_. Peace to such men, if such men can have peace; Let their possessions, let their state increase; Let their base services in courts strike root, And in the season bring forth golden fruit. I envy not; let those who have the will, And, with so little spirit, so much skill, With such vile instruments their fortunes carve; Rogues may grow fat, an honest man dares starve. _L_. These stale conceits thrown off, let us advance 129 For once to real life, and quit romance. Starve! pretty talking! but I fain would view That man, that honest man, would do it too. Hence to yon mountain which outbraves the sky, And dart from pole to pole thy strengthen'd eye, Through all that space you shall not view one man, Not one, who dares to act on such a plan. Cowards in calms will say, what in a storm The brave will tremble at, and not perform. Thine be the proof, and, spite of all you've said, You'd give your honour for a crust of bread. _C_. What proof might do, what hunger might effect, What famish'd Nature, looking with neglect On all she once held dear; what fear, at strife With fainting virtue for the means of life, Might make this coward flesh, in love with breath, Shuddering at pain, and shrinking back from death, In treason to my soul, descend to boar, Trusting to fate, I neither know nor care. Once,--at this hour those wounds afresh I feel, Which, nor prosperity, nor time, can heal; Those wounds which Fate severely hath decreed, Mention'd or thought of, must for ever bleed; Those wounds which humbled all that pride of man, Which brings such mighty aid to Virtue's plan-Once, awed by Fortune's most oppressive frown, By legal rapine to the earth bow'd clown, My credit at last gasp, my state undone, Trembling to meet the shock I could not shun, Virtue gave ground, and blank despair prevail'd; Sinking beneath the storm, my spirits fail'd Like Peter's faith, till one, a friend indeed-May all distress find such in time of need!-One kind good man, in act, in word, in thought, By Virtue guided, and by Wisdom taught, Image of Him whom Christians should adore, Stretch'd forth his hand, and brought me safe to shore. Since, by good fortune into notice raised, And for some little merit largely praised, Indulged in swerving from prudential rules, Hated by rogues, and not beloved by fools; Placed above want, shall abject thirst of wealth, 130 So fiercely war 'gainst my soul's dearest health, That, as a boon, I should base shackles crave, And, born to freedom, make myself a slave? That I should in the train of those appear, Whom Honour cannot love, nor Manhood fear? That I no longer skulk from street to street, Afraid lest duns assail, and bailiffs meet; That I from place to place this carcase bear; Walk forth at large, and wander free as air; That I no longer dread the awkward friend. Whose very obligations must offend; Nor, all too froward, with impatience burn At suffering favours which I can't return; That, from dependence and from pride secure, I am not placed so high to scorn the poor, Nor yet so low that I my lord should fear, Or hesitate to give him sneer for sneer; That, whilst sage Prudence my pursuits confirms, I can enjoy the world on equal terms; That, kind to others, to myself most true, Feeling no want, I comfort those who do, And, with the will, have power to aid distress: These, and what other blessings I possess, From the indulgence of the public rise, All private patronage my soul defies. By candour more inclined to save, than damn, A generous Public made me what I am. All that I have, they gave; just Memory bears The grateful stamp, and what I am is theirs. _L_. To feign a red-hot zeal for Freedom's cause, To mouth aloud for liberties and laws, For public good to bellow all abroad, Serves well the purposes of private fraud. Prudence, by public good intends her own; If you mean otherwise, you stand alone. What do we mean by country and by court? What is it to oppose? what to support? Mere words of course; and what is more absurd Than to pay homage to an empty word? Majors and minors differ but in name; Patriots and ministers are much the same; The only difference, after all their rout, 131 Is, that the one is in, the other out. Explore the dark recesses of the mind, In the soul's honest volume read mankind, And own, in wise and simple, great and small, The same grand leading principle in all. Whate'er we talk of wisdom to the wise, Of goodness to the good, of public ties Which to our country link, of private bands Which claim most dear attention at our hands; For parent and for child, for wife and friend, Our first great mover, and our last great end Is one, and, by whatever name we call The ruling tyrant, Self is all in all. This, which unwilling Faction shall admit, Guided in different ways a Bute and Pitt; Made tyrants break, made kings observe the law; And gave the world a Stuart and Nassau. Hath Nature (strange and wild conceit of pride!) Distinguished thee from all her sons beside? Doth virtue in thy bosom brighter glow, Or from a spring more pure doth action flow? Is not thy soul bound with those very chains Which shackle us? or is that Self, which reigns O'er kings and beggars, which in all we see Most strong and sovereign, only weak in thee? Fond man, believe it not; experience tells 'Tis not thy virtue, but thy pride rebels. Think, (and for once lay by thy lawless pen) Think, and confess thyself like other men; Think but one hour, and, to thy conscience led By Reason's hand, bow down and hang thy head: Think on thy private life, recall thy youth, View thyself now, and own, with strictest truth, That Self hath drawn thee from fair Virtue's way Farther than Folly would have dared to stray; And that the talents liberal Nature gave, To make thee free, have made thee more a slave. Quit then, in prudence quit, that idle train Of toys, which have so long abused thy brain. And captive led thy powers; with boundless will Let Self maintain her state and empire still; But let her, with more worthy objects caught, 132 Strain all the faculties and force of thought To things of higher daring; let her range Through better pastures, and learn how to change; Let her, no longer to weak Faction tied, Wisely revolt, and join our stronger side. _C_. Ah! what, my lord, hath private life to do With things of public nature? Why to view Would you thus cruelly those scenes unfold Which, without pain and horror to behold, Must speak me something more or less than man, Which friends may pardon, but I never can? Look back! a thought which borders on despair, Which human nature must, yet cannot bear. 'Tis not the babbling of a busy world, Where praise and censure are at random hurl'd, Which can the meanest of my thoughts control, Or shake one settled purpose of my soul; Free and at large might their wild curses roam, If all, if all, alas! were well at home. No--'tis the tale which angry Conscience tells, When she with more than tragic horror swells Each circumstance of guilt; when, stern but true, She brings bad actions forth into review; And like the dread handwriting on the wall, Bids late Remorse awake at Reason's call; Arm'd at all points, bids scorpion Vengeance pass, And to the mind holds up Reflection's glass,-The mind which, starting, heaves the heartfelt groan, And hates that form she knows to be her own. Enough of this,--let private sorrows rest,-As to the public, I dare stand the test; Dare proudly boast, I feel no wish above The good of England, and my country's love. Stranger to party-rage, by Reason's voice, Unerring guide! directed in my choice, Not all the tyrant powers of earth combined, No, nor of hell, shall make me change my mind. What! herd with men my honest soul disdains, Men who, with servile zeal, are forging chains For Freedom's neck, and lend a helping hand To spread destruction o'er my native land? What! shall I not, e'en to my latest breath, 133 In the full face of danger and of death, Exert that little strength which Nature gave, And boldly stem, or perish in the wave? _L_. When I look backward for some fifty years, And see protesting patriots turn'd to peers; Hear men, most loose, for decency declaim, And talk of character, without a name; See infidels assert the cause of God, And meek divines wield Persecution's rod; See men transferred to brutes, and brutes to men; See Whitehead take a place, Ralph change his pen; I mock the zeal, and deem the men in sport, Who rail at ministers, and curse a court. Thee, haughty as thou art, and proud in rhyme, Shall some preferment, offer'd at a time When Virtue sleeps, some sacrifice to Pride, Or some fair victim, move to change thy side. Thee shall these eyes behold, to health restored, Using, as Prudence bids, bold Satire's sword, Galling thy present friends, and praising those Whom now thy frenzy holds thy greatest foes. _C_. May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall?) Be born a Whitehead, and baptized a Paul; May I (though to his service deeply tied By sacred oaths, and now by will allied), With false, feign'd zeal an injured God defend, And use his name for some base private end; May I (that thought bids double horrors roll O'er my sick spirits, and unmans my soul) Ruin the virtue which I held most dear, And still must hold; may I, through abject fear, Betray my friend; may to succeeding times, Engraved on plates of adamant, my crimes Stand blazing forth, whilst, mark'd with envious blot, Each little act of virtue is forgot; Of all those evils which, to stamp men cursed, Hell keeps in store for vengeance, may the worst Light on my head; and in my day of woe, To make the cup of bitterness o'erflow, May I be scorn'd by every man of worth, Wander, like Cain, a vagabond on earth; Bearing about a hell in my own mind, 134 Or be to Scotland for my life confined; If I am one among the many known Whom Shelburne fled, and Calcraft blush'd to own. _L_. Do you reflect what men you make your foes? _C_. I do, and that's the reason I oppose. Friends I have made, whom Envy must commend, But not one foe whom I would wish a friend. What if ten thousand Butes and Hollands bawl? One Wilkes had made a large amends for all. 'Tis not the title, whether handed down From age to age, or flowing from the crown In copious streams, on recent men, who came From stems unknown, and sires without a name: Tis not the star which our great Edward gave To mark the virtuous, and reward the brave, Blazing without, whilst a base heart within Is rotten to the core with filth and sin; 'Tis not the tinsel grandeur, taught to wait, At Custom's call, to mark a fool of state From fools of lesser note, that soul can awe, Whose pride is reason, whose defence is law. _L_. Suppose, (a thing scarce possible in art, Were it thy cue to play a common part) Suppose thy writings so well fenced in law, That Norton cannot find nor make a flaw-Hast thou not heard, that 'mongst our ancient tribes, By party warp'd, or lull'd asleep by bribes, Or trembling at the ruffian hand of Force, Law hath suspended stood, or changed its course? Art thou assured, that, for destruction ripe, Thou may'st not smart beneath the self-same gripe? What sanction hast thou, frantic in thy rhymes, Thy life, thy freedom to secure? _G_. The Times. 'Tis not on law, a system great and good, By wisdom penn'd, and bought by noblest blood, My faith relies; by wicked men and vain, Law, once abused, may be abused again. No; on our great Lawgiver I depend, Who knows and guides her to her proper end; 135 Whose royalty of nature blazes out So fierce, 'twere sin to entertain a doubt. Did tyrant Stuarts now the law dispense, (Bless'd be the hour and hand which sent them hence!) For something, or for nothing, for a word Or thought, I might be doom'd to death, unheard. Life we might all resign to lawless power, Nor think it worth the purchase of an hour; But Envy ne'er shall fix so foul a stain On the fair annals of a Brunswick's reign. If, slave to party, to revenge, or pride; If, by frail human error drawn aside, I break the law, strict rigour let her wear; 'Tis hers to punish, and 'tis mine to bear; Nor, by the voice of Justice doom'd to death Would I ask mercy with my latest breath: But, anxious only for my country's good, In which my king's, of course, is understood; Form'd on a plan with some few patriot friends, Whilst by just means I aim at noblest ends, My spirits cannot sink; though from the tomb Stern Jeffries should be placed in Mansfield's room; Though he should bring, his base designs to aid, Some black attorney, for his purpose made, And shove, whilst Decency and Law retreat, The modest Norton from his maiden seat; Though both, in ill confederates, should agree, In damned league, to torture law and me, Whilst George is king, I cannot fear endure; Not to be guilty, is to be secure. But when, in after-times, (be far removed That day!) our monarch, glorious and beloved, Sleeps with his fathers, should imperious Fate, In vengeance, with fresh Stuarts curse our state; Should they, o'erleaping every fence of law, Butcher the brave to keep tame fools in awe; Should they, by brutal and oppressive force, Divert sweet Justice from her even course; Should they, of every other means bereft, Make my right hand a witness 'gainst my left; Should they, abroad by inquisitions taught, Search out my soul, and damn me for a thought; 136 Still would I keep my course, still speak, still write, Till Death had plunged me in the shades of night. Thou God of truth, thou great, all-searching eye, To whom our thoughts, our spirits, open lie! Grant me thy strength, and in that needful hour, (Should it e'er come) when Law submits to Power, With firm resolve my steady bosom steel, Bravely to suffer, though I deeply feel. Let me, as hitherto, still draw my breath, In love with life, but not in fear of death; And if Oppression brings me to the grave, And marks me dead, she ne'er shall mark a slave. Let no unworthy marks of grief be heard, No wild laments, not one unseemly word; Let sober triumphs wait upon my bier; I won't forgive that friend who drops one tear. Whether he's ravish'd in life's early morn, Or in old age drops like an ear of corn, Full ripe he falls, on Nature's noblest plan, Who lives to Reason, and who dies a Man. ~ Charles Churchill,

888:The Kalevala - Rune Xxiv THE BRIDE'S FAREWELL. Osmotar, the bride-instructor, Gives the wedding-guests this counsel, Speaks these measures to the bridegroom: 'Ilmarinen, artist-brother, Best of all my hero-brothers, Of my mother's sons the dearest, Gentlest, truest, bravest, grandest, Listen well to what I tell thee Of the Maiden of the Rainbow, Of thy beauteous life-companion Bridegroom, praise thy fate hereafter, Praise forever thy good fortune; If thou praisest, praise sincerely, Good the maiden thou hast wedded, Good the bride that Ukko gives thee, Graciously has God bestowed her. Sound her praises to thy father, Praise her virtues to thy mother, Let thy heart rejoice in secret, That thou hast the Bride of Beauty, Lovely Maiden of the Rainbow! 'Brilliant near thee stands the maiden, At thy shoulder thy companion, Happy under thy protection, Beautiful as golden moonlight, Beautiful upon thy bosom, Strong to do thy kindly bidding, Labor with thee as thou wishest, Rake the hay upon thy meadows, Keep thy home in full perfection, Spin for thee the finest linen, Weave for thee the richest fabrics, Make for thee the softest raiment, Make thy weaver's loom as merry As the cuckoo of the forest; Make the shuttle glide in beauty 396 Like the ermine of the woodlands; Make the spindle twirl as deftly As the squirrel spins the acorn; Village-maidens will not slumber While thy young bride's loom is humming, While she plies the graceful shuttle. 'Bridegroom of the Bride of Beauty, Noblest of the Northland heroes, Forge thyself a scythe for mowing, Furnish it with oaken handle, Carve it in thine ancient smithy, Hammer it upon thine anvil, Have it ready for the summer, For the merry days of sunshine; Take thy bride then to the lowlands, Mow the grass upon thy meadows, Rake the hay when it is ready, Make the reeds and grasses rustle, Toss the fragrant heads of clover, Make thy hay in Kalevala When the silver sun is shining. 'When the time has come for weaving, To the loom attract the weaver, Give to her the spools and shuttles, Let the willing loom be worthy, Beautiful the frame and settle; Give to her what may be needed, That the weaver's song may echo, That the lathe may swing and rattle, Ma y be heard within the village, That the aged may remark it, And the village-maidens question: 'Who is she that now is weaving, What new power now plies the shuttle?' 'Make this answer to the question: 'It is my beloved weaving, My young bride that plies the shuttle.' 'Shall the weaver's weft be loosened, Shall the young bride's loom be tightened? Do not let the weft be loosened, Nor the weaver's loom be tightened; Such the weaving of the daughters 397 Of the Moon beyond the cloudlets; Such the spinning of the maidens Of the Sun in high Jumala, Of the daughters of the Great Bear, Of the daughters of the Evening. Bridegroom, thou beloved hero, Brave descendant of thy fathers, When thou goest on a journey, When thou drivest on the highway, Driving with the Rainbow-daughter, Fairest bride of Sariola, Do not lead her as a titmouse, As a cuckoo of the forest, Into unfrequented places, Into copses of the borders, Into brier-fields and brambles, Into unproductive marshes; Let her wander not, nor stumble On opposing rocks and rubbish. Never in her father's dwelling, Never in her mother's court-yard, Has she fallen into ditches, Stumbled hard against the fences, Run through brier-fields, nor brambles, Fallen over rocks, nor rubbish. 'Magic bridegroom of Wainola, Wise descendant of the heroes, Never let thy young wife suffer, Never let her be neglected, Never let her sit in darkness, Never leave her unattended. Never in her father's mansion, In the chambers of her mother, Has she sat alone in darkness, Has she suffered for attention; Sat she by the crystal window, Sat and rocked, in peace and plenty, Evenings for her father's pleasure, Mornings for her mother's sunshine. Never mayest thou, O bridegroom, Lead the Maiden of the Rainbow To the mortar filled with sea-grass, 398 There to grind the bark for cooking, There to bake her bread from stubble, There to knead her dough from tan-bark Never in her father's dwelling, Never in her mother's mansion, Was she taken to the mortar, There to bake her bread from sea-grass. Thou shouldst lead the Bride of Beauty To the garner's rich abundance, There to draw the till of barley, Grind the flour and knead for baking, There to brew the beer for drinking, Wheaten flour for honey-biscuits. 'Hero-bridegroom of Wainola, Never cause thy Bride of Beauty To regret her day of marriage; Never make her shed a tear-drop, Never fill her cup with sorrow. Should there ever come an evening When thy wife shall feel unhappy, Put the harness on thy racer, Hitch the fleet-foot to the snow-sled; Take her to her father's dwelling, To the household of her mother; Never in thy hero-lifetime, Never while the moonbeams glimmer, Give thy fair spouse evil treatment, Never treat her as thy servant; Do not bar her from the cellar, Do not lock thy best provisions Never in her father's mansion, Never by her faithful mother Was she treated as a hireling. Honored bridegroom of the Northland, Proud descendant of the fathers, If thou treatest well thy young wife, Worthily wilt thou be treated; When thou goest to her homestead, When thou visitest her father, Thou shalt meet a cordial welcome. 'Censure not the Bride of Beauty, Never grieve thy Rainbow-maiden, 399 Never say in tones reproachful, She was born in lowly station, That her father was unworthy; Honored are thy bride's relations, From an old-time tribe, her kindred; When of corn they sowed a measure, Each one's portion was a kernel; When they sowed a cask of flax-seed, Each received a thread of linen. Never, never, magic husband, Treat thy beauty-bride unkindly, Teach her not with lash of servants, Strike her not with thongs of leather; Never has she wept in anguish From the birch-whip of her mother. Stand before her like a rampart, Be to her a strong protection, Do not let thy mother chide her, Let thy father not upbraid her, Never let thy guests offend her; Should thy servants bring annoyance, They may need the master's censure; Do not harm the Bride of Beauty, Never injure her thou lovest; Three long years hast thou been wooing, Hoping every mouth to win her. 'Counsel with the bride of heaven, To thy young wife give instruction, Kindly teach thy bride in secret, In the long and dreary evenings, When thou sittest at the fireside; Teach one year, in words of kindness, Teach with eyes of love a second, In the third year teach with firmness. If she should not heed thy teaching, Should not hear thy kindly counsel After three long years of effort, Cut a reed upon the lowlands, Cut a nettle from the border, Teach thy wife with harder measures. In the fourth year, if she heed not, Threaten her with sterner treatment, 400 With the stalks of rougher edges, Use not yet the thongs of leather, Do not touch her with the birch-whip. If she does not heed this warning, Should she pay thee no attention, Cut a rod upon the mountains, Or a willow in the valleys, Hide it underneath thy mantle, That the stranger may not see it, Show it to thy wife in secret, Shame her thus to do her duty, Strike not yet, though disobeying. Should she disregard this warning, Still refuse to heed thy wishes, Then instruct her with the willow, Use the birch-rod from the mountains In the closet of thy dwelling, In the attic of thy mansion; Strike, her not upon the common, Do not conquer her in public, Lest the villagers should see thee, Lest the neighbors hear her weeping, And the forests learn thy troubles. Touch thy wife upon the shoulders, Let her stiffened back be softened. Do not touch her on the forehead, Nor upon the ears, nor visage; If a ridge be on her forehead, Or a blue mark on her eyelids, Then her mother would perceive it, And her father would take notice, All the village-workmen see it, And the village-women ask her 'Hast thou been in heat of battle, Hast thou struggled in a conflict, Or perchance the wolves have torn thee, Or the forest-bears embraced thee, Or the black-wolf be thy husband, And the bear be thy protector?'' By the fire-place lay a gray-beard, On the hearth-stone lay a beggar, And the old man spake as follows: 401 'Never, never, hero-husband, Follow thou thy young wife's wishes, Follow not her inclinations, As, alas! I did, regretful; Bought my bride the bread of barley, Veal, and beer, and best of butter, Fish and fowl of all descriptions, Beer I bought, home-brewed and sparkling, Wheat from all the distant nations, All the dainties of the Northland; All of this was unavailing, Gave my wife no satisfaction, Often came she to my chamber, Tore my sable locks in frenzy, With a visage fierce and frightful, With her eyeballs flashing anger, Scolding on and scolding ever, Ever speaking words of evil, Using epithets the vilest, Thought me but a block for chopping. Then I sought for other measures, Used on her my last resources, Cut a birch-whip in the forest, And she spake in tones endearing; Cut a juniper or willow, And she called me 'hero-darling'; When with lash my wife I threatened, Hung she on my neck with kisses.' Thus the bridegroom was instructed, Thus the last advices given. Then the Maiden of the Rainbow, Beauteous bride of Ilmarinen, Sighing heavily and moaning, Fell to weeping, heavy-hearted, Spake these words from depths of sorrow: 'Near, indeed, the separation, Near, alas! the time for parting, Near the time for my departure; O the anguish of the parting, O the pain of separation, From these walls renowned and ancient, From this village of the Northland, 402 From these scenes of peace and plenty, Where my faithful mother taught me, Where my father gave instruction To me in my happy childhood, When my years were few and tender! As a child I did not fancy, Never thought of separation From the confines of this cottage, From these dear old hills and mountains, But, alas! I now must journey, Since I now cannot escape it; Empty is the bowl of parting, All the farewell-beer is taken, And my husband's sledge is waiting, With the break-board looking southward, Looking from my father's dwelling. 'How shall I give compensation, How repay, on my departure, All the kindness of my mother, All the counsel of my father, All the friendship of my brother, All my sister's warm affection? Gratitude to thee, dear father, For my former-life and blessings, For the comforts of thy table, For the pleasures of my childhood! Gratitude to thee, dear mother, For thy tender care and guidance, For my birth and for my culture, Nurtured by thy purest life-blood! Gratitude to thee, dear brother, Gratitude to thee, sweet sister, To the servants of my childhood, To my many friends and playmates! 'Never, never, aged father, Never, thou, beloved mother, Never, ye, my kindred spirits, Never harbor care, nor sorrow, Never fall to bitter weeping, Since thy child has gone to others, To the distant home of strangers, To the meadows of Wainola, 403 From her father's fields and firesides. Shines the Sun of the Creator, Shines the golden Moon of Ukko, Glitter all the stars of heaven, In the firmament of ether, Full as bright on other homesteads; Not upon my father's uplands, Not upon my home in childhood, Shines the Star of Joyance only. 'Now the time has come for parting From my father's golden firesides, From my brother's welcome hearth-stone, From the chambers of my sister, From my mother's happy dwelling; Now I leave the swamps and lowlands, Leave the grassy vales and mountains, Leave the crystal lakes and rivers, Leave the shores and sandy shallows, Leave the white-capped surging billows, Where the maidens swim and linger, Where the mermaids sing and frolic; Leave the swamps to those that wander, Leave the corn-fields to the plowman, Leave the forests to the weary, Leave the heather to the rover, Leave the copses to the stranger, Leave the alleys to the beggar, Leave the court-yards to the rambler, Leave the portals to the servant, Leave the matting to the sweeper, Leave the highways to the roebuck, Leave the woodland-glens to lynxes, Leave the lowlands to the wild-geese, And the birch-tree to the cuckoo. Now I leave these friends of childhood, Journey southward with my husband, To the arms of Night and Winter, O'er the ice-grown seas of Northland. 'Should I once again, returning, Pay a visit to my tribe-folk, Mother would not hear me calling, Father would not see me weeping, 404 Calling at my mother's grave-stone, 'Weeping o'er my buried father, On their graves the fragrant flowers, Junipers and mournful willows, Verdure from my mother's tresses, From the gray-beard of my father. 'Should I visit Sariola, Visit once again these borders, No one here would bid me welcome. Nothing in these hills would greet me, Save perchance a few things only, By the fence a clump of osiers, And a land-mark at the corner, Which in early youth I planted, When a child of little stature. 'Mother's kine perhaps will know me, Which so often I have watered, Which I oft have fed and tended, Lowing now at my departure, In the pasture cold and cheerless; Sure my mother's kine will welcome Northland's daughter home returning. Father's steeds may not forget me, Steeds that I have often ridden, When a maiden free and happy, Neighing now for me departing, In the pasture of my brother, In the stable of my father; Sure my father's steeds will know me, Bid Pohyola's daughter welcome. Brother's faithful dogs may know me, That I oft have fed and petted, Dogs that I have taught to frolic, That now mourn for me departing, In their kennels in the court-yard, In their kennels cold and cheerless; Sure my brother's dogs will welcome Pohya's daughter home returning. But the people will not know me, When I come these scenes to visit, Though the fords remain as ever, Though unchanged remain the rivers, 405 Though untouched the flaxen fish-nets On the shores await my coming. 'Fare thou well, my dear old homestead, Fare ye well, my native bowers; It would give me joy unceasing Could I linger here forever. Now farewell, ye halls and portals, Leading to my father's mansion; It would give me joy unceasing Could I linger here forever. Fare ye well, familiar gardens Filled with trees and fragrant flowers; It would give me joy unceasing, Could I linger here forever. Send to all my farewell greetings, To the fields, and groves, and berries; Greet the meadows with their daisies, Greet the borders with their fences, Greet the lakelets with their islands, Greet the streams with trout disporting, Greet the hills with stately pine-trees, And the valleys with their birches. Fare ye well, ye streams and lakelets, Fertile fields, and shores of ocean, All ye aspens on the mountains, All ye lindens of the valleys, All ye beautiful stone-lindens, All ye shade-trees by the cottage, All ye junipers and willows, All ye shrubs with berries laden, Waving grass and fields of barley, Arms of elms, and oaks, and alders, Fare ye well, dear scenes of childhood, Happiness of days departed!' Ending thus, Pohyola's daughter Left her native fields and fallows, Left the darksome Sariola, With her husband, Ilmarinen, Famous son of Kalevala. But the youth remained for singing, This the chorus of the children: 'Hither came a bird of evil ' 406 Flew in fleetness from the forest, Came to steal away our virgin, Came to win the Maid of Beauty; Took away our fairest flower, Took our mermaid from the waters, Won her with his youth and beauty, With his keys of ancient wisdom. Who will lead us to the sea-beach, Who conduct us to the rivers? Now the buckets will be idle, On the hooks will rest the fish-poles, Now unswept will lie the matting, And unswept the halls of birch-wood, Copper goblets be unburnished, Dark the handles of the pitchers, Fare thou well, dear Rainbow Maiden.' Ilmarinen, happy bridegroom, Hastened homeward with the daughter Of the hostess of Pohyola, With the beauty of the Northland Fleetly flew the hero's snow-sledge, Loudly creaked, and roared, and rattled Down the banks of Northland waters, By the side of Honey-inlet, On the back of Sandy Mountain. Stones went rolling from the highway, Like the winds the sledge flew onward, On the yoke rang hoops of iron, Loud the spotted wood resounded, Loudly creaked the bands of willow, All the birchen cross-bars trembled, And the copper-bells rang music, In the racing of the fleet-foot, In the courser's gallop homeward; Journeyed one day, then a second, Journeyed still the third day onward, In one hand the reins of magic, While the other grasped the maiden, One foot resting on the cross-bar, And the other in the fur-robes. Merrily the steed flew homeward, Quickly did the highways shorten, 407 Till at last upon the third day, As the sun was fast declining, There appeared the blacksmith's furnace, Nearer, Ilmarinen's dwelling, Smoke arising high in ether, Clouds of smoke to lofty heaven, From the village of Wainola, From the suitor's forge and smithy, From the chimneys of the hero, From the home of the successful. ~ Elias Lönnrot,

889:Upon a time, before the faery broods Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods, Before King Oberon's bright diadem, Sceptre, and mantle, clasp'd with dewy gem, Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip'd lawns, The ever-smitten Hermes empty left His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft: From high Olympus had he stolen light, On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight Of his great summoner, and made retreat Into a forest on the shores of Crete. For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt; At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured Pearls, while on land they witherd and adored. Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont, And in those meads where sometime she might haunt, Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse, Though Fancys casket were unlockd to choose. Ah, what a world of love was at her feet! So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat Burnt from his winged heels to either ear, That from a whiteness, as the lily clear, Blushd into roses mid his golden hair, Fallen in jealous curls about his shoulders bare. From vale to vale, from wood to wood, he flew, Breathing upon the flowers his passion new, And wound with many a river to its head, To find where this sweet nymph prepard her secret bed: In vain; the sweet nymph might nowhere be found, And so he rested, on the lonely ground, Pensive, and full of painful jealousies Of the Wood-Gods, and even the very trees. There as he stood, he heard a mournful voice, Such as once heard, in gentle heart, destroys All pain but pity: thus the lone voice spake: When from this wreathed tomb shall I awake! When move in a sweet body fit for life, And love, and pleasure, and the ruddy strife Of hearts and lips! Ah, miserable me! The God, dove-footed, glided silently Round bush and tree, soft-brushing, in his speed, The taller grasses and full-flowering weed, Until he found a palpitating snake, Bright, and cirque-couchant in a dusky brake. She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue; Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barrd; And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed, Dissolvd, or brighter shone, or interwreathed Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries So rainbow-sided, touchd with miseries, She seemd, at once, some penanced lady elf, Some demons mistress, or the demons self. Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadnes tiar: Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet! She had a womans mouth with all its pearls complete: And for her eyes: what could such eyes do there But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair? As Proserpine still weeps for her Sicilian air. Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake Came, as through bubbling honey, for Loves sake, And thus; while Hermes on his pinions lay, Like a stoopd falcon ere he takes his prey. Fair Hermes, crownd with feathers, fluttering light, I had a splendid dream of thee last night: I saw thee sitting, on a throne of gold, Among the Gods, upon Olympus old, The only sad one; for thou didst not hear The soft, lute-fingerd Muses chaunting clear, Nor even Apollo when he sang alone, Deaf to his throbbing throats long, long melodious moan. I dreamt I saw thee, robed in purple flakes, Break amorous through the clouds, as morning breaks, And, swiftly as a bright Phoebean dart, Strike for the Cretan isle; and here thou art! Too gentle Hermes, hast thou found the maid? Whereat the star of Lethe not delayd His rosy eloquence, and thus inquired: Thou smooth-lippd serpent, surely high inspired! Thou beauteous wreath, with melancholy eyes, Possess whatever bliss thou canst devise, Telling me only where my nymph is fled, Where she doth breathe! Bright planet, thou hast said, Returnd the snake, but seal with oaths, fair God! I swear, said Hermes, by my serpent rod, And by thine eyes, and by thy starry crown! Light flew his earnest words, among the blossoms blown. Then thus again the brilliance feminine: Too frail of heart! for this lost nymph of thine, Free as the air, invisibly, she strays About these thornless wilds; her pleasant days She tastes unseen; unseen her nimble feet Leave traces in the grass and flowers sweet; From weary tendrils, and bowd branches green, She plucks the fruit unseen, she bathes unseen: And by my power is her beauty veild To keep it unaffronted, unassaild By the love-glances of unlovely eyes, Of Satyrs, Fauns, and bleard Silenus sighs. Pale grew her immortality, for woe Of all these lovers, and she grieved so I took compassion on her, bade her steep Her hair in weird syrops, that would keep Her loveliness invisible, yet free To wander as she loves, in liberty. Thou shalt behold her, Hermes, thou alone, If thou wilt, as thou swearest, grant my boon! Then, once again, the charmed God began An oath, and through the serpents ears it ran Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian. Ravishd, she lifted her Circean head, Blushd a live damask, and swift-lisping said, I was a woman, let me have once more A womans shape, and charming as before. I love a youth of CorinthO the bliss! Give me my womans form, and place me where he is. Stoop, Hermes, let me breathe upon thy brow, And thou shalt see thy sweet nymph even now. The God on half-shut feathers sank serene, She breathd upon his eyes, and swift was seen Of both the guarded nymph near-smiling on the green. It was no dream; or say a dream it was, Real are the dreams of Gods, and smoothly pass Their pleasures in a long immortal dream. One warm, flushd moment, hovering, it might seem Dashd by the wood-nymphs beauty, so he burnd; Then, lighting on the printless verdure, turnd To the swoond serpent, and with languid arm, Delicate, put to proof the lythe Caducean charm. So done, upon the nymph his eyes he bent, Full of adoring tears and blandishment, And towards her stept: she, like a moon in wane, Faded before him, cowerd, nor could restrain Her fearful sobs, self-folding like a flower That faints into itself at evening hour: But the God fostering her chilled hand, She felt the warmth, her eyelids opend bland, And, like new flowers at morning song of bees, Bloomd, and gave up her honey to the lees. Into the green-recessed woods they flew; Nor grew they pale, as mortal lovers do. Left to herself, the serpent now began To change; her elfin blood in madness ran, Her mouth foamd, and the grass, therewith besprent, Witherd at dew so sweet and virulent; Her eyes in torture fixd, and anguish drear, Hot, glazd, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear, Flashd phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cooling tear. The colours all inflamd throughout her train, She writhd about, convulsd with scarlet pain: A deep volcanian yellow took the place Of all her milder-mooned bodys grace; And, as the lava ravishes the mead, Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede; Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks and bars, Eclipsd her crescents, and lickd up her stars: So that, in moments few, she was undrest Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst, And rubious-argent: of all these bereft, Nothing but pain and ugliness were left. Still shone her crown; that vanishd, also she Melted and disappeard as suddenly; And in the air, her new voice luting soft, Cried, Lycius! gentle Lycius!Borne aloft With the bright mists about the mountains hoar These words dissolvd: Cretes forests heard no more. Whither fled Lamia, now a lady bright, A full-born beauty new and exquisite? She fled into that valley they pass oer Who go to Corinth from Cenchreas shore; And rested at the foot of those wild hills, The rugged founts of the Peraean rills, And of that other ridge whose barren back Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack, South-westward to Cleone. There she stood About a young birds flutter from a wood, Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread, By a clear pool, wherein she passioned To see herself escapd from so sore ills, While her robes flaunted with the daffodils. Ah, happy Lycius!for she was a maid More beautiful than ever twisted braid, Or sighd, or blushd, or on spring-flowered lea Spread a green kirtle to the minstrelsy: A virgin purest lippd, yet in the lore Of love deep learned to the red hearts core: Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain To unperplex bliss from its neighbour pain; Define their pettish limits, and estrange Their points of contact, and swift counterchange; Intrigue with the specious chaos, and dispart Its most ambiguous atoms with sure art; As though in Cupids college she had spent Sweet days a lovely graduate, still unshent, And kept his rosy terms in idle languishment. Why this fair creature chose so fairily By the wayside to linger, we shall see; But first tis fit to tell how she could muse And dream, when in the serpent prison-house, Of all she list, strange or magnificent: How, ever, where she willd, her spirit went; Whether to faint Elysium, or where Down through tress-lifting waves the Nereids fair Wind into Thetis bower by many a pearly stair; Or where God Bacchus drains his cups divine, Stretchd out, at ease, beneath a glutinous pine; Or where in Plutos gardens palatine Mulcibers columns gleam in far piazzian line. And sometimes into cities she would send Her dream, with feast and rioting to blend; And once, while among mortals dreaming thus, She saw the young Corinthian Lycius Charioting foremost in the envious race, Like a young Jove with calm uneager face, And fell into a swooning love of him. Now on the moth-time of that evening dim He would return that way, as well she knew, To Corinth from the shore; for freshly blew The eastern soft wind, and his galley now Grated the quaystones with her brazen prow In port Cenchreas, from Egina isle Fresh anchord; whither he had been awhile To sacrifice to Jove, whose temple there Waits with high marble doors for blood and incense rare. Jove heard his vows, and betterd his desire; For by some freakful chance he made retire From his companions, and set forth to walk, Perhaps grown wearied of their Corinth talk: Over the solitary hills he fared, Thoughtless at first, but ere eves star appeared His phantasy was lost, where reason fades, In the calmd twilight of Platonic shades. Lamia beheld him coming, near, more near Close to her passing, in indifference drear, His silent sandals swept the mossy green; So neighbourd to him, and yet so unseen She stood: he passd, shut up in mysteries, His mind wrappd like his mantle, while her eyes Followd his steps, and her neck regal white Turndsyllabling thus, Ah, Lycius bright, And will you leave me on the hills alone? Lycius, look back! and be some pity shown. He did; not with cold wonder fearingly, But Orpheus-like at an Eurydice; For so delicious were the words she sung, It seemd he had lovd them a whole summer long: And soon his eyes had drunk her beauty up, Leaving no drop in the bewildering cup, And still the cup was full,while he afraid Lest she should vanish ere his lip had paid Due adoration, thus began to adore; Her soft look growing coy, she saw his chain so sure: Leave thee alone! Look back! Ah, Goddess, see Whether my eyes can ever turn from thee! For pity do not this sad heart belie Even as thou vanishest so I shall die. Stay! though a Naiad of the rivers, stay! To thy far wishes will thy streams obey: Stay! though the greenest woods be thy domain, Alone they can drink up the morning rain: Though a descended Pleiad, will not one Of thine harmonious sisters keep in tune Thy spheres, and as thy silver proxy shine? So sweetly to these ravishd ears of mine Came thy sweet greeting, that if thou shouldst fade Thy memory will waste me to a shade: For pity do not melt!If I should stay, Said Lamia, here, upon this floor of clay, And pain my steps upon these flowers too rough, What canst thou say or do of charm enough To dull the nice remembrance of my home? Thou canst not ask me with thee here to roam Over these hills and vales, where no joy is, Empty of immortality and bliss! Thou art a scholar, Lycius, and must know That finer spirits cannot breathe below In human climes, and live: Alas! poor youth, What taste of purer air hast thou to soothe My essence? What serener palaces, Where I may all my many senses please, And by mysterious sleights a hundred thirsts appease? It cannot beAdieu! So said, she rose Tiptoe with white arms spread. He, sick to lose The amorous promise of her lone complain, Swoond, murmuring of love, and pale with pain. The cruel lady, without any show Of sorrow for her tender favourites woe, But rather, if her eyes could brighter be, With brighter eyes and slow amenity, Put her new lips to his, and gave afresh The life she had so tangled in her mesh: And as he from one trance was wakening Into another, she began to sing, Happy in beauty, life, and love, and every thing, A song of love, too sweet for earthly lyres, While, like held breath, the stars drew in their panting fires And then she whisperd in such trembling tone, As those who, safe together met alone For the first time through many anguishd days, Use other speech than looks; bidding him raise His drooping head, and clear his soul of doubt, For that she was a woman, and without Any more subtle fluid in her veins Than throbbing blood, and that the self-same pains Inhabited her frail-strung heart as his. And next she wonderd how his eyes could miss Her face so long in Corinth, where, she said, She dwelt but half retird, and there had led Days happy as the gold coin could invent Without the aid of love; yet in content Till she saw him, as once she passd him by, Where gainst a column he leant thoughtfully At Venus temple porch, mid baskets heapd Of amorous herbs and flowers, newly reapd Late on that eve, as twas the night before The Adonian feast; whereof she saw no more, But wept alone those days, for why should she adore? Lycius from death awoke into amaze, To see her still, and singing so sweet lays; Then from amaze into delight he fell To hear her whisper womans lore so well; And every word she spake enticd him on To unperplexd delight and pleasure known. Let the mad poets say whateer they please Of the sweets of Fairies, Peris, Goddesses, There is not such a treat among them all, Haunters of cavern, lake, and waterfall, As a real woman, lineal indeed From Pyrrhas pebbles or old Adams seed. Thus gentle Lamia judgd, and judgd aright, That Lycius could not love in half a fright, So threw the goddess off, and won his heart More pleasantly by playing womans part, With no more awe than what her beauty gave, That, while it smote, still guaranteed to save. Lycius to all made eloquent reply, Marrying to every word a twinborn sigh; And last, pointing to Corinth, askd her sweet, If twas too far that night for her soft feet. The way was short, for Lamias eagerness Made, by a spell, the triple league decrease To a few paces; not at all surmised By blinded Lycius, so in her comprized. They passd the city gates, he knew not how So noiseless, and he never thought to know. As men talk in a dream, so Corinth all, Throughout her palaces imperial, And all her populous streets and temples lewd, Mutterd, like tempest in the distance brewd, To the wide-spreaded night above her towers. Men, women, rich and poor, in the cool hours, Shuffled their sandals oer the pavement white, Companiond or alone; while many a light Flared, here and there, from wealthy festivals, And threw their moving shadows on the walls, Or found them clusterd in the corniced shade Of some archd temple door, or dusky colonnade. Muffling his face, of greeting friends in fear, Her fingers he pressd hard, as one came near With curld gray beard, sharp eyes, and smooth bald crown, Slow-steppd, and robed in philosophic gown: Lycius shrank closer, as they met and past, Into his mantle, adding wings to haste, While hurried Lamia trembled: Ah, said he, Why do you shudder, love, so ruefully? Why does your tender palm dissolve in dew? Im wearied, said fair Lamia: tell me who Is that old man? I cannot bring to mind His features:Lycius! wherefore did you blind Yourself from his quick eyes? Lycius replied, Tis Apollonius sage, my trusty guide And good instructor; but to-night he seems The ghost of folly haunting my sweet dreams. While yet he spake they had arrived before A pillar'd porch, with lofty portal door, Where hung a silver lamp, whose phosphor glow Reflected in the slabbed steps below, Mild as a star in water; for so new, And so unsullied was the marble hue, So through the crystal polish, liquid fine, Ran the dark veins, that none but feet divine Could e'er have touch'd there. Sounds Aeolian Breath'd from the hinges, as the ample span Of the wide doors disclos'd a place unknown Some time to any, but those two alone, And a few Persian mutes, who that same year Were seen about the markets: none knew where They could inhabit; the most curious Were foil'd, who watch'd to trace them to their house: And but the flitter-winged verse must tell, For truth's sake, what woe afterwards befel, 'Twould humour many a heart to leave them thus, Shut from the busy world of more incredulous. (line 48): Originally, "Cerulean-spotted." Leigh Hunt says of this passage, "The admiration, pity, and horror, to be excited by humanity in a brute shape, were never perhaps called upon by a greater mixture of beauty and deformity than in the picture of this creature. Our pity and suspicions are begged by the first word: the profuse and vital beauties with which she is covered seem proportioned to her misery and natural rights; and lest we should lose sight of them in this gorgeousness, the 'woman's mouth' fills us at once with shuddering and compassion." (line 158): The manuscript reads "vulcanian," the first edition "volcanian." It seems to me more likely that the manuscript accords with the poet's intention than that printed text does, for this old orthography is the more characteristic of the vocabulary of this particular poem, as introducing the more conspicuously the mythic personal origin of the common noun "volcano" or "vulcano." ~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes ~ John Keats, Lamia. Part I ,

890:Senlin: His Futile Preoccupations I am a house, says Senlin, locked and darkened, Sealed from the sun with wall and door and blind. Summon me loudly, and you'll hear slow footsteps Ring far and faint in the galleries of my mind. You'll hear soft steps on an old and dusty stairway; Peer darkly through some corner of a pane, You'll see me with a faint light coming slowly, Pausing above some gallery of the brain . . . I am a city . . . In the blue light of evening Wind wanders among my streets and makes them fair; I am a room of rock . . . a maiden dances Lifting her hands, tossing her golden hair. She combs her hair, the room of rock is darkened, She extends herself in me, and I am sleep. It is my pride that starlight is above me; I dream amid waves of air, my walls are deep. I am a door . . . before me roils the darkness, Behind me ring clear waves of sound and light. Stand in the shadowy street outside, and listen-The crying of violins assails the night . . . My walls are deep, but the cries of music pierce them; They shake with the sound of drums . . . yet it is strange That I should know so little what means this music, Hearing it always within me change and change. Knock on the door,--and you shall have an answer. Open the heavy walls to set me free, And blow a horn to call me into the sunlight,-And startled, then, what a strange thing you will see! Nuns, murderers, and drunkards, saints and sinners, Lover and dancing girl and sage and clown Will laugh upon you, and you will find me nowhere. I am a room, a house, a street, a town. 127 It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning When the light drips through the shutters like the dew, I arise, I face the sunrise, And do the things my fathers learned to do. Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die, And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet Stand before a glass and tie my tie. Vine leaves tap my window, Dew-drops sing to the garden stones, The robin chips in the chinaberry tree Repeating three clear tones. It is morning. I stand by the mirror And tie my tie once more. While waves far off in a pale rose twilight Crash on a white sand shore. I stand by a mirror and comb my hair: How small and white my face!-The green earth tilts through a sphere of air And bathes in a flame of space. There are houses hanging above the stars And stars hung under a sea . . . And a sun far off in a shell of silence Dapples my walls for me . . . It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning Should I not pause in the light to remember God? Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable, He is immense and lonely as a cloud. I will dedicate this moment before my mirror To him alone, and for him I will comb my hair. Accept these humble offerings, cloud of silence! I will think of you as I descend the stair. Vine leaves tap my window, The snail-track shines on the stones, Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree Repeating two clear tones. 128 It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence, Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep. The walls are about me still as in the evening, I am the same, and the same name still I keep. The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion, The stars pale silently in a coral sky. In a whistling void I stand before my mirror, Unconcerned, I tie my tie. There are horses neighing on far-off hills Tossing their long white manes, And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk, Their shoulders black with rains . . . It is morning. I stand by the mirror And surprise my soul once more; The blue air rushes above my ceiling, There are suns beneath my floor . . . . . . It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness And depart on the winds of space for I know not where, My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket, And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair. There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven, And a god among the stars; and I will go Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak And humming a tune I know . . . Vine-leaves tap at the window, Dew-drops sing to the garden stones, The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree Repeating three clear tones. I walk to my work, says Senlin, along a street Superbly hung in space. I lift these mortal stones, and with my trowel I tap them into place. But is god, perhaps, a giant who ties his tie Grimacing before a colossal glass of sky? 129 These stones are heavy, these stones decay, These stones are wet with rain, I build them into a wall today, Tomorrow they fall again. Does god arise from a chaos of starless sleep, Rise from the dark and stretch his arms and yawn; And drowsily look from the window at his garden; And rejoice at the dewdrop sparkeling on his lawn? Does he remember, suddenly, with amazement, The yesterday he left in sleep,--his name,-Or the glittering street superbly hung in wind Along which, in the dusk, he slowly came? I devise new patterns for laying stones And build a stronger wall. One drop of rain astonishes me And I let my trowel fall. The flashing of leaves delights my eyes, Blue air delights my face; I will dedicate this stone to god And tap it into its place. That woman--did she try to attract my attention? Is it true I saw her smile and nod? She turned her head and smiled . . . was it for me? It is better to think of work or god. The clouds pile coldly above the houses Slow wind revolves the leaves: It begins to rain, and the first long drops Are slantingly blown from eaves. But it is true she tried to attract my attention! She pressed a rose to her chin and smiled. Her hand was white by the richness of her hair, Her eyes were those of a child. It is true she looked at me as if she liked me. And turned away, afraid to look too long! 130 She watched me out of the corners of her eyes; And, tapping time with fingers, hummed a song. . . . Nevertheless, I will think of work, With a trowel in my hands; Or the vague god who blows like clouds Above these dripping lands . . . But . . . is it sure she tried to attract my attention? She leaned her elbow in a peculiar way There in the crowded room . . . she touched my hand . . . She must have known, and yet,--she let it stay. Music of flesh! Music of root and sod! Leaf touching leaf in the rain! Impalpable clouds of red ascend, Red clouds blow over my brain. Did she await from me some sign of acceptance? I smoothed my hair with a faltering hand. I started a feeble smile, but the smile was frozen: Perhaps, I thought, I misunderstood. Is it to be conceived that I could attract her-This dull and futile flesh attract such fire? I,--with a trowel's dullness in hand and brain!-Take on some godlike aspect, rouse desire? Incredible! . . . delicious! . . . I will wear A brighter color of tie, arranged with care, I will delight in god as I comb my hair. And the conquests of my bolder past return Like strains of music, some lost tune Recalled from youth and a happier time. I take my sweetheart's arm in the dusk once more; One more we climb Up the forbidden stairway, Under the flickering light, along the railing: I catch her hand in the dark, we laugh once more, I hear the rustle of silk, and follow swiftly, And softly at last we close the door. Yes, it is true that woman tried to attract me: 131 It is true she came out of time for me, Came from the swirling and savage forest of earth, The cruel eternity of the sea. She parted the leaves of waves and rose from silence Shining with secrets she did not know. Music of dust! Music of web and web! And I, bewildered, let her go. I light my pipe. The flame is yellow, Edged underneath with blue. These thoughts are truer of god, perhaps, Than thoughts of god are true. It is noontime, Senlin says, and a street piano Strikes sharply against the sunshine a harsh chord, And the universe is suddenly agitated, And pain to my heart goes glittering like a sword. Do I imagine it? The dust is shaken, The sunlight quivers, the brittle oak-leaves tremble. The world, disturbed, conceals its agitation; And I, too, will dissemble. Yet it is sorrow has found my heart, Sorrow for beauty, sorrow for death; And pain twirls slowly among the trees. The street-piano revolves its glittering music, The sharp notes flash and dazzle and turn, Memory's knives are in this sunlit silence, They ripple and lazily burn. The star on which my shadow falls is frightened,-It does not move; my trowel taps a stone, The sweet note wavers amid derisive music; And I, in horror of sunlight, stand alone. Do not recall my weakness, savage music! Let the knives rest! Impersonal, harsh, the music revolves and glitters, And the notes like poniards pierce my breast. And I remember the shadows of webs on stones, 132 And the sound or rain on withered grass, And a sorrowful face that looked without illusions At its image in the glass. Do not recall my childhood, pitiless music! The green blades flicker and gleam, The red bee bends the clover, deeply humming; In the blue sea above me lazily stream Cloud upon thin-brown cloud, revolving, scattering; The mulberry tree rakes heaven and drops its fruit; Amazing sunlight sings in the opened vault On dust and bones, and I am mute. It is noon; the bells let fall soft flowers of sound. They turn on the air, they shrink in the flare of noon. It is night; and I lie alone, and watch through the window The terrible ice-white emptiness of the moon. Small bells, far off, spill jewels of sound like rain, A long wind hurries them whirled and far, A cloud creeps over the moon, my bed is darkened, I hold my breath and watch a star. Do not disturb my memories, heartless music! I stand once more by a vine-dark moonlit wall, The sound of my footsteps dies in a void of moonlight, And I watch white jasmine fall. Is it my heart that falls? Does earth itself Drift, a white petal, down the sky? One bell-note goes to the stars in the blue-white silence, Solitary and mournful, a somnolent cry. Death himself in the rain . . . death himself . . . Death in the savage sunlight . . . skeletal death . . . I hear the clack of his feet, Clearly on stones, softly in dust; He hurries among the trees Whirling the leaves, tossing he hands from waves. Listen! the immortal footsteps beat. Death himself in the grass, death himself, 133 Gyrating invisibly in the sun, Scatters the grass-blades, whips the wind, Tears at boughs with malignant laughter: On the long echoing air I hear him run. Death himself in the dusk, gathering lilacs, Breaking a white-fleshed bough, Strewing purple on a cobwebbed lawn, Dancing, dancing, The long red sun-rays glancing On flailing arms, skipping with hideous knees Cavorting grotesque ecstasies: I do not see him, but I see the lilacs fall, I hear the scrape of knuckles against the wall, The leaves are tossed and tremble where he plunges among them, And I hear the sound of his breath, Sharp and whistling, the rythm of death. It is evening: the lights on a long street balance and sway. In the purple ether they swing and silently sing, The street is a gossamer swung in space, And death himself in the wind comes dancing along it, And the lights, like raindrops, tremble and swing. Hurry, spider, and spread your glistening web, For death approaches! Hurry, rose, and open your heart to the bee, For death approaches! Maiden, let down your hair for the hands of your lover, Comb it with moonlight and wreathe it with leaves, For death approaches! Death, huge in the star; small in the sand-grain; Death himself in the rain, Drawing the rain about him like a garment of jewels: I hear the sound of his feet On the stairs of the wind, in the sun, In the forests of the sea . . . Listen! the immortal footsteps beat! It is noontime, Senlin says. The sky is brilliant 134 Above a green and dreaming hill. I lay my trowel down. The pool is cloudless, The grass, the wall, the peach-tree, all are still. It appears to me that I am one with these: A hill, upon whose back are a wall and trees. It is noontime: all seems still Upon this green and flowering hill. Yet suddenly out of nowhere in the sky, A cloud comes whirling, and flings A lazily coiled vortex of shade on the hill. It crosses the hill, and a bird in the peach-tree sings. Amazing! Is there a change? The hill seems somehow strange. It is noontime. And in the tree The leaves are delicately disturbed Where the bird descends invisibly. It is noontime. And in the pool The sky is blue and cool. Yet suddenly out of nowhere, Something flings itself at the hill, Tears with claws at the earth, Lunges and hisses and softly recoils, Crashing against the green. The peach-tree braces itself, the pool is frightened, The grass-blades quiver, the bird is still; The wall silently struggles against the sunlight; A terror stiffens the hill. The trees turn rigidly, to face Something that circles with slow pace: The blue pool seems to shrink From something that slides above its brink. What struggle is this, ferocious and still-What war in sunlight on this hill? What is it creeping to dart Like a knife-blade at my heart? It is noontime, Senlin says, and all is tranquil: The brilliant sky burns over a greenbright earth. The peach-tree dreams in the sun, the wall is contented. 135 A bird in the peach-leaves, moving from sun to shadow, Phrases again his unremembering mirth, His lazily beautiful, foolish, mechanical mirth. The pale blue gloom of evening comes Among the phantom forests and walls With a mournful and rythmic sound of drums. My heart is disturbed with a sound of myriad throbbing, Persuasive and sinister, near and far: In the blue evening of my heart I hear the thrum of the evening star. My work is uncompleted; and yet I hurry,-Hearing the whispered pulsing of those drums,-To enter the luminous walls and woods of night. It is the eternal mistress of the world Who shakes these drums for my delight. Listen! the drums of the leaves, the drums of the dust, The delicious quivering of this air! I will leave my work unfinished, and I will go With ringing and certain step through the laughter of chaos To the one small room in the void I know. Yesterday it was there,-Will I find it tonight once more when I climb the stair? The drums of the street beat swift and soft: In the blue evening of my heart I hear the throb of the bridal star. It weaves deliciously in my brain A tyrannous melody of her: Hands in sunlight, threads of rain Against a weeping face that fades, Snow on a blackened window-pane; Fire, in a dusk of hair entangled; Flesh, more delicate than fruit; And a voice that searches quivering nerves For a string to mute. My life is uncompleted: and yet I hurry Among the tinkling forests and walls of evening 136 To a certain fragrant room. Who is it that dances there, to a beating of drums, While stars on a grey sea bud and bloom? She stands at the top of the stair, With the lamplight on her hair. I will walk through the snarling of streams of space And climb the long steps carved from wind And rise once more towards her face. Listen! the drums of the drowsy trees Beating our nuptial ecstasies! Music spins from the heart of silence And twirls me softly upon the air: It takes my hand and whispers to me: It draws the web of the moonlight down. There are hands, it says, as cool as snow, The hands of the Venus of the sea; There are waves of sound in a mermaid-cave;-Come--then--come with me! The flesh of the sea-rose new and cool, The wavering image of her who comes At dusk by a blue sea-pool. Whispers upon the haunted air-Whisper of foam-white arm and thigh; And a shower of delicate lights blown down Fro the laughing sky! . . . Music spins from a far-off room. Do you remember,--it seems to say,-The mouth that smiled, beneath your mouth, And kissed you . . . yesterday? It is your own flesh waits for you. Come! you are incomplete! . . . The drums of the universe once more Morosely beat. It is the harlot of the world Who clashes the leaves like ghostly drums And disturbs the solitude of my heart As evening comes! I leave my work once more and walk Along a street that sways in the wind. 137 I leave these stones, and walk once more Along infinity's shore. I climb the golden-laddered stair; Among the stars in the void I climb: I ascend the golden-laddered hair Of the harlot-queen of time: She laughs from a window in the sky, Her white arms downward reach to me! We are the universe that spins In a dim ethereal sea. It is evening, Senlin says, and in the evening The throbbing of drums has languidly died away. Forest and sea are still. We breathe in silence And strive to say the things flesh cannot say. The soulless wind falls slowly about the earth And finds no rest. The lover stares at the setting star,--the wakeful lover Who finds no peace on his lover's breast. The snare of desire that bound us in is broken; Softly, in sorrow, we draw apart, and see, Far off, the beauty we thought our flesh had captured,-The star we longed to be but could not be. Come back! We will laugh once more at the words we said! We say them slowly again, but the words are dead. Come back beloved! . . . The blue void falls between, We cry to each other: alone; unknown; unseen. We are the grains of sand that run and rustle In the dry wind, We are the grains of sand who thought ourselves Immortal. You touch my hand, time bears you away,-An alien star for whom I have no word. What are the meaningless things you say? I answer you, but am not heard. It is evening, Senlin says; And a dream in ruin falls. Once more we turn in pain, bewildered, 138 Among our finite walls: The walls we built ourselves with patient hands; For the god who sealed a question in our flesh. 10 It is moonlight. Alone in the silence I ascend my stairs once more, While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight, Crash on a white sand shore. It is moonlight. The garden is silent. I stand in my room alone. Across my wall, from the far-off moon, A rain of fire is thrown . . . There are houses hanging above the stars, And stars hung under a sea: And a wind from the long blue vault of time Waves my curtain for me . . . I wait in the dark once more, Swung between space and space: Before my mirror I lift my hands And face my remembered face. Is it I who stand in a question here, Asking to know my name? . . . It is I, yet I know not whither I go, Nor why, nor whence I came. It is I, who awoke at dawn And arose and descended the stair, Conceiving a god in the eye of the sun,-In a woman's hands and hair. It is I whose flesh is gray with the stones I builded into a wall: With a mournful melody in my brain Of a tune I cannot recall . . . There are roses to kiss: and mouths to kiss; And the sharp-pained shadow of death. I remember a rain-drop on my cheek,-- 139 A wind like a fragrant breath . . . And the star I laugh on tilts through heaven; And the heavens are dark and steep . . . I will forget these things once more In the silence of sleep. ~ Conrad Potter Aiken,

891:The Kalevala - Rune Ix ORIGIN OF IRON. Wainamoinen, thus encouraged, Quickly rises in his snow-sledge, Asking no one for assistance, Straightway hastens to the cottage, Takes a seat within the dwelling. Come two maids with silver pitchers, Bringing also golden goblets; Dip they up a very little, But the very smallest measure Of the blood of the magician, From the wounds of Wainamoinen. From the fire-place calls the old man, Thus the gray-beard asks the minstrel: 'Tell me who thou art of heroes, Who of all the great magicians? Lo! thy blood fills seven sea-boats, Eight of largest birchen vessels, Flowing from some hero's veinlets, From the wounds of some magician. Other matters I would ask thee; Sing the cause of this thy trouble, Sing to me the source of metals, Sing the origin of iron, How at first it was created.' Then the ancient Wainamoinen Made this answer to the gray-beard: 'Know I well the source of metals, Know the origin of iron; f can tell bow steel is fashioned. Of the mothers air is oldest, Water is the oldest brother, And the fire is second brother, And the youngest brother, iron; Ukko is the first creator. Ukko, maker of the heavens, Cut apart the air and water, 54 Ere was born the metal, iron. Ukko, maker of the heavens, Firmly rubbed his hands together, Firmly pressed them on his knee-cap, Then arose three lovely maidens, Three most beautiful of daughters; These were mothers of the iron, And of steel of bright-blue color. Tremblingly they walked the heavens, Walked the clouds with silver linings, With their bosoms overflowing With the milk of future iron, Flowing on and flowing ever, From the bright rims of the cloudlets To the earth, the valleys filling, To the slumber-calling waters. 'Ukko's eldest daughter sprinkled Black milk over river channels And the second daughter sprinkled White milk over hills and mountains, While the youngest daughter sprinkled Red milk over seas and oceans. Whero the black milk had been sprinked, Grew the dark and ductile iron; Where the white milk had been sprinkled. Grew the iron, lighter-colored; Where the red milk had been sprinkled, Grew the red and brittle iron. 'After Time had gone a distance, Iron hastened Fire to visit, His beloved elder brother, Thus to know his brother better. Straightway Fire began his roarings, Labored to consume his brother, His beloved younger brother. Straightway Iron sees his danger, Saves himself by fleetly fleeing, From the fiery flame's advances, Fleeing hither, fleeing thither, Fleeing still and taking shelter In the swamps and in the valleys, In the springs that loudly bubble, 55 By the rivers winding seaward, On the broad backs of the marshes, Where the swans their nests have builded, Where the wild geese hatch their goslings. 'Thus is iron in the swamp-lands, Stretching by the water-courses, Hidden well for many ages, Hidden in the birchen forests, But he could not hide forever From the searchings of his brother; Here and there the fire has caught him, Caught and brought him to his furnace, That the spears, and swords, and axes, Might be forged and duly hammered. In the swamps ran blackened waters, From the heath the bears came ambling, And the wolves ran through the marshes. Iron then made his appearance, Where the feet of wolves had trodden, Where the paws of bears had trampled. 'Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen, Came to earth to work the metal; He was born upon the Coal-mount, Skilled and nurtured in the coal-fields; In one hand, a copper hammer, In the other, tongs of iron; In the night was born the blacksmith, In the morn he built his smithy, Sought with care a favored hillock, Where the winds might fill his bellows; Found a hillock in the swamp-lands, Where the iron hid abundant; There he built his smelting furnace, There he laid his leathern bellows, Hastened where the wolves had travelled, Followed where the bears had trampled, Found the iron's young formations, In the wolf-tracks of the marshes, In the foot-prints of the gray-bear. 'Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen, 'Thus addressed the sleeping iron: Thou most useful of the metals, 56 Thou art sleeping in the marshes, Thou art hid in low conditions, Where the wolf treads in the swamp-lands, Where the bear sleeps in the thickets. Hast thou thought and well considered, What would be thy future station, Should I place thee in the furnace, Thus to make thee free and useful?' 'Then was Iron sorely frightened, Much distressed and filled with horror, When of Fire he heard the mention, Mention of his fell destroyer. 'Then again speaks Ilmarinen, Thus the smith addresses Iron: 'Be not frightened, useful metal, Surely Fire will not consume thee, Will not burn his youngest brother, Will not harm his nearest kindred. Come thou to my room and furnace, Where the fire is freely burning, Thou wilt live, and grow, and prosper, Wilt become the swords of heroes, Buckles for the belts of women.' 'Ere arose the star of evening, Iron ore had left the marshes, From the water-beds had risen, Had been carried to the furnace, In the fire the smith had laid it, Laid it in his smelting furnace. Ilmarinen starts the bellows, Gives three motions of the handle, And the iron flows in streamlets From the forge of the magician, Soon becomes like baker's leaven, Soft as dough for bread of barley. Then out-screamed the metal, Iron: 'Wondrous blacksmith, Ilmarinen, Take, O take me from thy furnace, From this fire and cruel torture.' 'Ilmarinen thus made answer: 'I will take thee from my furnace, 'Thou art but a little frightened, 57 Thou shalt be a mighty power, Thou shalt slay the best of heroes, Thou shalt wound thy dearest brother.' 'Straightway Iron made this promise, Vowed and swore in strongest accents, By the furnace, by the anvil, By the tongs, and by the hammer, These the words he vowed and uttered: 'Many trees that I shall injure, Shall devour the hearts of mountains, Shall not slay my nearest kindred, Shall not kill the best of heroes, Shall not wound my dearest brother; Better live in civil freedom, Happier would be my life-time, Should I serve my fellow-beings, Serve as tools for their convenience, Than as implements of warfare, Slay my friends and nearest. kindred, Wound the children of my mother.' 'Now the master, Ilmarinen, The renowned and skilful blacksmith, From the fire removes the iron, Places it upon the anvil, Hammers well until it softens, Hammers many fine utensils, Hammers spears, and swords, and axes, Hammers knives, and forks, and hatchets, Hammers tools of all descriptions. 'Many things the blacksmith needed, Many things he could not fashion, Could not make the tongue of iron, Could not hammer steel from iron, Could not make the iron harden. Well considered Ilmarinen, Deeply thought and long reflected. Then he gathered birchen ashes, Steeped the ashes in the water, Made a lye to harden iron, Thus to form the steel most needful. With his tongue he tests the mixture, Weighs it long and well considers, 58 And the blacksmith speaks as follows: 'All this labor is for nothing, Will not fashion steel from iron, Will not make the soft ore harden.' 'Now a bee flies from the meadow, Blue-wing coming from the flowers, Flies about, then safely settles Near the furnace of the smithy. ''Thus the smith the bee addresses, These the words of Ilmarinen: 'Little bee, thou tiny birdling, Bring me honey on thy winglets, On thy tongue, I pray thee, bring me Sweetness from the fragrant meadows, From the little cups of flowers, From the tips of seven petals, That we thus may aid the water To produce the steel from iron.' 'Evil Hisi's bird, the hornet, Heard these words of Ilmarinen, Looking from the cottage gable, Flying to the bark of birch-trees, While the iron bars were heating While the steel was being tempered; Swiftly flew the stinging hornet, Scattered all the Hisi horrors, Brought the blessing of the serpent, Brought the venom of the adder, Brought the poison of the spider, Brought the stings of all the insects, Mixed them with the ore and water, While the steel was being, tempered. 'Ilmarinen, skilful blacksmith, First of all the iron-workers, Thought the bee had surely brought him Honey from the fragrant meadows, From the little cups of flowers, From the tips of seven petals, And he spake the words that follow: 'Welcome, welcome, is thy coming, Honeyed sweetness from the flowers Thou hast brought to aid the water, 59 Thus to form the steel from iron!' 'Ilmarinen, ancient blacksmith, Dipped the iron into water, Water mixed with many poisons, Thought it but the wild bee's honey; Thus he formed the steel from iron. When he plunged it into water, Water mixed with many poisons, When be placed it in the furnace, Angry grew the hardened iron, Broke the vow that he had taken, Ate his words like dogs and devils, Mercilessly cut his brother, Madly raged against his kindred, Caused the blood to flow in streamlets From the wounds of man and hero. This, the origin of iron, And of steel of light blue color.' From the hearth arose the gray-beard, Shook his heavy looks and answered: 'Now I know the source of iron, Whence the steel and whence its evils; Curses on thee, cruel iron, Curses on the steel thou givest, Curses on thee, tongue of evil, Cursed be thy life forever! Once thou wert of little value, Having neither form nor beauty, Neither strength nor great importance, When in form of milk thou rested, When for ages thou wert hidden In the breasts of God's three daughters, Hidden in their heaving bosoms, On the borders of the cloudlets, In the blue vault of the heavens. 'Thou wert once of little value, Having neither form nor beauty, Neither strength nor great importance, When like water thou wert resting On the broad back of the marshes, On the steep declines of mountains, When thou wert but formless matter, 60 Only dust of rusty color. 'Surely thou wert void of greatness, Having neither strength nor beauty, When the moose was trampling on thee, When the roebuck trod upon thee, When the tracks of wolves were in thee, And the bear-paws scratched thy body. Surely thou hadst little value When the skilful Ilmarinen, First of all the iron-workers, Brought thee from the blackened swamp-lands, Took thee to his ancient smithy, Placed thee in his fiery furnace. Truly thou hadst little vigor, Little strength, and little danger, When thou in the fire wert hissing, Rolling forth like seething water, From the furnace of the smithy, When thou gavest oath the strongest, By the furnace, by the anvil, By the tongs, and by the hammer, By the dwelling of the blacksmith, By the fire within the furnace. 'Now forsooth thou hast grown mighty, Thou canst rage in wildest fury; Thou hast broken all thy pledges, All thy solemn vows hast broken, Like the dogs thou shamest honor, Shamest both thyself and kindred, Tainted all with breath of evil. Tell who drove thee to this mischief, Tell who taught thee all thy malice, Tell who gavest thee thine evil! Did thy father, or thy mother, Did the eldest of thy brothers, Did the youngest of thy sisters, Did the worst of all thy kindred Give to thee thine evil nature? Not thy father, nor thy mother, Not the eldest of thy brothers, Not the youngest of thy sisters, Not the worst of all thy kindred, 61 But thyself hast done this mischief, Thou the cause of all our trouble. Come and view thine evil doings, And amend this flood of damage, Ere I tell thy gray-haired mother, Ere I tell thine aged father. Great indeed a mother's anguish, Great indeed a father's sorrow, When a son does something evil, When a child runs wild and lawless. 'Crimson streamlet, cease thy flowing From the wounds of Wainamoinen; Blood of ages, stop thy coursing From the veins of the magician; Stand like heaven's crystal pillars, Stand like columns in the ocean, Stand like birch-trees in the forest, Like the tall reeds in the marshes, Like the high-rocks on the sea-coast, Stand by power of mighty magic! 'Should perforce thy will impel thee, Flow thou on thine endless circuit, Through the veins of Wainamoinen, Through the bones, and through the muscles, Through the lungs, and heart, and liver, Of the mighty sage and singer; Better be the food of heroes, Than to waste thy strength and virtue On the meadows and the woodlands, And be lost in dust and ashes. Flow forever in thy circle; Thou must cease this crimson out-flow; Stain no more the grass and flowers, Stain no more these golden hill-tops, Pride and beauty of our heroes. In the veins of the magician, In the heart of Wainamoinen, Is thy rightful home and storehouse. Thither now withdraw thy forces, Thither hasten, swiftly flowing; Flow no more as crimson currents, Fill no longer crimson lakelets, 62 Must not rush like brooks in spring-tide, Nor meander like the rivers. 'Cease thy flow, by word of magic, Cease as did the falls of Tyrya, As the rivers of Tuoni, When the sky withheld her rain-drops, When the sea gave up her waters, In the famine of the seasons, In the years of fire and torture. If thou heedest not this order, I shall offer other measures, Know I well of other forces; I shall call the Hisi irons, In them I shall boil and roast thee, Thus to check thy crimson flowing, Thus to save the wounded hero. 'If these means be inefficient, Should these measures prove unworthy, I shall call omniscient Ukko, Mightiest of the creators, Stronger than all ancient heroes, Wiser than the world-magicians; He will check the crimson out-flow, He will heal this wound of hatchet. 'Ukko, God of love and mercy, God and Master Of the heavens, Come thou hither, thou art needed, Come thou quickly I beseech thee, Lend thy hand to aid thy children, Touch this wound with healing fingers, Stop this hero's streaming life-blood, Bind this wound with tender leaflets, Mingle with them healing flowers, Thus to check this crimson current, Thus to save this great magician, Save the life of Wainamoinen.' Thus at last the blood-stream ended, As the magic words were spoken. Then the gray-beard, much rejoicing, Sent his young son to the smithy, There to make a healing balsam, From the herbs of tender fibre, 63 From the healing plants and flowers, From the stalks secreting honey, From the roots, and leaves, and blossoms. On the way he meets an oak-tree, And the oak the son addresses: 'Hast thou honey in thy branches, Does thy sap run full of sweetness?' Thus the oak-tree wisely answers: 'Yea, but last night dripped the honey Down upon my spreading branches, And the clouds their fragrance sifted, Sifted honey on my leaflets, From their home within the heavens.' Then the son takes oak-wood splinters, Takes the youngest oak-tree branches, Gathers many healing grasses, Gathers many herbs and flowers, Rarest herbs that grow in Northland, Places them within the furnace In a kettle made of copper; Lets them steep and boil together, Bits of bark chipped from the oak-tree, Many herbs of healing virtues; Steeps them one day, then a second, Three long days of summer weather, Days and nights in quick succession; Then he tries his magic balsam, Looks to see if it is ready, If his remedy is finished; But the balsam is unworthy. Then he added other grasses, Herbs of every healing virtue, That were brought from distant nations, Many hundred leagues from Northland, Gathered by the wisest minstrels, Thither brought by nine enchanters. Three days more be steeped the balsam, Three nights more the fire be tended, Nine the days and nights be watched it, Then again be tried the ointment, Viewed it carefully and tested, Found at last that it was ready, 64 Found the magic balm was finished. Near by stood a branching birch-tree. On the border of the meadow, Wickedly it had been broken, Broken down by evil Hisi; Quick he takes his balm of healing, And anoints the broken branches, Rubs the balsam in the fractures, Thus addresses then the birch-tree: 'With this balsam I anoint thee, With this salve thy wounds I cover, Cover well thine injured places; Now the birch-tree shall recover, Grow more beautiful than ever.' True, the birch-tree soon recovered, Grew more beautiful than ever, Grew more uniform its branches, And its bole more strong and stately. Thus it was be tried the balsam, Thus the magic salve he tested, Touched with it the splintered sandstone, Touched the broken blocks of granite, Touched the fissures in the mountains, And the broken parts united, All the fragments grew together. Then the young boy quick returning With the balsam he had finished, To the gray-beard gave the ointment, And the boy these measures uttered 'Here I bring the balm of healing, Wonderful the salve I bring thee; It will join the broken granite, Make the fragments grow together, Heat the fissures in the mountains, And restore the injured birch-tree.' With his tongue the old man tested, Tested thus the magic balsam, Found the remedy effective, Found the balm had magic virtues; Then anointed he the minstrel, Touched the wounds of Wainamoinen, Touched them with his magic balsam, 65 With the balm of many virtues; Speaking words of ancient wisdom, These the words the gray-beard uttered: 'Do not walk in thine own virtue, Do not work in thine own power, Walk in strength of thy Creator; Do not speak in thine own wisdom, Speak with tongue of mighty Ukko. In my mouth, if there be sweetness, It has come from my Creator; If my bands are filled with beauty, All the beauty comes from Ukko.' When the wounds had been anointed, When the magic salve had touched them, Straightway ancient Wainamoinen Suffered fearful pain and anguish, Sank upon the floor in torment, Turning one way, then another, Sought for rest and found it nowhere, Till his pain the gray-beard banished, Banished by the aid of magic, Drove away his killing torment To the court of all our trouble, To the highest hill of torture, To the distant rocks and ledges, To the evil-bearing mountains, To the realm of wicked Hisi. Then be took some silken fabric, Quick he tore the silk asunder, Making equal strips for wrapping, Tied the ends with silken ribbons, Making thus a healing bandage; Then he wrapped with skilful fingers Wainamoinen's knee and ankle, Wrapped the wounds of the magician, And this prayer the gray-beard uttered 'Ukko's fabric is the bandage, Ukko's science is the surgeon, These have served the wounded hero, Wrapped the wounds of the magician. Look upon us, God of mercy, Come and guard us, kind Creator, 66 And protect us from all evil! Guide our feet lest they may stumble, Guard our lives from every danger, From the wicked wilds of Hisi.' Wainamoinen, old and truthful, Felt the mighty aid of magic, Felt the help of gracious Ukko, Straightway stronger grew in body, Straightway were the wounds united, Quick the fearful pain departed. Strong and hardy grew the hero, Straightway walked in perfect freedom, Turned his knee in all directions, Knowing neither pain nor trouble. Then the ancient Wainamoinen Raised his eyes to high Jumala, Looked with gratitude to heaven, Looked on high, in joy and gladness, Then addressed omniscient Ukko, This the prayer the minstrel uttered: 'O be praised, thou God of mercy, Let me praise thee, my Creator, Since thou gavest me assistance, And vouchsafed me thy protection, Healed my wounds and stilled mine anguish, Banished all my pain and trouble, Caused by Iron and by Hisi. O, ye people of Wainola, People of this generation, And the folk of future ages, Fashion not in emulation, River boat, nor ocean shallop, Boasting of its fine appearance, God alone can work completion, Give to cause its perfect ending, Never hand of man can find it, Never can the hero give it, Ukko is the only Master.' ~ Elias Lönnrot,

892:The Kalevala - Rune L MARIATTA--WAINAMOINEN'S DEPARTURE. Mariatta, child of beauty, Grew to maidenhood in Northland, In the cabin of her father, In the chambers of her mother, Golden ringlets, silver girdles, Worn against the keys paternal, Glittering upon her bosom; Wore away the father's threshold With the long robes of her garments; Wore away the painted rafters With her beauteous silken ribbons; Wore away the gilded pillars With the touching of her fingers; Wore away the birchen flooring With the tramping of her fur-shoes. Mariatta, child of beauty, Magic maid of little stature, Guarded well her sacred virtue, Her sincerity and honor, Fed upon the dainty whiting, On the inner bark of birch-wood, On the tender flesh of lambkins. When she hastened in the evening To her milking in the hurdles, Spake in innocence as follows: 'Never will the snow-white virgin Milk the kine of one unworthy!' When she journeyed over snow-fields, On the seat beside her father, Spake in purity as follows: 'Not behind a steed unworthy Will I ever ride the snow-sledge!' Mariatta, child of beauty, Lived a virgin with her mother, As a maiden highly honored, Lived in innocence and beauty, 68 Daily drove her flocks to pasture, Walking with the gentle lambkins. When the lambkins climbed the mountains, When they gamboled on the hill-tops, Stepped the virgin to the meadow, Skipping through a grove of lindens, At the calling of the cuckoo, To the songster's golden measures. Mariatta, child of beauty, Looked about, intently listened, Sat upon the berry-meadow Sat awhile, and meditated On a hillock by the forest, And soliloquized as follows: 'Call to me, thou golden cuckoo, Sing, thou sacred bird of Northland, Sing, thou silver breasted songster, Speak, thou strawberry of Ehstland, Tell bow long must I unmarried, As a shepherdess neglected, Wander o'er these bills and mountains, Through these flowery fens and fallows. Tell me, cuckoo of the woodlands, Sing to me how many summers I must live without a husband, As a shepherdess neglected!' Mariatta, child of beauty, Lived a shepherd-maid for ages, As a virgin with her mother. Wretched are the lives of shepherds, Lives of maidens still more wretched, Guarding flocks upon the mountains; Serpents creep in bog and stubble, On the greensward dart the lizards; But it was no serpent singing, Nor a sacred lizard calling, It was but the mountain-berry Calling to the lonely maiden: 'Come, O virgin, come and pluck me, Come and take me to thy bosom, Take me, tinsel-breasted virgin, Take me, maiden, copper-belted, 69 Ere the slimy snail devours me, Ere the black-worm feeds upon me. Hundreds pass my way unmindful, Thousands come within my hearing, Berry-maidens swarm about me, Children come in countless numbers, None of these has come to gather, Come to pluck this ruddy berry.' Mariatta, child of beauty, Listened to its gentle pleading, Ran to pick the berry, calling, With her fair and dainty fingers,. Saw it smiling near the meadow, Like a cranberry in feature, Like a strawberry in flavor; But be Virgin, Mariatta, Could not pluck the woodland-stranger, Thereupon she cut a charm-stick, Downward pressed upon the berry, When it rose as if by magic, Rose above her shoes of ermine, Then above her copper girdle, Darted upward to her bosom, Leaped upon the maiden's shoulder, On her dimpled chin it rested, On her lips it perched a moment, Hastened to her tongue expectant To and fro it rocked and lingered, Thence it hastened on its journey, Settled in the maiden's bosom. Mariatta, child of beauty, Thus became a bride impregnate, Wedded to the mountain-berry; Lingered in her room at morning, Sat at midday in the darkness, Hastened to her couch at evening. Thus the watchful mother wonders: 'What has happened to our Mary, To our virgin, Mariatta, That she throws aside her girdle, Shyly slips through hall and chamber, Lingers in her room at morning, 70 Hastens to her couch at evening, Sits at midday in the darkness?' On the floor a babe was playing, And the young child thus made answer: 'This has happened to our Mary, To our virgin, Mariatta, This misfortune to the maiden: She has lingered by the meadows, Played too long among the lambkins, Tasted of the mountain-berry.' Long the virgin watched and waited, Anxiously the days she counted, Waiting for the dawn of trouble. Finally she asked her mother, These the words of Mariatta: 'Faithful mother, fond and tender, Mother whom I love and cherish, Make for me a place befitting, Where my troubles may be lessened, And my heavy burdens lightened.' This the answer of the mother: 'Woe to thee, thou Hisi-maiden, Since thou art a bride unworthy, Wedded only to dishonor!' Mariatta, child of beauty, Thus replied in truthful measures: 'I am not a maid of Hisi, I am not a bride unworthy, Am not wedded to dishonor; As a shepherdess I wandered With the lambkins to the glen-wood, Wandered to the berry-mountain, Where the strawberry had ripened; Quick as thought I plucked the berry, On my tongue I gently laid it, To and fro it rocked and lingered, Settled in my heaving bosom. This the source of all my trouble, Only cause of my dishonor!' As the mother was relentless, Asked the maiden of her father, This the virgin-mother's pleading: 71 O my father, full of pity, Source of both my good and evil, Build for me a place befitting, Where my troubles may be lessened, And my heavy burdens lightened.' This the answer of the father, Of the father unforgiving: 'Go, thou evil child of Hisi, Go, thou child of sin and sorrow, Wedded only to dishonor, To the Great Bear's rocky chamber, To the stone-cave of the growler, There to lessen all thy troubles, There to cast thy heavy burdens!' Mariatta, child of beauty, Thus made answer to her father: 'I am not a child of Hisi, I am not a bride unworthy, Am not wedded to dishonor; I shall bear a noble hero, I shall bear a son immortal, Who will rule among the mighty, Rule the ancient Wainamoinen.' Thereupon the virgin-mother Wandered hither, wandered thither, Seeking for a place befitting, Seeking for a worthy birth-place For her unborn son and hero; Finally these words she uttered 'Piltti, thou my youngest maiden, Trustiest of all my servants, Seek a place within the village, Ask it of the brook of Sara, For the troubled Mariatta, Child of sorrow and misfortune.' Thereupon the little maiden, Piltti, spake these words in answer: 'Whom shall I entreat for succor, Who will lend me his assistance? These the words of Mariatta: 'Go and ask it of Ruotus, Where the reed-brook pours her waters.' 72 Thereupon the servant, Piltti, Ever hopeful, ever willing, Hastened to obey her mistress, Needing not her exhortation; Hastened like the rapid river, Like the flying smoke of battle To the cabin of Ruotus. When she walked the hill-tops tottered, When she ran the mountains trembled; Shore-reeds danced upon the pasture, Sandstones skipped about the heather As the maiden, Piltti, hastened To the dwelling of Ruotus. At his table in his cabin Sat Ruotus, eating, drinking, In his simple coat of linen. With his elbows on the table Spake the wizard in amazement: 'Why hast thou, a maid of evil, Come to see me in my cavern, What the message thou art bringing? Thereupon the servant, Piltti, Gave this answer to the wizard: 'Seek I for a spot befitting, Seek I for a worthy birth-place, For an unborn child and hero; Seek it near the Sara-streamlet, Where the reed-brook pours her waters. Came the wife of old Ruotus, Walking with her arms akimbo, Thus addressed the maiden, Piltti: 'Who is she that asks assistance, Who the maiden thus dishonored, What her name, and who her kindred?' 'I have come for Mariatta, For the worthy virgin-mother.' Spake the wife of old Ruotus, Evil-minded, cruel-hearted: 'Occupied are all our chambers, All our bath-rooms near the reed-brook; in the mount of fire are couches, is a stable in the forest, 73 For the flaming horse of Hisi; In the stable is a manger Fitting birth-place for the hero From the wife of cold misfortune, Worthy couch for Mariatta!' Thereupon the servant, Piltti, Hastened to her anxious mistress, Spake these measures, much regretting. 'There is not a place befitting, on the silver brook of Sara. Spake the wife of old Ruotus: 'Occupied are all the chambers, All the bath-rooms near the reed-brook; In the mount of fire are couches, Is a stable, in the forest, For the flaming horse of Hisi; In the stable is a manger, Fitting birth-place for the hero From the wife of cold misfortune, Worthy couch for Mariatta.'' Thereupon the hapless maiden, Mariatta, virgin-mother, Fell to bitter tears and murmurs, Spake these words in depths of sorrow: 'I, alas! must go an outcast, Wander as a wretched hireling, Like a servant in dishonor, Hasten to the burning mountain, To the stable in the forest, Make my bed within a manger, Near the flaming steed of Hisi!' Quick the hapless virgin-mother, Outcast from her father's dwelling, Gathered up her flowing raiment, Grasped a broom of birchen branches, Hastened forth in pain and sorrow To the stable in the woodlands, On the heights of Tapio's mountains, Spake these words in supplication: 'Come, I pray thee, my Creator, Only friend in times of trouble, Come to me and bring protection 74 To thy child, the virgin-mother, To the maiden, Mariatta, In this hour of sore affliction. Come to me, benignant Ukko, Come, thou only hope and refuge, Lest thy guiltless child should perish, Die the death of the unworthy!' When the virgin, Mariatta, Had arrived within the stable Of the flaming horse of Hisi, She addressed the steed as follows: 'Breathe, O sympathizing fire-horse, Breathe on me, the virgin-mother, Let thy heated breath give moisture, Let thy pleasant warmth surround me, Like the vapor of the morning; Let this pure and helpless maiden Find a refuge in thy manger!' Thereupon the horse, in pity, Breathed the moisture of his nostrils On the body of the virgin, Wrapped her in a cloud of vapor, Gave her warmth and needed comforts, Gave his aid to the afflicted, To the virgin, Mariatta. There the babe was born and cradled Cradled in a woodland-manger, Of the virgin, Mariatta, Pure as pearly dews of morning, Holy as the stars in heaven. There the mother rocks her infant, In his swaddling clothes she wraps him, Lays him in her robes of linen; Carefully the babe she nurtures, Well she guards her much-beloved, Guards her golden child of beauty, Her beloved gem of silver. But alas! the child has vanished, Vanished while the mother slumbered. Mariatta, lone and wretched, Fell to weeping, broken-hearted, Hastened off to seek her infant. 75 Everywhere the mother sought him, Sought her golden child of beauty, Her beloved gem of silver; Sought him underneath the millstone, In the sledge she sought him vainly, Underneath the sieve she sought him, Underneath the willow-basket, Touched the trees, the grass she parted, Long she sought her golden infant, Sought him on the fir-tree-mountain, In the vale, and hill, and heather; Looks within the clumps of flowers, Well examines every thicket, Lifts the juniper and willow, Lifts the branches of the alder. Lo! a star has come to meet her, And the star she thus beseeches-. 'O, thou guiding-star of Northland, Star of hope, by God created, Dost thou know and wilt thou tell me Where my darling child has wandered, Where my holy babe lies hidden?' Thus the star of Northland answers: 'If I knew, I would not tell thee; 'Tis thy child that me created, Set me here to watch at evening, In the cold to shine forever, Here to twinkle in the darkness.' Comes the golden Moon to meet her, And the Moon she thus beseeches: 'Golden Moon, by Ukko fashioned, Hope and joy of Kalevala, Dost thou know and wilt thou tell me Where my darling child has wandered, Where my holy babe lies hidden? Speaks the golden Moon in answer: 'If I knew I would not tell thee; 'Tis thy child that me created, Here to wander in the darkness, All alone at eve to wander On my cold and cheerless journey, Sleeping only in the daylight, 76 Shining for the good of others.' Thereupon the virgin-mother Falls again to bitter weeping, Hastens on through fen and forest, Seeking for her babe departed. Comes the silver Sun to meet her, And the Sun she thus addresses: 'Silver Sun by Ukko fashioned, Source of light and life to Northland, Dost thou know and wilt thou tell me Where my darling child has wandered, Where my holy babe lies hidden?' Wisely does the Sun make answer: 'Well I know thy babe's dominions, Where thy holy child is sleeping, Where Wainola's light lies hidden; 'Tis thy child that me created, Made me king of earth and ether, Made the Moon and Stars attend me, Set me here to shine at midday, Makes me shine in silver raiment, Lets me sleep and rest at evening; Yonder is thy golden infant, There thy holy babe lies sleeping, Hidden to his belt in water, Hidden in the reeds and rushes.' Mariatta, child of beauty, Virgin-mother of the Northland, Straightway seeks her babe in Swamp-land, Finds him in the reeds and rushes; Takes the young child on her bosom To the dwelling of her father. There the infant grew in beauty, Gathered strength, and light, and wisdom, All of Suomi saw and wondered. No one knew what name to give him; When the mother named him, Flower, Others named him, Son-of-Sorrow. When the virgin, Mariatta, Sought the priesthood to baptize him, Came an old man, Wirokannas, With a cup of holy water, 77 Bringing to the babe his blessing; And the gray-beard spake as follows: 'I shall not baptize a wizard, Shall not bless a black-magician With the drops of holy water; Let the young child be examined, Let us know that he is worthy, Lest he prove the son of witchcraft.' Thereupon old Wirokannas Called the ancient Wainamoinen, The eternal wisdom-singer, To inspect the infant-wonder, To report him good or evil. Wainamoinen, old and faithful, Carefully the child examined, Gave this answer to his people: 'Since the child is but an outcast, Born and cradled in a manger, Since the berry is his father; Let him lie upon the heather, Let him sleep among the rushes, Let him live upon the mountains; Take the young child to the marshes, Dash his head against the birch-tree.' Then the child of Mariatta, Only two weeks old, made answer: 'O, thou ancient Wainamoinen, Son of Folly and Injustice, Senseless hero of the Northland, Falsely hast thou rendered judgment. In thy years, for greater follies, Greater sins and misdemeanors, Thou wert not unjustly punished. In thy former years of trouble, When thou gavest thine own brother, For thy selfish life a ransom, Thus to save thee from destruction, Then thou wert not sent to Swamp-land To be murdered for thy follies. In thy former years of sorrow, When the beauteous Aino perished In the deep and boundless blue-sea, 78 To escape thy persecutions, Then thou wert not evil-treated, Wert not banished by thy people.' Thereupon old Wirokannas, Of the wilderness the ruler, Touched the child with holy water, Crave the wonder-babe his blessing, Gave him rights of royal heirship, Free to live and grow a hero, To become a mighty ruler, King and Master of Karyala. As the years passed Wainamoinen Recognized his waning powers, Empty-handed, heavy-hearted, Sang his farewell song to Northland, To the people of Wainola; Sang himself a boat of copper, Beautiful his bark of magic; At the helm sat the magician, Sat the ancient wisdom-singer. Westward, westward, sailed the hero O'er the blue-back of the waters, Singing as he left Wainola, This his plaintive song and echo: 'Suns may rise and set in Suomi, Rise and set for generations, When the North will learn my teachings, Will recall my wisdom-sayings, Hungry for the true religion. Then will Suomi need my coming, Watch for me at dawn of morning, That I may bring back the Sampo, Bring anew the harp of joyance, Bring again the golden moonlight, Bring again the silver sunshine, Peace and plenty to the Northland.' Thus the ancient Wainamoinen, In his copper-banded vessel, Left his tribe in Kalevala, Sailing o'er the rolling billows, Sailing through the azure vapors, Sailing through the dusk of evening, 79 Sailing to the fiery sunset, To the higher-landed regions, To the lower verge of heaven; Quickly gained the far horizon, Gained the purple-colored harbor. There his bark be firmly anchored, Rested in his boat of copper; But be left his harp of magic, Left his songs and wisdom-sayings, To the lasting joy of Suomi. EPILOGUE. Now I end my measured singing, Bid my weary tongue keep silence, Leave my songs to other singers. Horses have their times of resting After many hours of labor; Even sickles will grow weary When they have been long at reaping; Waters seek a quiet haven After running long in rivers; Fire subsides and sinks in slumber At the dawning of the morning Therefore I should end my singing, As my song is growing weary, For the pleasure of the evening, For the joy of morn arising. Often I have heard it chanted, Often heard the words repeated: 'Worthy cataracts and rivers Never empty all their waters.' Thus the wise and worthy singer Sings not all his garnered wisdom; Better leave unsung some sayings Than to sing them out of season. Thus beginning, and thus ending, Do I roll up all my legends, Roll them in a ball for safety, In my memory arrange them, In their narrow place of resting, Lest the songs escape unheeded, While the lock is still unopened, While the teeth remain unparted, 80 And the weary tongue is silent. Why should I sing other legends, Chant them in the glen and forest, Sing them on the hill and heather? Cold and still my golden mother Lies beneath the meadow, sleeping, Hears my ancient songs no longer, Cannot listen to my singing; Only will the forest listen, Sacred birches, sighing pine-trees, Junipers endowed with kindness, Alder-trees that love to bear me, With the aspens and the willows. When my loving mother left me, Young was I, and low of stature; Like the cuckoo of the forest, Like the thrush upon the heather, Like the lark I learned to twitter, Learned to sing my simple measures, Guided by a second mother, Stern and cold, without affection; Drove me helpless from my chamber To the wind-side of her dwelling, To the north-side of her cottage, Where the chilling winds in mercy Carried off the unprotected. As a lark I learned to wander, Wander as a lonely song-bird, Through the forests and the fenlands Quietly o'er hill and heather; Walked in pain about the marshes, Learned the songs of winds and waters, Learned the music of the ocean, And the echoes of the woodlands. Many men that live to murmur, Many women live to censure, Many speak with evil motives; Many they with wretched voices Curse me for my wretched singing, Blame my tongue for speaking wisdom, Call my ancient songs unworthy, Blame the songs and curse the singer. 81 Be not thus, my worthy people, Blame me not for singing badly, Unpretending as a minstrel. I have never had the teaching, Never lived with ancient heroes, Never learned the tongues of strangers, Never claimed to know much wisdom. Others have had language-masters, Nature was my only teacher, Woods and waters my instructors. Homeless, friendless, lone, and needy, Save in childhood with my mother, When beneath her painted rafters, Where she twirled the flying spindle, By the work-bench of my brother, By the window of my sister, In. the cabin of my father, In my early days of childhood. Be this as it may, my people, This may point the way to others, To the singers better gifted, For the good of future ages, For the coming generations, For the rising folk of Suomi. ~ Elias Lönnrot,

893:The Princess (Part 2) At break of day the College Portress came: She brought us Academic silks, in hue The lilac, with a silken hood to each, And zoned with gold; and now when these were on, And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons, She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know The Princess Ida waited: out we paced, I first, and following through the porch that sang All round with laurel, issued in a court Compact of lucid marbles, bossed with lengths Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers. The Muses and the Graces, grouped in threes, Enringed a billowing fountain in the midst; And here and there on lattice edges lay Or book or lute; but hastily we past, And up a flight of stairs into the hall. There at a board by tome and paper sat, With two tame leopards couched beside her throne, All beauty compassed in a female form, The Princess; liker to the inhabitant Of some clear planet close upon the Sun, Than our man's earth; such eyes were in her head, And so much grace and power, breathing down From over her arched brows, with every turn Lived through her to the tips of her long hands, And to her feet. She rose her height, and said: 'We give you welcome: not without redound Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime, And that full voice which circles round the grave, Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. What! are the ladies of your land so tall?' 'We of the court' said Cyril. 'From the court' She answered, 'then ye know the Prince?' and he: 'The climax of his age! as though there were One rose in all the world, your Highness that, 726 He worships your ideal:' she replied: 'We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear This barren verbiage, current among men, Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem As arguing love of knowledge and of power; Your language proves you still the child. Indeed, We dream not of him: when we set our hand To this great work, we purposed with ourself Never to wed. You likewise will do well, Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling The tricks, which make us toys of men, that so, Some future time, if so indeed you will, You may with those self-styled our lords ally Your fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with scale.' At those high words, we conscious of ourselves, Perused the matting: then an officer Rose up, and read the statutes, such as these: Not for three years to correspond with home; Not for three years to cross the liberties; Not for three years to speak with any men; And many more, which hastily subscribed, We entered on the boards: and 'Now,' she cried, 'Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall! Our statues!--not of those that men desire, Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode, Nor stunted squaws of West or East; but she That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she The foundress of the Babylonian wall, The Carian Artemisia strong in war, The Rhodope, that built the pyramid, Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows Of Agrippina. Dwell with these, and lose Convention, since to look on noble forms Makes noble through the sensuous organism That which is higher. O lift your natures up: Embrace our aims: work out your freedom. Girls, Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed: Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 727 And slander, die. Better not be at all Than not be noble. Leave us: you may go: Today the Lady Psyche will harangue The fresh arrivals of the week before; For they press in from all the provinces, And fill the hive.' She spoke, and bowing waved Dismissal: back again we crost the court To Lady Psyche's: as we entered in, There sat along the forms, like morning doves That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, A patient range of pupils; she herself Erect behind a desk of satin-wood, A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-eyed, And on the hither side, or so she looked, Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, In shining draperies, headed like a star, Her maiden babe, a double April old, Aglaïa slept. We sat: the Lady glanced: Then Florian, but not livelier than the dame That whispered 'Asses' ears', among the sedge, 'My sister.' 'Comely, too, by all that's fair,' Said Cyril. 'Oh hush, hush!' and she began. 'This world was once a fluid haze of light, Till toward the centre set the starry tides, And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast The planets: then the monster, then the man; Tattooed or woaded, winter-clad in skins, Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate; As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here Among the lowest.' Thereupon she took A bird's-eye-view of all the ungracious past; Glanced at the legendary Amazon As emblematic of a nobler age; Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of those That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo; Ran down the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines Of empire, and the woman's state in each, How far from just; till warming with her theme She fulmined out her scorn of laws Salique 728 And little-footed China, touched on Mahomet With much contempt, and came to chivalry: When some respect, however slight, was paid To woman, superstition all awry: However then commenced the dawn: a beam Had slanted forward, falling in a land Of promise; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed, Their debt of thanks to her who first had dared To leap the rotten pales of prejudice, Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert None lordlier than themselves but that which made Woman and man. She had founded; they must build. Here might they learn whatever men were taught: Let them not fear: some said their heads were less: Some men's were small; not they the least of men; For often fineness compensated size: Besides the brain was like the hand, and grew With using; thence the man's, if more was more; He took advantage of his strength to be First in the field: some ages had been lost; But woman ripened earlier, and her life Was longer; and albeit their glorious names Were fewer, scattered stars, yet since in truth The highest is the measure of the man, And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay, Nor those horn-handed breakers of the glebe, But Homer, Plato, Verulam; even so With woman: and in arts of government Elizabeth and others; arts of war The peasant Joan and others; arts of grace Sappho and others vied with any man: And, last not least, she who had left her place, And bowed her state to them, that they might grow To use and power on this Oasis, lapt In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight Of ancient influence and scorn. At last She rose upon a wind of prophecy Dilating on the future; 'everywhere Who heads in council, two beside the hearth, Two in the tangled business of the world, Two in the liberal offices of life, 729 Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss Of science, and the secrets of the mind: Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more: And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth Should bear a double growth of those rare souls, Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world.' She ended here, and beckoned us: the rest Parted; and, glowing full-faced welcome, she Began to address us, and was moving on In gratulation, till as when a boat Tacks, and the slackened sail flaps, all her voice Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried 'My brother!' 'Well, my sister.' 'O,' she said, 'What do you here? and in this dress? and these? Why who are these? a wolf within the fold! A pack of wolves! the Lord be gracious to me! A plot, a plot, a plot to ruin all!' 'No plot, no plot,' he answered. 'Wretched boy, How saw you not the inscription on the gate, LET NO MAN ENTER IN ON PAIN OF DEATH?' 'And if I had,' he answered, 'who could think The softer Adams of your Academe, O sister, Sirens though they be, were such As chanted on the blanching bones of men?' 'But you will find it otherwise' she said. 'You jest: ill jesting with edge-tools! my vow Binds me to speak, and O that iron will, That axelike edge unturnable, our Head, The Princess.' 'Well then, Psyche, take my life, And nail me like a weasel on a grange For warning: bury me beside the gate, And cut this epitaph above my bones; ~Here lies a brother by a sister slain, All for the common good of womankind.~' 'Let me die too,' said Cyril, 'having seen And heard the Lady Psyche.' I struck in: 'Albeit so masked, Madam, I love the truth; Receive it; and in me behold the Prince Your countryman, affianced years ago To the Lady Ida: here, for here she was, 730 And thus (what other way was left) I came.' 'O Sir, O Prince, I have no country; none; If any, this; but none. Whate'er I was Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. Affianced, Sir? love-whispers may not breathe Within this vestal limit, and how should I, Who am not mine, say, live: the thunderbolt Hangs silent; but prepare: I speak; it falls.' 'Yet pause,' I said: 'for that inscription there, I think no more of deadly lurks therein, Than in a clapper clapping in a garth, To scare the fowl from fruit: if more there be, If more and acted on, what follows? war; Your own work marred: for this your Academe, Whichever side be Victor, in the halloo Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass With all fair theories only made to gild A stormless summer.' 'Let the Princess judge Of that' she said: 'farewell, Sir--and to you. I shudder at the sequel, but I go.' 'Are you that Lady Psyche,' I rejoined, 'The fifth in line from that old Florian, Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall (The gaunt old Baron with his beetle brow Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights) As he bestrode my Grandsire, when he fell, And all else fled? we point to it, and we say, The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold, But branches current yet in kindred veins.' 'Are you that Psyche,' Florian added; 'she With whom I sang about the morning hills, Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple fly, And snared the squirrel of the glen? are you That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow, To smoothe my pillow, mix the foaming draught Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read My sickness down to happy dreams? are you That brother-sister Psyche, both in one? You were that Psyche, but what are you now?' 'You are that Psyche,' said Cyril, 'for whom I would be that for ever which I seem, 731 Woman, if I might sit beside your feet, And glean your scattered sapience.' Then once more, 'Are you that Lady Psyche,' I began, 'That on her bridal morn before she past From all her old companions, when the kind Kissed her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties Would still be dear beyond the southern hills; That were there any of our people there In want or peril, there was one to hear And help them? look! for such are these and I.' 'Are you that Psyche,' Florian asked, 'to whom, In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn Came flying while you sat beside the well? The creature laid his muzzle on your lap, And sobbed, and you sobbed with it, and the blood Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept. That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept. O by the bright head of my little niece, You were that Psyche, and what are you now?' 'You are that Psyche,' Cyril said again, 'The mother of the sweetest little maid, That ever crowed for kisses.' 'Out upon it!' She answered, 'peace! and why should I not play The Spartan Mother with emotion, be The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind? Him you call great: he for the common weal, The fading politics of mortal Rome, As I might slay this child, if good need were, Slew both his sons: and I, shall I, on whom The secular emancipation turns Of half this world, be swerved from right to save A prince, a brother? a little will I yield. Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you. O hard, when love and duty clash! I fear My conscience will not count me fleckless; yet-Hear my conditions: promise (otherwise You perish) as you came, to slip away Today, tomorrow, soon: it shall be said, These women were too barbarous, would not learn; They fled, who might have shamed us: promise, all.' 732 What could we else, we promised each; and she, Like some wild creature newly-caged, commenced A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused By Florian; holding out her lily arms Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said: 'I knew you at the first: though you have grown You scarce have altered: I am sad and glad To see you, Florian. ~I~ give thee to death My brother! it was duty spoke, not I. My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. Our mother, is she well?' With that she kissed His forehead, then, a moment after, clung About him, and betwixt them blossomed up From out a common vein of memory Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, And far allusion, till the gracious dews Began to glisten and to fall: and while They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice, 'I brought a message here from Lady Blanche.' Back started she, and turning round we saw The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood, Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, A rosy blonde, and in a college gown, That clad her like an April daffodilly (Her mother's colour) with her lips apart, And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes, As bottom agates seen to wave and float In crystal currents of clear morning seas. So stood that same fair creature at the door. Then Lady Psyche, 'Ah--Melissa--you! You heard us?' and Melissa, 'O pardon me I heard, I could not help it, did not wish: But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, Nor think I bear that heart within my breast, To give three gallant gentlemen to death.' 'I trust you,' said the other, 'for we two Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine: But yet your mother's jealous temperament-Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove 733 The Danaïd of a leaky vase, for fear This whole foundation ruin, and I lose My honour, these their lives.' 'Ah, fear me not' Replied Melissa; 'no--I would not tell, No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness, No, not to answer, Madam, all those hard things That Sheba came to ask of Solomon.' 'Be it so' the other, 'that we still may lead The new light up, and culminate in peace, For Solomon may come to Sheba yet.' Said Cyril, 'Madam, he the wisest man Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls Of Lebanonian cedar: nor should you (Though, Madam, ~you~ should answer, ~we~ would ask) Less welcome find among us, if you came Among us, debtors for our lives to you, Myself for something more.' He said not what, But 'Thanks,' she answered 'Go: we have been too long Together: keep your hoods about the face; They do so that affect abstraction here. Speak little; mix not with the rest; and hold Your promise: all, I trust, may yet be well.' We turned to go, but Cyril took the child, And held her round the knees against his waist, And blew the swollen cheek of a trumpeter, While Psyche watched them, smiling, and the child Pushed her flat hand against his face and laughed; And thus our conference closed. And then we strolled For half the day through stately theatres Benched crescent-wise. In each we sat, we heard The grave Professor. On the lecture slate The circle rounded under female hands With flawless demonstration: followed then A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, With scraps of thunderous Epic lilted out By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long That on the stretched forefinger of all Time Sparkle for ever: then we dipt in all That treats of whatsoever is, the state, 734 The total chronicles of man, the mind, The morals, something of the frame, the rock, The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower, Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest, And whatsoever can be taught and known; Till like three horses that have broken fence, And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke: 'Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we.' 'They hunt old trails' said Cyril 'very well; But when did woman ever yet invent?' 'Ungracious!' answered Florian; 'have you learnt No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talked The trash that made me sick, and almost sad?' 'O trash' he said, 'but with a kernel in it. Should I not call her wise, who made me wise? And learnt? I learnt more from her in a flash, Than in my brainpan were an empty hull, And every Muse tumbled a science in. A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, And round these halls a thousand baby loves Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts, Whence follows many a vacant pang; but O With me, Sir, entered in the bigger boy, The Head of all the golden-shafted firm, The long-limbed lad that had a Psyche too; He cleft me through the stomacher; and now What think you of it, Florian? do I chase The substance or the shadow? will it hold? I have no sorcerer's malison on me, No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. I Flatter myself that always everywhere I know the substance when I see it. Well, Are castles shadows? Three of them? Is she The sweet proprietress a shadow? If not, Shall those three castles patch my tattered coat? For dear are those three castles to my wants, And dear is sister Psyche to my heart, And two dear things are one of double worth, And much I might have said, but that my zone Unmanned me: then the Doctors! O to hear The Doctors! O to watch the thirsty plants 735 Imbibing! once or twice I thought to roar, To break my chain, to shake my mane: but thou, Modulate me, Soul of mincing mimicry! Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat; Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet Star-sisters answering under crescent brows; Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, Where they like swallows coming out of time Will wonder why they came: but hark the bell For dinner, let us go!' And in we streamed Among the columns, pacing staid and still By twos and threes, till all from end to end With beauties every shade of brown and fair In colours gayer than the morning mist, The long hall glittered like a bed of flowers. How might a man not wander from his wits Pierced through with eyes, but that I kept mine own Intent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams, The second-sight of some Astræan age, Sat compassed with professors: they, the while, Discussed a doubt and tost it to and fro: A clamour thickened, mixt with inmost terms Of art and science: Lady Blanche alone Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments, With all her autumn tresses falsely brown, Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat In act to spring. At last a solemn grace Concluded, and we sought the gardens: there One walked reciting by herself, and one In this hand held a volume as to read, And smoothed a petted peacock down with that: Some to a low song oared a shallop by, Or under arches of the marble bridge Hung, shadowed from the heat: some hid and sought In the orange thickets: others tost a ball Above the fountain-jets, and back again With laughter: others lay about the lawns, Of the older sort, and murmured that their May Was passing: what was learning unto them? 736 They wished to marry; they could rule a house; Men hated learned women: but we three Sat muffled like the Fates; and often came Melissa hitting all we saw with shafts Of gentle satire, kin to charity, That harmed not: then day droopt; the chapel bells Called us: we left the walks; we mixt with those Six hundred maidens clad in purest white, Before two streams of light from wall to wall, While the great organ almost burst his pipes, Groaning for power, and rolling through the court A long melodious thunder to the sound Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies, The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven A blessing on her labours for the world. Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea! Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon; Rest, rest, on mother's breast, Father will come to thee soon; Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the west Under the silver moon: Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

894:He gazed and gazed and gazed and gazed, Amazed, amazed, amazed, amazed. Like (7) 2 Saul I. Said Abner, ``At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak, ``Kiss my cheek, wish me well!'' Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek. And he, ``Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent, ``Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent ``Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet, ``Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet. ``For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days, ``Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor of praise, ``To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife, ``And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life. II. ``Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with his dew ``On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue ``Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild beat ``Were now raging to torture the desert!'' III.                      Then I, as was meet, Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet, And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped; I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all withered and gone, That extends to the second enclosure, I groped my way on Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more I prayed, And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid But spoke, ``Here is David, thy servant!'' And no voice replied. At the first I saw nought but the blackness but soon I descried A something more black than the blackness-the vast, the upright Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into sight Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all. Then a sunbeam, that burst thro' the tent-roof, showed Saul. IV. He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side; He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his pangs And waiting his change, the king-serpent all heavily hangs, Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come With the spring-time,-so agonized Saul, drear and stark, blind and dumb. V. Then I tuned my harp,-took off the lilies we twine round its chords Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noon-tide-those sunbeams like swords! And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one, So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done. They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's bed; And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star Into eve and the blue far above us,-so blue and so far! VI. -Then the tune, for which quails on the cornland will each leave his mate To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate Till for boldness they fight one another: and then, what has weight To set the quick jerboa amusing outside his sand house- There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse! God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here. VII. Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, when hand Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great hearts expand And grow one in the sense of this world's life.-And then, the last song When the dead man is praised on his journey-``Bear, bear him along ``With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are balm-seeds not here ``To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier. ``Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!''-And then, the glad chaunt Of the marriage,-first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling.-And then, the great march Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch Nought can break; who shall harm them, our friends?-Then, the chorus intoned As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned. But I stopped here: for here in the darkness Saul groaned. VIII. And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened apart; And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered: and sparkles 'gan dart From the jewels that woke in his turban, at once with a start, All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart. So the head: but the body still moved not, still hung there erect. And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it unchecked, As I sang,- IX.      ``Oh, our manhood's prime vigour! No spirit feels waste, ``Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. ``Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock, ``The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock ``Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, ``And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair. ``And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine, ``And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine, ``And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell ``That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. ``How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ ``All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy! ``Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword thou didst guard ``When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious reward? ``Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sung ``The low song of the nearly-departed, and bear her faint tongue ``Joining in while it could to the witness, `Let one more attest, `` `I have lived, seen God's hand thro'a lifetime, and all was for best'? ``Then they sung thro' their tears in strong triumph, not much, but the rest. ``And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working whence grew ``Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the spirit strained true: ``And the friends of thy boyhood-that boyhood of wonder and hope, ``Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the eye's scope,- ``Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch; a people is thine; ``And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one head combine! ``On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage (like the throe ``That, a-work in the rock, helps its labour and lets the gold go) ``High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them,-all ``Brought to blaze on the head of one creature-King Saul!'' X. And lo, with that leap of my spirit,-heart, hand, harp and voice, Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding rejoice Saul's fame in the light it was made for-as when, dare I say, The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains through its array, And up soareth the cherubim-chariot-``Saul!'' cried I, and stopped, And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who hung propped By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was struck by his name. Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to the aim, And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he alone, While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust of stone A year's snow bound about for a breastplate,-leaves grasp of the sheet? Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet, And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your mountain of old, With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold- Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest-all hail, there they are! -Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on his crest For their food in the ardours of summer. One long shudder thrilled All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilled At the King's self left standing before me, released and aware. What was gone, what remained? All to traverse, 'twixt hope and despair; Death was past, life not come: so he waited. Awhile his right hand Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant forthwith to remand To their place what new objects should enter: 'twas Saul as before. I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any more Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore, At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean-a sun's slow decline Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and entwine Base with base to knit strength more intensely: so, arm folded arm O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided. XI.                      What spell or what charm, (For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next should I urge To sustain him where song had restored him?-Song filled to the verge His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty: beyond, on what fields, Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by? He saith, ``It is good;'' still he drinks not: he lets me praise life, Gives assent, yet would die for his own part. XII.                       Then fancies grew rife Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep Fed in silence-above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep; And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie 'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and the sky: And I laughed-``Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks, ``Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks, ``Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show ``Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know! ``Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains, ``And the prudence that keeps what men strive for.'' And now these old trains Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the string Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus- XIII.                         ``Yea, my King,'' I began-``thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring ``From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute: ``In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit. ``Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree,-how its stem trembled first ``Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler then safely outburst ``The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these too, in turn ``Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect: yet more was to learn, ``E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we slight, ``When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight ``Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem and branch ``Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall staunch ``Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine. ``Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be thine! ``By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoy ``More indeed, than at first when inconscious, the life of a boy. ``Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each deed thou hast done ``Dies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e'en as the sun ``Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, though tempests efface, ``Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere trace ``The results of his past summer-prime'-so, each ray of thy will, ``Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill ``Thy whole people, the countless, with ardour, till they too give forth ``A like cheer to their sons, who in turn, fill the South and the North ``With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. Carouse in the past! ``But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last: ``As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height ``So with man-so his power and his beauty for ever take flight. ``No! Again a long draught of my soul-wine! Look forth o'er the years! ``Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the seer's! ``Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his tomb-bid arise ``A grey mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, built to the skies, ``Let it mark where the great First King slumbers: whose fame would ye know? ``Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go ``In great characters cut by the scribe,-Such was Saul, so he did; ``With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid,- ``For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to amend, ``In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend ``(See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, and record ``With the gold of the graver, Saul's story,-the statesman's great word ``Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The river's a-wave ``With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet-winds rave: ``So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part ``In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou art!'' XIV. And behold while I sang but O Thou who didst grant me that day, And before it not seldom hast granted thy help to essay, Carry on and complete an adventure,-my shield and my sword In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy word was my word,- Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavour And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless as ever On the new stretch of heaven above me-till, mighty to save, Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance-God's throne from man's grave! Let me tell out my tale to its ending-my voice to my heart Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night I took part, As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep, And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep! For I wake in the grey dewy covert, while Hebron upheaves The dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and Kidron retrieves Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine. XV.                    I say then,-my song While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and ever more strong Made a proffer of good to console him-he slowly resumed His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right-hand replumed His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the swathes Of his turban, and see-the huge sweat that his countenance bathes, He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his loins as of yore, And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set before. He is Saul, ye remember in glory,-ere error had bent The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though much spent Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God did choose, To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose. So sank he along by the tent-prop till, stayed by the pile Of his armour and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile, And sat out my singing,-one arm round the tent-prop, to raise His bent head, and the other hung slack-till I touched on the praise I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient there; And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was 'ware That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees Which were thrust out on each side around me, like oak-roots which please To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know If the best I could do had brought solace: he spoke not, but slow Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: thro' my hair The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my bead, with kind power- All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower. Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine- And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where was the sign? I yearned-``Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss, ``I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this; ``I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence, ``As this moment,-had love but the warrant, love's heart to dispense!'' XVI. Then the truth came upon me. No harp more-no song more! outbroke- XVII. ``I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I spoke: ``I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my brain ``And pronounced on the rest of his hand-work-returned him again ``His creation's approval or censure: I spoke as I saw: ``I report, as a man may of God's work-all's love, yet all's law. ``Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked ``To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked. ``Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare. ``Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care! ``Do I task any faculty highest, to image success? ``I but open my eyes,-and perfection, no more and no less, ``In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God ``In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod. ``And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew ``(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too) ``The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's all-complete, ``As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet. ``Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity known, ``I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own. ``There's a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink, ``I am fain to keep still in abeyance, (I laugh as I think) ``Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst ``E'en the Giver in one gift.-Behold, I could love if I durst! ``But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake ``God's own speed in the one way of love: I abstain for love's sake. ``-What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small, ``Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appal? ``In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all? ``Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, ``That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift? ``Here, the creature surpass the Creator,-the end, what Began? ``Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man, ``And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can? ``Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power, ``To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower ``Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul, ``Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole? ``And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest) ``These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best? ``Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height ``This perfection,-succeed with life's day-spring, death's minute of night? ``Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mistake, ``Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now,-and bid him awake ``From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set ``Clear and safe in new light and new life,-a new harmony yet ``To be run, and continued, and ended-who knows?-or endure! ``The man taught enough, by life's dream, of the rest to make sure; ``By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, ``And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in this. XVIII. ``I believe it! 'Tis thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive: ``In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe. ``All's one gift: thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my prayer ``As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air. ``From thy will, stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread Sabaoth: ``I will?-the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loth ``To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare ``Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair? ``This;-'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do! ``See the King-I would help him but cannot, the wishes fall through. ``Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, ``To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would-knowing which, ``I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now! ``Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou-so wilt thou! ``So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown- ``And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down ``One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath, ``Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death! ``As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved ``Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved! ``He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak. ``'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek ``In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be ``A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, ``Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand ``Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!'' XIX. I know not too well how I found my way home in the night. There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right, Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware: I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly there, As a runner beset by the populace famished for news- Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews; And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not, For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest, Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest. Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth- Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth; In the gathered intensity brought to the grey of the hills; In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills; In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe: E'en the serpent that slid away silent,-he felt the new law. The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers; The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers: And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low, With their obstinate, all but hushed voices-``E'en so, it is so!'' The jumping hare. One of the three cities of Refuge. * A brook in Jerusalem. ~ Robert Browning, Rhyme for a Child Viewing a Naked Venus in a Painting of 'The Judgement of Paris' ,

895:The Botanic Garden (Part Vi) THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS. CANTO II. Again the Goddess strikes the golden lyre, And tunes to wilder notes the warbling wire; With soft suspended step Attention moves, And Silence hovers o'er the listening groves; Orb within orb the charmed audience throng, And the green vault reverberates the song. 'Breathe soft, ye Gales!' the fair CARLINA cries, Bear on broad wings your Votress to the skies. How sweetly mutable yon orient hues, As Morn's fair hand her opening roses strews; How bright, when Iris blending many a ray Binds in embroider'd wreath the brow of Day; Soft, when the pendant Moon with lustres pale O'er heaven's blue arch unfurls her milky veil; While from the north long threads of silver light Dart on swift shuttles o'er the tissued night! 'Breathe soft, ye Zephyrs! hear my fervent sighs, Bear on broad wings your Votress to the skies!'-Plume over plume in long divergent lines On whale-bone ribs the fair Mechanic joins; Inlays with eider down the silken strings, And weaves in wide expanse Dædalian wings; Round her bold sons the waving pennons binds, And walks with angel-step upon the winds. So on the shoreless air the intrepid Gaul Launch'd the vast concave of his buoyant ball.Journeying on high, the silken castle glides Bright as a meteor through the azure tides; O'er towns and towers and temples wins its way, Or mounts sublime, and gilds the vault of day. Silent with upturn'd eyes unbreathing crowds Pursue the floating wonder to the clouds; And, flush'd with transport or benumb'd with fear, Watch, as it rises, the diminish'd sphere. -Now less and less!-and now a speck is seen!- 41 And now the fleeting rack obtrudes between!With bended knees, raised arms, and suppliant brow To every shrine with mingled cries they vow.'Save Him, ye Saints! who o'er the good preside; 'Bear Him, ye Winds! ye Stars benignant! guide.' -The calm Philosopher in ether fails, Views broader stars, and breathes in purer gales; Sees, like a map, in many a waving line Round Earth's blue plains her lucid waters mine; Sees at his feet the forky lightnings glow, And hears innocuous thunders roar below. --Rife, great MONGOLFIER! urge thy venturous flight High o'er the Moon's pale ice-reflected light; High o'er the pearly Star, whose beamy horn. Hangs in the east, gay harbinger of morn; Leave the red eye of Mars on rapid wing; Jove's silver guards, and Saturn's dusky ring; Leave the fair beams, which, issuing from afar; Play with new lustres round the Georgian star; Shun with strong oars the Sun's attractive throne, The sparkling zodiack, and the milky zone; Where headlong Comets with increasing force Through other systems bend their blazing course.For thee Cassiope her chair withdraws, For thee the Bear retracts his shaggy paws; High o'er the North thy golden orb shall roll, And blaze eternal round the wondering pole. So Argo, rising from the southern main, Lights with new stars the blue etherial plain; With favoring beams the mariner protects, And the bold course, which first it steer'd, directs. Inventress of the Woof, fair LINA flings The flying shuttle through the dancing strings; Inlays the broider'd weft with flowery dyes, Quick beat the reeds, the pedals fall and rise; Slow from the beam the lengths of warp unwind, And dance and nod the massy weights behind.Taught by her labours, from the fertile soil Immortal Isis clothed the banks of Nile; And fair ARACHNE with her rival loom Found undeserved a melancholy doom.- 42 Five Sister-nymphs with dewy fingers twine The beamy flax, and stretch the fibre-line; Quick eddying threads from rapid spindles reel, Or whirl with beaten foot the dizzy wheel. -Charm'd round the busy Fair five shepherds press, Praise the nice texture of their snowy dress, Admire the Artists, and the art approve, And tell with honey'd words the tale of love. So now, where Derwent rolls his dusky floods Through vaulted mountains, and a night of woods, The Nymph, GOSSYPIA, treads the velvet sod, And warms with rosy smiles the watery God; His ponderous oars to slender spindles turns, And pours o'er massy wheels his foamy urns; With playful charms her hoary lover wins, And wields his trident,-while the Monarch spins. -First with nice eye emerging Naiads cull From leathery pods the vegetable wool; With wiry teeth revolving cards release The tanged knots, and smooth the ravell'd fleece; Next moves the iron-band with fingers fine, Combs the wide card, and forms the eternal line; Slow, with soft lips, the whirling Can acquires The tender skeins, and wraps in rising spires; With quicken'd pace successive rollers move, And these retain, and those extend the rove Then fly the spoles, the rapid axles glow;And slowly circumvolves the labouring wheel below. PAPYRA, throned upon the banks of Nile, 43 Spread her smooth leaf, and waved her silver style. -The storied pyramid, the laurel'd bust, The trophy'd arch had crumbled into dust; The sacred symbol, and the epic song, (Unknown the character, forgot the tongue,) With each unconquer'd chief, or fainted maid, Sunk undistinguish'd in Oblivion's shade. Sad o'er the scatter'd ruins Genius sigh'd, And infant Arts but learn'd to lisp and died. Till to astonish'd realms PAPYRA taught To paint in mystic colours Sound and Thought. With Wisdom's voice to print the page sublime, And mark in adamant the steps of Time. -Three favour'd youths her soft attention share, The fond disciples of the studious Fair, Hear her sweet voice, the golden process prove; Gaze, as they learn; and, as they listen, love. The first from Alpha to Omega joins The letter'd tribes along the level lines; Weighs with nice ear the vowel, liquid, surd, And breaks in syllables the volant word. Then forms the next upon the marshal'd plain In deepening ranks his dexterous cypher-train; And counts, as wheel the decimating bands, The dews of Ægypt, or Arabia's sands, And then the third on four concordant lines Prints the lone crotchet, and the quaver joins; Marks the gay trill, the solemn pause inscribes, And parts with bars the undulating tribes. Pleased round her cane-wove throne, the applauding crowd Clap'd their rude hands, their swarthy foreheads bow'd; With loud acclaim 'a present God!' they cry'd, 'A present God!' rebellowing shores reply'dThen peal'd at intervals with mingled swell The echoing harp, shrill clarion, horn, and shell; While Bards ecstatic, bending o'er the lyre, 44 Struck deeper chords, and wing'd the song with fire. Then mark'd Astronomers with keener eyes The Moon's refulgent journey through the skies; Watch'd the swift Comets urge their blazing cars, And weigh'd the Sun with his revolving Stars. High raised the Chemists their Hermetic wands, (And changing forms obey'd their waving hands,) Her treasur'd gold from Earth's deep chambers tore, Or fused and harden'd her chalybeate ore. All with bent knee from fair PAPYRA claim Wove by her hands the wreath of deathless fame. -Exulting Genius crown'd his darling child, The young Arts clasp'd her knees, and Virtue smiled. So now DELANY forms her mimic bowers, Her paper foliage, and her silken flowers; Her virgin train the tender scissars ply, Vein the green leaf, the purple petal dye: Round wiry stems the flaxen tendril bends, Moss creeps below, and waxen fruit impends. Cold Winter views amid his realms of snow DELANY'S vegetable statues blow; Smooths his stern brow, delays his hoary wing, And eyes with wonder all the blooms of spring. The gentle LAPSANA, NYMPHÆA fair, And bright CALENDULA with golden hair, Watch with nice eye the Earth's diurnal way, Marking her solar and sidereal day, Her slow nutation, and her varying clime, And trace with mimic art the march of Time; Round his light foot a magic chain they fling, And count the quick vibrations of his wing.First in its brazen cell reluctant roll'd Bends the dark spring in many a steely fold; On spiral brass is stretch'd the wiry thong, Tooth urges tooth, and wheel drives wheel along; In diamond-eyes the polish'd axles flow, Smooth slides the hand, the ballance pants below. Round the white circlet in relievo bold A Serpent twines his scaly length in gold; And brightly pencil'd on the enamel'd sphere Live the fair trophies of the passing year. -Here 45 Time's huge fingers grasp his giant-mace, And dash proud Superstition from her base, Rend her strong towers and gorgeous fanes, and shed The crumbling fragments round her guilty head. There the gay Hours , whom wreaths of roses deck, Lead their young trains amid the cumberous wreck; And, slowly purpling o'er the mighty waste, Plant the fair growths of Science and of Taste. While each light Moment , as it dances by With feathery foot and pleasure-twinkling eye, Feeds from its baby-hand, with many a kiss, The callow nestlings of domestic Bliss. As yon gay clouds, which canopy the skies, Change their thin forms, and lose their lucid dyes; So the soft bloom of Beauty's vernal charms Fades in our eyes, and withers in our arms. -Bright as the silvery plume, or pearly shell, The snow-white rose, or lily's virgin bell, The fair HELLEBORAS attractive shone, Warm'd every Sage, and every Shepherd won.Round the gay sisters press the enamour'd bands And seek with soft solicitude their hands. -Ere while how chang'd!-in dim suffusion lies The glance divine, that lighten'd in their eyes; Cold are those lips, where smiles seductive hung, And the weak accents linger on their tongue; Each roseat feature fades to livid green,-Disgust with face averted shuts the scene. So from his gorgeous throne, which awed the world, The mighty Monarch of the east was hurl'd, To dwell with brutes beneath the midnight storm, By Heaven's just vengeance changed in mind and form. -Prone to the earth He bends his brow superb, Crops the young floret and the bladed herb; Lolls his red tongue, and from the reedy side 46 Of slow Euphrates laps the muddy tide. Long eagle-plumes his arching neck invest, Steal round his arms, and clasp his sharpen'd breast; Dark brinded hairs in bristling ranks, behind, Rise o'er his back, and rustle in the wind, Clothe his lank sides, his shrivel'd limbs surround, And human hands with talons print the ground. Silent in shining troops the Courtier-throng Pursue their monarch as he crawls along; E'en Beauty pleads in vain with smiles and tears, Nor Flattery's self can pierce his pendant ears. Two Sister-Nymphs to Ganges' flowery brink Bend their light steps, the lucid water drink, Wind through the dewy rice, and nodding canes, (As eight black Eunuchs guard the sacred plains), With playful malice watch the scaly brood, And shower the inebriate berries on the flood.Stay in your crystal chambers, silver tribes! Turn your bright eyes, and shun the dangerous bribes; The tramel'd net with less destruction sweeps Your curling shallows, and your azure deeps; With less deceit, the gilded fly beneath, Lurks the fell hook unseen,-to taste is death!-Dim your slow eyes, and dull your pearly coat, Drunk on the waves your languid forms shall float, On useless fins in giddy circles play, And Herons and Otters seize you for their prey.So, when the Saint from Padua's graceless land In silent anguish sought the barren strand, High on the shatter'd beech sublime He stood, Still'd with his waving arm the babbling flood; 'To Man's dull ear,' He cry'd, 'I call in vain, 'Hear me, ye scaly tenants of the main!'Misshapen Seals approach in circling flocks, In dusky mail the Tortoise climbs the rocks, Torpedoes, Sharks, Rays, Porpus, Dolphins, pour Their twinkling squadrons round the glittering shore; 47 With tangled fins, behind, huge Phocæ glide, And Whales and Grampi swell the distant tide. Then kneel'd the hoary Seer, to heaven address'd His fiery eyes, and smote his sounding breast; 'Bless ye the Lord!' with thundering voice he cry'd, 'Bless ye the Lord!' the bending shores reply'd; The winds and waters caught the sacred word, And mingling echoes shouted 'Bless the Lord!' The listening shoals the quick contagion feel, Pant on the floods, inebriate with their zeal, Ope their wide jaws, and bow their slimy heads, And dash with frantic fins their foamy beds. Sopha'd on silk, amid her charm-built towers, Her meads of asphodel, and amaranth bowers, Where Sleep and Silence guard the soft abodes, In sullen apathy PAPAVER nods. Faint o'er her couch in scintillating streams Pass the thin forms of Fancy and of Dreams; Froze by inchantment on the velvet ground Fair youths and beauteous ladies glitter round; On crystal pedestals they seem to sigh, Bend the meek knee, and lift the imploring eye. -And now the Sorceress bares her shrivel'd hand, And circles thrice in air her ebon wand; Flush'd with new life descending statues talk, The pliant marble softening as they walk; With deeper sobs reviving lovers breathe, Fair bosoms rise, and soft hearts pant beneath; With warmer lips relenting damsels speak, And kindling blushes tinge the Parian cheek; To viewless lutes aërial voices sing, And hovering Loves are heard on rustling wing. -She waves her wand again!-fresh horrors seize Their stiffening limbs, their vital currents freeze; By each cold nymph her marble lover lies, And iron slumbers seal their glassy eyes. So with his dread Caduceus HERMES led From the dark regions of the imprison'd dead, Or drove in silent shoals the lingering train To Night's dull shore, and PLUTO'S dreary reign So with her waving pencil CREWE commands The realms of Taste, and Fancy's fairy lands; 48 Calls up with magic voice the shapes, that sleep In earth's dark bosom, or unfathom'd deep; That shrined in air on viewless wings aspire, Or blazing bathe in elemental fire. As with nice touch her plaistic hand she moves, Rise the fine forms of Beauties, Graces, Loves; Kneel to the fair Inchantress, smile or sigh, And fade or flourish, as she turns her eye. Fair CISTA, rival of the rosy dawn, Call'd her light choir, and trod the dewy lawn; Hail'd with rude melody the new-born May, As cradled yet in April's lap she lay. I. 'Born in yon blaze of orient sky, 'Sweet MAY! thy radiant form unfold; 'Unclose thy blue voluptuous eye, 'And wave thy shadowy locks of gold. II. 'For Thee the fragrant zephyrs blow, 'For Thee descends the sunny shower; 'The rills in softer murmurs slow, 'And brighter blossoms gem the bower. III. 'Light Graces dress'd in flowery wreaths 'And tiptoe Joys their hands combine; 'And Love his sweet contagion breathes, 'And laughing dances round thy shrine. IV. 'Warm with new life the glittering throngs 'On quivering fin and rustling wing 'Delighted join their votive songs, 'And hail thee, GODDESS OF THE SPRING.' O'er the green brinks of Severn's oozy bed, 49 In changeful rings, her sprightly troop She led; PAN tripp'd before, where Eudness shades the mead, And blew with glowing lip his sevenfold reed; Emerging Naiads swell'd the jocund strain, And aped with mimic step the dancing train.'I faint, I fall!'at noon the Beauty cried, 'Weep o'er my tomb, ye Nymphs!'-and sunk and died. -Thus, when white Winter o'er the shivering clime Drives the still snow, or showers the silver rime; As the lone shepherd o'er the dazzling rocks Prints his steep step, and guides his vagrant flocks; Views the green holly veil'd in network nice, Her vermil clusters twinkling in the ice; Admires the lucid vales, and slumbering floods, Fantastic cataracts, and crystal woods, Transparent towns, with seas of milk between, And eyes with transport the refulgent scene:If breaks the sunshine o'er the spangled trees, Or flits on tepid wing the western breeze, In liquid dews descends the transient glare, And all the glittering pageant melts in air. Where Andes hides his cloud-wreath'd crest in snow, And roots his base on burning sands below; Cinchona, fairest of Peruvian maids To Health's bright Goddess in the breezy glades On Quito's temperate plain an altar rear'd, Trill'd the loud hymn, the solemn prayer preferr'd: Each balmy bud she cull'd, and honey'd flower, And hung with fragrant wreaths the sacred bower; Each pearly sea she search'd, and sparkling mine, And piled their treasures on the gorgeous shrine; Her suppliant voice for sickening Loxa raised, Sweet breath'd the gale, and bright the censor blazed. -'Divine HYGEIA! on thy votaries bend Thy angel-looks, oh, hear us, and defend! While streaming o'er the night with baleful glare The star of Autumn rays his misty hair; Fierce from his fens the Giant AGUE springs, And wrapp'd in fogs descends on vampire wings; 'Before, with shuddering limbs cold Tremor reels, 50 And Fever's burning nostril dogs his heels; Loud claps the grinning Fiend his iron hands, Stamps with his marble feet, and shouts along the lands; Withers the damask cheek, unnerves the strong, And drives with scorpion-lash the shrieking throng. Oh, Goddess! on thy kneeling votaries bend Thy angel-looks, oh, hear us, and defend!' -HYGEIA, leaning from the blest abodes, The crystal mansions of the immortal gods, Saw the sad Nymph uplift her dewy eyes, Spread her white arms, and breathe her fervid sighs; Call'd to her fair associates, Youth, and Joy, And shot all-radiant through the glittering sky; Loose waved behind her golden train of hair, Her sapphire mantle swam diffus'd in air.O'er the grey matted moss, and pansied sod, With step sublime the glowing Goddess trod, Gilt with her beamy eye the conscious shade, And with her smile celestial bless'd the maid. 'Come to my arms,' with seraph voice she cries, 'Thy vows are heard, benignant Nymph! arise; Where yon aspiring trunks fantastic wreath Their mingled roots, and drink the rill beneath, Yield to the biting axe thy sacred wood, And strew the bitter foliage on the flood.' In silent homage bow'd the blushing maid,Five youths athletic hasten to her aid, O'er the scar'd hills re-echoing strokes resound, And headlong forests thunder on the ground. Round the dark roots, rent bark, and shatter'd boughs, From ocherous beds the swelling fountain flows; With streams austere its winding margin laves, And pours from vale to vale its dusky waves. -As the pale squadrons, bending o'er the brink, View with a sigh their alter'd forms, and drink; Slow-ebbing life with refluent crimson breaks O'er their wan lips, and paints their haggard cheeks; Through each fine nerve rekindling transports dart, Light the quick eye, and swell the exulting heart. -Thus ISRAEL's heaven-taught chief o'er trackless lands 51 Led to the sultry rock his murmuring bands. Bright o'er his brows the forky radiance blazed, And high in air the rod divine He raised.Wide yawns the cliff!-amid the thirsty throng Rush the redundant waves, and shine along; With gourds and shells and helmets press the bands, Ope their parch'd lips, and spread their eager hands, Snatch their pale infants to the exuberant shower, Kneel on the shatter'd rock, and bless the Almighty Power. Bolster'd with down, amid a thousand wants, Pale Dropsy rears his bloated form, and pants; 'Quench me, ye cool pellucid rills!' he cries, Wets his parch'd tongue, and rolls his hollow eyes. So bends tormented TANTALUS to drink, While from his lips the refluent waters shrink; Again the rising stream his bosom laves, And Thirst consumes him 'mid circumfluent waves. -Divine HYGEIA, from the bending sky Descending, listens to his piercing cry; Assumes bright DIGITALIS' dress and air, Her ruby cheek, white neck, and raven hair; Four youths protect her from the circling throng, And like the Nymph the Goddess steps along.-O'er Him She waves her serpent-wreathed wand, Cheers with her voice, and raises with her hand, Warms with rekindling bloom his visage wan, And charms the shapeless monster into man. So when Contagion with mephitic breath And withered Famine urged the work of death; Marseilles' good Bishop, London's generous Mayor, With food and faith, with medicine and with prayer, Raised the weak head and stayed the parting sigh, Or with new life relumed the swimming eye.-And now, PHILANTHROPY! thy rays divine Dart round the globe from Zembla to the Line; O'er each dark prison plays the cheering light, Like northern lustres o'er the vault of night.From realm to realm, with cross or crescent crown'd, Where'er Mankind and Misery are found, O'er burning sands, deep waves, or wilds of snow, 52 Thy HOWARD journeying seeks the house of woe. Down many a winding step to dungeons dank, Where anguish wails aloud, and fetters clank; To caves bestrew'd with many a mouldering bone, And cells, whose echoes only learn to groan; Where no kind bars a whispering friend disclose, No sunbeam enters, and no zephyr blows, HE treads, inemulous of fame or wealth, Profuse of toil, and prodigal of health; With soft assuasive eloquence expands Power's rigid heart, and opes his clenching hands; Leads stern-ey'd Justice to the dark domains, If not to fever, to relax the chains; Or guides awaken'd Mercy through the gloom, And shews the prison, sister to the tomb!Gives to her babes the self-devoted wife, To her fond husband liberty and life!-The Spirits of the Good, who bend from high Wide o'er these earthly scenes their partial eye, When first, array'd in VIRTUE'S purest robe, They saw her HOWARD traversing the globe; Saw round his brows her sun-like Glory blaze In arrowy circles of unwearied rays; Mistook a Mortal for an Angel-Guest, And ask'd what Seraph-foot the earth imprest. -Onward he moves!-Disease and Death retire, And murmuring Demons hate him, and admire.' Here paused the Goddess,-on HYGEIA'S shrine Obsequious Gnomes repose the lyre divine; Descending Sylphs relax the trembling strings, And catch the rain-drops on their shadowy wings. -And now her vase a modest Naiad fills With liquid crystal from her pebbly rills; Piles the dry cedar round her silver urn, (Bright climbs the blaze, the crackling faggots burn), Culls the green herb of China's envy'd bowers, In gaudy cups the steamy treasure pours; And, sweetly-smiling, on her bended knee Presents the fragrant quintessence of Tea. ~ Erasmus Darwin,

896:Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring, With sudden passion languishing, Maketh all things softly smile, Painteth pictures mile on mile, Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths, Whence a smokeless incense breathes. Girls are peeling the sweet willow, Poplar white, and Gilead-tree, And troops of boys Shouting with whoop and hilloa, And hip, hip three times three. The air is full of whistlings bland; What was that I heard Out of the hazy land? Harp of the wind, or song of bird, Or clapping of shepherd's hands, Or vagrant booming of the air, Voice of a meteor lost in day? Such tidings of the starry sphere Can this elastic air convey. Or haply 't was the cannonade Of the pent and darkened lake, Cooled by the pendent mountain's shade, Whose deeps, till beams of noonday break, Afflicted moan, and latest hold Even unto May the iceberg cold. Was it a squirrel's pettish bark, Or clarionet of jay? or hark, Where yon wedged line the Nestor leads, Steering north with raucous cry Through tracts and provinces of sky, Every night alighting down In new landscapes of romance, Where darkling feed the clamorous clans By lonely lakes to men unknown. Come the tumult whence it will, Voice of sport, or rush of wings, It is a sound, it is a token That the marble sleep is broken, And a change has passed on things. Beneath the calm, within the light, A hid unruly appetite Of swifter life, a surer hope, Strains every sense to larger scope, Impatient to anticipate The halting steps of aged Fate. Slow grows the palm, too slow the pearl: When Nature falters, fain would zeal Grasp the felloes of her wheel, And grasping give the orbs another whirl. Turn swiftlier round, O tardy ball! And sun this frozen side, Bring hither back the robin's call, Bring back the tulip's pride. Why chidest thou the tardy Spring? The hardy bunting does not chide; The blackbirds make the maples ring With social cheer and jubilee; The redwing flutes his o-ka-lee, The robins know the melting snow; The sparrow meek, prophetic-eyed, Her nest beside the snow-drift weaves, Secure the osier yet will hide Her callow brood in mantling leaves; And thou, by science all undone, Why only must thy reason fail To see the southing of the sun? As we thaw frozen flesh with snow, So Spring will not, foolish fond, Mix polar night with tropic glow, Nor cloy us with unshaded sun, Nor wanton skip with bacchic dance, But she has the temperance Of the gods, whereof she is one,-- Masks her treasury of heat Under east-winds crossed with sleet. Plants and birds and humble creatures Well accept her rule austere; Titan-born, to hardy natures Cold is genial and dear. As Southern wrath to Northern right Is but straw to anthracite; As in the day of sacrifice, When heroes piled the pyre, The dismal Massachusetts ice Burned more than others' fire, So Spring guards with surface cold The garnered heat of ages old: Hers to sow the seed of bread, That man and all the kinds be fed; And, when the sunlight fills the hours, Dissolves the crust, displays the flowers. The world rolls round,--mistrust it not,-- Befalls again what once befell; All things return, both sphere and mote, And I shall hear my bluebird's note, And dream the dream of Auburn dell. When late I walked, in earlier days, All was stiff and stark; Knee-deep snows choked all the ways, In the sky no spark; Firm-braced I sought my ancient woods, Struggling through the drifted roads; The whited desert knew me not, Snow-ridges masked each darling spot; The summer dells, by genius haunted, One arctic moon had disenchanted. All the sweet secrets therein hid By Fancy, ghastly spells undid. Eldest mason, Frost, had piled, With wicked ingenuity, Swift cathedrals in the wild; The piny hosts were sheeted ghosts In the star-lit minster aisled. I found no joy: the icy wind Might rule the forest to his mind. Who would freeze in frozen brakes? Back to books and sheltered home, And wood-fire flickering on the walls, To hear, when, 'mid our talk and games, Without the baffled north-wind calls. But soft! a sultry morning breaks; The cowslips make the brown brook gay; A happier hour, a longer day. Now the sun leads in the May, Now desire of action wakes, And the wish to roam. The caged linnet in the Spring Hearkens for the choral glee, When his fellows on the wing Migrate from the Southern Sea; When trellised grapes their flowers unmask, And the new-born tendrils twine, The old wine darkling in the cask Feels the bloom on the living vine, And bursts the hoops at hint of Spring: And so, perchance, in Adam's race, Of Eden's bower some dream-like trace Survived the Flight, and swam the Flood, And wakes the wish in youngest blood To tread the forfeit Paradise, And feed once more the exile's eyes; And ever when the happy child In May beholds the blooming wild, And hears in heaven the bluebird sing, "Onward," he cries, "your baskets bring,-- In the next field is air more mild, And o'er yon hazy crest is Eden's balmier Spring." Not for a regiment's parade, Nor evil laws or rulers made, Blue Walden rolls its cannonade, But for a lofty sign Which the Zodiac threw, That the bondage-days are told, And waters free as winds shall flow. Lo! how all the tribes combine To rout the flying foe. See, every patriot oak-leaf throws His elfin length upon the snows, Not idle, since the leaf all day Draws to the spot the solar ray, Ere sunset quarrying inches down, And half-way to the mosses brown; While the grass beneath the rime Has hints of the propitious time, And upward pries and perforates Through the cold slab a thousand gates, Till green lances peering through Bend happy in the welkin blue. April cold with dropping rain Willows and lilacs brings again, The whistle of returning birds, And trumpet-lowing of the herds. The scarlet maple-keys betray What potent blood hath modest May; What fiery force the earth renews, The wealth of forms, the flush of hues; Joy shed in rosy waves abroad Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord. Hither rolls the storm of heat; I feel its finer billows beat Like a sea which me infolds; Heat with viewless fingers moulds, Swells, and mellows, and matures, Paints, and flavours, and allures, Bird and brier inly warms, Still enriches and transforms, Gives the reed and lily length, Adds to oak and oxen strength, Boils the world in tepid lakes, Burns the world, yet burnt remakes; Enveloping heat, enchanted robe, Wraps the daisy and the globe, Transforming what it doth infold, Life out of death, new out of old, Painting fawns' and leopards' fells, Seethes the gulf-encrimsoning shells, Fires garden with a joyful blaze Of tulips in the morning's rays. The dead log touched bursts into leaf, The wheat-blade whispers of the sheaf. What god is this imperial Heat, Earth's prime secret, sculpture's seat? Doth it bear hidden in its heart Water-line patterns of all art, All figures, organs, hues, and graces? Is it Daedalus? is it Love? Or walks in mask almighty Jove, And drops from Power's redundant horn All seeds of beauty to be born? Where shall we keep the holiday, And duly greet the entering May? Too strait and low our cottage doors, And all unmeet our carpet floors; Nor spacious court, nor monarch's hall, Suffice to hold the festival. Up and away! where haughty woods Front the liberated floods: We will climb the broad-backed hills, Hear the uproar of their joy; We will mark the leaps and gleams Of the new-delivered streams, And the murmuring rivers of sap Mount in the pipes of the trees, Giddy with day, to the topmost spire, Which for a spike of tender green Bartered its powdery cap; And the colours of joy in the bird, And the love in its carol heard, Frog and lizard in holiday coats, And turtle brave in his golden spots; We will hear the tiny roar Of the insects evermore, While cheerful cries of crag and plain Reply to the thunder of river and main. As poured the flood of the ancient sea Spilling over mountain chains, Bending forests as bends the sedge, Faster flowing o'er the plains,-- A world-wide wave with a foaming edge That rims the running silver sheet,-- So pours the deluge of the heat Broad northward o'er the land, Painting artless paradises, Drugging herbs with Syrian spices, Fanning secret fires which glow In columbine and clover-blow, Climbing the northern zones, Where a thousand pallid towns Lie like cockles by the main, Or tented armies on a plain. The million-handed sculptor moulds Quaintest bud and blossom folds, The million-handed painter pours Opal hues and purple dye; Azaleas flush the island floors, And the tints of heaven reply. Wreaths for the May! for happy Spring To-day shall all her dowry bring, The love of kind, the joy, the grace, Hymen of element and race, Knowing well to celebrate With song and hue and star and state, With tender light and youthful cheer, The spousals of the new-born year. Lo Love's inundation poured Over space and race abroad! Spring is strong and virtuous, Broad-sowing, cheerful, plenteous, Quickening underneath the mould Grains beyond the price of gold. So deep and large her bounties are, That one broad, long midsummer day Shall to the planet overpay The ravage of a year of war. Drug the cup, thou butler sweet, And send the nectar round; The feet that slid so long on sleet Are glad to feel the ground. Fill and saturate each kind With good according to its mind, Fill each kind and saturate With good agreeing with its fate, Willow and violet, maiden and man. The bitter-sweet, the haunting air, Creepeth, bloweth everywhere; It preys on all, all prey on it, Blooms in beauty, thinks in wit, Stings the strong with enterprise, Makes travellers long for Indian skies, And where it comes this courier fleet Fans in all hearts expectance sweet, As if to-morrow should redeem The vanished rose of evening's dream. By houses lies a fresher green, On men and maids a ruddier mien, As if time brought a new relay Of shining virgins every May, And Summer came to ripen maids To a beauty that not fades. The ground-pines wash their rusty green, The maple-tops their crimson tint, On the soft path each track is seen, The girl's foot leaves its neater print. The pebble loosened from the frost Asks of the urchin to be tost. In flint and marble beats a heart, The kind Earth takes her children's part, The green lane is the school-boy's friend, Low leaves his quarrel apprehend, The fresh ground loves his top and ball, The air rings jocund to his call, The brimming brook invites a leap, He dives the hollow, climbs the steep. The youth reads omens where he goes, And speaks all languages the rose. The wood-fly mocks with tiny noise The far halloo of human voice; The perfumed berry on the spray Smacks of faint memories far away. A subtle chain of countless rings The next unto the farthest brings, And, striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form. I saw the bud-crowned Spring go forth, Stepping daily onward north To greet staid ancient cavaliers Filing single in stately train. And who, and who are the travellers? They were Night and Day, and Day and Night, Pilgrims wight with step forthright. I saw the Days deformed and low, Short and bent by cold and snow; The merry Spring threw wreaths on them, Flower-wreaths gay with bud and bell; Many a flower and many a gem, They were refreshed by the smell, They shook the snow from hats and shoon, They put their April raiment on; And those eternal forms, Unhurt by a thousand storms, Shot up to the height of the sky again, And danced as merrily as young men. I saw them mask their awful glance Sidewise meek in gossamer lids; And to speak my thought if none forbids. It was as if the eternal gods, Tired of their starry periods, Hid their majesty in cloth Woven of tulips and painted moth. On carpets green the maskers march Below May's well-appointed arch, Each star, each god, each grace amain, Every joy and virtue speed, Marching duly in her train, And fainting Nature at her need Is made whole again. 'T was the vintage-day of field and wood, When magic wine for bards is brewed; Every tree and stem and chink Gushed with syrup to the brink. The air stole into the streets of towns, And betrayed the fund of joy To the high-school and medalled boy: On from hall to chamber ran, From youth to maid, from boy to man, To babes, and to old eyes as well. 'Once more,' the old man cried, 'ye clouds, Airy turrets purple-piled, Which once my infancy beguiled, Beguile me with the wonted spell. I know ye skilful to convoy The total freight of hope and joy Into rude and homely nooks, Shed mocking lustres on shelf of books, On farmer's byre, on meadow-pipes, Or on a pool of dancing chips. I care not if the pomps you show Be what they soothfast appear, Or if yon realms in sunset glow Be bubbles of the atmosphere. And if it be to you allowed To fool me with a shining cloud, So only new griefs are consoled By new delights, as old by old, Frankly I will be your guest, Count your change and cheer the best. The world hath overmuch of pain,-- If Nature give me joy again, Of such deceit I'll not complain.' Ah! well I mind the calendar, Faithful through a thousand years, Of the painted race of flowers, Exact to days, exact to hours, Counted on the spacious dial Yon broidered zodiac girds. I know the pretty almanac Of the punctual coming-back, On their due days, of the birds. I marked them yestermorn, A flock of finches darting Beneath the crystal arch, Piping, as they flew, a march,-- Belike the one they used in parting Last year from yon oak or larch; Dusky sparrows in a crowd, Diving, darting northward free, Suddenly betook them all, Every one to his hole in the wall, Or to his niche in the apple-tree. I greet with joy the choral trains Fresh from palms and Cuba's canes. Best gems of Nature's cabinet, With dews of tropic morning wet, Beloved of children, bards, and Spring, O birds, your perfect virtues bring, Your song, your forms, your rhythmic flight, Your manners for the heart's delight, Nestle in hedge, or barn, or roof, Here weave your chamber weather-proof, Forgive our harms, and condescend To man, as to a lubber friend, And, generous, teach his awkward race Courage, and probity, and grace! Poets praise that hidden wine Hid in milk we drew At the barrier of Time, When our life was new. We had eaten fairy fruit, We were quick from head to foot, All the forms we look on shone As with diamond dews thereon. What cared we for costly joys, The Museum's far-fetched toys? Gleam of sunshine on the wall Poured a deeper cheer than all The revels of the Carnival. We a pine-grove did prefer To a marble theatre, Could with gods on mallows dine, Nor cared for spices or for wine. Wreaths of mist and rainbow spanned, Arch on arch, the grimmest land; Whistle of a woodland bird Made the pulses dance, Note of horn in valleys heard Filled the region with romance. None can tell how sweet, How virtuous, the morning air; Every accent vibrates well; Not alone the wood-bird's call, Or shouting boys that chase their ball, Pass the height of minstrel skill, But the ploughman's thoughtless cry, Lowing oxen, sheep that bleat, And the joiner's hammer-beat, Softened are above their will. All grating discords melt, No dissonant note is dealt, And though thy voice be shrill Like rasping file on steel, Such is the temper of the air, Echo waits with art and care, And will the faults of song repair. So by remote Superior Lake, And by resounding Mackinac, When northern storms and forests shake, And billows on the long beach break, The artful Air doth separate Note by note all sounds that grate, Smothering in her ample breast All but godlike words, Reporting to the happy ear Only purified accords. Strangely wrought from barking waves, Soft music daunts the Indian braves,-- Convent-chanting which the child Hears pealing from the panther's cave And the impenetrable wild. One musician is sure, His wisdom will not fail, He has not tasted wine impure, Nor bent to passion frail. Age cannot cloud his memory, Nor grief untune his voice, Ranging down the ruled scale From tone of joy to inward wail, Tempering the pitch of all In his windy cave. He all the fables knows, And in their causes tells,-- Knows Nature's rarest moods, Ever on her secret broods. The Muse of men is coy, Oft courted will not come; In palaces and market squares Entreated, she is dumb; But my minstrel knows and tells The counsel of the gods, Knows of Holy Book the spells, Knows the law of Night and Day, And the heart of girl and boy, The tragic and the gay, And what is writ on Table Round Of Arthur and his peers, What sea and land discoursing say In sidereal years. He renders all his lore In numbers wild as dreams, Modulating all extremes,-- What the spangled meadow saith To the children who have faith; Only to children children sing, Only to youth will spring be spring. Who is the Bard thus magnified? When did he sing, and where abide? Chief of song where poets feast Is the wind-harp which thou seest In the casement at my side. AEolian harp, How strangely wise thy strain! Gay for youth, gay for youth, (Sweet is art, but sweeter truth,) In the hall at summer eve Fate and Beauty skilled to weave. From the eager opening strings Rung loud and bold the song. Who but loved the wind-harp's note? How should not the poet doat On its mystic tongue, With its primeval memory, Reporting what old minstrels said Of Merlin locked the harp within,-- Merlin paying the pain of sin, Pent in a dungeon made of air,-- And some attain his voice to hear, Words of pain and cries of fear, But pillowed all on melody, As fits the griefs of bards to be. And what if that all-echoing shell, Which thus the buried Past can tell, Should rive the Future, and reveal What his dread folds would fain conceal? It shares the secret of the earth, And of the kinds that owe her birth. Speaks not of self that mystic tone, But of the Overgods alone: It trembles to the cosmic breath,-- As it heareth, so it saith; Obeying meek the primal Cause, It is the tongue of mundane laws: And this, at least, I dare affirm, Since genius too has bound and term, There is no bard in all the choir, Not Homer's self, the poet sire, Wise Milton's odes of pensive pleasure, Or Shakspeare, whom no mind can measure, Nor Collins' verse of tender pain, Nor Byron's clarion of disdain, Scott, the delight of generous boys, Or Wordsworth, Pan's recording voice,-- Not one of all can put in verse, Or to this presence could rehearse, The sights and voices ravishing The boy knew on the hills in Spring, When pacing through the oaks he heard Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, The heavy grouse's sudden whirr, The rattle of the kingfisher; Saw bonfires of the harlot flies In the lowland, when day dies; Or marked, benighted and forlorn, The first far signal-fire of morn. These syllables that Nature spoke, And the thoughts that in him woke, Can adequately utter none Save to his ear the wind-harp lone. And best can teach its Delphian chord How Nature to the soul is moored, If once again that silent string, As erst it wont, would thrill and ring. Not long ago, at eventide, It seemed, so listening, at my side A window rose, and, to say sooth, I looked forth on the fields of youth: I saw fair boys bestriding steeds, I knew their forms in fancy weeds, Long, long concealed by sundering fates, Mates of my youth,--yet not my mates, Stronger and bolder far than I, With grace, with genius, well attired, And then as now from far admired, Followed with love They knew not of, With passion cold and shy. O joy, for what recoveries rare! Renewed, I breathe Elysian air, See youth's glad mates in earliest bloom,-- Break not my dream, obtrusive tomb! Or teach thou, Spring! the grand recoil Of life resurgent from the soil Wherein was dropped the mortal spoil. Soft on the south-wind sleeps the haze! So on thy broad mystic van Lie the opal-coloured days, And waft the miracle to man. Soothsayer of the eldest gods, Repairer of what harms betide, Revealer of the inmost powers Prometheus proffered, Jove denied; Disclosing treasures more than true, Or in what far to-morrow due; Speaking by the tongues of flowers, By the ten-tongued laurel speaking, Singing by the oriole songs, Heart of bird the man's heart seeking; Whispering hints of treasure hid Under Morn's unlifted lid, Islands looming just beyond The dim horizon's utmost bound;-- Who can, like thee, our rags upbraid, Or taunt us with our hope decayed? Or who like thee persuade, Making the splendour of the air, The morn and sparkling dew, a snare? Or who resent Thy genius, wiles, and blandishment? There is no orator prevails To beckon or persuade Like thee the youth or maid: Thy birds, thy songs, thy brooks, thy gales, Thy blooms, thy kinds, Thy echoes in the wilderness, Soothe pain, and age, and love's distress, Fire fainting will, and build heroic minds. For thou, O Spring! canst renovate All that high God did first create. Be still his arm and architect, Rebuild the ruin, mend defect; Chemist to vamp old worlds with new, Coat sea and sky with heavenlier blue, New-tint the plumage of the birds, And slough decay from grazing herds, Sweep ruins from the scarped mountain, Cleanse the torrent at the fountain, Purge alpine air by towns defiled, Bring to fair mother fairer child, Not less renew the heart and brain, Scatter the sloth, wash out the stain, Make the aged eye sun-clear, To parting soul bring grandeur near. Under gentle types, my Spring Masks the might of Nature's king, An energy that searches thorough From Chaos to the dawning morrow; Into all our human plight, The soul's pilgrimage and flight; In city or in solitude, Step by step, lifts bad to good, Without halting, without rest, Lifting Better up to Best; Planting seeds of knowledge pure, Through earth to ripen, through heaven endure. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, May-Day ,

897:The Botanic Garden (Part Viii) THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS CANTO IV. Now the broad Sun his golden orb unshrouds, Flames in the west, and paints the parted clouds; O'er heaven's wide arch refracted lustres flow, And bend in air the many-colour'd bow.-The tuneful Goddess on the glowing sky Fix'd in mute extacy her glistening eye; And then her lute to sweeter tones she strung, And swell'd with softer chords the Paphian song. Long ailes of Oaks return'd the silver sound, And amorous Echoes talk'd along the ground; Pleas'd Lichfield listen'd from her sacred bowers, Bow'd her tall groves, and shook her stately towers. 'Nymph! not for thee the radiant day returns, Nymph! not for thee the golden solstice burns, Refulgent CEREA!-at the dusky hour She seeks with pensive step the mountain-bower, Bright as the blush of rising morn, and warms The dull cold eye of Midnight with her charms. There to the skies she lifts her pencill'd brows, Opes her fair lips, and breathes her virgin vows; Eyes the white zenyth; counts the suns, that roll Their distant fires, and blaze around the Pole; Or marks where Jove directs his glittering car O'er Heaven's blue vault,-Herself a brighter star. -There as soft Zephyrs sweep with pausing airs Thy snowy neck, and part thy shadowy hairs, Sweet Maid of Night! to Cynthia's sober beams Glows thy warm cheek, thy polish'd bosom gleams. In crowds around thee gaze the admiring swains, And guard in silence the enchanted plains; Drop the still tear, or breathe the impassion'd sigh, And drink inebriate rapture from thine eye. Thus, when old Needwood's hoary scenes the Night 66 Paints with blue shadow, and with milky light; Where MUNDY pour'd, the listening nymphs among, Loud to the echoing vales his parting song; With measured step the Fairy Sovereign treads, Shakes her high plume, and glitters o'er the meads; Round each green holly leads her sportive train, And little footsteps mark the circled plain; Each haunted rill with silver voices rings, And Night's sweet bird in livelier accents sings. Ere the bright star, which leads the morning sky, Hangs o'er the blushing east his diamond eye, The chaste TROPAEO leaves her secret bed; A saint-like glory trembles round her head; Eight watchful swains along the lawns of night With amorous steps pursue the virgin light; O'er her fair form the electric lustre plays, And cold she moves amid the lambent blaze. So shines the glow-fly, when the sun retires, And gems the night-air with phosphoric fires; Thus o'er the marsh aërial lights betray, And charm the unwary wanderer from his way. So when thy King, Assyria, fierce and proud, Three human victims to his idol vow'd; Rear'd a vast pyre before the golden shrine Of sulphurous coal, and pitch-exsuding pine;-Loud roar the flames, the iron nostrils breathe, And the huge bellows pant and heave beneath; Bright and more bright the blazing deluge flows, And white with seven-fold heat the furnace glows. And now the Monarch fix'd with dread surprize Deep in the burning vault his dazzled eyes. 'Lo! Three unbound amid the frightful glare, Unscorch'd their sandals, and unsing'd their hair! And now a fourth with seraph-beauty bright Descends, accosts them, and outshines the light! Fierce flames innocuous, as they step, retire! And slow they move amid a world of fire!' He spoke,-to Heaven his arms repentant spread, And kneeling bow'd his gem-incircled head. 67 Two Sister-Nymphs, the fair AVENAS, lead Their fleecy squadrons on the lawns of Tweed; Pass with light step his wave-worn banks along, And wake his Echoes with their silver tongue; Or touch the reed, as gentle Love inspires, In notes accordant to their chaste desires. I. 'Sweet ECHO! sleeps thy vocal shell, 'Where this high arch o'erhangs the dell; 'While Tweed with sun-reflecting streams 'Chequers thy rocks with dancing beams?- II. 'Here may no clamours harsh intrude, No brawling hound or clarion rude; Here no fell beast of midnight prowl, And teach thy tortured cliffs to howl! III. 'Be thine to pour these vales along Some artless Shepherd's evening song; While Night's sweet bird, from yon high spray Responsive, listens to his lay. IV. 'And if, like me, some love-lorn maid 'Should sing her sorrows to thy shade, 'Oh, sooth her breast, ye rocks around! 'With softest sympathy of sound.' From ozier bowers the brooding Halcyons peep, The Swans pursuing cleave the glassy deep, On hovering wings the wondering Reed-larks play, And silent Bitterns listen to the lay.- 68 Three shepherd-swains beneath the beechen shades Twine rival garlands for the tuneful maids; On each smooth bark the mystic love-knot frame, Or on white sands inscribe the favour'd name. From Time's remotest dawn where China brings In proud succession all her Patriot-Kings; O'er desert-sands, deep gulfs, and hills sublime, Extends her massy wall from clime to clime; With bells and dragons crests her Pagod-bowers, Her silken palaces, and porcelain towers; With long canals a thousand nations laves; Plants all her wilds, and peoples all her waves; Slow treads fair CANNABIS the breezy strand, The distaff streams dishevell'd in her hand; Now to the left her ivory neck inclines, And leads in Paphian curves its azure lines; Dark waves the fringed lid, the warm cheek glows, And the fair ear the parting locks disclose; Now to the right with airy sweep she bends, Quick join the threads, the dancing spole depends. Five Swains attracted guard the Nymph, by turns Her grace inchants them, and her beauty burns; To each She bows with sweet assuasive smile, Hears his soft vows, and turns her spole the while. So when with light and shade, concordant strife! Stern CLOTHO weaves the chequer'd thread of life; Hour after hour the growing line extends, The cradle and the coffin bound its ends; Soft cords of silk the whirling spoles reveal, If smiling Fortune turn the giddy wheel; But if sweet Love with baby-fingers twines, And wets with dewy lips the lengthening lines, Skein after skein celestial tints unfold, And all the silken tissue shines with gold. Warm with sweet blushes bright GALANTHA glows, And prints with frolic step the melting snows; O'er silent floods, white hills, and glittering meads Six 69 rival swains the playful beauty leads, Chides with her dulcet voice the tardy Spring, Bids slumbering Zephyr stretch his folded wing, Wakes the hoarse Cuckoo in his gloomy cave, And calls the wondering Dormouse from his grave, Bids the mute Redbreast cheer the budding grove, And plaintive Ringdove tune her notes to love. Spring! with thy own sweet smile, and tuneful tongue, Delighted BELLIS calls her infant throng. Each on his reed astride, the Cherub-train Watch her kind looks, and circle o'er the plain; Now with young wonder touch the siding snail, Admire his eye-tipp'd horns, and painted mail; Chase with quick step, and eager arms outspread, The pausing Butterfly from mead to mead; Or twine green oziers with the fragrant gale, The azure harebel, and the primrose pale, Join hand in hand, and in procession gay Adorn with votive wreaths the shrine of May. -So moves the Goddess to the Idalian groves, And leads her gold-hair'd family of Loves. These, from the flaming furnace, strong and bold Pour the red steel into the sandy mould; On tinkling anvils (with Vulcanian art), Turn with hot tongs, and forge the dreadful dart; The barbed head on whirling jaspers grind, And dip the point in poison for the mind; Each polish'd shaft with snow-white plumage wing, Or strain the bow reluctant to its string. Those on light pinion twine with busy hands, Or stretch from bough to bough the flowery bands; Scare the dark beetle, as he wheels on high, Or catch in silken nets the gilded fly; Call the young Zephyrs to their fragrant bowers, And stay with kisses sweet the Vernal Hours. Where, as proud Maffon rises rude and bleak, And with mishapen turrets crests the Peak, Old Matlock gapes with marble jaws, beneath, And o'er fear'd Derwent bends his flinty teeth; Deep in wide caves below the dangerous soil Blue sulphurs flame, imprison'd waters boil. Impetuous steams in spiral colums rise 70 Through rifted rocks, impatient for the skies; Or o'er bright seas of bubbling lavas blow, As heave and toss the billowy fires below; Condensed on high, in wandering rills they glide From Maffon's dome, and burst his sparry side; Round his grey towers, and down his fringed walls, From cliff to cliff, the liquid treasure falls; In beds of stalactite, bright ores among, O'er corals, shells, and crystals, winds along; Crusts the green mosses, and the tangled wood, And sparkling plunges to its parent flood. -O'er the warm wave a smiling youth presides, Attunes its murmurs, its meanders guides, (The blooming FUCUS), in her sparry coves To amorous Echo sings his secret loves, Bathes his fair forehead in the misty stream, And with sweet breath perfumes the rising steam. -So, erst, an Angel o'er Bethesda's springs, Each morn descending, shook his dewy wings; And as his bright translucent form He laves, Salubrious powers enrich the troubled waves. Amphibious Nymph, from Nile's prolific bed Emerging TRAPA lifts her pearly head; Fair glows her virgin cheek and modest breast, A panoply of scales deforms the rest; Her quivering fins and panting gills she hides But spreads her silver arms upon the tides; Slow as she sails, her ivory neck she laves, And shakes her golden tresses o'er the waves. Charm'd round the Nymph, in circling gambols glide Four Nereid-forms, or shoot along the tide; Now all as one they rise with frolic spring, And beat the wondering air on humid wing; Now all descending plunge beneath the main, And lash the foam with undulating train; Above, below, they wheel, retreat, advance, In air and ocean weave the mazy dance; Bow their quick heads, and point their diamond eyes, 71 And twinkle to the sun with ever-changing dyes. Where Andes, crested with volcanic beams, Sheds a long line of light on Plata's streams; Opes all his springs, unlocks his golden caves, And feeds and freights the immeasurable waves; Delighted OCYMA at twilight hours Calls her light car, and leaves the sultry bowers;Love's rising ray, and Youth's seductive dye, Bloom'd on her cheek, and brighten'd in her eye; Chaste, pure, and white, a zone of silver graced Her tender breast, as white, as pure, as chaste;-By four fond swains in playful circles drawn, On glowing wheels she tracks the moon-bright lawn, Mounts the rude cliff, unveils her blushing charms, And calls the panting zephyrs to her arms. Emerged from ocean springs the vaporous air, Bathes her light limbs, uncurls her amber hair, Incrusts her beamy form with films saline, And Beauty blazes through the crystal shrine.So with pellucid studs the ice-flower gems Her rimy foliage, and her candied stems. So from his glassy horns, and pearly eyes, The diamond-beetle darts a thousand dyes; Mounts with enamel'd wings the vesper gale, And wheeling shines in adamantine mail. Thus when loud thunders o'er Gomorrah burst, And heaving earthquakes shook his realms accurst, An Angel-guest led forth the trembling Fair With shadowy hand, and warn'd the guiltless pair; 'Haste from these lands of sin, ye Righteous! fly, Speed the quick step, nor turn the lingering eye!'-Such the command, as fabling Bards indite, When Orpheus charm'd the grisly King of Night; Sooth'd the pale phantoms with his plaintive lay, And led the fair Assurgent into day.Wide yawn'd the earth, the fiery tempest flash'd, And towns and towers in one vast ruin crash'd;Onward they move,--loud horror roars behind, And shrieks of Anguish bellow in the wind. With many a sob, amid a thousand fears, 72 The beauteous wanderer pours her gushing tears; Each soft connection rends her troubled breast, -She turns, unconscious of the stern behest!'I faint!-I fall!-ah, me!-sensations chill Shoot through my bones, my shuddering bosom thrill! I freeze! I freeze! just Heaven regards my fault, Numbs my cold limbs, and hardens into salt!Not yet, not yet, your dying Love resign!This last, last kiss receive!-no longer thine!'She said, and ceased,-her stiffen'd form He press'd, And strain'd the briny column to his breast; Printed with quivering lips the lifeless snow, And wept, and gazed the monument of woe.So when Aeneas through the flames of Troy Bore his pale fire, and led his lovely boy; With loitering step the fair Creusa stay'd, And Death involved her in eternal shade.Oft the lone Pilgrim that his road forsakes, Marks the wide ruins, and the sulphur'd lakes; On mouldering piles amid asphaltic mud Hears the hoarse bittern, where Gomorrah stood; Recalls the unhappy Pair with lifted eye, Leans on the crystal tomb, and breathes the silent sigh.. With net-wove sash and glittering gorget dress'd, And scarlet robe lapell'd upon her breast, Stern ARA frowns, the measured march assumes, Trails her long lance, and nods her shadowy plumes; While Love's soft beams illume her treacherous eyes, And Beauty lightens through the thin disguise. So erst, when HERCULES, untamed by toil, Own'd the soft power of DEJANIRA'S smile;His lion-spoils the laughing Fair demands, And gives the distaff to his awkward hands; O'er her white neck the bristly mane she throws, And binds the gaping whiskers on her brows; Plaits round her slender waist the shaggy vest, And clasps the velvet paws across her breast. Next with soft hands the knotted club she rears, Heaves up from earth, and on her shoulder bears. Onward with loftier step the Beauty treads, And trails the brinded ermine o'er the meads; Wolves, bears, and bards, forsake the affrighted groves, 73 And grinning Satyrs tremble, as she moves. CARYO'S sweet smile DIANTHUS proud admires, And gazing burns with unallow'd desires; With sighs and sorrows her compassion moves, And wins the damsel to illicit loves. The Monster-offspring heirs the father's pride, Mask'd in the damask beauties of the bride. So, when the Nightingale in eastern bowers On quivering pinion woos the Queen of flowers; Inhales her fragrance, as he hangs in air, And melts with melody the blushing fair; Half-rose, half-bird, a beauteous Monster springs, Waves his thin leaves, and claps his glossy wings; Long horrent thorns his mossy legs surround, And tendril-talons root him to the ground; Green films of rind his wrinkled neck o'espread, And crimson petals crest his curled head; Soft-warbling beaks in each bright blossom move, And vocal Rosebuds thrill the enchanted grove!Admiring Evening stays her beamy star, And still Night listens from his ebon ear; While on white wings descending Houries throng, And drink the floods of odour and of song. When from his golden urn the Solstice pours O'er Afric's sable sons the sultry hours; When not a gale flits o'er her tawny hills, Save where the dry Harmattan breathes and kills; -Fair CHUNDA smiles amid the burning waste, Her brow unturban'd, and her zone unbrac'd; Ten brother-youths with light umbrella's shade, Or fan with busy hands the panting maid; Loose wave her locks, disclosing, as they break, The rising bosom and averted cheek; Clasp'd round her ivory neck with studs of gold Flows her thin vest in many a gauzy fold; O'er her light limbs the dim transparence plays, And the fair form, it seems to hide, betrays. Where leads the northern Star his lucid train High o'er the snow-clad earth, and icy main, With milky light the white horizon streams, 74 And to the moon each sparkling mountain gleams.Slow o'er the printed snows with silent walk Huge shaggy forms across the twilight stalk; And ever and anon with hideous sound Burst the thick ribs of ice, and thunder round.There, as old Winter slaps his hoary wing, And lingering leaves his empire to the Spring, Pierced with quick shafts of silver-shooting light Fly in dark troops the dazzled imps of night'Awake, my Love!' enamour'd MUSCHUS cries, 'Stretch thy fair limbs, resulgent Maid! arise; Ope thy sweet eye-lids to the rising ray, And hail with ruby lips returning day. Down the white hills dissolving torrents pour, Green springs the turf, and purple blows the flower; His torpid wing the Rail exulting tries, Mounts the soft gale, and wantons in the skies; Rise, let us mark how bloom the awaken'd groves, And 'mid the banks of roses hide our loves.' Night's tinsel beams on smooth Lock-lomond dance, Impatient ÆGA views the bright expanse;In vain her eyes the parting floods explore, Wave after wave rolls freightless to the shore. -Now dim amid the distant foam she spies A rising speck,-''tis he! 'tis he!' She cries; As with firm arms he beats the streams aside, And cleaves with rising chest the tossing tide, With bended knee she prints the humid sands, Up-turns her glistening eyes, and spreads her hands; -''Tis he, 'tis he!-My Lord, my life, my love!Slumber, ye winds; ye billows, cease to move! beneath his arms your buoyant plumage spread, Ye Swans! ye Halcyons! hover round his head!'-With eager step the boiling surf she braves, And meets her refluent lover in the waves; Loose o'er the flood her azure mantle swims, And the clear stream betrays her snowy limbs. So on her sea-girt tower fair HERO stood At parting day, and mark'd the dashing flood; While high in air, the glimmering rocks above, 75 Shone the bright lamp, the pilot-star of Love. -With robe outspread the wavering flame behind She kneels, and guards it from the shifting wind; Breathes to her Goddess all her vows, and guides Her bold LEANDER o'er the dusky tides; Wrings his wet hair, his briny bosom warms, And clasps her panting lover in her arms. Deep, in wide caverns and their shadowy ailes, Daughter of Earth, the chaste TRUFFELIA smiles; On silvery beds, of soft asbestus wove, Meets her Gnome-husband, and avows her love. High o'er her couch impending diamonds blaze, And branching gold the crystal roof inlays; With verdant light the modest emeralds glow, Blue sapphires glare, and rubies blush, below Light piers of lazuli the dome surround, And pictured mochoes tesselate the ground; In glittering threads along reflective walls The warm rill murmuring twinkles, as it falls; Now sink the Eolian strings, and now they swell, And Echoes woo in every vaulted cell; While on white wings delighted Cupids play, Shake their bright lamps, and shed celestial day. Closed in an azure fig by fairy spells, Bosom'd in down, fair CAPRI-FICA dwells;So sleeps in silence the Curculio, shut In the dark chambers of the cavern'd nut, Erodes with ivory beak the vaulted shell, And quits on filmy wings its narrow cell. So the pleased Linnet in the moss-wove nest, Waked into life beneath its parent's breast, Chirps in the gaping shell, bursts forth erelong, Shakes its new plumes, and tries its tender song.-And now the talisman she strikes, that charms Her husband-Sylph,-and calls him to her arms.Quick, the light Gnat her airy Lord bestrides, With cobweb reins the flying courser guides, From crystal steeps of viewless ether springs, 76 Cleaves the soft air on still expanded wings; Darts like a sunbeam o'er the boundless wave, And seeks the beauty in her secret cave. So with quick impulse through all nature's frame Shoots the electric air its subtle flame. So turns the impatient needle to the pole, Tho' mountains rise between, and oceans roll. Where round the Orcades white torrents roar, Scooping with ceaseless rage the incumbent shore, Wide o'er the deep a dusky cavern bends Its marble arms, and high in air impends; Basaltic piers the ponderous roof sustain, And steep their massy sandals in the main; Round the dim walls, and through the whispering ailes Hoarse breathes the wind, the glittering water boils. Here the charm'd BYSSUS with his blooming bride Spreads his green sails, and braves the foaming tide; The star of Venus gilds the twilight wave, And lights her votaries to the secret cave; Light Cupids flutter round the nuptial bed, And each coy sea-maid hides her blushing head. Where cool'd by rills, and curtain'd round by woods, Slopes the green dell to meet the briny floods, The sparkling noon-beams trembling on the tide, The PROTEUS-LOVER woos his playful bride, To win the fair he tries a thousand forms, Basks on the sands, or gambols in the storms. A Dolphin now, his scaly sides he laves, And bears the sportive damsel on the waves; She strikes the cymbal as he moves along, And wondering Ocean listens to the song. -And now a spotted Pard the lover stalks, Plays round her steps, and guards her favour'd walks; As with white teeth he prints her hand, caress'd, And lays his velvet paw upon her breast, O'er his round face her snowy fingers strain The silken knots, and fit the ribbon-rein. -And now a Swan, he spreads his plumy sails, 77 And proudly glides before the fanning gales; Pleas'd on the flowery brink with graceful hand She waves her floating lover to the land; Bright shines his sinuous neck, with crimson beak He prints fond kisses on her glowing cheek, Spreads his broad wings, elates his ebon crest, And clasps the beauty to his downy breast. hundred virgins join a hundred swains, And fond ADONIS leads the sprightly trains; Pair after pair, along his sacred groves To Hymen's fane the bright procession moves; Each smiling youth a myrtle garland shades, And wreaths of roses veil the blushing maids; Light joys on twinkling feet attend the throng, Weave the gay dance, or raise the frolic song; -Thick, as they pass, exulting Cupids fling Promiscuous arrows from the sounding string; On wings of gossamer soft Whispers fly, And the sly Glance steals side-long from the eye. -As round his shrine the gaudy circles bow, And seal with muttering lips the faithless vow, Licentious Hymen joins their mingled hands, And loosely twines the meretricious bands.Thus where pleased VENUS, in the southern main, Sheds all her smiles on Otaheite's plain, Wide o'er the isle her silken net she draws, And the Loves laugh at all, but Nature's laws.' Here ceased the Goddess,-o'er the silent strings Applauding Zephyrs swept their fluttering wings; Enraptur'd Sylphs arose in murmuring crowds To air-wove canopies and pillowy clouds; Each Gnome reluctant sought his earthy cell, And each bright Floret clos'd her velvet bell. Then, on soft tiptoe, NIGHT approaching near Hung o'er the tuneless lyre his sable ear; Gem'd with bright stars the still etherial plain, And bad his Nightingales repeat the strain. 78 ~ Erasmus Darwin,

898:From 'Omeros' BOOK SIX Chapter XLIV In hill-towns, from San Fernando to Mayagüez, the same sunrise stirred the feathered lances of cane down the archipelago's highways. The first breeze rattled the spears and their noise was like distant rain marching down from the hills, like a shell at your ears. In the cool asphalt Sundays of the Antilles the light brought the bitter history of sugar across the squared fields, heightening towards harvest, to the bleached flags of the Indian diaspora. The drizzling light blew across the savannah darkening the racehorses' hides; mist slowly erased the royal palms on the crests of the hills and the hills themselves. The brown patches the horses had grazed shone as wet as their hides. A skittish stallion jerked at his bridle, marble-eyed at the thunder muffling the hills, but the groom was drawing him in like a fisherman, wrapping the slack line under one fist, then with the other tightening the rein and narrowing the circle. The sky cracked asunder and a forked tree flashed, and suddenly that black rain which can lose an entire archipelago in broad daylight was pouring tin nails on the roof, hammering the balcony. I closed the French window, and thought of the horses in their stalls with one hoof 22 tilted, watching the ropes of rain. I lay in bed with current gone from the bed-lamp and heard the roar of wind shaking the windows, and I remembered Achille on his own mattress and desperate Hector trying to save his canoe, I thought of Helen as my island lost in the haze, and I was sure I'd never see her again. All of a sudden the rain stopped and I heard the sluicing of water down the guttering. I opened the window when the sun came out. It replaced the tiny brooms of palms on the ridges. On the red galvanized roof of the paddock, the wet sparkled, then the grooms led the horses over the new grass and exercised them again, and there was a different brightness in everything, in the leaves, in the horses' eyes. II I smelt the leaves threshing at the top of the year in green January over the orange villas and military barracks where the Plunketts were, the harbour flecked by the wind that comes with Christmas, edged with the Arctic, that was christened Vent Noël; it stayed until March and, with luck, until Easter. It freshened the cedars, waxed the laurier-cannelle, and hid the African swift. I smelt the drizzle on the asphalt leaving the Morne, it was the smell of an iron on damp cloth; I heard the sizzle of fried jackfish in oil with their coppery skin; I smelt ham studded with cloves, the crusted accra, the wax in the varnished parlour: Come in. Come in, the arm of the Morris chair sticky with lacquer; I saw a sail going out and a sail coming in, 23 and a breeze so fresh it lifted the lace curtains like a petticoat, like a sail towards Ithaca; I smelt a dead rivulet in the clogged drains. III Ah, twin-headed January, seeing either tense: a past, they assured us, born in degradation, and a present that lifted us up with the wind's noise in the breadfruit leaves with such an elation that it contradicts what is past! The cannonballs of rotting breadfruit from the Battle of the Saints, the asterisks of bulletholes in the brick walls of the redoubt. I lived there with every sense. I smelt with my eyes, I could see with my nostrils. Chapter XLV One side of the coast plunges its precipices into the Atlantic. Turns require wide locks, since the shoulder is sharp and the curve just misses a long drop over the wind-bent trees and the rocks between the trees. There is a wide view of Dennery, with its stone church and raw ochre cliffs at whose base the African breakers end. Across the flecked sea whose combers veil and unveil the rocks with their lace the next port is Dakar. The uninterrupted wind thuds under the wings of frigates, you see them bent from a force that has crossed the world, tilting to find purchase in the sudden downdrafts of its current. 24 The breeze threshed the palms on the cool December road where the Comet hurtled with empty leopard seats, so fast a man on a donkey trying to read its oncoming fiery sign heard only two thudding beats from the up-tempo zouk that its stereo played when it screeched round a bridge and began to ascend away from the palm-fronds and their wickerwork shade that left the windscreen clear as it locked round the bend, where Hector suddenly saw the trotting piglet and thought of Plunkett's warning as he heard it screel with the same sound that the tires of the Comet made rounding the curve from the sweat-greased steering wheel. The rear wheels spin to a dead stop, like a helm. The piglet trots down the safer side of the road. Lodged in their broken branches the curled letters flame. Hector had both hands on the wheel. His head was bowed under the swaying statue of the Madonna of the Rocks, her smile swayed under the blue hood, and when her fluted robe stilled, the smile stayed on her dimpled porcelain. She saw, in the bowed man, the calm common oval of prayer, the head's usual angle over the pew of the dashboard. Her lifted palm, small as a doll's from its cerulean mantle, indicated that he had prayed enough to the lace of foam round the cliff's altar, that now, if he wished, he could lift his head, but he stayed in the same place, the way a man will remain when Mass is finished, not unclenching his hands or freeing one to cross forehead, heart, and shoulders swiftly and then kneel facing the altar. He bowed in endless remorse, for her mercy at what he had done to Achille, his brother. But his arc was over, for the course 25 of every comet is such. The fated crescent was printed on the road by the scorching tires. A salt tear ran down the porcelain cheek and it went in one slow drop to the clenched knuckle that still gripped the wheel. On the flecked sea, the uninterrupted wind herded the long African combers, and whipped the small flag of the island on its silver spearhead. II Drivers leant over the rail. One seized my luggage off the porter's cart. The rest burst into patois, with gestures of despair at the lost privilege of driving me, then turned to other customers. In the evening pastures horses grazed, their hides wet with light that shot its lances over the combers. I had the transport all to myself. "You all set? Good. A good pal of mine died in that chariot of his called the Comet." He turned in the front seat, spinning the air with his free hand. I sat, sprawled out in the back, discouraging talk, with my crossed feet. "You never know when, eh? I was at the airport that day. I see him take off like a rocket. I always said that thing have too much horsepower. And so said, so done. The same hotel, chief, correct?" I saw the coastal villages receding as the highway's tongue translated bush into forest, the wild savannah into moderate pastures, that other life going in its "change for the best," its peace paralyzed in a postcard, a concrete future ahead of it all, in the cinder-blocks 26 of hotel development with the obsolete craft of the carpenter, as I sensed, in the neat marinas, the fisherman's phantom. Old oarlocks and rusting fretsaw. My craft required the same crouching care, the same crabbed, natural devotion of the hand that stencilled a flowered window-frame or planed an elegant canoe; its time was gone with the spirit in the wood, as wood grew obsolete and plasterers smoothed the blank page of white concrete. I watched the afternoon sea. Didn't I want the poor to stay in the same light so that I could transfix them in amber, the afterglow of an empire, preferring a shed of palm-thatch with tilted sticks to that blue bus-stop? Didn't I prefer a road from which tracks climbed into the thickening syntax of colonial travellers, the measured prose I read as a schoolboy? That cove, with its brown shallows there, Praslin? That heron? Had they waited for me to develop my craft? Why hallow that pretence of preserving what they left, the hypocrisy of loving them from hotels, a biscuit-tin fence smothered in love-vines, scenes to which I was attached as blindly as Plunkett with his remorseful research? Art is History's nostalgia, it prefers a thatched roof to a concrete factory, and the huge church above a bleached village. The gap between the driver and me increased when he said: "The place changing, eh?" where an old rumshop had gone, but not that river with its clogged shadows. That would make me a stranger. "All to the good," he said. I said, "All to the good," 27 then, "whoever they are," to myself. I caught his eyes in the mirror. We were climbing out of Micoud. Hadn't I made their poverty my paradise? His back could have been Hector's, ferrying tourists in the other direction home, the leopard seat scratching their damp backs like the fur-covered armrests. He had driven his burnt-out cargo, tired of sweat, who longed for snow on the moon and didn't have to face the heat of that sinking sun, who knew a climate as monotonous as this one could only produce from its unvarying vegetation flashes of a primal insight like those red-pronged lilies that shot from the verge, that their dried calabashes of fake African masks for a fake Achilles rattled with the seeds that came from other men's minds. So let them think that. Who needed art in this place where even the old women strode with stiff-backed spines, and the fishermen had such adept thumbs, such grace these people had, but what they envied most in them was the calypso part, the Caribbean lilt still in the shells of their ears, like the surf's rhythm, until too much happiness was shadowed with guilt like any Eden, and they sighed at the sign: HEWANNORRA (Iounalao), the gold sea flat as a credit-card, extending its line to a beach that now looked just like everywhere else, Greece or Hawaii. Now the goddamn souvenir felt absurd, excessive. The painted gourds, the shells. Their own faces as brown as gourds. Mine felt as strange as those at the counter feeling their bodies change. III 28 Change lay in our silence. We had come to that bend where the trees are warped by wind, and the cliffs, raw, shelve surely to foam. "Is right here everything end," the driver said, and rammed open the transport door on his side, then mine. "Anyway, chief, the view nice." I joined him at the gusting edge. "His name was Hector." The name was bent like the trees on the precipice to point inland. In its echo a man-o'-war screamed on the wind. The driver moved off for a piss, then shouted over his shoulder: "A road-warrior. He would drive like a madman when the power took. He had a nice woman. Maybe he died for her." For her and tourism, I thought. The driver shook himself, zipping then hoisting his crotch. "Crazy, but a gentle fellow anyway, with a very good brain." Cut to a leopard galloping on a dry plain across Serengeti. Cut to the spraying fans drummed by a riderless stallion, its wild mane scaring the Scamander. Cut to a woman's hands clenched towards her mouth with no sound. Cut to the wheel of a chariot's spiked hubcap. Cut to the face of his muscling jaw, then flashback to Achille hurling a red tin and a cutlass. Next, a vase with a girl's hoarse whisper echoing "Omeros," as in a conch-shell. Cut to a shield of silver rolling like a hubcap. Rewind, in slow motion, myrmidons gathering by a village river 29 with lances for oars. Cut to the surpliced ocean droning its missal. Cut. A crane hoisting a wreck. A horse nosing the surf, then shuddering its neck. He'd paid the penalty of giving up the sea as graceless and as treacherous as it had seemed, for the taxi-business; he was making money, but all of that money was making him ashamed of the long afternoons of shouting by the wharf hustling passengers. He missed the uncertain sand under his feet, he sighed for the trough of a wave, and the jerk of the oar when it turned in his hand, and the rose conch sunset with its low pelicans. Castries was corrupting him with its roaring life, its littered market, with too many transport vans competing. Castries had been his common-law wife who, like Helen, he had longed for from a distance, and now he had both, but a frightening discontent hollowed his face; to find that the sea was a love he could never lose made every gesture violent: ramming the side-door shut, raking the clutch. He drove as if driven by furies, but furies paid the rent. A man who cursed the sea had cursed his own mother. Mer was both mother and sea. In his lost canoe he had said his prayers. But now he was in another kind of life that was changing him with his brand-new stereo, its endless garages, where he could not whip off his shirt, hearing the conch's summoning note. Chapter XLVI 30 Hector was buried near the sea he had loved once. Not too far from the shallows where he fought Achille for a tin and Helen. He did not hear the sea-almond's moan over the bay when Philoctete blew the shell, nor the one drumbeat of a wave-thud, nor a sail rattling to rest as its day's work was over, and its mate, gauging depth, bent over the gunwale, then wearily sounding the fathoms with an oar, the same rite his shipmates would repeat soon enough when it was their turn to lie quiet as Hector, lowering a pitch-pine canoe in the earth's trough, to sleep under the piled conchs, through every weather on the violet-wreathed mound. Crouching for his friend to hear, Achille whispered about their ancestral river, and those things he would recognize when he got there, his true home, forever and ever and ever, forever, compère. Then Philoctete limped over and rested his hand firmly on a shaking shoulder to anchor his sorrow. Seven Seas and Helen did not come nearer. Achille had carried an oar to the church and propped it outside with the red tin. Now his voice strengthened. He said: "Mate, this is your spear," and laid the oar slowly, the same way he had placed the parallel oars in the hull of the gommier the day the African swift and its shadow raced. And this was the prayer that Achille could not utter: "The spear that I give you, my friend, is only wood. Vexation is past. I know how well you treat her. You never know my admiration, when you stood crossing the sun at the bow of the long canoe with the plates of your chest like a shield; I would say any enemy so was a compliment. 'Cause no 31 African ever hurled his wide seine at the bay by which he was born with such beauty. You hear me? Men did not know you like me. All right. Sleep good. Good night." Achille moved Philoctete's hand, then he saw Helen standing alone and veiled in the widowing light. Then he reached down to the grave and lifted the tin to her. Helen nodded. A wind blew out the sun. II Pride set in Helen's face after this, like a stone bracketed with Hector's name; her lips were incised by its dates in parenthesis. She seemed more stern, more ennobled by distance as she slowly crossed the hot street of the village like a distant sail on the horizon. Grief heightened her. When she smiled it was with such distance that it was hard to tell if she had heard your condolence. It was the child, Ma Kilman told them, that made her more beautiful. III The rites of the island were simplified by its elements, which changed places. The grooved sea was Achille's garden, the ridged plot of rattling plantains carried their sense of the sea, and Philoctete, on his height, often heard, in a wind that suddenly churned the rage of deep gorges, the leafy sound of far breakers plunging with smoke, and for smoke there were the bonfires which the sun catches on the blue heights at sunrise, doing the same work as Philoctete clearing his plot, just as, at sunset, smoke came from the glowing rim of the horizon as if from his enamel pot. The woodsmoke smelt of a regret 32 that men cannot name. On the charred field, the massive sawn trunks burnt slowly like towers, and the great indigo dusk slowly plumed down, devouring the still leaves, igniting the firefly huts, lifting the panicky egret to beat its lagoon and shelve in the cage of the mangroves, take in the spars of its sails, then with quick-pricking head anchor itself shiftingly, and lift its question again. At night, the island reversed its elements, the heron of a quarter-moon floated from Hector's grave, rain rose upwards from the sea, and the corrugated iron of the sea glittered with nailheads. Ragged plantains bent and stepped with their rustling powers over the furrows of Philoctete's garden, a chorus of aged ancestors and straw, and, rustling, surrounded every house in the village with its back garden, with its rank midden of rusted chamber pots, rotting nets, and the moon's cold basin. They sounded, when they shook, after the moonlit meridian of their crossing, like the night-surf; they gazed in silence at the shadows of their lamplit children. At Philoctete, groaning and soaking the flower on his shin with hot sulphur, cleaning its edges with yellow Vaseline, and, gripping his knee, squeezing rags from the basin. At night, when yards are asleep, and the broken line of the surf hisses like Philo, "Bon Dieu, aie, waie, my sin is this sore?" the old plantains suffer and shine. Chapter XLVII Islands of bay leaves in the medicinal bath of a cauldron, a sibylline cure. The citron 33 sprig of a lime-tree dividing the sky in half dipped its divining rod. The white spray of the thorn, which the swift bends lightly, waited for a black hand to break it in bits and boil its leaves for the wound from the pronged anchor rusting in clean bottom-sand. Ma Kilman, in a black hat with its berried fringe, eased herself sideways down the broken concrete step of the rumshop's back door, closed it, and rammed the hinge tight. The bolt caught a finger and with that her instep arch twisted and she let out a soft Catholic curse, then crossed herself. She closed the gate. The asphalt sweated with the heat, the limp breadfruit leaves were thick over the fence. Her spectacles swam in their sweat. She plucked an armpit. The damn wig was badly made. She was going to five o'clock Mass, to la Messe, and sometimes she had to straighten it as she prayed until the wafer dissolved her with tenderness, the way a raindrop melts on the tongue of a breeze. In the church's cool cave the sweat dried from her eyes. She rolled down the elastic bands below the knees of her swollen stockings. It was then that their vise round her calves reminded her of Philoctete. Then, numbering her beads, she began her own litany of berries, Hail Mary marigolds that stiffen their aureoles in the heights, mild anemone and clear watercress, the sacred heart of Jesus pierced like the anthurium, the thorns of logwood, called the tree of life, the aloe good for seizures, the hole in the daisy's palm, with its drying blood that was the hole in the fisherman's shin since he was pierced by a hook; there was the pale, roadside tisane 34 of her malarial childhood. There was this one for easing a birth-breach, that one for a love-bath, before the buds of green sugar-apples in the sun ripened like her nipples in girlhood. But what path led through nettles to the cure, the furious sibyl couldn't remember. Mimosa winced from her fingers, shutting like jalousies at some passing evil when she reached for them. The smell of incense lingers in her clothes. Inside, the candle-flames are erect round the bier of the altar while she and her friends old-talk on the steps, but the plant keeps its secret when her memory reaches, shuttering in its fronds. II The dew had not yet dried on the white-ribbed awnings and the nodding palanquins of umbrella yams where the dark grove had not heat but early mornings of perpetual freshness, in which the bearded arms of a cedar held council. Between its gnarled toes grew the reek of an unknown weed; its pronged flower sprang like a buried anchor; its windborne odours diverted the bee from its pollen, but its power, rooted in bitterness, drew her bowed head by the nose as a spike does a circling bull. To approach it Ma Kilman lowered her head to one side and screened the stench with a cologned handkerchief. The mulch it was rooted in carried the smell, when it gangrened, of Philoctete's cut. In her black dress, her berried black hat, she climbed a goat-path up from the village, past the stones with dried palms and conchs, where the buried suffer the sun all day Sunday, while goats forage the new wreaths. Once more she pulled at the itch in her 35 armpits, nearly dropping her purse. Then she climbed hard up the rain-cracked path, the bay closing behind her like a wound, and rested. Everything that echoed repeated its outline: a goat's doddering bleat, a hammer multiplying a roof, and, through the back yards, a mother cursing a boy too nimble to beat. Ma Kilman picked up her purse and sighed on upwards to the thread of the smell, one arm behind her back, passing the cactus, the thorn trees, and then the wood appeared over her, thick green, the green almost black as her dress in its shade, its border of flowers flecking the pasture with spray. Then she staggered back from the line of ants at her feet. She saw the course they had kept behind her, following her from church, signalling a language she could not recognize. III A swift had carried the strong seed in its stomach centuries ago from its antipodal shore, skimming the sea-troughs, outdarting ospreys, her luck held to its shadow. She aimed to carry the cure that precedes every wound; the reversible Bight of Benin was her bow, her target the ringed haze of a circling horizon. The star-grains at night made her hungrier; the leafless sea with no house for her weariness. Sometimes she dozed in her flight for a swift's second, closing the seeds of her stare, then ruddering straight. The dry sea-flakes whitened her breast, her feathers thinned. Then, one dawn the day-star rose slowly from the wrong place and it frightened her because all the breakers were blowing from the wrong 36 east. She saw the horned island and uncurled her claws with one frail cry, since swifts are not given to song, and fluttered down to a beach, ejecting the seed in grass near the sand. She nestled in dry seaweed. In a year she was bleached bone. All of that motion a pile of fragile ash from the fire of her will, but the vine grew its own wings, out of the ocean it climbed like the ants, the ancestors of Achille, the women carrying coals after the dark door slid over the hold. As the weed grew in odour so did its strength at the damp root of the cedar, where the flower was anchored at the mottled root as a lizard crawled upwards, foot by sallow foot. ~ Derek Walcott,

899:A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS DRAMATIS PERSONS OTHO THE GREAT, Emperor of Germany. LUDOLPH, his Son. CONRAD, Duke of Franconia. ALBERT, a Knight, favoured by Otho. SIGIFRED, an Officer, friend of Ludolph. THEODORE, an Officer GONFRED, an Officer ETHELBERT. an Abbot. GERSA, Prince of Hungary. An Hungarian Captain. Physician. Page. Nobles, Knights, Attendants, and Soldiers. ERMINIA, Niece of Otho. AURANTHE, Conrad's Sister. Ladies and Attendants. SCENE. The Castle of Friedburg, its vicinity, and the Hungarian Camp. TIME. One Day. SCENE I. An Apartment in the Castle. Enter CONRAD. Conrad. So, I am safe emerged from these broils! Amid the wreck of thousands I am whole; For every crime I have a laurel-wreath, For every lie a lordship. Nor yet has My ship of fortune furl'd her silken sails, Let her glide on! This danger'd neck is saved, By dexterous policy, from the rebel's axe; And of my ducal palace not one stone Is bruised by the Hungarian petards. Toil hard, ye slaves, and from the miser-earth Bring forth once more my bullion, treasured deep, With ah my jewell'd salvers, silver and gold, And precious goblets that make rich the wine. But why do I stand babbling to myself? Where is Auranthe? I have news for her Shall- Enter AURANTHE. Auranthe. Conrad! what tidings? Good, if I may guess From your alert eyes and high-lifted brows. What tidings of the battle? Albert? Ludolph? Otho? Conrad. You guess aright. And, sister, slurring o'er Our by-gone quarrels, I confess my heart Is beating with a child's anxiety, To make our golden fortune known to you. Auranthe. So serious? Conrad. Yes, so serious, that before I utter even the shadow of a hint Concerning what will make that sin-worn cheek Blush joyous blood through every lineament, You must make here a solemn vow to me. Auranthe. I prythee, Conrad, do not overact The hypocrite what vow would you impose? Conrad. Trust me for once, that you may be assured 'Tis not confiding to a broken reed, A poor Court-bankrupt, outwitted and lost, Revolve these facts in your acutest mood, In such a mood as now you listen to me: A few days since, I was an open rebel Against the Emperor, had suborn'd his son, Drawn off his nobles to revolt, and shown Contented fools causes for discontent Fresh hatch'd in my ambition's eagle nest So thrived I as a rebel, and behold Now I am Otho's favourite, his dear friend, His right hand, his brave Conrad. Auranthe. I confess You have intrigued with these unsteady times To admiration; but to be a favourite Conrad. I saw my moment. The Hungarians, Collected silently in holes and corners, Appeared, a sudden host, in the open day. I should have perish'd in our empire's wreck, But, calling interest loyalty, swore faith To most believing Otho; and so helped His blood-stained ensigns to the victory In yesterday's hard fight, that it has turn'd The edge of his sharp wrath to eager kindness. Auranthe. So far yourself. But what is this to me More than that I am glad? I gratulate you. Conrad. Yes, sister, but it does regard you greatly, Nearly, momentously, aye, painfully! Make me this vow Auranthe. Concerning whom or what? Conrad. Albert! Auranthe. I would inquire somewhat of him: You had a letter from me touching him? No treason 'gainst his head in deed or word! Surely you spar'd him at my earnest prayer? Give me the letter it should not exist! Conrad. At one pernicious charge of the enemy, I, for a moment-whiles, was prisoner ta'en And rifled, stuff! the horses' hoofs have minc'd it! Auranthe. He is alive? Conrad. He is! but here make oath To alienate him from your scheming brain, Divorce him from your solitary thoughts, And cloud him in such utter banishment, That when his person meets again your eye, Your vision shall quite lose its memory, And wander past him as through vacancy. Auranthe. I'll not be perjured. Conrad. No, nor great, nor mighty; You would not wear a crown, or rule a kingdom. To you it is indifferent. Auranthe. What means this? Conrad. You'll not be perjured! Go to Albert then, That camp-mushroom dishonour of our house. Go, page his dusty heels upon a march, Furbish his jingling baldric while he sleeps, And share his mouldy ration in a siege. Yet stay, perhaps a charm may call you back, And make the widening circlets of your eyes Sparkle with healthy fevers. The Emperor Hath given consent that you should marry Ludolph! Auranthe. Can it be, brother? For a golden crown With a queen's awful lips I doubly thank you! This is to wake in Paradise ! Farewell Thou clod of yesterday 'twas not myself! Not till this moment did I ever feel My spirit's faculties! I'll flatter you For this, and be you ever proud of it; Thou, Jove-like, struck'dst thy forehead, And from the teeming marrow of thy brain I spring complete Minerva! But the prince His highness Ludolph where is he? Conrad. I know not: When, lackeying my counsel at a beck, The rebel lords, on bended knees, received The Emperor's pardon, Ludolph kept aloof, Sole, in a stiff, fool-hardy, sulky pride; Yet, for all this, I never saw a father In such a sickly longing for his son. We shall soon see him, for the Emperor He will be here this morning. Auranthe. That I heard Among the midnight rumours from the camp. Conrad. You give up Albert to me? Auranthe. Harm him not! E'en for his highness Ludolph's sceptry hand, I would not Albert suffer any wrong. Conrad. Have I not laboured, plotted ? Auranthe. See you spare him: Nor be pathetic, my kind benefactor, On all the many bounties of your hand, 'Twas for yourself you laboured not for me! Do you not count, when I am queen, to take Advantage of your chance discoveries Of my poor secrets, and so hold a rod Over my life? Conrad. Let not this slave this villain Be cause of feud between us. See! he comes! Look, woman, look, your Albert is quite safe! In haste it seems. Now shall I be in the way, And wish'd with silent curses in my grave, Or side by side with 'whelmed mariners. Enter ALBERT. Albert. Fair on your graces fall this early morrow! So it is like to do, without my prayers, For your right noble names, like favourite tunes, Have fallen full frequent from our Emperor's lips, High commented with smiles. Auranthe. Noble Albert! Conrad (aside). Noble! Auranthe. Such salutation argues a glad heart In our prosperity. We thank you, sir. Albert. Lady! O, would to Heaven your poor servant Could do you better service than mere words! But I have other greeting than mine own, From no less man than Otho, who has sent This ring as pledge of dearest amity; 'Tis chosen I hear from Hymen's jewel'ry, And you will prize it, lady, I doubt not, Beyond all pleasures past, and all to come. To you great duke Conrad. To me! What of me, ha? Albert. What pleas'd your grace to say? Conrad. Your message, sir! Albert. You mean not this to me? Conrad. Sister, this way; For there shall be no '''gentle Alberts" now, [Aside. No "sweet Auranthes!" [Exeunt CONRAD and AURANTHE. Albert (solus). The duke is out of temper; if he knows More than a brother of a sister ought, I should not quarrel with his peevishness. Auranthe Heaven preserve her always fair! Is in the heady, proud, ambitious vein; I bicker not with her, bid her farewell! She has taken flight from me, then let her soar, He is a fool who stands at pining gaze! But for poor Ludolph, he is food for sorrow: No levelling bluster of my licens'd thoughts, No military swagger of my mind, Can smother from myself the wrong I've done him, Without design, indeed, yet it is so, And opiate for the conscience have I none! [Exit. SCENE II. The Court-yard of the Castle. Martial Music. Enter, from the outer gate, OTHO, Nobles, Knights, and Attendants. The Soldiers halt at the gate, with Banners in sight. Otho. Where is my noble herald? Enter CONRAD, from the Castle, attended by two Knights and Servants. ALBERT following. Well, hast told Auranthe our intent imperial? Lest our rent banners, too o' the sudden shown, Should fright her silken casements, and dismay Her household to our lack of entertainment. A victory! Conrad. God save illustrious Otho! Otho. Aye, Conrad, it will pluck out all grey hairs; It is the best physician for the spleen; The courtliest inviter to a feast; The subtlest excuser of small faults; And a nice judge in the age and smack of wine. Enter, from the Castle, AURANTHE, followed by Pages holding up her robes, and a tram of Women. She kneels. Hail my sweet hostess! I do thank the stars, Or my good soldiers, or their ladies' eyes, That, after such a merry battle fought, I can, all safe in body and in soul, Kiss your fair hand and lady fortune's too. My ring! now, on my life, it doth rejoice These lips to feel 't on this soft ivory! Keep it, my brightest daughter; it may prove The little prologue to a line of kings. I strove against thee and my hot-blood son, Dull blockhead that I was to be so blind, But now my sight is clear; forgive me, lady. Auranthe. My lord, I was a vassal to your frown, And now your favour makes me but more humble; In wintry winds the simple snow is safe, But fadeth at the greeting of the sun: Unto thine anger I might well have spoken, Taking on me a woman's privilege, But this so sudden kindness makes me dumb. Otho. What need of this? Enough, if you will be A potent tutoress to my wayward boy, And teach him, what it seems his nurse could not To say, for once, I thank you. Sigifred! Albert. He has not yet return'd, my gracious liege. Otho. What then! No tidings of my friendly Arab? Conrad. None, mighty Otho. [To one of his Knights, who goes out. Send forth instantly An hundred horsemen from my honoured gates, To scour the plains and search the cottages. Cry a reward, to him who shall first bring News of that vanished Arabian, A full-heap'd helmet of the purest gold. Otho. More thanks, good Conrad; for, except my son's, There is no face I rather would behold Than that same quick-eyed pagan's. By the saints, This coming night of banquets must not light Her dazzling torches; nor the music breathe Smooth, without clashing cymbal, tones of peace And in-door melodies; nor the ruddy wine Ebb spouting to the lees; if I pledge not In my first cup, that Arab! Albert. Mighty Monarch, I wonder not this stranger's victor-deeds So, hang upon your spirit. Twice in the fight It was my chance to meet his olive brow, Triumphant in the enemy's shatter 'd rhomb; And, to say truth, in any Christian arm I never saw such prowess. Otho. Did you ever? O, 'tis a noble boy! tut! what do I say? I mean a triple Saladin, whose eyes, When in the glorious scuffle they met mine, Seem'd to say "Sleep, old man, in safety sleep; I am the victory!" Conrad. Pity he's not here. Otho. And my son too, pity he is not here. Lady Auranthe, I would not make you blush, But can you give a guess where Ludolph is? Know you not of him? Auranthe. Indeed, my liege, no secret Otho. Nay, nay, without more words, dost know of him? Auranthe. I would I were so over-fortunate, Both for his sake and mine, and to make glad A father's ears with tidings of his son. Otho. I see 'tis like to be a tedious day. Were Theodore and Gonfred and the rest Sent forth with my commands? Albert. Aye, my lord. Otho. And no news! No news! 'Faith! 'tis very strange He thus avoids us. Lady, is't not strange? Will he be truant to you too? It is a shame. Conrad. Will 't please your highness enter, and accept The unworthy welcome of your servant's house? Leaving your cares to one whose diligence May in few hours make pleasures of them all. Otho. Not so tedious, Conrad. No, no, no, I must see Ludolph or the What's that shout! Voices without. Huzza! huzza! Long live the Emperor! Other Voices. Fall back! Away there! Otho. Say, what noise is that? [ALBERT advancing from the bark of the Stage, whither he had hastened on hearing the cheers of the soldiery. Albert. It is young Gersa, the Hungarian prince, Pick'd like a red stag from the fallow herd Of prisoners. Poor prince, forlorn he steps, Slow, and demure, and proud in his despair. If I may judge by his so tragic bearing, His eye not downcast, and his folded arm, He doth this moment wish himself asleep Among his fallen captains on yon plains. Enter GERSA, in chains, and guarded, Otho. Well said, Sir Albert. Gersa. Not a word of greeting. No welcome to a princely visitor, Most mighty Otho? Will not my great host Vouchsafe a syllable, before he bids His gentlemen conduct me with all care To some securest lodgings? cold perhaps! Otho. What mood is this? Hath fortune touch'd thy brain? Gersa. kings and princes of this fev'rous world, What abject things, what mockeries must ye be, What nerveless minions of safe palaces! When here, a monarch, whose proud foot is used To fallen princes' necks, as to his stirrup, Must needs exclaim that I am mad forsooth, Because I cannot flatter with bent knees My conqueror! Otho. Gersa, I think you wrong me: I think I have a better fame abroad. Gersa. I prythee mock me not with gentle speech, But, as a favour, bid me from thy presence; Let me no longer be the wondering food Of all these eyes; prythee command me hence! Otho. Do not mistake me, Gersa. That you may not, Come, fair Auranthe, try if your soft hands Can manage those hard rivets to set free So brave a prince and soldier. Auranthe (sets him free). Welcome task! Gersa. I am wound up in deep astonishment! Thank you, fair lady. Otho! emperor! You rob me of myself; my dignity Is now your infant; I am a weak child. Otho. Give me your hand, and let this kindly grasp Live in our memories. Gersa. In mine it will. I blush to think of my unchasten'd tongue; But I was haunted by the monstrous ghost Of all our slain battalions. Sire, reflect, And pardon you will grant, that, at this hour, The bruised remnants of our stricken camp Are huddling undistinguish'd my dear friends, With common thousands, into shallow graves. Otho. Enough, most noble Gersa. You are free To cheer the brave remainder of your host By your own healing presence, and that too, Not as their leader merely, but their king; For, as I hear, the wily enemy, Who eas'd the crownet from your infant brows, Bloody Taraxa, is among the dead. Gersa. Then I retire, so generous Otho please, Bearing with me a weight of benefits Too heavy to be borne. Otho. It is not so; Still understand me, King of Hungary, Nor judge my open purposes awry. Though I did hold you high in my esteem For your self's sake, I do not personate The stage-play emperor to entrap applause, To set the silly sort o' the world agape, And make the politic smile; no, I have heard How in the Council you condemn 'd this war, Urging the perfidy of broken faith, For that I am your friend. Gersa. If ever, sire, You are mine enemy, I dare here swear 'Twill not be Gersa's fault. Otho, farewell! Otho. Will you return, Prince, to our banqueting? Gersa. As to my father's board I will return. Otho. Conrad, with all due ceremony, give The prince a regal escort to his camp; Albert, go thou and bear him company. Gersa, farewell! Gersa. All happiness attend you! Otho. Return with what good speed you may; for soon We must consult upon our terms of peace. [Exeunt GERSA and ALBERT with others. And thus a marble column do I build To prop my empire's dome. Conrad, in thee I have another stedfast one, to uphold The portals of my state; and, for my own Pre-eminence and safety, I will strive To keep thy strength upon its pedestal. For, without thee, this day I might have been A show-monster about the streets of Prague, In chains, as just now stood that noble prince: And then to me no mercy had been shown, For when the conquered lion is once dungeon'd, Who lets him forth again? or dares to give An old lion sugar-cates of mild reprieve? Not to thine ear alone I make confession, But to all here, as, by experience, I know how the great basement of all power Is frankness, and a true tongue to the world; And how intriguing secrecy is proof Of fear and weakness, and a hollow state. Conrad, I owe thee much. Conrad. To kiss that hand, My emperor, is ample recompense, For a mere act of duty. Otho. Thou art wrong; For what can any man on earth do more? We will make trial of your house's welcome, My bright Auranthe! Conrad. How is Friedburg honoured! Enter ETHELBERT and six Monks. Ethelbert. The benison of heaven on your head, Imperial Otho! Otho. Who stays me? Speak! Quick! Ethelbert. Pause but one moment, mighty conqueror Upon the threshold of this house of joy. Otho. Pray, do not prose, good Ethelbert, but speak What is your purpose. Ethelbert. The restoration of some captive maids, Devoted to Heaven's pious ministries, Who, being driven from their religious cells, And kept in thraldom by our enemy, When late this province was a lawless spoil, Still weep amid the wild Hungarian camp, Though hemm'd around by thy victorious arms. Otho. Demand the holy sisterhood in our name From Gersa's tents. Farewell, old Ethelbert. Ethelbert. The saints will bless you for this pious care. Otho. Daughter, your hand; Ludolph's would fit it best. Conrad. Ho ! let the music sound ! [Music. ETHELBERT raises his hands, as in benediction of OTHO. Exeunt severally. The scene closes on them. SCENE III. The Country, with the Castle in the distance. Enter LUDOLPH and SIGIFRED. Ludolph. You have my secret; let it not be breath 'd. Sigifred. Still give me leave to wonder that the Prince Ludolph and the swift Arab are the same ; Still to rejoice that 'twas a German arm Death doing in a turban'd masquerade. Ludolph. The Emperor must not know it, Sigifred. Sigifred. I prythee, why? What happier hour of time Could thy pleasd star point down upon from heaven With silver index, bidding thee make peace? Ludolph. Still it must not be known, good Sigifred; The star may point oblique. Sigifred. If Otho knew His son to be that unknown Mussulman After whose spurring heels he sent me forth, With one of his well-pleas'd Olympian oaths, The charters of man's greatness, at this hour He would be watching round the castle walls, And, like an anxious warder, strain his sight For the first glimpse of such a son return 'd Ludolph, that blast of the Hungarians, That Saracenic meteor of the fight, That silent fury, whose fell Scymitar Kept danger all aloof from Otho's head, And left him space for wonder. Ludolph. Say no more. Not as a swordsman would I pardon claim, But as a son. The bronz'd centurion, Long toil'd in foreign wars, and whose high deeds Are shaded in a forest of tall spears, Known only to his troop, hath greater plea Of favour with my sire than I can have. Sigifred. My lord, forgive me that I cannot see How this proud temper with clear reason squares. What made you then, with such an anxious love, Hover around that life, whose bitter days You vext with bad revolt? Was 't opium, Or the mad-fumed wine? Nay, do not frown, I rather would grieve with you than upbraid. Ludolph. I do believe you. No, 'twas not to make A father his son's debtor, or to heal His deep heart-sickness for a rebel child. Twas done in memory of my boyish days, Poor cancel for his kindness to my youth, For all his calming of my childish griefs, And all his smiles upon my merriment. No, not a thousand foughten fields could sponge Those days paternal from my memory, Though now upon my head he heaps disgrace. Sigifred. My Prince, you think too harshly Ludolph. Can I so? Hath he not gall'd my spirit to the quick? And with a sullen rigour obstinate Pour'd out a phial of wrath upon my faults? Hunted me as the Tartar does the boar, Driven me to the very edge o' the world, And almost put a price upon my head? Sigifred. Remember how he spar'd the rebel lords. Ludolph. Yes, yes, I know he hath a noble nature That cannot trample on the fallen. But his Is not the only proud heart in his realm. He hath wrong'd me, and I have done him wrong; He hath lov'd me, and I have shown him kindness; We should be almost equal. Sigifred. Yet, for all this, I would you had appear 'd among those lords, And ta'en his favour. Ludolph. Ha! till now I thought My friend had held poor Ludolph's honour dear. What ! would you have me sue before his throne And kiss the courtier's missal, its silk steps? Or hug the golden housings of his steed, Amid a camp, whose steeled swarms I dar'd But yesterday? And, at the trumpet sound, Bow like some unknown mercenary's flag, And lick the soiled grass? No, no, my friend, I would not, I, be pardon'd in the heap, And bless indemnity with all that scum, Those men I mean, who on my shoulders propped Their weak rebellion, winning me with lies, And pitying forsooth my many wrongs; Poor self-deceived wretches, who must think Each one himself a king in embryo, Because some dozen vassals cry'd my lord! Cowards, who never knew their little hearts, Till flurried danger held the mirror up, And then they own'd themselves without a blush, Curling, like spaniels, round my father's feet. Such things deserted me and are forgiven, While I, least guilty, am an outcast still, And will be, for I love such fair disgrace. Sigifred. I know the clear truth; so would Otho see, For he is just and noble. Fain would I Be pleader for you Ludolph. He'll hear none of it; You know his temper, hot, proud, obstinate; Endanger not yourself so uselessly. I will encounter his thwart spleen myself, To-day, at the Duke Conrad's, where he keeps His crowded state after the victory. There will I be, a most unwelcome guest, And parley with him, as a son should do, Who doubly loathes a father's tyranny; Tell him how feeble is that tyranny; How the relationship of father and son Is no more valid than a silken leash Where lions tug adverse, if love grow not From interchanged love through many years. Aye, and those turreted Franconian walls, Like to a jealous casket, hold my pearl My fair Auranthe! Yes, I will be there. Sigifred. Be not so rash; wait till his wrath shall pass, Until his royal spirit softly ebbs Self-influenced ; then, in his morning dreams He will forgive thee, and awake in grief To have not thy good morrow. Ludolph. Yes, to-day I must be there, while her young pulses beat Among the new-plum'd minions of the war. Have you seen her of late? No? Auranthe, Franconia's fair sister, 'tis I mean. She should be paler for my troublous days And there it is my father's iron lips Have sworn divorcement 'twixt me and my right. Sigifred (aside). Auranthe! I had hop'd this whim had pass'd. Ludolph. And, Sigifred, with all his love of justice, When will he take that grandchild in his arms, That, by my love I swear, shall soon be his? This reconcilement is impossible, For see but who are these? Sigifred. They are messengers From our great emperor; to you, I doubt not, For couriers are abroad to seek you out. Enter THEODORE and GONFRED. Theodore. Seeing so many vigilant eyes explore The province to invite your highness back To your high dignities, we are too happy. Gonfred. We have no eloquence to colour justly The emperor's anxious wishes. Ludolph. Go. I follow you. [Exeunt THEODORE and GONFRED. I play the prude : it is but venturing Why should he be so earnest? Come, my friend, Let us to Friedburg castle. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes ~ John Keats, Otho The Great - Act I ,

900:The Watch At Midnight Dead stars, beneath the midnight's granite cope and round your dungeon-gulf that blindly grope and fall not, since no lower than any place needs when the wing is dash'd and foil'd the face: is this your shadow on the watcher's thought imposed, or rather hath his anguish taught the dumb and suffering dark to send you out, reptile, the doubles of his lurking doubt, in coasts of night that well might be supposed the exiled hall of chaos late-deposed, to haunt across this hour's desuetude, immense, that whelms in monumental mood the broad waste of his spirit, stonily strewn with the wreck of his eternity? The plumes of night, unfurl'd and eyed with fire, are whirl'd slowly above this watch, funereal: the vast is wide, and yet no way lies open; set no bar, but the flat deep rises, a placid wall. Some throne thou think'st to win or pride of thy far kin; this incomplete and dusty hour to achieve: know that the hour is one, eternally begun, eternally deferr'd, thy grasp a Danaid sieve. O weary realm, O height the which exhausted flight familiar finds, home of its prompting ill! here, there, or there, or there, even the same despair; rest in thy place, O fool, the heart eludes thee still. Rest — and a new abyss suddenly yawns, of this the moment sole, and yet the counterpart: and thou must house it, thou, within thy fleshy Now, thyself the abyss that shrinks, the unbounded hermit-heart: 70 the mightier heart untold whose paining depths enfold all loneliness, all height, all vision'd shores; and the abyss uncrown'd, blank failure thro' each bound from the consummate point thy broken hope implores. The trees that thro' the tuneful morn had made bride-dusk for beams that pierce the melting shade, or thro' the opulent afternoon had stood lordly, absorb'd in hieratic mood, — now stricken with misgiving of the night rise black and ominous, as who invite some fearful coming whose foreblown wind shall bow, convuls'd and shuddering, each dishevell'd brow: the garden that had sparkled thro' its sheen all day, a self-sufficing gem serene, hiding in emerald depths the vision'd white of limbs that follow their own clear delight, exhales towards the inaccessible skies, commencing, failing, broken, scents or sighs: O mother, only, where that thou hidest thee, crown for the lonely brow, bosom for the spent wanderer, or balm for ache: O mother, nightly — undiscoverable — O heart too vast to find, whelming our little desire: we wander and fail — But on the zenith, mass'd, a glittering throng, the distant stars dropt a disdainful song: They said, because their parcel-thought might nor her shadowy vast embrace, nor be refurl'd within that nought which is the hid heart of all place, they said: She is not anywhere! have we not sought her and not seen? 71 nor is there found in earth or air a sign to tell if she hath been! — O fools and blind, not to have found! is her desire not as your own? stirs she not in the arms that round a hopeless clasp, lone with the lone! And the tense lips towards her bliss in secret cells of anguish'd prayer might know her in the broken kiss she prompts nor, prompting, fails to share. We drift from age to age nor waste our strenuous song's exultant tone, disdaining or to rest or haste: because each place is still our throne. The anguish'd doubt broods over Eden; night hangs her rent banners thro' the viewless height; trophies and glories whence a trouble streams of lamentable valour in old dreams: out of its blank the watcher's soul is stirr'd to take unto itself some olden word: O thou that achest, pulse o' the unwed vast, now in the distant centre of my brain dizzily narrow'd, now beyond the last calm circle widening of the starry plain, where, on the scatter'd edge of my surmise, the twilit dreams fail off and rule is spent vainly on vagrant bands the gulfs invite to break away to the dark: they, backward sent, tho' dumb, with dire infection in their eyes, startle the central seat: — O pulse of night, passing the hard throb of sun-smitten blood when the noon-world is fused in fire and blent with my then unattained hero-mood; what will with me the imperious instinct that hounds the gulfs together on that place vanishing utterly out of mortal trace, the citadel where I would seem distinct — if not thou ween'st a vanity, my deep unlighted still, the which thy refluent sweep intolerably dilates, a tide that draws 72 with lunatic desire, distraught and fond, to some dark moon of vastness, hung beyond our little limits of familiar cause, as tho' the tense and tortured voids should dash ruining amorously together, a clash portentous with some rose of thinnest flame, secret, exhaled in the annull'd abyss, that, with this soul, passes in that fell kiss and to the soft-sprung flush all sanctity surrenders, centring in the blossom'd Name, as the dark wings of silence lovingly hover above the adventurous song that fares forth to the void and finds no lip that shares its rapture, just the great wings spreading wide. O mother thou or sister or my bride, inevitable, whom this hour in me declares, were thine of old such rhythmic pangs that bore my shivering soul, wind-waif upon the shore that is a wavering twilight, thence astray beneath the empty plainness of the day? me thy first want conceived to some dim end, that my unwelcom'd love might henceward tend to the dumb home that draws it in thy breast and the veil'd couch of some divine incest, where thou didst wait some hour of sharp delight to wither up in splendour the stark night and haggard shame that ceremented thy dearth, with purest diamond-blaze, some overbirth of the dark fire thy foresight did enmesh within this hither and thither harried flesh? Ay, yet obscurely stirs, a monstrous worm in the rear cavern of my dazzled thought, a memory that wavers, formless form of superhuman nuptials, clasp'd and caught unto the breast that is our loathed tomb: then, issuing from the violated womb, tremendous birth of dreadful prodigies begotten on the apocalyptic skies: one moment's hope, one thrill alone was given of pinions beating up the parting heaven; but straight thereon the spectral mirk was riven 73 by shapes of snaky horror, grisly jaw, cold fear, and scaly fold, and endless maw. What terror clutch'd me, even as ecstasy smote dire across transfigured mystery? and whose the sin that doom'd thee to disgrace, to haunt the shapeless dark, a burning face, eyes that would cling to mine and lips that seek some baffled kiss, some word they may not speak, condemn'd to yearn where the worn foam is hoar and vain against the unshaken nightly shore. Nightly thy tempting comes, when the dark breeze scatters my thought among the unquiet trees and sweeps it, with dead leaves, o'er widow'd lands and kingdoms conquer'd by no human hands; nightly thou wouldst exalt me in the deep, crown'd with the morn that shines beyond our sleep, nightly renew those nuptials, and re-win virginity, and shed the doubtful sin: but I am born into dividual life and I have ta'en the woman for my wife, a flowery pasture fenced and soft with streams, fill'd with slow ease and fresh with eastern beams of coolest silver on the sliding wave: such refuge the derisive morning gave, shaped featly in thy similitude, to attract earthward the gusty soul thy temptings rack'd. I sicken with the long unsatisfied waiting: the sombre gulfs of night divide: no dawn is shown that keeps its grace nor soon degraded not to brutal fires of noon; and heavy on my soul the tyrant lays his hand, and dazzles with his common blaze eyes that are fain, when evening brings the dew, to cool them in the grasses: few, how few are now the hours that thou mayst claim as thine! — And shall I not take heart? if no divine revealment star me with the diadem hermetic, magian, alchemic gem, shall I not feel the earth with firmer tread if abdicating to the viewless dead 74 the invaluable round of nothingness? Kingdom awaits me, homage, swords, liesse, battle, broad fame in fable, song: shall I confide all hope to scanty shapes that fly in dreams, whom even if they be all I know not, or fore-runners of the One? I go, shaking them from my spirit, to rule and mould in mine own shape the gods that shall be old. — Nay, not thus lightly, heart the winds have mock'd! wings of fierce winds that o'er the star-strown height sweep, and adown the wide world-ways unlock'd feign for thy trouble a last conclusive fight: O heart wherethro' these insolent powers stray, pass and repass, and thou dost foolish hold aught else inspires them than their cynic play, the aimless idle sport they plann'd of old to while the waste hours of their tedious state and shall pursue when thou art seal'd in dust, thou latest toy, framed for this silly fate, to watch their pastime turning, tremble and trust some deathless gain for thee should issue of it imblazed in stars on some thy kindred's brow; O thou, all laughable for thy short wit, not lightly thus shalt thou put off their slight and steady thee to build in their despite secure, some seat, and hold thy being safe, joying in this at last that thou art thou, distinct, no longer in wilful tides a waif: O heart the winds have emptied of all clear and natural impulse, O wasted brain and spirit expent with straining from thy sphere, turn thee to earth, if that be not a cheat, and, childlike, lay thee in her torpid lap, there to reflush these flaccid veins with sap from spilth of sleep, where herbs of drowsy bane spring in slow shade and death is sprinkled sweet, with promis'd coolness dark — perchance a lure.. Thou sleep, at least, receive and wrap me sure in midmost of thy softness, that no flare, disastrous, from some rending of the veil, nor dawn from springs beyond thy precincts, rare 75 with revelation, risen, or dewy-pale exhaled from fields of death, disturb that full absorption of robustness, and I wake in placid large content, replete and dull, fast-grown to earth, whom winds no longer shake. Thick sleep, with error of the tangled wood, and vapour from the evening marsh of sense, and smoothness of the glide of Lethe, would inaugurate his dullard innocence, cool'd of his calenture, elaborate brute: but, all deceitful of his craven hope, the devious and covert ways of dream shall lead him out upon no temper'd beam or thick-grass'd ease, where herbs of soothing shoot in asphodel, but on the shuddering scope and the chill touch of endless distances still thronging on the wingless soul that flees along the self-pursuing path, to find the naked night before it and behind. What night is this, made denser, in his breast or round him, suddenly or first confest after its gradual thickening complete? as tho' the mighty current, bearing fleet the unresting stars, had here devolved its lees, stagnant, contempt, on recreant destinies; as tho' a settling of tremendous pens, above the desolate dream, had shed immense addition to the incumbence of despair downward, across this crypt of stirless air, from some henceforth infrangible attitude, upon his breast, that knows no dawn renew'd, builded enormously, each brazen stage, with rigor of his hope in hopeless age mummied, and look that turns his thew to stone: even hers, that is his strangling sphinx, made known with, on her breast, his fore-erected tomb, engraven deep, the letters of his doom. Terrible, if he will not have me else, I lurk to seize and strangle, in the cells where he hath made a dusk round his delight: 76 whether he woo the bride's incarnate bright and natural rose to shimmer thro' the dense of odour-motes whereby the brooding sense flows forth beyond its aching bounds and lies, full-brimm'd and sombre, around her clear disguise that saturates the dusk with secret gold; or the miraculous rose of Heaven to unfold out from its heart of ruby fire and rain unceasing drift of petals, and maintain a tabernacle about the little hour where his eternity hath phantom power: and terrible I am moulded in the stone that clamps for ever, rigid, stark, alone, round nought but absence of the man he was, some cell of that cold space against whose laws he seeks a refuge in his inner deep of love, and soften'd fire, and quicken'd sleep, tho' knowing that I, the bride his sin dethroned and exiled to the wastes that lie disown'd, can bring that icy want even to the heart of his most secret bliss, that he shall start aghast, to see its burning centre fade and know his hope, the impious, vain, unmade. Lo now, beneath the watch of knitted boughs he lies, close-folded to his newer spouse, creature of morn, that hath ordain'd its fresh dew and cool glimmer in her crystal flesh sweetly be mix'd, with quicken'd breath of leaves and the still charm the spotless dawning weaves. But I have set my hand upon his soul and moulded it to my unseen control; and he hath slept within my shadowy hair and guards a memory how in my far lair the forces of tremendous passion stir: my spectral face shall come between his eyes and the soft face of her, my name shall rise, unutter'd, in each thought that goes to her; and in the quiet waters of her gaze shall lurk a siren-lure that beckons him down halls of death and sinful chambers dim: he shall not know her nor her gentle ways 77 nor rest, content, by her sufficing source, but, under stress of the veil'd stars, shall force her simple bloom to perilous delight adulterate with pain, some nameless night stain'd with miasm of flesh become a tomb: then baffled hope, some torch o' the blood to illume and flush the jewel hid beyond all height, and sombre rage that burst the holy bourne of garden-joy, murdering innocence, and the distraught desire to bring a kiss unto the fleeting centre of the abyss, discovering the eternal lack, shall spurn even that sun-god's garden of pure sense, not wisely wasted with insensate will. I am his bride and was and shall be still, tho' infamous as devil's dam, a fear to wives that watch the cradle-side and hear how I devour the newling flesh, and none shall void my claim upon his latest son, because the father fell beneath my harm, not god invented late, nor anxious charm; tho' with the chemic mind he holds in trust to show me gem, he celebrate the dust; dumb earth, in garb of borrow'd beauty dight by the fond day that curtains him in light; green pleasaunces, whose smiling would attest his heart true-born of her untroubled breast and leaves that beckon on the woodland ways of the stream-side, where expectation strays of water-brides, swift blight to them that see, because the waters are to mirror me:— of these his hunted thought, seeking retreat in narrow light, and some sure bosom-heat to cherish him, and friendly face of kin, shall mould him fancied ancestors, to win some certitude that he is in his home rescued from any doom that bids him roam, and him the blossom of the day presume, unheeding that its roots are in my womb nor song may breathe a magic unconfest of the anterior silence of my breast: 78 but I shall lurk within the sightless stare of his impassive idols, housing there an unknown that allures and makes him fain to perish for his creatures' fancied gain; and they shall gaze and see not while his brood befouls their stony presence with much blood, their children's, and their captive enemies', stretch'd out, exenterate, on those callous knees, and, last, their own, ere some ill-fortuned field drink all of it, since faith forbids them yield and brings to learn in full, the fool's just trade, the gratitude of gods themselves have made. Last, since a pinch of dust may quench the eyes that took the azure curve of stainless skies and still the fiercest heart, he seeks to whelm infinite yearning with a little realm, beating together with ungentle hands, enslaved, the trembling spawn of generous lands, whom he shall force, a busy swarm, to raise, last bulwarks of his whelming discontent, heaven-threatening Babels, iron Ninevehs square-thought with rigid will, a monument of stony rage in high defiant stones eternized with blasphemous intent, and carve the mountain-cone to hide his bones, a wonder to blank tribes of shrunken days: but in that cave before his upstart gates where elder night endures unshaken, waits that foe of settled peace, the smiling sphinx, or foul Echidna's mass'd insidious links, reminding him that all is vanities; and when, at last, o'er his nine roods he lies, stretch'd in the sarcophage whereover grief makes way before one huge gust of relief, not the wing-blast of his vain shade shall drive his wizen'd captives from their dungeon-hive, and make a solitude about his bed; nor the chill thought petrific his low head exudes in rays of darkness, that beyond this perturb'd sphere congeal, an orb of dread: I, Lilith, on his tomb immensely throned, 79 with viewless face and viewless vans outspread; in the wide waste of his unhallow'd work, calm coils of fear, my serpent-brood shall lurk; and I shall muse above the little dust that was the flesh that held my word in trust. Warrior and prince and poet, thou that fain over some tract of lapsing years wouldst reign nor know'st the crown that all thy wants confess is Lilith's own, the round of nothingness: warrior, whose witless game is but to feel thyself authentic thro' the wielded steel and give thy ghost assurance that thou art, what aimless endless wars shall make thy heart arena for the wheeling of their play! king, that wast mighty in the easy way of thy desire, what time these thews were young, how bitter is the wisdom on thy tongue in the late season, when a westering sun shows thee thy work, that it is evil done! O priest and poet, thou that makest God, woe, when the path of thine illusion, trod even to the end, reveals thee thy worn face, eternal hermit of the unhallow'd place! O man, the coward hope of thy despair to be confounded with the driven air, the grass that grows and knows not, the kind herds that are not wrought with dreams nor any words, to hollow out some refuge sunk as deep as that was high thou hadst not sense to keep, and here thy vexing shade to obliterate ensuring that it rise not, soon or late, thou knowing I claim thee whole when that thou art dead. Go forth: be great, O nothing. I have said. Thus in her hour of wrath, o'er Adam's head Lilith, then first reveal'd, a name of dread, thus in her hour of sorrow: and the rage, that drove the giant-hunters in that age since whelm'd beneath the weltering cataclysm, was the mad flight from her instant abysm and iron sadness and unsatisfied 80 despair of kings that by Euphrates' side rein the wing'd steer or grasp the stony mane of lions dared, if so they might obtain surcease of lingering unnamed distress. And if she kept the word forgetfulness absorb'd, sole ear of sunken sleep, it is to them that wander thro' Persepolis, Ekbatan, or where else o'er arrow'd bricks her snakes make the dry noise of trodden sticks, known and well-known how that revolt was dash'd and cruel keeps with lustral silence wash'd. A name of dread reveal'd: and tho' forgot in strenuous times to whom the lyre was not, yet, when her hour awoke, the peoples heard her coming and the winds no more deferr'd that sweep along the expected day of wrath, and rear'd the soaring aisles along her path to house the massive gloom where she might dwell, conjectured, hovering, impenetrable, while o'er the mortal terror crouch'd beneath the shuddering organ pour'd black wave of death; when man withheld his hand from life, in fear to find her, temptress, in the flesh most dear or on the lowliest ways of simple peace — vain-weening he that thus their feud might cease: ay, and the cynic days that thought them blest to know this earth a plunder-ground confest and calm within them of the glutted beast knew her, the emptiness that, when the feast hath quench'd its lamps, makes, in the invaded hall, stray'd steps, reverberated from the wall, sound on the ear like some portentous stride, companion's fixt, to mock our tread, beside, nor near and show his apprehended guise familiar, ease to our intended eyes. Lilith, a name of dread: yet was her pain and loving to her chosen ones not vain hinted, who know what weight of gelid tears afflicts the widow'd uplands of the spheres, and whence the enrapturing breaths are sent that bring a perfume of the secular flowering 81 of the far-bleeding rose of Paradise, that mortal hearts in censer-fume arise unto the heart that were an ardent peace, and whence the sibyl-hints of song, that cease in pale and thrilling silence, lest they wrong her beauty, whose love bade live their fleeting throng, even hers, who is the silence of our thought, as he that sleeps in hush'd Valvins hath taught. She is the night: all horror is of her heap'd, shapeless, on the unclaim'd chaotic marsh or huddled on the looming sepulchre where the incult and scanty herb is harsh. She is the night: all terror is of her when the distemper'd dark begins to boil with wavering face of larve and oily blur of pallor on her suffocating coil. Or majesty is hers, when marble gloom supports her, calm, with glittering signs severe and grandeur of metallic roof of doom, far in the windows of our broken sphere. Or she can be all pale, under no moon or star, with veiling of the glamour cloud, all pale, as were the fainting secret soon to be exhaled, bride-robed in clinging shroud. For she is night, and knows each wooing mood: and her warm breasts are near in the charm'd air of summer eve, and lovingly delude the aching brow that craves their tender care. The wooing night: all nuptials are of her; and she the musky golden cloud that hangs on maiden blood that burns, a boding stir shot thro' with flashes of alluring pangs, far off, in creeks that slept unvisited or moved so smoothly that no ripple creas'd their mirror'd slip of blue, till that sweet dread melted the air and soft sighs stole, releas'd; and she the shame of brides, veiling the white of bosoms that for sharp fulfilment yearn; she is the obscure centre of delight and steals the kiss, the kiss she would return 82 deepen'd with all the abysm that under speech moves shudderingly, or as that gulf is known to set the astonied spouses each from each across the futile sea of sighs, alone. All mystery, and all love, beyond our ken, she woos us, mournful till we find her fair: and gods and stars and songs and souls of men are the sparse jewels in her scatter'd hair. This rose, the lips that kiss, and the young breast they kindle, flush'd throughout its waking snows; and this, that tremulous on the morning blows, heart's youth some golden dew of dream hath blest; auroras, grace and sooth! no tragic west shed splendid the red anger of your close: how soon within this wandering barrow grows the canker'd heap of petals once caress'd! Old odours of the rose are sickening; night, hasten above the corpse of old delight, if in decay the heart cherish some heat, to breed new spice within the charnel-mould, that eyes unseal'd with living dew may greet the morning of the deathless rose of gold. ~ Christopher John Brennan,

901:My fancies are fireflies, Specks of living light twinkling in the dark. he voice of wayside pansies, that do not attract the careless glance, murmurs in these desultory lines. In the drowsy dark caves of the mind dreams build their nest with fragments dropped from day's caravan. Spring scatters the petals of flowers that are not for the fruits of the future, but for the moment's whim. Joy freed from the bond of earth's slumber rushes into numberless leaves, and dances in the air for a day. My words that are slight my lightly dance upon time's waves when my works havy with import have gone down. Mind's underground moths grow filmy wings and take a farewell flight in the sunset sky. The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. My thoughts, like spark, ride on winged surprises, carrying a single laughter. The tree gazes in love at its own beautiful shadow which yet it never can grasp. Let my love, like sunlight, surround you and yet give you illumined freedom. Days are coloured vbubbles that float upon the surface of fathomless night. My offerings are too timid to claim your remembrance, and therefore you may remember them. Leave out my name from the gift if it be a burden, but keep my song. April, like a child, writes hieroglyphs on dust with flowers, wipes them away and forgets. Memory, the priestess, kills the present and offers its heart to the shrine of the dead past. From the solemn gloom of the temple children run out to sit in the dust, God watches them play and forgets the priest. My mind starts up at some flash on the flow of its thoughts like a brook at a sudden liquid note of its own that is never repeated. In the mountain, stillness surges up to explore its own height; in the lake, movement stands still to contemplate its own depth. The departing night's one kiss on the closed eyes of morning glows in the star of dawn. Maiden, thy beauty is like a fruit which is yet to mature, tense with an unyielding secret. Sorrow that has lost its memory is like the dumb dark hours that have no bird songs but only the cricket's chirp. Bigotry tries to keep turth safe in its hand with a grip that kills it. Wishing to hearten a timid lamp great night lights all her stars. Though he holds in his arms the earth-bride, the sky is ever immensely away. God seeks comrades and claims love, the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience. The soil in return for her service keeps the tree tied to her, the sky asks nothing and leaves it free. Jewel-like immortal does not boast of its length of years but of the scintillating point of its moment. The child ever dwells in the mystery of ageless time, unobscured by the dust of history. Alight laughter in the steps of creation carries it swiftly across time. One who was distant came near to me in the morning, and still nearer when taken away by night. White and pink oleanders meet and make merry in different dialects. When peace is active swepping its dirt, it is storm. The lake lies low by the hill, a tearful entreaty of love at the foot of the inflexible. There smiles the Divine Child among his playthings of unmeaning clouds and ephemeral lights and shadows. The breeze whispers to the lotus, "What is thy secret?" "It is myself," says the lotus, "Steal it and I disappear!" The freedom of the storm and the bondage of the stem join hands in the dance of swaying branches. The jasmine's lisping of love to the sun is her flowers. The tyrant claims freedom to kill freedom and yet to keep it for himself. Gods, tired of their paradise, envy man. Clouds are hills in vapour, hills are clouds in stone, a phantasy in time's dream. While God waits for His temple to be built of love, men bring stones. I touch God in my song as the hill touches the far-away sea with its waterfall. Light finds her treasure of colours through the antagonism of clouds. My heart to-day smiles at its past night of tears like a wet tree glistening in the sun after the rain is over. I have thanked the trees that have made my life fruitflul, but have failed to remember the grass that has ever kept it green. The one without second is emptiness, the other one makes it true. Life's errors cry for the merciful beauty that can modulate their isolation into a harmony with the whole. They expect thanks for the banished nest because their cage is shapely and secure. In love I pay my endless debt to thee for what thou art. The pond sends up its lyrics from its dark in lilies, and the sun says, they are good. Your calumny against the great is impious, it hurts yourself; against the small it is mean, for it hurts the victim. The first flower that blossomed on this earth was an invitation to the unborn song. Dawnthe many-coloured flowerfades, and then the simple light-fruit, the sun appears. The muscle that has a doubt if its wisdom throttles the voice that would cry. The wind tries to take the flame by storm only to blow it out. Life's play is swift, Life's playthings fall behind one by one and are forgotten. My flower, seek not thy paradise in a fool's buttonhole. Thou hast risen late, my crescent moon, but my night bird is still awake to greet thee. Darkness is the veiled bride silently waiting for the errant light to return to her bosom. Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. The burden of self is lightened when I laugh at myself. The weak can be terrible because they try furiously to appear strong. The wind of heaven blows, The anchor desperately clutches the mud, and my boat is beating its breast against the chain. The spirit of death is one, the spirit of life is many, Whe God is dead religion becomes one. The blue of the sky longs for the earth's green, the wind between them sighs, "Alas." Day's pain muffled by its own glare, burns among stars in the night. The stars crowd round the virgin night in silent awe at her loneliness that can never be touched. The cloud gives all its gold to the departing sun and greets the rising moon with only a pale smile. He who does good comes to the temple gate, he who loves reaches the shrine. Flower, have pity for the worm, it is not a bee, its love is a blunder and a burden. With the ruins of terror's triumph children build their doll's house. The lamp waits through the long day of neglect for the flame's kiss in the night. Feathers in the dust lying lazily content have forgotten their sky. The flowers which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous. The world suffers most from the disinterested tyranny of its well-wisher. We gain freedom whrn we have paid the full price for our right to live. Your careless gifts of a moment, like the meteors of an autumn night, catch fire in the depth of my being. The faith waiting in the heart of a seed promises a miracle of life which it cannot prove at once. Spring hesitates at winter's door, but the mango blossom rashly runs our to him before her time and meets her doom. The world is the ever-changing foam thet floats on the surface of a sea of silence. The two separated shores mingle their voices in a song of unfathomed tears. As a river in the sea, work finds its fulfilment in the depth of leisure. I lingered on my way till thy cherry tree lost ist bossom, but the azalea brins to me, my love, thy forgiveness. Thy shy little pomegranate bud, blushing to-day behind her veil, will burst into a passionate flower to-morrow when I am away. The clumsiness of power spoils the key, and uses the pickaxe. Birth is from the mystery of night into the grerater mystery of day. These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not to reach any destination. Migratory songs wing from my heart and seek their nests in your voice of love. The sea of danger, doubt and denial around man's little island of certainty challenges him to dare the unknown. Love punishes when it forgives, and injured beauty by its awful silence. You live alone and unrecompensed because they are afraid of your great worth. The same sun is newly born in new lands in a ring of endless dawns. God is world is ever renewed by death, a Titan's ever crushed by its own existence. The glow-worm while exploring the dust never knows that stars are in the sky. The tree is of to-day, the flower is old, it brings with it the message of the immemorial seed. Each rose that comes brings me greetings from the Rose of an eternal spring. God honours me when I work, He loves me when I sing. My love of to-day finds no home in the nest deserted by yesterday's love. The fire of pain tracse for my soul a luminous path across her sorrow. The grass survives the hill through its resurrections from countless deaths. Thou hast vanished from my reach leaving an impalpable touch in the blue of the sky, an invisible image in the wind moving among the shadows. In pity for the desolate branch spring leaves to it a kiss that fluttered in a lonely leaf. The shy shadow in the farden loves the sun in silence, Flowers guess the secret, and mile, while the leaves whisper. I leave no trace of wings in the air, but I am glad I have had my flight. The fireflies, twinkling among leaves, make the stars wonder. The mountain remains unmoved at its seeming defeat by the mist. While the rose said to the sun, "I shall ever remember thee," her petals fell to the dust. Hills are the earth's gesture of despair for the unreachable. Though the thorn in thy flower pricked me, O Beauty, I am grateful. The world knows that the few are more than the many. Let not my love be a burden on you, my friend, know that it pays itself. Dawn plays her lute before the gate of darkness, and is content to vanish when the sun comes out. Beauty is truth's smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror. The dew-drop knows the sun only within its own tiny orb. Forlorn thoughts from the forsaken hives of all ages, swarming in the air, hum round my heart and seek my voice. The desert is imprisoned in the wall of its unbounded barrenness. In the thrill of little leaves I see the air's invisible dance, and in their glimmering the secret heart-beats of the sky. You are like a flowering tree, amazed when I praise you for your gifts. The earth's sacrifical fire flames up in her trees, scattering sparks in flowers. Foretsts, the clouds of earth, hold up to the sky their silence, and clouds from above come down in resonant showers. The world speaks to me in pictures, my soul answers in music. The sky tells its beads all night on the countless stars in memory of the sun. The darkness of night, like pain, is dumb, the darkness of dawn, like peace, is silent. Pride engraves his frowns in stones, loe offers her surrender in flowers. The obsequious brush curtails truth in diference to the canvas which is narrow. The hill in its longing for the far-away sky wishes to be like the cloud with its endless urge of seeking. To justify their own spilling of ink they spell the day as night. Profit smiles on goodness when the good is profitable. In its swelling pride the bubble doubts the turth of the sea, and laughs and bursts into emptiness. Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain its. My clouds, sorrowing in the dark, forget that they themselves have hidden the sun. Man discovers his own wealth when God comes to ask gifts of him. You leave your memory as a flame to my lonely lamp of separation. I came to offer thee a flower, but thou must have all my garden, It is thine. The picturea memory of light treasured by the shadow. It is easy to make faces at the sun, He is exposed by his own light in all directions. History slowly smothers its truth, but hastily struggles to revive it in the terrible penance of pain. My work is rewarded in daily wages, I wait for my final value in love. Beauty knows to say, "Enough," barbarism clamours for still more. God loves to see in me, not his servant, but himself who serves all. The darkness of night is in harmony with day, the morning of mist is discordant. In the bounteous time of roses love is wine, it is food in the famished hour when their petals are shed. An unknown flower in a strange land speaks to the poet: "Are we not of the same soil, my lover?" I am able to love my God because He gives me freedom to deny Him. My untuned strings beg for music in their anguished cry of shame. The worm thinks it strange and foolish that man does not eat his books. The clouded sky to-day bears the visior of the shadow of a divine sadness on the forehead of brooding eternity. The shade of my tree is for passers-by, its fruit for the one for whom I wait. Flushed with the glow of sunset earth seems like a ripe fruit ready to be harvested by night. Light accepts darkness for his spouse for the sake of creation. The reed waits for his master's breath, the Master goes seeking for his reed. To the blind pen the hand that writes is unreal, its writing unmeaning. The sea smites his own barren breast because he has no flowers to offer to the moon. The greed for fruit misses the flower. God in His temple of stars waits for man to bring him his lamp. The fire restrained in the tree fashions flowers. Released from bonds, the shameless flame dies in barren ashes. The sky sets no snare to capture the moon, it is her own freedom which binds her. The light that fills the sky seeks its limit in a dew-drop on the grass. Wealth is the burden of bigness, Welfare the fulness of being. The razor-blade is proud of its keenness when it sneers at the sun. The butterfly has leisure to love the lotus, not the bee busily storing honey. Child, thou bringest to my heart the babble of the wind and the water, the flower's speechless secrets, the clouds' dreams, the mute gaze of wonder of the morning sky. The rainbow among the clouds may be great but the little butterfly among the bushes is greater. The mist weaves her net round the morning, captivates him, and makes him blind. The Morning Star whispers to Dawn, "Tell me that you are only for me." "Yes," she answers, "And also only for that nameless flower." The sky remains infinitely vacant for earth there to build its heaven with dreams. Perhaps the crescent moon smiles in doubt at being told that it is a fragment awaiting perfection. Let the evening forgive the mistakes of the day and thus win peace for herself. Beauty smiles in the confinement of the bud, in the heart of a sweet incompleteness. Your flitting love lightly brushed with its wings my sun-flower and never asked if it was ready to surrender its honey. Leaves are silences around flowers which are their words. The tree bears its thousand years as one large majestic moment. My offerings are not for the temple at the end of the road, but for the wayside shrines that surprise me at every bend. Hour smile, my love, like the smell of a strange flower, is simple and inexplicable. Death laughs when the merit of the dead is exaggerated for it swells his store with more than he can claim. The sigh of the shore follows in vain the breeze that hastens the ship across the sea. Truth loves its limits, for there it meets the beautiful. Between the shores of Me and Thee there is the loud ocean, my own surging self, which I long to cross. The right to possess boasts foolishly of its right to enjoy. The rose is a great deal more than a blushing apology for the thorn. Day offers to the silence of stars his golden lute to be tuned for the endless life. The wise know how to teach, the fool how to smite. The centre is still and silent in the heart of an enternal dance of circles. The judge thinks that he is just when he compares The oil of another's lamp with the light of his own. The captive flower in the King's wreath smiles bitterly when the meadow-flower envies her. Its store of snow is the hill's own burden, its outpouring if streams is borne by all the world. Listen to the prayer of the forest for its freedom in flowers. Let your love see me even through the barrier of nearness. The spirit of work in creation is there to carry and help the spirit of play. To carry the burden of the insturment, count the cost of its material, and never to know that it is for music, is the tragedy of deaf life. Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. I bring to thee, night, my day's empty cup, to be cleansed with thy cool darkness for a new morning's festival. The mountain fir, in its rustling, modulates the memory of its fights with the storm into a hymn of peace. God honoured me with his fight when I was rebellious, He ignored me when I was languid. The sectarina thinks that he has the sea ladled into his private pond. In the shady depth of life are the lonely nests of memories that shrink from words. Let my love find its strength in the service of day, its peace in the union of night. Life sends up in blades of grass its silent hymn of praise to the unnamed Light. The stars of night are to me the memorials of my day's faded flowers. Open thy door to that which must go, for the loss becomes unseemly when obstructed. True end is not in the reaching of the limit, but in a completion which is limitless. The shore whispers to the sea: "Write to me what thy waves struggle to say." The sea writes in foam again and again and wipes off the lines in a boisterous despair. Let the touch ofthy finger thrill my life's strings and make the music thine and mine. The inner world rounded in my life like a fruit, matured in joy and sorrow, will drop into the darkness of the orogonal soil for some further course of creation. Form is in Matter, rhythm in Force, meaning in the Person. There are seekers of wisdom and seekers of wealth, I seek thy company so that I may sing. As the tree its leaves, I shed my words on the earth, let my thoughts unuttered flower in thy silence. My faith in truth, my vision of the perfect, help thee, Master, in thy creation. All the delights that I have felt in life's fruits and flowers let me offer to thee at the end of the feast, in a perfect union of love. Some have thought deeply and explored the meaning of thy truth, and they are great; I have listened to catch the music of thy play, and I am glad. The tree is a winged spirit released from the bondage of seed, pursuing its adventure of life across the unknown. The lotus offers its beauty to the heaven, the grass its service to the earth. The sun's kiss mellows into abandonment the miserliness of the green fruit clinging to its stem. The flame met the earthen lamp in me, and what a great marvel of light! Mistakes live in the neighbourhood of truth and therefore delude us. The cloud laughed at the rainbow saying that is was an upstart gaudy in its emptiness. The rainbow calmly answered, "I am as inevitably real as tha sun himself." Let me not grope in vain in the dark but keep my mind still in the faith that the day will break and truth will appear in its simplicity. Through the silent night I hear the returning vagrant hopes of the morning knock at my heart. My new love comes bringing to me the eternal wealth of the old. The earth gazes at the moon and wonders that she sould have all her music in her smile. Day with its glare of curiosity puts the stars to flight. My mind has itstrue union with thee, O sky, at the window which is mine own, and not in the open where thou hast thy sole kingdom. Man claims God's flowers as his own when he weaves them in a garland. The buried city, laid bare to the sun of a new age, is ashamed that is has lost all its song. Like my heart's pain that has long missed its meaning, the sun's rays robed in dark hide themselves under the ground. Like my heart'spain at love's sudden touch, they change their veil at the spring's call and come out in the carnival of colours, in flowers and leaves. My life's empty flute waits for its final music like the primal darkness before the stars came out. Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree. The tapestry of life's story is woven with the threads of life's ties ever joining and breaking. Those thoughts of mine that are never captured by words perch upon my song and dance. My soul to-night loses itself in the silent heart of a tree standing alone among the whispers of immensity. Pearl shells cast up by the sea on death's barren beach, a magnificent wastefulness of creative life. The sunlight opens for me the word's gate, love's light its terasure. My life like the reed with ist stops, has its play od colours through the gaps in its hopes and gains. Let not my thanks to thee rob my silence of its fuller homage. Life's aspirations come in the guise of children. The faded flower sighs that the spring has vanished for ever. In my life's garden my wealth has been of the shadows and lights that are never gathered and stored. The fruit that I Have gained for ever is thet which thou hast accepted. The jasmine knows the sun to be her brother in the heaven. Light is young, the ancient light; shadows are of the moment, they are born old. I feel that the ferry of my songs at the day's end will brong me across to the other shore from where I shall see. The butterfly flitting from flower to flower ever remains mine, I lose the one that is netted by me. Your voice, free bird, reaches my sleeping nest, and my drowsy wings dream of a voyage to the light above the clouds. I miss the meaning of my own part in the play of life because I know not of the parts that others play. The flower sheds all its petals and finds the fruit. I leave my songs behind me to the bloom of the ever-returning honeysuckles and the joy of the wind from the south. Dead leaves when they lose themselves in soil take part in the life of the forest. The mind ever seeks its words from its sounds and silence as the sky from its darkness and light. The unseen dark plays on his flute and the rhythm of light eddies into stars and suns, into thoughts and reams. My songs are to sing that I have loved Thy singing. When the voice of the Silent touches my words I know him and therefore I know myself. My last salutations are to them who knew me imperfect and loved me. Love's gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted. When death comes and whispers to me, "Thy days are ended," let me say to him, "I have lived in love and not in mere time." He will ask, "Will thy songs remain?" I shall say, "I know not, but this I know that often when I sang I found my eternity." "Let me light my lamp," say the star, 'and never debate if it will help to remove the darkness." Before the end of my journey may I reach within myself the one which is the all, leaving the outer shell to float away with the drifting multitude upon the current of chance and change. ~ Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies ,

902:Ballad Of Jesus Of Nazareth I. It matters not what place he drew At first life's mortal breath, Some say it was in Bethlehem, And some in Nazareth. But shame and sorrow were his lot And shameful was his death. The angels sang, and o'er the barn Wherein the infant lay, They hung a star, for they foresaw The sad world's better day, But well God knew what thyme and rue Were planted by his way. The children of the Pharisees In hymn and orison Worshipped the prophets, whom their sires To cruel death had done, And said, 'had we been there their death We had not looked upon.' While the star shone the angels saw The tombs these children built For those the world had driven out, And smitten to the hilt, God knew these wretched sons would bear The self-same bloody guilt. Always had he who strives for men But done some other thing, If he had not led a hermit life, Or had not had his fling, We would have followed him, they say, And made him lord and King. For John was clothed in camel's hair And lived among the brutes; 26 But Jesus fared where the feast was spread To the sound of shawms and lutes, Where gathered knaves and publicans And hapless prostitutes. Like children in the market place Who sullen sat and heard, With John they would not mourn, nor yet Rejoice at Jesus' word; Had Jesus mourned, or John rejoiced, He had been King and lord. II. From Bethlehem until the day He came up to the feast We hear no word, we only know In wisdom he increased, We know the marvelous boy did awe The Pharisee and priest. For wearied men wake to admire A genius in the bud; Before the passion of the world Flows through him like a flood; Ere he becomes a scourge to those Who drink of mankind's blood. Perhaps in him they saw an arm To keep the people still; And fool the meek and slay the weak And give the King his will; And put a wall for armZd men 'Round every pleasant hill. And this is why in after years The Galilean wept; The cup of youth was sweet with truth But a green worm in it crept; And that was dullness clothed in power, And hate which never slept. 27 Through twenty years he drove the plane, And shaped with ax and saw; And dreamed upon the Hebrew writ Unto a day of awe, When he felt the world fit to his grasp As by a mighty law. He looked upon the sunny sky, And 'round the flowering earth; He heard the poor man's groan of woe, And the prince's song of mirth; Then Jesus vowed the life of man Should have another birth. And this is why the Son of Man Wept when he knew the loss, The toil and sacrifice to cleanse A little earthly dross; And that a god to save twelve men Must die upon the cross. III. 'Twas on a pleasant day in June Beneath an azure sky That 'round him stood the multitude And saw within his eye The light that from nor sun nor star Ever was known to fly. And some came out to scoff and laugh, And some to lay a snare; The rhetorician gaped to see: The learnZd carpenter. The money changer, judge and priest, And statesman all were there. Some thought the Galilean mad; Some asked, is he sincere? Some said he played the demagogue To gain the people's ear, And raise a foe against the law 28 That lawful men should fear. But all the while did C¾sar's might Grow big with blood and lust; And no one brooked his tyrant arm, For the statesman said the crust That paupers gnaw is by the law, And that the law is just. From hunger's hovel, from the streets; From horror's blackened niche Earth's mourners came and hands were stretched To touch him from the ditch. Then rose a Scribe and said he turned The poor against the rich. And those who hated C¾sar's rule, Albeit sowed the lie That Jesus stirred sedition up That he might profit by A revolution, which should clothe Himself in monarchy. Through twice a thousand years the world Has missed the words he taught; To forms and creeds and empty show Christ never gave a thought, But wrongs that men do unto men They were the wrongs he fought. He did not eat with washen hands, Nor keep the Sabbath day; He did not to the Synagogue Repair to sing and pray. Nor for to-morrow take a thought, To mar life's pleasant way. He saw that all of human woe Takes root in hate and greed; He saw until men love their kind The human heart must bleed. And that nor hymn nor sacrifice 29 Meets any human need. And this is why he scourged the rich And lashed the Pharisee, And stripped from every pious face The mask hypocrisy; And so laced Mary Magdalene, Caught in adultery. And this is why with grievous fire He smote the lawyer's lore. And every wile of cunning guile Which made the burden more Upon the backs of wretched men, Who heavy burdens bore. Therefore when that the hour was come For him to die, they blent Of many things a lying charge, But at last the argument They killed him with was that he stirred The people's discontent. From thence the world has gone its way Of this truth, deaf and blind, And every man who struck the law Has felt the halter bind, Until his words were choked in death Uttered for human kind. Now did the dreams of Galilee Awake as from a sleep, Fly up from earth, and Life unmasked Life's promise did not keep, And Jesus saw the face of Life, And all who see it weep. God's spirit fled the damnZd earth And left the earth forlorn. No more did Jesus walk the fields, And pluck the ripened corn; Nor muse beside the silent sea, 30 Upon a summer's morn. Before the heart of Christ was pierced With agony divine, He sat him down in a merry mood With loving friends to dine. And once in Cana he did turn The water into wine. Now put from shore, swept far to sea His shallop caught the tide, Arched o'er him was eternity 'Twixt starless wastes and wide. God's spirit seemed withdrawn that once Walked hourly at his side. IV. Gladly the common people heard And called upon his name. But yet he knew what they would do, Christ Jesus knew their frame, And that he should be left alone Upon a day of shame. Sharper than thorns upon the brow, Or nails spiked through the hand Is when the people fly for fear And cannot understand; And let their saviors die the death As creatures contraband. For wrongs that flourish by a lie Are hard enough to bear; But wrongs that take their root in truth Shade every brow with care; And this is why Gethsemane Was shadowed with despair. In dark and drear Gethsemane Hell's devils laughed and raved, When Jesus torn by fear and doubt 31 Reprieve from sorrow craved; For who would lose his life, unless Another's life he saved? V. In youth when all the world appeared As fresh as any flower, Satan besought the Son of Man, New-clothed in godly power, And took him to behold the world Upon a lofty tower. To every man of god-like might Comes Satan once to give The crown, the crosier and the sword And bid him laugh and live, While Hope hides in the wilderness, A hunted fugitive. But neither gold nor kingly crown Tempted the Son of Man He hoped as many souls have hoped, Ever since time began, That love itself can overcome, Hate's foul leviathan Some fix their faith to heaven's grace, And some to saintly bones; Some think that water doth contain A virtue which atones; And some believe that men are saved By penitential groans. But of all faith that ever fired A spirit with its glow That is supreme which thinks that truth No power can overthrow; And he believes who takes and cleaves To the thorny way of woe! For life is sweet, and sweet it is 32 With jeweled sandals shod To trip where happy blossoms shoot Up from the fragrant sod; And what sustains the souls that pass Alway beneath the rod? The book of worldly lore he closed And bound it with a hasp; And in the hour of danger came No king with friendly clasp. It was the hand of love against The anger of the asp. Since Jesus died the lust of kings Has linked the cross and crown; And slaughtered millions whom to save From heaven he came down; And all to tame the mind of man To his divine renown. But whether he were man or god This thing at least is true; He hated with a lordly hate The Gentile and the Jew, Who robbed the poor and wronged the weak, And kept the widow's due. And those all clothed in raiment soft, Who in kings' houses dwell; And those who compass sea and land Their proselytes to swell; And when they make one he is made Two-fold the child of hell. And those who tithe of anise give, But sharpen beak and claw; And those who plait the web of hate The heart of man to flaw; And hungry lawyers who pile up The burdens of the law. I wonder not they slew the Christ 33 And put upon his brow The cruel crown of thorns, I know The world would do it now; And none shall live who on himself Shall take the self-same vow. And none shall live who tries to balk The heavy hand of greed; And he who hopes for human help Against his hour of need Will find the souls he tried to save Ready to make him bleed. For he who flays the hypocrite, And scourges with a thong The money changer, soon will find The money changer strong; And even the people will incline To think his mission wrong. And pious souls will say he is At best a castaway; Some will remember he blasphemed And broke the Sabbath day. And the coward friend will fool his heart And then he will betray. At last the Scribe and Pharisee No longer could abide The tumult which his words stirred up In every country side; And so they made a sign, which meant He must be crucified. For him no sword was raised, no king Came forward for his sake; And every son of mammon laughed To see death overtake The fool who fastened to the truth And made his life the stake. VI. 34 Upon a day when Jesus' soul Like an angel's voice did quire, The heart of all the people burned With a white and holy fire; And they did sweep to make him king Over the world's empire. His kingdom was not of this world, But this they would not own; And he to save themselves did go To a mountain place alone, And there did pray that holy Truth Might find somewhere a throne. When Henry was by Francis sought To make him emperor, They walked upon a cloth of gold, As sovereign lords of war. And trumpets blew and banners flew About the royal car. When Caesar back to Rome returned With all the world subdued, The soldiers and the priests did shout, And cried the multitude; For he had slain his country's foes, And drenched their land with blood. But all the triumph of the Christ That ever came to pass Was when he rode amidst a mob Upon a borrowed ass; And this is all the worldly pomp A genius ever has. His cloth of gold were branches cut And strewn upon the ground; And every money-changer laughed, And the judges looked and frowned; But no one saw a flag unfurled, Or heard a bugle sound. 35 To-day whene'er a coxcomb king Visits a foreign shore, The simple people deck themselves And all the cannon roar. But it would not do such grace to show To a soul of lordly lore. VII. Of all sad suppers ever spread For broken hearts to eat, That was the saddest where the Christ Did serve the bread and meat; And, ere he served them, washed with care Each worn disciple's feet. And who would hold in memory That supper, let him call His loved friends about his board And serve them one and all; And with a loving spirit crown The simple festival. For this I hold to be the truth, And Jesus said the same; That men who meet as brothers, they Are gathered in his name; And only for its evil deeds A soul he will disclaim. Through climes of sun and climes of snow Full many a wretched knight, The holy grail, without avail Did make his life's delight, And lo! the thing it symbolized Was ever in their sight. The cup whereof Christ Jesus drank Was wholly without grace; And whether made of stone or wood Was lost or broke apace. 36 And no one thought to keep a cup While looking in his face. They kept no cup, their only thought Was for the morrow morn. And as he passed the wine and bread With pallid hands and worn, Peter did swear he would not leave His stricken lord forlorn. John, the beloved, on his breast, Wept while the hour did pass. Judas did groan when Jesus struck Behind his soul's arras. All trembled for the bitter hate, And power of Caiaphas. But for that simple, farewell feast In Holland, France and Spain, Ten million men as true as John Were racked and burnt and slain, As if they held remembrance of The farewell feast of Cain. Had Jesus known what fratricide Over his words would fall I think he would have gone straightway Up to the judgment hall, And never broken bread or drunk The cup his friends withal. Though a good tree brings forth good fruit, What good bears naught but good? What sum of saintly life contains No grain of devil's food? What purest truth when past its youth Is not its own falsehood? And every rod wherewith the wise Have cleft each barrier sea, That men might walk across and reach The land of liberty, 37 In hands of kings were snakes whose stings Were worse than slavery. VIII. The rulers thought it best to wait Till Jesus were alone; They had forgot the coward crowd Never protects its own, But leaves its leaders to the whim Of wrong upon a throne. Had malcontents for Pilate sought To do a treasonous thing, Ten thousand loyal fishermen Had made the traitors swing; For they are taught they cannot live Unless they have a king. But soldiers came with swords and staves To sieze one helpless man. And only Peter had a sword To smite the craven clan And only Peter stood his ground, And all the people ran. I wish, since Jesus by the world Is held to be divine, That he had lived to give to men A perfect anodyne, And raise to human liberty A world compelling shrine. A shrine 'round which should lie to-day The world's discarded crowns, And swords and guns and gilded gawds And monkish beads and gowns; But, as it is, upon these things, They say, he never frowns. And only by an argument Can any being show 38 That Jesus would chop out and burn These monstrous roots of woe. And so these roots are living yet, And still the roots do grow. Unto this day in divers lands Pilate is singled out For curses that he did not save Christ from the rabble's shout; But they forget he was a judge, And had a judge's doubt. The sickly fear of the rulers' sneer Clutches the judge's heart. And to hide behind a hoary lie Is the judge's highest art; And the judgment hall has a door that leads To the room of the money mart. The laws wherewith men murder men Are dark with skeptic slime; They are not stars that point the way To truth in every clime. Wherefore was Jesus crucified, For what was not a crime. When Pilate questioned what is truth He did not mean to jest; He meant to show when life's at stake How difficult the quest Through hollow rules and empty forms To truth's ingenuous test. And Pilate might have pardoned him Had not the lawyers said, The Galilean strove to put A crown upon his head. And how could Jesus be a king, Who blood had never shed? The trial of Jesus long ago Was cursed in solemn rhyme; 39 For the judgment hall was but farcical And the trial a pantomime. Save that it led to a felon's death For what was not a crime. The common people on that day Had enough black-bread to eat. And what to them was another's woe Before the judgment seat? They were content that day to keep From pit-falls their own feet. Had Herod stood, whate'er the charge, Before the people's bar The sophists would have cut it down With reason's scimitar, And called the peasants to enforce The judgment near and far. And had they failed to save their king From every foul mischance The banded Anarchs of the world Had held them in durance, As afterward the crownZd heads Did punish recreant France. IX. So it fell out amid the rout Of captain, lord and priest, They bound his hands with felon bands And they flogged him like a beast. And Pilate washed his hands, and then For them a thief released. And only women solaced him, And one mad courtesan, 'Save thou thyself,' the elders cried, 'Who came to rescue man.' Where were the common people then? The common people ran. 40 Between two thieves upon a hill The terror to proclaim They racked his body on a cross Till his thirst was like a flame; And they mocked his woe and they wagged their heads, And they spat upon his name. God thought a picture like to this, Fire-limned against the sky, Once seen, would never fade away From the world's careless eye; And that the lesson that it taught No soul could wander by. God thought the shadow of this cross, Athwart the mad world's ken, Would stay with shame the hands that kill The men who die for men, And that no soul for love of truth Need ever die again. Many a man the valley of death With fearless step hath trod; The prophet is a phoenix soul, And the wretch is a sullen clod. But Jesus in his death became Liker unto a god Liker unto a god he grew Who walked through heaven and hell; He died as he forgave the mob That 'round the cross did yell. They knew not what they did, and this Jesus, the god, knew well. For hate is spawned of ignorance And ignorance of hate. And all the fangZd shapes that creep From their incestuous state Enter the gardens of the world, And cursZd keep their fate. 41 Near Gadara did Jesus drive By an occult power and sign The unclean devils from a loon Into a herd of swine. But the swinish devils entered the Scribes, And slew a soul divine. Christ healed the blind, but could not ope The eyes of ignorance, Nor turn to wands of peace and love Hate's bloody sword and lance; But the swinish fiends who took his life Received a pardoning glance. And Jesus raised the dead to life, And he cured the lame and halt But he could not heal a hateful soul, And keep it free from fault; Nor bring the savour back again To the world's trampled salt. X. After his death the rulers slept, And the judges were at ease; For they had killed a rebel soul And strewed his devotees; But the imp of time is a thing perverse, And laughs at men's decrees. For it is vain to kill a man, His life to stigmatize; Herein the wisdom of the world Is folly to the wise; For those the world doth kill, the world Will surely canonize. To look upon a lovZd face By the Gorgon Death made stone, Will make the heart leap up with fear And the soul with sorrow groan; 42 Alas! who knows what thing he knew Ere the light of life was flown? Who knows what tears did start to well, But were frozen at their source? Who knows his ashen grief who felt That iron hand of force? Or what black thing he saw before He grew a lifeless corse? And, much of hope, but more of woe Falls with the chastening rod, As the living think of an orphan soul That the spectral ways may trod, And how that orphan soul must cry In its new world after God. So the fisherman did sigh at night, For a dream-face haunted them. By day they hid as branded men Within Jerusalem. And the common people, safe at home, Did breathe a requiem. But where he lay, one fearless soul, Mad Magdalene, from whom Christ cast the seven devils out, Came in the morning's gloom, And thence arose the burning faith That Christ rose from the tomb But all do know the mind of man Mixes the false and true, And deifies each Son of God That ever hatred slew; And weaves him magic tales to tell Of what the man could do. The legends grow, as grow they must The wonder to equip. And ere they write the legends out, They pass from lip to lip, 43 Till a simple life becomes a theme For studied scholarship. But this I know that after Christ Did die on Calvary, He never more did preach to men, Nor scourge the Pharisee; Else it was vain to still his voice And nail him to a tree. Nor scribe nor priest were ever more By him disquieted. And little did it mean to them That he rose from the dead. For greed can sleep when it has killed The thing that it did dread. And never a king or satrap knew That Christ the tomb had rent; He might have lived a second life, With every lord's consent, If never more he sought to stir The people's discontent. He might have risen from the dead And gone to Galilee; And there paced out a hundred years In a sorrowed revery, If he but never preached again The creed humanity. XI. To distant lands did Jesus' words, Like sparks that burst in flame, Fly forth to light the ways of dole, And blind the eyes of shame, Till subtle kings, to staunch their wounds, Did conjure with his name. When kings did pilfer Jesus' might, His words of love were turned 44 To swords and goads and heavy loads, And rods and brands that burned; And never had the world before So piteously mourned. Of peasant Mary they did make A statue all of gold; And placed a crown upon her head With jewels manifold. And Jesus' words were strained and drawn This horror to uphold. They robed a rebel royally, And placed within his hand A scepter, that himself should be One of their murderous band. And it is tragical that men Can never understand. For Herod crowned the carpenter With woven thorns of hate. And put a reed within his hand A king to imitate. Now kings have made a rebel soul The patron of the state. And kingcraft never hatched a lie, This falsehood to surpass. For Jesus' only hour of pomp Was what a genius has; He rode amidst a howling mob Upon a borrowed ass. Though his cloth of gold were branches cut And strewed upon the ground; And though the money-changers laughed, While the judges looked and frowned; To-day for him the flag is flown, And all the bugles sound. To-day where'er the treacherous sword Takes lord-ship in the world, 45 The bloody rag they call the flag, In his name is unfurled. And round the standard of the cross Is greed, the python, curled. For wrongs that have the show of truth Are hard enough to bear, But wrongs that flourish by a lie, Shade wisdom's brow with care. And still in dark Gethsemane There lurks the fiend Despair. And still in drear Gethsemane, Hell's devils laugh and rave, Because the Prince of Peace hath failed The wayward world to save. For every word he spoke is made A shackle to enslave. Man's wingd hopes are white at dawn, But the hand of malice smuts. O, angel voices drowned and lost Amid the growl of guts! O spirit hands that strain to draw A dead world from the ruts! God made a stage of Palestine, And the drama played was Life; And the Eye of Heaven sat and watched The true and false at strife; While a masque o' the World did play the pimp, And take a whore to wife. I wonder not they slew the Christ, And put upon his brow A mocking crown of thorns, I know The world would do it now; And none shall live who on himself Shall take the self-same vow. And none shall live who tries to balk The heavy hand of greed. 46 And who betakes him to the task, That heart will surely bleed. But a little truth, somehow is saved Out of each dead man's creed. Out of the life of him who scourged The Scribe and Pharisee, A willing world can take to heart The creed humanity; And all the wonder tales of Christ Are naught to you and me. And it matters not what place he drew, At first life's mortal breath, Nor how it was his spirit rose And triumphed over death, But good it is to hear and do The word that Jesus saith. Until the perfect truth shall lie Treasured and set apart; One whole, harmonious truth to set A seal upon each heart; And none may ever from that truth In any wise depart. ~ Edgar Lee Masters,

903:The Princess (Part 4) 'There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, If that hypothesis of theirs be sound' Said Ida; 'let us down and rest;' and we Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices, By every coppice-feathered chasm and cleft, Dropt through the ambrosial gloom to where below No bigger than a glow-worm shone the tent Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she leaned on me, Descending; once or twice she lent her hand, And blissful palpitations in the blood, Stirring a sudden transport rose and fell. But when we planted level feet, and dipt Beneath the satin dome and entered in, There leaning deep in broidered down we sank Our elbows: on a tripod in the midst A fragrant flame rose, and before us glowed Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold. Then she, 'Let some one sing to us: lightlier move The minutes fledged with music:' and a maid, Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang. 'Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. 'Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 'Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 748 The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 'Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more.' She ended with such passion that the tear, She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl Lost in her bosom: but with some disdain Answered the Princess, 'If indeed there haunt About the mouldered lodges of the Past So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men, Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool And so pace by: but thine are fancies hatched In silken-folded idleness; nor is it Wiser to weep a true occasion lost, But trim our sails, and let old bygones be, While down the streams that float us each and all To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice, Throne after throne, and molten on the waste Becomes a cloud: for all things serve their time Toward that great year of equal mights and rights, Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end Found golden: let the past be past; let be Their cancelled Babels: though the rough kex break The starred mosaic, and the beard-blown goat Hang on the shaft, and the wild figtree split Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear A trumpet in the distance pealing news Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns Above the unrisen morrow:' then to me; 'Know you no song of your own land,' she said, 'Not such as moans about the retrospect, But deals with the other distance and the hues Of promise; not a death's-head at the wine.' Then I remembered one myself had made, What time I watched the swallow winging south 749 From mine own land, part made long since, and part Now while I sang, and maidenlike as far As I could ape their treble, did I sing. 'O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. 'O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North. 'O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 'O were I thou that she might take me in, And lay me on her bosom, and her heart Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 'Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green? 'O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown: Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, But in the North long since my nest is made. 'O tell her, brief is life but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 'O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.' I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time, Stared with great eyes, and laughed with alien lips, And knew not what they meant; for still my voice 750 Rang false: but smiling 'Not for thee,' she said, O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan Shall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, maid, Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake Grate her harsh kindred in the grass: and this A mere love-poem! O for such, my friend, We hold them slight: they mind us of the time When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, And dress the victim to the offering up, And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, And play the slave to gain the tyranny. Poor soul! I had a maid of honour once; She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, A rogue of canzonets and serenades. I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead. So they blaspheme the muse! But great is song Used to great ends: ourself have often tried Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dashed The passion of the prophetess; for song Is duer unto freedom, force and growth Of spirit than to junketing and love. Love is it? Would this same mock-love, and this Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats, Till all men grew to rate us at our worth, Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered Whole in ourselves and owed to none. Enough! But now to leaven play with profit, you, Know you no song, the true growth of your soil, That gives the manners of your country-women?' She spoke and turned her sumptuous head with eyes Of shining expectation fixt on mine. Then while I dragged my brains for such a song, Cyril, with whom the bell-mouthed glass had wrought, Or mastered by the sense of sport, began To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, I frowning; Psyche flushed and wanned and shook; The lilylike Melissa drooped her brows; 751 'Forbear,' the Princess cried; 'Forbear, Sir' I; And heated through and through with wrath and love, I smote him on the breast; he started up; There rose a shriek as of a city sacked; Melissa clamoured 'Flee the death;' 'To horse' Said Ida; 'home! to horse!' and fled, as flies A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk, When some one batters at the dovecote-doors, Disorderly the women. Alone I stood With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart, In the pavilion: there like parting hopes I heard them passing from me: hoof by hoof, And every hoof a knell to my desires, Clanged on the bridge; and then another shriek, 'The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the Head!' For blind with rage she missed the plank, and rolled In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom: There whirled her white robe like a blossomed branch Rapt to the horrible fall: a glance I gave, No more; but woman-vested as I was Plunged; and the flood drew; yet I caught her; then Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left The weight of all the hopes of half the world, Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree Was half-disrooted from his place and stooped To wrench his dark locks in the gurgling wave Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught, And grasping down the boughs I gained the shore. There stood her maidens glimmeringly grouped In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew My burthen from mine arms; they cried 'she lives:' They bore her back into the tent: but I, So much a kind of shame within me wrought, Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes, Nor found my friends; but pushed alone on foot (For since her horse was lost I left her mine) Across the woods, and less from Indian craft Than beelike instinct hiveward, found at length The garden portals. Two great statues, Art And Science, Caryatids, lifted up A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves 752 Of open-work in which the hunter rued His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates. A little space was left between the horns, Through which I clambered o'er at top with pain, Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks, And, tost on thoughts that changed from hue to hue, Now poring on the glowworm, now the star, I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheeled Through a great arc his seven slow suns. A step Of lightest echo, then a loftier form Than female, moving through the uncertain gloom, Disturbed me with the doubt 'if this were she,' But it was Florian. 'Hist O Hist,' he said, 'They seek us: out so late is out of rules. Moreover "seize the strangers" is the cry. How came you here?' I told him: 'I' said he, 'Last of the train, a moral leper, I, To whom none spake, half-sick at heart, returned. Arriving all confused among the rest With hooded brows I crept into the hall, And, couched behind a Judith, underneath The head of Holofernes peeped and saw. Girl after girl was called to trial: each Disclaimed all knowledge of us: last of all, Melissa: trust me, Sir, I pitied her. She, questioned if she knew us men, at first Was silent; closer prest, denied it not: And then, demanded if her mother knew, Or Psyche, she affirmed not, or denied: From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her, Easily gathered either guilt. She sent For Psyche, but she was not there; she called For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors; She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face; And I slipt out: but whither will you now? And where are Psyche, Cyril? both are fled: What, if together? that were not so well. Would rather we had never come! I dread 753 His wildness, and the chances of the dark.' 'And yet,' I said, 'you wrong him more than I That struck him: this is proper to the clown, Though smocked, or furred and purpled, still the clown, To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame That which he says he loves: for Cyril, howe'er He deal in frolic, as tonight--the song Might have been worse and sinned in grosser lips Beyond all pardon--as it is, I hold These flashes on the surface are not he. He has a solid base of temperament: But as the waterlily starts and slides Upon the level in little puffs of wind, Though anchored to the bottom, such is he.' Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, 'Names:' He, standing still, was clutched; but I began To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind And double in and out the boles, and race By all the fountains: fleet I was of foot: Before me showered the rose in flakes; behind I heard the puffed pursuer; at mine ear Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not, And secret laughter tickled all my soul. At last I hooked my ankle in a vine, That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne, And falling on my face was caught and known. They haled us to the Princess where she sat High in the hall: above her drooped a lamp, And made the single jewel on her brow Burn like the mystic fire on a mast-head, Prophet of storm: a handmaid on each side Bowed toward her, combing out her long black hair Damp from the river; and close behind her stood Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men, Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain, And labour. Each was like a Druid rock; Or like a spire of land that stands apart Cleft from the main, and wailed about with mews. 754 Then, as we came, the crowd dividing clove An advent to the throne: and therebeside, Half-naked as if caught at once from bed And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay The lily-shining child; and on the left, Bowed on her palms and folded up from wrong, Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, Melissa knelt; but Lady Blanche erect Stood up and spake, an affluent orator. 'It was not thus, O Princess, in old days: You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips: I led you then to all the Castalies; I fed you with the milk of every Muse; I loved you like this kneeler, and you me Your second mother: those were gracious times. Then came your new friend: you began to change-I saw it and grieved--to slacken and to cool; Till taken with her seeming openness You turned your warmer currents all to her, To me you froze: this was my meed for all. Yet I bore up in part from ancient love, And partly that I hoped to win you back, And partly conscious of my own deserts, And partly that you were my civil head, And chiefly you were born for something great, In which I might your fellow-worker be, When time should serve; and thus a noble scheme Grew up from seed we two long since had sown; In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd, Up in one night and due to sudden sun: We took this palace; but even from the first You stood in your own light and darkened mine. What student came but that you planed her path To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, I your old friend and tried, she new in all? But still her lists were swelled and mine were lean; Yet I bore up in hope she would be known: Then came these wolves: ~they~ knew her: ~they~ endured, Long-closeted with her the yestermorn, 755 To tell her what they were, and she to hear: And me none told: not less to an eye like mine A lidless watcher of the public weal, Last night, their mask was patent, and my foot Was to you: but I thought again: I feared To meet a cold "We thank you, we shall hear of it From Lady Psyche:" you had gone to her, She told, perforce; and winning easy grace No doubt, for slight delay, remained among us In our young nursery still unknown, the stem Less grain than touchwood, while my honest heat Were all miscounted as malignant haste To push my rival out of place and power. But public use required she should be known; And since my oath was ta'en for public use, I broke the letter of it to keep the sense. I spoke not then at first, but watched them well, Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done; And yet this day (though you should hate me for it) I came to tell you; found that you had gone, Ridden to the hills, she likewise: now, I thought, That surely she will speak; if not, then I: Did she? These monsters blazoned what they were, According to the coarseness of their kind, For thus I hear; and known at last (my work) And full of cowardice and guilty shame, I grant in her some sense of shame, she flies; And I remain on whom to wreak your rage, I, that have lent my life to build up yours, I that have wasted here health, wealth, and time, And talent, I--you know it--I will not boast: Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan, Divorced from my experience, will be chaff For every gust of chance, and men will say We did not know the real light, but chased The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread.' She ceased: the Princess answered coldly, 'Good: Your oath is broken: we dismiss you: go. For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child) Our mind is changed: we take it to ourself.' 756 Thereat the Lady stretched a vulture throat, And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. 'The plan was mine. I built the nest' she said 'To hatch the cuckoo. Rise!' and stooped to updrag Melissa: she, half on her mother propt, Half-drooping from her, turned her face, and cast A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer, Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung, A Niobëan daughter, one arm out, Appealing to the bolts of Heaven; and while We gazed upon her came a little stir About the doors, and on a sudden rushed Among us, out of breath as one pursued, A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear Stared in her eyes, and chalked her face, and winged Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell Delivering sealed dispatches which the Head Took half-amazed, and in her lion's mood Tore open, silent we with blind surmise Regarding, while she read, till over brow And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom As of some fire against a stormy cloud, When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens; For anger most it seemed, while now her breast, Beaten with some great passion at her heart, Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard In the dead hush the papers that she held Rustle: at once the lost lamb at her feet Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam; The plaintive cry jarred on her ire; she crushed The scrolls together, made a sudden turn As if to speak, but, utterance failing her, She whirled them on to me, as who should say 'Read,' and I read--two letters--one her sire's. 'Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way, We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt, We, conscious of what temper you are built, Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell Into his father's hands, who has this night, You lying close upon his territory, 757 Slipt round and in the dark invested you, And here he keeps me hostage for his son.' The second was my father's running thus: 'You have our son: touch not a hair of his head: Render him up unscathed: give him your hand: Cleave to your contract: though indeed we hear You hold the woman is the better man; A rampant heresy, such as if it spread Would make all women kick against their Lords Through all the world, and which might well deserve That we this night should pluck your palace down; And we will do it, unless you send us back Our son, on the instant, whole.' So far I read; And then stood up and spoke impetuously. 'O not to pry and peer on your reserve, But led by golden wishes, and a hope The child of regal compact, did I break Your precinct; not a scorner of your sex But venerator, zealous it should be All that it might be: hear me, for I bear, Though man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs, From the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life Less mine than yours: my nurse would tell me of you; I babbled for you, as babies for the moon, Vague brightness; when a boy, you stooped to me From all high places, lived in all fair lights, Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south And blown to inmost north; at eve and dawn With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods; The leader wildswan in among the stars Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glowworm light The mellow breaker murmured Ida. Now, Because I would have reached you, had you been Sphered up with Cassiopëia, or the enthroned Persephonè in Hades, now at length, Those winters of abeyance all worn out, A man I came to see you: but indeed, Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait 758 On you, their centre: let me say but this, That many a famous man and woman, town And landskip, have I heard of, after seen The dwarfs of presage: though when known, there grew Another kind of beauty in detail Made them worth knowing; but in your I found My boyish dream involved and dazzled down And mastered, while that after-beauty makes Such head from act to act, from hour to hour, Within me, that except you slay me here, According to your bitter statute-book, I cannot cease to follow you, as they say The seal does music; who desire you more Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips, With many thousand matters left to do, The breath of life; O more than poor men wealth, Than sick men health--yours, yours, not mine--but half Without you; with you, whole; and of those halves You worthiest; and howe'er you block and bar Your heart with system out from mine, I hold That it becomes no man to nurse despair, But in the teeth of clenched antagonisms To follow up the worthiest till he die: Yet that I came not all unauthorized Behold your father's letter.' On one knee Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dashed Unopened at her feet: a tide of fierce Invective seemed to wait behind her lips, As waits a river level with the dam Ready to burst and flood the world with foam: And so she would have spoken, but there rose A hubbub in the court of half the maids Gathered together: from the illumined hall Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes, And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes, And gold and golden heads; they to and fro Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale, All open-mouthed, all gazing to the light, Some crying there was an army in the land, And some that men were in the very walls, 759 And some they cared not; till a clamour grew As of a new-world Babel, woman-built, And worse-confounded: high above them stood The placid marble Muses, looking peace. Not peace she looked, the Head: but rising up Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so To the open window moved, remaining there Fixt like a beacon-tower above the waves Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light Dash themselves dead. She stretched her arms and called Across the tumult and the tumult fell. 'What fear ye, brawlers? am not I your Head? On me, me, me, the storm first breaks: ~I~ dare All these male thunderbolts: what is it ye fear? Peace! there are those to avenge us and they come: If not,--myself were like enough, O girls, To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, And clad in iron burst the ranks of war, Or, falling, promartyr of our cause, Die: yet I blame you not so much for fear: Six thousand years of fear have made you that From which I would redeem you: but for those That stir this hubbub--you and you--I know Your faces there in the crowd--tomorrow morn We hold a great convention: then shall they That love their voices more than duty, learn With whom they deal, dismissed in shame to live No wiser than their mothers, household stuff, Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame, Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour, For ever slaves at home and fools abroad.' She, ending, waved her hands: thereat the crowd Muttering, dissolved: then with a smile, that looked A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff, 760 When all the glens are drowned in azure gloom Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said: 'You have done well and like a gentleman, And like a prince: you have our thanks for all: And you look well too in your woman's dress: Well have you done and like a gentleman. You saved our life: we owe you bitter thanks: Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood-Then men had said--but now--What hinders me To take such bloody vengeance on you both?-Yet since our father--Wasps in our good hive, You would-be quenchers of the light to be, Barbarians, grosser than your native bears-O would I had his sceptre for one hour! You that have dared to break our bound, and gulled Our servants, wronged and lied and thwarted us-~I~ wed with thee! ~I~ bound by precontract Your bride, our bondslave! not though all the gold That veins the world were packed to make your crown, And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us: I trample on your offers and on you: Begone: we will not look upon you more. Here, push them out at gates.' In wrath she spake. Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough Bent their broad faces toward us and addressed Their motion: twice I sought to plead my cause, But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands, The weight of destiny: so from her face They pushed us, down the steps, and through the court, And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates. We crossed the street and gained a petty mound Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard the voices murmuring. While I listened, came On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt: I seemed to move among a world of ghosts; The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard, The jest and earnest working side by side, The cataract and the tumult and the kings 761 Were shadows; and the long fantastic night With all its doings had and had not been, And all things were and were not. This went by As strangely as it came, and on my spirits Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy; Not long; I shook it off; for spite of doubts And sudden ghostly shadowings I was one To whom the touch of all mischance but came As night to him that sitting on a hill Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun Set into sunrise; then we moved away. Thy voice is heard through rolling drums, That beat to battle where he stands; Thy face across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands: A moment, while the trumpets blow, He sees his brood about thy knee; The next, like fire he meets the foe, And strikes him dead for thine and thee. So Lilia sang: we thought her half-possessed, She struck such warbling fury through the words; And, after, feigning pique at what she called The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime-Like one that wishes at a dance to change The music--clapt her hands and cried for war, Or some grand fight to kill and make an end: And he that next inherited the tale Half turning to the broken statue, said, 'Sir Ralph has got your colours: if I prove Your knight, and fight your battle, what for me?' It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb Lay by her like a model of her hand. She took it and she flung it. 'Fight' she said, 'And make us all we would be, great and good.' He knightlike in his cap instead of casque, A cap of Tyrol borrowed from the hall, Arranged the favour, and assumed the Prince. 762 ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

904:VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE AND UNFORTUNATE LADY, EMILIA V---, NOW IMPRISONED IN THE CONVENT OF --- L'anima amante si slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nell' infinito un Mondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro. ~Her own words. My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning, Of such hard matter dost thou entertain; Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring Thee to base company (as chance may do), Quite unaware of what thou dost contain, I prithee, comfort thy sweet self again, My last delight! tell them that they are dull, And bid them own that thou art beautiful. EPIPSYCHIDION. Sweet Spirit! Sister of that orphan one, Whose empire is the name thou weepest on, In my heart's temple I suspend to thee These votive wreaths of withered memory. Poor captive bird! who, from thy narrow cage, Pourest such music, that it might assuage The ruggd hearts of those who prisoned thee, Were they not deaf to all sweet melody; This song shall be thy rose: its petals pale Are dead, indeed, my adored Nightingale! But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom, And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom. High, spirit-wingd Heart! who dost for ever Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour, Till those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed It over-soared this low and worldly shade, Lie shattered; and thy panting, wounded breast Stains with dear blood its unmaternal nest! I weep vain tears: blood would less bitter be, Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee. Seraph of Heaven! too gentle to be human, Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman All that is insupportable in thee Of light, and love, and immortality! Sweet Benediction in the eternal Curse! Veiled Glory of this lampless Universe! Thou Moon beyond the clouds! Thou living Form Among the Dead! Thou Star above the Storm! Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror! Thou Harmony of Nature's art! Thou Mirror In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun, All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on! Ay, even the dim words which obscure thee now Flash, lightning-like, with unaccustomed glow; I pray thee that thou blot from this sad song All of its much mortality and wrong, With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through, Weeping, till sorrow becomes ecstasy: Then smile on it, so that it may not die. I never thought before my death to see Youth's vision thus made perfect. Emily, I love thee; though the world by no thin name Will hide that love from its unvalued shame. Would we two had been twins of the same mother! Or, that the name my heart lent to another Could be a sister's bond for her and thee, Blending two beams of one eternity! Yet were one lawful and the other true, These names, though dear, could paint not, as is due, How beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me! I am not thine: I am a part of thee. Sweet Lamp! my moth-like Muse has burned its wings Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings, Young Love should teach Time, in his own gray style, All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile, A lovely soul formed to be blessed and bless? A well of sealed and secret happiness, Whose waters like blithe light and music are, Vanquishing dissonance and gloom? A Star Which moves not in the moving heavens, alone? A Smile amid dark frowns? a gentle tone Amid rude voices? a belovd light? A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight? A Lute, which those whom Love has taught to play Make music on, to soothe the roughest day And lull fond Grief asleep? a buried treasure? A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure? A violet-shrouded grave of Woe?I measure The world of fancies, seeking one like thee, And findalas! mine own infirmity. She met me, Stranger, upon life's rough way, And lured me towards sweet Death; as Night by Day, Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope, Led into light, life, peace. An antelope, In the suspended impulse of its lightness, Were less aethereally light: the brightness Of her divinest presence trembles through Her limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew Embodied in the windless heaven of June Amid the splendour-wingd stars, the Moon Burns, inextinguishably beautiful: And from her lips, as from a hyacinth full Of honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops, Killing the sense with passion; sweet as stops Of planetary music heard in trance. In her mild lights the starry spirits dance, The sunbeams of those wells which ever leap Under the lightnings of the soultoo deep For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense. The glory of her being, issuing thence, Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade Of unentangled intermixture, made By Love, of light and motion: one intense Diffusion, one serene Omnipresence, Whose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing, Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing With the unintermitted blood, which there Quivers, (as in a fleece of snow-like air The crimson pulse of living morning quiver,) Continuously prolonged, and ending never, Till they are lost, and in that Beauty furled Which penetrates and clasps and fills the world; Scarce visible from extreme loveliness. Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress And her loose hair; and where some heavy tress The air of her own speed has disentwined, The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind; And in the soul a wild odour is felt, Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt Into the bosom of a frozen bud. See where she stands! a mortal shape indued With love and life and light and deity, And motion which may change but cannot die; An image of some bright Eternity; A shadow of some golden dream; a Splendour Leaving the third sphere pilotless; a tender Reflection of the eternal Moon of Love Under whose motions life's dull billows move; A Metaphor of Spring and Youth and Morning; A Vision like incarnate April, warning, With smiles and tears, Frost the Anatomy Into his summer grave.             Ah, woe is me! What have I dared? where am I lifted? how Shall I descend, and perish not? I know That Love makes all things equal: I have heard By mine own heart this joyous truth averred: The spirit of the worm beneath the sod In love and worship, blends itself with God. Spouse! Sister! Angel! Pilot of the Fate Whose course has been so starless! O too late Belovd! O too soon adored, by me! For in the fields of Immortality My spirit should at first have worshipped thine, A divine presence in a place divine; Or should have moved beside it on this earth, A shadow of that substance, from its birth; But not as now:I love thee; yes, I feel That on the fountain of my heart a seal Is set, to keep its waters pure and bright For thee, since in those tears thou hast delight. Weare we not formed, as notes of music are, For one another, though dissimilar; Such difference without discord, as can make Those sweetest sounds, in which all spirits shake As trembling leaves in a continuous air? Thy wisdom speaks in me, and bids me dare Beacon the rocks on which high hearts are wrecked. I never was attached to that great sect, Whose doctrine is, that each one should select Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend, And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend To cold oblivion, though it is in the code Of modern morals, and the beaten road Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread, Who travel to their home among the dead By the broad highway of the world, and so With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe, The dreariest and the longest journey go. True Love in this differs from gold and clay, That to divide is not to take away. Love is like understanding, that grows bright, Gazing on many truths; 'tis like thy light, Imagination! which from earth and sky, And from the depths of human fantasy, As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills The Universe with glorious beams, and kills Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow Of its reverberated lightning. Narrow The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates, The life that wears, the spirit that creates One object, and one form, and builds thereby A sepulchre for its eternity. Mind from its object differs most in this: Evil from good; misery from happiness; The baser from the nobler; the impure And frail, from what is clear and must endure. If you divide suffering and dross, you may Diminish till it is consumed away; If you divide pleasure and love and thought, Each part exceeds the whole; and we know not How much, while any yet remains unshared, Of pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared: This truth is that deep well, whence sages draw The unenvied light of hope; the eternal law By which those live, to whom this world of life Is as a garden ravaged, and whose strife Tills for the promise of a later birth The wilderness of this Elysian earth. There was a Being whom my spirit oft Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft, In the clear golden prime of my youth's dawn, Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn, Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor Paved her light steps;on an imagined shore, Under the gray beak of some promontory She met me, robed in such exceeding glory, That I beheld her not. In solitudes Her voice came to me through the whispering woods, And from the fountains, and the odours deep Of flowers, which, like lips murmuring in their sleep Of the sweet kisses which had lulled them there, Breathed but of her to the enamoured air; And from the breezes whether low or loud, And from the rain of every passing cloud, And from the singing of the summer-birds, And from all sounds, all silence. In the words Of antique verse and high romance, -- in form, Sound, colour -- in whatever checks that Storm Which with the shattered present chokes the past; And in that best philosophy, whose taste Makes this cold common hell, our life, a doom As glorious as a fiery martyrdom; Her Spirit was the harmony of truth.-- Then, from the caverns of my dreamy youth I sprang, as one sandalled with plumes of fire, And towards the lodestar of my one desire, I flitted, like a dizzy moth, whose flight Is as a dead leaf's in the owlet light, When it would seek in Hesper's setting sphere A radiant death, a fiery sepulchre, As if it were a lamp of earthly flame. But She, whom prayers or tears then could not tame, Passed, like a God throned on a wingd planet, Whose burning plumes to tenfold swiftness fan it, Into the dreary cone of our life's shade; And as a man with mighty loss dismayed, I would have followed, though the grave between Yawned like a gulf whose spectres are unseen: When a voice said:--'O thou of hearts the weakest, The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest.' Then I'Where?'--the world's echo answered 'where?' And in that silence, and in my despair, I questioned every tongueless wind that flew Over my tower of mourning, if it knew Whither 'twas fled, this soul out of my soul; And murmured names and spells which have control Over the sightless tyrants of our fate; But neither prayer nor verse could dissipate The night which closed on her; nor uncreate That world within this Chaos, mine and me, Of which she was the veiled Divinity, The world I say of thoughts that worshipped her: And therefore I went forth, with hope and fear And every gentle passion sick to death, Feeding my course with expectation's breath, Into the wintry forest of our life; And struggling through its error with vain strife, And stumbling in my weakness and my haste, And half bewildered by new forms, I passed, Seeking among those untaught foresters If I could find one form resembling hers, In which she might have masked herself from me. There,One, whose voice was venomed melody Sate by a well, under blue nightshade bowers; The breath of her false mouth was like faint flowers, Her touch was as electric poison,flame Out of her looks into my vitals came, And from her living cheeks and bosom flew A killing air, which pierced like honey-dew Into the core of my green heart, and lay Upon its leaves; until, as hair grown gray O'er a young brow, they hid its unblown prime With ruins of unseasonable time. In many mortal forms I rashly sought The shadow of that idol of my thought. And some were fairbut beauty dies away: Others were wisebut honeyed words betray: And One was trueoh! why not true to me? Then, as a hunted deer that could not flee, I turned upon my thoughts, and stood at bay, Wounded and weak and panting; the cold day Trembled, for pity of my strife and pain. When, like a noonday dawn, there shone again Deliverance. One stood on my path who seemed As like the glorious shape which I had dreamed As is the Moon, whose changes ever run Into themselves, to the eternal Sun; The cold chaste Moon, the Queen of Heaven's bright isles, Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles, That wandering shrine of soft yet icy flame Which ever is transformed, yet still the same, And warms not but illumines. Young and fair As the descended Spirit of that sphere, She hid me, as the Moon may hide the night From its own darkness, until all was bright Between the Heaven and Earth of my calm mind, And, as a cloud charioted by the wind, She led me to a cave in that wild place, And sate beside me, with her downward face Illumining my slumbers, like the Moon Waxing and waning o'er Endymion. And I was laid asleep, spirit and limb, And all my being became bright or dim As the Moon's image in a summer sea, According as she smiled or frowned on me; And there I lay, within a chaste cold bed: Alas, I then was nor alive nor dead: For at her silver voice came Death and Life, Unmindful each of their accustomed strife, Masked like twin babes, a sister and a brother, The wandering hopes of one abandoned mother, And through the cavern without wings they flew, And cried 'Away, he is not of our crew.' I wept, and though it be a dream, I weep. What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep, Blotting that Moon, whose pale and waning lips Then shrank as in the sickness of eclipse; And how my soul was as a lampless sea, And who was then its Tempest; and when She, The Planet of that hour, was quenched, what frost Crept o'er those waters, till from coast to coast The moving billows of my being fell Into a death of ice, immovable; And thenwhat earthquakes made it gape and split, The white Moon smiling all the while on it, These words conceal:If not, each word would be The key of staunchless tears. Weep not for me! At length, into the obscure Forest came The Vision I had sought through grief and shame. Athwart that wintry wilderness of thorns Flashed from her motion splendour like the Morn's, And from her presence life was radiated Through the gray earth and branches bare and dead; So that her way was paved, and roofed above With flowers as soft as thoughts of budding love; And music from her respiration spread Like light,all other sounds were penetrated By the small, still, sweet spirit of that sound, So that the savage winds hung mute around; And odours warm and fresh fell from her hair Dissolving the dull cold in the frore air: Soft as an Incarnation of the Sun, When light is changed to love, this glorious One Floated into the cavern where I lay, And called my Spirit, and the dreaming clay Was lifted by the thing that dreamed below As smoke by fire, and in her beauty's glow I stood, and felt the dawn of my long night Was penetrating me with living light: I knew it was the Vision veiled from me So many years -- that it was Emily. Twin Spheres of light who rule this passive Earth, This world of love, this me; and into birth Awaken all its fruits and flowers, and dart Magnetic might into its central heart; And lift its billows and its mists, and guide By everlasting laws, each wind and tide To its fit cloud, and its appointed cave; And lull its storms, each in the craggy grave Which was its cradle, luring to faint bowers The armies of the rainbow-wingd showers; And, as those married lights, which from the towers Of Heaven look forth and fold the wandering globe In liquid sleep and splendour, as a robe; And all their many-mingled influence blend, If equal, yet unlike, to one sweet end; So ye, bright regents, with alternate sway Govern my sphere of being, night and day! Thou, not disdaining even a borrowed might; Thou, not eclipsing a remoter light; And, through the shadow of the seasons three, From Spring to Autumn's sere maturity, Light it into the Winter of the tomb, Where it may ripen to a brighter bloom. Thou too, O Comet beautiful and fierce, Who drew the heart of this frail Universe Towards thine own; till, wrecked in that convulsion, Alternating attraction and repulsion, Thine went astray and that was rent in twain; Oh, float into our azure heaven again! Be there Love's folding-star at thy return; The living Sun will feed thee from its urn Of golden fire; the Moon will veil her horn In thy last smiles; adoring Even and Morn Will worship thee with incense of calm breath And lights and shadows; as the star of Death And Birth is worshipped by those sisters wild Called Hope and Fearupon the heart are piled Their offerings,of this sacrifice divine A World shall be the altar.                Lady mine, Scorn not these flowers of thought, the fading birth Which from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes, Will be as of the trees of Paradise. The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me. To whatsoe'er of dull mortality Is mine, remain a vestal sister still; To the intense, the deep, the imperishable, Not mine but me, henceforth be thou united Even as a bride, delighting and delighted. The hour is come:the destined Star has risen Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set The sentinelsbut true Love never yet Was thus constrained: it overleaps all fence: Like lightning, with invisible violence Piercing its continents; like Heaven's free breath, Which he who grasps can hold not; liker Death, Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array Of arms: more strength has Love than he or they; For it can burst his charnel, and make free The limbs in chains, the heart in agony, The soul in dust and chaos.                Emily, A ship is floating in the harbour now, A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow; There is a path on the sea's azure floor, No keel has ever ploughed that path before; The halcyons brood around the foamless isles; The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles; The merry mariners are bold and free: Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me? Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest Is a far Eden of the purple East; And we between her wings will sit, while Night, And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight, Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, Treading each other's heels, unheededly. It is an isle under Ionian skies, Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise, And, for the harbours are not safe and good, This land would have remained a solitude But for some pastoral people native there, Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air Draw the last spirit of the age of gold, Simple and spirited; innocent and bold. The blue Aegean girds this chosen home, With ever-changing sound and light and foam, Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar; And all the winds wandering along the shore Undulate with the undulating tide: There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide; And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, As clear as elemental diamond, Or serene morning air; and far beyond, The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer (Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year) Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls Illumining, with sound that never fails Accompany the noonday nightingales; And all the place is peopled with sweet airs; The light clear element which the isle wears Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers, Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers, And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep; And from the moss violets and jonquils peep, And dart their arrowy odour through the brain Till you might faint with that delicious pain. And every motion, odour, beam, and tone, With that deep music is in unison: Which is a soul within the soulthey seem Like echoes of an antenatal dream. It is an isle 'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Sea, Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity; Bright as that wandering Eden Lucifer, Washed by the soft blue Oceans of young air. It is a favoured place. Famine or Blight, Pestilence, War and Earthquake, never light Upon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they Sail onward far upon their fatal way: The wingd storms, chanting their thunder-psalm To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, From which its fields and woods ever renew Their green and golden immortality. And from the sea there rise, and from the sky There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright, Veil after veil, each hiding some delight, Which Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside, Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride Glowing at once with love and loveliness, Blushes and trembles at its own excess: Yet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, An atom of th'Eternal, whose own smile Unfolds itself, and may be felt, not seen O'er the gray rocks, blue waves, and forests green, Filling their bare and void interstices. But the chief marvel of the wilderness Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how None of the rustic island-people know: 'Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height It overtops the woods; but, for delight, Some wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime Had been invented, in the world's young prime, Reared it, a wonder of that simple time, An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house Made sacred to his sister and his spouse. It scarce seems now a wreck of human art, But, as it were Titanic; in the heart Of Earth having assumed its form, then grown Out of the mountains, from the living stone, Lifting itself in caverns light and high: For all the antique and learnd imagery Has been erased, and in the place of it The ivy and the wild-vine interknit The volumes of their many-twining stems; Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery With moonlight patches, or star atoms keen, Or fragments of the day's intense serene; Working mosaic on their Parian floors. And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem To sleep in one another's arms, and dream Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we Read in their smiles, and call reality. This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed Thee to be lady of the solitude. And I have fitted up some chambers there Looking towards the golden Eastern air, And level with the living winds, which flow Like waves above the living waves below. I have sent books and music there, and all Those instruments with which high Spirits call The future from its cradle, and the past Out of its grave, and make the present last In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, Folded within their own eternity. Our simple life wants little, and true taste Hires not the pale drudge Luxury, to waste The scene it would adorn, and therefore still, Nature with all her children haunts the hill. The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance Between the quick bats in their twilight dance; The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight Before our gate, and the slow, silent night Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. Be this our home in life, and when years heap Their withered hours, like leaves, on our decay, Let us become the overhanging day, The living soul of this Elysian isle, Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile We two will rise, and sit, and walk together, Under the roof of blue Ionian weather, And wander in the meadows, or ascend The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend With lightest winds, to touch their paramour; Or linger, where the pebble-paven shore, Under the quick, faint kisses of the sea Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy, Possessing and possessed by all that is Within that calm circumference of bliss, And by each other, till to love and live Be one:or, at the noontide hour, arrive Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep The moonlight of the expired night asleep, Through which the awakened day can never peep; A veil for our seclusion, close as night's, Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights; Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again. And we will talk, until thought's melody Become too sweet for utterance, and it die In words, to live again in looks, which dart With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart, Harmonizing silence without a sound. Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound, And our veins beat together; and our lips With other eloquence than words, eclipse The soul that burns between them, and the wells Which boil under our being's inmost cells, The fountains of our deepest life, shall be Confused in Passion's golden purity, As mountain-springs under the morning sun. We shall become the same, we shall be one Spirit within two frames, oh! wherefore two? One passion in twin-hearts, which grows and grew, Till like two meteors of expanding flame, Those spheres instinct with it become the same, Touch, mingle, are transfigured; ever still Burning, yet ever inconsumable: In one another's substance finding food, Like flames too pure and light and unimbued To nourish their bright lives with baser prey, Which point to Heaven and cannot pass away: One hope within two wills, one will beneath Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death, One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality, And one annihilation. Woe is me! The wingd words on which my soul would pierce Into the height of Love's rare Universe, Are chains of lead around its flight of fire I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire! Weak Verses, go, kneel at your Sovereign's feet, And say:'We are the masters of thy slave; What wouldest thou with us and ours and thine?" Then call your sisters from Oblivion's cave, All singing loud: 'Love's very pain is sweet, But its reward is in the world divine Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave.' So shall ye live when I am there. Then haste Over the hearts of men, until ye meet Marina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest, And bid them love each other and be blessed: And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves, And come and be my guest,for I am Love's. Epipsychidion was composed at Pisa, Jan., Feb., 1821, and published without the author's name, in the following summer, by C. & J. Ollier, London. The poem was included by Mrs. Shelley in the Poetical Works, 1839, both edd. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Epipsychidion ,

905:Pelleas And Ettarre King Arthur made new knights to fill the gap Left by the Holy Quest; and as he sat In hall at old Caerleon, the high doors Were softly sundered, and through these a youth, Pelleas, and the sweet smell of the fields Past, and the sunshine came along with him. `Make me thy knight, because I know, Sir King, All that belongs to knighthood, and I love.' Such was his cry: for having heard the King Had let proclaim a tournament--the prize A golden circlet and a knightly sword, Full fain had Pelleas for his lady won The golden circlet, for himself the sword: And there were those who knew him near the King, And promised for him: and Arthur made him knight. And this new knight, Sir Pelleas of the isles-But lately come to his inheritance, And lord of many a barren isle was he-Riding at noon, a day or twain before, Across the forest called of Dean, to find Caerleon and the King, had felt the sun Beat like a strong knight on his helm, and reeled Almost to falling from his horse; but saw Near him a mound of even-sloping side, Whereon a hundred stately beeches grew, And here and there great hollies under them; But for a mile all round was open space, And fern and heath: and slowly Pelleas drew To that dim day, then binding his good horse To a tree, cast himself down; and as he lay At random looking over the brown earth Through that green-glooming twilight of the grove, It seemed to Pelleas that the fern without Burnt as a living fire of emeralds, So that his eyes were dazzled looking at it. Then o'er it crost the dimness of a cloud Floating, and once the shadow of a bird 523 Flying, and then a fawn; and his eyes closed. And since he loved all maidens, but no maid In special, half-awake he whispered, `Where? O where? I love thee, though I know thee not. For fair thou art and pure as Guinevere, And I will make thee with my spear and sword As famous--O my Queen, my Guinevere, For I will be thine Arthur when we meet.' Suddenly wakened with a sound of talk And laughter at the limit of the wood, And glancing through the hoary boles, he saw, Strange as to some old prophet might have seemed A vision hovering on a sea of fire, Damsels in divers colours like the cloud Of sunset and sunrise, and all of them On horses, and the horses richly trapt Breast-high in that bright line of bracken stood: And all the damsels talked confusedly, And one was pointing this way, and one that, Because the way was lost. And Pelleas rose, And loosed his horse, and led him to the light. There she that seemed the chief among them said, `In happy time behold our pilot-star! Youth, we are damsels-errant, and we ride, Armed as ye see, to tilt against the knights There at Caerleon, but have lost our way: To right? to left? straight forward? back again? Which? tell us quickly.' Pelleas gazing thought, `Is Guinevere herself so beautiful?' For large her violet eyes looked, and her bloom A rosy dawn kindled in stainless heavens, And round her limbs, mature in womanhood; And slender was her hand and small her shape; And but for those large eyes, the haunts of scorn, She might have seemed a toy to trifle with, And pass and care no more. But while he gazed The beauty of her flesh abashed the boy, 524 As though it were the beauty of her soul: For as the base man, judging of the good, Puts his own baseness in him by default Of will and nature, so did Pelleas lend All the young beauty of his own soul to hers, Believing her; and when she spake to him, Stammered, and could not make her a reply. For out of the waste islands had he come, Where saving his own sisters he had known Scarce any but the women of his isles, Rough wives, that laughed and screamed against the gulls, Makers of nets, and living from the sea. Then with a slow smile turned the lady round And looked upon her people; and as when A stone is flung into some sleeping tarn, The circle widens till it lip the marge, Spread the slow smile through all her company. Three knights were thereamong; and they too smiled, Scorning him; for the lady was Ettarre, And she was a great lady in her land. Again she said, `O wild and of the woods, Knowest thou not the fashion of our speech? Or have the Heavens but given thee a fair face, Lacking a tongue?' `O damsel,' answered he, `I woke from dreams; and coming out of gloom Was dazzled by the sudden light, and crave Pardon: but will ye to Caerleon? I Go likewise: shall I lead you to the King?' `Lead then,' she said; and through the woods they went. And while they rode, the meaning in his eyes, His tenderness of manner, and chaste awe, His broken utterances and bashfulness, Were all a burthen to her, and in her heart She muttered, `I have lighted on a fool, Raw, yet so stale!' But since her mind was bent On hearing, after trumpet blown, her name And title, `Queen of Beauty,' in the lists 525 Cried--and beholding him so strong, she thought That peradventure he will fight for me, And win the circlet: therefore flattered him, Being so gracious, that he wellnigh deemed His wish by hers was echoed; and her knights And all her damsels too were gracious to him, For she was a great lady. And when they reached Caerleon, ere they past to lodging, she, Taking his hand, `O the strong hand,' she said, `See! look at mine! but wilt thou fight for me, And win me this fine circlet, Pelleas, That I may love thee?' Then his helpless heart Leapt, and he cried, `Ay! wilt thou if I win?' `Ay, that will I,' she answered, and she laughed, And straitly nipt the hand, and flung it from her; Then glanced askew at those three knights of hers, Till all her ladies laughed along with her. `O happy world,' thought Pelleas, `all, meseems, Are happy; I the happiest of them all.' Nor slept that night for pleasure in his blood, And green wood-ways, and eyes among the leaves; Then being on the morrow knighted, sware To love one only. And as he came away, The men who met him rounded on their heels And wondered after him, because his face Shone like the countenance of a priest of old Against the flame about a sacrifice Kindled by fire from heaven: so glad was he. Then Arthur made vast banquets, and strange knights From the four winds came in: and each one sat, Though served with choice from air, land, stream, and sea, Oft in mid-banquet measuring with his eyes His neighbour's make and might: and Pelleas looked Noble among the noble, for he dreamed His lady loved him, and he knew himself Loved of the King: and him his new-made knight 526 Worshipt, whose lightest whisper moved him more Than all the rangd reasons of the world. Then blushed and brake the morning of the jousts, And this was called `The Tournament of Youth:' For Arthur, loving his young knight, withheld His older and his mightier from the lists, That Pelleas might obtain his lady's love, According to her promise, and remain Lord of the tourney. And Arthur had the jousts Down in the flat field by the shore of Usk Holden: the gilded parapets were crowned With faces, and the great tower filled with eyes Up to the summit, and the trumpets blew. There all day long Sir Pelleas kept the field With honour: so by that strong hand of his The sword and golden circlet were achieved. Then rang the shout his lady loved: the heat Of pride and glory fired her face; her eye Sparkled; she caught the circlet from his lance, And there before the people crowned herself: So for the last time she was gracious to him. Then at Caerleon for a space--her look Bright for all others, cloudier on her knight-Lingered Ettarre: and seeing Pelleas droop, Said Guinevere, `We marvel at thee much, O damsel, wearing this unsunny face To him who won thee glory!' And she said, `Had ye not held your Lancelot in your bower, My Queen, he had not won.' Whereat the Queen, As one whose foot is bitten by an ant, Glanced down upon her, turned and went her way. But after, when her damsels, and herself, And those three knights all set their faces home, Sir Pelleas followed. She that saw him cried, `Damsels--and yet I should be shamed to say it-I cannot bide Sir Baby. Keep him back Among yourselves. Would rather that we had Some rough old knight who knew the worldly way, 527 Albeit grizzlier than a bear, to ride And jest with: take him to you, keep him off, And pamper him with papmeat, if ye will, Old milky fables of the wolf and sheep, Such as the wholesome mothers tell their boys. Nay, should ye try him with a merry one To find his mettle, good: and if he fly us, Small matter! let him.' This her damsels heard, And mindful of her small and cruel hand, They, closing round him through the journey home, Acted her hest, and always from her side Restrained him with all manner of device, So that he could not come to speech with her. And when she gained her castle, upsprang the bridge, Down rang the grate of iron through the groove, And he was left alone in open field. `These be the ways of ladies,' Pelleas thought, `To those who love them, trials of our faith. Yea, let her prove me to the uttermost, For loyal to the uttermost am I.' So made his moan; and darkness falling, sought A priory not far off, there lodged, but rose With morning every day, and, moist or dry, Full-armed upon his charger all day long Sat by the walls, and no one opened to him. And this persistence turned her scorn to wrath. Then calling her three knights, she charged them, `Out! And drive him from the walls.' And out they came But Pelleas overthrew them as they dashed Against him one by one; and these returned, But still he kept his watch beneath the wall. Thereon her wrath became a hate; and once, A week beyond, while walking on the walls With her three knights, she pointed downward, `Look, He haunts me--I cannot breathe--besieges me; Down! strike him! put my hate into your strokes, And drive him from my walls.' And down they went, And Pelleas overthrew them one by one; And from the tower above him cried Ettarre, 528 `Bind him, and bring him in.' He heard her voice; Then let the strong hand, which had overthrown Her minion-knights, by those he overthrew Be bounden straight, and so they brought him in. Then when he came before Ettarre, the sight Of her rich beauty made him at one glance More bondsman in his heart than in his bonds. Yet with good cheer he spake, `Behold me, Lady, A prisoner, and the vassal of thy will; And if thou keep me in thy donjon here, Content am I so that I see thy face But once a day: for I have sworn my vows, And thou hast given thy promise, and I know That all these pains are trials of my faith, And that thyself, when thou hast seen me strained And sifted to the utmost, wilt at length Yield me thy love and know me for thy knight.' Then she began to rail so bitterly, With all her damsels, he was stricken mute; But when she mocked his vows and the great King, Lighted on words: `For pity of thine own self, Peace, Lady, peace: is he not thine and mine?' `Thou fool,' she said, `I never heard his voice But longed to break away. Unbind him now, And thrust him out of doors; for save he be Fool to the midmost marrow of his bones, He will return no more.' And those, her three, Laughed, and unbound, and thrust him from the gate. And after this, a week beyond, again She called them, saying, `There he watches yet, There like a dog before his master's door! Kicked, he returns: do ye not hate him, ye? Ye know yourselves: how can ye bide at peace, Affronted with his fulsome innocence? Are ye but creatures of the board and bed, No men to strike? Fall on him all at once, And if ye slay him I reck not: if ye fail, 529 Give ye the slave mine order to be bound, Bind him as heretofore, and bring him in: It may be ye shall slay him in his bonds.' She spake; and at her will they couched their spears, Three against one: and Gawain passing by, Bound upon solitary adventure, saw Low down beneath the shadow of those towers A villainy, three to one: and through his heart The fire of honour and all noble deeds Flashed, and he called, `I strike upon thy side-The caitiffs!' `Nay,' said Pelleas, `but forbear; He needs no aid who doth his lady's will.' So Gawain, looking at the villainy done, Forbore, but in his heat and eagerness Trembled and quivered, as the dog, withheld A moment from the vermin that he sees Before him, shivers, ere he springs and kills. And Pelleas overthrew them, one to three; And they rose up, and bound, and brought him in. Then first her anger, leaving Pelleas, burned Full on her knights in many an evil name Of craven, weakling, and thrice-beaten hound: `Yet, take him, ye that scarce are fit to touch, Far less to bind, your victor, and thrust him out, And let who will release him from his bonds. And if he comes again'--there she brake short; And Pelleas answered, `Lady, for indeed I loved you and I deemed you beautiful, I cannot brook to see your beauty marred Through evil spite: and if ye love me not, I cannot bear to dream you so forsworn: I had liefer ye were worthy of my love, Than to be loved again of you--farewell; And though ye kill my hope, not yet my love, Vex not yourself: ye will not see me more.' While thus he spake, she gazed upon the man Of princely bearing, though in bonds, and thought, `Why have I pushed him from me? this man loves, 530 If love there be: yet him I loved not. Why? I deemed him fool? yea, so? or that in him A something--was it nobler than myself? Seemed my reproach? He is not of my kind. He could not love me, did he know me well. Nay, let him go--and quickly.' And her knights Laughed not, but thrust him bounden out of door. Forth sprang Gawain, and loosed him from his bonds, And flung them o'er the walls; and afterward, Shaking his hands, as from a lazar's rag, `Faith of my body,' he said, `and art thou not-Yea thou art he, whom late our Arthur made Knight of his table; yea and he that won The circlet? wherefore hast thou so defamed Thy brotherhood in me and all the rest, As let these caitiffs on thee work their will?' And Pelleas answered, `O, their wills are hers For whom I won the circlet; and mine, hers, Thus to be bounden, so to see her face, Marred though it be with spite and mockery now, Other than when I found her in the woods; And though she hath me bounden but in spite, And all to flout me, when they bring me in, Let me be bounden, I shall see her face; Else must I die through mine unhappiness.' And Gawain answered kindly though in scorn, `Why, let my lady bind me if she will, And let my lady beat me if she will: But an she send her delegate to thrall These fighting hands of mine--Christ kill me then But I will slice him handless by the wrist, And let my lady sear the stump for him, Howl as he may. But hold me for your friend: Come, ye know nothing: here I pledge my troth, Yea, by the honour of the Table Round, I will be leal to thee and work thy work, And tame thy jailing princess to thine hand. Lend me thine horse and arms, and I will say That I have slain thee. She will let me in 531 To hear the manner of thy fight and fall; Then, when I come within her counsels, then From prime to vespers will I chant thy praise As prowest knight and truest lover, more Than any have sung thee living, till she long To have thee back in lusty life again, Not to be bound, save by white bonds and warm, Dearer than freedom. Wherefore now thy horse And armour: let me go: be comforted: Give me three days to melt her fancy, and hope The third night hence will bring thee news of gold.' Then Pelleas lent his horse and all his arms, Saving the goodly sword, his prize, and took Gawain's, and said, `Betray me not, but help-Art thou not he whom men call light-of-love?' `Ay,' said Gawain, `for women be so light.' Then bounded forward to the castle walls, And raised a bugle hanging from his neck, And winded it, and that so musically That all the old echoes hidden in the wall Rang out like hollow woods at hunting-tide. Up ran a score of damsels to the tower; `Avaunt,' they cried, `our lady loves thee not.' But Gawain lifting up his vizor said, `Gawain am I, Gawain of Arthur's court, And I have slain this Pelleas whom ye hate: Behold his horse and armour. Open gates, And I will make you merry.' And down they ran, Her damsels, crying to their lady, `Lo! Pelleas is dead--he told us--he that hath His horse and armour: will ye let him in? He slew him! Gawain, Gawain of the court, Sir Gawain--there he waits below the wall, Blowing his bugle as who should say him nay.' And so, leave given, straight on through open door Rode Gawain, whom she greeted courteously. 532 `Dead, is it so?' she asked. `Ay, ay,' said he, `And oft in dying cried upon your name.' `Pity on him,' she answered, `a good knight, But never let me bide one hour at peace.' `Ay,' thought Gawain, `and you be fair enow: But I to your dead man have given my troth, That whom ye loathe, him will I make you love.' So those three days, aimless about the land, Lost in a doubt, Pelleas wandering Waited, until the third night brought a moon With promise of large light on woods and ways. Hot was the night and silent; but a sound Of Gawain ever coming, and this lay-Which Pelleas had heard sung before the Queen, And seen her sadden listening--vext his heart, And marred his rest--`A worm within the rose.' `A rose, but one, none other rose had I, A rose, one rose, and this was wondrous fair, One rose, a rose that gladdened earth and sky, One rose, my rose, that sweetened all mine air-I cared not for the thorns; the thorns were there. `One rose, a rose to gather by and by, One rose, a rose, to gather and to wear, No rose but one--what other rose had I? One rose, my rose; a rose that will not die,-He dies who loves it,--if the worm be there.' This tender rhyme, and evermore the doubt, `Why lingers Gawain with his golden news?' So shook him that he could not rest, but rode Ere midnight to her walls, and bound his horse Hard by the gates. Wide open were the gates, And no watch kept; and in through these he past, And heard but his own steps, and his own heart Beating, for nothing moved but his own self, And his own shadow. Then he crost the court, And spied not any light in hall or bower, But saw the postern portal also wide 533 Yawning; and up a slope of garden, all Of roses white and red, and brambles mixt And overgrowing them, went on, and found, Here too, all hushed below the mellow moon, Save that one rivulet from a tiny cave Came lightening downward, and so spilt itself Among the roses, and was lost again. Then was he ware of three pavilions reared Above the bushes, gilden-peakt: in one, Red after revel, droned her lurdane knights Slumbering, and their three squires across their feet: In one, their malice on the placid lip Frozen by sweet sleep, four of her damsels lay: And in the third, the circlet of the jousts Bound on her brow, were Gawain and Ettarre. Back, as a hand that pushes through the leaf To find a nest and feels a snake, he drew: Back, as a coward slinks from what he fears To cope with, or a traitor proven, or hound Beaten, did Pelleas in an utter shame Creep with his shadow through the court again, Fingering at his sword-handle until he stood There on the castle-bridge once more, and thought, `I will go back, and slay them where they lie.' And so went back, and seeing them yet in sleep Said, `Ye, that so dishallow the holy sleep, Your sleep is death,' and drew the sword, and thought, `What! slay a sleeping knight? the King hath bound And sworn me to this brotherhood;' again, `Alas that ever a knight should be so false.' Then turned, and so returned, and groaning laid The naked sword athwart their naked throats, There left it, and them sleeping; and she lay, The circlet of her tourney round her brows, And the sword of the tourney across her throat. And forth he past, and mounting on his horse Stared at her towers that, larger than themselves In their own darkness, thronged into the moon. 534 Then crushed the saddle with his thighs, and clenched His hands, and maddened with himself and moaned: `Would they have risen against me in their blood At the last day? I might have answered them Even before high God. O towers so strong, Huge, solid, would that even while I gaze The crack of earthquake shivering to your base Split you, and Hell burst up your harlot roofs Bellowing, and charred you through and through within, Black as the harlot's heart--hollow as a skull! Let the fierce east scream through your eyelet-holes, And whirl the dust of harlots round and round In dung and nettles! hiss, snake--I saw him there-Let the fox bark, let the wolf yell. Who yells Here in the still sweet summer night, but I-I, the poor Pelleas whom she called her fool? Fool, beast--he, she, or I? myself most fool; Beast too, as lacking human wit--disgraced, Dishonoured all for trial of true love-Love?--we be all alike: only the King Hath made us fools and liars. O noble vows! O great and sane and simple race of brutes That own no lust because they have no law! For why should I have loved her to my shame? I loathe her, as I loved her to my shame. I never loved her, I but lusted for her-Away--' He dashed the rowel into his horse, And bounded forth and vanished through the night. Then she, that felt the cold touch on her throat, Awaking knew the sword, and turned herself To Gawain: `Liar, for thou hast not slain This Pelleas! here he stood, and might have slain Me and thyself.' And he that tells the tale Says that her ever-veering fancy turned To Pelleas, as the one true knight on earth, And only lover; and through her love her life Wasted and pined, desiring him in vain. But he by wild and way, for half the night, 535 And over hard and soft, striking the sod From out the soft, the spark from off the hard, Rode till the star above the wakening sun, Beside that tower where Percivale was cowled, Glanced from the rosy forehead of the dawn. For so the words were flashed into his heart He knew not whence or wherefore: `O sweet star, Pure on the virgin forehead of the dawn!' And there he would have wept, but felt his eyes Harder and drier than a fountain bed In summer: thither came the village girls And lingered talking, and they come no more Till the sweet heavens have filled it from the heights Again with living waters in the change Of seasons: hard his eyes; harder his heart Seemed; but so weary were his limbs, that he, Gasping, `Of Arthur's hall am I, but here, Here let me rest and die,' cast himself down, And gulfed his griefs in inmost sleep; so lay, Till shaken by a dream, that Gawain fired The hall of Merlin, and the morning star Reeled in the smoke, brake into flame, and fell. He woke, and being ware of some one nigh, Sent hands upon him, as to tear him, crying, `False! and I held thee pure as Guinevere.' But Percivale stood near him and replied, `Am I but false as Guinevere is pure? Or art thou mazed with dreams? or being one Of our free-spoken Table hast not heard That Lancelot'--there he checked himself and paused. Then fared it with Sir Pelleas as with one Who gets a wound in battle, and the sword That made it plunges through the wound again, And pricks it deeper: and he shrank and wailed, `Is the Queen false?' and Percivale was mute. `Have any of our Round Table held their vows?' And Percivale made answer not a word. `Is the King true?' `The King!' said Percivale. `Why then let men couple at once with wolves. 536 What! art thou mad?' But Pelleas, leaping up, Ran through the doors and vaulted on his horse And fled: small pity upon his horse had he, Or on himself, or any, and when he met A cripple, one that held a hand for alms-Hunched as he was, and like an old dwarf-elm That turns its back upon the salt blast, the boy Paused not, but overrode him, shouting, `False, And false with Gawain!' and so left him bruised And battered, and fled on, and hill and wood Went ever streaming by him till the gloom, That follows on the turning of the world, Darkened the common path: he twitched the reins, And made his beast that better knew it, swerve Now off it and now on; but when he saw High up in heaven the hall that Merlin built, Blackening against the dead-green stripes of even, `Black nest of rats,' he groaned, `ye build too high.' Not long thereafter from the city gates Issued Sir Lancelot riding airily, Warm with a gracious parting from the Queen, Peace at his heart, and gazing at a star And marvelling what it was: on whom the boy, Across the silent seeded meadow-grass Borne, clashed: and Lancelot, saying, `What name hast thou That ridest here so blindly and so hard?' `No name, no name,' he shouted, `a scourge am I To lash the treasons of the Table Round.' `Yea, but thy name?' `I have many names,' he cried: `I am wrath and shame and hate and evil fame, And like a poisonous wind I pass to blast And blaze the crime of Lancelot and the Queen.' `First over me,' said Lancelot, `shalt thou pass.' `Fight therefore,' yelled the youth, and either knight Drew back a space, and when they closed, at once The weary steed of Pelleas floundering flung His rider, who called out from the dark field, `Thou art as false as Hell: slay me: I have no sword.' Then Lancelot, `Yea, between thy lips--and sharp; 537 But here I will disedge it by thy death.' `Slay then,' he shrieked, `my will is to be slain,' And Lancelot, with his heel upon the fallen, Rolling his eyes, a moment stood, then spake: `Rise, weakling; I am Lancelot; say thy say.' And Lancelot slowly rode his warhorse back To Camelot, and Sir Pelleas in brief while Caught his unbroken limbs from the dark field, And followed to the city. It chanced that both Brake into hall together, worn and pale. There with her knights and dames was Guinevere. Full wonderingly she gazed on Lancelot So soon returned, and then on Pelleas, him Who had not greeted her, but cast himself Down on a bench, hard-breathing. `Have ye fought?' She asked of Lancelot. `Ay, my Queen,' he said. `And hast thou overthrown him?' `Ay, my Queen.' Then she, turning to Pelleas, `O young knight, Hath the great heart of knighthood in thee failed So far thou canst not bide, unfrowardly, A fall from HIM?' Then, for he answered not, `Or hast thou other griefs? If I, the Queen, May help them, loose thy tongue, and let me know.' But Pelleas lifted up an eye so fierce She quailed; and he, hissing `I have no sword,' Sprang from the door into the dark. The Queen Looked hard upon her lover, he on her; And each foresaw the dolorous day to be: And all talk died, as in a grove all song Beneath the shadow of some bird of prey; Then a long silence came upon the hall, And Modred thought, `The time is hard at hand.' ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

906:The Botanic Garden( Part Iii) The Economy Of Vegetation Canto III AGAIN the GODDESS speaks!-glad Echo swells The tuneful tones along her shadowy dells, Her wrinkling founts with soft vibration shakes, Curls her deep wells, and rimples all her lakes, Thrills each wide stream, Britannia's isle that laves, Her headlong cataracts, and circumfluent waves. -Thick as the dews, which deck the morning flowers, Or rain-drops twinkling in the sun-bright showers, Fair Nymphs, emerging in pellucid bands, Rise, as she turns, and whiten all the lands. I. 'YOUR buoyant troops on dimpling ocean tread, Wafting the moist air from his oozy bed, AQUATIC NYMPHS!-YOU lead with viewless march The winged vapours up the aerial arch, On each broad cloud a thousand sails expand, And steer the shadowy treasure o'er the land, Through vernal skies the gathering drops diffuse, Plunge in soft rains, or sink in silver dews.YOUR lucid bands condense with fingers chill The blue mist hovering round the gelid hill; In clay-form'd beds the trickling streams collect, Strain through white sands, through pebbly veins direct; Or point in rifted rocks their dubious way, And in each bubbling fountain rise to day. 'NYMPHS! YOU then guide, attendant from their source, The associate rills along their sinuous course; Float in bright squadrons by the willowy brink, Or circling slow in limpid eddies sink; Call from her crystal cave the Naiad-Nymph, Who hides her fine form in the passing lymph, And, as below she braids her hyaline hair, 111 Eyes her soft smiles reflected in the air; Or sport in groups with River-Boys, that lave Their silken limbs amid the dashing wave; Pluck the pale primrose bending from its edge, Or tittering dance amid the whispering sedge.'Onward YOU pass, the pine-capt hills divide, Or feed the golden harvests on their side; The wide-ribb'd arch with hurrying torrents fill, Shove the slow barge, or whirl the foaming mill. OR lead with beckoning hand the sparkling train Of refluent water to its parent main, And pleased revisit in their sea-moss vales Blue Nereid-forms array'd in shining scales, Shapes, whose broad oar the torpid wave impels, And Tritons bellowing through their twisted shells. 'So from the heart the sanguine stream distils, O'er Beauty's radiant shrine in vermil rills, Feeds each fine nerve, each slender hair pervades, The skins bright snow with living purple shades, Each dimpling cheek with warmer blushes dyes, Laughs on the lips, and lightens in the eyes. -Erewhile absorb'd, the vagrant globules swim From each fair feature, and proportion'd limb, Join'd in one trunk with deeper tint return To the warm concave of the vital urn. II. 1.'AQUATIC MAIDS! YOU sway the mighty realms Of scale and shell, which Ocean overwhelms; As Night's pale Queen her rising orb reveals, And climbs the zenith with refulgent wheels, Car'd on the foam your glimmering legion rides, Your little tridents heave the dashing tides, Urge on the sounding shores their crystal course, Restrain their fury, or direct their force. 2.'NYMPHS! YOU adorn, in glossy volumes roll'd, The gaudy conch with azure, green, and gold. You round Echinus ray his arrowy mail, Give the keel'd Nautilus his oar and sail; 112 Firm to his rock with silver cords suspend The anchor'd Pinna, and his Cancer-friend; With worm-like beard his toothless lips array, And teach the unwieldy Sturgeon to betray.Ambush'd in weeds, or sepulcher'd in sands, In dread repose He waits the scaly bands, Waves in red spires the living lures, and draws The unwary plunderers to his circling jaws, Eyes with grim joy the twinkling shoals beset, And clasps the quick inextricable net. You chase the warrior Shark, and cumberous Whale, And guard the Mermaid in her briny vale; Feed the live petals of her insect-flowers, Her shell-wrack gardens, and her sea-fan bowers; With ores and gems adorn her coral cell, And drop a pearl in every gaping shell. 3. 'YOUR myriad trains o'er stagnant ocean's tow, Harness'd with gossamer, the loitering prow; Or with fine films, suspended o'er the deep, Of oil effusive lull the waves to sleep. You stay the flying bark, conceal'd beneath, Where living rocks of worm-built coral breathe; Meet fell TEREDO, as he mines the keel With beaked head, and break his lips of steel; Turn the broad helm, the fluttering canvas urge From MAELSTROME'S fierce innavigable surge. -'Mid the lorn isles of Norway's stormy main, As sweeps o'er many a league his eddying train, Vast watery walls in rapid circles spin, And deep-ingulph'd the Demon dwells within; Springs o'er the fear-froze crew with Harpy-claws, Down his deep den the whirling vessel draws; Churns with his bloody mouth the dread repast, The booming waters murmuring o'er the mast. III. 'Where with chill frown enormous ALPS alarms A thousand realms, horizon'd in his arms; While cloudless suns meridian glories shed From skies of silver round his hoary head, Tall rocks of ice refract the coloured rays, 113 And Frost sits throned amid the lambent blaze; NYMPHS! YOUR thin forms pervade his glittering piles, His roofs of chrystal, and his glasy ailes; Where in cold caves imprisoned Naiads sleep, Or chain'd on mossy couches wake and weep; Where round dark crags indignant waters bend Through rifted ice, in ivory veins descend, Seek through unfathom'd snows their devious track, Heave the vast spars, the ribbed granites crack, Rush into day, in foamy torrents shine, And swell the imperial Danube or the Rhine.Or feed the murmuring TIBER, as he laves His realms inglorious with diminish'd waves, Hears his lorn Forum sound with Eunuch-strains, Sees dancing slaves insult his martial plains; Parts with chill stream the dim religious bower, Time-mouldered bastion, and dismantled tower; By alter'd fanes and nameless villas glides, And classic domes, that tremble on his sides; Sighs o'er each broken urn, and yawning tomb, And mourns the fall of LIBERTY and ROME. IV. 'Sailing in air, when dark MONSOON inshrouds His tropic mountains in a night of clouds; Or drawn by whirlwinds from the Line returns, And showers o'er Afric all his thousand urns; High o'er his head the beams of SIRIUS glow, And, Dog of Nile, ANUBIS barks below. NYMPHS! YOU from cliff to cliff attendant guide In headlong cataracts the impetuous tide; Or lead o'er wastes of Abyssinian sands The bright expanse to EGYPT'S shower-less lands. -Her long canals the sacred waters fill, And edge with silver every peopled hill; Gigantic SPHINX in circling waves admire; And MEMNON bending o'er his broken lyre; O'er furrow'd glebes and green savannas sweep, And towns and temples laugh amid the deep. V. 1. 'High in the frozen North where HECCLA glows, 114 And melts in torrents his coeval snows; O'er isles and oceans sheds a sanguine light, Or shoots red stars amid the ebon night; When, at his base intomb'd, with bellowing sound Fell GIESAR roar'd, and struggling shook the ground; Pour'd from red nostrils, with her scalding breath, A boiling deluge o'er the blasted heath; And, wide in air, in misty volumes hurl'd Contagious atoms o'er the alarmed world; NYMPHS! YOUR bold myriads broke the infernal spell, And crush'd the Sorceress in her flinty cell. 2. 'Where with soft fires in unextinguish'd urns, Cauldron'd in rock, innocuous Lava burns; On the bright lake YOUR gelid hands distil In pearly mowers the parsimonious rill; And, as aloft the curling vapours rise Through the cleft roof, ambitious for the skies, In vaulted hills condense the tepid steams, And pour to HEALTH the medicated streams. -So in green vales amid her mountains bleak BUXTONIA smiles, the Goddess-Nymyh of Peak; Deep in warm waves, and pebbly baths she dwells, And calls HYGEIA to her sainted wells. 'Hither in sportive bands bright DEVON leads Graces and Loves from Chatsworth's flowery meads.Charm'd round the NYMPH, they climb the rifted rocks; And steep in mountain-mist their golden locks; On venturous step her sparry caves explore, And light with radiant eyes her realms of ore; -Oft by her bubbling founts, and shadowy domes, In gay undress the fairy legion roams, Their dripping palms in playful malice fill, Or taste with ruby lip the sparkling rill; Croud round her baths, and, bending o'er the side, Unclasp'd their sandals, and their zones untied, Dip with gay fear the shuddering foot undress'd, And quick retract it to the fringed vest; Or cleave with brandish'd arms the lucid stream, And sob, their blue eyes twinkling in the steam. -High o'er the chequer'd vault with transient glow 115 Bright lustres dart, as dash the waves below; And Echo's sweet responsive voice prolongs The dulcet tumult of their silver tongues.O'er their flush'd cheeks uncurling tresses flow, And dew-drops glitter on their necks of snow; Round each fair Nymph her dropping mantle clings, And Loves emerging shake their showery wings. 'Here oft her LORD surveys the rude domain, Fair arts of Greece triumphant in his train; LO! as he steps, the column'd pile ascends, The blue roof closes, or the crescent bends; New woods aspiring clothe their hills with green, Smooth slope the lawns, the grey rock peeps between; Relenting Nature gives her hand to Taste, And Health and Beauty crown the laughing waste. VI. 'NYMPHS! YOUR bright squadrons watch with chemic eyes The cold-elastic vapours, as they rise; With playful force arrest them as they pass, And to pure AIR betroth the flaming GAS. Round their translucent forms at once they fling Their rapturous arms, with silver bosoms cling; In fleecy clouds their fluttering wings extend, Or from the skies in lucid showers descend; Whence rills and rivers owe their secret birth, And Ocean's hundred arms infold the earth. 'So, robed by Beauty's Queen, with softer charms SATURNIA woo'd the Thunderer to her arms; O'er her fair limbs a veil of light she spread, And bound a starry diadem on her head; Long braids of pearl her golden tresses grac'd, And the charm'd CESTUS sparkled round her waist. -Raised o'er the woof, by Beauty's hand inwrought, Breathes the soft Sigh, and glows the enamour'd Thought; Vows on light wings succeed, and quiver'd Wiles, Assuasive Accents, and seductive Smiles. 116 -Slow rolls the Cyprian car in purple pride, And, steer'd by LOVE, ascends admiring Ide; Climbs the green slopes, the nodding woods pervades, Burns round the rocks, or gleams amid the shades. -Glad ZEPHYR leads the train, and waves above The barbed darts, and blazing torch of Love; Reverts his smiling face, and pausing flings Soft showers of roses from aurelian wings. Delighted Fawns, in wreathes of flowers array'd, With tiptoe Wood-Boys beat the chequer'd glade; Alarmed Naiads, rising into air, Lift o'er their silver urns their leafy hair; Each to her oak the bashful Dryads shrink, And azure eyes are seen through every chink. -LOVE culls a flaming shaft of broadest wing, And rests the fork upon the quivering string; Points his arch eye aloft, with fingers strong Draws to his curled ear the silken thong; Loud twangs the steel, the golden arrow flies, Trails a long line of lustre through the skies; ''Tis done!' he shouts, 'the mighty Monarch feels!' And with loud laughter shakes the silver wheels; Bends o'er the car, and whirling, as it moves, His loosen'd bowstring, drives the rising doves. -Pierced on his throne the slarting Thunderer turns, Melts with soft sighs, with kindling rapture burns; Clasps her fair hand, and eyes in fond amaze The bright Intruder with enamour'd gaze. 'And leaves my Goddess, like a blooming bride, 'The fanes of Argos for the rocks of Ide? 'Her gorgeous palaces, and amaranth bowers, 'For cliff-top'd mountains, and aerial towers?' He said; and, leading from her ivory seat The blushing Beauty to his lone retreat, Curtain'd with night the couch imperial shrouds, And rests the crimson cushions upon clouds.Earth feels the grateful influence from above, Sighs the soft Air, and Ocean murmurs love; Etherial Warmth expands his brooding wing, And in still showers descends the genial Spring. 117 VII. 'NYMPHS OF AQUATIC TASTE! whose placid smile Breathes sweet enchantment o'er BRITANNIA'S isle; Whose sportive touch in showers resplendent flings Her lucid cataracts, and her bubbling springs; Through peopled vales the liquid silver guides, And swells in bright expanse her freighted tides. YOU with nice ear, in tiptoe trains, pervade Dim walks of morn or evening's silent shade; Join the lone Nightingale, her woods among, And roll your rills symphonious to her song; Through fount-full dells, and wave-worn valleys move, And tune their echoing waterfalls to love; Or catch, attentive to the distant roar, The pausing murmurs of the dashing shore; Or, as aloud she pours her liquid strain, Pursue the NEREID on the twilight main. -Her playful Sea-horse woos her soft commands, Turns his quick ears, his webbed claws expands, His watery way with waving volutes wins, Or listening librates on unmoving fins. The Nymph emerging mounts her scaly seat, Hangs o'er his glossy sides her silver feet, With snow-white hands her arching veil detains, Gives to his slimy lips the slacken'd reins, Lifts to the star of Eve her eye serene, And chaunts the birth of Beauty's radiant Queen.O'er her fair brow her pearly comb unfurls Her beryl locks, and parts the waving curls, Each tangled braid with glistening teeth unbinds And with the floating treasure musks the winds.Thrill'd by the dulcet accents, as she sings, The rippling wave in widening circles rings; Night's shadowy forms along the margin gleam With pointed ears, or dance upon the stream; The Moon transported stays her bright career, And maddening Stars shoot headlong from the sphere. VIII. 'NYMPHS! whose fair eyes with vivid lustres glow For human weal, and melt at human woe; Late as YOU floated on your silver shells, Sorrowing and slow by DERWENT'S willowy dells; Where by tall groves his foamy flood he steers 118 Through ponderous arches o'er impetuous wears, By DERBY'S shadowy towers reflective sweeps, And gothic grandeur chills his dusky deeps; You pearl'd with Pity's drops his velvet sides, Sigh'd in his gales, and murmur'd in his tides, Waved o'er his fringed brink a deeper gloom, And bow'd his alders o'er MILCENA'S tomb. 'Oft with sweet voice She led her infant-train, Printing with graceful step his spangled plain, Explored his twinkling swarms, that swim or fly, And mark'd his florets with botanic eye.'Sweet bud of Spring! how frail thy transient bloom, 'Fine film,' she cried, 'of Nature's fairest loom! 'Soon Beauty fades upon its damask throne!'-Unconscious of the worm, that mined her own!-Pale are those lips, where soft caresses hung, Wan the warm cheek, and mute the tender tongue, Cold rests that feeling heart on Derwent's shore, And those love-lighted eye-balls roll no more! -HERE her sad Consort, stealing through the gloom Of Hangs in mute anguish o'er the scutcheon'd hearse, Or graves with trembling style the votive verse. 'Sexton! oh, lay beneath this sacred shrine, When Time's cold hand shall close my aching eyes, Oh, gently lay this wearied earth of mine, Where wrap'd in night my loved MILCENA lies. 'So shall with purer joy my spirit move, When the last trumpet thrills the caves of Death, Catch the first whispers of my waking love, And drink with holy kiss her kindling breath. 'The spotless Fair, with blush ethereal warm, Shall hail with sweeter smile returning day, Rise from her marble bed a brighter form, And win on buoyant step her airy way. 'Shall bend approved, where beckoning hosts invite, 119 On clouds of silver her adoring knee, Approach with Seraphim the throne of light, -And BEAUTY plead with angel-tongue for Me!' IX. 'YOUR virgin trains on BRINDLEY'S cradle smiled, And nursed with fairy-love the unletter'd child, Spread round his pillow all your secret spells, Pierced all your springs, and open'd all your wells.As now on grass, with glossy folds reveal'd, Glides the bright serpent, now in flowers conceal'd; Far shine the scales, that gild his sinuous back, And lucid undulations mark his track; So with strong arm immortal BRINDLEY leads His long canals, and parts the velvet meads; Winding in lucid lines, the watery mass Mines the firm rock, or loads the deep morass, With rising locks a thousand hills alarms, Flings o'er a thousand streams its silver arms, Feeds the long vale, the nodding woodland laves, And Plenty, Arts, and Commerce freight the waves. -NYMPHS! who erewhile round BRINDLEY'S early bier On show-white bosoms shower'd the incessant tear, Adorn his tomb!-oh, raise the marble bust, Proclaim his honours, and protect his dust! With urns inverted, round the sacred shrine Their ozier wreaths let weeping Naiads twine; While on the top MECHANIC GENIUS stands, Counts the fleet waves, and balances the lands. X. 'NYMPHS! YOU first taught to pierce the secret caves Of humid earth, and lift her ponderous waves; Bade with quick stroke the sliding piston bear The viewless columns of incumbent air;Press'd by the incumbent air the floods below, Through opening valves in foaming torrents flow, Foot after foot with lessen'd impulse move, And rising seek the vacancy above.So when the Mother, bending o'er his charms, Clasps her fair nurseling in delighted arms; Throws the thin kerchief from her neck of snow, And half unveils the pearly orbs below; With sparkling eye the blameless Plunderer owns 120 Her soft embraces, and endearing tones, Seeks the salubrious fount with opening lips, Spreads his inquiring hands, and smiles, and sips. 'CONNUBIAL FAIR! whom no fond transport warms To lull your infant in maternal arms; Who, bless'd in vain with tumid bosoms, hear His tender wailings with unfeeling ear; The soothing kiss and milky rill deny To the sweet pouting lip, and glistening eye!Ah! what avails the cradle's damask roof, The eider bolster, and embroider'd woof!Oft hears the gilded couch unpity'd plains, And many a tear the tassel'd cushion stains! No voice so sweet attunes his cares to rest, So soft no pillow, as his Mother's breast!-Thus charm'd to sweet repose, when twilight hours Shed their soft influence on celestial bowers, The Cherub, Innocence, with smile divine Shuts his white wings, and sleeps on Beauty's shrine. XI. 'From dome to dome when flames infuriate climb, Sweep the long street, invest the tower sublime; Gild the tall vanes amid the astonish'd night, And reddening heaven returns the sanguine light; While with vast strides and bristling hair aloof Pale Danger glides along the falling roof; And Giant Terror howling in amaze Moves his dark limbs across the lurid blaze. NYMPHS! you first taught the gelid wave to rise Hurl'd in resplendent arches to the skies; In iron cells condensed the airy spring, And imp'd the torrent with unfailing wing; -On the fierce flames the shower impetuous falls, And sudden darkness shrouds the shatter'd walls; Steam, smoak, and dust in blended volumes roll, And Night and Silence repossess the Pole.'Where were ye, NYMPHS! in those disasterous hours, Which wrap'd in flames AUGUSTA'S sinking towers? Why did ye linger in your wells and groves, 121 When sad WOODMASON mourn'd her infant loves? When thy fair Daughters with unheeded screams, Ill-fated MOLESWORTH! call'd the loitering streams?The trembling Nymph on bloodless fingers hung Eyes from the tottering wall the distant throng, With ceaseless shrieks her sleeping friends alarms, Drops with singed hair into her lover's arms.The illumin'd Mother seeks with footsteps fleet, Where hangs the safe balcony o'er the street, Wrap'd in her sheet her youngest hope suspends, And panting lowers it to her tiptoe friends; Again she hurries on affection's wings, And now a third, and now a fourth, she brings; Safe all her babes, she smooths her horrent brow, And bursts through bickering flames, unscorch'd, below. So, by her Son arraign'd, with feet unshod O'er burning bars indignant Emma trod. 'E'en on the day when Youth with Beauty wed, The flames surprized them in their nuptial bed;Seen at the opening sash with bosom bare, With wringing hands, and dark dishevel'd hair, The blushing Beauty with disorder'd charms Round her fond lover winds her ivory arms; Beat, as they clasp, their throbbing hearts with fear, And many a kiss is mix'd with many a tear;Ah me! in vain the labouring engines pour Round their pale limbs the ineffectual shower!-Then crash'd the floor, while shrinking crouds retire, And Love and Virtue sunk amid the fire!With piercing screams afflicted strangers mourn, And their white ashes mingle in their urn. XII. 'PELLUCID FORMS! whose crystal bosoms show The shine of welfare, or the shade of woe; Who with soft lips salute returning Spring, And hail the Zephyr quivering on his wing; Or watch, untired, the wintery clouds, and share With streaming eyes my vegetable care; Go, shove the dim mist from the mountain's brow, Chase the white fog, which floods the vale below; Melt the thick snows, that linger on the lands, 122 And catch the hailstones in your little hands; Guard the coy blossom from the pelting shower, And dash the rimy spangles from the bower; From each chill leaf the silvery drops repel, And close the timorous floret's golden bell. 'So should young SYMPATHY, in female form, Climb the tall rock, spectatress of the storm; Life's sinking wrecks with secret sighs deplore, And bleed for others' woes, Herself on shore; To friendless Virtue, gasping on the strand, Bare her warm heart, her virgin arms expand, Charm with kind looks, with tender accents cheer, And pour the sweet consolatory tear; Grief's cureless wounds with lenient balms asswage, Or prop with firmer staff the steps of Age; The lifted arm of mute Despair arrest, And snatch the dagger pointed to his breast; Or lull to slumber Envy's haggard mien, And rob her quiver'd shafts with hand unseen. -Sound, NYMPHS OF HELICON! the trump of Fame, And teach Hibernian echoes JONES'S name; Bind round her polish'd brow the civic bay, And drag the fair Philanthropist to day.So from secluded springs, and secret caves, Her Liffy pours his bright meandering waves, Cools the parch'd vale, the sultry mead divides, And towns and temples star his shadowy sides. XIII. 'CALL YOUR light legions, tread the swampy heath, Pierce with sharp spades the tremulous peat beneath; With colters bright the rushy sward bisect, And in new veins the gushing rills direct;So flowers shall rise in purple light array'd, And blossom'd orchards stretch their silver shade; Admiring glebes their amber ears unfold, And Labour sleep amid the waving gold. 'Thus when young HERCULES with firm disdain Braved the soft smiles of Pleasure's harlot train; To valiant toils his forceful limbs assign'd, 123 And gave to Virtue all his mighty mind, Fierce ACHELOUS rush'd from mountain-caves, O'er sad Etolia pour'd his wasteful waves, O'er lowing vales and bleating pastures roll'd, Swept her red vineyards, and her glebes of gold, Mined all her towns, uptore her rooted woods, And Famine danced upon the shining floods. The youthful Hero seized his curled crest, And dash'd with lifted club the watery Pest; With waving arm the billowy tumult quell'd, And to his course the bellowing Fiend repell'd. 'Then to a Snake the finny Demon turn'd His lengthen'd form, with scales of silver burn'd; Lash'd with restless sweep his dragon-train, And shot meandering o'er the affrighted plain. The Hero-God, with giant fingers clasp'd Firm round his neck, the hissing monster grasp'd; With starting eyes, wide throat, and gaping teeth, Curl his redundant folds, and writhe in death. 'And now a Bull, amid the flying throng The grisly Demon foam'd, and roar'd along; With silver hoofs the flowery meadows spurn'd, Roll'd his red eye, his threatening antlers turn'd. Dragg'd down to earth, the Warrior's victor-hands Press'd his deep dewlap on the imprinted sands; Then with quick bound his bended knee he fix'd High on his neck, the branching horns betwixt, Strain'd his strong arms, his sinewy shoulders bent, And from his curled brow the twisted terror rent. -Pleased Fawns and Nymphs with dancing step applaud, And hang their chaplets round the resting God; Link their soft hands, and rear with pausing toil The golden trophy on the furrow'd soil; Fill with ripe fruits, with wreathed flowers adorn, And give to PLENTY her prolific horn. XIV. 'On Spring's fair lap, CERULEAN SISTERS! pour From airy urns the sun-illumined shower, Feed with the dulcet drops my tender broods, Mellifluous flowers, and aromatic buds; 124 Hang from each bending grass and horrent thorn The tremulous pearl, that glitters to the morn; Or where cold dews their secret channels lave, And Earth's dark chambers hide the stagnant wave, O, pierce, YE NYMPHS! her marble veins, and lead Her gushing fountains to the thirsty mead; Wide o'er the shining vales, and trickling hills Spread the bright treasure in a thousand rills. So shall my peopled realms of Leaf and Flower Exult, inebriate with the genial shower; Dip their long tresses from the mossy brink, With tufted roots the glassy currents drink; Shade your cool mansions from meridian beams, And view their waving honours in your streams. 'Thus where the veins their confluent branches bend, And milky eddies with the purple blend; The Chyle's white trunk, diverging from its source, Seeks through the vital mass its shining course; O'er each red cell, and tissued membrane spreads In living net-work all its branching threads; Maze within maze its tortuous path pursues, Winds into glands, inextricable clues; Steals through the stomach's velvet sides, and sips The silver surges with a thousand lips; Fills each fine pore, pervades each slender hair, And drinks salubrious dew-drops from the air. 'Thus when to kneel in Mecca's awful gloom, Or press with pious kiss Medina's tomb, League after league, through many a lingering day, Steer the swart Caravans their sultry way; O'er sandy wastes on gasping camels toil, Or print with pilgrim-steps the burning soil; If from lone rocks a sparkling rill descend, O'er the green brink the kneeling nations bend, Bathe the parch'd lip, and cool the feverish tongue, And the clear lake reflects the mingled throng.' The Goddess paused,-the listening bands awhile Still seem to hear, and dwell upon her smile; Then with soft murmur sweep in lucid trains 125 Down the green slopes, and o'er the pebbly plains, To each bright stream on silver sandals glide, Reflective fountain, and tumultuous tide. So shoot the Spider-broods at breezy dawn Their glittering net-work o'er the autumnal lawn; From blade to blade connect with cordage fine The unbending grass, and live along the line; Or bathe unwet their oily forms, and dwell With feet repulsive on the dimpling well. So when the North congeals his watery mass, Piles high his snows, and floors his seas with glass; While many a Month, unknown to warmer rays, Marks its slow chronicle by lunar days; Stout youths and ruddy damsels, sportive train, Leave the white soil, and rush upon the main; From isle to isle the moon-bright squadrons stray, And win in easy curves their graceful way; On step alternate borne, with balance nice Hang o'er the gliding steel, and hiss along the ice. ~ Erasmus Darwin,

907:The Botanic Garden( Part Ii) The Economy Of Vegetation Canto II AND NOW THE GODDESS with attention sweet Turns to the GNOMES, that circle round her feet; Orb within orb approach the marshal'd trains, And pigmy legions darken all the plains; Thrice shout with silver tones the applauding bands, Bow, ere She speaks, and clap their fairy hands. So the tall grass, when noon-tide zephyr blows, Bends it's green blades in undulating rows; Wide o'er the fields the billowy tumult spreads, And rustling harvests bow their golden heads. I. 'GNOMES! YOUR bright forms, presiding at her birth, Clung in fond squadrons round the new-born EARTH; When high in ether, with explosion dire, From the deep craters of his realms of fire, The whirling Sun this ponderous planet hurl'd, And gave the astonish'd void another world. When from it's vaporous air, condensed by cold, Descending torrents into oceans roll'd; And fierce attraction with relentless force Bent the reluctant wanderer to it's course. 'Where yet the Bull with diamond-eye adorns The Spring's fair forehead, and with golden horns; Where yet the Lion climbs the ethereal plain, And shakes the Summer from his radiant mane; Where Libra lifts her airy arm, and weighs, Poised in her silver ballance, nights and days; With paler lustres where Aquarius burns, And showers the still snow from his hoary urns; YOUR ardent troops pursued the flying sphere, Circling the starry girdle of the year; While sweet vicissitudes of day and clime Mark'd the new annals of enascent Time. 95 II. 'You trod with printless step Earth's tender globe, While Ocean wrap'd it in his azure robe; Beneath his waves her hardening strata spread, Raised her PRIMEVAL ISLANDS from his bed, Stretch'd her wide lawns, and sunk her winding dells, And deck'd her shores with corals, pearls, and shells. 'O'er those blest isles no ice-crown'd mountains tower'd, No lightnings darted, and no tempests lower'd; Soft fell the vesper-drops, condensed below, Or bent in air the rain-refracted bow; Sweet breathed the zephyrs, just perceiv'd and lost; And brineless billows only kiss'd the coast; Round the bright zodiac danced the vernal hours, And Peace, the Cherub, dwelt in mortal bowers! 'So young DIONE, nursed beneath the waves, And rock'd by Nereids in their coral caves, Charm'd the blue sisterhood with playful wiles, Lisp'd her sweet tones, and tried her tender smiles. Then, on her beryl throne by Triton's borne, Bright rose the Goddess like the Star of morn; When with soft fires the milky dawn He leads, And wakes to life and love the laughing meads;With rosy fingers, as uncurl'd they hung Round her fair brow, her golden locks she wrung; O'er the smooth surge on silver sandals flood, And look'd enchantment on the dazzled flood.The bright drops, rolling from her lifted arms, In slow meanders wander o'er her charms, Seek round her snowy neck their lucid track, Pearl her white shoulders, gem her ivory back, Round her fine waist and swelling bosom swim, And star with glittering brine each crystal limb.-The immortal form enamour'd Nature hail'd, And Beauty blazed to heaven and earth, unvail'd. III. 'You! who then, kindling after many an age, Saw with new fires the first VOLCANO rage, O'er smouldering heaps of livid sulphur swell At Earth's firm centre, and distend her shell, Saw at each opening cleft the furnace glow, And seas rush headlong on the gulphs below.- 96 GNOMES! how you shriek'd! when through the troubled air Roar'd the fierce din of elemental war; When rose the continents, and sunk the main, And Earth's huge sphere exploding burst in twain.GNOMES! how you gazed! when from her wounded side Where now the South-Sea heaves its waste of tide, Rose on swift wheels the MOON'S refulgent car, Circling the solar orb; a sister-star, Dimpled with vales, with shining hills emboss'd, And roll'd round Earth her airless realms of frost. 'GNOMES! how you trembled! with the dreadful force When Earth recoiling stagger'd from her course; When, as her Line in slower circles spun, And her shock'd axis nodded from the sun, With dreadful march the accumulated main Swept her vast wrecks of mountain, vale, and plain; And, while new tides their shouting floods unite, And hail their Queen, fair Regent of the night; Chain'd to one centre whirl'd the kindred spheres, And mark'd with lunar cycles solar years. IV. 'GNOMES! you then bade dissolving SHELLS distil From the loose summits of each shatter'd hill, To each fine pore and dark interstice flow, And fill with liquid chalk the mass below. Whence sparry forms in dusky caverns gleam With borrow'd light, and twice refract the beam; While in white beds congealing rocks beneath Court the nice chissel, and desire to breathe.'Hence wearied HERCULES in marble rears His languid limbs, and rests a thousand years; Still, as he leans, shall young ANTINOUS please With careless grace, and unaffected ease; Onward with loftier step APOLLO spring, And launch the unerring arrow from the string; In Beauty's bashful form, the veil unfurl'd, Ideal VENUS win the gazing world. Hence on ROUBILIAC'S tomb shall Fame sublime Wave her triumphant wings, and conquer Time; Long with soft touch shall DAMER'S chissel charm, With grace delight us, and with beauty warm; FOSTER'S fine form shall hearts unborn engage, 97 And MELBOURN's smile enchant another age. V. GNOMES! you then taught transuding dews to pass Through time-fall'n woods, and root-inwove morass Age after age; and with filtration fine Dispart, from earths and sulphurs, the saline. 1. 'HENCE with diffusive SALT old Ocean steeps His emerald shallows, and his sapphire deeps. Oft in wide lakes, around their warmer brim In hollow pyramids the crystals swim; Or, fused by earth-born fires, in cubic blocks Shoot their white forms, and harden into rocks. 'Thus, cavern'd round in CRACOW'S mighty mines, With crystal walls a gorgeous city shines; Scoop'd in the briny rock long streets extend Their hoary course, and glittering domes ascend; Down the bright steeps, emerging into day, Impetuous fountains burst their headlong way, O'er milk-white vales in ivory channels spread, And wondering seek their subterraneous bed. Form'd in pellucid salt with chissel nice, The pale lamp glimmering through the sculptured ice, With wild reverted eyes fair LOTTA stands, And spreads to Heaven, in vain, her glassy hands; Cold dews condense upon her pearly breast, And the big tear rolls lucid down her vest. Far gleaming o'er the town transparent fanes Rear their white towers, and wave their golden vanes; Long lines of lustres pour their trembling rays, And the bright vault returns the mingled blaze. 2. 'HENCE orient NITRE owes it's sparkling birth, And with prismatic crystals gems the earth, O'er tottering domes in filmy foliage crawls, Or frosts with branching plumes the mouldering walls. As woos Azotic Gas the virgin Air, And veils in crimson clouds the yielding Fair, Indignant Fire the treacherous courtship flies, Waves his light wing, and mingles with the skies. 'So Beauty's GODDESS, warm with new desire, Left, on her silver wheels, the GOD of Fire; Her faithless charms to fiercer MARS resign'd, Met with fond lips, with wanton arms intwin'd. 98 -Indignant VULCAN eyed the parting Fair, And watch'd with jealous step the guilty pair; O'er his broad neck a wiry net he flung, Quick as he strode, the tinkling meshes rung; Fine as the spider's flimsy thread He wove The immortal toil to lime illicit love; Steel were the knots, and steel the twisted thong, Ring link'd in ring, indissolubly strong; On viewless hooks along the fretted roof He hung, unseen, the inextricable woof.-Quick start the springs, the webs pellucid spread, And lock the embracing Lovers on their bed; Fierce with loud taunts vindictive VULCAN springs, Tries all the bolts, and tightens all the strings, Shakes with incessant shouts the bright abodes, Claps his rude hands, and calls the festive Gods.-With spreading palms the alarmed Goddess tries To veil her beauties from celestial eyes, Writhes her fair limbs, the slender ringlets strains, And bids her Loves untie the obdurate chains; Soft swells her panting bosom, as she turns, And her flush'd cheek with brighter blushes burns. Majestic grief the Queen of Heaven avows, And chaste Minerva hides her helmed brows; Attendant Nymphs with bashful eyes askance Steal of intangled MARS a transient glance; Surrounding Gods the circling nectar quaff, Gaze on the Fair, and envy as they laugh. 3. 'HENCE dusky IRON sleeps in dark abodes, And ferny foliage nestles in the nodes; Till with wide lungs the panting bellows blow, And waked by fire the glittering torrents flow; -Quick whirls the wheel, the ponderous hammer falls, Loud anvils ring amid the trembling walls, Strokes follow strokes, the sparkling ingot shines, Flows the red slag, the lengthening bar refines; Cold waves, immersed, the glowing mass congeal, And turn to adamant the hissing Steel. 'Last MICHELL'S hands with touch of potent charm The polish'd rods with powers magnetic arm; With points directed to the polar stars In one long line extend the temper'd bars; 99 Then thrice and thrice with steady eye he guides, And o'er the adhesive train the magnet slides; The obedient Steel with living instinct moves, And veers for ever to the pole it loves. 'Hail, adamantine STEEL! magnetic Lord! King of the prow, the plowshare, and the sword! True to the pole, by thee the pilot guides His steady helm amid the struggling tides, Braves with broad sail the immeasurable sea, Cleaves the dark air, and asks no star but Thee.By thee the plowshare rends the matted plain, Inhumes in level rows the living grain; Intrusive forests quit the cultured ground, And Ceres laughs with golden fillets crown'd.O'er restless realms when scowling Discord flings Her snakes, and loud the din of battle rings; Expiring Strength, and vanquish'd Courage feel Thy arm resistless, adamantine STEEL! 4. 'HENCE in fine streams diffusive ACIDS flow, Or wing'd with fire o'er Earth's fair bosom blow; Transmute to glittering Flints her chalky lands, Or sink on Ocean's bed in countless Sands. Hence silvery Selenite her chrystal moulds, And soft Asbestus smooths his silky folds; His cubic forms phosphoric Fluor prints, Or rays in spheres his amethystine tints. Soft cobweb clouds transparent Onyx spreads, And playful Agates weave their colour'd threads; Gay pictured Mochoes glow with landscape-dyes, And changeful Opals roll their lucid eyes; Blue lambent light around the Sapphire plays, Bright Rubies blush, and living Diamonds blaze. 'Thus, for attractive earth, inconstant JOVE Mask'd in new shapes forsook his realms above.First her sweet eyes his Eagle-form beguiles, And HEBE feeds him with ambrosial smiles; Next the chang'd God a Cygnet's down assumes, And playful LEDA smooths his glossy plumes; Then glides a silver Serpent, treacherous guest! And fair OLYMPIA folds him in her breast; Now lows a milk-white Bull on Afric's strand, And crops with dancing head the daisy'd land.- 100 With rosy wreathes EUROPA'S hand adorns His fringed forehead, and his pearly horns; Light on his back the sportive Damsel bounds, And pleased he moves along the flowery grounds; Bears with slow step his beauteous prize aloof, Dips in the lucid flood his ivory hoof; Then wets his velvet knees, and wading laves His silky sides amid the dimpling waves. While her fond train with beckoning hands deplore, Strain their blue eyes, and shriek along the shore; Beneath her robe she draws her snowy feet, And, half-reclining on her ermine seat, Round his raised neck her radiant arms she throws, And rests her fair cheek on his curled brows; Her yellow tresses wave on wanton gales, And high in air her azure mantle sails. -Onward He moves, applauding Cupids guide, And skim on shooting wing the shining tide; Emerging Triton's leave their coral caves, Sound their loud conchs, and smooth the circling waves, Surround the timorous Beauty, as she swims, And gaze enamour'd on her silver limbs. -Now Europe's shadowy shores with loud acclaim Hail the fair fugitive, and shout her name; Soft echoes warble, whispering forests nod, And conscious Nature owns the present God. -Changed from the Bull, the rapturous God assumes Immortal youth, with glow celestial blooms, With lenient words her virgin fears disarms, And clasps the yielding Beauty in his arms; Whence Kings and Heroes own illustrious birth, Guards of mankind, and demigods on earth. VI. 'GNOMES! as you pass'd beneath the labouring soil, The guards and guides of Nature's chemic toil, YOU saw, deep-sepulchred in dusky realms, Which Earth's rock-ribbed ponderous vault o'erwhelms, With self-born fires the mass fermenting glow, And flame-wing'd sulphurs quit the earths below. 1. 'HENCE ductile CLAYS in wide expansion spread, Soft as the Cygnet's down, their snow-white bed; With yielding flakes successive forms reveal, 101 And change obedient to the whirling wheel. -First CHINA'S sons, with early art elate, Form'd the gay tea-pot, and the pictured plate; Saw with illumin'd brow and dazzled eyes In the red stove vitrescent colours rise; Speck'd her tall beakers with enamel'd stars, Her monster-josses, and gigantic jars; Smear'd her huge dragons with metallic hues, With golden purples, and cobaltic blues; Bade on wide hills her porcelain castles glare, And glazed Pagodas tremble in the air. 'ETRURIA! next beneath thy magic hands Glides the quick wheel, the plaistic clay expands, Nerved with fine touch, thy fingers (as it turns) Mark the nice bounds of vases, ewers, and urns; Round each fair form in lines immortal trace Uncopied Beauty, and ideal Grace. 'GNOMES! as you now dissect with hammers fine The granite-rock, the nodul'd flint calcine; Grind with strong arm, the circling chertz betwixt, Your pure Ka-o-lins and Pe-tun-tses mixt; O'er each red saggars burning cave preside, The keen-eyed Fire-Nymphs blazing by your side; And pleased on WEDGWOOD ray your partial smile, A new Etruria decks Britannia's isle.Charm'd by your touch, the flint liquescent pours Through finer sieves, and falls in whiter showers; Charm'd by your touch, the kneaded clay refines, The biscuit hardens, the enamel shines; Each nicer mould a softer feature drinks, The bold Cameo speaks, the soft Intaglio thinks. 'To call the pearly drops from Pity's eye, Or stay Despair's disanimating sigh, Whether, O Friend of art! the gem you mould Rich with new taste, with antient virtue bold; Form the poor fetter'd SLAVE on bended knee From Britain's sons imploring to be free; Or with fair HOPE the brightening scenes improve, And cheer the dreary wastes at Sydney-cove; Or bid Mortality rejoice and mourn O'er the fine forms on PORTLAND'S mystic urn.' 102 Here by fall'n columns and disjoin'd arcades, On mouldering stones, beneath deciduous shades, Sits HUMANKIND in hieroglyphic state, Serious, and pondering on their changeful state; While with inverted torch, and swimming eyes, Sinks the fair shade of MORTAL LIFE, and dies. There the pale GHOST through Death's wide portal bends His timid feet, the dusky steep descends; With smiles assuasive LOVE DIVINE invites, Guides on broad wing, with torch uplifted lights; IMMORTAL LIFE, her hand extending, courts The lingering form, his tottering step supports; Leads on to Pluto's realms the dreary way, And gives him trembling to Elysian day. Beneath in sacred robes the PRIESTESS dress'd, The coif close-hooded, and the fluttering vest, With pointing finger guides the initiate youth, Unweaves the many-colour'd veil of Truth, Drives the profane from Mystery's bolted door, And Silence guards the Eleusinian lore.'Whether, O Friend of Art! your gems derive Fine forms from Greece, and fabled Gods revive; Or bid from modern life the Portrait breathe, And bind round Honour's brow the laurel wreath; Buoyant shall sail, with Fame's historic page, Each fair medallion o'er the wrecks of age; Nor Time shall mar; nor steel, nor fire, nor rust Touch the hard polish of the immortal bust. 2. 'HENCE sable COAL his massy couch extends, And stars of gold the sparkling Pyrite blends; Hence dull-eyed Naphtha pours his pitchy streams, And Jet uncolour'd drinks the solar beams, Bright Amber shines on his electric throne, And adds ethereal lustres to his own. -Led by the phosphor-light, with daring tread Immortal FRANKLIN sought the fiery bed; Where, nursed in night, incumbent Tempest shrouds 103 The seeds of Thunder in circumfluent clouds, Besieged with iron points his airy cell, And pierced the monster slumbering in the shell. 'So, born on sounding pinions to the WEST, When Tyrant-Power had built his eagle nest; While from his eyry shriek'd the famish'd brood, Clenched their sharp claws, and champ'd their beaks for blood, Immortal FRANKLIN watch'd the callow crew, And stabb'd the struggling Vampires, ere they flew. -The patriot-flame with quick contagion ran, Hill lighted hill, and man electrised man; Her heroes slain awhile COLUMBIA mourn'd, And crown'd with laurels LIBERTY return'd. 'The Warrior, LIBERTY, with bending sails Helm'd his bold course to fair HIBERNIA'S vales;Firm as he steps, along the shouting lands, Lo! Truth and Virtue range their radiant bands; Sad Superstition wails her empire torn, Art plies his oar, and Commerce pours her horn. 'Long had the Giant-form on GALLIA'S plains Inglorious slept, unconscious of his chains; Round his large limbs were wound a thousand strings By the weak hands of Confessors and Kings; O'er his closed eyes a triple veil was bound, And steely rivets lock'd him to the ground; While stern Bastile with iron cage inthralls His folded limbs, and hems in marble walls. -Touch'd by the patriot-flame, he rent amazed The flimsy bonds, and round and round him gazed; Starts up from earth, above the admiring throng Lifts his Colossal form, and towers along; High o'er his foes his hundred arms He rears, Plowshares his swords, and pruning hooks his spears; Calls to the Good and Brave with voice, that rolls Like Heaven's own thunder round the echoing poles; Gives to the winds his banner broad unfurl'd, And gathers in its shade the living world! VII. 'GNOMES! YOU then taught volcanic airs to force Through bubbling Lavas their resistless course, O'er the broad walls of rifted Granite climb, And pierce the rent roof of incumbent Lime, 104 Round sparry caves metallic lustres fling, And bear phlogiston on their tepid wing. 'HENCE glows, refulgent Tin! thy chrystal grains, And tawny Copper shoots her azure veins; Zinc lines his fretted vault with sable ore, And dull Galena tessellates the floor; On vermil beds in Idria's mighty caves The living Silver rolls its ponderous waves; With gay refractions bright Platina shines, And studs with squander'd stars his dusky mines; Long threads of netted gold, and silvery darts, Inlay the Lazuli, and pierce the Quartz;-Whence roof'd with silver beam'd PERU, of old, And hapless MEXICO was paved with gold. 'Heavens! on my sight what sanguine colours blaze! Spain's deathless shame! the crimes of modern days! When Avarice, shrouded in Religion's robe, Sail'd to the West, and slaughter'd half the globe; While Superstition, stalking by his side, Mock'd the loud groans, and lap'd the bloody tide; For sacred truths announced her frenzied dreams, And turn'd to night the sun's meridian beams.Hear, oh, BRITANNIA! potent Queen of isles, On whom fair Art, and meek Religion smiles, Now AFRIC'S coasts thy craftier sons invade With murder, rapine, theft,-and call it Trade! -The SLAVE, in chains, on supplicating knee, Spreads his wide arms, and lifts his eyes to Thee; With hunger pale, with wounds and toil oppress'd, 'ARE WE NOT BRETHREN?' sorrow choaks the rest;-AIR! bear to heaven upon thy azure flood Their innocent cries!-EARTH! cover not their blood! VIII. 'When Heaven's dread justice smites in crimes o'ergrown The blood-nursed Tyrant on his purple throne, GNOMES! YOUR bold forms unnumber'd arms outstretch, And urge the vengeance o'er the guilty wretch.Thus when CAMBYSES led his barbarous hosts From Persia's rocks to Egypt's trembling coasts, Defiled each hallowed fane, and sacred wood, And, drunk with fury, swell'd the Nile with blood; Waved his proud banner o'er the Theban states, 105 And pour'd destruction through her hundred gates; In dread divisions march'd the marshal'd bands, And swarming armies blacken'd all the lands, By Memphis these to ETHIOP'S sultry plains, And those to HAMMON'S sand-incircled fanes.Slow as they pass'd, the indignant temples frown'd, Low curses muttering from the vaulted ground; Long ailes of Cypress waved their deepen'd glooms, And quivering spectres grinn'd amid the tombs; Prophetic whispers breathed from S And MEMNON'S lyre with hollow murmurs rung; Burst from each pyramid expiring groans, And darker shadows stretch'd their lengthen'd cones.Day after day their deathful rout They steer, Lust in the van, and rapine in the rear. 'GNOMES! as they march'd, You hid the gathered fruits, The bladed grass, sweet grains, and mealy roots; Scared the tired quails, that journey'd o'er their heads, Retain'd the locusts in their earthy beds; Bade on your sands no night-born dews distil, Stay'd with vindictive hands the scanty rill.Loud o'er the camp the Fiend of Famine shrieks, Calls all her brood, and champs her hundred beaks; O'er ten square leagues her pennons broad expand, And twilight swims upon the shuddering sand; Perch'd on her crest the Griffin Discord clings, And Giant Murder rides between her wings; Blood from each clotted hair, and horny quill, And showers of tears in blended streams distil; High-poised in air her spiry neck she bends, Rolls her keen eye, her Dragon-claws extends, Darts from above, and tears at each fell swoop With iron fangs the decimated troop. 'Now o'er their head the whizzing whirlwinds breathe, And the live desert pants, and heaves beneath; Tinged by the crimson sun, vast columns rise Of eddying sands, and war amid the skies, In red arcades the billowy plain surround, And stalking turrets dance upon the ground. -Long ranks in vain their shining blades extend, To Demon-Gods their knees unhallow'd bend, Wheel in wide circle, form in hollow square, 106 And now they front, and now they fly the war, Pierce the deaf tempest with lamenting cries, Press their parch'd lips, and close their blood-shot eyes. -GNOMES! o'er the waste YOU led your myriad powers, Climb'd on the whirls, and aim'd the flinty showers!Onward resistless rolls the infuriate surge, Clouds follow clouds, and mountains mountains urge; Wave over wave the driving desert swims, Bursts o'er their heads, inhumes their struggling limbs; Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush, Hosts march o'er hosts, and nations nations crush,Wheeling in air the winged islands fall, And one great earthy Ocean covers all!Then ceased the storm,-NIGHT bow'd his Ethiop brow To earth, and listen'd to the groans below,Grim HORROR shook,-awhile the living hill Heaved with convulsive throes,-and all was still! IX. 'GNOMES! whose fine forms, impassive as the air, Shrink with soft sympathy for human care; Who glide unseen, on printless slippers borne, Beneath the waving grass, and nodding corn; Or lay your tiny limbs, when noon-tide warms, Where shadowy cowslips stretch their golden arms,So mark'd on orreries in lucid signs, Star'd with bright points the mimic zodiac shines; Borne on fine wires amid the pictured skies With ivory orbs the planets set and rise; Round the dwarf earth the pearly moon is roll'd, And the sun twinkling whirls his rays of gold.Call your bright myriads, march your mailed hosts, With spears and helmets glittering round the coasts; Thick as the hairs, which rear the Lion's mane, Or fringe the Boar, that bays the hunter-train; Watch, where proud Surges break their treacherous mounds, And sweep resistless o'er the cultured grounds; Such as erewhile, impell'd o'er Belgia's plain, Roll'd her rich ruins to the insatiate main; With piles and piers the ruffian waves engage, And bid indignant Ocean stay his rage. 'Where, girt with clouds, the rifted mountain yawns, And chills with length of shade the gelid lawns, 107 Climb the rude steeps, the granite-cliffs surround, Pierce with steel points, with wooden wedges wound; Break into clays the soft volcanic slaggs, Or melt with acid airs the marble craggs; Crown the green summits with adventurous flocks, And charm with novel flowers the wondering rocks. -So when proud Rome the Afric Warrior braved, And high on Alps his crimson banner waved; While rocks on rocks their beetling brows oppose With piny forests, and unfathomed snows; Onward he march'd, to Latium's velvet ground With fires and acids burst the obdurate bound, Wide o'er her weeping vales destruction hurl'd, And shook the rising empire of the world. X. 'Go, gentle GNOMES! resume your vernal toil, Seek my chill tribes, which sleep beneath the soil; On grey-moss banks, green meads, or furrow'd lands Spread the dark mould, white lime, and crumbling sands; Each bursting bud with healthier juices feed, Emerging scion, or awaken'd seed. So, in descending streams, the silver Chyle Streaks with white clouds the golden floods of bile; Through each nice valve the mingling currents glide, Join their fine rills, and swell the sanguine tide; Each countless cell, and viewless fibre seek, Nerve the strong arm, and tinge the blushing cheek. 'Oh, watch, where bosom'd in the teeming earth, Green swells the germ, impatient for its birth; Guard from rapacious worms its tender shoots, And drive the mining beetle from its roots; With ceaseless efforts rend the obdurate clay, And give my vegetable babes to day! -Thus when an Angel-form, in light array'd, Like HOWARD pierced the prison's noisome shade; Where chain'd to earth, with eyes to heaven upturn'd, The kneeling Saint in holy anguish mourn'd;Ray'd from his lucid vest, and halo'd brow O'er the dark roof celestial lustres glow, 'PETER, arise!' with cheering voice He calls, And sounds seraphic echo round the walls; Locks, bolts, and chains his potent touch obey, 108 And pleased he leads the dazzled Sage to day. XI. 'YOU! whose fine fingers fill the organic cells, With virgin earth, of woods and bones and shells; Mould with retractile glue their spongy beds, And stretch and strengthen all their fibre-threads.Late when the mass obeys its changeful doom, And sinks to earth, its cradle and its tomb, GNOMES! with nice eye the slow solution watch, With fostering hand the parting atoms catch, Join in new forms, combine with life and sense, And guide and guard the transmigrating Ens. 'So when on Lebanon's sequester'd hight The fair ADONIS left the realms of light, Bow'd his bright locks, and, fated from his birth To change eternal, mingled with the earth;With darker horror shook the conscious wood, Groan'd the sad gales, and rivers blush'd with blood; On cypress-boughs the Loves their quivers hung, Their arrows scatter'd, and their bows unstrung; And BEAUTY'S GODDESS, bending o'er his bier, Breathed the soft sigh, and pour'd the tender tear.Admiring PROSERPINE through dusky glades Led the fair phantom to Elysian shades, Clad with new form, with finer sense combined, And lit with purer flame the ethereal mind. -Erewhile, emerging from infernal night, The bright Assurgent rises into light, Leaves the drear chambers of the insatiate tomb, And shines and charms with renovated bloom.While wondering Loves the bursting grave surround, And edge with meeting wings the yawning ground, Stretch their fair necks, and leaning o'er the brink View the pale regions of the dead, and shrink; Long with broad eyes ecstatic BEAUTY stands, Heaves her white bosom, spreads her waxen hands; Then with loud shriek the panting Youth alarms, 'My Life! my Love!' and springs into his arms.' The GODDESS ceased,-the delegated throng O'er the wide plains delighted rush along; In dusky squadrons, and in shining groups, Hosts follow hosts, and troops succeed to troops; 109 Scarce bears the bending grass the moving freight, And nodding florets bow beneath their weight. So when light clouds on airy pinions sail, Flit the soft shadows o'er the waving vale; Shade follows shade, as laughing Zephyrs drive, And all the chequer'd landscape seems alive. ~ Erasmus Darwin,

908:The Last Tournament Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his mood Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round, At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods, Danced like a withered leaf before the hall. And toward him from the hall, with harp in hand, And from the crown thereof a carcanet Of ruby swaying to and fro, the prize Of Tristram in the jousts of yesterday, Came Tristram, saying, `Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?' For Arthur and Sir Lancelot riding once Far down beneath a winding wall of rock Heard a child wail. A stump of oak half-dead, From roots like some black coil of carven snakes, Clutched at the crag, and started through mid air Bearing an eagle's nest: and through the tree Rushed ever a rainy wind, and through the wind Pierced ever a child's cry: and crag and tree Scaling, Sir Lancelot from the perilous nest, This ruby necklace thrice around her neck, And all unscarred from beak or talon, brought A maiden babe; which Arthur pitying took, Then gave it to his Queen to rear: the Queen But coldly acquiescing, in her white arms Received, and after loved it tenderly, And named it Nestling; so forgot herself A moment, and her cares; till that young life Being smitten in mid heaven with mortal cold Past from her; and in time the carcanet Vext her with plaintive memories of the child: So she, delivering it to Arthur, said, `Take thou the jewels of this dead innocence, And make them, an thou wilt, a tourney-prize.' To whom the King, `Peace to thine eagle-borne Dead nestling, and this honour after death, Following thy will! but, O my Queen, I muse Why ye not wear on arm, or neck, or zone Those diamonds that I rescued from the tarn, 631 And Lancelot won, methought, for thee to wear.' `Would rather you had let them fall,' she cried, `Plunge and be lost-ill-fated as they were, A bitterness to me!-ye look amazed, Not knowing they were lost as soon as givenSlid from my hands, when I was leaning out Above the river-that unhappy child Past in her barge: but rosier luck will go With these rich jewels, seeing that they came Not from the skeleton of a brother-slayer, But the sweet body of a maiden babe. Perchance-who knows?-the purest of thy knights May win them for the purest of my maids.' She ended, and the cry of a great jousts With trumpet-blowings ran on all the ways From Camelot in among the faded fields To furthest towers; and everywhere the knights Armed for a day of glory before the King. But on the hither side of that loud morn Into the hall staggered, his visage ribbed From ear to ear with dogwhip-weals, his nose Bridge-broken, one eye out, and one hand off, And one with shattered fingers dangling lame, A churl, to whom indignantly the King, `My churl, for whom Christ died, what evil beast Hath drawn his claws athwart thy face? or fiend? Man was it who marred heaven's image in thee thus?' Then, sputtering through the hedge of splintered teeth, Yet strangers to the tongue, and with blunt stump Pitch-blackened sawing the air, said the maimed churl, `He took them and he drave them to his towerSome hold he was a table-knight of thineA hundred goodly ones-the Red Knight, heLord, I was tending swine, and the Red Knight Brake in upon me and drave them to his tower; And when I called upon thy name as one 632 That doest right by gentle and by churl, Maimed me and mauled, and would outright have slain, Save that he sware me to a message, saying, 'Tell thou the King and all his liars, that I Have founded my Round Table in the North, And whatsoever his own knights have sworn My knights have sworn the counter to it-and say My tower is full of harlots, like his court, But mine are worthier, seeing they profess To be none other than themselves-and say My knights are all adulterers like his own, But mine are truer, seeing they profess To be none other; and say his hour is come, The heathen are upon him, his long lance Broken, and his Excalibur a straw.'' Then Arthur turned to Kay the seneschal, `Take thou my churl, and tend him curiously Like a king's heir, till all his hurts be whole. The heathen-but that ever-climbing wave, Hurled back again so often in empty foam, Hath lain for years at rest-and renegades, Thieves, bandits, leavings of confusion, whom The wholesome realm is purged of otherwhere, Friends, through your manhood and your fealty,-now Make their last head like Satan in the North. My younger knights, new-made, in whom your flower Waits to be solid fruit of golden deeds, Move with me toward their quelling, which achieved, The loneliest ways are safe from shore to shore. But thou, Sir Lancelot, sitting in my place Enchaired tomorrow, arbitrate the field; For wherefore shouldst thou care to mingle with it, Only to yield my Queen her own again? Speak, Lancelot, thou art silent: is it well?' Thereto Sir Lancelot answered, `It is well: Yet better if the King abide, and leave The leading of his younger knights to me. Else, for the King has willed it, it is well.' Then Arthur rose and Lancelot followed him, 633 And while they stood without the doors, the King Turned to him saying, `Is it then so well? Or mine the blame that oft I seem as he Of whom was written, 'A sound is in his ears'? The foot that loiters, bidden go,-the glance That only seems half-loyal to command,A manner somewhat fallen from reverenceOr have I dreamed the bearing of our knights Tells of a manhood ever less and lower? Or whence the fear lest this my realm, upreared, By noble deeds at one with noble vows, From flat confusion and brute violences, Reel back into the beast, and be no more?' He spoke, and taking all his younger knights, Down the slope city rode, and sharply turned North by the gate. In her high bower the Queen, Working a tapestry, lifted up her head, Watched her lord pass, and knew not that she sighed. Then ran across her memory the strange rhyme Of bygone Merlin, `Where is he who knows? From the great deep to the great deep he goes.' But when the morning of a tournament, By these in earnest those in mockery called The Tournament of the Dead Innocence, Brake with a wet wind blowing, Lancelot, Round whose sick head all night, like birds of prey, The words of Arthur flying shrieked, arose, And down a streetway hung with folds of pure White samite, and by fountains running wine, Where children sat in white with cups of gold, Moved to the lists, and there, with slow sad steps Ascending, filled his double-dragoned chair. He glanced and saw the stately galleries, Dame, damsel, each through worship of their Queen White-robed in honour of the stainless child, And some with scattered jewels, like a bank Of maiden snow mingled with sparks of fire. He looked but once, and vailed his eyes again. 634 The sudden trumpet sounded as in a dream To ears but half-awaked, then one low roll Of Autumn thunder, and the jousts began: And ever the wind blew, and yellowing leaf And gloom and gleam, and shower and shorn plume Went down it. Sighing weariedly, as one Who sits and gazes on a faded fire, When all the goodlier guests are past away, Sat their great umpire, looking o'er the lists. He saw the laws that ruled the tournament Broken, but spake not; once, a knight cast down Before his throne of arbitration cursed The dead babe and the follies of the King; And once the laces of a helmet cracked, And showed him, like a vermin in its hole, Modred, a narrow face: anon he heard The voice that billowed round the barriers roar An ocean-sounding welcome to one knight, But newly-entered, taller than the rest, And armoured all in forest green, whereon There tript a hundred tiny silver deer, And wearing but a holly-spray for crest, With ever-scattering berries, and on shield A spear, a harp, a bugle-Tristram-late From overseas in Brittany returned, And marriage with a princess of that realm, Isolt the White-Sir Tristram of the WoodsWhom Lancelot knew, had held sometime with pain His own against him, and now yearned to shake The burthen off his heart in one full shock With Tristram even to death: his strong hands gript And dinted the gilt dragons right and left, Until he groaned for wrath-so many of those, That ware their ladies' colours on the casque, Drew from before Sir Tristram to the bounds, And there with gibes and flickering mockeries Stood, while he muttered, `Craven crests! O shame! What faith have these in whom they sware to love? The glory of our Round Table is no more.' So Tristram won, and Lancelot gave, the gems, Not speaking other word than `Hast thou won? 635 Art thou the purest, brother? See, the hand Wherewith thou takest this, is red!' to whom Tristram, half plagued by Lancelot's languorous mood, Made answer, `Ay, but wherefore toss me this Like a dry bone cast to some hungry hound? Lest be thy fair Queen's fantasy. Strength of heart And might of limb, but mainly use and skill, Are winners in this pastime of our King. My hand-belike the lance hath dript upon itNo blood of mine, I trow; but O chief knight, Right arm of Arthur in the battlefield, Great brother, thou nor I have made the world; Be happy in thy fair Queen as I in mine.' And Tristram round the gallery made his horse Caracole; then bowed his homage, bluntly saying, `Fair damsels, each to him who worships each Sole Queen of Beauty and of love, behold This day my Queen of Beauty is not here.' And most of these were mute, some angered, one Murmuring, `All courtesy is dead,' and one, `The glory of our Round Table is no more.' Then fell thick rain, plume droopt and mantle clung, And pettish cries awoke, and the wan day Went glooming down in wet and weariness: But under her black brows a swarthy one Laughed shrilly, crying, `Praise the patient saints, Our one white day of Innocence hath past, Though somewhat draggled at the skirt. So be it. The snowdrop only, flowering through the year, Would make the world as blank as Winter-tide. Come-let us gladden their sad eyes, our Queen's And Lancelot's, at this night's solemnity With all the kindlier colours of the field.' So dame and damsel glittered at the feast Variously gay: for he that tells the tale Likened them, saying, as when an hour of cold Falls on the mountain in midsummer snows, And all the purple slopes of mountain flowers Pass under white, till the warm hour returns 636 With veer of wind, and all are flowers again; So dame and damsel cast the simple white, And glowing in all colours, the live grass, Rose-campion, bluebell, kingcup, poppy, glanced About the revels, and with mirth so loud Beyond all use, that, half-amazed, the Queen, And wroth at Tristram and the lawless jousts, Brake up their sports, then slowly to her bower Parted, and in her bosom pain was lord. And little Dagonet on the morrow morn, High over all the yellowing Autumn-tide, Danced like a withered leaf before the hall. Then Tristram saying, `Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?' Wheeled round on either heel, Dagonet replied, `Belike for lack of wiser company; Or being fool, and seeing too much wit Makes the world rotten, why, belike I skip To know myself the wisest knight of all.' `Ay, fool,' said Tristram, `but 'tis eating dry To dance without a catch, a roundelay To dance to.' Then he twangled on his harp, And while he twangled little Dagonet stood Quiet as any water-sodden log Stayed in the wandering warble of a brook; But when the twangling ended, skipt again; And being asked, `Why skipt ye not, Sir Fool?' Made answer, `I had liefer twenty years Skip to the broken music of my brains Than any broken music thou canst make.' Then Tristram, waiting for the quip to come, `Good now, what music have I broken, fool?' And little Dagonet, skipping, `Arthur, the King's; For when thou playest that air with Queen Isolt, Thou makest broken music with thy bride, Her daintier namesake down in BrittanyAnd so thou breakest Arthur's music too.' `Save for that broken music in thy brains, Sir Fool,' said Tristram, `I would break thy head. Fool, I came too late, the heathen wars were o'er, The life had flown, we sware but by the shellI am but a fool to reason with a fool- 637 Come, thou art crabbed and sour: but lean me down, Sir Dagonet, one of thy long asses' ears, And harken if my music be not true. `'Free love-free field-we love but while we may: The woods are hushed, their music is no more: The leaf is dead, the yearning past away: New leaf, new life-the days of frost are o'er: New life, new love, to suit the newer day: New loves are sweet as those that went before: Free love-free field-we love but while we may.' `Ye might have moved slow-measure to my tune, Not stood stockstill. I made it in the woods, And heard it ring as true as tested gold.' But Dagonet with one foot poised in his hand, `Friend, did ye mark that fountain yesterday Made to run wine?-but this had run itself All out like a long life to a sour endAnd them that round it sat with golden cups To hand the wine to whosoever cameThe twelve small damosels white as Innocence, In honour of poor Innocence the babe, Who left the gems which Innocence the Queen Lent to the King, and Innocence the King Gave for a prize-and one of those white slips Handed her cup and piped, the pretty one, 'Drink, drink, Sir Fool,' and thereupon I drank, Spat-pish-the cup was gold, the draught was mud.' And Tristram, `Was it muddier than thy gibes? Is all the laughter gone dead out of thee?Not marking how the knighthood mock thee, fool'Fear God: honour the King-his one true knightSole follower of the vows'-for here be they Who knew thee swine enow before I came, Smuttier than blasted grain: but when the King Had made thee fool, thy vanity so shot up It frighted all free fool from out thy heart; Which left thee less than fool, and less than swine, A naked aught-yet swine I hold thee still, 638 For I have flung thee pearls and find thee swine.' And little Dagonet mincing with his feet, `Knight, an ye fling those rubies round my neck In lieu of hers, I'll hold thou hast some touch Of music, since I care not for thy pearls. Swine? I have wallowed, I have washed-the world Is flesh and shadow-I have had my day. The dirty nurse, Experience, in her kind Hath fouled me-an I wallowed, then I washedI have had my day and my philosophiesAnd thank the Lord I am King Arthur's fool. Swine, say ye? swine, goats, asses, rams and geese Trooped round a Paynim harper once, who thrummed On such a wire as musically as thou Some such fine song-but never a king's fool.' And Tristram, `Then were swine, goats, asses, geese The wiser fools, seeing thy Paynim bard Had such a mastery of his mystery That he could harp his wife up out of hell.' Then Dagonet, turning on the ball of his foot, `And whither harp'st thou thine? down! and thyself Down! and two more: a helpful harper thou, That harpest downward! Dost thou know the star We call the harp of Arthur up in heaven?' And Tristram, `Ay, Sir Fool, for when our King Was victor wellnigh day by day, the knights, Glorying in each new glory, set his name High on all hills, and in the signs of heaven.' And Dagonet answered, `Ay, and when the land Was freed, and the Queen false, ye set yourself To babble about him, all to show your witAnd whether he were King by courtesy, Or King by right-and so went harping down The black king's highway, got so far, and grew So witty that ye played at ducks and drakes With Arthur's vows on the great lake of fire. Tuwhoo! do ye see it? do ye see the star?' 639 `Nay, fool,' said Tristram, `not in open day.' And Dagonet, `Nay, nor will: I see it and hear. It makes a silent music up in heaven, And I, and Arthur and the angels hear, And then we skip.' `Lo, fool,' he said, `ye talk Fool's treason: is the King thy brother fool?' Then little Dagonet clapt his hands and shrilled, `Ay, ay, my brother fool, the king of fools! Conceits himself as God that he can make Figs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milk From burning spurge, honey from hornet-combs, And men from beasts-Long live the king of fools!' And down the city Dagonet danced away; But through the slowly-mellowing avenues And solitary passes of the wood Rode Tristram toward Lyonnesse and the west. Before him fled the face of Queen Isolt With ruby-circled neck, but evermore Past, as a rustle or twitter in the wood Made dull his inner, keen his outer eye For all that walked, or crept, or perched, or flew. Anon the face, as, when a gust hath blown, Unruffling waters re-collect the shape Of one that in them sees himself, returned; But at the slot or fewmets of a deer, Or even a fallen feather, vanished again. So on for all that day from lawn to lawn Through many a league-long bower he rode. At length A lodge of intertwisted beechen-boughs Furze-crammed, and bracken-rooft, the which himself Built for a summer day with Queen Isolt Against a shower, dark in the golden grove Appearing, sent his fancy back to where She lived a moon in that low lodge with him: Till Mark her lord had past, the Cornish King, With six or seven, when Tristram was away, And snatched her thence; yet dreading worse than shame Her warrior Tristram, spake not any word, But bode his hour, devising wretchedness. 640 And now that desert lodge to Tristram lookt So sweet, that halting, in he past, and sank Down on a drift of foliage random-blown; But could not rest for musing how to smoothe And sleek his marriage over to the Queen. Perchance in lone Tintagil far from all The tonguesters of the court she had not heard. But then what folly had sent him overseas After she left him lonely here? a name? Was it the name of one in Brittany, Isolt, the daughter of the King? `Isolt Of the white hands' they called her: the sweet name Allured him first, and then the maid herself, Who served him well with those white hands of hers, And loved him well, until himself had thought He loved her also, wedded easily, But left her all as easily, and returned. The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes Had drawn him home-what marvel? then he laid His brows upon the drifted leaf and dreamed. He seemed to pace the strand of Brittany Between Isolt of Britain and his bride, And showed them both the ruby-chain, and both Began to struggle for it, till his Queen Graspt it so hard, that all her hand was red. Then cried the Breton, `Look, her hand is red! These be no rubies, this is frozen blood, And melts within her hand-her hand is hot With ill desires, but this I gave thee, look, Is all as cool and white as any flower.' Followed a rush of eagle's wings, and then A whimpering of the spirit of the child, Because the twain had spoiled her carcanet. He dreamed; but Arthur with a hundred spears Rode far, till o'er the illimitable reed, And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle, The wide-winged sunset of the misty marsh Glared on a huge machicolated tower That stood with open doors, whereout was rolled 641 A roar of riot, as from men secure Amid their marshes, ruffians at their ease Among their harlot-brides, an evil song. `Lo there,' said one of Arthur's youth, for there, High on a grim dead tree before the tower, A goodly brother of the Table Round Swung by the neck: and on the boughs a shield Showing a shower of blood in a field noir, And therebeside a horn, inflamed the knights At that dishonour done the gilded spur, Till each would clash the shield, and blow the horn. But Arthur waved them back. Alone he rode. Then at the dry harsh roar of the great horn, That sent the face of all the marsh aloft An ever upward-rushing storm and cloud Of shriek and plume, the Red Knight heard, and all, Even to tipmost lance and topmost helm, In blood-red armour sallying, howled to the King, `The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnash thee flat!Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted King Who fain had clipt free manhood from the worldThe woman-worshipper? Yea, God's curse, and I! Slain was the brother of my paramour By a knight of thine, and I that heard her whine And snivel, being eunuch-hearted too, Sware by the scorpion-worm that twists in hell, And stings itself to everlasting death, To hang whatever knight of thine I fought And tumbled. Art thou King? -Look to thy life!' He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the face Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the name Went wandering somewhere darkling in his mind. And Arthur deigned not use of word or sword, But let the drunkard, as he stretched from horse To strike him, overbalancing his bulk, Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave, Heard in dead night along that table-shore, Drops flat, and after the great waters break Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves, 642 Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud, From less and less to nothing; thus he fell Head-heavy; then the knights, who watched him, roared And shouted and leapt down upon the fallen; There trampled out his face from being known, And sank his head in mire, and slimed themselves: Nor heard the King for their own cries, but sprang Through open doors, and swording right and left Men, women, on their sodden faces, hurled The tables over and the wines, and slew Till all the rafters rang with woman-yells, And all the pavement streamed with massacre: Then, echoing yell with yell, they fired the tower, Which half that autumn night, like the live North, Red-pulsing up through Alioth and Alcor, Made all above it, and a hundred meres About it, as the water Moab saw Came round by the East, and out beyond them flushed The long low dune, and lazy-plunging sea. So all the ways were safe from shore to shore, But in the heart of Arthur pain was lord. Then, out of Tristram waking, the red dream Fled with a shout, and that low lodge returned, Mid-forest, and the wind among the boughs. He whistled his good warhorse left to graze Among the forest greens, vaulted upon him, And rode beneath an ever-showering leaf, Till one lone woman, weeping near a cross, Stayed him. `Why weep ye?' `Lord,' she said, `my man Hath left me or is dead;' whereon he thought`What, if she hate me now? I would not this. What, if she love me still? I would not that. I know not what I would'-but said to her, `Yet weep not thou, lest, if thy mate return, He find thy favour changed and love thee not'Then pressing day by day through Lyonnesse Last in a roky hollow, belling, heard The hounds of Mark, and felt the goodly hounds Yelp at his heart, but turning, past and gained Tintagil, half in sea, and high on land, 643 A crown of towers. Down in a casement sat, A low sea-sunset glorying round her hair And glossy-throated grace, Isolt the Queen. And when she heard the feet of Tristram grind The spiring stone that scaled about her tower, Flushed, started, met him at the doors, and there Belted his body with her white embrace, Crying aloud, `Not Mark-not Mark, my soul! The footstep fluttered me at first: not he: Catlike through his own castle steals my Mark, But warrior-wise thou stridest through his halls Who hates thee, as I him-even to the death. My soul, I felt my hatred for my Mark Quicken within me, and knew that thou wert nigh.' To whom Sir Tristram smiling, `I am here. Let be thy Mark, seeing he is not thine.' And drawing somewhat backward she replied, `Can he be wronged who is not even his own, But save for dread of thee had beaten me, Scratched, bitten, blinded, marred me somehow-Mark? What rights are his that dare not strike for them? Not lift a hand-not, though he found me thus! But harken! have ye met him? hence he went Today for three days' hunting-as he saidAnd so returns belike within an hour. Mark's way, my soul!-but eat not thou with Mark, Because he hates thee even more than fears; Nor drink: and when thou passest any wood Close vizor, lest an arrow from the bush Should leave me all alone with Mark and hell. My God, the measure of my hate for Mark Is as the measure of my love for thee.' So, plucked one way by hate and one by love, Drained of her force, again she sat, and spake To Tristram, as he knelt before her, saying, `O hunter, and O blower of the horn, Harper, and thou hast been a rover too, For, ere I mated with my shambling king, 644 Ye twain had fallen out about the bride Of one-his name is out of me-the prize, If prize she were-(what marvel-she could see)Thine, friend; and ever since my craven seeks To wreck thee villainously: but, O Sir Knight, What dame or damsel have ye kneeled to last?' And Tristram, `Last to my Queen Paramount, Here now to my Queen Paramount of love And loveliness-ay, lovelier than when first Her light feet fell on our rough Lyonnesse, Sailing from Ireland.' Softly laughed Isolt; `Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen My dole of beauty trebled?' and he said, `Her beauty is her beauty, and thine thine, And thine is more to me-soft, gracious, kindSave when thy Mark is kindled on thy lips Most gracious; but she, haughty, even to him, Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow To make one doubt if ever the great Queen Have yielded him her love.' To whom Isolt, `Ah then, false hunter and false harper, thou Who brakest through the scruple of my bond, Calling me thy white hind, and saying to me That Guinevere had sinned against the highest, And I-misyoked with such a want of manThat I could hardly sin against the lowest.' He answered, `O my soul, be comforted! If this be sweet, to sin in leading-strings, If here be comfort, and if ours be sin, Crowned warrant had we for the crowning sin That made us happy: but how ye greet me-fear And fault and doubt-no word of that fond taleThy deep heart-yearnings, thy sweet memories Of Tristram in that year he was away.' And, saddening on the sudden, spake Isolt, 645 `I had forgotten all in my strong joy To see thee-yearnings?-ay! for, hour by hour, Here in the never-ended afternoon, O sweeter than all memories of thee, Deeper than any yearnings after thee Seemed those far-rolling, westward-smiling seas, Watched from this tower. Isolt of Britain dashed Before Isolt of Brittany on the strand, Would that have chilled her bride-kiss? Wedded her? Fought in her father's battles? wounded there? The King was all fulfilled with gratefulness, And she, my namesake of the hands, that healed Thy hurt and heart with unguent and caressWell-can I wish her any huger wrong Than having known thee? her too hast thou left To pine and waste in those sweet memories. O were I not my Mark's, by whom all men Are noble, I should hate thee more than love.' And Tristram, fondling her light hands, replied, `Grace, Queen, for being loved: she loved me well. Did I love her? the name at least I loved. Isolt?-I fought his battles, for Isolt! The night was dark; the true star set. Isolt! The name was ruler of the dark-Isolt? Care not for her! patient, and prayerful, meek, Pale-blooded, she will yield herself to God.' And Isolt answered, `Yea, and why not I? Mine is the larger need, who am not meek, Pale-blooded, prayerful. Let me tell thee now. Here one black, mute midsummer night I sat, Lonely, but musing on thee, wondering where, Murmuring a light song I had heard thee sing, And once or twice I spake thy name aloud. Then flashed a levin-brand; and near me stood, In fuming sulphur blue and green, a fiendMark's way to steal behind one in the darkFor there was Mark: 'He has wedded her,' he said, Not said, but hissed it: then this crown of towers So shook to such a roar of all the sky, That here in utter dark I swooned away, 646 And woke again in utter dark, and cried, 'I will flee hence and give myself to God'And thou wert lying in thy new leman's arms.' Then Tristram, ever dallying with her hand, `May God be with thee, sweet, when old and gray, And past desire!' a saying that angered her. `'May God be with thee, sweet, when thou art old, And sweet no more to me!' I need Him now. For when had Lancelot uttered aught so gross Even to the swineherd's malkin in the mast? The greater man, the greater courtesy. Far other was the Tristram, Arthur's knight! But thou, through ever harrying thy wild beastsSave that to touch a harp, tilt with a lance Becomes thee well-art grown wild beast thyself. How darest thou, if lover, push me even In fancy from thy side, and set me far In the gray distance, half a life away, Her to be loved no more? Unsay it, unswear! Flatter me rather, seeing me so weak, Broken with Mark and hate and solitude, Thy marriage and mine own, that I should suck Lies like sweet wines: lie to me: I believe. Will ye not lie? not swear, as there ye kneel, And solemnly as when ye sware to him, The man of men, our King-My God, the power Was once in vows when men believed the King! They lied not then, who sware, and through their vows The King prevailing made his realm:-I say, Swear to me thou wilt love me even when old, Gray-haired, and past desire, and in despair.' Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down, `Vows! did you keep the vow you made to Mark More than I mine? Lied, say ye? Nay, but learnt, The vow that binds too strictly snaps itselfMy knighthood taught me this-ay, being snaptWe run more counter to the soul thereof Than had we never sworn. I swear no more. I swore to the great King, and am forsworn. For once-even to the height-I honoured him. 647 'Man, is he man at all?' methought, when first I rode from our rough Lyonnesse, and beheld That victor of the Pagan throned in hallHis hair, a sun that rayed from off a brow Like hillsnow high in heaven, the steel-blue eyes, The golden beard that clothed his lips with lightMoreover, that weird legend of his birth, With Merlin's mystic babble about his end Amazed me; then, his foot was on a stool Shaped as a dragon; he seemed to me no man, But Micha l trampling Satan; so I sware, Being amazed: but this went by- The vows! O ay-the wholesome madness of an hourThey served their use, their time; for every knight Believed himself a greater than himself, And every follower eyed him as a God; Till he, being lifted up beyond himself, Did mightier deeds than elsewise he had done, And so the realm was made; but then their vowsFirst mainly through that sullying of our QueenBegan to gall the knighthood, asking whence Had Arthur right to bind them to himself? Dropt down from heaven? washed up from out the deep? They failed to trace him through the flesh and blood Of our old kings: whence then? a doubtful lord To bind them by inviolable vows, Which flesh and blood perforce would violate: For feel this arm of mine-the tide within Red with free chase and heather-scented air, Pulsing full man; can Arthur make me pure As any maiden child? lock up my tongue From uttering freely what I freely hear? Bind me to one? The wide world laughs at it. And worldling of the world am I, and know The ptarmigan that whitens ere his hour Woos his own end; we are not angels here Nor shall be: vows-I am woodman of the woods, And hear the garnet-headed yaffingale Mock them: my soul, we love but while we may; And therefore is my love so large for thee, Seeing it is not bounded save by love.' 648 Here ending, he moved toward her, and she said, `Good: an I turned away my love for thee To some one thrice as courteous as thyselfFor courtesy wins woman all as well As valour may, but he that closes both Is perfect, he is Lancelot-taller indeed, Rosier and comelier, thou-but say I loved This knightliest of all knights, and cast thee back Thine own small saw, 'We love but while we may,' Well then, what answer?' He that while she spake, Mindful of what he brought to adorn her with, The jewels, had let one finger lightly touch The warm white apple of her throat, replied, `Press this a little closer, sweet, untilCome, I am hungered and half-angered-meat, Wine, wine-and I will love thee to the death, And out beyond into the dream to come.' So then, when both were brought to full accord, She rose, and set before him all he willed; And after these had comforted the blood With meats and wines, and satiated their heartsNow talking of their woodland paradise, The deer, the dews, the fern, the founts, the lawns; Now mocking at the much ungainliness, And craven shifts, and long crane legs of MarkThen Tristram laughing caught the harp, and sang: `Ay, ay, O ay-the winds that bend the brier! A star in heaven, a star within the mere! Ay, ay, O ay-a star was my desire, And one was far apart, and one was near: Ay, ay, O ay-the winds that bow the grass! And one was water and one star was fire, And one will ever shine and one will pass. Ay, ay, O ay-the winds that move the mere.' Then in the light's last glimmer Tristram showed And swung the ruby carcanet. She cried, `The collar of some Order, which our King 649 Hath newly founded, all for thee, my soul, For thee, to yield thee grace beyond thy peers.' `Not so, my Queen,' he said, `but the red fruit Grown on a magic oak-tree in mid-heaven, And won by Tristram as a tourney-prize, And hither brought by Tristram for his last Love-offering and peace-offering unto thee.' He spoke, he turned, then, flinging round her neck, Claspt it, and cried, `Thine Order, O my Queen!' But, while he bowed to kiss the jewelled throat, Out of the dark, just as the lips had touched, Behind him rose a shadow and a shriek`Mark's way,' said Mark, and clove him through the brain. That night came Arthur home, and while he climbed, All in a death-dumb autumn-dripping gloom, The stairway to the hall, and looked and saw The great Queen's bower was dark,-about his feet A voice clung sobbing till he questioned it, `What art thou?' and the voice about his feet Sent up an answer, sobbing, `I am thy fool, And I shall never make thee smile again.' ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

909:Idylls Of The King: The Last Tournament (Excerpt) Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his mood Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round, At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods, Danced like a wither'd leaf before the hall. And toward him from the hall, with harp in hand, And from the crown thereof a carcanet Of ruby swaying to and fro, the prize Of Tristram in the jousts of yesterday, Came Tristram, saying, "Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?" For Arthur and Sir Lancelot riding once Far down beneath a winding wall of rock Heard a child wail. A stump of oak half-dead. From roots like some black coil of carven snakes, Clutch'd at the crag, and started thro' mid air Bearing an eagle's nest: and thro' the tree Rush'd ever a rainy wind, and thro' the wind Pierced ever a child's cry: and crag and tree Scaling, Sir Lancelot from the perilous nest, This ruby necklace thrice around her neck, And all unscarr'd from beak or talon, brought A maiden babe; which Arthur pitying took, Then gave it to his Queen to rear: the Queen But coldly acquiescing, in her white arms Received, and after loved it tenderly, And named it Nestling; so forgot herself A moment, and her cares; till that young life Being smitten in mid heaven with mortal cold Past from her; and in time the carcanet Vext her with plaintive memories of the child: So she, delivering it to Arthur, said, "Take thou the jewels of this dead innocence, And make them, an thou wilt, a tourney-prize." To whom the King, "Peace to thine eagle-borne Dead nestling, and this honour after death, Following thy will! but, O my Queen, I muse Why ye not wear on arm, or neck, or zone Those diamonds that I rescued from the tarn, 197 And Lancelot won, methought, for thee to wear." "Would rather you had let them fall," she cried, "Plunge and be lost--ill-fated as they were, A bitterness to me!--ye look amazed, Not knowing they were lost as soon as given-Slid from my hands, when I was leaning out Above the river--that unhappy child Past in her barge: but rosier luck will go With these rich jewels, seeing that they came Not from the skeleton of a brother-slayer, But the sweet body of a maiden babe. Perchance--who knows?--the purest of thy knights May win them for the purest of my maids." She ended, and the cry of a great jousts With trumpet-blowings ran on all the ways From Camelot in among the faded fields To furthest towers; and everywhere the knights Arm'd for a day of glory before the King. But on the hither side of that loud morn Into the hall stagger'd, his visage ribb'd From ear to ear with dogwhip-weals, his nose Bridge-broken, one eye out, and one hand off, And one with shatter'd fingers dangling lame, A churl, to whom indignantly the King, "My churl, for whom Christ died, what evil beast Hath drawn his claws athwart thy face? or fiend? Man was it who marr'd heaven's image in thee thus?" Then, sputtering thro' the hedge of splinter'd teeth, Yet strangers to the tongue, and with blunt stump Pitch-blacken'd sawing the air, said the maim'd churl, "He took them and he drave them to his tower-Some hold he was a table-knight of thine-A hundred goodly ones--the Red Knight, he-Lord, I was tending swine, and the Red Knight Brake in upon me and drave them to his tower; And when I cal'd upon thy name as one 198 That doest right by gentle and by churl, Maim'd me and maul'd, and would outright have slain, Save that he aware me to a message, saying, 'Tell thou the King and all his liars, that I Have founded my Round Table in the North, And whatsoever his own knights have sworn My knights have sworn the counter to it--and say My tower is full of harlots, like his court, But mine are worthier, seeing they profess To be none other than themselves--and say My knights are all adulterers like his own, But mine are truer, seeing they profess To be none other; and say his hour is come, The heathen are upon him, his long lance Broken, and his Excalibur a straw.' " Then Arthur turn'd to Kay the seneschal, "Take thou my churl, and tend him curiously Like a king's heir, till all his hurts be whole. The heathen--but that ever-climbing wave, Hurl'd back again so often in empty foam, Hath lain for years at rest--and renegades, Thieves, bandits, leavings of confusion, whom The wholesome realm is purged of otherwhere, Friends, thro' your manhood and your fealty,--now Make their last head like Satan in the North. My younger knights, new-made, in whom your flower Waits to be solid fruit of golden deeds, Move with me toward their quelling, which achieved, The loneliest ways are safe from shore to shore. But thou, Sir Lancelot, sitting in my place Enchair'd to-morrow, arbitrate the field; For wherefore shouldst thou care to mingle with it Only to yield my Queen her own again? Speak, Lancelot, thou art silent: is it well?" Thereto Sir Lancelot answer'd, "It is well: Yet better if the King abide, and leave The leading of his younger knights to me. Else, for the King has will'd it, it is well." 199 Then Arthur rose and Lancelot follow'd him, And while they stood without the doors, the King Turn'd to him saying, "Is it then so well? Or mine the blame that oft I seem as he Of whom was written, 'A sound is in his ears'? The foot that loiters, bidden go,--the glance That only seems half-loyal to command,-A manner somewhat fall'n from reverence-Or have I dream'd the bearing of our knights Tells of a manhood ever less and lower? Or whence the fear lest this my realm, uprear'd, By noble deeds at one with noble vows, From flat confusion and brute violence,s Reel back into the beast, and be no more?" He spoke, and taking all his younger knights, Down the slope city rode, and sharply turn'd North by the gate. In her high bower the Queen, Working a tapestry, lifted up her head, Watch'd her lord pass, and knew not that she sigh'd. Then ran across her memory the strange rhyme Of bygone Merlin, "Where is he who knows? From the great deep to the great deep he goes." But when the morning of a tournament, By these in earnest those in mockery call'd The Tournament of the Dead Innocence, Brake with a wet wind blowing, Lancelot, Round whose sick head all night, like birds of prey, The words of Arthur flying shriek'd, arose, And down a streetway hung with folds of pure White samite, and by fountains running wine, Where children sat in white with cups of gold, Moved to the lists, and there, with slow sad steps Ascending, fill'd his double-dragon'd chair. He glanced and saw the stately galleries, Dame, damsel, each thro' worship of their Queen 200 White-robed in honour of the stainless child, And some with scatter'd jewels, like a bank Of maiden snow mingled with sparks of fire. He look'd but once, and vail'd his eyes again. The sudden trumpet sounded as in a dream To ears but half-awaked, then one low roll Of Autumn thunder, and the jousts began: And ever the wind blew, and yellowing leaf And gloom and gleam, and shower and shorn plume Went down it. Sighing weariedly, as one Who sits and gazes on a faded fire, When all the goodlier guests are past away, Sat their great umpire, looking o'er the lists. He saw the laws that ruled the tournament Broken, but spake not; once, a knight cast down Before his throne of arbitration cursed The dead babe and the follies of the King; And once the laces of a helmet crack'd, And show'd him, like a vermin in its hole, Modred, a narrow face: anon he heard The voice that billow'd round the barriers roar An ocean-sounding welcome to one knight, But newly-enter'd, taller than the rest, And armour'd all in forest green, whereon There tript a hundred tiny silver deer, And wearing but a holly-spray for crest, With ever-scattering berries, and on shield A spear, a harp, a bugle--Tristram--late From overseas in Brittany return'd, And marriage with a princess of that realm, Isolt the White--Sir Tristram of the Woods-Whom Lancelot knew, had held sometime with pain His own against him, and now yearn'd to shake The burthen off his heart in one full shock With Tristram ev'n to death: his strong hands gript And dinted the gilt dragons right and left, Until he groan'd for wrath--so many of those, That ware their ladies' colours on the casque, Drew from before Sir Tristram to the bounds, And there with gibes and flickering mockeries 201 Stood, while he mutter'd, "Craven crests! O shame! What faith have these in whom they sware to love? The glory of our Round Table is no more." So Tristram won, and Lancelot gave, the gems, Not speaking other word than "Hast thou won? Art thou the purest, brother? See, the hand Wherewith thou takest this, is red!" to whom Tristram, half plagued by Lancelot's languorous mood, Made answer, "Ay, but wherefore toss me this Like a dry bone cast to some hungry hound? Let be thy fair Queen's fantasy. Strength of heart And might of limb, but mainly use and skill, Are winners in this pastime of our King. My hand--belike the lance hath dript upon it-No blood of mine, I trow; but O chief knight, Right arm of Arthur in the battlefield, Great brother, thou nor I have made the world; Be happy in thy fair Queen as I in mine." And Tristram round the gallery made his horse Caracole; then bow'd his homage, bluntly saying, "Fair damsels, each to him who worships each Sole Queen of Beauty and of love, behold This day my Queen of Beauty is not here." And most of these were mute, some anger'd, one Murmuring, "All courtesy is dead," and one "The glory of our Round Table is no more." Then fell thick rain, plume droopt and mantle clung, And pettish cries awoke, and the wan day Went glooming down in wet and weariness: But under her black brows a swarthy one Laugh'd shrilly, crying, "Praise the patient saints, Our one white day of Innocence hath past, Tho' somewhat draggled at the skirt. So be it. The snowdrop only, flowering thro' the year, Would make the world as blank as Winter-tide. Come--let us gladden their sad eyes, our Queen's 202 And Lancelot's, at this night's solemnity With all the kindlier colours of the field." So dame and damsel glitter'd at the feast Variously gay: for he that tells the tale Liken'd them, saying, as when an hour of cold Falls on the mountain in midsummer snows, And all the purple slopes of mountain flowers Pass under white, till the warm hour returns With veer of wind, and all are flowers again; So dame and damsel cast the simple white, And glowing in all colours, the live grass, Rose-campion, bluebell, kingcup, poppy, glanced About the revels, and with mirth so loud Beyond all use, that, half-amazed, the Queen, And wroth at Tristram and the lawless jousts, Brake up their sports, then slowly to her bower Parted, and in her bosom pain was lord. And little Dagonet on the morrow morn, High over all the yellowing Autumn-tide, Danced like a wither'd leaf before the hall. Then Tristram saying, "Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?" Wheel'd round on either heel, Dagonet replied, "Belike for lack of wiser company; Or being fool, and seeing too much wit Makes the world rotten, why, belike I skip To know myself the wisest knight of all." "Ay, fool," said Tristram, "but 'tis eating dry To dance without a catch, a roundelay To dance to." Then he twangled on his harp, And while he twangled little Dagonet stood Quiet as any water-sodden log Stay'd in the wandering warble of a brook; But when the twangling ended, skipt again; And being ask'd, "Why skipt ye not, Sir Fool?" Made answer, "I had liefer twenty years Skip to the broken music of my brains Than any broken music thou canst make." Then Tristram, waiting for the quip to come, 203 "Good now, what music have I broken, fool?" And little Dagonet, skipping, "Arthur, the King's; For when thou playest that air with Queen Isolt, Thou makest broken music with thy bride, Her daintier namesake down in Brittany-And so thou breakest Arthur's music, too." "Save for that broken music in thy brains, Sir Fool," said Tristram, "I would break thy head. Fool, I came late, the heathen wars were o'er, The life had flown, we sware but by the shell-I am but a fool to reason with a fool-Come, thou art crabb'd and sour: but lean me down, Sir Dagonet, one of thy long asses' ears, And harken if my music be not true. "`Free love--free field--we love but while we may: The woods are hush'd, their music is no more: The leaf is dead, the yearning past away: New leaf, new life--the days of frost are o'er: New life, new love, to suit the newer day: New loves are sweet as those that went before: Free love--free field--we love but while we may.' "Ye might have moved slow-measure to my tune, Not stood stockstill. I made it in the woods, And heard it ring as true as tested gold." But Dagonet with one foot poised in his hand, "Friend, did ye mark that fountain yesterday Made to run wine?--but this had run itself All out like a long life to a sour end-And them that round it sat with golden cups To hand the wine to whosoever came-The twelve small damosels white as Innocence, In honour of poor Innocence the babe, Who left the gems which Innocence the Queen Lent to the King, and Innocence the King Gave for a prize--and one of those white slips Handed her cup and piped, the pretty one, 204 'Drink, drink, Sir Fool,' and thereupon I drank, Spat--pish--the cup was gold, the draught was mud." And Tristram, "Was it muddier than thy gibes? Is all the laughter gone dead out of thee?-Not marking how the knighthood mock thee, fool-'Fear God: honour the King--his one true knight-Sole follower of the vows'--for here be they Who knew thee swine enow before I came, Smuttier than blasted grain: but when the King Had made thee fool, thy vanity so shot up It frighted all free fool from out thy heart; Which left thee less than fool, and less than swine, A naked aught--yet swine I hold thee still, For I have flung thee pearls and find thee swine." And little Dagonet mincing with his feet, "Knight, an ye fling those rubies round my neck In lieu of hers, I'll hold thou hast some touch Of music, since I care not for thy pearls. Swine? I have wallow'd, I have wash'd--the world Is flesh and shadow--I have had my day. The dirty nurse, Experience, in her kind Hath foul'd me--an I wallow'd, then I wash'd-I have had my day and my philosophies-And thank the Lord I am King Arthur's fool. Swine, say ye? swine, goats, asses, rams and geese Troop'd round a Paynim harper once, who thrumm'd On such a wire as musically as thou Some such fine song--but never a king's fool." And Tristram, "Then were swine, goats, asses, geese The wiser fools, seeing thy Paynim bard Had such a mastery of his mystery That he could harp his wife up out of hell." Then Dagonet, turning on the ball of his foot, "And whither harp'st thou thine? down! and thyself 205 Down! and two more: a helpful harper thou, That harpest downward! dost thou know the star We call the harp of Arthur up in heaven?" And Tristram, "Ay, Sir Fool, for when our King Was victor wellnigh day by day, the knights, Glorying in each new glory, set his name High on all hills, and in the signs of heaven." And Dagonet answer'd, "Ay, and when the land Was freed, and the Queen false, ye set yourself To babble about him, all to show your wit-And whether he were King by courtesy, Or King by right--and so went harping down The black king's highway, got so far, and grew So witty that we play'd at ducks and drakes With Arthur's vows on the great lake of fire. Tuwhoo! do ye see it? do ye see the star?" "Nay, fool," said Tristram, "not in open day." And Dagonet, "Nay, nor will: I see it and hear. It makes a silent music up in heaven, And I, and Arthur and the angels hear, And then we skip." "Lo, fool," he said, "ye talk Fool's treason: is the King thy brother fool?" Then little Dagonet clapt his hands and shrill'd, "Ay, ay, my brother fool, the king of fools! Conceits himself as God that he can make Figs out of thistles, silk from bristles, milk From burning spurge, honey from hornet-combs And men from beasts--Long live the king of fools!" And down the city Dagonet danced away; But thro' the slowly-mellowing avenues And solitary passes of the wood Rode Tristram toward Lyonnesse and the west. Before him fled the face of Queen Isolt With ruby-circled neck, but evermore 206 Past, as a rustle or twitter in the wood Made dull his inner, keen his outer eye For all that walk'd, or crept, or perch'd, or flew. Anon the face, as, when a gust hath blown, Unruffling waters re-collect the shape Of one that in them sees himself, return'd; But at the slot or fewmets of a deer, Or ev'n a fall'n feather, vanish'd again. So on for all that day from lawn to lawn Thro' many a league-long bower he rode. At length A lodge of intertwisted beechen-boughs Furze-cramm'd, and bracken-rooft, the which himself Built for a summer day with Queen Isolt Against a shower, dark in the golden grove Appearing, sent his fancy back to where She lived a moon in that low lodge with him: Till Mark her lord had past, the Cornish King, With six or seven, when Tristram was away, And snatch'd her thence; yet dreading worse than shame Her warrior Tristram, spake not any word, But bode his hour, devising wretchedness. And now that desert lodge to Tristram lookt So sweet, that halting, in he past, and sank Down on a drift of foliage random-blown; But could not rest for musing how to smoothe And sleek his marriage over to the Queen. Perchance in lone Tintagil far from all The tonguesters of the court she had not heard. But then what folly had sent him overseas After she left him lonely here? a name? Was it the name of one in Brittany, Isolt, the daughter of the King? "Isolt Of the white hands" they call'd her: the sweet name Allured him first, and then the maid herself, Who served him well with those white hands of hers, And loved him well, until himself had thought He loved her also, wedded easily, But left her all as easily, and return'd. 207 The black-blue Irish hair and Irish eyes Had drawn him home--what marvel? then he laid His brows upon the drifted leaf and dream'd. He seem'd to pace the strand of Brittany Between Isolt of Britain and his bride, And show'd them both the ruby-chain, and both Began to struggle for it, till his Queen Graspt it so hard, that all her hand was red. Then cried the Breton, "Look, her hand is red! These be no rubies, this is frozen blood, And melts within her hand--her hand is hot With ill desires, but this I gave thee, look, Is all as cool and white as any flower." Follow'd a rush of eagle's wings, and then A whimpering of the spirit of the child, Because the twain had spoil'd her carcanet. He dream'd; but Arthur with a hundred spears Rode far, till o'er the illimitable reed, And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle, The wide-wing'd sunset of the misty marsh Glared on a huge machicolated tower That stood with open doors, where out was roll'd A roar of riot, as from men secure Amid their marshes, ruffians at their ease Among their harlot-brides, an evil song. "Lo there," said one of Arthur's youth, for there, High on a grim dead tree before the tower, A goodly brother of the Table Round Swung by the neck: and on the boughs a shield Showing a shower of blood in a field noir, And therebeside a horn, inflamed the knights At that dishonour done the gilded spur, Till each would clash the shield, and blow the horn. But Arthur waved them back. Alone he rode. Then at the dry harsh roar of the great horn, That sent the face of all the marsh aloft An ever upward-rushing storm and cloud Of shriek and plume, the Red Knight heard, and all, 208 Even to tipmost lance and topmost helm In blood-red armour sallying, howl'd to the King, "The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnash thee flat! Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted King Who fain had clipt free manhood from the world-The woman-worshipper? Yea, God's curse, and I! Slain was the brother of my paramour By a knight of thine, and I that heard her whine And snivel, being eunuch-hearted too, Sware by the scorpion-worm that twists in hell, And stings itself to everlasting death, To hang whatever knight of thine I fought And tumbled. Art thou King?--Look to thy life!" He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the face Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the name Went wandering somewhere darkling in his mind. And Arthur deign'd not use of word or sword, But let the drunkard, as he stretch'd from horse To strike him, overbalancing his bulk, Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave, Heard in dead night along that table-shore, Drops flat, and after the great waters break Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves, Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud, From less and less to nothing; thus he fell Head-heavy; then the knights, who watch'd him, roar'd And shouted and leapt down upon the fall'n; There trampled out his face from being known, And sank his head in mire, and slimed themselves: Nor heard the King for their own cries, but sprang Thro' open doors, and swording right and left Men, women, on their sodden faces, hurl'd The tables over and the wines, and slew Till all the rafters rang with woman-yells, And all the pavement stream'd with massacre: Then, echoing yell with yell, they fired the tower, Which half that autumn night, like the live North, 209 Red-pulsing up thro' Alioth and Alcor, Made all above it, and a hundred meres About it, as the water Moab saw Come round by the East, and out beyond them flush'd The long low dune, and lazy-plunging sea. So all the ways were safe from shore to shore, But in the heart of Arthur pain was lord. Then, out of Tristram waking, the red dream Fled with a shout, and that low lodge return'd, Mid-forest, and the wind among the boughs. He whistled his good warhorse left to graze Among the forest greens, vaulted upon him, And rode beneath an ever-showering leaf, Till one lone woman, weeping near a cross, Stay'd him. "Why weep ye?" "Lord," she said, "my man Hath left me or is dead"; whereon he thought-"What, if she hate me now? I would not this. What, if she love me still? I would not that. I know not what I would"--but said to her, "Yet weep not thou, lest, if thy mate return, He find thy favour changed and love thee not"-Then pressing day by day thro' Lyonnesse Last in a roky hollow, belling, heard The hounds of Mark, and felt the goodly hounds Yelp at his heart, but turning, past and gain'd Tintagil, half in sea, and high on land, A crown of towers. Down in a casement sat, A low sea-sunset glorying round her hair And glossy-throated grace, Isolt the Queen. And when she heard the feet of Tristram grind The spiring stone that scaled about her tower, Flush'd, started, met him at the doors, and there Belted his body with her white embrace, Crying aloud, "Not Mark--not Mark, my soul! The footstep flutter'd me at first: not he: Catlike thro' his own castle steals my Mark, But warrior-wise thou stridest thro' his halls Who hates thee, as I him--ev'n to the death. 210 My soul, I felt my hatred for my Mark Quicken within me, and knew that thou wert nigh." To whom Sir Tristram smiling, "I am here. Let be thy Mark, seeing he is not thine." And drawing somewhat backward she replied, "Can he be wrong'd who is not ev'n his own, But save for dread of thee had beaten me, Scratch'd, bitten, blinded, marr'd me somehow--Mark? What rights are his that dare not strike for them? Not lift a hand--not, tho' he found me thus! But harken! have ye met him? hence he went To-day for three days' hunting--as he said-And so returns belike within an hour. Mark's way, my soul!--but eat not thou with Mark, Because he hates thee even more than fears; Nor drink: and when thou passest any wood Close vizor, lest an arrow from the bush Should leave me all alone with Mark and hell. My God, the measure of my hate for Mark Is as the measure of my love for thee.'' So, pluck'd one way by hate and one by love, Drain'd of her force, again she sat, and spake To Tristram, as he knelt before her, saying, "O hunter, and O blower of the horn, Harper, and thou hast been a rover too, For, ere I mated with my shambling king, Ye twain had fallen out about the bride Of one--his name is out of me--the prize, If prize she were--(what marvel--she could see) Thine, friend; and ever since my craven seeks To wreck thee villainously: but, O Sir Knight, What dame or damsel have ye kneel'd to last?" And Tristram, "Last to my Queen Paramount, Here now to my Queen Paramount of love And loveliness--ay, lovelier than when first Her light feet fell on our rough Lyonnesse, 211 Sailing from Ireland." Softly laugh'd Isolt; "Flatter me not, for hath not our great Queen My dole of beauty trebled?" and he said, "Her beauty is her beauty, and thine thine, And thine is more to me--soft, gracious, kind-Save when thy Mark is kindled on thy lips Most gracious; but she, haughty ev'n to him, Lancelot; for I have seen him wan enow To make one doubt if ever the great Queen Have yielded him her love." To whom Isolt, "Ah then, false hunter and false harper, thou Who brakest thro' the scruple of my bond, Calling me thy white hind, and saying to me That Guinevere had sinn'd against the highest, And I--misyoked with such a want of man-That I could hardly sin against the lowest." He answer'd, "O my soul, be comforted! If this be sweet, to sin in leading-strings, If here be comfort, and if ours be sin, Crown'd warrant had we for the crowning sin That made us happy: but how ye greet me--fear And fault and doubt--no word of that fond tale-Thy deep heart-yearnings, thy sweet memories Of Tristram in that year he was away." And, saddening on the sudden, spake Isolt, "I had forgotten all in my strong joy To see thee--yearnings?--ay! for, hour by hour, Here in the never-ended afternoon, O sweeter than all memories of thee, Deeper than any yearnings after thee Seem'd those far-rolling, westward-smiling seas, Watch'd from this tower. Isolt of Britain dash'd Before Isolt of Brittany on the strand, Would that have chill'd her bride-kiss? Wedded her? Fought in her father's battles? wounded there? 212 The King was all fulfill'd with gratefulness, And she, my namesake of the hands, that heal'd Thy hurt and heart with unguent and caress-Well--can I wish her any huger wrong Than having known thee? her too hast thou left To pine and waste in those sweet memories. O were I not my Mark's, by whom all men Are noble, I should hate thee more than love." And Tristram, fondling her light hands, replied, "Grace, Queen, for being loved: she loved me well. Did I love her? the name at least I loved. Isolt?--I fought his battles, for Isolt! The night was dark; the true star set. Isolt! The name was ruler of the dark--Isolt? Care not for her! patient, and prayerful, meek, Pale-blooded, she will yield herself to God." And Isolt answer'd, "Yea, and why not I? Mine is the larger need, who am not meek, Pale-blooded, prayerful. Let me tell thee now. Here one black, mute midsummer night I sat, Lonely, but musing on thee, wondering where, Murmuring a light song I had heard thee sing, And once or twice I spake thy name aloud. Then flash'd a levin-brand; and near me stood, In fuming sulphur blue and green, a fiend-Mark's way to steal behind one in the dark-For there was Mark: 'He has wedded her,' he said, Not said, but hiss'd it: then this crown of towers So shook to such a roar of all the sky, That here in utter dark I swoon'd away, And woke again in utter dark, and cried, 'I will flee hence and give myself to God'-And thou wert lying in thy new leman's arms." Then Tristram, ever dallying with her hand, "May God be with thee, sweet, when old and gray, And past desire!" a saying that anger'd her.' 213 "`May God be with thee, sweet, when thou art old, And sweet no more to me!' I need Him now. For when had Lancelot utter'd aught so gross Ev'n to the swineherd's malkin in the mast? The greater man, the greater courtesy. Far other was the Tristram, Arthur's knight! But thou, thro' ever harrying thy wild beasts-Save that to touch a harp, tilt with a lance Becomes thee well--art grown wild beast thyself. How darest thou, if lover, push me even In fancy from thy side, and set me far In the gray distance, half a life away, Her to be loved no more? Unsay it, unswear! Flatter me rather, seeing me so weak, Broken with Mark and hate and solitude, Thy marriage and mine own, that I should suck Lies like sweet wines: lie to me: I believe. Will ye not lie? not swear, as there ye kneel, And solemnly as when ye sware to him The man of men, our King--My God, the power Was once in vows when men believed the King! They lied not then, who sware, and thro' their vows The King prevailing made his realm:--I say, Swear to me thou wilt love me ev'n when old, Gray-hair'd, and past desire, and in despair." Then Tristram, pacing moodily up and down, "Vows! did you keep the vow you made to Mark More than I mine? Lied, say ye? Nay, but learnt, The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself-My knighthood taught me this--ay, being snapt-We run more counter to the soul thereof Than had we never sworn. I swear no more. I swore to the great King, and am forsworn. For once--ev'n to the height--I honour'd him. 'Man, is he man at all?' methought, when first I rode from our rough Lyonnesse, and beheld That victor of the Pagan throned in hall-His hair, a sun that ray'd from off a brow Like hillsnow high in heaven, the steel-blue eyes, The golden beard that clothed his lips with light-- 214 Moreover, that weird legend of his birth, With Merlin's mystic babble about his end Amazed me; then his foot was on a stool Shaped as a dragon; he seem'd to me no man, But Michaël trampling Satan; so I sware, Being amazed: but this went by--The vows! O ay--the wholesome madness of an hour-They served their use, their time; for every knight Believed himself a greater than himself, And every follower eyed him as a God; Till he, being lifted up beyond himself, Did mightier deeds than elsewise he had done, And so the realm was made; but then their vows-First mainly thro' that sullying of our Queen-Began to gall the knighthood, asking whence Had Arthur right to bind them to himself? Dropt down from heaven? wash'd up from out the deep? They fail'd to trace him thro' the flesh and blood Of our old kings: whence then? a doubtful lord To bind them by inviolable vows, Which flesh and blood perforce would violate: For feel this arm of mine--the tide within Red with free chase and heather-scented air, Pulsing full man; can Arthur make me pure As any maiden child? lock up my tongue From uttering freely what I freely hear? Bind me to one? The wide world laughs at it. And worldling of the world am I, and know The ptarmigan that whitens ere his hour Woos his own end; we are not angels here Nor shall be: vows--I am woodman of the woods, And hear the garnet-headed yaffingale Mock them: my soul, we love but while we may; And therefore is my love so large for thee, Seeing it is not bounded save by love." Here ending, he moved toward her, and she said, "Good: an I turn'd away my love for thee To some one thrice as courteous as thyself-For courtesy wins woman all as well As valour may, but he that closes both 215 Is perfect, he is Lancelot--taller indeed, Rosier and comelier, thou--but say I loved This knightliest of all knights, and cast thee back Thine own small saw, 'We love but while we may,' Well then, what answer?" He that while she spake, Mindful of what he brought to adorn her with, The jewels, had let one finger lightly touch The warm white apple of her throat, replied, "Press this a little closer, sweet, until-Come, I am hunger'd and half-anger'd--meat, Wine, wine--and I will love thee to the death, And out beyond into the dream to come." So then, when both were brought to full accord, She rose, and set before him all he will'd; And after these had comforted the blood With meats and wines, and satiated their hearts-Now talking of their woodland paradise, The deer, the dews, the fern, the founts, the lawns; Now mocking at the much ungainliness, And craven shifts, and long crane legs of Mark-Then Tristram laughing caught the harp, and sang: "Ay, ay, O ay--the winds that bend the brier! A star in heaven, a star within the mere! Ay, ay, O ay--a star was my desire, And one was far apart, and one was near: Ay, ay, O ay--the winds that bow the grass! And one was water and one star was fire, And one will ever shine and one will pass. Ay, ay, O ay--the winds that move the mere." Then in the light's last glimmer Tristram show'd And swung the ruby carcanet. She cried, "The collar of some Order, which our King Hath newly founded, all for thee, my soul, For thee, to yield thee grace beyond thy peers." 216 "Not so, my Queen," he said, "but the red fruit Grown on a magic oak-tree in mid-heaven, And won by Tristram as a tourney-prize, And hither brought by Tristram for his last Love-offering and peace-offering unto thee." He spoke, he turn'd, then, flinging round her neck, Claspt it, and cried "Thine Order, O my Queen!" But, while he bow'd to kiss the jewell'd throat, Out of the dark, just as the lips had touch'd, Behind him rose a shadow and a shriek-"Mark's way," said Mark, and clove him thro' the brain. That night came Arthur home, and while he climb'd, All in a death-dumb autumn-dripping gloom, The stairway to the hall, and look'd and saw The great Queen's bower was dark,--about his feet A voice clung sobbing till he question'd it, "What art thou?" and the voice about his feet Sent up an answer, sobbing, "I am thy fool, And I shall never make thee smile again." ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

910: Ahana Ahana (Ahana, the Dawn of God, descends on the world where amid the strife and trouble of mortality the Hunters of Joy, the Seekers after Knowledge, the Climbers in the quest of Power are toiling up the slopes or waiting in the valleys. As she stands on the mountains of the East, voices of the Hunters of Joy are the first to greet her.) Vision delightful alone on the hills whom the silences cover, Closer yet lean to mortality; human, stoop to thy lover. Wonderful, gold like a moon in the square of the sun where thou strayest Glimmers thy face amid crystal purities; mighty thou playest Sole on the peaks of the world, unafraid of thy loneliness. Glances Leap from thee down to us, dream-seas and light-falls and magical trances; Sun-drops flake from thy eyes and the heart's caverns packed are with pleasure Strange like a song without words or the dance of a measureless measure. Tread through the edges of dawn, over twilight's grey-lidded margin; Heal earth's unease with thy feet, O heaven-born delicate virgin. Children of Time whose spirits came down from eternity, seizing Joys that escape us, yoked by our hearts to a labour unceasing, Earth-bound, torn with our longings, our life is a brief incompleteness. Thou hast the stars to sport with, the winds run like bees to thy sweetness. Art thou not heaven-bound even as I with the earth? Hast thou ended All desirable things in a stillness lone and unfriended? Only is calm so sweet? is our close tranquillity only? Cold are the rivers of peace and their banks are leafless and lonely. Heavy is godhead to bear with its mighty sun-burden of lustre. Art thou not weary of only the stars in their solemn muster, Sky-hung the chill bare plateaus and peaks where the eagle rejoices In the inhuman height of his nesting, solitude's voices Making the heart of the silence lonelier? strong and untiring, Deaf with the cry of the waterfall, lonely the pine lives aspiring. Two are the ends of existence, two are the dreams of the Mother: 478 Pondicherry, c. 1910 - 1920 Heaven unchanging, earth with her time-beats yearn to each other, - Earth-souls needing the touch of the heavens peace to recapture, Heaven needing earth's passion to quiver its peace into rapture. Marry, O lightning eternal, the passion of a moment-born fire! Out of thy greatness draw close to the breast of our mortal desire! Is he thy master, Rudra the mighty, Shiva ascetic? Has he denied thee his world? In his dance that they tell of, ecstatic, Slaying, creating, calm in the midst of the movement and madness, Stole there no rhythm of an earthly joy and a mortal sadness? Wast thou not made in the shape of a woman? Sweetness and beauty Move like a song of the gods in thy limbs and to love is thy duty Graved in thy heart as on tablets of fate; joy's delicate blossom Sleeps in thy lids of delight; all Nature hides in thy bosom Claiming her children unborn and the food of her love and her laughter. Is he the first? was there none then before him? shall none come after? He who denies and his blows beat down on our hearts like a hammer's, He whose calm is the silent reply to our passion and clamours! Is not there deity greater here new-born in a noble Labour and sorrow and struggle than stilled into rapture immobile? Earth has beatitudes warmer than heaven's that are bare and undying, Marvels of Time on the crest of the moments to Infinity flying. Earth has her godheads; the Tritons sway on the toss of the billows, Emerald locks of the Nereids stream on their foam-crested pillows, Dryads peer out from the branches, Naiads glance up from the waters; High are her flame-points of joy and the gods are ensnared by her daughters. Artemis calls as she flees through the glades and the breezes pursue her; Cypris laughs in her isles where the ocean-winds linger to woo her. Here thou shalt meet amid beauty forgotten the dance of the Graces; Night shall be haunted for ever with strange and delicate faces. Music is here of the fife and the flute and the lyre and the timbal, Wind in the forests, bees in the grove, - spring's ardent cymbal Thrilling, the cry of the cuckoo; the nightingale sings in the branches, Human laughter is heard and the cattle low in the ranches. Frankly and sweetly she gives to her children the bliss of her body, Breath of her lips and the green of her garments, rain-pourings heady Tossed from her cloud-carried beaker of tempest, oceans and streamlets, Dawn and the mountain-air, corn-fields and vineyards, pastures and hamlets, Ahana 479 Tangles of sunbeams asleep, mooned dream-depths, twilight's shadows, Taste and scent and the fruits of her trees and the flowers of her meadows, Life with her wine-cup of longing under the purple of her tenture, Death as her gate of escape and rebirth and renewal of venture. Still must they mutter that all here is vision and passing appearance, Magic of Maya with falsehood and pain for its only inherence. One is there only, apart in his greatness, the End and Beginning, - He who has sent through his soul's wide spaces the universe spinning. One eternal, Time an illusion, life a brief error! One eternal, Master of heaven - and of hell and its terror! Spirit of silence and purity rapt and aloof from creation, - Dreaming through aeons unreal his splendid and empty formation! Spirit all-wise in omnipotence shaping a world but to break it, - Pushed by what mood of a moment, the breath of what fancy to make it? None is there great but the eternal and lonely, the unique and unmated, Bliss lives alone with the self-pure, the single, the forever-uncreated. Truths? or thought's structures bridging the vacancy mute and unsounded Facing the soul when it turns from the stress of the figures around it? Solely we see here a world self-made by some indwelling Glory Building with forms and events its strange and magnificent story. Yet at the last has not all been solved and unwisdom demolished, Myth cast out and all dreams of the soul, and all worship abolished? All now is changed, the reverse of the coin has been shown to us; Reason Waking, detecting the hoax of the spirit, at last has arisen, Captured the Truth and built round her its bars that she may not skedaddle, Gallop again with the bit in her teeth and with Fancy in the saddle. Now have the wise men discovered that all is the craft of a superMagic of Chance and a movement of Void and inconscient Stupor. Chance by a wonderful accident ever her ripples expanding Out of a gaseous circle of Nothingness, implacably extending Freak upon freak, repeating rigidly marvels on marvels, Making a world out of Nothing, started on the arc of her travels. Nothingness born into feeling and action dies back to Nothing. Sea of a vague electricity, romping through space-curves and clothing Strangely the Void with a semblance of Matter, painfully flowered Into this giant phenomenon universe. Man who has towered Out of the plasm and struggled by thought to Divinity's level, 480 Pondicherry, c. 1910 - 1920 Man, this miniature second creator of good and of evil, He too was only a compost of Matter made living, organic, Forged as her thinking tool by an Energy blind and mechanic. Once by an accident queer but quite natural, provable, simple, Out of blind Space-Nought lashed into life, wearing Mind as its wimple, Dupe of a figment of consciousness, doped with behaviour and feature, Matter deluded claimed to be spirit and sentient creature. All the high dreams man has dreamed and his hopes and his deeds, his soul's greatness Are but a food-seeking animal's acts with the mind for their witness, - Mind a machine for the flickers of thought, Matter's logic unpremissed, - Are but a singular fireworks, chemistry lacking the chemist, Matter's nervous display; the heart's passion, the sorrow and burning Fire of delight and sweet ecstasy, love and its fathomless yearning, Boundless spiritual impulses making us one with world-being, Outbursts of vision opening doors to a limitless seeing, Gases and glands and the genes and the nerves and the brain-cells have done it, Brooded out drama and epic, structured the climb of the sonnet, Studied the stars and discovered the brain and the laws of its thinking, Sculptured the cave-temple, reared the cathedral, infinity drinking Wrought manufacturing God and the soul for the uplift of Nature, - Science, philosophy, head of his mystical chemical stature, Music and painting revealing the godhead in sound and in colour, Acts of the hero, thoughts of the thinker, search of the scholar, All the magnificent planning, all the inquiry and wonder Only a trick of the atom, its marvellous magical blunder. Who can believe it? Something or someone, a Force or a Spirit Conscious, creative, wonderful shaped out a world to inherit Here for the beings born from its vast universal existence, - Fields of surprise and adventure, vistas of light-haunted distance, Play-routes of wisdom and vision and struggle and rapture and sorrow, Sailing in Time through the straits of today to the sea of tomorrow. Worlds and their wonders, suns and their flamings, earth and her nations, Voyages endless of Mind through the surge of its fate-tossed creations, Star upon star throbbing out in the silence of infinite spaces, Species on species, bodies on bodies, faces on faces, Ahana 481 Souls without number crossing through Time towards eternity, aeons Crowding on aeons, loving and battle, dirges and paeans, Thoughts ever leaping, hopes ever yearning, lives ever streaming, Millions and millions on trek through the days with their doings and dreaming, Herds of the Sun who move on at the cry of the radiant drover, - Countless, surviving the death of the centuries, lost to recover, Finished, but only to begin again, who is its tireless creator, Cause or the force of its driving, its thinker or formless dictator? Surely no senseless Vacancy made it, surely 'twas fashioned By an almighty One million-ecstasied, thousand-passioned. Self-made? then by what self from which thought could arise and emotion, Waves that well up to the surface, born from what mysteried ocean? Nature alone is the fountain. But what is she? Is she not only Figure and name for what none understands, though all feel, or a lonely Word in which all finds expression, spirit-heights, dumb work of Matter, - Vague designation filling the gaps of our thought with its clatter? Power without vision that blunders in man into thinking and sinning? Rigid, too vast inexhaustible mystery void of a meaning? Energy blindly devising, unconsciously ranging in order? Chance in the march of a cosmic Insanity crossing the border Out of the eternal silence to thought and its strangeness and splendour? Consciousness born by an accident until an accident end her? Nought else is she but the power of the Spirit who dwells in her ever, Witness and cause of her workings, lord of her pauseless endeavour. All things she knows, though she seems here unseeing; even in her slumber Wondrous her works are, design and its magic and magic of number, Plan of her mighty cosmic geometry, balance of forces, Universe flung beyond universe, law of the stars and their courses, Cosmos atomic stretched to the scale of the Infinite's measure. Mute in the trance of the Eternal she sleeps with the stone and the azure. Now she awakes; for life has just stirred in her, stretching first blindly Outward for sense and its pleasure and pain and the gifts of the kindly Mother of all, for her light and her air and the sap from her flowing, Pleasure of bloom and inconscient beauty, pleasure of growing. Then into mind she arises; heart's yearning awakes and reflection Looks out on struggle and harmony, - conscious, her will of selection 482 Pondicherry, c. 1910 - 1920 Studies her works and illumines the choice of her way; last, slowly Inward she turns and stares at the Spirit within her. Holy Silences brood in her heart and she feels in her ardent recesses Passions too great for her frame, on her body immortal caresses. Into the calm of the Greatness beyond her she enters, burning Now with a light beyond thought's, towards Self and Infinity turning, Turned to beatitude, turned to eternity, spiritual grandeur, Power without limit, ecstasy imperishable, shadowless splendour. Then to her mortals come, flashing, thoughts that are wisdom's fire-kernel; Leaping her flame-sweeps of might and delight and of vision supernal Kindle the word and the act, the Divine and humanity fusing, Illuminations, trance-seeds of silence, flowers of musing, - Light of our being that yet has to be, its glory and glimmer Smiting with sunrise the soul of the sage and the heart of the dreamer. Or is it all but a vain expectation and effort ungrounded, Wings without body, sight without object, waters unsounded, Hue of a shimmer that steals through some secret celestial portal, Glory of a gleam or a dream in an animal brief-lived and mortal? Are they not radiances native to heaven's more fortunate ether, Won when we part from this body, this temporal house of a nether Mystery of life lived in vain? Upon earth is the glory forbidden, Nature for ever accursed, frustrated, grief-vexed, fate-ridden? Half of the glory she dreamed of forgotten or lost in earth's darkness, Half of it mangled and missed as the death-wheels whirl in their starkness, Cast out from heaven a goddess rebellious with mind for her mirror, Cursed with desire and self-will and doomed to self-torture and error, Came she to birth then with God for her enemy? Were we created He unwilling or sleeping? did someone transgress the fated Limits he set, outwitting God? In the too hasty vision Marred of some demiurge filmed there the blur of a fatal misprision, Making a world that revolves on itself in a circuit of failure, Aeons of striving, death for a recompense, Time for our tenure? Out of him rather she came and for him are her cry and her labour; Deep are her roots in him; topless she climbs, to his greatness a neighbour. All is himself in her, brooding in darkness, mounting the sun-ways; Air-flight to him is man's journey with heaven and earth for the runways. He is the witness and doer, he is the loved and the lover, Ahana 483 He the eternal Truth that we look in ourselves to discover. All is his travel in Time; it is he who turns history's pages, Act and event and result are the trail that he leaves through the ages; Form and idea are his signs and number and sound are his symbols, Music and singing, the word and its rhythm are Divinity's cymbals, Thunder and surge are the drums of his marching. Through us, with urges Self-ward, form-bound, mute, motionless, slowly inevitably emerges Vast as the cosmos, minute as the atom, the Spirit eternal. Often the gusts of his force illumining moments diurnal Flame into speech and idea; transcendences splendid and subtle Suddenly shoot through the weft of our lives from a magical shuttle; Hid in our hearts is his glory; the Spirit works in our members. Silence is he, with our voices he speaks, in our thoughts he remembers. Deep in our being inhabits the voiceless invisible Teacher; Powers of his godhead we live; the Creator dwells in the creature. Out of his Void we arise to a mighty and shining existence, Out of Inconscience, tearing the black Mask's giant resistance; Waves of his consciousness well from him into these bodies in Nature, Forms are put round him; his oneness, divided by mind's nomenclature, High on the summits of being ponders immobile and single, Penetrates atom and cell as the tide drenches sand-grain and shingle. Oneness unknown to us dwells in these millions of figures and faces, Wars with itself in our battles, loves in our clinging embraces, Inly the self and the substance of things and their cause and their mover Veiled in the depths which the foam of our thoughts and our life's billows cover, Heaves like the sea in its waves; like heaven with its star-fires it gazes Watching the world and its works. Interned in the finite's mazes, Still shall he rise to his vast superconscience, we with him climbing; Truth of man's thought with the truth of God's spirit faultlessly timing, That which was mortal shall enter immortality's golden precincts, Hushed breath of ecstasy, honey of lotus depths where the bee sinks, Timeless expanses too still for the voice of the hours to inveigle, Spaces of spirit too vast for the flight of the God-bearing eagle, - Enter the Splendour that broods now unseen on us, deity invading, Sight without error, light without shadow, beauty unfading, Infinite largeness, rapture eternal, love none can sever, 484 Pondicherry, c. 1910 - 1920 Life, not this death-play, but a power God-driven and blissful for ever. "No," cry the wise, "for a circle was traced, there was pyloned a limit Only we escape through dream's thin passages. None can disclaim it; All things created are made by their borders, sketched out and coded; Vain is the passion to divinise manhood, humanise godhead. None can exceed himself; even to find oneself hard for our search is: Only we see as in night by a lustre of flickering torches. To be content with our measure, our space is the law of our living. All of thyself to thy manhood and Nature and Circumstance giving, Be what thou must be or be what thou canst be, one hour in an era. Knowing the truth of thy days, shun the light of ideal and chimera: Curb heart's impatience, bind thy desires down, pause from self-vexing." Who is the nomad then? who is the seeker, the gambler risking All for a dream in a dream, the old and the sure and the stable Flung as a stake for a prize that was never yet laid on the table? Always the world is expanding and growing from minute to minute; Playing the march of the adventure of Time with our lives for her spinet Maya or Nature, the wonderful Mother, strikes out surprising Strains of the spirit disprisoned; creation heavenward rising Wrestles with Time and Space and the Unknown to give form to the Formless. Bliss is her goal, but her road is through whirlwind and death-blast and storm-race. All is a wager and danger, all is a chase and a battle. Vainly man, crouched in his corner of safety, shrinks from the fatal Lure of the Infinite. Guided by Powers that surround and precede us Fearful and faltering steps are our perishing efforts that lead us On through the rooms of the finite till open the limitless spaces And we can look into all-seeing eyes and imperishable faces. But we must pass through the aeons; Space is a bar twixt our ankles, Time is a weight that we drag and the scar of the centuries rankles: Caught by the moments, held back from the spirit's timelessness, slowly Wading in shallows we take not the sea-plunge vastly and wholly. Hard is the way to the Eternal for the mind-born will of the mortal Bound by the body and life to the gait of the house-burdened turtle. Here in this world that knows not its morrow, this reason that stumbles Onward from error to truth and from truth back to error while crumbles All that it fashioned, after the passion and travail are ended, Ahana 485 After the sacrifice offered when the will and the strength are expended, Nothing is done but to have laid down one stone of a road without issue, Added our quota of evil and good to an ambiguous tissue. Destiny's lasso, its slip-knot tied by delight and repining, Draws us through tangles of failure and victory's inextricable twining. In the hard reckoning made by the grey-robed accountant at even Pain is the ransom we pay for the smallest foretaste of heaven. Ignorance darkens, death and inconscience gape to absorb us; Thick and persistent the Night confronts us, its hunger enormous Swallowing our work and our lives. Our love and our knowledge squandered Lie like a treasure refused and trod down on the ways where we wandered; All we have done is effaced by the thousands behind us arriving. Trapped in a round fixed for ever circles our thought and our living. Fiercely the gods in their jealousy strike down the heads that have neighboured Even for a moment their skies; in the sands our achievements are gravured. Yet survives bliss in the rhythm of our heart-beats, yet is there wonder, Beauty's immortal delight, and the seals of the mystery sunder. Honied a thousand whispers come, in the birds, in the breezes, Moonlight, the voices of streams; with a hundred marvellous faces Always he lures us to love him, always he draws us to pleasure Leaving remembrance and anguish behind for our only treasure. Passionate we seek for him everywhere, yearn for some sign of him, calling, Scanning the dust for his footprints, praying and stumbling and falling; Nothing is found and no answer comes from the masks that are passing. Memories linger, lines from the past like a half-faded tracing. He has passed on into silence wearing his luminous mantle. Out of the melodied distance a laugh rings pure-toned, infantile, Sole reminder that he is, last signal recalling his presence. There is a joy behind suffering; pain digs our road to his pleasance. All things have bliss for their secret; only our consciousness falters Fearing to offer itself as a victim on ecstasy's altars. Is not the world his disguise? when that cloak is tossed back from his shoulders, Beauty looks out like a sun on the hearts of the ravished beholders. Mortals, your end is beatitude, rapture eternal his meaning: Joy, which he most now denies, is his purpose: the hedges, the screening 486 Pondicherry, c. 1910 - 1920 Were but the rules of his play; his denials came to lure farther. These too were magic of Maya, smiles of the marvellous Mother. Oh, but the cruelty! oh, but the empty pain we go rueing! Edges of opposite sweetness, calls to a closer pursuing. All that we meet is a symbol and gateway; cryptic intention Lurks in a common appearance, smiles from a casual mention: Opposites hide in each other; in the laughter of Nature is danger, Glory and greatness their embryos form in the womb of her anger. Why are we terrified? wherefore cry out and draw back from the smiting - Blows from the hands of a lover to direr exactions exciting, Fiery points of his play! Was he Rudra only the mighty? Whose were the whispers of sweetness, whose were the murmurs of pity? Something opposes our grasp on the light and the sweetness and power, Something within us, something without us, trap-door or tower, Nature's gap in our being - or hinge! That device could we vanquish, Once could we clasp him and hold, his joy we could never relinquish. Then we could not be denied, for our might would be single and flawless. Sons of the Eternal, sovereigns of Nature absolute and lawless, Termlessly our souls would possess as he now enjoys and possesses, Termlessly probe the delight of his laughter's lurking recesses, Chasing its trail to the apex of sweetness and secrecy. Treasured Close to the beats of Eternity's heart in a greatness unmeasured, Locked into a miracle and mystery of Light we would live in him, - seated Deep in his core of beatitude ceaselessly by Nature repeated, Careless of Time, with no fear of an end, with no need for endeavour Caught by his ecstasy dwell in a rapture enduring for ever. What was the garden he built when the stars were first set in their places, Soul and Nature together mid streams and in cloudless spaces Naked and innocent? Someone offered a fruit of derision, Knowledge of good and of evil, cleaving in God a division. Though He who made all said, "It is good; I have fashioned perfection," "No, there is evil," someone whispered, "'tis screened from detection." Wisest he of the beasts of the field, one cunning and creeping; "See it," he said, "be wise; you shall be as the gods are, unsleeping, They who know all." And they ate. The roots of our being were shaken; Hatred and weeping and wrath at once trampled a world overtaken, Terror and fleeing and anguish and shame and desires unsated; Ahana 487 Cruelty stalked like a lion; Revenge and her brood were created. Out to the desert he drove the rebellious. Flaming behind them Streamed out the sword of his wrath and it followed leaping to find them, Stabbing at random. The pure and the evil, the strong and the tempted, All are confounded in punishment; justly is no one exempted. Virtuous? yes, there are many, but who is there innocent? Toiling Therefore we seek, but find not that Eden. Planting and spoiling, "This is the garden," we say, "lo, the trees and this is the river." Vainly redeemers came, not one has availed to deliver. Never can Nature go back to her careless and childlike beginning, Laugh of the babe and the song of the wheel in its delicate spinning, Smile of the sun upon flowers and earth's beauty, life without labour Plucking the fruits of the soil and rejoicing in cottage and arbour. Once we have chosen to be as the gods, we must follow that motion. Knowledge must grow in us, might like a Titan's, bliss like an ocean, Calmness and purity born of the spirit's gaze on the Real, Rapture of his oneness embracing the soul in a clasp hymeneal. Was it not he once in Brindavan? Woods divine to our yearning, Memorable always! O flowers, O delight on the tree-tops burning, Grasses his herds have grazed and crushed by his feet in the dancing, Yamuna flowing with song, through the greenness always advancing, You unforgotten remind; for his flute with its sweetness ensnaring Sounds in our ears in the night and our souls of their teguments baring Hales us out naked and absolute, out to his woodlands eternal, Out to his moonlit dances, his dalliance sweet and supernal, And we go stumbling, maddened and thrilled to his dreadful embraces, Slaves of his rapture to Brindavan crowded with amorous faces, Luminous kine in the green glades seated, soft-eyed gazing, Flowers on the branches distressing us, moonbeams unearthly amazing, Yamuna flowing before us, laughing low with her voices, Brindavan arching o'er us where Shyama sports and rejoices. Inly the miracle trembles repeated; mist-walls are broken Hiding that country of God and we look on the wonderful token, Clasp the beautiful body of the Eternal; his flute-call of yearning Cries in our breast with its blissful anguish for ever returning; Life flows past us with passionate voices, a heavenly river, All our being goes back as a bride of his bliss to the Giver. 488 Pondicherry, c. 1910 - 1920 Even an hour of the soul can unveil the Unborn, the Everlasting, Gaze on its mighty Companion; the load of mortality casting, Mind hushes stilled in eternity; waves of the Infinite wander Thrilling body and soul and its endless felicity squander; All world-sorrow is finished, the cry of the parting is over; Ecstasy laughs in our veins, in our heart is the heart of the Lover. As when a stream from a highl and plateau green mid the mountains Draws through broad lakes of delight the gracious sweep of its fountains, Life from its heaven of desire comes down to the toil of the earth-ways; Streaming through mire it pours still the mystical joy of its birthplace, Green of its banks and the green of its trees and the hues of the flower. Something of child-heart beauty, something of greatness and power, Dwell with it still in its early torrent laughter and brightness, Call in the youth of its floods and the voice of the wideness and whiteness. But in its course are set darkness and fall and the spirit's ordeal. Hating its narrowness, forced by an ardour to see all and be all, Dashed on the inconscient rocks and straining through mud, over gravel, Flows, like an ardent prisoner bound to the scenes of his travail, Life, the river of the Spirit, consenting to anguish and sorrow If by her heart's toil a loan-light of joy from the heavens she can borrow. Out of the sun-rays and moon-rays, the winds' wing-glimmer and revel, Out of the star-fields of wonder, down to earth's danger and evil Headlong cast with a stridulant thunder, the doom-ways descending, Shuddering below into sunless depths, across chasms unending, Baulked of the might of its waters, a thread in a mountainous vastness, Parcelled and scanted it hurries as if storming a Titan fastness, Carving the hills with a sullen and lonely gigantic labour. Hurled into strangling ravines it escapes with a leap and a quaver, Breaks from the channels of hiding it grooves out and chisels and twistens, Angry, afraid, white, foaming. A stony and monstrous resistance Meets it piling up stubborn limits. Afflicted the river Treasures a scattered sunbeam, moans for a god to deliver, Longing to lapse through the plain's green felicity, yearning to widen Joined to the ocean's shoreless eternity far-off and hidden. High on the cliffs the Great Ones are watching, the Mighty and Deathless, Soaring and plunging the roadway of the Gods climbs uplifted and breathless; Ahana 489 Ever we hear in the heart of the peril a flute go before us, Luminous beckoning hands in the distance invite and implore us. Ignorant, circled with death and the abyss, we have dreamed of a human Paradise made from the mind of a man, from the heart of a woman, Dreamed of the Isles of the Blest in a light of perpetual summer, Dreamed of the joy of an earthly life with no pain for incomer. Never, we said, can these waters from heaven be lost in the marshes, Cease in the sands of the desert, die where the simoom parches; Plains are beyond, there are hamlets and fields where the river rejoices Pacing once more with a quiet step and with amical voices: Bright amid woodlands red with the berries and cool with the breezes Glimmer the leaves; all night long the heart of the nightingale eases Sweetly its burden of pity and sorrow. There amid flowers We shall take pleasure in arbours delightful, leng thening the hours, Time for our servitor waiting our fancy through moments unhasting, Under the cloudless blue of those skies of tranquillity resting, Lying on beds of lilies, hearing the bells of the cattle Tinkle, and drink red wine of life and go forth to the battle, Fight and unwounded return to our beautiful home by the waters, Fruit of our joy rear tall strong sons and radiant daughters. Then shall the Virgins of Light come down to us clad in clear raiment Woven from sunbeam and moonbeam and lightnings, limitless payment Bring of our toil and our sorrow, carrying life-giving garlands Plucked by the fountains of Paradise, bring from imperishable star-lands Hymn-words of wisdom, visions of beauty, heaven-fruit ruddy, Wine-cups of ecstasy sending the soul like a stream through the body. Fate shall not know; if her spies come down to our beautiful valley, They shall grow drunk with its grapes and wander in woodl and and alley. There leaps the anger of Rudra? there will his lightnings immortal Circle around with their red eye of cruelty stabbing the portal? Fearless is there life's play; I shall sport with my dove from his highlands, Drinking her laughter of bliss like a god in my Grecian islands. Life in my limbs shall grow deathless, flesh with the God-glory tingle, Lustre of Paradise, light of the earth-ways marry and mingle. These are but dreams and the truth shall be greater. Heaven made woman! Flower of beatitude! living shape of the bliss of the Brahman! Art thou not she who shall bring into life and time the Eternal? 490 Pondicherry, c. 1910 - 1920 Body of the summer of the Gods, a sweetness virginal, vernal, Breathes from thy soul into Nature; Love sits dreaming in thy bosom, Wisdom gazes from thy eyes, thy breasts of God-rapture are the blossom. If but the joy of thy feet once could touch our spaces smiting Earth with a ray from the Unknown, on the world's heart heaven's script writing, All then would change into harmony and beauty, Time's doors shudder Swinging wide on their hinges into Eternity, other Voices than earth's would be fire in our speech and make deathless our thinking. One who is hidden in Light would grow visible, multitudes linking, Lyres of a single ecstasy, throbs of the one heart beating, Wonderful bodies and souls in the spirit's identity meeting Even as stars in sky-vastness know their kindred in grandeur. Yet may it be that although in the hands of our destiny stands sure Fixed to its hour the Decree of the Advent, still it is fated Only when kindling earth's bodies a mightier Soul is created. Far-off the gold and the greatness, the rapture too splendid and dire. Are not the ages too young? too low in our hearts burns the fire. Bringest thou only a gleam on the summits, a cry in the distance, Seen by the eyes that are wakened, heard by a spirit that listens? Form of the formless All-Beautiful, lodestar of Nature's aspirance, Music of prelude giving a voice to the ineffable Silence, First white dawn of the God-Light cast on these creatures that perish, Word-key of a divine and eternal truth for mortals to cherish, Come! let thy sweetness and force be a breath in the breast of the future Making the god-ways alive, immortality's golden-red suture: Deep in our lives there shall work out a honeyed celestial leaven, Bliss shall grow native to being and earth be a kin-soil to heaven. Open the barriers of Time, the world with thy beauty enamour. Trailing behind thee the purple of thy soul and the dawn-moment's glamour, Forcing the heart of the Midnight where slumber and secrecy linger, Guardians of Mystery, touching her bosom with thy luminous finger, Daughter of Heaven, break through to me moonlike, mystic and gleaming; Tread through the margins of twilight, cross over borders of dreaming. Vision delightful alone on the peaks whom the silences cover, Vision of bliss, stoop down to mortality, lean to thy lover. Ahana 491 AHANA Voice of the sensuous mortal, heart of eternal longing, Thou who hast lived as in walls, thy soul with thy senses wronging! But I descend at last. Fickle and terrible, sweet and deceiving, Poison and nectar one has dispensed to thee, luring thee, leaving. We two together shall capture the flute and the player relentless. Son of man, thou hast crowned thy life with the flowers that are scentless, Chased the delights that wound. But I come and midnight shall sunder. Lo, I come, and behind me Knowledge descends and with thunder Filling the spaces Strength, the Angel, bears on his bosom Joy to thy arms. Thou shalt look on her face like a child's or a blossom, Innocent, free as in Eden of old, not afraid of her playing, When thy desires I have seized and devoured like a lioness preying. Thou shalt not suffer always nor cry to me lured and forsaken: I have a snare for his footsteps, I have a chain for him taken. Come then to Brindavan, soul of the joyous; faster and faster Follow the dance I shall teach thee with Shyama for slave and for master. Follow the notes of the flute with a soul aware and exulting; Trample Delight that submits and crouch to a sweetness insulting. Then shalt thou know what the dance meant, fathom the song and the singer, Hear behind thunder its rhymes, touched by lightning thrill to his finger, Brindavan's rustle shalt understand and Yamuna's laughter, Take thy place in the Ras1 and thy share of the ecstasy after. 1 The dance-round of Krishna with the cowherdesses in the moonlit groves of Brindavan, type of the dance of Divine Delight with the souls of men liberated in the world of Bliss secret within us. Poems from Manuscripts Circa 1912 - 1913 ~ Sri Aurobindo, - Ahana ,

911:DRAMATIS PERSONAE King Charles I. Queen Henrietta. Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. Lord Cottington. Lord Weston. Lord Coventry. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln. Secretary Lyttelton. Juxon. St. John. Archy, the Court Fool. Hampden. Pym. Cromwell. Cromwell's Daughter. Sir Harry Vane the younger. Leighton. Bastwick. Prynne. Gentlemen of the Inns of Court, Citizens, Pursuivants, Marshalsmen, Law Students, Judges, Clerk. Scene I. ---The Masque of the Inns of Court. A Pursuivant. Place, for the Marshal of the Masque! First Citizen. What thinkest thou of this quaint masque which turns, Like morning from the shadow of the night, The night to day, and London to a place Of peace and joy? Second Citizen.          And Hell to Heaven. Eight years are gone, And they seem hours, since in this populous street I trod on grass made green by summer's rain, For the red plague kept state within that palace Where now that vanity reigns. In nine years more The roots will be refreshed with civil blood; And thank the mercy of insulted Heaven That sin and wrongs wound, as an orphan's cry, The patience of the great Avenger's ear. A Youth. Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see, Beautiful, innocent, and unforbidden By God or man;'tis like the bright procession Of skiey visions in a solemn dream From which men wake as from a Paradise, And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life. If God be good, wherefore should this be evil? And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw Unseasonable poison from the flowers Which bloom so rarely in this barren world? Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the present Dark as the future!. . . When Avarice and Tyranny, vigilant Fear, And open-eyed Conspiracy lie sleeping As on Hell's threshold; and all gentle thoughts Waken to worship Him who giveth joys With His own gift. Second Citizen. How young art thou in this old age of time! How green in this gray world? Canst thou discern The signs of seasons, yet perceive no hint Of change in that stage-scene in which thou art Not a spectator but an actor? or Art thou a puppet moved by [enginery]? The day that dawns in fire will die in storms, Even though the noon be calm. My travel's done, Before the whirlwind wakes I shall have found My inn of lasting rest; but thou must still Be journeying on in this inclement air. Wrap thy old cloak about thy back; Nor leave the broad and plain and beaten road, Although no flowers smile on the trodden dust, For the violet paths of pleasure. This Charles the First Rose like the equinoctial sun, . . . By vapours, through whose threatening ominous veil Darting his altered influence he has gained This height of noonfrom which he must decline Amid the darkness of conflicting storms, To dank extinction and to latest night . . . There goes The apostate Strafford; he whose titles whispered aphorisms From Machiavel and Bacon: and, if Judas Had been as brazen and as bold as he First Citizen.                      That Is the Archbishop. Second Citizen.           Rather say the Pope: London will be soon his Rome: he walks As if he trod upon the heads of men: He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold; Beside him moves the Babylonian woman Invisibly, and with her as with his shadow, Mitred adulterer! he is joined in sin, Which turns Heaven's milk of mercy to revenge. Third Citizen (lifting up his eyes). Good Lord! rain it down upon him! . . . Amid her ladies walks the papist queen, As if her nice feet scorned our English earth. The Canaanitish Jezebel! I would be A dog if I might tear her with my teeth! There's old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke, Lord Essex, and Lord Keeper Coventry, And others who make base their English breed By vile participation of their honours With papists, atheists, tyrants, and apostates. When lawyers masque 'tis time for honest men To strip the vizor from their purposes. A seasonable time for masquers this! When Englishmen and Protestants should sit . . . dust on their dishonoured heads, To avert the wrath of Him whose scourge is felt For the great sins which have drawn down from Heaven . . . and foreign overthrow. The remnant of the martyred saints in Rochefort Have been abandoned by their faithless allies To that idolatrous and adulterous torturer Lewis of France,the Palatinate is lost Enter Leighton (who has been branded in the face) and Bastwick. Canst thou be -- art thou? -- Leighton.               I was Leighton: what I am thou seest. And yet turn thine eyes, And with thy memory look on thy friend's mind, Which is unchanged, and where is written deep The sentence of my judge. Third Citizen.               Are these the marks with which Laud thinks to improve the image of his Maker Stamped on the face of man? Curses upon him, The impious tyrant! Second Citizen.           It is said besides That lewd and papist drunkards may profane The Sabbath with their... And has permitted that most heathenish custom Of dancing round a pole dressed up with wreaths On May-day. A man who thus twice crucifies his God May well...his brother.In my mind, friend, The root of all this ill is prelacy. I would cut up the root. Third Citizen.              And by what means? Second Citizen. Smiting each Bishop under the fifth rib. Third Citizen. You seem to know the vulnerable place Of these same crocodiles. Second Citizen.               I learnt it in Egyptian bondage, sir. Your worm of Nile Betrays not with its flattering tears like they; For, when they cannot kill, they whine and weep. Nor is it half so greedy of men's bodies As they of soul and all; nor does it wallow In slime as they in simony and lies And close lusts of the flesh. A Marshalsman.                 Give place, give place! You torch-bearers, advance to the great gate, And then attend the Marshal of the Masque Into the Royal presence. A Law Student.              What thinkest thou Of this quaint show of ours, my agd friend? Even now we see the redness of the torches Inflame the night to the eastward, and the clarions [Gasp?] to us on the wind's wave. It comes! And their sounds, floating hither round the pageant, Rouse up the astonished air. First Citizen. I will not think but that our country's wounds May yet be healed. The king is just and gracious, Though wicked counsels now pervert his will: These once cast off Second Citizen.            As adders cast their skins And keep their venom, so kings often change; Councils and counsellors hang on one another, Hiding the loathsome Like the base patchwork of a leper's rags. The Youth. Oh, still those dissonant thoughts!List how the music Grows on the enchanted air! And see, the torches Restlessly flashing, and the crowd divided Like waves before an admiral's prow! A Marshalsman.                     Give place To the Marshal of the Masque! A Pursuivant.                 Room for the King! The Youth. How glorious! See those thronging chariots Rolling, like painted clouds before the wind, Behind their solemn steeds: how some are shaped Like curved sea-shells dyed by the azure depths Of Indian seas; some like the new-born moon; And some like cars in which the Romans climbed (Canopied by Victory's eagle-wings outspread) The CapitolianSee how gloriously The mettled horses in the torchlight stir Their gallant riders, while they check their pride, Like shapes of some diviner element Than English air, and beings nobler than The envious and admiring multitude. Second Citizen. Ay, there they are Nobles, and sons of nobles, patentees, Monopolists, and stewards of this poor farm, On whose lean sheep sit the prophetic crows, Here is the pomp that strips the houseless orphan, Here is the pride that breaks the desolate heart. These are the lilies glorious as Solomon, Who toil not, neither do they spin,unless It be the webs they catch poor rogues withal. Here is the surfeit which to them who earn The ****rd wages of the earth, scarce leaves The tithe that will support them till they crawl Back to her cold hard bosom. Here is health Followed by grim disease, glory by shame, Waste by lame famine, wealth by squalid want, And England's sin by England's punishment. And, as the effect pursues the cause foregone, Lo, giving substance to my words, behold At once the sign and the thing signified A troop of cripples, beggars, and lean outcasts, Horsed upon stumbling jades, carted with dung, Dragged for a day from cellars and low cabins And rotten hiding-holes, to point the moral Of this presentment, and bring up the rear Of painted pomp with misery! The Youth.                'Tis but The anti-masque, and serves as discords do In sweetest music. Who would love May flowers If they succeeded not to Winter's flaw; Or day unchanged by night; or joy itself Without the touch of sorrow? Second Citizen.                I and thou A Marshalsman. Place, give place! Scene II. A Chamber in Whitehall. Enter the King, Queen, Laud, Lord Strafford, Lord Cottington, and other Lords;Archy ; also St. John, with some Gentlemen of the Inns of Court. King. Thanks, gentlemen. I heartily accept This token of your service: your gay masque Was performed gallantly. And it shows well When subjects twine such flowers of [observance?] With the sharp thorns that deck the English crown. A gentle heart enjoys what it confers, Even as it suffers that which it inflicts, Though Justice guides the stroke. Accept my hearty thanks. Queen.              And gentlemen, Call your poor Queen your debtor. Your quaint pageant Rose on me like the figures of past years, Treading their still path back to infancy, More beautiful and mild as they draw nearer The quiet cradle. I could have almost wept To think I was in Paris, where these shows Are well devisedsuch as I was ere yet My young heart shared a portion of the burthen, The careful weight, of this great monarchy. There, gentlemen, between the sovereign's pleasure And that which it regards, no clamour lifts Its proud interposition. In Paris ribald censurers dare not move Their poisonous tongues against these sinless sports; And his smile Warms those who bask in it, as ours would do If...Take my heart's thanks: add them, gentlemen, To those good words which, were he King of France, My royal lord would turn to golden deeds. St. John. Madam, the love of Englishmen can make The lightest favour of their lawful king Outweigh a despot's.We humbly take our leaves, Enriched by smiles which France can never buy. [Exeunt St. John and the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court. King. My Lord Archbishop, Mark you what spirit sits in St. John's eyes? Methinks it is too saucy for this presence. Archy. Yes, pray your Grace look: for, like an unsophisticated [eye] sees everything upside down, you who are wise will discern the shadow of an idiot in lawn sleeves and a rochet setting springes to catch woodcocks in haymaking time. Poor Archy, whose owl-eyes are tempered to the error of his age, and because he is a fool, and by special ordinance of God forbidden ever to see himself as he is, sees now in that deep eye a blindfold devil sitting on the ball, and weighing words out between king and subjects. One scale is full of promises, and the other full of protestations: and then another devil creeps behind the first out of the dark windings [of a] pregnant lawyer's brain, and takes the bandage from the other's eyes, and throws a sword into the left-hand scale, for all the world like my Lord Essex's there. Strafford. A rod in pickle for the Fool's back! Archy. Ay, and some are now smiling whose tears will make the brine; for the Fool sees-- Strafford. Insolent! You shall have your coat turned and be whipped out of the palace for this. Archy. When all the fools are whipped, and all the Protestant writers, while the knaves are whipping the fools ever since a thief was set to catch a thief. If all turncoats were whipped out of palaces, poor Archy would be disgraced in good company. Let the knaves whip the fools, and all the fools laugh at it. [Let the] wise and godly slit each other's noses and ears (having no need of any sense of discernment in their craft); and the knaves, to marshal them, join in a procession to Bedlam, to entreat the madmen to omit their sublime Platonic contemplations, and manage the state of England. Let all the honest men who lie [pinched?] up at the prisons or the pillories, in custody of the pursuivants of the High-Commission Court, marshal them. Enter Secretary Lyttelton, with papers. King (looking over the papers). These stiff Scots His Grace of Canterbury must take order To force under the Church's yoke.You, Wentworth, Shall be myself in Ireland, and shall add Your wisdom, gentleness, and energy, To what in me were wanting.My Lord Weston, Look that those merchants draw not without loss Their bullion from the Tower; and, on the payment Of shipmoney, take fullest compensation For violation of our royal forests, Whose limits, from neglect, have been o'ergrown With cottages and cornfields. The uttermost Farthing exact from those who claim exemption From knighthood: that which once was a reward Shall thus be made a punishment, that subjects May know how majesty can wear at will The rugged mood.My Lord of Coventry, Lay my command upon the Courts below That bail be not accepted for the prisoners Under the warrant of the Star Chamber. The people shall not find the stubbornness Of Parliament a cheap or easy method Of dealing with their rightful sovereign: And doubt not this, my Lord of Coventry, We will find time and place for fit rebuke. My Lord of Canterbury. Archy.             The fool is here. Laud. I crave permission of your Majesty To order that this insolent fellow be Chastised: he mocks the sacred character, Scoffs at the state, and-- King.               What, my Archy? He mocks and mimics all he sees and hears, Yet with a quaint and graceful licencePrithee For this once do not as Prynne would, were he Primate of England. With your Grace's leave, He lives in his own world; and, like a parrot Hung in his gilded prison from the window Of a queen's bower over the public way, Blasphemes with a bird's mind:his words, like arrows Which know no aim beyond the archer's wit, Strike sometimes what eludes philosophy. (To Archy.) Go, sirrah, and repent of your offence Ten minutes in the rain; be it your penance To bring news how the world goes there. [Exit Archy.                       Poor Archy! He weaves about himself a world of mirth Out of the wreck of ours. Laud. I take with patience, as my Master did, All scoffs permitted from above. King.                  My lord, Pray overlook these papers. Archy's words Had wings, but these have talons. Queen.                   And the lion That wears them must be tamed. My dearest lord, I see the new-born courage in your eye Armed to strike dead the Spirit of the Time, Which spurs to rage the many-headed beast. Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve, And it were better thou hadst still remained The slave of thine own slaves, who tear like curs The fugitive, and flee from the pursuer; And Opportunity, that empty wolf, Flies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy actions Even to the disposition of thy purpose, And be that tempered as the Ebro's steel; And banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak, Whence she will greet thee with a gift of peace, And not betray thee with a traitor's kiss, As when she keeps the company of rebels, Who think that she is Fear. This do, lest we Should fall as from a glorious pinnacle In a bright dream, and wake as from a dream Out of our worshipped state. King.                Belovd friend, God is my witness that this weight of power, Which He sets me my earthly task to wield. Under His law, is my delight and pride Only because thou lovest that and me. For a king bears the office of a God To all the under world; and to his God Alone he must deliver up his trust, Unshorn of its permitted attributes. [It seems] now as the baser elements Had mutinied against the golden sun That kindles them to harmony and quells Their self-destroying rapine. The wild million Strike at the eye that guides them; like as humours Of the distempered body that conspire Against the spirit of life throned in the heart, And thus become the prey of one another, And last of death Strafford. That which would be ambition in a subject Is duty in a sovereign; for on him, As on a keystone, hangs the arch of life, Whose safety is its strength. Degree and form, And all that makes the age of reasoning man More memorable than a beast's, depend on this-- That Right should fence itself inviolably With Power; in which respect the state of England From usurpation by the insolent commons Cries for reform. Get treason, and spare treasure. Fee with coin The loudest murmurers; feed with jealousies Opposing factions,-- be thyself of none; And borrow gold of many, for those who lend Will serve thee till thou payest them; and thus Keep the fierce spirit of the hour at bay, Till time, and its coming generations Of nights and days unborn, bring some one chance,... Or war or pestilence or Nature's self,-- By some distemperature or terrible sign, Be as an arbiter betwixt themselves. ...Nor let your Majesty Doubt here the peril of the unseen event. How did your brother Kings, coheritors In your high interest in the subject earth, Rise past such troubles to that height of power Where now they sit, and awfully serene Smile on the trembling world? Such popular storms Philip the Second of Spain, this Lewis of France, And late the German head of many bodies, And every petty lord of Italy, Quelled or by arts or arms. Is England poorer Or feebler? or art thou who wield'st her power Tamer than they? or shall this island be-- [Girdled] by its inviolable waters To the world present and the world to come Sole pattern of extinguished monarchy? Not if thou dost as I would have thee do. King. Your words shall be my deeds: You speak the image of my thought. My friend (If Kings can have a friend, I call thee so), Beyond the large commission which [belongs] Under the great seal of the realm, take this: And, for some obvious reasons, let there be No seal on it, except my kingly word And honour as I am a gentleman. Be -- as thou art within my heart and mind-- Another self, here and in Ireland: Do what thou judgest well, take amplest licence, And stick not even at questionable means. Hear me, Wentworth. My word is as a wall Between thee and this world thine enemy That hates thee, for thou lovest me. Strafford.                     I own No friend but thee, no enemies but thine: Thy lightest thought is my eternal law. How weak, how short, is life to pay King.                     Peace, peace. Thou ow'st me nothing yet.               (To Laud.) My lord, what say Those papers? Laud. Your Majesty has ever interposed, In lenity towards your native soil, Between the heavy vengeance of the Church And Scotland. Mark the consequence of warming This brood of northern vipers in your bosom. The rabble, instructed no doubt By Loudon, Lindsay, Hume, and false Argyll (For the waves never menace heaven until Scourged by the wind's invisible tyranny), Have in the very temple of the Lord Done outrage to His chosen ministers. They scorn the liturgy of the Holy Church, Refuse to obey her canons, and deny The apostolic power with which the Spirit Has filled its elect vessels, even from him Who held the keys with power to loose and bind, To him who now pleads in this royal presence. Let ample powers and new instructions be Sent to the High Commissioners in Scotland. To death, imprisonment, and confiscation, Add torture, add the ruin of the kindred Of the offender, add the brand of infamy, Add mutilation: and if this suffice not, Unleash the sword and fire, that in their thirst They may lick up that scum of schismatics. I laugh at those weak rebels who, desiring What we possess, still prate of Christian peace, As if those dreadful arbitrating messengers Which play the part of God 'twixt right and wrong, Should be let loose against the innocent sleep Of templed cities and the smiling fields, For some poor argument of policy Which touches our own profit or our pride (Where it indeed were Christian charity To turn the cheek even to the smiter's hand): And, when our great Redeemer, when our God, When He who gave, accepted, and retained Himself in propitiation of our sins, Is scorned in His immediate ministry, With hazard of the inestimable loss Of all the truth and discipline which is Salvation to the extremest generation Of men innumerable, they talk of peace! Such peace as Canaan found, let Scotland now: For, by that Christ who came to bring a sword, Not peace, upon the earth, and gave command To His disciples at the Passover That each should sell his robe and buy a sword, Once strip that minister of naked wrath, And it shall never sleep in peace again Till Scotland bend or break. King.                My Lord Archbishop, Do what thou wilt and what thou canst in this. Thy earthly even as thy heavenly King Gives thee large power in his unquiet realm. But we want money, and my mind misgives me That for so great an enterprise, as yet, We are unfurnished. Strafford.           Yet it may not long Rest on our wills. Cottington.           The expenses Of gathering shipmoney, and of distraining For every petty rate (for we encounter A desperate opposition inch by inch In every warehouse and on every farm), Have swallowed up the gross sum of the imposts; So that, though felt as a most grievous scourge Upon the land, they stand us in small stead As touches the receipt. Strafford.             'Tis a conclusion Most arithmetical: and thence you infer Perhaps the assembling of a parliament. Now, if a man should call his dearest enemies To sit in licensed judgement on his life, His Majesty might wisely take that course. [Aside to Cottington. It is enough to expect from these lean imposts That they perform the office of a scourge, Without more profit. (Aloud.) Fines and confiscations, And a forced loan from the refractory city, Will fill our coffers: and the golden love Of loyal gentlemen and noble friends For the worshipped father of our common country, With contributions from the catholics, Will make Rebellion pale in our excess. Be these the expedients until time and wisdom Shall frame a settled state of government. Laud. And weak expedients they! Have we not drained All, till the...which seemed A mine exhaustless? Strafford.           And the love which is, If loyal hearts could turn their blood to gold. Laud. Both now grow barren: and I speak it not As loving parliaments, which, as they have been In the right hand of bold bad mighty kings The scourges of the bleeding Church, I hate. Methinks they scarcely can deserve our fear. Strafford. Oh! my dear liege, take back the wealth thou gavest: With that, take all I held, but as in trust For thee, of mine inheritance: leave me but This unprovided body for thy service, And a mind dedicated to no care Except thy safety:-- but assemble not A parliament. Hundreds will bring, like me, Their fortunes, as they would their blood, before-- King. No! thou who judgest them art but one. Alas! We should be too much out of love with Heaven, Did this vile world show many such as thee, Thou perfect, just, and honourable man! Never shall it be said that Charles of England Stripped those he loved for fear of those he scorns; Nor will he so much misbecome his throne As to impoverish those who most adorn And best defend it. That you urge, dear Strafford, Inclines me rather-- Queen.            To a parliament? Is this thy firmness? and thou wilt preside Over a knot of . . . censurers, To the unswearing of thy best resolves, And choose the worst, when the worst comes too soon? Plight not the worst before the worst must come. Oh, wilt thou smile whilst our ribald foes, Dressed in their own usurped authority, Sharpen their tongues on Henrietta's fame? It is enough! Thou lovest me no more! [Weeps. King. Oh, Henrietta! [They talk apart. Cottington (to Laud).        Money we have none: And all the expedients of my Lord of Strafford Will scarcely meet the arrears. Laud.                  Without delay An army must be sent into the north; Followed by a Commission of the Church, With amplest power to quench in fire and blood, And tears and terror, and the pity of hell, The intenser wrath of Heresy. God will give Victory; and victory over Scotland give The lion England tamed into our hands. That will lend power, and power bring gold. Cottington.                    Meanwhile We must begin first where your Grace leaves off. Gold must give power, or Laud.               I am not averse From the assembling of a parliament. Strong actions and smooth words might teach them soon The lesson to obey. And are they not A bubble fashioned by the monarch's mouth, The birth of one light breath? If they serve no purpose, A word dissolves them. Strafford.             The engine of parliaments Might be deferred until I can bring over The Irish regiments: they will serve to assure The issue of the war against the Scots. And, this game won -- which if lost, all is lost-- Gather these chosen leaders of the rebels, And call them, if you will, a parliament. King. Oh, be our feet still tardy to shed blood, Guilty though it may be! I would still spare The stubborn country of my birth, and ward From countenances which I loved in youth The wrathful Church's lacerating hand. (To Laud.) Have you o'erlooked the other articles? [Re-enter Archy. Laud. Hazlerig, Hampden, Pym, young Harry Vane, Cromwell, and other rebels of less note, Intend to sail with the next favouring wind For the Plantations. Archy.            Where they think to found A commonwealth like Gonzalo's in the play, Gynaecocoenic and pantisocratic. King. What's that, sirrah? Archy.            New devil's politics. Hell is the pattern of all commonwealths: Lucifer was the first republican. Will you hear Merlin's prophecy, how three [posts?] 'In one brainless skull, when the whitethorn is full, Shall sail round the world, and come back again: Shall sail round the world in a brainless skull, And come back again when the moon is at full:' When, in spite of the Church, They will hear homilies of whatever length Or form they please. [Cottington?] So please your Majesty to sign this order For their detention. Archy. If your Majesty were tormented night and day by fever, gout, rheumatism, and stone, and asthma, etc., and you found these diseases had secretly entered into a conspiracy to abandon you, should you think it necessary to lay an embargo on the port by which they meant to dispeople your unquiet kingdom of man? King. If fear were made for kings, the Fool mocks wisely; But in this case --(writing.) Here, my lord, take the warrant, And see it duly executed forthwith.-- That imp of malice and mockery shall be punished. [Exeunt all but King, Queen, and Archy. Archy. Ay, I am the physician of whom Plato prophesied, who was to be accused by the confectioner before a jury of children, who found him guilty without waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without benefit of clergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the Twelfth-night Queen of Hearts, and the overgrown schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin Laud who would reduce a verdict of 'guilty, death,' by famine, if it were impregnable by compositionall impannelled against poor Archy for presenting them bitter physic the last day of the holidays. Queen. Is the rain over, sirrah? King.               When it rains And the sun shines, 'twill rain again to-morrow: And therefore never smile till you've done crying. Archy. But 'tis all over now: like the April anger of woman, the gentle sky has wept itself serene. Queen. What news abroad? how looks the world this morning? Archy. Gloriously as a grave covered with virgin flowers. There's a rainbow in the sky. Let your Majesty look at it, for 'A rainbow in the morning Is the shepherd's warning;' and the flocks of which you are the pastor are scattered among the mountain-tops, where every drop of water is a flake of snow, and the breath of May pierces like a January blast. King. The sheep have mistaken the wolf for their shepherd, my poor boy; and the shepherd, the wolves for their watchdogs. Queen. But the rainbow was a good sign, Archy: it says that the waters of the deluge are gone, and can return no more. Archy. Ay, the salt-water one: but that of tears and blood must yet come down, and that of fire follow, if there be any truth in lies.-- The rainbow hung over the city with all its shops,...and churches, from north to south, like a bridge of congregated lightning pieced by the masonry of heaven like a balance in which the angel that distributes the coming hour was weighing that heavy one whose poise is now felt in the lightest hearts, before it bows the proudest heads under the meanest feet. Queen. Who taught you this trash, sirrah? Archy. A torn leaf out of an old book trampled in the dirt.-- But for the rainbow. It moved as the sun moved, and...until the top of the Tower...of a cloud through its left-hand tip, and Lambeth Palace look as dark as a rock before the other. Methought I saw a crown figured upon one tip, and a mitre on the other. So, as I had heard treasures were found where the rainbow quenches its points upon the earth, I set off, and at the Tower -- But I shall not tell your Majesty what I found close to the closet-window on which the rainbow had glimmered. King. Speak: I will make my Fool my conscience. Archy. Then conscience is a fool.I saw there a cat caught in a rat-trap. I heard the rats squeak behind the wainscots: it seemed to me that the very mice were consulting on the manner of her death. Queen. Archy is shrewd and bitter. Archy. Like the season, So blow the winds.But at the other end of the rainbow, where the gray rain was tempered along the grass and leaves by a tender interfusion of violet and gold in the meadows beyond Lambeth, what think you that I found instead of a mitre? King. Vane's wits perhaps. Archy. Something as vain. I saw a gross vapour hovering in a stinking ditch over the carcass of a dead ****, some rotten rags, and broken dishesthe wrecks of what once administered to the stuffing-out and the ornament of a worm of worms. His Grace of Canterbury expects to enter the New Jerusalem some Palm Sunday in triumph on the ghost of this ****. Queen. Enough, enough! Go desire Lady Jane She place my lute, together with the music Mari received last week from Italy, In my boudoir, and [Exit Archy. King.           I'll go in. Queen.                  My beloved lord, Have you not noted that the Fool of late Has lost his careless mirth, and that his words Sound like the echoes of our saddest fears? What can it mean? I should be loth to think Some factious slave had tutored him. King.                  Oh, no! He is but Occasion's pupil. Partly 'tis That our minds piece the vacant intervals Of his wild words with their own fashioning, As in the imagery of summer clouds, Or coals of the winter fire, idlers find The perfect shadows of their teeming thoughts: And partly, that the terrors of the time Are sown by wandering Rumour in all spirits; And in the lightest and the least, may best Be seen the current of the coming wind. Queen. Your brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts. Come, I will sing to you; let us go try These airs from Italy; and, as we pass The gallery, we'll decide where that Correggio Shall hangthe Virgin Mother With her child, born the King of heaven and earth, Whose reign is men's salvation. And you shall see A cradled miniature of yourself asleep, Stamped on the heart by never-erring love; Liker than any Vandyke ever made, A pattern to the unborn age of thee, Over whose sweet beauty I have wept for joy A thousand times, and now should weep for sorrow, Did I not think that after we were dead Our fortunes would spring high in him, and that The cares we waste upon our heavy crown Would make it light and glorious as a wreath Of Heaven's beams for his dear innocent brow. King. Dear Henrietta! Scene III. The Star Chamber. Laud, Juxon, Strafford, and others, as Judges. Prynne as a Prisoner, and thenBastwick. Laud. Bring forth the prisoner Bastwick: let the clerk Recite his sentence. Clerk.           'That he pay five thousand Pounds to the king, lose both his ears, be branded With red-hot iron on the cheek and forehead, And be imprisoned within Lancaster Castle During the pleasure of the Court.' Laud.                   Prisoner, If you have aught to say wherefore this sentence Should not be put into effect, now speak. Juxon. If you have aught to plead in mitigation, Speak. Bastwick.    Thus, my lords. If, like the prelates, I Were an invader of the royal power, A public scorner of the word of God, Profane, idolatrous, popish, superstitious, Impious in heart and in tyrannic act, Void of wit, honesty, and temperance; If Satan were my lord, as theirs,our God Pattern of all I should avoid to do; Were I an enemy of my God and King And of good men, as ye are;I should merit Your fearful state and gilt prosperity, Which, when ye wake from the last sleep, shall turn To cowls and robes of everlasting fire. But, as I am, I bid ye grudge me not The only earthly favour ye can yield, Or I think worth acceptance at your hands, Scorn, mutilation, and imprisonment. . . . even as my Master did, Until Heaven's kingdom shall descend on earth, Or earth be like a shadow in the light Of Heaven absorbedsome few tumultuous years Will pass, and leave no wreck of what opposes His will whose will is power. Laud. Officer, take the prisoner from the bar, And be his tongue slit for his insolence. Bastwick. While this hand holds a pen Laud.                 Be his hands-- Juxon.                       Stop! Forbear, my lord! The tongue, which now can speak No terror, would interpret, being dumb, Heaven's thunder to our harm;... And hands, which now write only their own shame, With bleeding stumps might sign our blood away. Laud. Much more such 'mercy' among men would be, Did all the ministers of Heaven's revenge Flinch thus from earthly retribution. I Could suffer what I would inflict. [Exit Bastwick guarded.                   Bring up The Lord Bishop of Lincoln.                 (To Strafford.) Know you not That, in distraining for ten thousand pounds Upon his books and furniture at Lincoln, Were found these scandalous and seditious letters Sent from one Osbaldistone, who is fled? I speak it not as touching this poor person; But of the office which should make it holy, Were it as vile as it was ever spotless. Mark too, my lord, that this expression strikes His Majesty, if I misinterpret not. Enter Bishop Williams guarded. Strafford. 'Twere politic and just that Williams taste The bitter fruit of his connection with The schismatics. But you, my Lord Archbishop, Who owed your first promotion to his favour, Who grew beneath his smile Laud.                Would therefore beg The office of his judge from this High Court, That it shall seem, even as it is, that I, In my assumption of this sacred robe, Have put aside all worldly preference, All sense of all distinction of all persons, All thoughts but of the service of the Church. Bishop of Lincoln! Williams.           Peace, proud hierarch! I know my sentence, and I own it just. Thou wilt repay me less than I deserve, In stretching to the utmost. . . Scene IV. --Hampden, Pym, Cromwell, his Daughter, and young Sir Harry Vane. Hampden. England, farewell! thou, who hast been my cradle, Shalt never be my dungeon or my grave! I held what I inherited in thee As pawn for that inheritance of freedom Which thou hast sold for thy despoiler's smile: How can I call thee England, or my country? Does the wind hold? Vane.           The vanes sit steady Upon the Abbey towers. The silver lightnings Of the evening star, spite of the city's smoke, Tell that the north wind reigns in the upper air. Mark too that flock of fleecy-wingd clouds Sailing athwart St. Margaret's. Hampden.                  Hail, fleet herald Of tempest! that rude pilot who shall guide Hearts free as his, to realms as pure as thee, Beyond the shot of tyranny, Beyond the webs of that swoln spider . . . Beyond the curses, calumnies, and [lies?] Of atheist priests! . . . And thou Fair star, whose beam lies on the wide Atlantic, Athwart its zones of tempest and of calm, Bright as the path to a belovd home, Oh, light us to the isles of the evening land! Like floating Edens cradled in the glimmer Of sunset, through the distant mist of years Touched by departing hope, they gleam! lone regions, Where Power's poor dupes and victims yet have never Propitiated the savage fear of kings With purest blood of noblest hearts; whose dew Is yet unstained with tears of those who wake To weep each day the wrongs on which it dawns; Whose sacred silent air owns yet no echo Of formal blasphemies; nor impious rites Wrest man's free worship, from the God who loves, To the poor worm who envies us His love! Receive, thou young....of Paradise, These exiles from the old and sinful world!.... This glorious clime, this firmament, whose lights Dart mitigated influence through their veil Of pale blue atmosphere; whose tears keep green The pavement of this moist all-feeding earth; This vaporous horizon, whose dim round Is bastioned by the circumfluous sea, Repelling invasion from the sacred towers, Presses upon me like a dungeon's grate, A low dark roof, a damp and narrow wall. The boundless universe Becomes a cell too narrow for the soul That owns no master; while the loathliest ward Of this wide prison, England, is a nest Of cradling peace built on the mountain tops, To which the eagle spirits of the free, Which range through heaven and earth, and scorn the storm Of time, and gaze upon the light of truth, Return to brood on thoughts that cannot die And cannot be repelled. Like eaglets floating in the heaven of time, They soar above their quarry, and shall stoop Through palaces and temples thunderproof. SCENE V Archy. I'll go live under the ivy that overgrows the terrace, and count the tears shed on its old [roots?] as the [wind?] plays the song of 'A widow bird sate mourning Upon a wintry bough.' [Sings] Heigho! the lark and the owl! One flies the morning, and one lulls the night:-- Only the nightingale, poor fond soul, Sings like the fool through darkness and light. 'A widow bird sate mourning for her love Upon a wintry bough; The frozen wind crept on above, The freezing stream below. 'There was no leaf upon the forest bare, No flower upon the ground, And little motion in the air Except the mill-wheel's sound.' Charles the First was designed in 1818, begun towards the close of 1819, resumed in January, and finally laid aside by June, 1822. It was published in part in the Posthumous Poems, 1824, and printed, in its present form (with the addition of some 530 lines), by Mr. William Michael Rossetti, 1870. 1. Archy, the court fool of Charles I, is both an unacknowledged prophet and, as King Charles claims, a weaver of "a world of mirth out of the wreck of ours."    ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Charles The First ,

912:The Holy Grail From noiseful arms, and acts of prowess done In tournament or tilt, Sir Percivale, Whom Arthur and his knighthood called The Pure, Had passed into the silent life of prayer, Praise, fast, and alms; and leaving for the cowl The helmet in an abbey far away From Camelot, there, and not long after, died. And one, a fellow-monk among the rest, Ambrosius, loved him much beyond the rest, And honoured him, and wrought into his heart A way by love that wakened love within, To answer that which came: and as they sat Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half The cloisters, on a gustful April morn That puffed the swaying branches into smoke Above them, ere the summer when he died The monk Ambrosius questioned Percivale: `O brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke, Spring after spring, for half a hundred years: For never have I known the world without, Nor ever strayed beyond the pale: but thee, When first thou camest--such a courtesy Spake through the limbs and in the voice--I knew For one of those who eat in Arthur's hall; For good ye are and bad, and like to coins, Some true, some light, but every one of you Stamped with the image of the King; and now Tell me, what drove thee from the Table Round, My brother? was it earthly passion crost?' `Nay,' said the knight; `for no such passion mine. But the sweet vision of the Holy Grail Drove me from all vainglories, rivalries, And earthly heats that spring and sparkle out Among us in the jousts, while women watch Who wins, who falls; and waste the spiritual strength Within us, better offered up to Heaven.' 601 To whom the monk: `The Holy Grail!--I trust We are green in Heaven's eyes; but here too much We moulder--as to things without I mean-Yet one of your own knights, a guest of ours, Told us of this in our refectory, But spake with such a sadness and so low We heard not half of what he said. What is it? The phantom of a cup that comes and goes?' `Nay, monk! what phantom?' answered Percivale. `The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord Drank at the last sad supper with his own. This, from the blessd land of Aromat-After the day of darkness, when the dead Went wandering o'er Moriah--the good saint Arimathan Joseph, journeying brought To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord. And there awhile it bode; and if a man Could touch or see it, he was healed at once, By faith, of all his ills. But then the times Grew to such evil that the holy cup Was caught away to Heaven, and disappeared.' To whom the monk: `From our old books I know That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury, And there the heathen Prince, Arviragus, Gave him an isle of marsh whereon to build; And there he built with wattles from the marsh A little lonely church in days of yore, For so they say, these books of ours, but seem Mute of this miracle, far as I have read. But who first saw the holy thing today?' `A woman,' answered Percivale, `a nun, And one no further off in blood from me Than sister; and if ever holy maid With knees of adoration wore the stone, A holy maid; though never maiden glowed, But that was in her earlier maidenhood, With such a fervent flame of human love, 602 Which being rudely blunted, glanced and shot Only to holy things; to prayer and praise She gave herself, to fast and alms. And yet, Nun as she was, the scandal of the Court, Sin against Arthur and the Table Round, And the strange sound of an adulterous race, Across the iron grating of her cell Beat, and she prayed and fasted all the more. `And he to whom she told her sins, or what Her all but utter whiteness held for sin, A man wellnigh a hundred winters old, Spake often with her of the Holy Grail, A legend handed down through five or six, And each of these a hundred winters old, From our Lord's time. And when King Arthur made His Table Round, and all men's hearts became Clean for a season, surely he had thought That now the Holy Grail would come again; But sin broke out. Ah, Christ, that it would come, And heal the world of all their wickedness! "O Father!" asked the maiden, "might it come To me by prayer and fasting?" "Nay," said he, "I know not, for thy heart is pure as snow." And so she prayed and fasted, till the sun Shone, and the wind blew, through her, and I thought She might have risen and floated when I saw her. `For on a day she sent to speak with me. And when she came to speak, behold her eyes Beyond my knowing of them, beautiful, Beyond all knowing of them, wonderful, Beautiful in the light of holiness. And "O my brother Percivale," she said, "Sweet brother, I have seen the Holy Grail: For, waked at dead of night, I heard a sound As of a silver horn from o'er the hills Blown, and I thought, `It is not Arthur's use To hunt by moonlight;' and the slender sound As from a distance beyond distance grew Coming upon me--O never harp nor horn, Nor aught we blow with breath, or touch with hand, 603 Was like that music as it came; and then Streamed through my cell a cold and silver beam, And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail, Rose-red with beatings in it, as if alive, Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed With rosy colours leaping on the wall; And then the music faded, and the Grail Past, and the beam decayed, and from the walls The rosy quiverings died into the night. So now the Holy Thing is here again Among us, brother, fast thou too and pray, And tell thy brother knights to fast and pray, That so perchance the vision may be seen By thee and those, and all the world be healed." `Then leaving the pale nun, I spake of this To all men; and myself fasted and prayed Always, and many among us many a week Fasted and prayed even to the uttermost, Expectant of the wonder that would be. `And one there was among us, ever moved Among us in white armour, Galahad. "God make thee good as thou art beautiful," Said Arthur, when he dubbed him knight; and none, In so young youth, was ever made a knight Till Galahad; and this Galahad, when he heard My sister's vision, filled me with amaze; His eyes became so like her own, they seemed Hers, and himself her brother more than I. `Sister or brother none had he; but some Called him a son of Lancelot, and some said Begotten by enchantment--chatterers they, Like birds of passage piping up and down, That gape for flies--we know not whence they come; For when was Lancelot wanderingly lewd? `But she, the wan sweet maiden, shore away Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair Which made a silken mat-work for her feet; And out of this she plaited broad and long 604 A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver thread And crimson in the belt a strange device, A crimson grail within a silver beam; And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him, Saying, "My knight, my love, my knight of heaven, O thou, my love, whose love is one with mine, I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt. Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen, And break through all, till one will crown thee king Far in the spiritual city:" and as she spake She sent the deathless passion in her eyes Through him, and made him hers, and laid her mind On him, and he believed in her belief. `Then came a year of miracle: O brother, In our great hall there stood a vacant chair, Fashioned by Merlin ere he past away, And carven with strange figures; and in and out The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll Of letters in a tongue no man could read. And Merlin called it "The Siege perilous," Perilous for good and ill; "for there," he said, "No man could sit but he should lose himself:" And once by misadvertence Merlin sat In his own chair, and so was lost; but he, Galahad, when he heard of Merlin's doom, Cried, "If I lose myself, I save myself!" `Then on a summer night it came to pass, While the great banquet lay along the hall, That Galahad would sit down in Merlin's chair. `And all at once, as there we sat, we heard A cracking and a riving of the roofs, And rending, and a blast, and overhead Thunder, and in the thunder was a cry. And in the blast there smote along the hall A beam of light seven times more clear than day: And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail All over covered with a luminous cloud. And none might see who bare it, and it past. But every knight beheld his fellow's face 605 As in a glory, and all the knights arose, And staring each at other like dumb men Stood, till I found a voice and sware a vow. `I sware a vow before them all, that I, Because I had not seen the Grail, would ride A twelvemonth and a day in quest of it, Until I found and saw it, as the nun My sister saw it; and Galahad sware the vow, And good Sir Bors, our Lancelot's cousin, sware, And Lancelot sware, and many among the knights, And Gawain sware, and louder than the rest.' Then spake the monk Ambrosius, asking him, `What said the King? Did Arthur take the vow?' `Nay, for my lord,' said Percivale, `the King, Was not in hall: for early that same day, Scaped through a cavern from a bandit hold, An outraged maiden sprang into the hall Crying on help: for all her shining hair Was smeared with earth, and either milky arm Red-rent with hooks of bramble, and all she wore Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn In tempest: so the King arose and went To smoke the scandalous hive of those wild bees That made such honey in his realm. Howbeit Some little of this marvel he too saw, Returning o'er the plain that then began To darken under Camelot; whence the King Looked up, calling aloud, "Lo, there! the roofs Of our great hall are rolled in thunder-smoke! Pray Heaven, they be not smitten by the bolt." For dear to Arthur was that hall of ours, As having there so oft with all his knights Feasted, and as the stateliest under heaven. `O brother, had you known our mighty hall, Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago! For all the sacred mount of Camelot, And all the dim rich city, roof by roof, Tower after tower, spire beyond spire, 606 By grove, and garden-lawn, and rushing brook, Climbs to the mighty hall that Merlin built. And four great zones of sculpture, set betwixt With many a mystic symbol, gird the hall: And in the lowest beasts are slaying men, And in the second men are slaying beasts, And on the third are warriors, perfect men, And on the fourth are men with growing wings, And over all one statue in the mould Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown, And peaked wings pointed to the Northern Star. And eastward fronts the statue, and the crown And both the wings are made of gold, and flame At sunrise till the people in far fields, Wasted so often by the heathen hordes, Behold it, crying, "We have still a King." `And, brother, had you known our hall within, Broader and higher than any in all the lands! Where twelve great windows blazon Arthur's wars, And all the light that falls upon the board Streams through the twelve great battles of our King. Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end, Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere, Where Arthur finds the brand Excalibur. And also one to the west, and counter to it, And blank: and who shall blazon it? when and how?-O there, perchance, when all our wars are done, The brand Excalibur will be cast away. `So to this hall full quickly rode the King, In horror lest the work by Merlin wrought, Dreamlike, should on the sudden vanish, wrapt In unremorseful folds of rolling fire. And in he rode, and up I glanced, and saw The golden dragon sparkling over all: And many of those who burnt the hold, their arms Hacked, and their foreheads grimed with smoke, and seared, Followed, and in among bright faces, ours, Full of the vision, prest: and then the King Spake to me, being nearest, "Percivale," (Because the hall was all in tumult--some 607 Vowing, and some protesting), "what is this?" `O brother, when I told him what had chanced, My sister's vision, and the rest, his face Darkened, as I have seen it more than once, When some brave deed seemed to be done in vain, Darken; and "Woe is me, my knights," he cried, "Had I been here, ye had not sworn the vow." Bold was mine answer, "Had thyself been here, My King, thou wouldst have sworn." "Yea, yea," said he, "Art thou so bold and hast not seen the Grail?" `"Nay, lord, I heard the sound, I saw the light, But since I did not see the Holy Thing, I sware a vow to follow it till I saw." `Then when he asked us, knight by knight, if any Had seen it, all their answers were as one: "Nay, lord, and therefore have we sworn our vows." `"Lo now," said Arthur, "have ye seen a cloud? What go ye into the wilderness to see?" `Then Galahad on the sudden, and in a voice Shrilling along the hall to Arthur, called, "But I, Sir Arthur, saw the Holy Grail, I saw the Holy Grail and heard a cry-`O Galahad, and O Galahad, follow me.'" `"Ah, Galahad, Galahad," said the King, "for such As thou art is the vision, not for these. Thy holy nun and thou have seen a sign-Holier is none, my Percivale, than she-A sign to maim this Order which I made. But ye, that follow but the leader's bell" (Brother, the King was hard upon his knights) "Taliessin is our fullest throat of song, And one hath sung and all the dumb will sing. Lancelot is Lancelot, and hath overborne Five knights at once, and every younger knight, Unproven, holds himself as Lancelot, Till overborne by one, he learns--and ye, 608 What are ye? Galahads?--no, nor Percivales" (For thus it pleased the King to range me close After Sir Galahad); "nay," said he, "but men With strength and will to right the wronged, of power To lay the sudden heads of violence flat, Knights that in twelve great battles splashed and dyed The strong White Horse in his own heathen blood-But one hath seen, and all the blind will see. Go, since your vows are sacred, being made: Yet--for ye know the cries of all my realm Pass through this hall--how often, O my knights, Your places being vacant at my side, This chance of noble deeds will come and go Unchallenged, while ye follow wandering fires Lost in the quagmire! Many of you, yea most, Return no more: ye think I show myself Too dark a prophet: come now, let us meet The morrow morn once more in one full field Of gracious pastime, that once more the King, Before ye leave him for this Quest, may count The yet-unbroken strength of all his knights, Rejoicing in that Order which he made." `So when the sun broke next from under ground, All the great table of our Arthur closed And clashed in such a tourney and so full, So many lances broken--never yet Had Camelot seen the like, since Arthur came; And I myself and Galahad, for a strength Was in us from this vision, overthrew So many knights that all the people cried, And almost burst the barriers in their heat, Shouting, "Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale!" `But when the next day brake from under ground-O brother, had you known our Camelot, Built by old kings, age after age, so old The King himself had fears that it would fall, So strange, and rich, and dim; for where the roofs Tottered toward each other in the sky, Met foreheads all along the street of those Who watched us pass; and lower, and where the long 609 Rich galleries, lady-laden, weighed the necks Of dragons clinging to the crazy walls, Thicker than drops from thunder, showers of flowers Fell as we past; and men and boys astride On wyvern, lion, dragon, griffin, swan, At all the corners, named us each by name, Calling, "God speed!" but in the ways below The knights and ladies wept, and rich and poor Wept, and the King himself could hardly speak For grief, and all in middle street the Queen, Who rode by Lancelot, wailed and shrieked aloud, "This madness has come on us for our sins." So to the Gate of the three Queens we came, Where Arthur's wars are rendered mystically, And thence departed every one his way. `And I was lifted up in heart, and thought Of all my late-shown prowess in the lists, How my strong lance had beaten down the knights, So many and famous names; and never yet Had heaven appeared so blue, nor earth so green, For all my blood danced in me, and I knew That I should light upon the Holy Grail. `Thereafter, the dark warning of our King, That most of us would follow wandering fires, Came like a driving gloom across my mind. Then every evil word I had spoken once, And every evil thought I had thought of old, And every evil deed I ever did, Awoke and cried, "This Quest is not for thee." And lifting up mine eyes, I found myself Alone, and in a land of sand and thorns, And I was thirsty even unto death; And I, too, cried, "This Quest is not for thee." `And on I rode, and when I thought my thirst Would slay me, saw deep lawns, and then a brook, With one sharp rapid, where the crisping white Played ever back upon the sloping wave, And took both ear and eye; and o'er the brook Were apple-trees, and apples by the brook 610 Fallen, and on the lawns. "I will rest here," I said, "I am not worthy of the Quest;" But even while I drank the brook, and ate The goodly apples, all these things at once Fell into dust, and I was left alone, And thirsting, in a land of sand and thorns. `And then behold a woman at a door Spinning; and fair the house whereby she sat, And kind the woman's eyes and innocent, And all her bearing gracious; and she rose Opening her arms to meet me, as who should say, "Rest here;" but when I touched her, lo! she, too, Fell into dust and nothing, and the house Became no better than a broken shed, And in it a dead babe; and also this Fell into dust, and I was left alone. `And on I rode, and greater was my thirst. Then flashed a yellow gleam across the world, And where it smote the plowshare in the field, The plowman left his plowing, and fell down Before it; where it glittered on her pail, The milkmaid left her milking, and fell down Before it, and I knew not why, but thought "The sun is rising," though the sun had risen. Then was I ware of one that on me moved In golden armour with a crown of gold About a casque all jewels; and his horse In golden armour jewelled everywhere: And on the splendour came, flashing me blind; And seemed to me the Lord of all the world, Being so huge. But when I thought he meant To crush me, moving on me, lo! he, too, Opened his arms to embrace me as he came, And up I went and touched him, and he, too, Fell into dust, and I was left alone And wearying in a land of sand and thorns. `And I rode on and found a mighty hill, And on the top, a city walled: the spires Pricked with incredible pinnacles into heaven. 611 And by the gateway stirred a crowd; and these Cried to me climbing, "Welcome, Percivale! Thou mightiest and thou purest among men!" And glad was I and clomb, but found at top No man, nor any voice. And thence I past Far through a ruinous city, and I saw That man had once dwelt there; but there I found Only one man of an exceeding age. "Where is that goodly company," said I, "That so cried out upon me?" and he had Scarce any voice to answer, and yet gasped, "Whence and what art thou?" and even as he spoke Fell into dust, and disappeared, and I Was left alone once more, and cried in grief, "Lo, if I find the Holy Grail itself And touch it, it will crumble into dust." `And thence I dropt into a lowly vale, Low as the hill was high, and where the vale Was lowest, found a chapel, and thereby A holy hermit in a hermitage, To whom I told my phantoms, and he said: `"O son, thou hast not true humility, The highest virtue, mother of them all; For when the Lord of all things made Himself Naked of glory for His mortal change, `Take thou my robe,' she said, `for all is thine,' And all her form shone forth with sudden light So that the angels were amazed, and she Followed Him down, and like a flying star Led on the gray-haired wisdom of the east; But her thou hast not known: for what is this Thou thoughtest of thy prowess and thy sins? Thou hast not lost thyself to save thyself As Galahad." When the hermit made an end, In silver armour suddenly Galahad shone Before us, and against the chapel door Laid lance, and entered, and we knelt in prayer. And there the hermit slaked my burning thirst, And at the sacring of the mass I saw The holy elements alone; but he, 612 "Saw ye no more? I, Galahad, saw the Grail, The Holy Grail, descend upon the shrine: I saw the fiery face as of a child That smote itself into the bread, and went; And hither am I come; and never yet Hath what thy sister taught me first to see, This Holy Thing, failed from my side, nor come Covered, but moving with me night and day, Fainter by day, but always in the night Blood-red, and sliding down the blackened marsh Blood-red, and on the naked mountain top Blood-red, and in the sleeping mere below Blood-red. And in the strength of this I rode, Shattering all evil customs everywhere, And past through Pagan realms, and made them mine, And clashed with Pagan hordes, and bore them down, And broke through all, and in the strength of this Come victor. But my time is hard at hand, And hence I go; and one will crown me king Far in the spiritual city; and come thou, too, For thou shalt see the vision when I go." `While thus he spake, his eye, dwelling on mine, Drew me, with power upon me, till I grew One with him, to believe as he believed. Then, when the day began to wane, we went. `There rose a hill that none but man could climb, Scarred with a hundred wintry water-courses-Storm at the top, and when we gained it, storm Round us and death; for every moment glanced His silver arms and gloomed: so quick and thick The lightnings here and there to left and right Struck, till the dry old trunks about us, dead, Yea, rotten with a hundred years of death, Sprang into fire: and at the base we found On either hand, as far as eye could see, A great black swamp and of an evil smell, Part black, part whitened with the bones of men, Not to be crost, save that some ancient king Had built a way, where, linked with many a bridge, A thousand piers ran into the great Sea. 613 And Galahad fled along them bridge by bridge, And every bridge as quickly as he crost Sprang into fire and vanished, though I yearned To follow; and thrice above him all the heavens Opened and blazed with thunder such as seemed Shoutings of all the sons of God: and first At once I saw him far on the great Sea, In silver-shining armour starry-clear; And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung Clothed in white samite or a luminous cloud. And with exceeding swiftness ran the boat, If boat it were--I saw not whence it came. And when the heavens opened and blazed again Roaring, I saw him like a silver star-And had he set the sail, or had the boat Become a living creature clad with wings? And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung Redder than any rose, a joy to me, For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn. Then in a moment when they blazed again Opening, I saw the least of little stars Down on the waste, and straight beyond the star I saw the spiritual city and all her spires And gateways in a glory like one pearl-No larger, though the goal of all the saints-Strike from the sea; and from the star there shot A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there Dwelt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail, Which never eyes on earth again shall see. Then fell the floods of heaven drowning the deep. And how my feet recrost the deathful ridge No memory in me lives; but that I touched The chapel-doors at dawn I know; and thence Taking my war-horse from the holy man, Glad that no phantom vext me more, returned To whence I came, the gate of Arthur's wars.' `O brother,' asked Ambrosius,--`for in sooth These ancient books--and they would win thee--teem, Only I find not there this Holy Grail, With miracles and marvels like to these, Not all unlike; which oftentime I read, 614 Who read but on my breviary with ease, Till my head swims; and then go forth and pass Down to the little thorpe that lies so close, And almost plastered like a martin's nest To these old walls--and mingle with our folk; And knowing every honest face of theirs As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep, And every homely secret in their hearts, Delight myself with gossip and old wives, And ills and aches, and teethings, lyings-in, And mirthful sayings, children of the place, That have no meaning half a league away: Or lulling random squabbles when they rise, Chafferings and chatterings at the market-cross, Rejoice, small man, in this small world of mine, Yea, even in their hens and in their eggs-O brother, saving this Sir Galahad, Came ye on none but phantoms in your quest, No man, no woman?' Then Sir Percivale: `All men, to one so bound by such a vow, And women were as phantoms. O, my brother, Why wilt thou shame me to confess to thee How far I faltered from my quest and vow? For after I had lain so many nights A bedmate of the snail and eft and snake, In grass and burdock, I was changed to wan And meagre, and the vision had not come; And then I chanced upon a goodly town With one great dwelling in the middle of it; Thither I made, and there was I disarmed By maidens each as fair as any flower: But when they led me into hall, behold, The Princess of that castle was the one, Brother, and that one only, who had ever Made my heart leap; for when I moved of old A slender page about her father's hall, And she a slender maiden, all my heart Went after her with longing: yet we twain Had never kissed a kiss, or vowed a vow. And now I came upon her once again, 615 And one had wedded her, and he was dead, And all his land and wealth and state were hers. And while I tarried, every day she set A banquet richer than the day before By me; for all her longing and her will Was toward me as of old; till one fair morn, I walking to and fro beside a stream That flashed across her orchard underneath Her castle-walls, she stole upon my walk, And calling me the greatest of all knights, Embraced me, and so kissed me the first time, And gave herself and all her wealth to me. Then I remembered Arthur's warning word, That most of us would follow wandering fires, And the Quest faded in my heart. Anon, The heads of all her people drew to me, With supplication both of knees and tongue: "We have heard of thee: thou art our greatest knight, Our Lady says it, and we well believe: Wed thou our Lady, and rule over us, And thou shalt be as Arthur in our land." O me, my brother! but one night my vow Burnt me within, so that I rose and fled, But wailed and wept, and hated mine own self, And even the Holy Quest, and all but her; Then after I was joined with Galahad Cared not for her, nor anything upon earth.' Then said the monk, `Poor men, when yule is cold, Must be content to sit by little fires. And this am I, so that ye care for me Ever so little; yea, and blest be Heaven That brought thee here to this poor house of ours Where all the brethren are so hard, to warm My cold heart with a friend: but O the pity To find thine own first love once more--to hold, Hold her a wealthy bride within thine arms, Or all but hold, and then--cast her aside, Foregoing all her sweetness, like a weed. For we that want the warmth of double life, We that are plagued with dreams of something sweet Beyond all sweetness in a life so rich,-- 616 Ah, blessd Lord, I speak too earthlywise, Seeing I never strayed beyond the cell, But live like an old badger in his earth, With earth about him everywhere, despite All fast and penance. Saw ye none beside, None of your knights?' `Yea so,' said Percivale: `One night my pathway swerving east, I saw The pelican on the casque of our Sir Bors All in the middle of the rising moon: And toward him spurred, and hailed him, and he me, And each made joy of either; then he asked, "Where is he? hast thou seen him--Lancelot?--Once," Said good Sir Bors, "he dashed across me--mad, And maddening what he rode: and when I cried, `Ridest thou then so hotly on a quest So holy,' Lancelot shouted, `Stay me not! I have been the sluggard, and I ride apace, For now there is a lion in the way.' So vanished." `Then Sir Bors had ridden on Softly, and sorrowing for our Lancelot, Because his former madness, once the talk And scandal of our table, had returned; For Lancelot's kith and kin so worship him That ill to him is ill to them; to Bors Beyond the rest: he well had been content Not to have seen, so Lancelot might have seen, The Holy Cup of healing; and, indeed, Being so clouded with his grief and love, Small heart was his after the Holy Quest: If God would send the vision, well: if not, The Quest and he were in the hands of Heaven. `And then, with small adventure met, Sir Bors Rode to the lonest tract of all the realm, And found a people there among their crags, Our race and blood, a remnant that were left Paynim amid their circles, and the stones They pitch up straight to heaven: and their wise men 617 Were strong in that old magic which can trace The wandering of the stars, and scoffed at him And this high Quest as at a simple thing: Told him he followed--almost Arthur's words-A mocking fire: "what other fire than he, Whereby the blood beats, and the blossom blows, And the sea rolls, and all the world is warmed?" And when his answer chafed them, the rough crowd, Hearing he had a difference with their priests, Seized him, and bound and plunged him into a cell Of great piled stones; and lying bounden there In darkness through innumerable hours He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep Over him till by miracle--what else?-Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell, Such as no wind could move: and through the gap Glimmered the streaming scud: then came a night Still as the day was loud; and through the gap The seven clear stars of Arthur's Table Round-For, brother, so one night, because they roll Through such a round in heaven, we named the stars, Rejoicing in ourselves and in our King-And these, like bright eyes of familiar friends, In on him shone: "And then to me, to me," Said good Sir Bors, "beyond all hopes of mine, Who scarce had prayed or asked it for myself-Across the seven clear stars--O grace to me-In colour like the fingers of a hand Before a burning taper, the sweet Grail Glided and past, and close upon it pealed A sharp quick thunder." Afterwards, a maid, Who kept our holy faith among her kin In secret, entering, loosed and let him go.' To whom the monk: `And I remember now That pelican on the casque: Sir Bors it was Who spake so low and sadly at our board; And mighty reverent at our grace was he: A square-set man and honest; and his eyes, An out-door sign of all the warmth within, Smiled with his lips--a smile beneath a cloud, But heaven had meant it for a sunny one: 618 Ay, ay, Sir Bors, who else? But when ye reached The city, found ye all your knights returned, Or was there sooth in Arthur's prophecy, Tell me, and what said each, and what the King?' Then answered Percivale: `And that can I, Brother, and truly; since the living words Of so great men as Lancelot and our King Pass not from door to door and out again, But sit within the house. O, when we reached The city, our horses stumbling as they trode On heaps of ruin, hornless unicorns, Cracked basilisks, and splintered cockatrices, And shattered talbots, which had left the stones Raw, that they fell from, brought us to the hall. `And there sat Arthur on the das-throne, And those that had gone out upon the Quest, Wasted and worn, and but a tithe of them, And those that had not, stood before the King, Who, when he saw me, rose, and bad me hail, Saying, "A welfare in thine eye reproves Our fear of some disastrous chance for thee On hill, or plain, at sea, or flooding ford. So fierce a gale made havoc here of late Among the strange devices of our kings; Yea, shook this newer, stronger hall of ours, And from the statue Merlin moulded for us Half-wrenched a golden wing; but now--the Quest, This vision--hast thou seen the Holy Cup, That Joseph brought of old to Glastonbury?" `So when I told him all thyself hast heard, Ambrosius, and my fresh but fixt resolve To pass away into the quiet life, He answered not, but, sharply turning, asked Of Gawain, "Gawain, was this Quest for thee?" `"Nay, lord," said Gawain, "not for such as I. Therefore I communed with a saintly man, Who made me sure the Quest was not for me; For I was much awearied of the Quest: 619 But found a silk pavilion in a field, And merry maidens in it; and then this gale Tore my pavilion from the tenting-pin, And blew my merry maidens all about With all discomfort; yea, and but for this, My twelvemonth and a day were pleasant to me." `He ceased; and Arthur turned to whom at first He saw not, for Sir Bors, on entering, pushed Athwart the throng to Lancelot, caught his hand, Held it, and there, half-hidden by him, stood, Until the King espied him, saying to him, "Hail, Bors! if ever loyal man and true Could see it, thou hast seen the Grail;" and Bors, "Ask me not, for I may not speak of it: I saw it;" and the tears were in his eyes. `Then there remained but Lancelot, for the rest Spake but of sundry perils in the storm; Perhaps, like him of Cana in Holy Writ, Our Arthur kept his best until the last; "Thou, too, my Lancelot," asked the king, "my friend, Our mightiest, hath this Quest availed for thee?" `"Our mightiest!" answered Lancelot, with a groan; "O King!"--and when he paused, methought I spied A dying fire of madness in his eyes-"O King, my friend, if friend of thine I be, Happier are those that welter in their sin, Swine in the mud, that cannot see for slime, Slime of the ditch: but in me lived a sin So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower And poisonous grew together, each as each, Not to be plucked asunder; and when thy knights Sware, I sware with them only in the hope That could I touch or see the Holy Grail They might be plucked asunder. Then I spake To one most holy saint, who wept and said, That save they could be plucked asunder, all My quest were but in vain; to whom I vowed 620 That I would work according as he willed. And forth I went, and while I yearned and strove To tear the twain asunder in my heart, My madness came upon me as of old, And whipt me into waste fields far away; There was I beaten down by little men, Mean knights, to whom the moving of my sword And shadow of my spear had been enow To scare them from me once; and then I came All in my folly to the naked shore, Wide flats, where nothing but coarse grasses grew; But such a blast, my King, began to blow, So loud a blast along the shore and sea, Ye could not hear the waters for the blast, Though heapt in mounds and ridges all the sea Drove like a cataract, and all the sand Swept like a river, and the clouded heavens Were shaken with the motion and the sound. And blackening in the sea-foam swayed a boat, Half-swallowed in it, anchored with a chain; And in my madness to myself I said, `I will embark and I will lose myself, And in the great sea wash away my sin.' I burst the chain, I sprang into the boat. Seven days I drove along the dreary deep, And with me drove the moon and all the stars; And the wind fell, and on the seventh night I heard the shingle grinding in the surge, And felt the boat shock earth, and looking up, Behold, the enchanted towers of Carbonek, A castle like a rock upon a rock, With chasm-like portals open to the sea, And steps that met the breaker! there was none Stood near it but a lion on each side That kept the entry, and the moon was full. Then from the boat I leapt, and up the stairs. There drew my sword. With sudden-flaring manes Those two great beasts rose upright like a man, Each gript a shoulder, and I stood between; And, when I would have smitten them, heard a voice, `Doubt not, go forward; if thou doubt, the beasts Will tear thee piecemeal.' Then with violence 621 The sword was dashed from out my hand, and fell. And up into the sounding hall I past; But nothing in the sounding hall I saw, No bench nor table, painting on the wall Or shield of knight; only the rounded moon Through the tall oriel on the rolling sea. But always in the quiet house I heard, Clear as a lark, high o'er me as a lark, A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower To the eastward: up I climbed a thousand steps With pain: as in a dream I seemed to climb For ever: at the last I reached a door, A light was in the crannies, and I heard, `Glory and joy and honour to our Lord And to the Holy Vessel of the Grail.' Then in my madness I essayed the door; It gave; and through a stormy glare, a heat As from a seventimes-heated furnace, I, Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I was, With such a fierceness that I swooned away-O, yet methought I saw the Holy Grail, All palled in crimson samite, and around Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and eyes. And but for all my madness and my sin, And then my swooning, I had sworn I saw That which I saw; but what I saw was veiled And covered; and this Quest was not for me." `So speaking, and here ceasing, Lancelot left The hall long silent, till Sir Gawain--nay, Brother, I need not tell thee foolish words,-A reckless and irreverent knight was he, Now boldened by the silence of his King,-Well, I will tell thee: "O King, my liege," he said, "Hath Gawain failed in any quest of thine? When have I stinted stroke in foughten field? But as for thine, my good friend Percivale, Thy holy nun and thou have driven men mad, Yea, made our mightiest madder than our least. But by mine eyes and by mine ears I swear, I will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat, And thrice as blind as any noonday owl, 622 To holy virgins in their ecstasies, Henceforward." `"Deafer," said the blameless King, "Gawain, and blinder unto holy things Hope not to make thyself by idle vows, Being too blind to have desire to see. But if indeed there came a sign from heaven, Blessd are Bors, Lancelot and Percivale, For these have seen according to their sight. For every fiery prophet in old times, And all the sacred madness of the bard, When God made music through them, could but speak His music by the framework and the chord; And as ye saw it ye have spoken truth. `"Nay--but thou errest, Lancelot: never yet Could all of true and noble in knight and man Twine round one sin, whatever it might be, With such a closeness, but apart there grew, Save that he were the swine thou spakest of, Some root of knighthood and pure nobleness; Whereto see thou, that it may bear its flower. `"And spake I not too truly, O my knights? Was I too dark a prophet when I said To those who went upon the Holy Quest, That most of them would follow wandering fires, Lost in the quagmire?--lost to me and gone, And left me gazing at a barren board, And a lean Order--scarce returned a tithe-And out of those to whom the vision came My greatest hardly will believe he saw; Another hath beheld it afar off, And leaving human wrongs to right themselves, Cares but to pass into the silent life. And one hath had the vision face to face, And now his chair desires him here in vain, However they may crown him otherwhere. `"And some among you held, that if the King Had seen the sight he would have sworn the vow: 623 Not easily, seeing that the King must guard That which he rules, and is but as the hind To whom a space of land is given to plow. Who may not wander from the allotted field Before his work be done; but, being done, Let visions of the night or of the day Come, as they will; and many a time they come, Until this earth he walks on seems not earth, This light that strikes his eyeball is not light, This air that smites his forehead is not air But vision--yea, his very hand and foot-In moments when he feels he cannot die, And knows himself no vision to himself, Nor the high God a vision, nor that One Who rose again: ye have seen what ye have seen." `So spake the King: I knew not all he meant.' ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

913:Leszko The Bastard ``Why do I bid the rising gale To waft me from your shore? Why hail I, as the vultures hail, The scent of far-off gore? Why wear I with defiant pride The Paynim's badge and gear, Though I am vowed to Christ that died, And fain would staunch the gaping side That felt the sceptic spear? And why doth one in whom there runs The blood of Sclavic sires and sons, In those but find a foe, That onward march with sword and flame, To vindicate the Sclavic name, From the fringe of Arctic snows, To the cradle of the rose, Where the Sweet Waters flow? Strange! But 'twere stranger yet if I, When Turk and Tartar splinters fly, Lagged far behind the van. While the wind dallies with my sail, Listen! and you shall hear my tale; Then marvel, if you can! ``Nothing but snow! A white waste world, Far as eye reached, or voice could call! Motion within itself slept furled; The earth was dead, and Heaven its pall! Now nothing lived except the wind, That, moaning round with restless mind, Seemed like uncoffined ghost to flit O'er vacant tracts, that it might find Some kindred thing to speak with it. Nothing to break the white expanse! No far, no near, no high, no low! Nothing to stop the wandering glance! One smooth monotony of snow! I lifted the latch, and I shivered in; My mother stood by the larch-log blaze, 298 My mother, stately, and tall, and thin, With the shapely head and the soft white skin, And the sweetly-sorrowing gaze. She was younger than you, aye, you who stand In matron prime by your household fire, A happy wife in a happy land, And with all your heart's desire. But though bred, like you, from the proud and brave, Her hair was blanched and her voice was grave. If you knew what it is to be born a slave, And to feel a despot's ire! ``She turned her round from the hearth like one That hath waited long, and said, `Come hither, and sit by me, my son! For somehow to-night doth remembrance run Back to the days that are dead. And you are tall and stalwart now, And coming manhood o'er your brow Its shadow 'gins to shed. Sit by me close!' and as I sate Close, close as I could sit, She took my hand and placed it flat On hers, and fondled it. Then with the same soft palm she brushed My wind-tossed locks apart, And, kissing my bared temples, hushed The flow of love that else had gushed, Love-loosened, from my heart. ```Listen! you often have questioned why Here 'neath this pale Siberian sky, You scarcely live, I slowly die. That we dwell on, but exiles here, In regions barren, sunless, drear, And have no more the power to fly To brighter lands and bluer sky, Than some poor bird whom man's caprice Hath tethered by a clanking chain, And leaves upon its perch in pain To pine for, ne'er to find release,This do you know, and still have known 299 Since first I taught your mouth to frame The syllables of Poland's name, Even before my own. But how could I to childhood's ears, Or boyhood's, tell the tale of tears That links me with the bygone years?Tale steeped in rapture, drenched with woe, A tale of wrong, and loss, and love, That opens in the heavens above, And ends in worse than hell below?A tale I only could impart To mind mature and full-grown heart; A tale to fill your larger life With hissing waters of distress And overflowing bitterness, And set you with yourself at strife? But you must hear it now. The down Of manhood fringes lip and cheek; Your temples take a richer brown, And on your forehead buds the crown Of kingly thought that yet will speak. Listen! and let no faintest word Of all I utter fall unheard Upon your ear or heart! 'Twill wring your youth, but nerve it too:And what have I now left to do, But unveil tyranny to view, And wing the avenging dart? ```So like to you! The same blue eye, Same lavish locks, same forehead high, But of a manlier majesty! His limbs, like yours, were straight and strong, Yet supple as the bough in bud; For tyrants cannot tame the blood, Or noble lineage lose, through wrong Its heritage of hardihood. And maybe since his years were more, And partly that you needs must bear In every filial vein and pore With his pure strain the base alloy Of that in you which is my share, 300 Though you are tall and comely, boy! Yet he was taller, comelier. In days that now but live in song, When Rurik's hinds felt Poland's heel, And Poland's horsemen, cased in steel, To Volo's plain were wont to throng, A hundred thousand manes in strength, And vowed, if Heaven let fall the sky, To uphold it on their lance's length As 'twere a silken canopy; His sires were there in gallant trim, Haught of mien and hard of limbVisors up and foreheads gashed, Swords that poised, and swooped, and flashed, Like the wings of the flaming Cherubim! And when Imperial vultures tore With banded beaks Sarmatia's breast, And wallowed in Sarmatia's gore, His fathers by their fathers swore Ne'er to recede nor rest, Till they had pushed the watchful points Of vengeance in between the joints Of armour dear to tyrants pricked Of conscience never hushed nor tricked, And made them feel what they inflict. Vow sternly kept, but kept in vain! For ninety hoping, hopeless years, Poland hath known no couch save pain, No mate except the dull cold chain, Hath felt the lash, and fed on jeers, While Heaven, it seems, no longer hears The wail of prayers, the drip of tears, Or the voices of the slain. Thrice have her sons, despite their gyves, Essayed to sell their worthless lives At least against the price Of ruin on their gaolers brought; But each brave stroke hath come to nought, And blood, and wounds, and death, have brought, Only fresh bootless sacrifice. No blow was struck they did not share, No banner raised, but straight they flew 301 For one more tussle with despair; And ever as they fought, they fell, Waxing still fewer and more few, Till only one remained to tell How they had passed away, and dare With front erect and unquelled stare Those earthly ministers of hell. One only of that kindred bandLike some last column gazing lone Across the bare and brackish sand, In a depopulated land, Telling of times and temples flown! ```He loved me. Love in every clime, Through all vicissitudes of time, Is life's climacteric and prime. Matched against it, all boons that bless, All joys we chase, all good we prize, All that of tender and sublime Expands the heart and fills the eyes, Tastes pitiful and savourless. It glorifies the common air, It clothes with light the mountains bare, And shows the heavens all shining there. It lifts our feet from off the ground, It lets us walk along the skies; It makes the daily silence sound With transcendental harmonies. It rules the seasons. Linnets sing As loud in winter as in spring, When hearts are leal, and love is king. Bathed in its light, the distance glows With all the colours of the rose. Its vivid gaze blends far and near In one delicious atmosphere, Projects the future from the past, And hugs the faith, without a fear, Since love is all, that all will last. The peevish voice of doubt grows dumb; The demons of dejection flee; And even sordid cares become But a divine anxiety. 302 Hope sails no more in far-off skies, But makes its nest upon the ground; And happiness, coy wing that flies Too oft when mortal yearning woos, At love's sweet summons circling round, Sits on the nearest bough, and coos. ```Yes! such is love in every land, If blest or curst, enslaved or free. But how can they whose chainless hand May stretch towards all they dream or see, Whose lungs exult, whose lives expand, In air of bracing liberty, Feel love's delirium like to those Who, of all other bliss bereft, And cooped from each hale wind that blows, Fondle, amid a world of foes, The solitary friend that's left? Through whatso regions freemen roam, They find a hearth, they make a home. Their unfenced energies embrace All realms of thought, all fields of space, At each fresh step fresh prospects find, Larger than any left behind, And mount with still rewarded stress From happiness to happiness. E'en love itself for such can bring To life's tuned lyre but one more string, Or but with fingers subtly straying Among the chords, and softly playing, Make more harmonious everything. But when to him whose hopes are bound Within a dismal prison round, Whose thoughts, suspected, must not soar Beyond his straitened dungeon floor, Who may not speak, nor groan, nor sigh, Nor lend sharp agony a vent, Lest those should hear him who are nigh, And catch, perchance, in passing by, Contagion from his discontent; Who dwells an exile in his home, And cannot rest and may not roam; 303 Whom even hope doth not delude; Who vainly lives, in vain would die, And, hemmed in close, alike would fly, Society and solitude;Oh! when to such as he love brings Message of heaven upon its wings, It fills his heart, it floods his brain, Riots in every pulse and vein, And turns to paradise his pain. Body, and soul, and sense conspire To feed the rising, rushing fire. The passions which are wont to share Love's empire o'er distracted man, Denied their outlet, in him fan The exclusive fury of desire. As one who faints of thirst, he takes Swiftly what should be slowly quaffed, With ravenous lips his fever slakes, Then dies, delirious, of the draught! ```He loved me. Do you ask if I His love returned? Go, ask the sky If it in vain pours sun and shower On herb and leaf, on tree and flower. Go, ask of echo if it wakes When voice in lonely places calls; Ask of the silence if it takes The sound of plashing waterfalls: Ask the parched plains if they refuse The solace of descending dews; Ask the unrippled lake that lies Under faint fleecy clouds that flit, If it reflects with tender eyes The heavenly forms that gaze on it; But ask not me if I returned The love with which his being burned. His passion such, in any heart It straight had worked its counterpart, Woke its own echo, roused a tone In perfect concert with its own, And made, the instant that it shone, Mirror of what it gazed upon. 304 ```We loved, as few have loved before, 'Chance none; and lo! the hour drew nigh To ratify the vows we swore One night beneath the sky, Before the solemn altar-rails O'er which He hangs, pierced through with nails, Who for our sins did die. Oh! why is woman doomed to bear The love, or lust, she cannot share; And hear from alien lips the sighs She fain herself would waken ne'er, Save within kindred hearts and eyes? Never by word, nor glance, nor e'en That barren courtesy we give Unto well nigh all things that live, Did his detested rival glean That I another's homage should Not greet, as evil is by good. But, had my heart been free as air, Fickle as wind, as quick to take Impression as some limpid lake That every wanton breath can stir, How had it ruffled been by one Who wore the livery of the brood By whom, with hands in blood imbrued, Thrice had my country been undone? But I, nor free, nor false, nor light, Bound both to Poland, and to him Who yearned for Poland's wrongs to fight, Had rather torn been limb from limb, Than share with such love's last delight! I answered softly, not in scorn; For in what guise soe'er it come, Because of gentle longings born, Love should leave indignation dumb. But he was, like his shifty race, Disloyal, cunning, vengeful, base, And when he heard the lips of fate, Love in him straightway turned to hate, Even before my face! He menaced me with vengeance dire. 305 He knew my lover, brother, sire, All rebels to the core. And in the rush of lustful ire, By his schismatic saints he swore, That ruin, exile, death, should fall With speedy stroke upon them all, Unless I fed his foul desire. I knew it was no idle boast; He had the power to fetter, slay, Abetted by a servile host, Perjured, suborned by bribes to say Whatever falsehood pleased him most. Yet then I bridled not my scorn, But poured upon his dastard head All that by woman can be said, When she confronts, before her eyes, Creature created to despise, And, since of manlier weapons shorn, Can only wish him dead. ``Beware!'' he croaked, with passion hoarse, ``Within your patriot arms shall lie, Repelled or welcomed, none but I; And what you now to love deny, You yet shall yield to fear or force.'' With scorn yet fiercer than at first I flashed, and bade him work his worst. ``Before to-morrow's sun hath set,'' He answered, ``I shall pay the debt Of vengeance, never baffled yet. Think not to foil me or to fly! I ever do the thing I would.'' Then laughing loud, he went; and I Hated the ground where late he stood. ```The Night lay encamped in the summer sky, And the burning stars kept watch; All were asleep upon earth save I, Who had waited the hour and lifted the latch, And crept out noiselessly. The air was as silent as love or death, Except for the beat of my quickened breath, And once the lonely belated wail 306 Of an answered nightingale. I dared not quicken my steps, for fear The silence should listening be, and hear. Slowly, stealthily, foot by foot. Girding my garments tightly round, Lest they should touch and tell the ground, I threaded the laurel-walk and passed On to the latchet-gate, and put My hand on the creaking key, aghast Lest the first stage of flight should prove the last. Through! and out in the meadows beyond, With the cooling grass-dews round my feet, Which would tell the tale of my journey fond, But too late to hinder its purpose sweet; Over the narrow and swaying planks That span the neck of the marish pool Where the tall spear-lilies close their ranks, And the water-hens nestle safe and cool. Then into the gloomy, darksome wood Where the trunks seemed ghosts, and the big boughs stood As though they would block my way. Woman's love is stronger than woman's fright, And though dogged by dread, yet I faced that night What I ne'er had faced by day. O the blessëd break, and the blank without, From each grinning bole and each staring leaf! I clutched my temples, and gave a shout; It was mad, but it brought relief. And then with a saner fear I stopped To know if my foolish cry was heard. But, like to a stream where a stone is dropped, The silence was only a moment stirred, And stillness closed over the hazard word. ```I was there! in the garden where first I lent My ear to the trembling music of love, And my soul succumbed to its blandishment. I was there! I could smell the syringa's scent And the lilac plumes that loomed dark above, But, like to the heart that keeps alway True to its friends, when friends betray, Was lending the night that hid from view 307 Its delicate tufts and tender hue, Odours sweeter than e'en by day. The laburnum tassels brushed my cheek, And the tangled clematis clutched my hair; But I hurried along; though my limbs were weak, I was strengthened by despair. A moment more, and I should be Hard by the window where he slept. How should I wake him? how should flee, If another o'erheard my voice? I crept Softly, silently, over the sward. The walls were dark, and the windows barred, All saving-Yes, 'twas he! 'twas he! Leaning out of his casement, lowly Singing a love-song, sweetly, slowly, That he first had sung to me. He saw me not. He was gazing free Across the dark, mysterious air, At the shining stars, at the solemn sky, At the unattainable far and fair, The infinite something around, above, With which, when alone, we identify The finite thing we love. I stood, and listened, and drank each note Of love that came from the yearning throat, As it rose, as it fell, as it floated and died; And then with that courage that oft will spring, When we have not time to think, And impulse whispers the blessëd thing From which resolve would shrink, I with the song replied. ```One instant, and the echoed song, The night, the dark, the heavens bare, And all that was of far and fair, And all that was of sweet and strong, Seemed gathered into one embrace, And showered their magic on my face. His arms were round me, and his breath As close to mine as life to death. He murmured things I could not hear, For I was deaf with bliss and fear. 308 Dumb, too; in vain I strove to speak; I could but lean on breast and cheek, And prove my passion wildly weak. He drew me in. I still was dumb, Panting for words that would not come, But only tears instead, and sobs, And broken syllables, and throbs, With which hearts beat, whom rapture robs Of all save love's delirium. ``Why hast thou come?'' I heard him say. ``There is no hour of night or day, The coming of thy worshipped feet Would not make richer or more sweet. O come! come! come! Yes, come alway! Nay, never come, love! rather, stay! I must or miss you, or not meet; Absence is long, and presence fleet. And I am dead, when thou away! But why to-night, and here?'' I saw Love's brightness overcast by awe; And terror in his face o'ercame The terror in my weakened frame; Till listening to his voice, I caught Contagion from his steadier thought, And found at length the words I sought. With rapid lips I told him all, What had befallen-might befallThe hateful lust, the lustful hate, The threats of one who, well he knew, If false in love, in wrath was true, And our impending fate. ``'Twas this alone I came to tell, And, Leszko! now 'tis told, farewell!'' I murmured with a faltering tongue. Round me his arms he tightly flung, And ``Never!'' cried. ``Thy faith shall foil The base assassins of our soil. By the harmonious orbs that shine, To-night, within that dome divine, What thou hast promised me, must be mine! Before to-morrow's sun can sink, May deeds be done I would not name, 309 And vengeance wreaked I dare not think. If thus you went, 'twere vain you came! To-night is ours, and, seized, will be Ours, ours, through all eternity. The dawn shall find us kneeling where Passion is purified by prayer; And hands of patriot priest shall bless And bind our premature caress. If we are parted then, we part, One, one in body, breast, and heart. Hate, lust, and tyranny, in vain Will strive to snap the cherished chain That we around ourselves have bound. Vanda! my love! my wife! my more! If more be in love's language found, Let them not baulk the troth we swore! Wed me with bonds not fiends can sever, And be thou mine-if once-for ever!'' The winds of the morn began to stir, And the stars began to pale; We could feel the chill of the moving air, And the lifting of the veil That covers the face of the shrinking night, Its dreams, its dangers, its delight. We started up. We listened, heard The pipe of an awaking bird; Another-then another stillLouder and longer, and more shrill, Till every copse began to fill With music piercing bitter, fell, The discord of our forced farewell. We clung one moment, panted, kissed, Then bravely rending us, he cried``Back through the curling morning mist, Vanda! my love! my life! my bride! A few brief hours, and side by side Before Heaven's altar we shall stand, As now in heart, then one in hand, Then-be the future blest or curstLet Poland's tyrants wreak their worst! One-one more kiss!'' 310 ```We leaned, to give The richest of all boons that live, But paused, half given!. . .We each had heard A sound that was no waking bird, Nor stealthy footfall of the night, Scudding the unseen tracks of flight. The noise of human voices broke Upon our ears; the words they spoke Came nearer and more near. We clung in silence; 'twas too late To more than bide the feet of fate, And face them without fear. Loudest among them I could trace The voice I hated most on earth; Another moment, and his face, Lit with vindictiveness and mirth, Was gazing on our checked embrace. His myrmidons were at his heel: I did not shrink, I did not reel, But closer clung, to make him feel I loathed him and his alien race. I know no more. Unarmed we stood. I heard the clank of ordered steel, Then suddenly a blinding hood Over my head was flung, and I, Powerless to struggle, see, or cry, Felt myself wrenched from arms that fain Had fenced my freedom, but in vain, And, doubtful did he live or die, Borne through the chilly morning air, Bound, stifled, cooped with dumb despair!' ``She paused, and strove for breath, as though The mere remembrance of that hour, Though fled and faded long ago, Retained the never-dying power To choke and stifle her again, And leave her dumb and dark, as then. But mute no less I sate; and she The horror in my stare could see, The speechless, open-mouthed suspense, That kept me gazing there, to know 311 If I had heard the worst from woe, Or if I must prepare my sense For outrage deeper, more intense, And from extremity of wrong Become invulnerably strong. `O no!' she cried, for swift she guessed The hell of anguish in my breast; `O no! not that! My boy! thou art The child of love and not of hate, Memento of my only mate! The birth of heart convulsed on heart With rapture pure and passionate! Though never more upon my breast His breast did beat, his head did rest; Though I no more beheld his eye Beaming above me like the sky When all is bright and all is high, And by which gazed on, one is blest; Though ne'er again his touch, his breath, Was blent with mine, to make me feel That something betwixt life and death, When the converging senses reel, And, through devotedness divine, Joy knows not what it suffereth;No other hand has soiled the shrine; And, Leszko lost! though lost, yet mine, My senses, as my soul, kept thine!' ``She saw the shadow quit my brow; But, as it crept away, the light Seemed to desert her temples now. The hand she had imprisoned tight In hers, while travelling wildly back To passion's bourne o'er sorrow's track, She loosed, and half let go. `Hast heard, Hast drunk, hast understood, each word,' Slowly she asked, `my lips have said? Ours was no sanctioned marriage-bed. No priestly blessing, altar's rite, Confirmed the nuptials of that night. Leszko! thou art-' 312 ``'Twas not her tongue That paused upon the bitter word, But that before the name I heard I shrink not from, my arms I flung Around her sainted neck and showered The love with which my soul was stirred. I kissed her knees, her hands devoured, I hushed her mouth, I sealed her eyes, With kisses blent with broken cries, Such as from baffled lips arise When bursting hearts are overpowered With sense of sublime sacrifice. `Mother!' I cried, `I'd sooner be The child of love, and him, and thee, Than bear or boast the tightest ties Altars can knit or priests devise! If love, faith, country cannot bind Two souls through love already blent, Where among mortals shall we find Solemnity or Sacrament? And were aught wanting to complete In face of God's just judgment-seat, Thy snapped-off love and life, The tyrant's outrage, years of wrong, Have weaved thee wedlock doubly strong, And made thee more than wife!' ``She smoothed my hair, caressed my brow; Consoling tears coursed down her cheek, Furrowed by sorrow's barren plough: She stroked my hand, she strove to speak: `Yes, Leszko! Holier bond was ne'er Sanctioned by heaven or sealed by prayer. Let others deem that formal vows Breathed between kneeling spouse and spouse, Can sanctify a link where each Is but the slave of ordered speech; Where vanity, ambition, greed, Are the base instincts that precede The purest of the passions, sent Life's desolate low steps to lead Up to the star-thronged firmament; 313 Let others fancy, if they will, That pomp, and compliment, and smile, Are sacramental bonds, though guile And calculating coldness fill The hollows of the heart the while; Let those, too, scorn me who have knelt In fancied faithfulness, and sworn The eternal troth they thought they felt, But, soon as they were left to mourn One to whose flesh their flesh they vowed Not more in marriage-sheet than shroud, After a few short trappings worn To silence the censorious crowd, Have let their facile feelings melt Unto some second fancy, nursed In the same lap where burned the first! Let them!-Nor pomp nor pandars gave Me unto him! 'Twas love alone Anointed us; and not the grave, Not life, not death, shall e'er deprave The body that remains his own. Not mine a fault for which to crave By Heaven or mortal to be shriven. If I a suppliant need to be To any, 'tis, my boy, to thee! And I by thee am all forgiven! ```Yet-yet-that night of shining joy Its shadow flings athwart thy life; I am not, I can ne'er be wife, And thou art no one's son, our boy! His name I gave thee, and despite Their jugglery of wrong and right, It shall thou bear, whate'er betide. But who can give thee aught beside? Bastard thou art! and thou canst claim, It boots not what thy blood, thy fame, Thy father's features, manly age, Only a bastard's heritage. But, Leszko! who would care to boast All that the rightful covet most; Who, who would wish to clutch and hold Honour, or rank, or lands, or gold, 314 When lands, and gold, and rank, but be A brighter badge of slavery? They who have nothing may excuse Submission to the tyrant's beck; Too bare and beggared to refuse Unsavoury morsel from the hand That plants the heel upon the neck Of their assassinated land. But they who yet have aught to lose, Base must they be if they can use What still is left to them, to deck The mourning of their country's wreck. Be sure thy sire doth not retain What would but aggravate his pain. Of me, of love, when dispossessed, How would he care to keep the rest? Robbed of my arms, his arms would find But emptiness in all behind, Vacuous air and moaning wind. Who tore me from him, must have torn With it long since the worldly dregs Easy resigned by him who begs That death at least to him be kind, And bans the day that he was born! ```Nay, ask not if he lives. I know Nothing, since that cold dawn of woe. Once more I had to hear, and bear, The vengeful menace, lustful prayer, Of one who sued, but would not spare. He threatened he would blazen wide That which he dared to call my shame. Guess how I answered! I defied, Exulted, and with patriot pride Told him that I myself to fame Would trumpet forth the deed that I Had done to foil the treachery Already hatching, and by whom! He cursed me. That was his reply. But mine, alas! had sealed my doom. ```'Twas over, quick. I saw no more 315 Familiar face, or roof, or floor, Or anything I knew before. My eyes were bandaged, limbs were bound, As through rough distance on we wound, Aware but of the unseen ground We traversed ever, day and night. At length they gave me back my sight; And lo! there stretched before, around, The desert steppe, inhuman, bare, That answered me with stare for stare. I gazed around me for some face, Some answering look, some kindred guise, Some woe that I might recognize Even in this desert place. But none of all I saw, I knew; And never one among them threw A pitying glance on me. So desolate it seemed, I should Have thankful been if there had stood Before me even he Who thuswise had my ruin wrought. I vow to you, his face I sought, Among the convoy, early, late. No face, no fiend, my exiled fate Could now or better make or worse: And it to me relief had brought Could I have seen him, but to hate, And greeted, but to curse! ```A mute and melancholy band, For days and weeks we journeyed on, Across a bare and level land, On which the fierce sun ever shone, But whence all life and growth were gone, Utterly, as from salt-steeped strand. Dawn after dawn, the steppe stretched round: It seemed to have no halt, no end, Centre, circumference, nor bound, No sight, no shade, no scent, no sound; But ever we appeared to wend Into eternal exile, doomed To make the endless track we trod, 316 Now over sand, now scanty sod, Where nought save blight and canker bloomed. Though on we gasped, no goal was gained; Further we went, further remained, As when thought struggles after God: Save that, instead, we seemed to go Towards infinity of woe. Many we were, but each alone. We durst not with each other speak, And but exchanged a tear or groan. The strong might not assist the weak, And to be child or woman gave No privilege or power, save To suffer more and be more brave. So wretched were we, we could bless A lighter load of wretchedness; And when at last the cruel sun Began to pity us, and leave In sleep our pain a short reprieve, We almost felt our griefs were done. We knew not they had scarce begun. Into another land we passed, Drearier and deader than the last, That knows no future and no past, But only one fixed present!-land Where nothing waxeth more or less, Nothing is born and nothing dies, And where, 'neath never-changing skies, E'en frozen time itself doth stand Immutable and motionless! A land of snow and snow-fed wind, Which freeze the blood, congeal the mind, And harden man against mankind: Region of death that is not dead, But ever on its icy bed Lies dying, and must ever lie, Forbid to live, forbid to die! ```And, as its doom, such too seemed mine, The doom of deathlessness in death. In vain I used to pray and pine The greedy cold would suck my breath, 317 And leave my empty husk to bleach On the untrodden waste of white, And draw the prowling jackal's screech, Or give the wolf one foul delight. ```One night, as, prostrate in despair At each unanswered tear and prayer, I blasphemed God, and wildly sware That if at least He would not give Me death, I would no longer live, But would myself the torture end, That had nor change, nor hope, nor friend, Sudden I started, gave a cry; I seemed as changed to flesh from stone: Oh! joy! I was no more alone. And then for worlds I would not die! 'Twas thou! 'twas thou! my babe! my boy! In joylessness my more than joy! My more than heaven 'mid more than hell! Weeping, upon my knees I fell, And prayed forgiveness for my sin. What now to me or cold or heat, My shivering head, my burning feet, Hunger or ache? I held within The memory of that midnight sweet. I had no thought for things without: Sensation, suffering, struggle, doubt, Each sense wherewith we feel, hear, see, Was concentrated inwardly. My aim was how to feed the root That in the silence 'gan to shoot, And pulsed with promise of the fruit. Sometimes, in fresh access of woe, Hope veered, and longed that thou and I Lay underneath the snug, warm snow, Together, and with none to know; But swung back ever, true and high, From desperation's gusty strife,Pointing from love and set towards life! ```You lived!'. . .`O mother!' here I cried, `Tell me no more! I cannot bear 318 The tale of love, and grief, and pride. Is't not enough that now we share Pride, love, and exile, side by side? And, let what will of wrong betide, No wrong my youth, at least, shall tear, From your soft hand and silvery hair!' ```What, Leszko! Leszko's son!' she said, Her voice was grave, her tears were fled: `Think you I told this tale of woe, To stir your love for me, I know, Will hold you living, haunt you dead? Not quit my side, luxurious boy! Share anguish that is almost joy, To shrink from pain without alloy! By all my hopes of husband fled, My interrupted marriage-bed, I charge you, bid you, not to cling, To me, to love, to anything! Not leave me! What is this I hear? The mawkish kiss, the vapid tear, Not flashing eye and springing spear!' She pushed me off. `It cannot be His patriot seed and mine I see. Thou art some changeling! Go, then, go! And hunt the lynx across the snow, And when the blue-eyed scyllas blow, Gather thereof a dainty bunch, To woo some daughter of the foe, While jackals and hyenas crunch Thy country's flesh and bones, and bloom No flowers, of all Spring used to know, Save such as mourn o'er Poland's tomb! For Poland, I from him was torn, For Poland, he from me! But thouThou, thou forsooth, must cling on now, Like infant that, from threatened hurt Flies whimpering, to thy mother's skirt, Dead unto duty as to scorn! Bastard, indeed, thou doubly wert, And both are shamed that thou wast born!' ``I knelt me down; towards the ground 319 I bowed my head in lowly guise. I did not dare to raise my eyes, But when at last my voice I found, `Mother!' I cried, `I am not base, Nor bastard, and his blood is mine; But gazing on thy holy face, I all forgot a woe, a wrong, Sadder, more sacred, e'en than thine. But now thy strength hath made me strong, And in my features thou shalt trace, And in my soul, that I belong Unto a noble name and race.' I stood up straight. There was no sign Of melting in my voice or gaze. `When shall I go?' I said, `The ways Are not more ready stretched than I To start at once, to run, to fly, Whither thy sharp reproaches point. Mother, farewell! In every joint I feel the blood of Poland stir. She is my mother! I for her Can lonely live, will lonely die.' ```Kneel then once more!' she said. I knelt, But this time with unbending brow. Her face fawned towards me, and I felt Her lips upon me, tender now. She took the cross from off her breast, Passed its cord softly o'er my head: `I have no sword to give,' she said, `But you will find one 'mong the dead That now lie thick-though baffled, blestAmong the forests where, once more, Poland renews the hopeless strife, And liberates with lavish gore, Awhile, the fever of its life. Listen! There shortly start from hence Two fresh battalions of the foe, For Poland bound. They doubtless go To aid their kindred's violence. You must march with them o'er the snow. Nay, start not! must their colours wear, 320 Aye, boy! must false allegiance swear To their detested Pontiff-Czar! Such perjuries, I tell thee, are Not heard at Heaven's just judgment-bar. And if thy lips abhor the lie, Poland absolves thee-so do I!' ``The hour had come, and face to face We stood, my mother, there, and I. We did not fondle nor embrace; She did not weep, I did not sigh. I wore the trappings of the race That battens upon Poland's heart; So, well I knew that uncaressed, Unfolded to her craving breast, I from her must depart. `Have you the cross?' she asked. I laid My hand where 'gainst my heart it lay, But did not speak. `Both night and day, Brood on it, as a constant maid Broods on the face that cannot fade, When he who loves her is away! It was the one dumb thing on earth That spoke to me; the only one, Dead, that was eloquent of birth; So have I given it thee, my son! I have no gift of his, no toy, No trinket, trifle, leaf, nor flower, Naught to remind me of my joy. But it was on my breast that hour, That night, when it, and it alone, Was 'twixt his bosom and my own. Go, now! And I will nightly pray The Queen of Poland, we may meet, When bitter has been turned to sweet, And earthly dark to heavenly day!' I bent. She raised her hands to bless; And then I went without caress, And left her to her loneliness. ``Why tell the rest? Too well you know, Ah! you, free child of Freedom's shore, 321 That spurred our hopes, but lent no blow In aid of all our wasted gore, How Poland, maddened, rose once more, And blindly struck at friend and foe. Why should I tell-the tale, too long!Of the weak writhing 'gainst the strong, Pricked by reiterated wrong? The orphaned pillows, rifled roofs, The sudden rush of trampling hoofs, The reeking village, blazing town; The perjured charge, the traitor's mesh, The virgin's lacerated flesh; The wail of childhood, helpless fair, Frenzy itself had stopped to spare; Priests at the altar stricken down, Mingling their blood with that of Christ, While sacrificing, sacrificed; Chaste spouses of the cloister, weaned From earth, and from Earth's passions screened, Shrieking beneath the clutch of fiend, And outraged, less from lust than hate, In refuges inviolate.Enough! Had Hell broke loose, and sent Its demons forth, on man to vent The tortures God's maligners feign Heaven vents on them, they would in vain Have striven to paragon the pain Poland's oppressors knew to wreak Upon the sensitive and weak, When we, the strong, their strength defied, And Freedom, foiling despots, died. ``I was too late. 'Twas nearly o'er; But straight I sloughed the garb I wore, And joined one last determined band, Who to the border forests clung That sever from the Tartar's hand That share of our partitioned land Which owns a rule more just and bland, Keeping at least its creed and tongue. We did not think with fate to cope; No! vengeance was our only hope, 322 And vengeance to me came. We were pursued by one who gave No mercy or to faint or brave: I heard, and knew his name. 'Twas he, whose lust had torn apart For ever loving heart from heart, As far as hatred can. We lay in ambush; they were caught, And could not fly, so mercy sought. We slew them, to a man! He fell to me! One thrust I made, And at my feet I saw him laid: I sucked the blood from off my blade: Christ! it was sweet! aye, sweeter far Than the smile of home, than the kiss of maid, Or the glow of the evening star! ``It was the last blow struck. We fled Across the frontier, each as best A gap could gain, and left the dead To stock the unclean raven's nest. Exile once more, though all the earth Henceforth lay open to my tread, All save the one that gave me birth, I saw no goal except the one Where, sitting mute in deepest dearth, The mother waited for the son. But how? I donned the pedlar's pack, And started on the trackless track, Day after day, league after league, Fatigue slow-linked with slow fatigue, But ever getting nearer back Unto the larch-log fire where she Sat patiently, awaiting me. And there was yet another sight Behind, to spur my flagging tread: The foe, the fiend, I felled in fight, And gloated over, dead! Could I have borne his hated head, And laid it at my mother's feet! The very thought fresh vigour gave, And made my final footsteps fleet. 323 I raved. You deem that still I rave. What think you that they found? Her grave. ``Back, back across the cruel waste, Her tomb behind, my life before;An ebbing wave that raced and raced, But ne'er could hope to find a shore, Not e'en a rock 'gainst which to break: A vista of unending ache, Trod and endured for no one's sake! Rather than live without some end, Such misery fresh woe will make, And woo misfortune for a friend. And I, since it was vain to hope That I could find, where'er I ran, Solace or happiness, began For further wretchedness to grope. Now other object had I none, From rise of day to set of sun, Except to seek my sire; Though well I knew I should not find, Or finding, curse the fate unkind That baulked not my desire. And fate was ruthless to the last. Five years of bootless search had passed, And still I sought. But when on fire, Her roofs delirious Paris saw, I found him stretched on sordid straw. He had not fought for crowd or law: Sooth, had he wished, he could not draw A sword from scabbard now, nor lift His body from its borrowed bed. His brackish life was ebbing swift. He who had eaten beggar's bread, And known each sad and sordid shift That just sustains the exile's tread, Needed no more the stranger's gift. I knelt me down beside his head, And breathed her name into his ear. There came no start, no word, no tear: His brain was deaf; he did not know The difference now 'twixt joy and woe, 324 'Twixt love and hate, 'twixt friend and foe, 'Twixt me and any other! Vain My years of search and sought-for pain. Yet not quite vain. Upon his breast A silver locket hung; and when I stretched my hand to it, he pressed 'Gainst it his own, nor loosed again, Until he passed away to rest. I took it when his grasp grew cold, And lo! it was my mother's face! Not as I knew her, blanched and old, But in the glow of youth and grace, With eyes of heaven and hair of gold, And all the passion of her race. I wear it and its rusted chain. I put her cross there in its place: The iron cross; yes, cross indeed! And iron, too! the fitting meed Of those who for wronged Poland bleed, And ever bleed in vain! ``Rise quick, ye winds! Race swift, ye waves! And bear me where blue Danube rolls, Past Orsova's loud-foaming caves, On 'twixt armed hosts of rival slaves, To scatter among Euxine shoals. Now, do you ask why hence I fly To join the Moslem camp, and hurl My poor weak life, foredoomed to die, On those who Freedom's flag unfurl For Christian boor and Sclavic churl?Out on the sacrilegious lie! Robbers, assassins, liars, slaves! Whose feet are fresh from outraged graves! Let those among you, dupes, or worse, Sucklings of falsehood, or its nurse, Believe that Russian arms can bear To others aught except a share In chains themselves consent to wear! Let them! But I! Did Tartar swords Storm hell, and Turkish steel defend, I would the infernal Cause befriend 325 Against the worse than demon hordes Who to the damned would bring fresh curse, And enter Hell, to make it worse!'' ~ Alfred Austin,

914:Muse of my native land! loftiest Muse! O first-born on the mountains! by the hues Of heaven on the spiritual air begot: Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot, While yet our England was a wolfish den; Before our forests heard the talk of men; Before the first of Druids was a child;-- Long didst thou sit amid our regions wild Rapt in a deep prophetic solitude. There came an eastern voice of solemn mood:-- Yet wast thou patient. Then sang forth the Nine, Apollo's garland:--yet didst thou divine Such home-bred glory, that they cry'd in vain, "Come hither, Sister of the Island!" Plain Spake fair Ausonia; and once more she spake A higher summons:--still didst thou betake Thee to thy native hopes. O thou hast won A full accomplishment! The thing is done, Which undone, these our latter days had risen On barren souls. Great Muse, thou know'st what prison Of flesh and bone, curbs, and confines, and frets Our spirit's wings: despondency besets Our pillows; and the fresh to-morrow morn Seems to give forth its light in very scorn Of our dull, uninspired, snail-paced lives. Long have I said, how happy he who shrives To thee! But then I thought on poets gone, And could not pray:nor can I now--so on I move to the end in lowliness of heart.-- "Ah, woe is me! that I should fondly part From my dear native land! Ah, foolish maid! Glad was the hour, when, with thee, myriads bade Adieu to Ganges and their pleasant fields! To one so friendless the clear freshet yields A bitter coolness, the ripe grape is sour: Yet I would have, great gods! but one short hour Of native airlet me but die at home." Endymion to heaven's airy dome Was offering up a hecatomb of vows, When these words reach'd him. Whereupon he bows His head through thorny-green entanglement Of underwood, and to the sound is bent, Anxious as hind towards her hidden fawn. "Is no one near to help me? No fair dawn Of life from charitable voice? No sweet saying To set my dull and sadden'd spirit playing? No hand to toy with mine? No lips so sweet That I may worship them? No eyelids meet To twinkle on my bosom? No one dies Before me, till from these enslaving eyes Redemption sparkles!I am sad and lost." Thou, Carian lord, hadst better have been tost Into a whirlpool. Vanish into air, Warm mountaineer! for canst thou only bear A woman's sigh alone and in distress? See not her charms! Is Phoebe passionless? Phoebe is fairer farO gaze no more: Yet if thou wilt behold all beauty's store, Behold her panting in the forest grass! Do not those curls of glossy jet surpass For tenderness the arms so idly lain Amongst them? Feelest not a kindred pain, To see such lovely eyes in swimming search After some warm delight, that seems to perch Dovelike in the dim cell lying beyond Their upper lids?Hist!      "O for Hermes' wand To touch this flower into human shape! That woodland Hyacinthus could escape From his green prison, and here kneeling down Call me his queen, his second life's fair crown! Ah me, how I could love!My soul doth melt For the unhappy youthLove! I have felt So faint a kindness, such a meek surrender To what my own full thoughts had made too tender, That but for tears my life had fled away! Ye deaf and senseless minutes of the day, And thou, old forest, hold ye this for true, There is no lightning, no authentic dew But in the eye of love: there's not a sound, Melodious howsoever, can confound The heavens and earth in one to such a death As doth the voice of love: there's not a breath Will mingle kindly with the meadow air, Till it has panted round, and stolen a share Of passion from the heart!"                Upon a bough He leant, wretched. He surely cannot now Thirst for another love: O impious, That he can even dream upon it thus! Thought he, "Why am I not as are the dead, Since to a woe like this I have been led Through the dark earth, and through the wondrous sea? Goddess! I love thee not the less: from thee By Juno's smile I turn notno, no, no While the great waters are at ebb and flow. I have a triple soul! O fond pretence For both, for both my love is so immense, I feel my heart is cut in twain for them." And so he groan'd, as one by beauty slain. The lady's heart beat quick, and he could see Her gentle bosom heave tumultuously. He sprang from his green covert: there she lay, Sweet as a muskrose upon new-made hay; With all her limbs on tremble, and her eyes Shut softly up alive. To speak he tries. "Fair damsel, pity me! forgive that I Thus violate thy bower's sanctity! O pardon me, for I am full of grief Grief born of thee, young angel! fairest thief! Who stolen hast away the wings wherewith I was to top the heavens. Dear maid, sith Thou art my executioner, and I feel Loving and hatred, misery and weal, Will in a few short hours be nothing to me, And all my story that much passion slew me; Do smile upon the evening of my days: And, for my tortur'd brain begins to craze, Be thou my nurse; and let me understand How dying I shall kiss that lily hand. Dost weep for me? Then should I be content. Scowl on, ye fates! until the firmament Outblackens Erebus, and the full-cavern'd earth Crumbles into itself. By the cloud girth Of Jove, those tears have given me a thirst To meet oblivion."As her heart would burst The maiden sobb'd awhile, and then replied: "Why must such desolation betide As that thou speakest of? Are not these green nooks Empty of all misfortune? Do the brooks Utter a gorgon voice? Does yonder thrush, Schooling its half-fledg'd little ones to brush About the dewy forest, whisper tales? Speak not of grief, young stranger, or cold snails Will slime the rose to night. Though if thou wilt, Methinks 'twould be a guilta very guilt Not to companion thee, and sigh away The lightthe duskthe darktill break of day!" "Dear lady," said Endymion, "'tis past: I love thee! and my days can never last. That I may pass in patience still speak: Let me have music dying, and I seek No more delightI bid adieu to all. Didst thou not after other climates call, And murmur about Indian streams?"Then she, Sitting beneath the midmost forest tree, For pity sang this roundelay      "O Sorrow,      Why dost borrow The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?      To give maiden blushes      To the white rose bushes? Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips?      "O Sorrow,      Why dost borrow The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?      To give the glow-worm light?      Or, on a moonless night, To tinge, on syren shores, the salt sea-spry?      "O Sorrow,      Why dost borrow The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue?      To give at evening pale      Unto the nightingale, That thou mayst listen the cold dews among?      "O Sorrow,      Why dost borrow Heart's lightness from the merriment of May?      A lover would not tread      A cowslip on the head, Though he should dance from eve till peep of day      Nor any drooping flower      Held sacred for thy bower, Wherever he may sport himself and play.      "To Sorrow      I bade good-morrow, And thought to leave her far away behind;      But cheerly, cheerly,      She loves me dearly; She is so constant to me, and so kind:      I would deceive her      And so leave her, But ah! she is so constant and so kind. "Beneath my palm trees, by the river side, I sat a weeping: in the whole world wide There was no one to ask me why I wept,      And so I kept Brimming the water-lily cups with tears      Cold as my fears. "Beneath my palm trees, by the river side, I sat a weeping: what enamour'd bride, Cheated by shadowy wooer from the clouds,     But hides and shrouds Beneath dark palm trees by a river side? "And as I sat, over the light blue hills There came a noise of revellers: the rills Into the wide stream came of purple hue     'Twas Bacchus and his crew! The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills From kissing cymbals made a merry din     'Twas Bacchus and his kin! Like to a moving vintage down they came, Crown'd with green leaves, and faces all on flame; All madly dancing through the pleasant valley,     To scare thee, Melancholy! O then, O then, thou wast a simple name! And I forgot thee, as the berried holly By shepherds is forgotten, when, in June, Tall chesnuts keep away the sun and moon:     I rush'd into the folly! "Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood, Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood,     With sidelong laughing; And little rills of crimson wine imbrued His plump white arms, and shoulders, enough white     For Venus' pearly bite; And near him rode Silenus on his ****, Pelted with flowers as he on did pass     Tipsily quaffing. "Whence came ye, merry Damsels! whence came ye! So many, and so many, and such glee? Why have ye left your bowers desolate,     Your lutes, and gentler fate? We follow Bacchus! Bacchus on the wing?     A conquering! Bacchus, young Bacchus! good or ill betide, We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide: Come hither, lady fair, and joined be     To our wild minstrelsy!' "Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs! whence came ye! So many, and so many, and such glee? Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left     Your nuts in oak-tree cleft? For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree; For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms,     And cold mushrooms; For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth; Great God of breathless cups and chirping mirth! Come hither, lady fair, and joined be To our mad minstrelsy!' "Over wide streams and mountains great we went, And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent, Onward the tiger and the leopard pants,     With Asian elephants: Onward these myriadswith song and dance, With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians' prance, Web-footed alligators, crocodiles, Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files, Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil Of seamen, and stout galley-rowers' toil: With toying oars and silken sails they glide,     Nor care for wind and tide. "Mounted on panthers' furs and lions' manes, From rear to van they scour about the plains; A three days' journey in a moment done: And always, at the rising of the sun, About the wilds they hunt with spear and horn,     On spleenful unicorn. "I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown     Before the vine-wreath crown! I saw parch'd Abyssinia rouse and sing     To the silver cymbals' ring! I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce     Old Tartary the fierce! The kings of Inde their jewel-sceptres vail, And from their treasures scatter pearled hail; Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,     And all his priesthood moans; Before young Bacchus' eye-wink turning pale. Into these regions came I following him, Sick hearted, wearyso I took a whim To stray away into these forests drear     Alone, without a peer: And I have told thee all thou mayest hear.      "Young stranger!      I've been a ranger In search of pleasure throughout every clime:      Alas! 'tis not for me!      Bewitch'd I sure must be, To lose in grieving all my maiden prime.      "Come then, Sorrow!      Sweetest Sorrow! Like an own babe I nurse thee on my breast:      I thought to leave thee      And deceive thee, But now of all the world I love thee best.      "There is not one,      No, no, not one But thee to comfort a poor lonely maid;      Thou art her mother,      And her brother, Her playmate, and her wooer in the shade." O what a sigh she gave in finishing, And look, quite dead to every worldly thing! Endymion could not speak, but gazed on her; And listened to the wind that now did stir About the crisped oaks full drearily, Yet with as sweet a softness as might be Remember'd from its velvet summer song. At last he said: "Poor lady, how thus long Have I been able to endure that voice? Fair Melody! kind Syren! I've no choice; I must be thy sad servant evermore: I cannot choose but kneel here and adore. Alas, I must not thinkby Phoebe, no! Let me not think, soft Angel! shall it be so? Say, beautifullest, shall I never think? O thou could'st foster me beyond the brink Of recollection! make my watchful care Close up its bloodshot eyes, nor see despair! Do gently murder half my soul, and I Shall feel the other half so utterly! I'm giddy at that cheek so fair and smooth; O let it blush so ever! let it soothe My madness! let it mantle rosy-warm With the tinge of love, panting in safe alarm. This cannot be thy hand, and yet it is; And this is sure thine other softlingthis Thine own fair bosom, and I am so near! Wilt fall asleep? O let me sip that tear! And whisper one sweet word that I may know This is this worldsweet dewy blossom!"Woe! Woe! Woe to that Endymion! Where is he? Even these words went echoing dismally Through the wide foresta most fearful tone, Like one repenting in his latest moan; And while it died away a shade pass'd by, As of a thunder cloud. When arrows fly Through the thick branches, poor ring-doves sleek forth Their timid necks and tremble; so these both Leant to each other trembling, and sat so Waiting for some destructionwhen lo, Foot-feather'd Mercury appear'd sublime Beyond the tall tree tops; and in less time Than shoots the slanted hail-storm, down he dropt Towards the ground; but rested not, nor stopt One moment from his home: only the sward He with his wand light touch'd, and heavenward Swifter than sight was goneeven before The teeming earth a sudden witness bore Of his swift magic. Diving swans appear Above the crystal circlings white and clear; And catch the cheated eye in wild surprise, How they can dive in sight and unseen rise So from the turf outsprang two steeds jet-black, Each with large dark blue wings upon his back. The youth of Caria plac'd the lovely dame On one, and felt himself in spleen to tame The other's fierceness. Through the air they flew, High as the eagles. Like two drops of dew Exhal'd to Phoebus' lips, away they are gone, Far from the earth awayunseen, alone, Among cool clouds and winds, but that the free, The buoyant life of song can floating be Above their heads, and follow them untir'd. Muse of my native land, am I inspir'd? This is the giddy air, and I must spread Wide pinions to keep here; nor do I dread Or height, or depth, or width, or any chance Precipitous: I have beneath my glance Those towering horses and their mournful freight. Could I thus sail, and see, and thus await Fearless for power of thought, without thine aid? There is a sleepy dusk, an odorous shade From some approaching wonder, and behold Those winged steeds, with snorting nostrils bold Snuff at its faint extreme, and seem to tire, Dying to embers from their native fire! There curl'd a purple mist around them; soon, It seem'd as when around the pale new moon Sad Zephyr droops the clouds like weeping willow: 'Twas Sleep slow journeying with head on pillow. For the first time, since he came nigh dead born From the old womb of night, his cave forlorn Had he left more forlorn; for the first time, He felt aloof the day and morning's prime Because into his depth Cimmerian There came a dream, shewing how a young man, Ere a lean bat could plump its wintery skin, Would at high Jove's empyreal footstool win An immortality, and how espouse Jove's daughter, and be reckon'd of his house. Now was he slumbering towards heaven's gate, That he might at the threshold one hour wait To hear the marriage melodies, and then Sink downward to his dusky cave again. His litter of smooth semilucent mist, Diversely ting'd with rose and amethyst, Puzzled those eyes that for the centre sought; And scarcely for one moment could be caught His sluggish form reposing motionless. Those two on winged steeds, with all the stress Of vision search'd for him, as one would look Athwart the sallows of a river nook To catch a glance at silver throated eels, Or from old Skiddaw's top, when fog conceals His rugged forehead in a mantle pale, With an eye-guess towards some pleasant vale Descry a favourite hamlet faint and far. These raven horses, though they foster'd are Of earth's splenetic fire, dully drop Their full-veined ears, nostrils blood wide, and stop; Upon the spiritless mist have they outspread Their ample feathers, are in slumber dead, And on those pinions, level in mid air, Endymion sleepeth and the lady fair. Slowly they sail, slowly as icy isle Upon a calm sea drifting: and meanwhile The mournful wanderer dreams. Behold! he walks On heaven's pavement; brotherly he talks To divine powers: from his hand full fain Juno's proud birds are pecking pearly grain: He tries the nerve of Phoebus' golden bow, And asketh where the golden apples grow: Upon his arm he braces Pallas' shield, And strives in vain to unsettle and wield A Jovian thunderbolt: arch Hebe brings A full-brimm'd goblet, dances lightly, sings And tantalizes long; at last he drinks, And lost in pleasure at her feet he sinks, Touching with dazzled lips her starlight hand. He blows a bugle,an ethereal band Are visible above: the Seasons four, Green-kyrtled Spring, flush Summer, golden store In Autumn's sickle, Winter frosty hoar, Join dance with shadowy Hours; while still the blast, In swells unmitigated, still doth last To sway their floating morris. "Whose is this? Whose bugle?" he inquires: they smile"O Dis! Why is this mortal here? Dost thou not know Its mistress' lips? Not thou?'Tis Dian's: lo! She rises crescented!" He looks, 'tis she, His very goddess: good-bye earth, and sea, And air, and pains, and care, and suffering; Good-bye to all but love! Then doth he spring Towards her, and awakesand, strange, o'erhead, Of those same fragrant exhalations bred, Beheld awake his very dream: the gods Stood smiling; merry Hebe laughs and nods; And Phoebe bends towards him crescented. O state perplexing! On the pinion bed, Too well awake, he feels the panting side Of his delicious lady. He who died For soaring too audacious in the sun, Where that same treacherous wax began to run, Felt not more tongue-tied than Endymion. His heart leapt up as to its rightful throne, To that fair shadow'd passion puls'd its way Ah, what perplexity! Ah, well a day! So fond, so beauteous was his bed-fellow, He could not help but kiss her: then he grew Awhile forgetful of all beauty save Young Phoebe's, golden hair'd; and so 'gan crave Forgiveness: yet he turn'd once more to look At the sweet sleeper,all his soul was shook, She press'd his hand in slumber; so once more He could not help but kiss her and adore. At this the shadow wept, melting away. The Latmian started up: "Bright goddess, stay! Search my most hidden breast! By truth's own tongue, I have no ddale heart: why is it wrung To desperation? Is there nought for me, Upon the bourne of bliss, but misery?" These words awoke the stranger of dark tresses: Her dawning love-look rapt Endymion blesses With 'haviour soft. Sleep yawned from underneath. "Thou swan of Ganges, let us no more breathe This murky phantasm! thou contented seem'st Pillow'd in lovely idleness, nor dream'st What horrors may discomfort thee and me. Ah, shouldst thou die from my heart-treachery! Yet did she merely weepher gentle soul Hath no revenge in it: as it is whole In tenderness, would I were whole in love! Can I prize thee, fair maid, all price above, Even when I feel as true as innocence? I do, I do.What is this soul then? Whence Came it? It does not seem my own, and I Have no self-passion or identity. Some fearful end must be: where, where is it? By Nemesis, I see my spirit flit Alone about the darkForgive me, sweet: Shall we away?" He rous'd the steeds: they beat Their wings chivalrous into the clear air, Leaving old Sleep within his vapoury lair. The good-night blush of eve was waning slow, And Vesper, risen star, began to throe In the dusk heavens silvery, when they Thus sprang direct towards the Galaxy. Nor did speed hinder converse soft and strange Eternal oaths and vows they interchange, In such wise, in such temper, so aloof Up in the winds, beneath a starry roof, So witless of their doom, that verily 'Tis well nigh past man's search their hearts to see; Whether they wept, or laugh'd, or griev'd, or toy'd Most like with joy gone mad, with sorrow cloy'd. Full facing their swift flight, from ebon streak, The moon put forth a little diamond peak, No bigger than an unobserved star, Or tiny point of fairy scymetar; Bright signal that she only stoop'd to tie Her silver sandals, ere deliciously She bow'd into the heavens her timid head. Slowly she rose, as though she would have fled, While to his lady meek the Carian turn'd, To mark if her dark eyes had yet discern'd This beauty in its birthDespair! despair! He saw her body fading gaunt and spare In the cold moonshine. Straight he seiz'd her wrist; It melted from his grasp: her hand he kiss'd, And, horror! kiss'd his ownhe was alone. Her steed a little higher soar'd, and then Dropt hawkwise to the earth.    There lies a den, Beyond the seeming confines of the space Made for the soul to wander in and trace Its own existence, of remotest glooms. Dark regions are around it, where the tombs Of buried griefs the spirit sees, but scarce One hour doth linger weeping, for the pierce Of new-born woe it feels more inly smart: And in these regions many a venom'd dart At random flies; they are the proper home Of every ill: the man is yet to come Who hath not journeyed in this native hell. But few have ever felt how calm and well Sleep may be had in that deep den of all. There anguish does not sting; nor pleasure pall: Woe-hurricanes beat ever at the gate, Yet all is still within and desolate. Beset with painful gusts, within ye hear No sound so loud as when on curtain'd bier The death-watch tick is stifled. Enter none Who strive therefore: on the sudden it is won. Just when the sufferer begins to burn, Then it is free to him; and from an urn, Still fed by melting ice, he takes a draught Young Semele such richness never quaft In her maternal longing. Happy gloom! Dark Paradise! where pale becomes the bloom Of health by due; where silence dreariest Is most articulate; where hopes infest; Where those eyes are the brightest far that keep Their lids shut longest in a dreamless sleep. O happy spirit-home! O wondrous soul! Pregnant with such a den to save the whole In thine own depth. Hail, gentle Carian! For, never since thy griefs and woes began, Hast thou felt so content: a grievous feud Hath let thee to this Cave of Quietude. Aye, his lull'd soul was there, although upborne With dangerous speed: and so he did not mourn Because he knew not whither he was going. So happy was he, not the aerial blowing Of trumpets at clear parley from the east Could rouse from that fine relish, that high feast. They stung the feather'd horse: with fierce alarm He flapp'd towards the sound. Alas, no charm Could lift Endymion's head, or he had view'd A skyey mask, a pinion'd multitude, And silvery was its passing: voices sweet Warbling the while as if to lull and greet The wanderer in his path. Thus warbled they, While past the vision went in bright array. "Who, who from Dian's feast would be away? For all the golden bowers of the day Are empty left? Who, who away would be From Cynthia's wedding and festivity? Not Hesperus: lo! upon his silver wings He leans away for highest heaven and sings, Snapping his lucid fingers merrily! Ah, Zephyrus! art here, and Flora too! Ye tender bibbers of the rain and dew, Young playmates of the rose and daffodil, Be careful, ere ye enter in, to fill     Your baskets high With fennel green, and balm, and golden pines, Savory, latter-mint, and columbines, Cool parsley, basil sweet, and sunny thyme; Yea, every flower and leaf of every clime, All gather'd in the dewy morning: hie     Away! fly, fly! Crystalline brother of the belt of heaven, Aquarius! to whom king Jove has given Two liquid pulse streams 'stead of feather'd wings, Two fan-like fountains,thine illuminings     For Dian play: Dissolve the frozen purity of air; Let thy white shoulders silvery and bare Shew cold through watery pinions; make more bright The Star-Queen's crescent on her marriage night:     Haste, haste away! Castor has tamed the planet Lion, see! And of the Bear has Pollux mastery: A third is in the race! who is the third, Speeding away swift as the eagle bird?     The ramping Centaur! The Lion's mane's on end: the Bear how fierce! The Centaur's arrow ready seems to pierce Some enemy: far forth his bow is bent Into the blue of heaven. He'll be shent,     Pale unrelentor, When he shall hear the wedding lutes a playing. Andromeda! sweet woman! why delaying So timidly among the stars: come hither! Join this bright throng, and nimbly follow whither     They all are going. Danae's Son, before Jove newly bow'd, Has wept for thee, calling to Jove aloud. Thee, gentle lady, did he disenthral: Ye shall for ever live and love, for all     Thy tears are flowing. By Daphne's fright, behold Apollo!"                     More Endymion heard not: down his steed him bore, Prone to the green head of a misty hill. His first touch of the earth went nigh to kill. "Alas!" said he, "were I but always borne Through dangerous winds, had but my footsteps worn A path in hell, for ever would I bless Horrors which nourish an uneasiness For my own sullen conquering: to him Who lives beyond earth's boundary, grief is dim, Sorrow is but a shadow: now I see The grass; I feel the solid groundAh, me! It is thy voicedivinest! Where?who? who Left thee so quiet on this bed of dew? Behold upon this happy earth we are; Let us ay love each other; let us fare On forest-fruits, and never, never go Among the abodes of mortals here below, Or be by phantoms duped. O destiny! Into a labyrinth now my soul would fly, But with thy beauty will I deaden it. Where didst thou melt too? By thee will I sit For ever: let our fate stop herea kid I on this spot will offer: Pan will bid Us live in peace, in love and peace among His forest wildernesses. I have clung To nothing, lov'd a nothing, nothing seen Or felt but a great dream! O I have been Presumptuous against love, against the sky, Against all elements, against the tie Of mortals each to each, against the blooms Of flowers, rush of rivers, and the tombs Of heroes gone! Against his proper glory Has my own soul conspired: so my story Will I to children utter, and repent. There never liv'd a mortal man, who bent His appetite beyond his natural sphere, But starv'd and died. My sweetest Indian, here, Here will I kneel, for thou redeemed hast My life from too thin breathing: gone and past Are cloudy phantasms. Caverns lone, farewel! And air of visions, and the monstrous swell Of visionary seas! No, never more Shall airy voices cheat me to the shore Of tangled wonder, breathless and aghast. Adieu, my daintiest Dream! although so vast My love is still for thee. The hour may come When we shall meet in pure elysium. On earth I may not love thee; and therefore Doves will I offer up, and sweetest store All through the teeming year: so thou wilt shine On me, and on this damsel fair of mine, And bless our simple lives. My Indian bliss! My river-lily bud! one human kiss! One sigh of real breathone gentle squeeze, Warm as a dove's nest among summer trees, And warm with dew at ooze from living blood! Whither didst melt? Ah, what of that!all good We'll talk aboutno more of dreaming.Now, Where shall our dwelling be? Under the brow Of some steep mossy hill, where ivy dun Would hide us up, although spring leaves were none; And where dark yew trees, as we rustle through, Will drop their scarlet berry cups of dew? O thou wouldst joy to live in such a place; Dusk for our loves, yet light enough to grace Those gentle limbs on mossy bed reclin'd: For by one step the blue sky shouldst thou find, And by another, in deep dell below, See, through the trees, a little river go All in its mid-day gold and glimmering. Honey from out the gnarled hive I'll bring, And apples, wan with sweetness, gather thee, Cresses that grow where no man may them see, And sorrel untorn by the dew-claw'd stag: Pipes will I fashion of the syrinx flag, That thou mayst always know whither I roam, When it shall please thee in our quiet home To listen and think of love. Still let me speak; Still let me dive into the joy I seek, For yet the past doth prison me. The rill, Thou haply mayst delight in, will I fill With fairy fishes from the mountain tarn, And thou shalt feed them from the squirrel's barn. Its bottom will I strew with amber shells, And pebbles blue from deep enchanted wells. Its sides I'll plant with dew-sweet eglantine, And honeysuckles full of clear bee-wine. I will entice this crystal rill to trace Love's silver name upon the meadow's face. I'll kneel to Vesta, for a flame of fire; And to god Phoebus, for a golden lyre; To Empress Dian, for a hunting spear; To Vesper, for a taper silver-clear, That I may see thy beauty through the night; To Flora, and a nightingale shall light Tame on thy finger; to the River-gods, And they shall bring thee taper fishing-rods Of gold, and lines of Naiads' long bright tress. Heaven shield thee for thine utter loveliness! Thy mossy footstool shall the altar be 'Fore which I'll bend, bending, dear love, to thee: Those lips shall be my Delphos, and shall speak Laws to my footsteps, colour to my cheek, Trembling or stedfastness to this same voice, And of three sweetest pleasurings the choice: And that affectionate light, those diamond things, Those eyes, those passions, those supreme pearl springs, Shall be my grief, or twinkle me to pleasure. Say, is not bliss within our perfect seisure? O that I could not doubt?"                The mountaineer Thus strove by fancies vain and crude to clear His briar'd path to some tranquillity. It gave bright gladness to his lady's eye, And yet the tears she wept were tears of sorrow; Answering thus, just as the golden morrow Beam'd upward from the vallies of the east: "O that the flutter of this heart had ceas'd, Or the sweet name of love had pass'd away. Young feather'd tyrant! by a swift decay Wilt thou devote this body to the earth: And I do think that at my very birth I lisp'd thy blooming titles inwardly; For at the first, first dawn and thought of thee, With uplift hands I blest the stars of heaven. Art thou not cruel? Ever have I striven To think thee kind, but ah, it will not do! When yet a child, I heard that kisses drew Favour from thee, and so I kisses gave To the void air, bidding them find out love: But when I came to feel how far above All fancy, pride, and fickle maidenhood, All earthly pleasure, all imagin'd good, Was the warm tremble of a devout kiss, Even then, that moment, at the thought of this, Fainting I fell into a bed of flowers, And languish'd there three days. Ye milder powers, Am I not cruelly wrong'd? Believe, believe Me, dear Endymion, were I to weave With my own fancies garlands of sweet life, Thou shouldst be one of all. Ah, bitter strife! I may not be thy love: I am forbidden Indeed I amthwarted, affrighted, chidden, By things I trembled at, and gorgon wrath. Twice hast thou ask'd whither I went: henceforth Ask me no more! I may not utter it, Nor may I be thy love. We might commit Ourselves at once to vengeance; we might die; We might embrace and die: voluptuous thought! Enlarge not to my hunger, or I'm caught In trammels of perverse deliciousness. No, no, that shall not be: thee will I bless, And bid a long adieu."              The Carian No word return'd: both lovelorn, silent, wan, Into the vallies green together went. Far wandering, they were perforce content To sit beneath a fair lone beechen tree; Nor at each other gaz'd, but heavily Por'd on its hazle cirque of shedded leaves. Endymion! unhappy! it nigh grieves Me to behold thee thus in last extreme: Ensky'd ere this, but truly that I deem Truth the best music in a first-born song. Thy lute-voic'd brother will I sing ere long, And thou shalt aidhast thou not aided me? Yes, moonlight Emperor! felicity Has been thy meed for many thousand years; Yet often have I, on the brink of tears, Mourn'd as if yet thou wert a forester, Forgetting the old tale.               He did not stir His eyes from the dead leaves, or one small pulse Of joy he might have felt. The spirit culls Unfaded amaranth, when wild it strays Through the old garden-ground of boyish days. A little onward ran the very stream By which he took his first soft poppy dream; And on the very bark 'gainst which he leant A crescent he had carv'd, and round it spent His skill in little stars. The teeming tree Had swollen and green'd the pious charactery, But not ta'en out. Why, there was not a slope Up which he had not fear'd the antelope; And not a tree, beneath whose rooty shade He had not with his tamed leopards play'd. Nor could an arrow light, or javelin, Fly in the air where his had never been And yet he knew it not.              O treachery! Why does his lady smile, pleasing her eye With all his sorrowing? He sees her not. But who so stares on him? His sister sure! Peona of the woods!Can she endure Impossiblehow dearly they embrace! His lady smiles; delight is in her face; It is no treachery.            "Dear brother mine! Endymion, weep not so! Why shouldst thou pine When all great Latmos so exalt wilt be? Thank the great gods, and look not bitterly; And speak not one pale word, and sigh no more. Sure I will not believe thou hast such store Of grief, to last thee to my kiss again. Thou surely canst not bear a mind in pain, Come hand in hand with one so beautiful. Be happy both of you! for I will pull The flowers of autumn for your coronals. Pan's holy priest for young Endymion calls; And when he is restor'd, thou, fairest dame, Shalt be our queen. Now, is it not a shame To see ye thus,not very, very sad? Perhaps ye are too happy to be glad: O feel as if it were a common day; Free-voic'd as one who never was away. No tongue shall ask, whence come ye? but ye shall Be gods of your own rest imperial. Not even I, for one whole month, will pry Into the hours that have pass'd us by, Since in my arbour I did sing to thee. O Hermes! on this very night will be A hymning up to Cynthia, queen of light; For the soothsayers old saw yesternight Good visions in the air,whence will befal, As say these sages, health perpetual To shepherds and their flocks; and furthermore, In Dian's face they read the gentle lore: Therefore for her these vesper-carols are. Our friends will all be there from nigh and far. Many upon thy death have ditties made; And many, even now, their foreheads shade With cypress, on a day of sacrifice. New singing for our maids shalt thou devise, And pluck the sorrow from our huntsmen's brows. Tell me, my lady-queen, how to espouse This wayward brother to his rightful joys! His eyes are on thee bent, as thou didst poise His fate most goddess-like. Help me, I pray, To lureEndymion, dear brother, say What ails thee?" He could bear no more, and so Bent his soul fiercely like a spiritual bow, And twang'd it inwardly, and calmly said: "I would have thee my only friend, sweet maid! My only visitor! not ignorant though, That those deceptions which for pleasure go 'Mong men, are pleasures real as real may be: But there are higher ones I may not see, If impiously an earthly realm I take. Since I saw thee, I have been wide awake Night after night, and day by day, until Of the empyrean I have drunk my fill. Let it content thee, Sister, seeing me More happy than betides mortality. A hermit young, I'll live in mossy cave, Where thou alone shalt come to me, and lave Thy spirit in the wonders I shall tell. Through me the shepherd realm shall prosper well; For to thy tongue will I all health confide. And, for my sake, let this young maid abide With thee as a dear sister. Thou alone, Peona, mayst return to me. I own This may sound strangely: but when, dearest girl, Thou seest it for my happiness, no pearl Will trespass down those cheeks. Companion fair! Wilt be content to dwell with her, to share This sister's love with me?" Like one resign'd And bent by circumstance, and thereby blind In self-commitment, thus that meek unknown: "Aye, but a buzzing by my ears has flown, Of jubilee to Dian:truth I heard! Well then, I see there is no little bird, Tender soever, but is Jove's own care. Long have I sought for rest, and, unaware, Behold I find it! so exalted too! So after my own heart! I knew, I knew There was a place untenanted in it: In that same void white Chastity shall sit, And monitor me nightly to lone slumber. With sanest lips I vow me to the number Of Dian's sisterhood; and, kind lady, With thy good help, this very night shall see My future days to her fane consecrate." As feels a dreamer what doth most create His own particular fright, so these three felt: Or like one who, in after ages, knelt To Lucifer or Baal, when he'd pine After a little sleep: or when in mine Far under-ground, a sleeper meets his friends Who know him not. Each diligently bends Towards common thoughts and things for very fear; Striving their ghastly malady to cheer, By thinking it a thing of yes and no, That housewives talk of. But the spirit-blow Was struck, and all were dreamers. At the last Endymion said: "Are not our fates all cast? Why stand we here? Adieu, ye tender pair! Adieu!" Whereat those maidens, with wild stare, Walk'd dizzily away. Pained and hot His eyes went after them, until they got Near to a cypress grove, whose deadly maw, In one swift moment, would what then he saw Engulph for ever. "Stay!" he cried, "ah, stay! Turn, damsels! hist! one word I have to say. Sweet Indian, I would see thee once again. It is a thing I dote on: so I'd fain, Peona, ye should hand in hand repair Into those holy groves, that silent are Behind great Dian's temple. I'll be yon, At vesper's earliest twinklethey are gone But once, once, once again" At this he press'd His hands against his face, and then did rest His head upon a mossy hillock green, And so remain'd as he a corpse had been All the long day; save when he scantly lifted His eyes abroad, to see how shadows shifted With the slow move of time,sluggish and weary Until the poplar tops, in journey dreary, Had reach'd the river's brim. Then up he rose, And, slowly as that very river flows, Walk'd towards the temple grove with this lament: "Why such a golden eve? The breeze is sent Careful and soft, that not a leaf may fall Before the serene father of them all Bows down his summer head below the west. Now am I of breath, speech, and speed possest, But at the setting I must bid adieu To her for the last time. Night will strew On the damp grass myriads of lingering leaves, And with them shall I die; nor much it grieves To die, when summer dies on the cold sward. Why, I have been a butterfly, a lord Of flowers, garlands, love-knots, silly posies, Groves, meadows, melodies, and arbour roses; My kingdom's at its death, and just it is That I should die with it: so in all this We miscal grief, bale, sorrow, heartbreak, woe, What is there to plain of? By Titan's foe I am but rightly serv'd." So saying, he Tripp'd lightly on, in sort of deathful glee; Laughing at the clear stream and setting sun, As though they jests had been: nor had he done His laugh at nature's holy countenance, Until that grove appear'd, as if perchance, And then his tongue with sober seemlihed Gave utterance as he entered: "Ha!" I said, "King of the butterflies; but by this gloom, And by old Rhadamanthus' tongue of doom, This dusk religion, pomp of solitude, And the Promethean clay by thief endued, By old Saturnus' forelock, by his head Shook with eternal palsy, I did wed Myself to things of light from infancy; And thus to be cast out, thus lorn to die, Is sure enough to make a mortal man Grow impious." So he inwardly began On things for which no wording can be found; Deeper and deeper sinking, until drown'd Beyond the reach of music: for the choir Of Cynthia he heard not, though rough briar Nor muffling thicket interpos'd to dull The vesper hymn, far swollen, soft and full, Through the dark pillars of those sylvan aisles. He saw not the two maidens, nor their smiles, Wan as primroses gather'd at midnight By chilly finger'd spring. "Unhappy wight! Endymion!" said Peona, "we are here! What wouldst thou ere we all are laid on bier?" Then he embrac'd her, and his lady's hand Press'd, saying:" Sister, I would have command, If it were heaven's will, on our sad fate." At which that dark-eyed stranger stood elate And said, in a new voice, but sweet as love, To Endymion's amaze: "By Cupid's dove, And so thou shalt! and by the lily truth Of my own breast thou shalt, beloved youth!" And as she spake, into her face there came Light, as reflected from a silver flame: Her long black hair swell'd ampler, in display Full golden; in her eyes a brighter day Dawn'd blue and full of love. Aye, he beheld Phoebe, his passion! joyous she upheld Her lucid bow, continuing thus; "Drear, drear Has our delaying been; but foolish fear Withheld me first; and then decrees of fate; And then 'twas fit that from this mortal state Thou shouldst, my love, by some unlook'd for change Be spiritualiz'd. Peona, we shall range These forests, and to thee they safe shall be As was thy cradle; hither shalt thou flee To meet us many a time." Next Cynthia bright Peona kiss'd, and bless'd with fair good night: Her brother kiss'd her too, and knelt adown Before his goddess, in a blissful swoon. She gave her fair hands to him, and behold, Before three swiftest kisses he had told, They vanish'd far away!Peona went Home through the gloomy wood in wonderment. (line 2): This line originally began with 'O Mountain-born in the draft, where also 'while' stands cancelled in favour of 'by.' (line 158): Keats has been supposed to have invented the variant 'spry' for 'spray' for convenience of rhyming, just as Shelley has been accused of inventing for like reasons the word 'uprest', for example, in Laon And Cythna, Canto III, Stanza xxi. Sandys, the translator of Ovid, may not be a very good authority; but he is not improbably Keats's authority for 'spry', and will certainly do in default of a better. (line 273): The biblical dissyllabic form 'mayest' is clearly used by deliberate preference, for the line originally stood thus in the draft : And I have told thee all that thou canst hear. (line 298): Remember'd from its velvet summer song : The gentleness of summer wind seems to have been a cherished idea with Keats. Compare with Sleep And Poetry, line 1 -- 'What is more gentle than a wind in summer?' (line 585): This was originally a short line consisting of the words "Thine illuminings" alone. The whole stanza, ... was sent by Keats to his friend Baily for his "vote, pro or con," in a letter dated the 22nd of November 1817. (line 668): An imagination in which Hunt would have found it difficult to discover the reality; but probably Keats had never seen the miserable platform of dry twigs that serves for "a dove's nest among summer trees." (line 672): Endymion's imaginary home and employments as pictured in the next fifty lines may be compared with Shelley's AEgean island described so wonderfully in Epipsychidion. Both passages are thoroughly characteristic; and they show the divergence between the modes of thought and sentiment of the two men in a very marked way. (line 885-86): A curious importation from Hebrew theology into a subject from Greek mythology. Compare St. Matthew, X, 29: "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father." Or, as made familiar to our childhood by the popular hymn-wright,--- 'A little sparrow cannot fall, Unnoticed, Lord, by Thee.' In the finished manuscript the word "kist" occurs twice instead of "kiss'd" as in the first edition; but "bless'd" is not similarly transformed to "blest." At the end of the draft Keats wrote "Burford Bridge Nov. 28, 1817--". The imprint of Endymion is as follows:-- T. Miller, Printer, Noble Street, Cheapside. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes ~ John Keats, Endymion - Book IV ,

915:class:Classics BOOK THE NINTH The Story of Achelous and Hercules Theseus requests the God to tell his woes, Whence his maim'd brow, and whence his groans arose Whence thus the Calydonian stream reply'd, With twining reeds his careless tresses ty'd: Ungrateful is the tale; for who can bear, When conquer'd, to rehearse the shameful war? Yet I'll the melancholy story trace; So great a conqu'ror softens the disgrace: Nor was it still so mean the prize to yield, As great, and glorious to dispute the field. Perhaps you've heard of Deianira's name, For all the country spoke her beauty's fame. Long was the nymph by num'rous suitors woo'd, Each with address his envy'd hopes pursu'd: I joyn'd the loving band; to gain the fair, Reveal'd my passion to her father's ear. Their vain pretensions all the rest resign, Alcides only strove to equal mine; He boasts his birth from Jove, recounts his spoils, His step-dame's hate subdu'd, and finish'd toils. Can mortals then (said I), with Gods compare? Behold a God; mine is the watry care: Through your wide realms I take my mazy way, Branch into streams, and o'er the region stray: No foreign guest your daughter's charms adores, But one who rises in your native shores. Let not his punishment your pity move; Is Juno's hate an argument for love? Though you your life from fair Alcmena drew, Jove's a feign'd father, or by fraud a true. Chuse then; confess thy mother's honour lost, Or thy descent from Jove no longer boast. While thus I spoke, he look'd with stern disdain, Nor could the sallies of his wrath restrain, Which thus break forth. This arm decides our right; Vanquish in words, be mine the prize in fight. Bold he rush'd on. My honour to maintain, I fling my verdant garments on the plain, My arms stretch forth, my pliant limbs prepare, And with bent hands expect the furious war. O'er my sleek skin now gather'd dust he throws, And yellow sand his mighty muscles strows. Oft he my neck, and nimble legs assails, He seems to grasp me, but as often fails. Each part he now invades with eager hand; Safe in my bulk, immoveable I stand. So when loud storms break high, and foam and roar Against some mole that stretches from the shore; The firm foundation lasting tempests braves, Defies the warring winds, and driving waves. A-while we breathe, then forward rush amain, Renew the combat, and our ground maintain; Foot strove with foot, I prone extend my breast, Hands war with hands, and forehead forehead prest. Thus have I seen two furious bulls engage, Inflam'd with equal love, and equal rage; Each claims the fairest heifer of the grove, And conquest only can decide their love: The trembling herds survey the fight from far, 'Till victory decides th' important war. Three times in vain he strove my joints to wrest, To force my hold, and throw me from his breast; The fourth he broke my gripe, that clasp'd him round, Then with new force he stretch'd me on the ground; Close to my back the mighty bur then clung, As if a mountain o'er my limbs were flung. Believe my tale; nor do I, boastful, aim By feign'd narration to extol my fame. No sooner from his grasp I freedom get, Unlock my arms, that flow'd with trickling sweat, But quick he seized me, and renew'd the strife, As my exhausted bosom pants for life: My neck he gripes, my knee to earth he strains; I fall, and bite the sand with shame, and pains. O'er-match'd in strength, to wiles, and arts I take, And slip his hold, in form of speckled snake; Who, when I wreath'd in spires my body round, Or show'd my forky tongue with hissing sound, Smiles at my threats: Such foes my cradle knew, He cries, dire snakes my infant hand o'erthrew; A dragon's form might other conquests gain, To war with me you take that shape in vain. Art thou proportion'd to the Hydra's length, Who by his wounds receiv'd augmented strength? He rais'd a hundred hissing heads in air; When one I lopt, up-sprung a dreadful pair. By his wounds fertile, and with slaughter strong, Singly I quell'd him, and stretch'd dead along. What canst thou do, a form precarious, prone, To rouse my rage with terrors not thy own? He said; and round my neck his hands he cast, And with his straining fingers wrung me fast; My throat he tortur'd, close as pincers clasp, In vain I strove to loose the forceful grasp. Thus vanquish'd too, a third form still remains, Chang'd to a bull, my lowing fills the plains. Strait on the left his nervous arms were thrown Upon my brindled neck, and tugg'd it down; Then deep he struck my horn into the sand, And fell'd my bulk among the dusty land. Nor yet his fury cool'd; 'twixt rage and scorn, From my maim'd front he tore the stubborn horn: This, heap'd with flow'rs, and fruits, the Naiads bear, Sacred to plenty, and the bounteous year. He spoke; when lo, a beauteous nymph appears, Girt like Diana's train, with flowing hairs; The horn she brings in which all Autumn's stor'd, And ruddy apples for the second board. Now morn begins to dawn, the sun's bright fire Gilds the high mountains, and the youths retire; Nor stay'd they, 'till the troubled stream subsides, And in its bounds with peaceful current glides. But Achelous in his oozy bed Deep hides his brow deform'd, and rustick head: No real wound the victor's triumph show'd, But his lost honours griev'd the watry God; Yet ev'n that loss the willow's leaves o'erspread, And verdant reeds, in garlands, bind his head. The Death of Nessus the Centaur This virgin too, thy love, O Nessus, found, To her alone you owe the fatal wound. As the strong son of Jove his bride conveys, Where his paternal lands their bulwarks raise; Where from her slopy urn, Evenus pours Her rapid current, swell'd by wintry show'rs, He came. The frequent eddies whirl'd the tide, And the deep rolling waves all pass deny'd. As for himself, he stood unmov'd by fears, For now his bridal charge employ'd his cares, The strong-limb'd Nessus thus officious cry'd (For he the shallows of the stream had try'd), Swim thou, Alcides, all thy strength prepare, On yonder bank I'll lodge thy nuptial care. Th' Aonian chief to Nessus trusts his wife, All pale, and trembling for her heroe's life: Cloath'd as he stood in the fierce lion's hide, The laden quiver o'er his shoulder ty'd (For cross the stream his bow and club were cast), Swift he plung'd in: These billows shall be past, He said, nor sought where smoother waters glide, But stem'd the rapid dangers of the tide. The bank he reach'd; again the bow he bears; When, hark! his bride's known voice alarms his ears. Nessus, to thee I call (aloud he cries) Vain is thy trust in flight, be timely wise: Thou monster double-shap'd, my right set free; If thou no rev'rence owe my fame and me, Yet kindred should thy lawless lust deny; Think not, perfidious wretch, from me to fly, Tho' wing'd with horse's speed; wounds shall pursue; Swift as his words the fatal arrow flew: The centaur's back admits the feather'd wood, And thro' his breast the barbed weapon stood; Which when, in anguish, thro' the flesh he tore, From both the wounds gush'd forth the spumy gore Mix'd with Lernaean venom; this he took, Nor dire revenge his dying breast forsook. His garment, in the reeking purple dy'd, To rouse love's passion, he presents the bride. The Death of Hercules Now a long interval of time succeeds, When the great son of Jove's immortal deeds, And step-dame's hate, had fill'd Earth's utmost round; He from Oechalia, with new lawrels crown'd, In triumph was return'd. He rites prepares, And to the King of Gods directs his pray'rs; When Fame (who falshood cloaths in truth's disguise, And swells her little bulk with growing lies) Thy tender ear, o Deianira, mov'd, That Hercules the fair Iole lov'd. Her love believes the tale; the truth she fears Of his new passion, and gives way to tears. The flowing tears diffus'd her wretched grief, Why seek I thus, from streaming eyes, relief? She cries; indulge not thus these fruitless cares, The harlot will but triumph in thy tears: Let something be resolv'd, while yet there's time; My bed not conscious of a rival's crime. In silence shall I mourn, or loud complain? Shall I seek Calydon, or here remain? What tho', ally'd to Meleager's fame, I boast the honours of a sister's name? My wrongs, perhaps, now urge me to pursue Some desp'rate deed, by which the world shall view How far revenge, and woman's rage can rise, When weltring in her blood the harlot dies. Thus various passions rul'd by turns her breast, She now resolves to send the fatal vest, Dy'd with Lernaean gore, whose pow'r might move His soul anew, and rouse declining love. Nor knew she what her sudden rage bestows, When she to Lychas trusts her future woes; With soft endearments she the boy commands, To bear the garment to her husband's hands. Th' unwitting hero takes the gift in haste, And o'er his shoulders Lerna's poison cast, As first the fire with frankincense he strows, And utters to the Gods his holy vows; And on the marble altar's polish'd frame Pours forth the grapy stream; the rising flame Sudden dissolves the subtle pois'nous juice, Which taints his blood, and all his nerves bedews. With wonted fortitude he bore the smart, And not a groan confess'd his burning heart. At length his patience was subdu'd by pain, He rends the sacred altar from the plain; Oete's wide forests echo with his cries: Now to rip off the deathful robe he tries. Where-e'er he plucks the vest, the skin he tears, The mangled muscles, and huge bones he bares (A ghastful sight!), or raging with his pain, To rend the sticking plague he tugs in vain. As the red iron hisses in the flood, So boils the venom in his curdling blood. Now with the greedy flame his entrails glow, And livid sweats down all his body flow; The cracking nerves burnt up are burst in twain, The lurking venom melts his swimming brain. Then, lifting both his hands aloft, he cries, Glut thy revenge, dread Empress of the skies; Sate with my death the rancour of thy heart, Look down with pleasure, and enjoy my smart. Or, if e'er pity mov'd a hostile breast (For here I stand thy enemy profest), Take hence this hateful life, with tortures torn, Inur'd to trouble, and to labours born. Death is the gift most welcome to my woe, And such a gift a stepdame may bestow. Was it for this Busiris was subdu'd, Whose barb'rous temples reek'd with strangers' blood? Press'd in these arms his fate Antaeus found, Nor gain'd recruited vigour from the ground. Did I not triple-form'd Geryon fell? Or did I fear the triple dog of Hell? Did not these hands the bull's arm'd forehead hold? Are not our mighty toils in Elis told? Do not Stymphalian lakes proclaim thy fame? And fair Par thenian woods resound thy name? Who seiz'd the golden belt of Thermodon? And who the dragon-guarded apples won? Could the fierce centaur's strength my force withstand, Or the fell boar that spoil'd th' Arcadian land? Did not these arms the Hydra's rage subdue, Who from his wounds to double fury grew? What if the Thracian horses, fat with gore, Who human bodies in their mangers tore, I saw, and with their barb'rous lord o'erthrew? What if these hands Nemaea's lion slew? Did not this neck the heav'nly globe sustain? The female partner of the Thunderer's reign Fatigu'd, at length suspends her harsh commands, Yet no fatigue hath slack'd these valiant hands. But now new plagues pursue me, neither force, Nor arms, nor darts can stop their raging course. Devouring flame thro' my rack'd entrails strays, And on my lungs and shrivel'd muscles preys. Yet still Eurystheus breathes the vital air. What mortal now shall seek the Gods with pray'r? The Transformation of Lychas into a Rock The hero said; and with the torture stung, Furious o'er Oete's lofty hills he sprung. Stuck with the shaft, thus scours the tyger round, And seeks the flying author of his wound. Now might you see him trembling, now he vents His anguish'd soul in groans, and loud laments; He strives to tear the clinging vest in vain, And with up-rooted forests strows the plain; Now kindling into rage, his hands he rears, And to his kindred Gods directs his pray'rs. When Lychas, lo, he spies; who trembling flew, And in a hollow rock conceal'd from view, Had shun'd his wrath. Now grief renew'd his pain, His madness chaf'd, and thus he raves again. Lychas, to thee alone my fate I owe, Who bore the gift, the cause of all my woe. The youth all pale, with shiv'ring fear was stung, And vain excuses falter'd on his tongue. Alcides snatch'd him, as with suppliant face He strove to clasp his knees, and beg for grace: He toss'd him o'er his head with airy course, And hurl'd with more than with an engine's force; Far o'er th' Eubaean main aloof he flies, And hardens by degrees amid the skies. So showry drops, when chilly tempests blow, Thicken at first, then whiten into snow, In balls congeal'd the rolling fleeces bound, In solid hail result upon the ground. Thus, whirl'd with nervous force thro' distant air, The purple tide forsook his veins, with fear; All moisture left his limbs. Transform'd to stone, In ancient days the craggy flint was known; Still in the Eubaean waves his front he rears, Still the small rock in human form appears, And still the name of hapless Lychas bears. The Apotheosis of Hercules But now the hero of immortal birth Fells Oete's forests on the groaning Earth; A pile he builds; to Philoctetes' care He leaves his deathful instruments of war; To him commits those arrows, which again Shall see the bulwarks of the Trojan reign. The son of Paean lights the lofty pyre, High round the structure climbs the greedy fire; Plac'd on the top, thy nervous shoulders spread With the Nemaean spoils, thy careless head Rais'd on a knotty club, with look divine, Here thou, dread hero, of celestial line, Wert stretch'd at ease; as when a chearful guest, Wine crown'd thy bowls, and flow'rs thy temples drest. Now on all sides the potent flames aspire, And crackle round those limbs that mock the fire A sudden terror seiz'd th' immortal host, Who thought the world's profess'd defender lost. This when the Thund'rer saw, with smiles he cries, 'Tis from your fears, ye Gods, my pleasures rise; Joy swells my breast, that my all-ruling hand O'er such a grateful people boasts command, That you my suff'ring progeny would aid; Tho' to his deeds this just respect be paid, Me you've oblig'd. Be all your fears forborn, Th' Oetean fires do thou, great hero, scorn. Who vanquish'd all things, shall subdue the flame. That part alone of gross maternal frame Fire shall devour; while what from me he drew Shall live immortal, and its force subdue; That, when he's dead, I'll raise to realms above; May all the Pow'rs the righteous act approve. If any God dissent, and judge too great The sacred honours of the heav'nly seat, Ev'n he shall own his deeds deserve the sky, Ev'n he reluctant, shall at length comply. Th' assembled Pow'rs assent. No frown 'till now Had mark'd with passion vengeful Juno's brow, Mean-while whate'er was in the pow'r of flame Was all consum'd; his body's nervous frame No more was known, of human form bereft, Th' eternal part of Jove alone was left. As an old serpent casts his scaly vest, Wreathes in the sun, in youthful glory drest; So when Alcides mortal mold resign'd, His better part enlarg'd, and grew refin'd; August his visage shone; almighty Jove In his swift carr his honour'd offspring drove; High o'er the hollow clouds the coursers fly, And lodge the hero in the starry sky. The Transformation of Galanthis Atlas perceiv'd the load of Heav'n's new guest. Revenge still rancour'd in Eurystheus' breast Against Alcides' race. Alcmena goes To Iole, to vent maternal woes; Here she pours forth her grief, recounts the spoils Her son had bravely reap'd in glorious toils. This Iole, by Hercules' commands, Hyllus had lov'd, and joyn'd in nuptial bands. Her swelling womb the teeming birth confess'd, To whom Alcmena thus her speech address'd. O, may the Gods protect thee, in that hour, When, 'midst thy throws, thou call'st th' Ilithyan Pow'r! May no delays prolong thy racking pain, As when I su'd for Juno's aid in vain. When now Alcides' mighty birth drew nigh, And the tenth sign roll'd forward on the sky, My womb extends with such a mighty load, As Jove the parent of the bur then show'd. I could no more th' encreasing smart sustain, My horror kindles to recount the pain; Cold chills my limbs while I the tale pursue, And now methinks I feel my pangs anew. Seven days and nights amidst incessant throws, Fatigu'd with ills I lay, nor knew repose; When lifting high my hands, in shrieks I pray'd, Implor'd the Gods, and call'd Lucina's aid. She came, but prejudic'd, to give my Fate A sacrifice to vengeful Juno's hate. She hears the groaning anguish of my fits, And on the altar at my door she sits. O'er her left knee her crossing leg she cast, Then knits her fingers close, and wrings them fast: This stay'd the birth; in mutt'ring verse she pray'd, The mutt'ring verse th' unfinish'd birth delay'd. Now with fierce struggles, raging with my pain, At Jove's ingratitude I rave in vain. How did I wish for death! such groans I sent, As might have made the flinty heart relent. Now the Cadmeian matrons round me press, Offer their vows, and seek to bring redress; Among the Theban dames Galanthis stands, Strong limb'd, red hair'd, and just to my commands: She first perceiv'd that all these racking woes From the persisting hate of Juno rose. As here and there she pass'd, by chance she sees The seated Goddess; on her close-press'd knees Her fast-knit hands she leans; with chearful voice Galanthis cries, Whoe'er thou art, rejoyce, Congratulate the dame, she lies at rest, At length the Gods Alcmena's womb have blest. Swift from her seat the startled Goddess springs, No more conceal'd, her hands abroad she flings; The charm unloos'd, the birth my pangs reliev'd; Galanthis' laughter vex'd the Pow'r deceiv'd. Fame says, the Goddess dragg'd the laughing maid Fast by the hair; in vain her force essay'd Her grov'ling body from the ground to rear; Chang'd to fore-feet her shrinking arms appear: Her hairy back her former hue retains, The form alone is lost; her strength remains; Who, since the lye did from her mouth proceed, Shall from her pregnant mouth bring forth her breed; Nor shall she quit her long-frequented home, But haunt those houses where she lov'd to roam. The Fable of Dryope She said, and for her lost Galanthis sighs; When the fair consort of her son replies; Since you a servant's ravish'd form bemoan, And kindly sigh for sorrows not your own, Let me (if tears and grief permit) relate A nearer woe, a sister's stranger fate. No nymph of all Oechaloa could compare For beauteous form with Dryope the fair; Her tender mother's only hope and pride (My self the offspring of a second bride), This nymph, compress'd by him who rules the day, Whom Delphi, and the Delian isle obey, Andraemon lov'd; and blest in all those charms That pleas'd a God, succeeded to her arms. A lake there was, with shelving banks around, Whose verdant summit fragrant myrtles crown'd. Those shades, unknowing of the fates, she sought; And to the Naiads flow'ry garlands brought; Her smiling babe (a pleasing charge) she prest Between her arms, and nourish'd at her breast. Not distant far a watry lotos grows; The Spring was new, and all the verdant boughs, Acorn'd with blossoms, promis'd fruits that vye In glowing colours with the Tyrian dye. Of these she cropt, to please her infant son, And I my self the same rash act had done, But, lo! I saw (as near her side I stood) The violated blossoms drop with blood; Upon the tree I cast a frightful look, The trembling tree with sudden horror shook. Lotis the nymph (if rural tales be true) As from Priapus' lawless lust she flew, Forsook her form; and fixing here became A flow'ry plant, which still preserves her name. This change unknown, astonish'd at the sight, My trembling sister strove to urge her flight; Yet first the pardon of the Nymphs implor'd, And those offended Sylvan pow'rs ador'd: But when she backward would have fled, she found Her stiff'ning feet were rooted to the ground: In vain to free her fasten'd feet she strove, And as she struggles only moves above; She feels th' incroaching bark around her grow, By slow degrees, and cover all below: Surpriz'd at this, her trembling hand she heaves To rend her hair; her hand is fill'd with leaves; Where late was hair, the shooting leaves are seen To rise, and shade her with a sudden green. The Child Amphisus, to her bosom prest, Perceiv'd a colder and a harder breast, And found the springs, that n'er 'till then deny'd Their milky moisture, on a sudden dry'd. I saw, unhappy, what I now relate, And stood the helpless witness of thy fate; Embrac'd thy boughs, the rising bark delay'd, There wish'd to grow, and mingle shade with shade. Behold Andraemon, and th' unhappy sire Appear, and for their Dryope enquire; A springing tree for Dryope they find, And print warm kisses on the panting rind; Prostrate, with tears their kindred plant bedew, And close embrac'd, as to the roots they grew; The face was all that now remain'd of thee; No more a woman, nor yet quite a tree: Thy branches hung with humid pearls appear, From ev'ry leaf distills a trickling tear; And strait a voice, while yet a voice remains, Thus thro' the trembling boughs in sighs complains. If to the wretched any faith be giv'n, I swear by all th' unpitying Pow'rs of Heav'n, No wilful crime this heavy vengeance bred, In mutual innocence our lives we led. If this be false, let these new greens decay, Let sounding axes lop my limbs away, And crackling flames on all my honours prey. Now from my branching arms this infant bear, Let some kind nurse supply a mother's care; Yet to his mother let him oft be led, Sport in her shades, and in her shades be fed; Teach him, when first his infant voice shall frame Imperfect words, and lisp his mother's name, To hail this tree, and say with weeping eyes, Within this plant my hapless parent lies; And when in youth he seeks the shady woods, Oh, let him fly the chrystal lakes and floods, Nor touch the fatal flow'rs; but warn'd by me, Believe a Goddess shrin'd in ev'ry tree. My sire, my sister, and my spouse farewel! If in your breasts or love, or pity, dwell, Protect your plant, nor let my branches feel The browzing cattle, or the piercing steel. Farewel! and since I cannot bend to join My lips to yours, advance at least to mine. My son, thy mother's parting kiss receive, While yet thy mother has a kiss to give. I can no more; the creeping rind invades My closing lips, and hides my head in shades: Remove your hands; the bark shall soon suffice, Without their aid, to seal these dying eyes. She ceas'd at once to speak, and ceas'd to be; And all the nymph was lost within the tree: Yet latent life thro' her new branches reign'd, And long the plant a human heat retain'd. Iolaus restor'd to Youth While Iole the fatal change declares, Alcmena's pitying hand oft wip'd her tears. Grief too stream'd down her cheeks; soon sorrow flies, And rising joy the trickling moisture dries, Lo Iolaus stands before their eyes. A youth he stood; and the soft down began O'er his smooth chin to spread, and promise man. Hebe submitted to her husband's pray'rs, Instill'd new vigour, and restor'd his years. The Prophecy of Themis Now from her lips a solemn oath had past, That Iolaus this gift alone shou'd taste, Had not just Themis thus maturely said (Which check'd her vow, and aw'd the blooming maid). Thebes is embroil'd in war. Capaneus stands Invincible, but by the Thund'rer's hands. Ambition shall the guilty brothers fire, Both rush to mutual wounds, and both expire. The reeling Earth shall ope her gloomy womb, Where the yet breathing bard shall find his tomb. The son shall bath his hands in parents' blood, And in one act be both unjust, and good. Of home, and sense depriv'd, where-e'er he flies, The Furies, and his mother's ghost he spies. His wife the fatal bracelet shall implore, And Phegeus stain his sword in kindred gore. Callirhoe shall then with suppliant pray'r Prevail on Jupiter's relenting ear. Jove shall with youth her infant sons inspire, And bid their bosoms glow with manly fire. The Debate of the Gods When Themis thus with prescient voice had spoke, Among the Gods a various murmur broke; Dissention rose in each immortal breast, That one should grant, what was deny'd the rest. Aurora for her aged spouse complains, And Ceres grieves for Jason's freezing veins; Vulcan would Erichthonius' years renew, Her future race the care of Venus drew, She would Anchises' blooming age restore; A diff'rent care employ'd each heav'nly Pow'r: Thus various int'rests did their jars encrease, 'Till Jove arose; he spoke, their tumults cease. Is any rev'rence to our presence giv'n, Then why this discord 'mong the Pow'rs of Heav'n? Who can the settled will of Fate subdue? 'Twas by the Fates that Iolaus knew A second youth. The Fates' determin'd doom Shall give Callirhoe's race a youthful bloom. Arms, nor ambition can this pow'r obtain; Quell your desires; ev'n me the Fates restrain. Could I their will controul, no rolling years Had Aeacus bent down with silver hairs; Then Rhadamanthus still had youth possess'd, And Minos with eternal bloom been bless'd. Jove's words the synod mov'd; the Pow'rs give o'er, And urge in vain unjust complaint no more. Since Rhadamanthus' veins now slowly flow'd, And Aeacus, and Minos bore the load; Minos, who in the flow'r of youth, and fame, Made mighty nations tremble at his name, Infirm with age, the proud Miletus fears, Vain of his birth, and in the strength of years, And now regarding all his realms as lost, He durst not force him from his native coast. But you by choice, Miletus, fled his reign, And thy swift vessel plow'd th' Aegean main; On Asiatick shores a town you frame, Which still is honour'd with the founder's name. Here you Cyanee knew, the beauteous maid, As on her father's winding banks she stray'd: Caunus and Byblis hence their lineage trace, The double offspring of your warm embrace. The Passion of of Byblis Let the sad fate of wretched Byblis prove A dismal warning to unlawful love; One birth gave being to the hapless pair, But more was Caunus than a sister's care; Unknown she lov'd, for yet the gentle fire Rose not in flames, nor kindled to desire, 'Twas thought no sin to wonder at his charms, Hang on his neck, and languish in his arms; Thus wing'd with joy, fled the soft hours away, And all the fatal guilt on harmless Nature lay. But love (too soon from piety declin'd) Insensibly deprav'd her yielding mind. Dress'd she appears, with nicest art adorn'd, And ev'ry youth, but her lov'd brother, scorn'd; For him alone she labour'd to be fair, And curst all charms that might with hers compare. 'Twas she, and only she, must Caunus please, Sick at her heart, yet knew not her disease: She call'd him lord, for brother was a name Too cold, and dull for her aspiring flame; And when he spoke, if sister he reply'd, For Byblis change that frozen word, she cry'd. Yet waking still she watch'd her strugling breast, And love's approaches were in vain address'd, 'Till gentle sleep an easy conquest made, And in her soft embrace the conqueror was laid. But oh too soon the pleasing vision fled, And left her blushing on the conscious bed: Ah me! (she cry'd) how monstrous do I seem? Why these wild thoughts? and this incestuous dream? Envy herself ('tis true) must own his charms, But what is beauty in a sister's arms? Oh were I not that despicable she, How bless'd, how pleas'd, how happy shou'd I be! But unregarded now must bear my pain, And but in dreams, my wishes can obtain. O sea-born Goddess! with thy wanton boy! Was ever such a charming scene of joy? Such perfect bliss! such ravishing delight! Ne'er hid before in the kind shades of night. How pleas'd my heart! in what sweet raptures tost! Ev'n life it self in the soft combat lost, While breathless he on my heav'd bosom lay, And snatch'd the treasures of my soul away. If the bare fancy so affects my mind, How shou'd I rave if to the substance join'd? Oh, gentle Caunus! quit thy hated line, Or let thy parents be no longer mine! Oh that in common all things were enjoy'd, But those alone who have our hopes destroy'd. Were I a princess, thou an humble swain, The proudest kings shou'd rival thee in vain. It cannot be, alas! the dreadful ill Is fix'd by Fate, and he's my brother still. Hear me, ye Gods! I must have friends in Heav'n, For Jove himself was to a sister giv'n: But what are their prerogatives above, To the short liberties of human love? Fantastick thoughts! down, down, forbidden fires, Or instant death extinguish my desires. Strict virtue, then, with thy malicious leave, Without a crime I may a kiss receive: But say shou'd I in spight of laws comply, Yet cruel Caunus might himself deny, No pity take of an afflicted maid (For love's sweet game must be by couples play'd). Yet why shou'd youth, and charms like mine, despair? Such fears ne'er startled the Aeolian pair; No ties of blood could their full hopes destroy, They broke thro' all, for the prevailing joy; And who can tell but Caunus too may be Rack'd and tormented in his breast for me? Like me, to the extreamest anguish drove, Like me, just waking from a dream of love? But stay! Oh whither wou'd my fury run! What arguments I urge to be undone! Away fond Byblis, quench these guilty flames; Caunus thy love but as brother claims; Yet had he first been touch'd with love of me, The charming youth cou'd I despairing see? Oppress'd with grief, and dying by disdain? Ah no! too sure I shou'd have eas'd his pain! Since then, if Caunus ask'd me, it were done; Asking my self, what dangers can I run? But canst thou ask? and see that right betray'd, From Pyrrha down to thy whole sex convey'd? That self-denying gift we all enjoy, Of wishing to be won, yet seeming to be coy. Well then, for once, let a fond mistress woo; The force of love no custom can subdue; This frantick passion he by words shall know, Soft as the melting heart from whence they flow. The pencil then in her fair hand she held, By fear discourag'd, but by love compell'd She writes, then blots, writes on, and blots again, Likes it as fit, then razes it as vain: Shame, and assurance in her face appear, And a faint hope just yielding to despair; Sister was wrote, and blotted as a word Which she, and Caunus too (she hop'd) abhorr'd; But now resolv'd to be no more controul'd By scrup'lous virtue, thus her grief she told. Thy lover (gentle Caunus) wishes thee That health, which thou alone canst give to me. O charming youth! the gift I ask bestow, Ere thou the name of the fond writer know; To thee without a name I would be known, Since knowing that, my frailty I must own. Yet why shou'd I my wretched name conceal? When thousand instances my flames reveal: Wan looks, and weeping eyes have spoke my pain, And sighs discharg'd from my heav'd heart in vain; Had I not wish'd my passion might be seen, What cou'd such fondness and embraces mean? Such kisses too! (Oh heedless lovely boy) Without a crime no sister cou'd enjoy: Yet (tho' extreamest rage has rack'd my soul, And raging fires in my parch'd bosom roul) Be witness, Gods! how piously I strove, To rid my thoughts of this enchanting love. But who cou'd scape so fierce, and sure a dart, Aim'd at a tender, and defenceless heart? Alas! what maid cou'd suffer, I have born, Ere the dire secret from my breast was torn; To thee a helpless vanquish'd wretch I come, 'Tis you alone can save, or give my doom; My life, or death this moment you may chuse. Yet think, oh think, no hated stranger sues, No foe; but one, alas! too near ally'd, And wishing still much nearer to be ty'd. The forms of decency let age debate, And virtue's rules by their cold morals state; Their ebbing joys give leisure to enquire, And blame those noble flights our youth inspire: Where Nature kindly summons let us go, Our sprightly years no bounds in love shou'd know, Shou'd feel no check of guilt, and fear no ill; Lovers, and Gods act all things at their will: We gain one blessing from our hated kin, Since our paternal freedom hides the sin; Uncensur'd in each other's arms we lye, Think then how easie to compleat our joy. Oh, pardon and oblige a blushing maid, Whose rage the pride of her vain sex betray'd; Nor let my tomb thus mournfully complain, Here Byblis lies, by her lov'd Caunus slain. Forc'd here to end, she with a falling tear Temper'd the pliant wax, which did the signet bear: The curious cypher was impress'd by art, But love had stamp'd one deeper in her heart; Her page, a youth of confidence, and skill, (Secret as night) stood waiting on her will; Sighing (she cry'd): Bear this, thou faithful boy, To my sweet partner in eternal joy: Here a long pause her secret guilt confess'd, And when at length she would have spoke the rest, Half the dear name lay bury'd in her breast. Thus as he listned to her vain command, Down fell the letter from her trembling hand. The omen shock'd her soul. Yet go, she cry'd; Can a request from Byblis be deny'd? To the Maeandrian youth this message's born, The half-read lines by his fierce rage were torn; Hence, hence, he cry'd, thou pandar to her lust, Bear hence the triumph of thy impious trust: Thy instant death will but divulge her shame, Or thy life's blood shou'd quench the guilty flame. Frighted, from threatning Caunus he withdrew, And with the dreadful news to his lost mistress flew. The sad repulse so struck the wounded fair, Her sense was bury'd in her wild despair; Pale was her visage, as the ghastly dead; And her scar'd soul from the sweet mansion fled; Yet with her life renew'd, her love returns, And faintly thus her cruel fate she mourns: 'Tis just, ye Gods! was my false reason blind? To write a secret of this tender kind? With female craft I shou'd at first have strove, By dubious hints to sound his distant love; And try'd those useful, tho' dissembled, arts, Which women practise on disdainful hearts: I shou'd have watch'd whence the black storm might rise; Ere I had trusted the unfaithful skies. Now on the rouling billows I am tost, And with extended sails, on the blind shelves am lost. Did not indulgent Heav'n my doom foretell, When from my hand the fatal letter fell? What madness seiz'd my soul? and urg'd me on To take the only course to be undone? I cou'd my self have told the moving tale With such alluring grace as must prevail; Then had his eyes beheld my blushing fears, My rising sighs, and my descending tears; Round his dear neck these arms I then had spread, And, if rejected, at his feet been dead: If singly these had not his thoughts inclin'd, Yet all united would have shock'd his mind. Perhaps, my careless page might be in fault, And in a luckless hour the fatal message brought; Business, and worldly thoughts might fill his breast, Sometimes ev'n love itself may be an irksome guest: He cou'd not else have treated me with scorn, For Caunus was not of a tygress born; Nor steel, nor adamant has fenc'd his heart; Like mine, 'tis naked to the burning dart. Away false fears! he must, he shall be mine; In death alone I will my claim resign; 'Tis vain to wish my written crime unknown, And for my guilt much vainer to atone. Repuls'd and baffled, fiercer still she burns, And Caunus with disdain her impious love returns. He saw no end of her injurious flame, And fled his country to avoid the shame. Forsaken Byblis, who had hopes no more; Burst out in rage, and her loose robes she tore; With her fair hands she smote her tender breast, And to the wond'ring world her love confess'd; O'er hills and dales, o'er rocks and streams she flew, But still in vain did her wild lust pursue: Wearied at length, on the cold earth she fell, And now in tears alone could her sad story tell. Relenting Gods in pity fix'd her there, And to a fountain turn'd the weeping fair. The Fable of Iphis and Ian the The fame of this, perhaps, thro' Crete had flown: But Crete had newer wonders of her own, In Iphis chang'd; for, near the Gnossian bounds (As loud report the miracle resounds), At Phaestus dwelt a man of honest blood, But meanly born, and not so rich as good; Esteem'd, and lov'd by all the neighbourhood; Who to his wife, before the time assign'd For child-birth came, thus bluntly spoke his mind. If Heav'n, said Lygdus, will vouchsafe to hear, I have but two petitions to prefer; Short pains for thee, for me a son and heir. Girls cost as many throes in bringing forth; Beside, when born, the titts are little worth; Weak puling things, unable to sustain Their share of labour, and their bread to gain. If, therefore, thou a creature shalt produce, Of so great charges, and so little use (Bear witness, Heav'n, with what reluctancy), Her hapless innocence I doom to die. He said, and common tears the common grief display, Of him who bad, and her who must obey. Yet Telethusa still persists, to find Fit arguments to move a father's mind; T' extend his wishes to a larger scope, And in one vessel not confine his hope. Lygdus continues hard: her time drew near, And she her heavy load could scarcely bear; When slumbring, in the latter shades of night, Before th' approaches of returning light, She saw, or thought she saw, before her bed, A glorious train, and Isis at their head: Her moony horns were on her forehead plac'd, And yellow shelves her shining temples grac'd: A mitre, for a crown, she wore on high; The dog, and dappl'd bull were waiting by; Osyris, sought along the banks of Nile; The silent God: the sacred crocodile; And, last, a long procession moving on, With timbrels, that assist the lab'ring moon. Her slumbers seem'd dispell'd, and, broad awake, She heard a voice, that thus distinctly spake. My votary, thy babe from death defend, Nor fear to save whate'er the Gods will send. Delude with art thy husband's dire decree: When danger calls, repose thy trust on me: And know thou hast not serv'd a thankless deity. This promise made, with night the Goddess fled; With joy the woman wakes, and leaves her bed; Devoutly lifts her spotless hands on high, And prays the Pow'rs their gift to ratifie. Now grinding pains proceed to bearing throes, 'Till its own weight the burden did disclose. 'Twas of the beauteous kind, and brought to light With secrecy, to shun the father's sight. Th' indulgent mother did her care employ, And past it on her husb and for a boy. The nurse was conscious of the fact alone; The father paid his vows as for a son; And call'd him Iphis, by a common name, Which either sex with equal right may claim. Iphis his grandsire was; the wife was pleas'd, Of half the fraud by Fortune's favour eas'd: The doubtful name was us'd without deceit, And truth was cover'd with a pious cheat. The habit show'd a boy, the beauteous face With manly fierceness mingled female grace. Now thirteen years of age were swiftly run, When the fond father thought the time drew on Of settling in the world his only son. Ian the was his choice; so wondrous fair, Her form alone with Iphis cou'd compare; A neighbour's daughter of his own degree, And not more bless'd with Fortune's goods than he. They soon espous'd; for they with ease were join'd, Who were before contracted in the mind. Their age the same, their inclinations too; And bred together, in one school they grew. Thus, fatally dispos'd to mutual fires, They felt, before they knew, the same desires. Equal their flame, unequal was their care; One lov'd with hope, one languish'd in despair. The maid accus'd the lingring day alone: For whom she thought a man, she thought her own. But Iphis bends beneath a greater grief; As fiercely burns, but hopes for no relief. Ev'n her despair adds fuel to her fire; A maid with madness does a maid desire. And, scarce refraining tears, Alas, said she, What issue of my love remains for me! How wild a passion works within my breast, With what prodigious flames am I possest! Could I the care of Providence deserve, Heav'n must destroy me, if it would preserve. And that's my fate, or sure it would have sent Some usual evil for my punishment: Not this unkindly curse; to rage, and burn, Where Nature shews no prospect of return. Nor cows for cows consume with fruitless fire; Nor mares, when hot, their fellow-mares desire: The father of the fold supplies his ewes; The stag through secret woods his hind pursues; And birds for mates the males of their own species chuse. Her females Nature guards from female flame, And joins two sexes to preserve the game: Wou'd I were nothing, or not what I am! Crete, fam'd for monsters, wanted of her store, 'Till my new love produc'd one monster more. The daughter of the sun a bull desir'd, And yet ev'n then a male a female fir'd: Her passion was extravagantly new, But mine is much the madder of the two. To things impossible she was not bent, But found the means to compass her intent. To cheat his eyes she took a different shape; Yet still she gain'd a lover, and a leap. Shou'd all the wit of all the world conspire, Shou'd Daedalus assist my wild desire, What art can make me able to enjoy, Or what can change Ian the to a boy? Extinguish then thy passion, hopeless maid, And recollect thy reason for thy aid. Know what thou art, and love as maidens ought, And drive these golden wishes from thy thought. Thou canst not hope thy fond desires to gain; Where hope is wanting, wishes are in vain. And yet no guards against our joys conspire; No jealous husb and hinders our desire; My parents are propitious to my wish, And she herself consenting to the bliss. All things concur to prosper our design; All things to prosper any love but mine. And yet I never can enjoy the fair; 'Tis past the pow'r of Heav'n to grant my pray'r. Heav'n has been kind, as far as Heav'n can be; Our parents with our own desires agree; But Nature, stronger than the Gods above, Refuses her assistance to my love; She sets the bar that causes all my pain; One gift refus'd, makes all their bounty vain. And now the happy day is just at hand, To bind our hearts in Hymen's holy band: Our hearts, but not our bodies: thus accurs'd, In midst of water I complain of thirst. Why com'st thou, Juno, to these barren rites, To bless a bed defrauded of delights? But why shou'd Hymen lift his torch on high, To see two brides in cold embraces lye? Thus love-sick Iphis her vain passion mourns; With equal ardour fair Ian the burns, Invoking Hymen's name, and Juno's pow'r, To speed the work, and haste the happy hour. She hopes, while Telethusa fears the day, And strives to interpose some new delay: Now feigns a sickness, now is in a fright For this bad omen, or that boding sight. But having done whate'er she could devise, And empty'd all her magazine of lies, The time approach'd; the next ensuing day The fatal secret must to light betray. Then Telethusa had recourse to pray'r, She, and her daughter with dishevel'd hair; Trembling with fear, great Isis they ador'd, Embrac'd her altar, and her aid implor'd. Fair queen, who dost on fruitful Egypt smile, Who sway'st the sceptre of the Pharian isle, And sev'n-fold falls of disemboguing Nile, Relieve, in this our last distress, she said, A suppliant mother, and a mournful maid. Thou, Goddess, thou wert present to my sight; Reveal'd I saw thee by thy own fair light: I saw thee in my dream, as now I see, With all thy marks of awful majesty: The glorious train that compass'd thee around; And heard the hollow timbrels holy sound. Thy words I noted, which I still retain; Let not thy sacred oracles be vain. That Iphis lives, that I myself am free From shame, and punishment, I owe to thee. On thy protection all our hopes depend. Thy counsel sav'd us, let thy pow'r defend. Her tears pursu'd her words; and while she spoke, The Goddess nodded, and her altar shook: The temple doors, as with a blast of wind, Were heard to clap; the lunar horns that bind The brows of Isis cast a blaze around; The trembling timbrel made a murm'ring sound. Some hopes these happy omens did impart; Forth went the mother with a beating heart: Not much in fear, nor fully satisfy'd; But Iphis follow'd with a larger stride: The whiteness of her skin forsook her face; Her looks embolden'd with an awful grace; Her features, and her strength together grew, And her long hair to curling locks withdrew. Her sparkling eyes with manly vigour shone, Big was her voice, audacious was her tone. The latent parts, at length reveal'd, began To shoot, and spread, and burnish into man. The maid becomes a youth; no more delay Your vows, but look, and confidently pay. Their gifts the parents to the temple bear: The votive tables this inscription wear; Iphis the man, has to the Goddess paid The vows, that Iphis offer'd when a maid. Now when the star of day had shewn his face, Venus and Juno with their presence grace The nuptial rites, and Hymen from above Descending to compleat their happy love; The Gods of marriage lend their mutual aid; And the warm youth enjoys the lovely maid. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ~ Ovid, BOOK THE NINTH ,

916:Gareth And Lynette The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent, And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled away. 'How he went down,' said Gareth, 'as a false knight Or evil king before my lance if lance Were mine to use--O senseless cataract, Bearing all down in thy precipitancy-And yet thou art but swollen with cold snows And mine is living blood: thou dost His will, The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know, Have strength and wit, in my good mother's hall Linger with vacillating obedience, Prisoned, and kept and coaxed and whistled to-Since the good mother holds me still a child! Good mother is bad mother unto me! A worse were better; yet no worse would I. Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force To weary her ears with one continuous prayer, Until she let me fly discaged to sweep In ever-highering eagle-circles up To the great Sun of Glory, and thence swoop Down upon all things base, and dash them dead, A knight of Arthur, working out his will, To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when he came With Modred hither in the summertime, Asked me to tilt with him, the proven knight. Modred for want of worthier was the judge. Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said, "Thou hast half prevailed against me," said so--he-Though Modred biting his thin lips was mute, For he is alway sullen: what care I?' And Gareth went, and hovering round her chair Asked, 'Mother, though ye count me still the child, Sweet mother, do ye love the child?' She laughed, 'Thou art but a wild-goose to question it.' 'Then, mother, an ye love the child,' he said, 'Being a goose and rather tame than wild, 107 Hear the child's story.' 'Yea, my well-beloved, An 'twere but of the goose and golden eggs.' And Gareth answered her with kindling eyes, 'Nay, nay, good mother, but this egg of mine Was finer gold than any goose can lay; For this an Eagle, a royal Eagle, laid Almost beyond eye-reach, on such a palm As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours. And there was ever haunting round the palm A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw The splendour sparkling from aloft, and thought "An I could climb and lay my hand upon it, Then were I wealthier than a leash of kings." But ever when he reached a hand to climb, One, that had loved him from his childhood, caught And stayed him, "Climb not lest thou break thy neck, I charge thee by my love," and so the boy, Sweet mother, neither clomb, nor brake his neck, But brake his very heart in pining for it, And past away.' To whom the mother said, 'True love, sweet son, had risked himself and climbed, And handed down the golden treasure to him.' And Gareth answered her with kindling eyes, 'Gold?' said I gold?--ay then, why he, or she, Or whosoe'er it was, or half the world Had ventured--HAD the thing I spake of been Mere gold--but this was all of that true steel, Whereof they forged the brand Excalibur, And lightnings played about it in the storm, And all the little fowl were flurried at it, And there were cries and clashings in the nest, That sent him from his senses: let me go.' Then Bellicent bemoaned herself and said, 'Hast thou no pity upon my loneliness? Lo, where thy father Lot beside the hearth Lies like a log, and all but smouldered out! For ever since when traitor to the King 108 He fought against him in the Barons' war, And Arthur gave him back his territory, His age hath slowly droopt, and now lies there A yet-warm corpse, and yet unburiable, No more; nor sees, nor hears, nor speaks, nor knows. And both thy brethren are in Arthur's hall, Albeit neither loved with that full love I feel for thee, nor worthy such a love: Stay therefore thou; red berries charm the bird, And thee, mine innocent, the jousts, the wars, Who never knewest finger-ache, nor pang Of wrenched or broken limb--an often chance In those brain-stunning shocks, and tourney-falls, Frights to my heart; but stay: follow the deer By these tall firs and our fast-falling burns; So make thy manhood mightier day by day; Sweet is the chase: and I will seek thee out Some comfortable bride and fair, to grace Thy climbing life, and cherish my prone year, Till falling into Lot's forgetfulness I know not thee, myself, nor anything. Stay, my best son! ye are yet more boy than man.' Then Gareth, 'An ye hold me yet for child, Hear yet once more the story of the child. For, mother, there was once a King, like ours. The prince his heir, when tall and marriageable, Asked for a bride; and thereupon the King Set two before him. One was fair, strong, armed-But to be won by force--and many men Desired her; one good lack, no man desired. And these were the conditions of the King: That save he won the first by force, he needs Must wed that other, whom no man desired, A red-faced bride who knew herself so vile, That evermore she longed to hide herself, Nor fronted man or woman, eye to eye-Yea--some she cleaved to, but they died of her. And one--they called her Fame; and one,--O Mother, How can ye keep me tethered to you--Shame. Man am I grown, a man's work must I do. Follow the deer? follow the Christ, the King, 109 Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King-Else, wherefore born?' To whom the mother said 'Sweet son, for there be many who deem him not, Or will not deem him, wholly proven King-Albeit in mine own heart I knew him King, When I was frequent with him in my youth, And heard him Kingly speak, and doubted him No more than he, himself; but felt him mine, Of closest kin to me: yet--wilt thou leave Thine easeful biding here, and risk thine all, Life, limbs, for one that is not proven King? Stay, till the cloud that settles round his birth Hath lifted but a little. Stay, sweet son.' And Gareth answered quickly, 'Not an hour, So that ye yield me--I will walk through fire, Mother, to gain it--your full leave to go. Not proven, who swept the dust of ruined Rome From off the threshold of the realm, and crushed The Idolaters, and made the people free? Who should be King save him who makes us free?' So when the Queen, who long had sought in vain To break him from the intent to which he grew, Found her son's will unwaveringly one, She answered craftily, 'Will ye walk through fire? Who walks through fire will hardly heed the smoke. Ay, go then, an ye must: only one proof, Before thou ask the King to make thee knight, Of thine obedience and thy love to me, Thy mother,--I demand. And Gareth cried, 'A hard one, or a hundred, so I go. Nay--quick! the proof to prove me to the quick!' But slowly spake the mother looking at him, 'Prince, thou shalt go disguised to Arthur's hall, And hire thyself to serve for meats and drinks Among the scullions and the kitchen-knaves, 110 And those that hand the dish across the bar. Nor shalt thou tell thy name to anyone. And thou shalt serve a twelvemonth and a day.' For so the Queen believed that when her son Beheld his only way to glory lead Low down through villain kitchen-vassalage, Her own true Gareth was too princely-proud To pass thereby; so should he rest with her, Closed in her castle from the sound of arms. Silent awhile was Gareth, then replied, 'The thrall in person may be free in soul, And I shall see the jousts. Thy son am I, And since thou art my mother, must obey. I therefore yield me freely to thy will; For hence will I, disguised, and hire myself To serve with scullions and with kitchen-knaves; Nor tell my name to any--no, not the King.' Gareth awhile lingered. The mother's eye Full of the wistful fear that he would go, And turning toward him wheresoe'er he turned, Perplext his outward purpose, till an hour, When wakened by the wind which with full voice Swept bellowing through the darkness on to dawn, He rose, and out of slumber calling two That still had tended on him from his birth, Before the wakeful mother heard him, went. The three were clad like tillers of the soil. Southward they set their faces. The birds made Melody on branch, and melody in mid air. The damp hill-slopes were quickened into green, And the live green had kindled into flowers, For it was past the time of Easterday. So, when their feet were planted on the plain That broadened toward the base of Camelot, Far off they saw the silver-misty morn Rolling her smoke about the Royal mount, That rose between the forest and the field. 111 At times the summit of the high city flashed; At times the spires and turrets half-way down Pricked through the mist; at times the great gate shone Only, that opened on the field below: Anon, the whole fair city had disappeared. Then those who went with Gareth were amazed, One crying, 'Let us go no further, lord. Here is a city of Enchanters, built By fairy Kings.' The second echoed him, 'Lord, we have heard from our wise man at home To Northward, that this King is not the King, But only changeling out of Fairyland, Who drave the heathen hence by sorcery And Merlin's glamour.' Then the first again, 'Lord, there is no such city anywhere, But all a vision.' Gareth answered them With laughter, swearing he had glamour enow In his own blood, his princedom, youth and hopes, To plunge old Merlin in the Arabian sea; So pushed them all unwilling toward the gate. And there was no gate like it under heaven. For barefoot on the keystone, which was lined And rippled like an ever-fleeting wave, The Lady of the Lake stood: all her dress Wept from her sides as water flowing away; But like the cross her great and goodly arms Stretched under the cornice and upheld: And drops of water fell from either hand; And down from one a sword was hung, from one A censer, either worn with wind and storm; And o'er her breast floated the sacred fish; And in the space to left of her, and right, Were Arthur's wars in weird devices done, New things and old co-twisted, as if Time Were nothing, so inveterately, that men Were giddy gazing there; and over all High on the top were those three Queens, the friends Of Arthur, who should help him at his need. 112 Then those with Gareth for so long a space Stared at the figures, that at last it seemed The dragon-boughts and elvish emblemings Began to move, seethe, twine and curl: they called To Gareth, 'Lord, the gateway is alive.' And Gareth likewise on them fixt his eyes So long, that even to him they seemed to move. Out of the city a blast of music pealed. Back from the gate started the three, to whom From out thereunder came an ancient man, Long-bearded, saying, 'Who be ye, my sons?' Then Gareth, 'We be tillers of the soil, Who leaving share in furrow come to see The glories of our King: but these, my men, (Your city moved so weirdly in the mist) Doubt if the King be King at all, or come From Fairyland; and whether this be built By magic, and by fairy Kings and Queens; Or whether there be any city at all, Or all a vision: and this music now Hath scared them both, but tell thou these the truth.' Then that old Seer made answer playing on him And saying, 'Son, I have seen the good ship sail Keel upward, and mast downward, in the heavens, And solid turrets topsy-turvy in air: And here is truth; but an it please thee not, Take thou the truth as thou hast told it me. For truly as thou sayest, a Fairy King And Fairy Queens have built the city, son; They came from out a sacred mountain-cleft Toward the sunrise, each with harp in hand, And built it to the music of their harps. And, as thou sayest, it is enchanted, son, For there is nothing in it as it seems Saving the King; though some there be that hold The King a shadow, and the city real: Yet take thou heed of him, for, so thou pass Beneath this archway, then wilt thou become A thrall to his enchantments, for the King 113 Will bind thee by such vows, as is a shame A man should not be bound by, yet the which No man can keep; but, so thou dread to swear, Pass not beneath this gateway, but abide Without, among the cattle of the field. For an ye heard a music, like enow They are building still, seeing the city is built To music, therefore never built at all, And therefore built for ever.' Gareth spake Angered, 'Old master, reverence thine own beard That looks as white as utter truth, and seems Wellnigh as long as thou art statured tall! Why mockest thou the stranger that hath been To thee fair-spoken?' But the Seer replied, 'Know ye not then the Riddling of the Bards? "Confusion, and illusion, and relation, Elusion, and occasion, and evasion"? I mock thee not but as thou mockest me, And all that see thee, for thou art not who Thou seemest, but I know thee who thou art. And now thou goest up to mock the King, Who cannot brook the shadow of any lie.' Unmockingly the mocker ending here Turned to the right, and past along the plain; Whom Gareth looking after said, 'My men, Our one white lie sits like a little ghost Here on the threshold of our enterprise. Let love be blamed for it, not she, nor I: Well, we will make amends.' With all good cheer He spake and laughed, then entered with his twain Camelot, a city of shadowy palaces And stately, rich in emblem and the work Of ancient kings who did their days in stone; Which Merlin's hand, the Mage at Arthur's court, Knowing all arts, had touched, and everywhere 114 At Arthur's ordinance, tipt with lessening peak And pinnacle, and had made it spire to heaven. And ever and anon a knight would pass Outward, or inward to the hall: his arms Clashed; and the sound was good to Gareth's ear. And out of bower and casement shyly glanced Eyes of pure women, wholesome stars of love; And all about a healthful people stept As in the presence of a gracious king. Then into hall Gareth ascending heard A voice, the voice of Arthur, and beheld Far over heads in that long-vaulted hall The splendour of the presence of the King Throned, and delivering doom--and looked no more-But felt his young heart hammering in his ears, And thought, 'For this half-shadow of a lie The truthful King will doom me when I speak.' Yet pressing on, though all in fear to find Sir Gawain or Sir Modred, saw nor one Nor other, but in all the listening eyes Of those tall knights, that ranged about the throne, Clear honour shining like the dewy star Of dawn, and faith in their great King, with pure Affection, and the light of victory, And glory gained, and evermore to gain. Then came a widow crying to the King, 'A boon, Sir King! Thy father, Uther, reft From my dead lord a field with violence: For howsoe'er at first he proffered gold, Yet, for the field was pleasant in our eyes, We yielded not; and then he reft us of it Perforce, and left us neither gold nor field.' Said Arthur, 'Whether would ye? gold or field?' To whom the woman weeping, 'Nay, my lord, The field was pleasant in my husband's eye.' And Arthur, 'Have thy pleasant field again, And thrice the gold for Uther's use thereof, According to the years. No boon is here, But justice, so thy say be proven true. 115 Accursed, who from the wrongs his father did Would shape himself a right!' And while she past, Came yet another widow crying to him, 'A boon, Sir King! Thine enemy, King, am I. With thine own hand thou slewest my dear lord, A knight of Uther in the Barons' war, When Lot and many another rose and fought Against thee, saying thou wert basely born. I held with these, and loathe to ask thee aught. Yet lo! my husband's brother had my son Thralled in his castle, and hath starved him dead; And standeth seized of that inheritance Which thou that slewest the sire hast left the son. So though I scarce can ask it thee for hate, Grant me some knight to do the battle for me, Kill the foul thief, and wreak me for my son.' Then strode a good knight forward, crying to him, 'A boon, Sir King! I am her kinsman, I. Give me to right her wrong, and slay the man.' Then came Sir Kay, the seneschal, and cried, 'A boon, Sir King! even that thou grant her none, This railer, that hath mocked thee in full hall-None; or the wholesome boon of gyve and gag.' But Arthur, 'We sit King, to help the wronged Through all our realm. The woman loves her lord. Peace to thee, woman, with thy loves and hates! The kings of old had doomed thee to the flames, Aurelius Emrys would have scourged thee dead, And Uther slit thy tongue: but get thee hence-Lest that rough humour of the kings of old Return upon me! Thou that art her kin, Go likewise; lay him low and slay him not, But bring him here, that I may judge the right, According to the justice of the King: Then, be he guilty, by that deathless King Who lived and died for men, the man shall die.' 116 Then came in hall the messenger of Mark, A name of evil savour in the land, The Cornish king. In either hand he bore What dazzled all, and shone far-off as shines A field of charlock in the sudden sun Between two showers, a cloth of palest gold, Which down he laid before the throne, and knelt, Delivering, that his lord, the vassal king, Was even upon his way to Camelot; For having heard that Arthur of his grace Had made his goodly cousin, Tristram, knight, And, for himself was of the greater state, Being a king, he trusted his liege-lord Would yield him this large honour all the more; So prayed him well to accept this cloth of gold, In token of true heart and felty. Then Arthur cried to rend the cloth, to rend In pieces, and so cast it on the hearth. An oak-tree smouldered there. 'The goodly knight! What! shall the shield of Mark stand among these?' For, midway down the side of that long hall A stately pile,--whereof along the front, Some blazoned, some but carven, and some blank, There ran a treble range of stony shields,-Rose, and high-arching overbrowed the hearth. And under every shield a knight was named: For this was Arthur's custom in his hall; When some good knight had done one noble deed, His arms were carven only; but if twain His arms were blazoned also; but if none, The shield was blank and bare without a sign Saving the name beneath; and Gareth saw The shield of Gawain blazoned rich and bright, And Modred's blank as death; and Arthur cried To rend the cloth and cast it on the hearth. 'More like are we to reave him of his crown Than make him knight because men call him king. The kings we found, ye know we stayed their hands From war among themselves, but left them kings; Of whom were any bounteous, merciful, 117 Truth-speaking, brave, good livers, them we enrolled Among us, and they sit within our hall. But as Mark hath tarnished the great name of king, As Mark would sully the low state of churl: And, seeing he hath sent us cloth of gold, Return, and meet, and hold him from our eyes, Lest we should lap him up in cloth of lead, Silenced for ever--craven--a man of plots, Craft, poisonous counsels, wayside ambushings-No fault of thine: let Kay the seneschal Look to thy wants, and send thee satisfied-Accursed, who strikes nor lets the hand be seen!' And many another suppliant crying came With noise of ravage wrought by beast and man, And evermore a knight would ride away. Last, Gareth leaning both hands heavily Down on the shoulders of the twain, his men, Approached between them toward the King, and asked, 'A boon, Sir King (his voice was all ashamed), For see ye not how weak and hungerworn I seem--leaning on these? grant me to serve For meat and drink among thy kitchen-knaves A twelvemonth and a day, nor seek my name. Hereafter I will fight.' To him the King, 'A goodly youth and worth a goodlier boon! But so thou wilt no goodlier, then must Kay, The master of the meats and drinks, be thine.' He rose and past; then Kay, a man of mien Wan-sallow as the plant that feels itself Root-bitten by white lichen, 'Lo ye now! This fellow hath broken from some Abbey, where, God wot, he had not beef and brewis enow, However that might chance! but an he work, Like any pigeon will I cram his crop, And sleeker shall he shine than any hog.' 118 Then Lancelot standing near, 'Sir Seneschal, Sleuth-hound thou knowest, and gray, and all the hounds; A horse thou knowest, a man thou dost not know: Broad brows and fair, a fluent hair and fine, High nose, a nostril large and fine, and hands Large, fair and fine!--Some young lad's mystery-But, or from sheepcot or king's hall, the boy Is noble-natured. Treat him with all grace, Lest he should come to shame thy judging of him.' Then Kay, 'What murmurest thou of mystery? Think ye this fellow will poison the King's dish? Nay, for he spake too fool-like: mystery! Tut, an the lad were noble, he had asked For horse and armour: fair and fine, forsooth! Sir Fine-face, Sir Fair-hands? but see thou to it That thine own fineness, Lancelot, some fine day Undo thee not--and leave my man to me.' So Gareth all for glory underwent The sooty yoke of kitchen-vassalage; Ate with young lads his portion by the door, And couched at night with grimy kitchen-knaves. And Lancelot ever spake him pleasantly, But Kay the seneschal, who loved him not, Would hustle and harry him, and labour him Beyond his comrade of the hearth, and set To turn the broach, draw water, or hew wood, Or grosser tasks; and Gareth bowed himself With all obedience to the King, and wrought All kind of service with a noble ease That graced the lowliest act in doing it. And when the thralls had talk among themselves, And one would praise the love that linkt the King And Lancelot--how the King had saved his life In battle twice, and Lancelot once the King's-For Lancelot was the first in Tournament, But Arthur mightiest on the battle-field-Gareth was glad. Or if some other told, How once the wandering forester at dawn, Far over the blue tarns and hazy seas, 119 On Caer-Eryri's highest found the King, A naked babe, of whom the Prophet spake, 'He passes to the Isle Avilion, He passes and is healed and cannot die'-Gareth was glad. But if their talk were foul, Then would he whistle rapid as any lark, Or carol some old roundelay, and so loud That first they mocked, but, after, reverenced him. Or Gareth telling some prodigious tale Of knights, who sliced a red life-bubbling way Through twenty folds of twisted dragon, held All in a gap-mouthed circle his good mates Lying or sitting round him, idle hands, Charmed; till Sir Kay, the seneschal, would come Blustering upon them, like a sudden wind Among dead leaves, and drive them all apart. Or when the thralls had sport among themselves, So there were any trial of mastery, He, by two yards in casting bar or stone Was counted best; and if there chanced a joust, So that Sir Kay nodded him leave to go, Would hurry thither, and when he saw the knights Clash like the coming and retiring wave, And the spear spring, and good horse reel, the boy Was half beyond himself for ecstasy. So for a month he wrought among the thralls; But in the weeks that followed, the good Queen, Repentant of the word she made him swear, And saddening in her childless castle, sent, Between the in-crescent and de-crescent moon, Arms for her son, and loosed him from his vow. This, Gareth hearing from a squire of Lot With whom he used to play at tourney once, When both were children, and in lonely haunts Would scratch a ragged oval on the sand, And each at either dash from either end-Shame never made girl redder than Gareth joy. He laughed; he sprang. 'Out of the smoke, at once I leap from Satan's foot to Peter's knee-These news be mine, none other's--nay, the King's-- 120 Descend into the city:' whereon he sought The King alone, and found, and told him all. 'I have staggered thy strong Gawain in a tilt For pastime; yea, he said it: joust can I. Make me thy knight--in secret! let my name Be hidden, and give me the first quest, I spring Like flame from ashes.' Here the King's calm eye Fell on, and checked, and made him flush, and bow Lowly, to kiss his hand, who answered him, 'Son, the good mother let me know thee here, And sent her wish that I would yield thee thine. Make thee my knight? my knights are sworn to vows Of utter hardihood, utter gentleness, And, loving, utter faithfulness in love, And uttermost obedience to the King.' Then Gareth, lightly springing from his knees, 'My King, for hardihood I can promise thee. For uttermost obedience make demand Of whom ye gave me to, the Seneschal, No mellow master of the meats and drinks! And as for love, God wot, I love not yet, But love I shall, God willing.' And the King 'Make thee my knight in secret? yea, but he, Our noblest brother, and our truest man, And one with me in all, he needs must know.' 'Let Lancelot know, my King, let Lancelot know, Thy noblest and thy truest!' And the King-'But wherefore would ye men should wonder at you? Nay, rather for the sake of me, their King, And the deed's sake my knighthood do the deed, Than to be noised of.' Merrily Gareth asked, 121 'Have I not earned my cake in baking of it? Let be my name until I make my name! My deeds will speak: it is but for a day.' So with a kindly hand on Gareth's arm Smiled the great King, and half-unwillingly Loving his lusty youthhood yielded to him. Then, after summoning Lancelot privily, 'I have given him the first quest: he is not proven. Look therefore when he calls for this in hall, Thou get to horse and follow him far away. Cover the lions on thy shield, and see Far as thou mayest, he be nor ta'en nor slain.' Then that same day there past into the hall A damsel of high lineage, and a brow May-blossom, and a cheek of apple-blossom, Hawk-eyes; and lightly was her slender nose Tip-tilted like the petal of a flower; She into hall past with her page and cried, 'O King, for thou hast driven the foe without, See to the foe within! bridge, ford, beset By bandits, everyone that owns a tower The Lord for half a league. Why sit ye there? Rest would I not, Sir King, an I were king, Till even the lonest hold were all as free From cursd bloodshed, as thine altar-cloth From that best blood it is a sin to spill.' 'Comfort thyself,' said Arthur. 'I nor mine Rest: so my knighthood keep the vows they swore, The wastest moorland of our realm shall be Safe, damsel, as the centre of this hall. What is thy name? thy need?' 'My name?' she said-'Lynette my name; noble; my need, a knight To combat for my sister, Lyonors, A lady of high lineage, of great lands, And comely, yea, and comelier than myself. She lives in Castle Perilous: a river Runs in three loops about her living-place; 122 And o'er it are three passings, and three knights Defend the passings, brethren, and a fourth And of that four the mightiest, holds her stayed In her own castle, and so besieges her To break her will, and make her wed with him: And but delays his purport till thou send To do the battle with him, thy chief man Sir Lancelot whom he trusts to overthrow, Then wed, with glory: but she will not wed Save whom she loveth, or a holy life. Now therefore have I come for Lancelot.' Then Arthur mindful of Sir Gareth asked, 'Damsel, ye know this Order lives to crush All wrongers of the Realm. But say, these four, Who be they? What the fashion of the men?' 'They be of foolish fashion, O Sir King, The fashion of that old knight-errantry Who ride abroad, and do but what they will; Courteous or bestial from the moment, such As have nor law nor king; and three of these Proud in their fantasy call themselves the Day, Morning-Star, and Noon-Sun, and Evening-Star, Being strong fools; and never a whit more wise The fourth, who alway rideth armed in black, A huge man-beast of boundless savagery. He names himself the Night and oftener Death, And wears a helmet mounted with a skull, And bears a skeleton figured on his arms, To show that who may slay or scape the three, Slain by himself, shall enter endless night. And all these four be fools, but mighty men, And therefore am I come for Lancelot.' Hereat Sir Gareth called from where he rose, A head with kindling eyes above the throng, 'A boon, Sir King--this quest!' then--for he marked Kay near him groaning like a wounded bull-'Yea, King, thou knowest thy kitchen-knave am I, And mighty through thy meats and drinks am I, And I can topple over a hundred such. 123 Thy promise, King,' and Arthur glancing at him, Brought down a momentary brow. 'Rough, sudden, And pardonable, worthy to be knight-Go therefore,' and all hearers were amazed. But on the damsel's forehead shame, pride, wrath Slew the May-white: she lifted either arm, 'Fie on thee, King! I asked for thy chief knight, And thou hast given me but a kitchen-knave.' Then ere a man in hall could stay her, turned, Fled down the lane of access to the King, Took horse, descended the slope street, and past The weird white gate, and paused without, beside The field of tourney, murmuring 'kitchen-knave.' Now two great entries opened from the hall, At one end one, that gave upon a range Of level pavement where the King would pace At sunrise, gazing over plain and wood; And down from this a lordly stairway sloped Till lost in blowing trees and tops of towers; And out by this main doorway past the King. But one was counter to the hearth, and rose High that the highest-crested helm could ride Therethrough nor graze: and by this entry fled The damsel in her wrath, and on to this Sir Gareth strode, and saw without the door King Arthur's gift, the worth of half a town, A warhorse of the best, and near it stood The two that out of north had followed him: This bare a maiden shield, a casque; that held The horse, the spear; whereat Sir Gareth loosed A cloak that dropt from collar-bone to heel, A cloth of roughest web, and cast it down, And from it like a fuel-smothered fire, That lookt half-dead, brake bright, and flashed as those Dull-coated things, that making slide apart Their dusk wing-cases, all beneath there burns A jewelled harness, ere they pass and fly. So Gareth ere he parted flashed in arms. Then as he donned the helm, and took the shield And mounted horse and graspt a spear, of grain 124 Storm-strengthened on a windy site, and tipt With trenchant steel, around him slowly prest The people, while from out of kitchen came The thralls in throng, and seeing who had worked Lustier than any, and whom they could but love, Mounted in arms, threw up their caps and cried, 'God bless the King, and all his fellowship!' And on through lanes of shouting Gareth rode Down the slope street, and past without the gate. So Gareth past with joy; but as the cur Pluckt from the cur he fights with, ere his cause Be cooled by fighting, follows, being named, His owner, but remembers all, and growls Remembering, so Sir Kay beside the door Muttered in scorn of Gareth whom he used To harry and hustle. 'Bound upon a quest With horse and arms--the King hath past his time-My scullion knave! Thralls to your work again, For an your fire be low ye kindle mine! Will there be dawn in West and eve in East? Begone!--my knave!--belike and like enow Some old head-blow not heeded in his youth So shook his wits they wander in his prime-Crazed! How the villain lifted up his voice, Nor shamed to bawl himself a kitchen-knave. Tut: he was tame and meek enow with me, Till peacocked up with Lancelot's noticing. Well--I will after my loud knave, and learn Whether he know me for his master yet. Out of the smoke he came, and so my lance Hold, by God's grace, he shall into the mire-Thence, if the King awaken from his craze, Into the smoke again.' But Lancelot said, 'Kay, wherefore wilt thou go against the King, For that did never he whereon ye rail, But ever meekly served the King in thee? Abide: take counsel; for this lad is great 125 And lusty, and knowing both of lance and sword.' 'Tut, tell not me,' said Kay, 'ye are overfine To mar stout knaves with foolish courtesies:' Then mounted, on through silent faces rode Down the slope city, and out beyond the gate. But by the field of tourney lingering yet Muttered the damsel, 'Wherefore did the King Scorn me? for, were Sir Lancelot lackt, at least He might have yielded to me one of those Who tilt for lady's love and glory here, Rather than--O sweet heaven! O fie upon him-His kitchen-knave.' To whom Sir Gareth drew (And there were none but few goodlier than he) Shining in arms, 'Damsel, the quest is mine. Lead, and I follow.' She thereat, as one That smells a foul-fleshed agaric in the holt, And deems it carrion of some woodland thing, Or shrew, or weasel, nipt her slender nose With petulant thumb and finger, shrilling, 'Hence! Avoid, thou smellest all of kitchen-grease. And look who comes behind,' for there was Kay. 'Knowest thou not me? thy master? I am Kay. We lack thee by the hearth.' And Gareth to him, 'Master no more! too well I know thee, ay-The most ungentle knight in Arthur's hall.' 'Have at thee then,' said Kay: they shocked, and Kay Fell shoulder-slipt, and Gareth cried again, 'Lead, and I follow,' and fast away she fled. But after sod and shingle ceased to fly Behind her, and the heart of her good horse Was nigh to burst with violence of the beat, Perforce she stayed, and overtaken spoke. 'What doest thou, scullion, in my fellowship? Deem'st thou that I accept thee aught the more Or love thee better, that by some device 126 Full cowardly, or by mere unhappiness, Thou hast overthrown and slain thy master--thou!-Dish-washer and broach-turner, loon!--to me Thou smellest all of kitchen as before.' 'Damsel,' Sir Gareth answered gently, 'say Whate'er ye will, but whatsoe'er ye say, I leave not till I finish this fair quest, Or die therefore.' 'Ay, wilt thou finish it? Sweet lord, how like a noble knight he talks! The listening rogue hath caught the manner of it. But, knave, anon thou shalt be met with, knave, And then by such a one that thou for all The kitchen brewis that was ever supt Shalt not once dare to look him in the face.' 'I shall assay,' said Gareth with a smile That maddened her, and away she flashed again Down the long avenues of a boundless wood, And Gareth following was again beknaved. 'Sir Kitchen-knave, I have missed the only way Where Arthur's men are set along the wood; The wood is nigh as full of thieves as leaves: If both be slain, I am rid of thee; but yet, Sir Scullion, canst thou use that spit of thine? Fight, an thou canst: I have missed the only way.' So till the dusk that followed evensong Rode on the two, reviler and reviled; Then after one long slope was mounted, saw, Bowl-shaped, through tops of many thousand pines A gloomy-gladed hollow slowly sink To westward--in the deeps whereof a mere, Round as the red eye of an Eagle-owl, Under the half-dead sunset glared; and shouts Ascended, and there brake a servingman Flying from out of the black wood, and crying, 'They have bound my lord to cast him in the mere.' Then Gareth, 'Bound am I to right the wronged, 127 But straitlier bound am I to bide with thee.' And when the damsel spake contemptuously, 'Lead, and I follow,' Gareth cried again, 'Follow, I lead!' so down among the pines He plunged; and there, blackshadowed nigh the mere, And mid-thigh-deep in bulrushes and reed, Saw six tall men haling a seventh along, A stone about his neck to drown him in it. Three with good blows he quieted, but three Fled through the pines; and Gareth loosed the stone From off his neck, then in the mere beside Tumbled it; oilily bubbled up the mere. Last, Gareth loosed his bonds and on free feet Set him, a stalwart Baron, Arthur's friend. 'Well that ye came, or else these caitiff rogues Had wreaked themselves on me; good cause is theirs To hate me, for my wont hath ever been To catch my thief, and then like vermin here Drown him, and with a stone about his neck; And under this wan water many of them Lie rotting, but at night let go the stone, And rise, and flickering in a grimly light Dance on the mere. Good now, ye have saved a life Worth somewhat as the cleanser of this wood. And fain would I reward thee worshipfully. What guerdon will ye?' Gareth sharply spake, 'None! for the deed's sake have I done the deed, In uttermost obedience to the King. But wilt thou yield this damsel harbourage?' Whereat the Baron saying, 'I well believe You be of Arthur's Table,' a light laugh Broke from Lynette, 'Ay, truly of a truth, And in a sort, being Arthur's kitchen-knave!-But deem not I accept thee aught the more, Scullion, for running sharply with thy spit Down on a rout of craven foresters. A thresher with his flail had scattered them. Nay--for thou smellest of the kitchen still. But an this lord will yield us harbourage, 128 Well.' So she spake. A league beyond the wood, All in a full-fair manor and a rich, His towers where that day a feast had been Held in high hall, and many a viand left, And many a costly cate, received the three. And there they placed a peacock in his pride Before the damsel, and the Baron set Gareth beside her, but at once she rose. 'Meseems, that here is much discourtesy, Setting this knave, Lord Baron, at my side. Hear me--this morn I stood in Arthur's hall, And prayed the King would grant me Lancelot To fight the brotherhood of Day and Night-The last a monster unsubduable Of any save of him for whom I called-Suddenly bawls this frontless kitchen-knave, "The quest is mine; thy kitchen-knave am I, And mighty through thy meats and drinks am I." Then Arthur all at once gone mad replies, "Go therefore," and so gives the quest to him-Him--here--a villain fitter to stick swine Than ride abroad redressing women's wrong, Or sit beside a noble gentlewoman.' Then half-ashamed and part-amazed, the lord Now looked at one and now at other, left The damsel by the peacock in his pride, And, seating Gareth at another board, Sat down beside him, ate and then began. 'Friend, whether thou be kitchen-knave, or not, Or whether it be the maiden's fantasy, And whether she be mad, or else the King, Or both or neither, or thyself be mad, I ask not: but thou strikest a strong stroke, For strong thou art and goodly therewithal, And saver of my life; and therefore now, For here be mighty men to joust with, weigh Whether thou wilt not with thy damsel back 129 To crave again Sir Lancelot of the King. Thy pardon; I but speak for thine avail, The saver of my life.' And Gareth said, 'Full pardon, but I follow up the quest, Despite of Day and Night and Death and Hell.' So when, next morn, the lord whose life he saved Had, some brief space, conveyed them on their way And left them with God-speed, Sir Gareth spake, 'Lead, and I follow.' Haughtily she replied. 'I fly no more: I allow thee for an hour. Lion and stout have isled together, knave, In time of flood. Nay, furthermore, methinks Some ruth is mine for thee. Back wilt thou, fool? For hard by here is one will overthrow And slay thee: then will I to court again, And shame the King for only yielding me My champion from the ashes of his hearth.' To whom Sir Gareth answered courteously, 'Say thou thy say, and I will do my deed. Allow me for mine hour, and thou wilt find My fortunes all as fair as hers who lay Among the ashes and wedded the King's son.' Then to the shore of one of those long loops Wherethrough the serpent river coiled, they came. Rough-thicketed were the banks and steep; the stream Full, narrow; this a bridge of single arc Took at a leap; and on the further side Arose a silk pavilion, gay with gold In streaks and rays, and all Lent-lily in hue, Save that the dome was purple, and above, Crimson, a slender banneret fluttering. And therebefore the lawless warrior paced Unarmed, and calling, 'Damsel, is this he, The champion thou hast brought from Arthur's hall? For whom we let thee pass.' 'Nay, nay,' she said, 'Sir Morning-Star. The King in utter scorn 130 Of thee and thy much folly hath sent thee here His kitchen-knave: and look thou to thyself: See that he fall not on thee suddenly, And slay thee unarmed: he is not knight but knave.' Then at his call, 'O daughters of the Dawn, And servants of the Morning-Star, approach, Arm me,' from out the silken curtain-folds Bare-footed and bare-headed three fair girls In gilt and rosy raiment came: their feet In dewy grasses glistened; and the hair All over glanced with dewdrop or with gem Like sparkles in the stone Avanturine. These armed him in blue arms, and gave a shield Blue also, and thereon the morning star. And Gareth silent gazed upon the knight, Who stood a moment, ere his horse was brought, Glorying; and in the stream beneath him, shone Immingled with Heaven's azure waveringly, The gay pavilion and the naked feet, His arms, the rosy raiment, and the star. Then she that watched him, 'Wherefore stare ye so? Thou shakest in thy fear: there yet is time: Flee down the valley before he get to horse. Who will cry shame? Thou art not knight but knave.' Said Gareth, 'Damsel, whether knave or knight, Far liefer had I fight a score of times Than hear thee so missay me and revile. Fair words were best for him who fights for thee; But truly foul are better, for they send That strength of anger through mine arms, I know That I shall overthrow him.' And he that bore The star, when mounted, cried from o'er the bridge, 'A kitchen-knave, and sent in scorn of me! Such fight not I, but answer scorn with scorn. For this were shame to do him further wrong Than set him on his feet, and take his horse And arms, and so return him to the King. 131 Come, therefore, leave thy lady lightly, knave. Avoid: for it beseemeth not a knave To ride with such a lady.' 'Dog, thou liest. I spring from loftier lineage than thine own.' He spake; and all at fiery speed the two Shocked on the central bridge, and either spear Bent but not brake, and either knight at once, Hurled as a stone from out of a catapult Beyond his horse's crupper and the bridge, Fell, as if dead; but quickly rose and drew, And Gareth lashed so fiercely with his brand He drave his enemy backward down the bridge, The damsel crying, 'Well-stricken, kitchen-knave!' Till Gareth's shield was cloven; but one stroke Laid him that clove it grovelling on the ground. Then cried the fallen, 'Take not my life: I yield.' And Gareth, 'So this damsel ask it of me Good--I accord it easily as a grace.' She reddening, 'Insolent scullion: I of thee? I bound to thee for any favour asked!' 'Then he shall die.' And Gareth there unlaced His helmet as to slay him, but she shrieked, 'Be not so hardy, scullion, as to slay One nobler than thyself.' 'Damsel, thy charge Is an abounding pleasure to me. Knight, Thy life is thine at her command. Arise And quickly pass to Arthur's hall, and say His kitchen-knave hath sent thee. See thou crave His pardon for thy breaking of his laws. Myself, when I return, will plead for thee. Thy shield is mine--farewell; and, damsel, thou, Lead, and I follow.' And fast away she fled. Then when he came upon her, spake, 'Methought, Knave, when I watched thee striking on the bridge The savour of thy kitchen came upon me A little faintlier: but the wind hath changed: I scent it twenty-fold.' And then she sang, 132 '"O morning star" (not that tall felon there Whom thou by sorcery or unhappiness Or some device, hast foully overthrown), "O morning star that smilest in the blue, O star, my morning dream hath proven true, Smile sweetly, thou! my love hath smiled on me." 'But thou begone, take counsel, and away, For hard by here is one that guards a ford-The second brother in their fool's parable-Will pay thee all thy wages, and to boot. Care not for shame: thou art not knight but knave.' To whom Sir Gareth answered, laughingly, 'Parables? Hear a parable of the knave. When I was kitchen-knave among the rest Fierce was the hearth, and one of my co-mates Owned a rough dog, to whom he cast his coat, "Guard it," and there was none to meddle with it. And such a coat art thou, and thee the King Gave me to guard, and such a dog am I, To worry, and not to flee--and--knight or knave-The knave that doth thee service as full knight Is all as good, meseems, as any knight Toward thy sister's freeing.' 'Ay, Sir Knave! Ay, knave, because thou strikest as a knight, Being but knave, I hate thee all the more.' 'Fair damsel, you should worship me the more, That, being but knave, I throw thine enemies.' 'Ay, ay,' she said, 'but thou shalt meet thy match.' So when they touched the second river-loop, Huge on a huge red horse, and all in mail Burnished to blinding, shone the Noonday Sun Beyond a raging shallow. As if the flower, That blows a globe of after arrowlets, Ten thousand-fold had grown, flashed the fierce shield, All sun; and Gareth's eyes had flying blots 133 Before them when he turned from watching him. He from beyond the roaring shallow roared, 'What doest thou, brother, in my marches here?' And she athwart the shallow shrilled again, 'Here is a kitchen-knave from Arthur's hall Hath overthrown thy brother, and hath his arms.' 'Ugh!' cried the Sun, and vizoring up a red And cipher face of rounded foolishness, Pushed horse across the foamings of the ford, Whom Gareth met midstream: no room was there For lance or tourney-skill: four strokes they struck With sword, and these were mighty; the new knight Had fear he might be shamed; but as the Sun Heaved up a ponderous arm to strike the fifth, The hoof of his horse slipt in the stream, the stream Descended, and the Sun was washed away. Then Gareth laid his lance athwart the ford; So drew him home; but he that fought no more, As being all bone-battered on the rock, Yielded; and Gareth sent him to the King, 'Myself when I return will plead for thee.' 'Lead, and I follow.' Quietly she led. 'Hath not the good wind, damsel, changed again?' 'Nay, not a point: nor art thou victor here. There lies a ridge of slate across the ford; His horse thereon stumbled--ay, for I saw it. '"O Sun" (not this strong fool whom thou, Sir Knave, Hast overthrown through mere unhappiness), "O Sun, that wakenest all to bliss or pain, O moon, that layest all to sleep again, Shine sweetly: twice my love hath smiled on me." What knowest thou of lovesong or of love? Nay, nay, God wot, so thou wert nobly born, Thou hast a pleasant presence. Yea, perchance,-'"O dewy flowers that open to the sun, O dewy flowers that close when day is done, Blow sweetly: twice my love hath smiled on me." 134 'What knowest thou of flowers, except, belike, To garnish meats with? hath not our good King Who lent me thee, the flower of kitchendom, A foolish love for flowers? what stick ye round The pasty? wherewithal deck the boar's head? Flowers? nay, the boar hath rosemaries and bay. '"O birds, that warble to the morning sky, O birds that warble as the day goes by, Sing sweetly: twice my love hath smiled on me." 'What knowest thou of birds, lark, mavis, merle, Linnet? what dream ye when they utter forth May-music growing with the growing light, Their sweet sun-worship? these be for the snare (So runs thy fancy) these be for the spit, Larding and basting. See thou have not now Larded thy last, except thou turn and fly. There stands the third fool of their allegory.' For there beyond a bridge of treble bow, All in a rose-red from the west, and all Naked it seemed, and glowing in the broad Deep-dimpled current underneath, the knight, That named himself the Star of Evening, stood. And Gareth, 'Wherefore waits the madman there Naked in open dayshine?' 'Nay,' she cried, 'Not naked, only wrapt in hardened skins That fit him like his own; and so ye cleave His armour off him, these will turn the blade.' Then the third brother shouted o'er the bridge, 'O brother-star, why shine ye here so low? Thy ward is higher up: but have ye slain The damsel's champion?' and the damsel cried, 'No star of thine, but shot from Arthur's heaven With all disaster unto thine and thee! For both thy younger brethren have gone down Before this youth; and so wilt thou, Sir Star; Art thou not old?' 135 'Old, damsel, old and hard, Old, with the might and breath of twenty boys.' Said Gareth, 'Old, and over-bold in brag! But that same strength which threw the Morning Star Can throw the Evening.' Then that other blew A hard and deadly note upon the horn. 'Approach and arm me!' With slow steps from out An old storm-beaten, russet, many-stained Pavilion, forth a grizzled damsel came, And armed him in old arms, and brought a helm With but a drying evergreen for crest, And gave a shield whereon the Star of Even Half-tarnished and half-bright, his emblem, shone. But when it glittered o'er the saddle-bow, They madly hurled together on the bridge; And Gareth overthrew him, lighted, drew, There met him drawn, and overthrew him again, But up like fire he started: and as oft As Gareth brought him grovelling on his knees, So many a time he vaulted up again; Till Gareth panted hard, and his great heart, Foredooming all his trouble was in vain, Laboured within him, for he seemed as one That all in later, sadder age begins To war against ill uses of a life, But these from all his life arise, and cry, 'Thou hast made us lords, and canst not put us down!' He half despairs; so Gareth seemed to strike Vainly, the damsel clamouring all the while, 'Well done, knave-knight, well-stricken, O good knight-knave-O knave, as noble as any of all the knights-Shame me not, shame me not. I have prophesied-Strike, thou art worthy of the Table Round-His arms are old, he trusts the hardened skin-Strike--strike--the wind will never change again.' And Gareth hearing ever stronglier smote, And hewed great pieces of his armour off him, But lashed in vain against the hardened skin, And could not wholly bring him under, more Than loud Southwesterns, rolling ridge on ridge, 136 The buoy that rides at sea, and dips and springs For ever; till at length Sir Gareth's brand Clashed his, and brake it utterly to the hilt. 'I have thee now;' but forth that other sprang, And, all unknightlike, writhed his wiry arms Around him, till he felt, despite his mail, Strangled, but straining even his uttermost Cast, and so hurled him headlong o'er the bridge Down to the river, sink or swim, and cried, 'Lead, and I follow.' But the damsel said, 'I lead no longer; ride thou at my side; Thou art the kingliest of all kitchen-knaves. '"O trefoil, sparkling on the rainy plain, O rainbow with three colours after rain, Shine sweetly: thrice my love hath smiled on me." 'Sir,--and, good faith, I fain had added--Knight, But that I heard thee call thyself a knave,-Shamed am I that I so rebuked, reviled, Missaid thee; noble I am; and thought the King Scorned me and mine; and now thy pardon, friend, For thou hast ever answered courteously, And wholly bold thou art, and meek withal As any of Arthur's best, but, being knave, Hast mazed my wit: I marvel what thou art.' 'Damsel,' he said, 'you be not all to blame, Saving that you mistrusted our good King Would handle scorn, or yield you, asking, one Not fit to cope your quest. You said your say; Mine answer was my deed. Good sooth! I hold He scarce is knight, yea but half-man, nor meet To fight for gentle damsel, he, who lets His heart be stirred with any foolish heat At any gentle damsel's waywardness. Shamed? care not! thy foul sayings fought for me: And seeing now thy words are fair, methinks There rides no knight, not Lancelot, his great self, Hath force to quell me.' 137 Nigh upon that hour When the lone hern forgets his melancholy, Lets down his other leg, and stretching, dreams Of goodly supper in the distant pool, Then turned the noble damsel smiling at him, And told him of a cavern hard at hand, Where bread and baken meats and good red wine Of Southland, which the Lady Lyonors Had sent her coming champion, waited him. Anon they past a narrow comb wherein Where slabs of rock with figures, knights on horse Sculptured, and deckt in slowly-waning hues. 'Sir Knave, my knight, a hermit once was here, Whose holy hand hath fashioned on the rock The war of Time against the soul of man. And yon four fools have sucked their allegory From these damp walls, and taken but the form. Know ye not these?' and Gareth lookt and read-In letters like to those the vexillary Hath left crag-carven o'er the streaming Gelt-'PHOSPHORUS,' then 'MERIDIES'--'HESPERUS'-'NOX'--'MORS,' beneath five figures, armd men, Slab after slab, their faces forward all, And running down the Soul, a Shape that fled With broken wings, torn raiment and loose hair, For help and shelter to the hermit's cave. 'Follow the faces, and we find it. Look, Who comes behind?' For one--delayed at first Through helping back the dislocated Kay To Camelot, then by what thereafter chanced, The damsel's headlong error through the wood-Sir Lancelot, having swum the river-loops-His blue shield-lions covered--softly drew Behind the twain, and when he saw the star Gleam, on Sir Gareth's turning to him, cried, 'Stay, felon knight, I avenge me for my friend.' And Gareth crying pricked against the cry; But when they closed--in a moment--at one touch Of that skilled spear, the wonder of the world-- 138 Went sliding down so easily, and fell, That when he found the grass within his hands He laughed; the laughter jarred upon Lynette: Harshly she asked him, 'Shamed and overthrown, And tumbled back into the kitchen-knave, Why laugh ye? that ye blew your boast in vain?' 'Nay, noble damsel, but that I, the son Of old King Lot and good Queen Bellicent, And victor of the bridges and the ford, And knight of Arthur, here lie thrown by whom I know not, all through mere unhappiness-Device and sorcery and unhappiness-Out, sword; we are thrown!' And Lancelot answered, 'Prince, O Gareth--through the mere unhappiness Of one who came to help thee, not to harm, Lancelot, and all as glad to find thee whole, As on the day when Arthur knighted him.' Then Gareth, 'Thou--Lancelot!--thine the hand That threw me? An some chance to mar the boast Thy brethren of thee make--which could not chance-Had sent thee down before a lesser spear, Shamed had I been, and sad--O Lancelot--thou!' Whereat the maiden, petulant, 'Lancelot, Why came ye not, when called? and wherefore now Come ye, not called? I gloried in my knave, Who being still rebuked, would answer still Courteous as any knight--but now, if knight, The marvel dies, and leaves me fooled and tricked, And only wondering wherefore played upon: And doubtful whether I and mine be scorned. Where should be truth if not in Arthur's hall, In Arthur's presence? Knight, knave, prince and fool, I hate thee and for ever.' And Lancelot said, 'Blessd be thou, Sir Gareth! knight art thou To the King's best wish. O damsel, be you wise To call him shamed, who is but overthrown? Thrown have I been, nor once, but many a time. Victor from vanquished issues at the last, 139 And overthrower from being overthrown. With sword we have not striven; and thy good horse And thou are weary; yet not less I felt Thy manhood through that wearied lance of thine. Well hast thou done; for all the stream is freed, And thou hast wreaked his justice on his foes, And when reviled, hast answered graciously, And makest merry when overthrown. Prince, Knight Hail, Knight and Prince, and of our Table Round!' And then when turning to Lynette he told The tale of Gareth, petulantly she said, 'Ay well--ay well--for worse than being fooled Of others, is to fool one's self. A cave, Sir Lancelot, is hard by, with meats and drinks And forage for the horse, and flint for fire. But all about it flies a honeysuckle. Seek, till we find.' And when they sought and found, Sir Gareth drank and ate, and all his life Past into sleep; on whom the maiden gazed. 'Sound sleep be thine! sound cause to sleep hast thou. Wake lusty! Seem I not as tender to him As any mother? Ay, but such a one As all day long hath rated at her child, And vext his day, but blesses him asleep-Good lord, how sweetly smells the honeysuckle In the hushed night, as if the world were one Of utter peace, and love, and gentleness! O Lancelot, Lancelot'--and she clapt her hands-'Full merry am I to find my goodly knave Is knight and noble. See now, sworn have I, Else yon black felon had not let me pass, To bring thee back to do the battle with him. Thus an thou goest, he will fight thee first; Who doubts thee victor? so will my knight-knave Miss the full flower of this accomplishment.' Said Lancelot, 'Peradventure he, you name, May know my shield. Let Gareth, an he will, Change his for mine, and take my charger, fresh, Not to be spurred, loving the battle as well As he that rides him.' 'Lancelot-like,' she said, 140 'Courteous in this, Lord Lancelot, as in all.' And Gareth, wakening, fiercely clutched the shield; 'Ramp ye lance-splintering lions, on whom all spears Are rotten sticks! ye seem agape to roar! Yea, ramp and roar at leaving of your lord!-Care not, good beasts, so well I care for you. O noble Lancelot, from my hold on these Streams virtue--fire--through one that will not shame Even the shadow of Lancelot under shield. Hence: let us go.' Silent the silent field They traversed. Arthur's harp though summer-wan, In counter motion to the clouds, allured The glance of Gareth dreaming on his liege. A star shot: 'Lo,' said Gareth, 'the foe falls!' An owl whoopt: 'Hark the victor pealing there!' Suddenly she that rode upon his left Clung to the shield that Lancelot lent him, crying, 'Yield, yield him this again: 'tis he must fight: I curse the tongue that all through yesterday Reviled thee, and hath wrought on Lancelot now To lend thee horse and shield: wonders ye have done; Miracles ye cannot: here is glory enow In having flung the three: I see thee maimed, Mangled: I swear thou canst not fling the fourth.' 'And wherefore, damsel? tell me all ye know. You cannot scare me; nor rough face, or voice, Brute bulk of limb, or boundless savagery Appal me from the quest.' 'Nay, Prince,' she cried, 'God wot, I never looked upon the face, Seeing he never rides abroad by day; But watched him have I like a phantom pass Chilling the night: nor have I heard the voice. Always he made his mouthpiece of a page Who came and went, and still reported him As closing in himself the strength of ten, And when his anger tare him, massacring 141 Man, woman, lad and girl--yea, the soft babe! Some hold that he hath swallowed infant flesh, Monster! O Prince, I went for Lancelot first, The quest is Lancelot's: give him back the shield.' Said Gareth laughing, 'An he fight for this, Belike he wins it as the better man: Thus--and not else!' But Lancelot on him urged All the devisings of their chivalry When one might meet a mightier than himself; How best to manage horse, lance, sword and shield, And so fill up the gap where force might fail With skill and fineness. Instant were his words. Then Gareth, 'Here be rules. I know but one-To dash against mine enemy and win. Yet have I seen thee victor in the joust, And seen thy way.' 'Heaven help thee,' sighed Lynette. Then for a space, and under cloud that grew To thunder-gloom palling all stars, they rode In converse till she made her palfrey halt, Lifted an arm, and softly whispered, 'There.' And all the three were silent seeing, pitched Beside the Castle Perilous on flat field, A huge pavilion like a mountain peak Sunder the glooming crimson on the marge, Black, with black banner, and a long black horn Beside it hanging; which Sir Gareth graspt, And so, before the two could hinder him, Sent all his heart and breath through all the horn. Echoed the walls; a light twinkled; anon Came lights and lights, and once again he blew; Whereon were hollow tramplings up and down And muffled voices heard, and shadows past; Till high above him, circled with her maids, The Lady Lyonors at a window stood, Beautiful among lights, and waving to him White hands, and courtesy; but when the Prince Three times had blown--after long hush--at last-- 142 The huge pavilion slowly yielded up, Through those black foldings, that which housed therein. High on a nightblack horse, in nightblack arms, With white breast-bone, and barren ribs of Death, And crowned with fleshless laughter--some ten steps-In the half-light--through the dim dawn--advanced The monster, and then paused, and spake no word. But Gareth spake and all indignantly, 'Fool, for thou hast, men say, the strength of ten, Canst thou not trust the limbs thy God hath given, But must, to make the terror of thee more, Trick thyself out in ghastly imageries Of that which Life hath done with, and the clod, Less dull than thou, will hide with mantling flowers As if for pity?' But he spake no word; Which set the horror higher: a maiden swooned; The Lady Lyonors wrung her hands and wept, As doomed to be the bride of Night and Death; Sir Gareth's head prickled beneath his helm; And even Sir Lancelot through his warm blood felt Ice strike, and all that marked him were aghast. At once Sir Lancelot's charger fiercely neighed, And Death's dark war-horse bounded forward with him. Then those that did not blink the terror, saw That Death was cast to ground, and slowly rose. But with one stroke Sir Gareth split the skull. Half fell to right and half to left and lay. Then with a stronger buffet he clove the helm As throughly as the skull; and out from this Issued the bright face of a blooming boy Fresh as a flower new-born, and crying, 'Knight, Slay me not: my three brethren bad me do it, To make a horror all about the house, And stay the world from Lady Lyonors. They never dreamed the passes would be past.' Answered Sir Gareth graciously to one Not many a moon his younger, 'My fair child, What madness made thee challenge the chief knight Of Arthur's hall?' 'Fair Sir, they bad me do it. They hate the King, and Lancelot, the King's friend, 143 They hoped to slay him somewhere on the stream, They never dreamed the passes could be past.' Then sprang the happier day from underground; And Lady Lyonors and her house, with dance And revel and song, made merry over Death, As being after all their foolish fears And horrors only proven a blooming boy. So large mirth lived and Gareth won the quest. And he that told the tale in older times Says that Sir Gareth wedded Lyonors, But he, that told it later, says Lynette. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

917:The Door Of Humility ENGLAND We lead the blind by voice and hand, And not by light they cannot see; We are not framed to understand The How and Why of such as He; But natured only to rejoice At every sound or sign of hope, And, guided by the still small voice, In patience through the darkness grope; Until our finer sense expands, And we exchange for holier sight The earthly help of voice and hands, And in His light behold the Light. Let there be Light! The self-same Power That out of formless dark and void Endued with life's mysterious dower Planet, and star, and asteroid; That moved upon the waters' face, And, breathing on them His intent, Divided, and assigned their place To, ocean, air, and firmament; That bade the land appear, and bring Forth herb and leaf, both fruit and flower, Cattle that graze, and birds that sing, Ordained the sunshine and the shower; That, moulding man and woman, breathed In them an active soul at birth In His own image, and bequeathed To them dominion over Earth; That, by whatever is, decreed 418 His Will and Word shall be obeyed, From loftiest star to lowliest seed;The worm and me He also made. And when, for nuptials of the Spring With Summer, on the vestal thorn The bridal veil hung flowering, A cry was heard, and I was born. II To be by blood and long descent A member of a mighty State, Whose greatness, sea-girt, but unpent By ocean, makes the world more great; That, ranging limitless, hath won A Rule more wide than that of Rome, And, journeying onward with the sun, In every zone hath found a home; That, keeping old traditions fast, Still hails the things that are to be, And, firmly rooted in the Past, On Law hath grafted Liberty;That is a birthright nobler far Than princely claim or Right Divine From far-off rapine, wanton war, And I could feel this birthright mine. And not the lowliest hand that drives Or share or loom, if so it be Of British strain, but thence derives A patent of nobility. III The guiding of the infant years Onward to good, away from guile, A mother's humanising tears, A father's philosophic smile; 419 Refining beauty, gentle ways, The admonitions of the wise, The love that watches, helps, and prays, And pities, but doth ne'er despise; An ancient Faith, abiding hope, The charity that suffers long, But flames with sacred zeal to cope With man's injustice, nature's wrong; Melodious leisure, learnëd shelf, Discourse of earnest, temperate mind, The playful wit that of itself Flashes, but leaves no wound behind; The knowledge gleaned from Greece and Rome, From studious Teuton, sprightly Gaul, The lettered page, the mellow tome, And poets' wisdom more than all;These, when no lips severe upbraid, But counsel rather than control, In budding boyhood lend their aid To sensibility of soul. IV But, more than mentor, mother, sire, Can lend to shape the future man With help of learning or of lyre, Of ancient rule, or modern plan, Is that which with our breath we bring Into the world, we know not whence, That needs nor care nor fostering, Because an instinct and a sense. And days and years are all forgot When Nature's aspect, growth, and grace, And veering moods, to me were not The features of the Loved One's face. 420 The The The The cloud whose shadow skims the lake, shimmering haze of summer noon, voice of April in the brake, silence of the mounting moon, Swaying of bracken on the hill, The murmur of the vagrant stream, These motions of some unseen Will, These babblings of some heavenly dream, Seemed tokens of divine desire To hold discourse with me, and so To touch my lips with hallowed fire, And tell me things I ought to know. I gazed and listened, all intent, As to the face and voice of Fate, But what they said, or what they meant, I could surmise not, nor translate. They did but lure me to unrest, Unanswered questioning, longings vain, As when one scans some palimpsest No erudition can explain; But left me with a deep distaste For common speech, that still did seem More meaningless than mountain waste, Less human than the far-off stream. So that a stranger in the land Wherein I moved, where'er I went, I dwelt, whom none could understand, Or exorcise my discontent. And I to them, and they to me Seemed from two different planets come, And, save to flower and wild-bird's glee, My heart was deaf, my soul was dumb. 421 But slowly dawned a happier time When I began to apprehend, And catch, as in some poet's rhyme, The intimations of a friend; When Nature spake no unknown tongue, But language kindred to my thought, Till everything She said, I sung, In notes unforced, in words unsought. And I to Her so closely drew, The seasons round, in mind and mood, I felt at length as if we knew Self-same affection, self-same feud: That both alike scorned worldly aim, Profit, applause, parade, and pride, Whereby the love of generous fame And worthy deeds grows petrified. I did as yet not understand Nature is far more vast than I, Deep as the ocean, wide as land, And overarching as the sky; And but responded to my call, And only felt and fed my need, Because She doth the same for all Who to her pity turn and plead. VI Shall man have mind, and Nature none, Shall I, not she, have soul and heart? Nay, rather, if we be not one, Each is of each the counterpart. She too may have within her breast A conscience, if not like to yours, A sense of rightness ill at rest, Long as her waywardness endures. 422 And hence her thunder, earthquakes, hail, Her levin bolts, her clouds' discharge: She sins upon a larger scale, Because She is herself more large. Hence, too, when She hath pierced with pain The heart of man, and wrecked his years, The pity of the April rain, And late repentance of her tears. She is no better, worse, than we; We can but say she seems more great, That half her will, like ours, is free, And half of it is locked in Fate. Nor need we fear that we should err Beyond our scope in reasoning thus,That there must be a God for Her, If that there be a God for us. VII The chiming of the Sabbath bell, The silence of the Sabbath fields, Over the hamlet cast a spell To which the gracious spirit yields. Sound is there none of wheel or wain, Husht stands the anvil, husht the forge, No shout is heard in rustic lane, No axe resounds in timbered gorge. No flail beats time on granary floor, The windmill's rushing wings are stayed, And children's glee rings out no more From hedgerow bank or primrose glade. The big-boned team that firm and slow Draw yoked, are free to couch or stray; The basking covey seem to know None will invade their peace to-day. 423 And speckless swains, and maidens neat, Through rustic porch, down cottage stair, Demurely up the village street Stream onward to the House of Prayer. They kneel as they were taught to kneel In childhood, and demand not why, But, as they chant or answer, feel A vague communion with the sky. VIII But when the impetuous mind is spurred To range through epochs great but gone, And, heedless of dogmatic word, With fearless ardour presses on, Confronting pulpit, sceptre, shrine, With point by Logic beaten out, And, questioning tenets deemed divine With human challenge, human doubt, Hoists Reason's sail, and for the haze Of ocean quits Tradition's shore, Awhile he comes, and kneels, and prays, Then comes and kneels, but prays no more; And only for the love he bears To those who love him, and who reared His frame to genuflexion, shares In ritual, vain, if still revered. His Gods are many or are none, Saturn and Mithra, Christ and Jove, Consorting, as the Ages run, With Vestal choir or Pagan drove. Abiding still by Northern shores, He sees far off on Grecian coast Veiled Aphrodite, but adores Minerva and Apollo most. 424 Beauty of vision, voice, and mind, Enthrall him so, that unto him All Creeds seem true, if he but find Siren, or saint, or seraphim. And thus once more he dwells apart, His inward self enswathed in mist, Blending with poet's pious heart The dreams of pagan Hedonist. IX If Beauty be the Spirit's quest, Its adoration, creed, and shrine, Wherein its restlessness finds rest, And earthly type of the Divine, Must there for such not somewhere be A blending of all beauteous things In some one form wherein we see The sum of our imaginings? The smile on mountain's musing brow, Sunrise and sunset, moon and star, Wavelets around the cygnet's prow, Glamour anear and charm afar; The silence of the silvery pool, Autumn's reserve and Summer's fire, Slow vanishings of Winter's rule To free full voice of April's choir;The worshippers of Beauty find In maiden form, and face, and tress; Faint intimations of her mind And undulating loveliness. Bound, runnels, bound, bound on, and flow! Sing, merle and mavis, pair and sing! 425 Gone is the Winter, fled the snow, And all that lives is flushed with Spring. Harry the woods, young truant folk, For flowers to deck your cottage sills, And, underneath my orchard oak, Cluster, ye golden daffodils! Unfettered by domestic vow, Cuckoo, proclaim your vagrant loves, And coo upon the self-same bough, Inseparable turtle-doves. Soar, laverock, soar on song to sky, And with the choir of Heaven rejoice! You cannot be more glad than I, Who feel Her gaze, and hear Her voice: Who see Her cheek more crimson glow, And through Her veins love's current stream, And feel a fear She doth but know Is kin to joy and dawning dream. Bound, rivulets, bound, bound on, and flow! Sing, merle and mavis, pair and sing! Gone from the world are want and woe, And I myself am one with Spring. XI They err who say that Love is blind, Or, if it be, 'tis but in part, And that, if for fair face it find No counterpart in mind and heart, It dwells on that which it beholds, Fair fleshly vision void of soul, Deeming, illusioned, this enfolds, Longing's fulfilment, end, and whole. Were such my hapless carnal lot, I too might evanescent bliss 426 Embrace, fierce-fancied, fast forgot, Then leave for some fresh loveliness. But April gaze, and Summer tress, With something of Autumnal thought, In Her seem blent to crown and bless A bond I long in dreams have sought. She looks as though She came to grace The earth, from world less soiled than this, Around her head and virgin face Halo of heavenly holiness. XII He who hath roamed through various lands, And, wheresoe'er his steps are set, The kindred meaning understands Of spire, and dome, and minaret; By Roman river, Stamboul's sea, In Peter's or Sophia's shrine, Acknowledges with reverent knee The presence of the One Divine; Who, to the land he loves so well Returning, towards the sunset hour Wends homeward, feels yet stronger spell In lichened roof and grey church-tower; Round whose foundations, side by side, Sleep hamlet wit and village sage, While loud the blackbird cheers his bride Deep in umbrageous Vicarage. XIII Was it that sense which some aver Foreshadows Fate it doth not see, That gave unwittingly to Her The name, for ever dear to me, 427 Borne by that tearful Mother whom, Nigh unto Ostia's shelving sand, Augustine laid in lonely tomb, Ere sailing for his Afric land? But I at least should have foreseen, When Monica to me had grown Familiar word, that names may mean More than by word and name is shown; That nought can keep two lives apart More than divorce 'twixt mind and mind, Even though heart be one with heart;Alas! Alas! Yes, Love is blind. XIV How could I think of jarring Creeds, And riddles that unread remain, Or ask if Heaven's indulgence heeds Broils born of man's polemic brain, And pause because my venturous mind Had roamed through tracks of polar thought, Whence mightiest spirits turn back blind, Since finding not the thing they sought, When Love, with luring gifts in hand, Beauty, refinement, smile, caress, Heart to surmise and understand, And crowning grace of holiness, Stood there before me, and, with gaze I had been purblind not to see, Said, ``I to you will, all my days, Give what you yearn to give to me''? Must both then sorrow, while we live, Because, rejoicing, I forgot Something there was I could not give, Because, alas! I had it not. 428 XV She comes from Vicarage Garden, see! Radiant as morning, lithe and tall, Fresh lilies in her hand, but She The loveliest lily of them all. The thrushes in their fluting pause, The bees float humming round her head, Earth, air, and heaven shine out because They hear her voice, and feel her tread. Up in the fretted grey church-tower, That rustic gaze for miles can see, The belfry strikes the silvery hour, Announcing her propinquity. And I who, fearful to be late, Passed long since through the deerpark pale, And loitered by the churchyard gate, Once more exclaim, ``Hail! loved one! hail!'' We pass within, and up the nave, Husht, because Heaven seems always there, Wend choirward, where, devoutly grave, She kneels, to breathe a silent prayer. She takes the flowers I too have brought, Blending them deftly with her own, And ranges them, as quick as thought, Around the white-draped altar-throne. How could she know my gaze was not On things unseen, but fixed on Her, That, as She prayed, I all forgot The worship in the worshipper?While She beheld, as in a glass, The Light Divine, that I but sought Sight of her soul?-Alas! Alas! Love is yet blinder than I thought. 429 XVI Who hath not seen a little cloud Up from the clear horizon steal, And, mounting lurid, mutter loud Premonitory thunder-peal? Husht grows the grove, the summer leaf Trembles and writhes, as if in pain, And then the sky, o'ercharged with grief, Bursts into drenching tears of rain. I through the years had sought to hide My darkening doubts from simple sight. 'Tis sacrilegious to deride Faith of unquestioning neophyte. And what, methought, is Doubt at best? A sterile wind through seeded sedge Blowing for nought, an empty nest That lingers in a leafless hedge. Pain, too, there is we should not share With others lest it mar their joy; There is a quiet bliss in prayer None but the heartless would destroy. But just as Love is quick divined From heightened glow or visage pale, The meditations of the Mind Disclose themselves through densest veil. And 'tis the unloving and least wise Who through life's inmost precincts press, And with unsympathetic eyes Outrage our sacred loneliness. Then, when their sacrilegious gaze The mournful void hath half surmised, To some more tender soul they raise The veil of ignorance it prized. 430 XVII `What though I write farewell I could Not utter, lest your gaze should chide, 'Twill by your love be understood My love is still, dear, at your side. ``Nor must we meet to speak goodbye, Lest that my Will should lose its choice, And conscience waver, for then I Should see your face and hear your voice. ``But, when you find yourself once more, Come back, come back and look for me, Beside the little lowly door, The Doorway of Humility.'' XVIII There! Peace at last! The far-off roar Of human passion dies away. ``Welcome to our broad shade once more,'' The waning woodlands seem to say: The music of the vagrant wind, That wandered aimlessly, is stilled; The songless branches all remind That Summer's glory is fulfilled. The fluttering of the falling leaves Dimples the leaden pool awhile; So Age impassively receives Youth's tale of troubles with a smile. Thus, as the seasons steal away, How much is schemed, how little done, What splendid plans at break of day! What void regrets at set of sun! The world goes round, for you, for me, For him who sleeps, for him who strives, And the cold Fates indifferent see 431 Crowning or failure of our lives. Then fall, ye leaves, fade, summer breeze! Grow, sedges, sere on every pool! Let each old glowing impulse freeze, Let each old generous project cool! It is not wisdom, wit, nor worth, Self-sacrifice nor friendship true, Makes venal devotees of earth Prostrate themselves and worship you. The consciousness of sovran powers, The stubborn purpose, steadfast will, Have ever, in this world of ours, Achieved success, achieve it still. Farewell, ye woods! No more I sit; Great voices in the distance call. If this be peace, enough of it! I go. Fall, unseen foliage, fall! XIX Nay, but repress rebellious woe! In grief 'tis not that febrile fool, Passion, that can but overthrow, But Resignation, that should rule. In patient sadness lurks a gift To purify the life it stings, And, as the days move onward, lift The lonely heart to loftier things; Bringing within one's ripening reach The sceptre of majestic Thought, Wherefrom one slowly learns to teach The Wisdom to oneself it taught. And unto what can man aspire, On earth, more worth the striving for, Than to be Reason's loftier lyre, 432 And reconciling monitor; To strike a more resounding string And deeper notes of joy and pain, Than such as but lamenting sing, Or warble but a sensuous strain: So, when my days are nearly sped, And my last harvest labours done, That I may have around my head The halo of a setting sun. Yet even if be heard above Such selfish hope, presumptuous claim, Better one hour of perfect love Than an eternity of Fame! XX Where then for grief seek out the cure? What scenes will bid my smart to cease? High peaks should teach one to endure, And lakes secluded bring one peace. Farewell awhile, then, village bells, Autumnal wood and harvest wain! And welcome, as it sinks or swells, The music of the mighty main, That seems to say, now loud, now low, Rising or falling, sweet or shrill, ``I pace, a sentry, to and fro, To guard your Island fortress still.'' The roses falter on their stalk, The late peach reddens on the wall, The flowers along the garden walk Unheeded fade, unheeded fall. My gates unopened drip with rain, The wolf-hound wends from floor to floor, And, listening for my voice in vain, 433 Waileth along the corridor. Within the old accustomed place Where we so oft were wont to be, Kneeling She prays, while down her face The fruitless tears fall silently. SWITZERLAND XXI Rain, wind, and rain. The writhing lake Scuds to and fro to scape their stroke: The mountains veil their heads, and make Of cloud and mist a wintry cloak. Through where the arching pinewoods make Dusk cloisters down the mountain side, The loosened avalanches take Valeward their way, with death for guide, And toss their shaggy manes and fling To air their foam and tawny froth, From ledge and precipice bound and spring, With hungry roar and deepening wrath; Till, hamlet homes and orchards crushed, And, rage for further ravin stayed, They slumber, satiated, husht, Upon the ruins they have made. I rise from larch-log hearth, and, lone, Gaze on the spears of serried rain, That faster, nigher, still are blown, Then stream adown the window pane. The peasant's goatskin garments drip, As home he wends with lowered head, Shakes off the drops from lid and lip, Then slinks within his châlet shed. 434 The cattle bells sound dull and hoarse, The boats rock idly by the shore; Only the swollen torrents course With faster feet and fuller roar. Mournful, I shape a mournful song, And ask the heavens, but ask in vain, ``How long, how long?'' Ah! not so long As, in my heart, rain, wind, and rain. XXII I ask the dark, the dawn, the sun, The domeward-pointing peaks of snow, Lofty and low alike, but none Will tell me what I crave to know. My mind demands, ``Whence, Whither, Why?'' From mountain slope and green defile, And wait the answer. The replyA far-off irresponsive smile. I ask the stars, when mortals sleep, The pensive moon, the lonely winds; But, haply if they know, they keep The secret of secluded minds. Shall I in Straining Where in Where in vain, then, strive to find, towards merely fancied goal? the lily lurks the mind, the rose discern the soul? More mindless still, stream, pasture, lake, The mountains yet more heartless seem, And life's unceasing quest and ache Only a dream within a dream. We know no more, though racked with thought Than he who, in yon châlet born, Gives not the riddle, Life, a thought, But lays him down and sleeps till morn. 435 Sometimes he kneels; I cannot kneel, So suffer from a wider curse Than Eden's outcasts, for I feel An exile in the universe. The rudeness of his birth enures His limbs to every season's stings, And, never probing, so endures The sadness at the heart of things. When lauwine growls, and thunder swells, Their far-off clamour sounds to me But as the noise of clanging bells Above a silent sanctuary. It is their silence that appals, Their aspect motionless that awes, When searching spirit vainly calls On the effect to bare the Cause. I get no answer, near or far; The mountains, though they soar so high, And scale the pathless ether, are No nearer unto God than I. There dwells nor mystery nor veil Round the clear peaks no foot hath trod; I, gazing on their frontage pale, See but the waning ghost of God. Is Faith then but a drug for sleep, And Hope a fondly soothing friend That bids us, when it sees us weep, Wait for the End that hath no end? Then do I hear voice unforgot Wailing across the distance dim, ``Think, dear! If God existeth not, Why are you always seeking Him?'' XXIII 436 Like glowing furnace of the forge, How the winds rise and roar, as they Up twisting valley, craggy gorge, Seek, and still seek, to storm their way; Then, baffled, up the open slope With quickening pulses scale and pant, Indomitably bent to cope With bristling fronts of adamant. All through the day resounds the strife, Then doth at sunset hour subside: So the fierce passions of our life Slowly expire at eventide. By Nature we are ne'er misled; We see most truly when we dream. A singer wise was he who said, ``Follow the gleam! Follow the gleam!'' XXIV I dreamed, last night, again I stood, Silent, without the village shrine, While She in modest maidenhood Left, fondly clasped, her hand in mine. And, with a face as cerecloth white, And tears like those that by the bier Of loved one lost make dim the sight, She poured her sorrows in mine ear. ``I love your voice, I love your gaze, But there is something dearer still, The faith that kneels, the hope that prays, And bows before the Heavenly Will. ``Not where hills rise, or torrents roll, Seek Him, nor yet alone, apart; He dwells within the troubled soul, His home is in the human heart. 437 ``Withal, the peaceful mountains may 'Twixt doubt and yearning end the strife: So ponder, though you cannot pray, And think some meaning into life: ``Nor like to those that cross the main To wander witless through strange land, Hearing unmastered tongues, disdain The speech they do not understand. ``Firm stands my faith that they who sound The depths of doubt Faith yet will save: They are like children playing round A still remembered mother's grave; ``Not knowing, when they wax more old, And somewhat can her vision share, She will the winding-sheet unfold, And beckon them to evening prayer.'' Then, with my hand betwixt her hands, She laid her lips upon my brow, And, as to one who understands, Said, ``Take once more my vestal vow. ``No other gaze makes mine to glow, No other footstep stirs my heart, To me you only dearer grow, Dearer and nearer, more apart. ``Whene'er you come with humble mind, The little Door stands open wide, And, bending low, you still will find Me waiting on the other side.'' Her silence woke me. . . . To your breast Fold me, O sleep! and seal mine ears; That She may roam through my unrest Till all my dreams are drenched with tears! XXV 438 Why linger longer, subject, here, Where Nature sits and reigns alone, Inspiring love not, only fear, Upon her autocratic throne? Her edicts are the rigid snow, The wayward winds, the swaying branch; She hath no pity to bestow, Her law the lawless avalanche. Though soon cascades will bound and sing, That now but drip with tears of ice, And upland meadows touched by Spring Blue gentian blend with edelweiss, Hence to the Land of youthful dreams, The Land that taught me all I know. Farewell, lone mountain-peaks and streams; Yet take my thanks before I go. You gave me shelter when I fled, But sternly bade me stem my tears, Nor aimless roam with rustling tread 'Mong fallen leaves of fruitless years. ITALY XXVI Upon the topmost wheel-track steep, The parting of two nations' ways, Athwart stone cross engraven deep, The name ``Italia'' greets the gaze! I trembled, when I saw it first, With joy, my boyish longings fed, The headspring of my constant thirst, The altar of my pilgrim tread. Now once again the magic word, So faintly borne to Northern home, Sounds like a silvery trumpet heard 439 Beneath some universal dome. The forests soften to a smile, A smile the very mountains wear, Through mossy gorge and grassed defile Torrents race glad and debonair. From casement, balcony and door, Hang golden gourds, droops tear-tipped vine, And sun-bronzed faces bask before Thin straw-swathed flasks of last year's wine. Unyoked, the patient sleek-skinned steers Take, like their lords, no heed of time. Hark! now the evening star appears, Ave Maria belfries chime. The maidens knit, and glance, and sing, With glowing gaze 'neath ebon tress, And, like to copse-buds sunned by Spring, Seem burgeoning into tenderness. On waveless lake where willows weep, The Borromean Islands rest As motionless as babe asleep Upon a slumbering Mother's breast. O Land of sunshine, song, and Love! Whether thy children reap or sow, Of Love they chant on hills above, Of Love they sing in vale below. But what avail the love-linked hands, And love-lit eyes, to them that roam Passionless through impassioned lands, Since they have left their heart at home! XXVII Among my dreams, now known as dreams In this my reawakened life, I thought that by historic streams, 440 Apart from stress, aloof from strife, By rugged paths that twist and twine Through olive slope and chesnut wood Upward to mediaeval shrine, Or high conventual brotherhood, Along the mountain-curtained track Round peaceful lake where wintry bands Halt briefly but to bivouac Ere blustering on to Northern lands;Through these, through all I first did see, With me to share my raptures none, That nuptialled Monica would be My novice and companion: That we should float from mere to mere, And sleep within some windless cove, With nightingales to lull the ear, From ilex wood and orange grove; Linger at hamlets lost to fame, That still wise-wandering feet beguile, To gaze on frescoed wall or frame Lit by Luini's gracious smile. Now, but companioned by my pain, Among each well-remembered scene I can but let my Fancy feign The happiness that might have been; Imagine that I hear her voice, Imagine that I feel her hand, And I, enamoured guide, rejoice To see her swift to understand. Alack! Imagination might As lief with rustic Virgil roam, Reverent, or, welcomed guest, alight At Pliny's philosophic home; 441 Hear one majestically trace Rome's world-wide sway from wattled wall, And read upon the other's face The omens of an Empire's fall. XXVIII Like moonlight seen through forest leaves, She shines upon me from afar, What time men reap the ripened sheaves, And Heaven rains many a falling star. I gaze up to her lofty height, And feel how far we dwell apart: O if I could, this night, this night, Fold her full radiance to my heart! But She in Heaven, and I on earth, Still journey on, but each alone; She, maiden Queen of sacred birth, Who with no consort shares her throne. XXIX What if She ever thought She saw The self within myself prefer Communion with the silent awe Of far-off mountains more than Her; That Nature hath the mobile grace To make life with our moods agree, And so had grown the Loved One's face, Since it nor checked nor chided me; Or from the tasks that irk and tire I sought for comfort from the Muse, Because it grants the mind's desire All that familiar things refuse. How vain such thought! The face, the form, Of mountain summits but express, Clouded or clear, in sun or storm, 442 Feebly Her spirit's loftiness. Did I explore from pole to pole, In Nature's aspect I should find But faint reflections of Her soul, Dim adumbrations of Her mind. O come and test with lake, with stream, With mountain, which the stronger be, Thou, my divinest dearest dream, My Muse, and more than Muse, to me! XXX They tell me that Jehovah speaks In silent grove, on lonely strand, And summit of the mountain peaks; Yet there I do not understand. The stars, disdainful of my thought, Majestic march toward their goal, And to my nightly watch have brought No explanation to my soul. The truth I seek I cannot find, In air or sky, on land or sea; If the hills have their secret mind, They will not yield it up to me: Like one who lost mid lonely hills Still seeks but cannot find his way, Since guide is none save winding rills, That seem themselves, too, gone astray. And so from rise to set of sun, At glimmering dawn, in twilight haze, I but behold the face of One Who veils her face, and weeps, and prays. What know I that She doth not know? What I know not, She understands: With heavenly gifts She overflows, 443 While I have only empty hands. O weary wanderer! Best forego This questioning of wind and wave. For you the sunshine and the snow, The womb, the cradle, and the grave. XXXI How blest, when organ concords swell, And anthems are intoned, are they Who neither reason nor rebel, But meekly bow their heads and pray. And such the peasants mountain-bred, Who hail to-day with blithe accord Her Feast Who to the Angel said, ``Behold the Handmaid of the Lord!'' Downward they wind from pastoral height, Or hamlet grouped round shattered towers, To wend to shrine more richly dight, And bring their gift of wilding flowers; Their gifts, their griefs, their daily needs, And lay these at Her statue's base, Who never, deem they, intercedes Vainly before the Throne of Grace. Shall I, because I stand apart, A stranger to their pious vows, Scorn their humility of heart That pleads before the Virgin Spouse, Confiding that the Son will ne'er, If in His justice wroth with them, Refuse to harken to Her prayer Who suckled Him in Bethlehem? Of all the intercessors born By man's celestial fancy, none 444 Hath helped the sorrowing, the forlorn, Lowly and lone, as She hath done. The maiden faithful to Her shrine Bids demons of temptation flee, And mothers fruitful as the vine Retain their vestal purity. Too trustful love, by lust betrayed, And by cold worldlings unforgiven, Unto Her having wept and prayed, Faces its fate, consoled and shriven. The restless, fiercely probing mind No honey gleans, though still it stings. What comfort doth the spirit find In Reason's endless reasonings? They have no solace for my grief, Compassion none for all my pain: They toss me like the fluttering leaf, And leave me to the wind and rain. XXXII If Conscience be God's Law to Man, Then Conscience must perforce arraign Whatever falls beneath the ban Of that allotted Suzerain. And He, who bids us not to swerve, Whither the wayward passions draw, From its stern sanctions, must observe The limits of the self-same Law. Yet, if obedient Conscience scan The sum of wrongs endured and done Neither by act nor fault of Man, They rouse it to rebellion. Life seems of life by life bereft 445 Through some immitigable curse, And Man sole moral being left In a non-moral Universe. My Conscience would my Will withstand, Did Will project a world like this: Better Eternal vacuum still, Than murder, lust, and heartlessness! If Man makes Conscience, then being good Is only being worldly wise, And universal brotherhood A comfortable compromise. O smoke of War! O blood-steeped sod! O groans of fratricidal strife! Who will explain the ways of God, That I may be at peace with life! The moral riddle 'tis that haunts, Primeval and unending curse, Racking the mind when pulpit vaunts A Heaven-created Universe. Yet whence came Life, and how begin? Rolleth the globe by choice or chance? Dear Lord! Why longer shut me in This prison-house of ignorance! FLORENCE XXXIII City acclaimed ere Dante's days Fair, and baptized in field of flowers, Once more I scan with tender gaze Your glistening domes, your storied towers. I feel as if long years had flown Since first with eager heart I came, 446 And, girdled by your mountain zone, Found you yet fairer than your fame. It was the season purple-sweet When figs are plump, and grapes are pressed, And all your sons with following feet Bore a dead Poet to final rest. You seemed to fling your gates ajar, And softly lead me by the hand, Saying, ``Behold! henceforth you are No stranger in the Tuscan land.'' And though no love my love can wean From native crag and cradling sea, Yet Florence from that hour hath been More than a foster-nurse to me. When mount I terraced slopes arrayed In bridal bloom of peach and pear, While under olive's phantom shade Lupine and beanflower scent the air, The wild-bees hum round golden bay, The green frog sings on fig-tree bole, And, see! down daisy-whitened way Come the slow steers and swaying pole. The fresh-pruned vine-stems, curving, bend Over the peaceful wheaten spears, And with the glittering sunshine blend Their transitory April tears. O'er wall and trellis trailed and wound, Hang roses blushing, roses pale; And, hark! what was that silvery sound? The first note of the nightingale. Curtained, I close my lids and dream Of Beauty seen not but surmised, And, lulled by scent and song, I seem Immortally imparadised. 447 When from the deep sweet swoon I wake And gaze past slopes of grape and grain, Where Arno, like some lonely lake, Silvers the far-off seaward plain, I see celestial sunset fires That lift us from this earthly leaven, And darkly silent cypress spires Pointing the way from hill to Heaven. Then something more than mortal steals Over the wavering twilight air, And, messenger of nightfall, peals From each crowned peak a call to prayer. And now the last meek prayer is said, And, in the hallowed hush, there is Only a starry dome o'erhead, Propped by columnar cypresses. XXXIV Re-roaming through this palaced town, I suddenly, 'neath grim-barred pile, Catch sight of Dante's awful frown, Or Leonardo's mystic smile; Then, swayed by memory's fancy, stroll To where from May-day's flaming pyre Savonarola's austere soul Went up to Heaven in tongues of fire; Or Buonarroti's plastic hand Made marble block from Massa's steep Dawn into Day at his command, Then plunged it into Night and Sleep. No later wanderings can dispel The glamour of the bygone years; And, through the streets I know so well, 448 I scarce can see my way for tears. XXXV A sombre shadow seems to fall On comely altar, transept fair; The saints are still on frescoed wall, But who comes thither now for prayer? Men throng from far-off stranger land, To stare, to wonder, not to kneel, With map and guide-book in their hand To tell them what to think and feel. They scan, they prate, they marvel why The figures still expressive glow, Oblivious they were painted by Adoring Frà Angelico. Did Dante from his tomb afar Return, his wrongs redressed at last, And see you, Florence, as you are, Half alien to your gracious Past, Finding no Donatello now, No reverent Giotto 'mong the quick, To glorify ascetic vow Of Francis or of Dominic; Self-exiled by yet sterner fate Than erst, he would from wandering cease, And, ringing at monastic gate, Plead, ``I am one who craves for peace.'' And what he sought but ne'er could find, Shall I, less worthy, hope to gain, The freedom of the tranquil mind, The lordship over loss and pain? More than such peace I found when I Did first, in unbound youth, repair 449 To Tuscan shrine, Ausonian sky. I found it, for I brought it there. XXXVI Yet Art brings peace, itself is Peace, And, as I on these frescoes gaze, I feel all fretful tumults cease And harvest calm of mellower days. For Soul too hath its seasons. Time, That leads Spring, Summer, Autumn, round, Makes our ephemeral passions chime With something permanent and profound. And, as in Nature, April oft Strives to revert to wintry hours, But shortly upon garth and croft Re-sheds warm smiles and moistening showers, Or, for one day, will Autumn wear The gayer garments of the Spring, And then athwart the wheatfields bare Again her graver shadows fling; So, though the Soul hath moods that veer, And seem to hold no Rule in awe, Like the procession of the year, It too obeys the sovran Law. Nor Art itself brings settled peace, Until the mind is schooled to know That gusts subside and tumults cease Only in sunset's afterglow. Life's contradictions vanish then, Husht thought replacing clashing talk Among the windy ways of men. 'Tis in the twilight Angels walk. 450 ROME XXXVII The last warm gleams of sunset fade From cypress spire and stonepine dome, And, in the twilight's deepening shade, Lingering, I scan the wrecks of Rome. Husht the Madonna's Evening Bell; The steers lie loosed from wain and plough; The vagrant monk is in his cell, The meek nun-novice cloistered now. Pedant's presumptuous voice no more Vexes the spot where Caesar trod, And o'er the pavement's soundless floor Come banished priest and exiled God. The lank-ribbed she-wolf, couched among The regal hillside's tangled scrubs, With doting gaze and fondling tongue Suckles the Vestal's twin-born cubs. Yet once again Evander leads Æneas to his wattled home, And, throned on Tiber's fresh-cut reeds, Talks of burnt Troy and rising Rome. From out the tawny dusk one hears The half-feigned scream of Sabine maids, The rush to arms, then swift the tears That separate the clashing blades. The Lictors with their fasces throng To quell the Commons' rising roar, As Tullia's chariot flames along, Splashed with her murdered father's gore. Her tresses free from band or comb, Love-dimpled Venus, lithe and tall, 451 And fresh as Fiumicino's foam, Mounts her pentelic pedestal. With languid lids, and lips apart, And curving limbs like wave half-furled, Unarmed she dominates the heart, And without sceptre sways the world. Nerved by her smile, avenging Mars Stalks through the Forum's fallen fanes, Or, changed of mien and healed of scars, Threads sylvan slopes and vineyard plains. With waves of song from wakening lyre Apollo routs the wavering night, While, parsley-crowned, the white-robed choir Wind chanting up the Sacred Height, Where Jove, with thunder-garlands wreathed, And crisp locks frayed like fretted foam, Sits with his lightnings half unsheathed, And frowns against the foes of Rome. You cannot kill the Gods. They still Reclaim the thrones where once they reigned, Rehaunt the grove, remount the rill, And renovate their rites profaned. Diana's hounds still lead the chase, Still Neptune's Trident crests the sea, And still man's spirit soars through space On feathered heels of Mercury. No flood can quench the Vestals' Fire; The Flamen's robes are still as white As ere the Salii's armoured choir Were drowned by droning anchorite. The saint may seize the siren's seat, The shaveling frown where frisked the Faun; Ne'er will, though all beside should fleet, The Olympian Presence be withdrawn. 452 Here, even in the noontide glare, The Gods, recumbent, take their ease; Go look, and you will find them there, Slumbering behind some fallen frieze. But most, when sunset glow hath paled, And come, as now, the twilight hour, In vesper vagueness dimly veiled I feel their presence and their power. What though their temples strew the ground, And to the ruin owls repair, Their home, their haunt, is all around; They drive the cloud, they ride the air. And, when the planets wend their way Along the never-ageing skies, ``Revere the Gods'' I hear them say; ``The Gods are old, the Gods are wise.'' Build as man may, Time gnaws and peers Through marble fissures, granite rents; Only Imagination rears Imperishable monuments. Let Gaul and Goth pollute the shrine, Level the altar, fire the fane: There is no razing the Divine; The Gods return, the Gods remain. XXXVIII Christ is arisen. The place wherein They laid Him shows but cerements furled, And belfry answers belfry's din To ring the tidings round the world. Grave Hierarchs come, an endless band, In jewelled mitre, cope embossed, Who bear Rome's will to every land 453 In all the tongues of Pentecost. Majestic, along marble floor, Walk Cardinals in blood-red robe, Martyrs for Faith and Christ no more, Who gaze as though they ruled the globe. With halberds bare and doublets slashed, Emblems that war will never cease, Come martial guardians, unabashed, And march afront the Prince of Peace. Then, in his gestatorial Chair See Christ's vicegerent, bland, benign, To crowds all prostrate as in prayer Lean low, and make the Holy Sign. Then trumpets shrill, and organ peals, Throughout the mighty marble pile, Whileas a myriad concourse kneels In dense-packed nave and crowded aisle. Hark to the sudden hush! Aloft From unseen source in empty dome Swells prayerful music silvery-soft, Borne from far-off celestial Home. Then, when the solemn rite is done, The worshippers stream out to where Dance fountains glittering in the sun, While expectation fills the air. Now on high balcony He stands, And-save for the Colonna curse,Blesses with high-uplifted hands The City and the Universe. Christ is arisen! But scarce as when, On the third day of death and gloom, Came ever-loving Magdalen With tears and spices to His tomb. 454 XXXIX The Tiber winds its sluggish way Through niggard tracts whence Rome's command Once cast the shadow of her sway, O'er Asian city, Afric sand. Nor even yet doth She resign Her sceptre. Still the spell is hers, Though she may seem a rifled shrine 'Mid circumjacent sepulchres. One after one, they came, they come, Gaul, Goth, Savoy, to work their will; She answers, when She most seems dumb, ``I wore the Crown, I wear it still. ``From Jove I first received the gift, I from Jehovah wear it now, Nor shall profane invader lift The diadem from off my brow. ``The Past is mine, and on the Past The Future builds; and Time will rear The next strong structure on the last, Where men behold but shattered tier. ``The Teuton hither hies to teach, To prove, disprove, to delve and probe. Fool! Pedant! Does he think to reach The deep foundations of the globe?'' For me, I am content to tread On Sabine dust and Gothic foe. Leave me to deepening silent dread Of vanished Empire's afterglow. In this Imperial wilderness Why rashly babble and explore? O, let me know a little less, So I may feel a little more! 455 XL For upward of one thousand years, Here men and women prayed to Jove, With smiles and incense, gifts and tears, In secret shrine, or civic grove; And, when Jove did not seem to heed, Sought Juno's mediatorial power, Or begged fair Venus intercede And melt him in his amorous hour. Sages invoked Minerva's might; The Poet, ere he struck the lyre, Prayed to the God of Song and Light To touch the strings with hallowed fire. With flaming herbs were altars smoked Sprinkled with blood and perfumed must, And gods and goddesses invoked To second love or sanction lust. And did they hear and heed the prayer, Or, through that long Olympian reign, Were they divinities of air Begot of man's fantastic brain? In Roman halls their statues still Serenely stand, but no one now Ascends the Capitolian Hill, To render thanks, or urge the vow. Through now long centuries hath Rome Throned other God, preached other Creed, That here still have their central home, And feed man's hope, content his need. Against these, too, will Time prevail? No! Let whatever gestates, be, Secure will last the tender tale 456 From Bethlehem to Calvary. Throughout this world of pain and loss, Man ne'er will cease to bend his knee To Crown of Thorns, to Spear, to Cross, And Doorway of Humility. XLI If Reason be the sole safe guide In man implanted from above, Why crave we for one only face, Why consecrate the name of Love? Faces there are no whit less fair, Yet ruddier lip, more radiant eye, Same rippling smile, same auburn hair, But not for us. Say, Reason, why. Why bound our hearts when April pied Comes singing, or when hawthorn blows? Doth logic in the lily hide, And where's the reason in the rose? Why weld our keels and launch our ships, If Reason urge some wiser part, Kiss England's Flag with dying lips And fold its glories to the heart? In this gross world we touch and see, If Reason be no trusty guide, For world unseen why should it be The sole explorer justified? The homing swallow knows its nest, Sure curves the comet to its goal, Instinct leads Autumn to its rest, And why not Faith the homing soul? Is Reason so aloof, aloft, It doth not 'gainst itself rebel, 457 And are not Reason's reasonings oft By Reason proved unreasonable? He is perplexed no more, who prays, ``Hail, Mary Mother, full of grace!'' O drag me from Doubt's endless maze, And let me see my Loved One's face! XLII ``Upon this rock!'' Yet even here Where Christian God ousts Pagan wraith, Rebellious Reason whets its spear, And smites upon the shield of Faith. On sacred mount, down seven-hilled slopes, Fearless it faces foe and friend, Saying to man's immortal hopes, ``Whatso began, perforce must end.'' Not men alone, but gods too, die; Fanes are, like hearths, left bare and lone; This earth will into fragments fly, And Heaven itself be overthrown. Why then should Man immortal be? He is but fleeting form, to fade, Like momentary cloud, or sea Of waves dispersed as soon as made. Yet if 'tis Force, not Form, survives, Meseems therein that one may find Some comfort for distressful lives; For, if Force ends not, why should Mind? Is Doubt more forceful than Belief? The doctor's cap than friar's cowl? O ripeness of the falling leaf! O wisdom of the moping owl! Man's Mind will ever stand apart 458 From Science, save this have for goal The evolution of the heart, And sure survival of the Soul. XLIII The Umbilicum lonely stands Where once rose porch and vanished dome; But he discerns who understands That every road may lead to Rome. Enthroned in Peter's peaceful Chair, The spiritual Caesar sways A wider Realm of earth and air Than trembled at Octavian's gaze. His universal arms embrace The saint, the sinner, and the sage, And proffer refuge, comfort, grace To tribulation's pilgrimage. Here scientific searchers find Precursors for two thousand years, Who in a drouthy world divined Fresh springs for human doubts and fears. Here fair chaste Agnes veils her face From prowlers of the sensual den, And pity, pardon, and embrace Await repentant Magdalen. Princess and peasant-mother wend To self-same altar, self-same shrine, And Cardinal and Patriarch bend Where lepers kneel, and beggars whine. And is there then, in my distress, No road, no gate, no shrine, for me? The answer comes, ``Yes, surely, yes! The Doorway of Humility.'' 459 O rival Faiths! O clamorous Creeds! Would you but hush your strife in prayer, And raise one Temple for our needs, Then, then, we all might worship there. But dogma new with dogma old Clashes to soothe the spirit's grief, And offer to the unconsoled Polyglot Babel of Belief! XLIV The billows roll, and rise, and break, Around me; fixedly shine the stars In clear dome overhead, and take Their course, unheeding earthly jars. Yet if one's upward gaze could be But stationed where the planets are, The star were restless as the sea, The sea be tranquil as the star. Hollowed like cradle, then like grave, Now smoothly curved, now shapeless spray, Withal the undirected wave Forms, and reforms, and knows its way. Then, waters, bear me on where He, Ere death absolved at Christian font, Removed Rome's menaced majesty Eastward beyond the Hellespont. Foreseeing not what Fate concealed, But Time's caprice would there beget, That Cross would unto Crescent yield, Caesar and Christ to Mahomet. Is it then man's predestined state To search for, ne'er to find, the Light? Arise, my Star, illuminate These empty spaces of the Night! 460 XLV Last night I heard the cuckoo call Among the moist green glades of home, And in the Chase around the Hall Saw the May hawthorn flower and foam. Deep in the wood where primrose stars Paled before bluebell's dazzling reign, The nightingale's sad sobbing bars Rebuked the merle's too joyful strain. The kine streamed forth from stall and byre, The foal frisked round its mother staid, The meads, by sunshine warmed, took fire, And lambs in pasture, bleating, played. The uncurbed rivulets raced to where The statelier river curled and wound, And trout, of human step aware, Shot through the wave without a sound. Adown the village street, as clear As in one's wakeful mid-day hours, Beheld I Monica drawing near, Her vestal lap one crib of flowers. Lending no look to me, she passed By the stone path, as oft before, Between old mounds Spring newly grassed, And entered through the Little Door. Led by her feet, I hastened on, But, ere my feverish steps could get To the low porch, lo! Morning shone On Moslem dome and minaret! CONSTANTINOPLE 461 XLVI Now Vesper brings the sunset hour, And, where crusading Knighthood trod, Muezzin from his minaret tower Proclaims, ``There is no God but God!'' Male God who shares his godhead with No Virgin Mother's sacred tear, But finds on earth congenial kith In wielders of the sword and spear: Male God who on male lust bestows The ruddy lip, the rounded limb, And promises, at battle's close, Houri, not saint nor seraphim. Swift through the doubly-guarded stream, Shoots the caïque 'neath oarsmen brisk, While from its cushioned cradle gleam The eyes of yashmaked odalisque. Unchanged adown the changing years, Here where the Judas blossoms blaze, Against Sophia's marble piers The scowling Muslim lean and gaze; And still at sunset's solemn hour, Where Christ's devout Crusader trod, Defiant from the minaret's tower Proclaim, ``There is no God but God!'' XLVII Three rival Rituals. One revered In that loved English hamlet where, With flowers in Vicarage garden reared, She decks the altar set for prayer: Another, where majestic Rome, With fearless Faith and flag unfurled 462 'Gainst Doubt's ephemeral wave and foam, Demands obedience from the world. The third, where now I stand, and where Two hoary Continents have met, And Islam guards from taint and tare Monistic Creed of Mahomet. Yet older than all three, but banned To suffer still the exile's doom From shrine where Turkish sentries stand, And Christians wrangle round Christ's tomb. Where then find Creed, divine or dead, All may embrace, and none contemn?Remember Who it was that said, ``Not here, nor at Jerusalem!'' ATHENS XLVIII To Acrocorinth's brow I climb, And, lulled in retrospective bliss, Descry, as through the mists of time, Faintly the far Acropolis. Below me, rivers, mountains, vales, Wide stretch of ancient Hellas lies: Symbol of Song that never fails, Parnassus communes with the skies. I linger, dream-bound by the Past, Till sundown joins time's deep abyss, Then skirt, through shadows moonlight-cast, Lone strand of sailless Salamis, Until Eleusis gleams through dawn, Where, though a suppliant soul I come, The veil remains still unwithdrawn, 463 And all the Oracles are dumb. So onward to the clear white Light, Where, though the worshippers be gone, Abides on unmysterious height The calm unquestioning Parthenon. Find I, now there I stand at last, That naked Beauty, undraped Truth, Can satisfy our yearnings vast, The doubts of age, the dreams of youth; That, while we ask, in futile strife, From altar, tripod, fount, or well, Form is the secret soul of life, And Art the only Oracle; That Hera and Athena, linked With Aphrodite, hush distress, And, in their several gifts distinct, Withal are Triune Goddesses? That mortal wiser then was He Who gave the prize to Beauty's smile, Divides his gifts among the Three, And thuswise baffles Discord's guile? But who is wise? The nobler twain, Who the restraining girdle wear, Contend too often all in vain With sinuous curve and frolic hair. Just as one sees in marble, still, Pan o'er Apollo's shoulder lean, Suggesting to the poet's quill The sensual note, the hint obscene. Doth then the pure white Light grow dim, And must it be for ever thus? Listen! I hear a far-off Hymn, Veni, Creator, Spiritus! 464 XLIX The harvest of Hymettus drips As sweet as when the Attic bees Swarmed round the honey-laden lips Of heavenly-human Sophocles. The olives are as green in grove As in the days the poets bless, When Pallas with Poseidon strove To be the City's Patroness. The wine-hued main, white marble frieze, Dome of blue ether over all, One still beholds, but nowhere sees Panathenaic Festival. O'erhead, no Zeus or frowns or nods, Olympus none in air or skies; Below, a sepulchre of Gods, And tombs of dead Divinities. Yet, are they dead? Still stricken blind, Tiresiaslike, are they that see, With bold uncompromising mind, Wisdom in utter nudity; Experiencing a kindred fate With the First Parents of us all, Jehovah thrust through Eden's Gate, When Knowledge brought about their Fall. Hath Aphrodite into foam, Whence She first flowered, sunk back once more, And doth She nowhere find a home, Or worship, upon Christian shore? Her shrine is in the human breast, To find her none need soar or dive. Goodness or Loveliness our quest, The ever-helpful Gods survive. 465 Hellas retorts, when Hebrew gibes At Gods of levity and lust, ``God of Judaea's wandering tribes Was jealous, cruel, and unjust.'' Godhead, withal, remains the same, And Art embalms its symbols still; As Poets, when athirst for Fame, Still dream of Aganippe's rill. Why still pursue a bootless quest, And wander heartsore farther East, Because unanswered, south or west, By Pagan seer or Christian priest? Brahma and Buddha, what have they To offer to my shoreless search? ``Let Contemplation be,'' they say, ``Your ritual, Nothingness your Church. ``Passion and purpose both forsake, Echoes from non-existent wall; We do but dream we are awake, Ourselves the deepest dream of all. ``We dream we think, feel, touch, and see, And what these are, still dreaming, guess, Though there is no Reality Behind their fleeting semblances.'' Thus the East answers my appeal, Denies, and so illudes, my want. Alas! Could I but cease to feel, Brahma should be my Hierophant. But, hampered by my Western mind, I cannot set the Spirit free From Matter, but Illusion find, 466 Of all, the most illusory. DELPHI LI The morning mists that hid the bay And curtained mountains fast asleep, Begin to feel the touch of day, And roll from off both wave and steep. In floating folds they curve and rise, Then slowly melt and merge in air, Till high above me glow the skies, And cloudless sunshine everywhere. Parnassus wears nor veil nor frown, Windless the eagle wings his way, As I from Delphi gaze adown On Salona and Amphissa. It was the sovran Sun that drew Aloft and scattered morning haze, And now fills all the spacious blue With its own glorifying rays. And, no less sovran than the sun, Imagination brings relief Of morning light to shadows dun, To heart's distress, and spirit's grief. Parnassus boasts no loftier peak Than Poet's heavenward song; which, though Harbouring among the sad and weak, Lifteth aloft man's griefs below. Though sun-bronzed Phocian maidens lave Their kerchiefs in Castalia's spring, The Muses linger round its wave, And aid the pilgrim sent to sing. 467 And, listening there, I seem to hear The unseen Oracle say, ``Be strong: Subdue the sigh, repress the tear, And let not sorrow silence Song. ``You now have learnt enough from pain; And, if worse anguish lurk behind, Breathe in it some unselfish strain, And with grief's wisdom aid your kind. ``Who but of his own suffering sings, Is like an eagle, robbed, distressed, That vainly shrieks and beats its wings, Because it cannot find its nest. ``Let male Imagination wed The orphan, Sorrow, to console Its virgin loneness, whence are bred Serenity and self-control. ``Hence let the classic breezes blow You to your Land beyond the sea, That you may make, for others' woe, Your own a healing melody; ``To wintry woe no more a slave, But, having dried your April tears, Behold a helpful harvest wave From ridges of the fallow years.'' LII Rebuked thus by the stately Past, Whose solemn choruses endure Through voices new and visions vast, And centuries of sepulture, Because, serene, it never blinked At sheen or shadow of the sun, But Hades and Olympus linked 468 With Salamis and Marathon; Which held despondency at bay And, while revering Fate's decree, Reconciled with majestic lay Man to the Human Tragedy; To Gods of every land I vowed, Judaea, Hellas, Mecca, Rome, No more to live by sorrow bowed, But, wending backward to my home, Thenceforth to muse on woe more wide Than individual distress, The loftier Muses for my guide, Minerva for my monitress; Nor yet to scorn the tender aid Of Christian martyr, virgin, sage, And, meekly pondering in the shade, Proffer ripe counsel to my Age. And, haply, since 'tis Song alone Can baffle death, and conquer time, Maiden unborn in days unknown, Under the leaves of fragrant lime, Scanning the verse that here is writ, While cherishing some secret smart Of love or loss, may glean from it Some comfort for her weary heart; And, gently warned, grave minds may own The world hath more to bear than they, And, while I dream 'neath mossy stone, Repeat my name, and love my lay. LIII Scarce to the all-indwelling Power That vow was uttered, ere there came 469 A messenger in boyhood's flower, Winged with his search, his face aflame. From Amphissa he straight had clomb, Thridding that devious mountain land, With letter from my far-off home, And written by my Loved One's hand. ``Come to me where I drooping lie. None yet have died of Love, they say: Withal, I sometimes think that I Have prayed and sighed my life away. ``I want your absolution, dear, For whatso wrong I may have done; My conscience waneth less severe, In softness of the setting sun. ``'Twas I, 'twas I, far more than you, That stood in need, as now I see, Stooping, to enter meekly through The Doorway of Humility. ``In vain I turn to Throne of Grace, Where sorrows cease, and tears are dry; I fain once more would see your face, And hear your voice, before I die.'' ENGLAND LIV The oak logs smoulder on my hearth, Though round them hums no household talk; The roses in the garden-garth Hang mournfully on curving stalk. My wolf-hound round me leaps and bays, That wailed lost footsteps when I went: He little knows the grief that weighs 470 On my return from banishment. Half Autumn now, half Summer yet, For Nature hath a human heart, It seems as though they, having met, To take farewell, are loth to part. The splendour of the Year's decline Hath not yet come. One still can see Late honeysuckle intertwine With Maiden's-Bower and briony. The bracken-fronds, fast yellowing, tower From out sere needles of the pine; Now hawkweed blooms where foxgloves flower, And bramble where once eglantine. And, as I wend with hurrying feet Across the park, along the lane That leads unto the hamlet street, And cradle of my bliss and bane, In cottage plots on either side, O'er mignonette and fragrant stock Soar tiger-lilies lithe and tall, And homely-sheltered hollyhock. And when I reach the low grey wall That skirts God's-acre on the hill, I see, awaiting my recall, The Little Door stand open still. A dip, a slight descent, and then Into the Vicarage Walk I passed; It seemed as though the tongues of men Had left it since I saw it last. Round garden-plot, in westering sun, Her agëd parents slowly stepped: Her Mother had the face of one Who oft hath prayed, and oft hath wept. 471 She wore the silent plaintive grace Of Autumn just before its close, And on her slowly fading face The pathos of November rose. With pitying gaze and accents kind, ``Go in,'' she said, ``and mount the stair; And you through open door will find That Monica awaits you there.'' LV I mounted. At half-open door Pausing, I softly called her name, As one would pause and halt before Heaven's Gateway. But no answer came. She lies, methought, in Sleep's caress, So, passing in, I seemed to see, So saintly white the vision, less A chamber than a Sanctuary. Vestured in white, on snow-white bed, She lay, as dreaming something sweet, Madonna lilies at her head, Madonna lilies at her feet. A thought, I did not dare to speak,``Is this the sleep of life or death?'' And, with my cheek against her cheek, Listening, I seemed to hear her breath. 'Twas Love's last blindness not to see Her sinless soul had taken wing Unto the Land, if such there be, Where saints adore, and Seraphs sing. And yet I felt within my heart, Though lids were closed and lips were dumb, That, for Love's sake, her soul in part Had lingered here, till I should come. 472 I kissed her irresponsive hand, I laid my lips on her cold brow, That She, like me, should understand 'Twas thus I sealed our nuptial vow. And then I saw upon her breast A something writ, she fain had said Had I been near, to me addressed, Which, kneeling down, I took and read. LVI ``I prayed I might prolong my years Till you could come and hush my sighs, And dry my penitential tears; But Heaven hath willed it otherwise: ``That I may expiate the wrong By me inflicted on us both, When, yet Love's novice, feebly strong, I sinned against Love's sovran troth. ``Now Death, the mirror unto Life, Shows me that nought should keep apart Those who, though sore perplexed by strife 'Twixt Faith and Doubt, are one in heart. ``For Doubt is one with Faith when they, Who doubt, for Truth's sake suffering live; And Faith meanwhile should hope and pray, Withholding not what Love can give. ``We lead the blind by voice and hand, And not by light they cannot see; We are not framed to understand The How and Why of such as He, ``But natured only to rejoice At every sound or sign of hope, And, guided by the still small voice, 473 In patience through the darkness grope; ``Until our finer sense expands, And we exchange for holier sight The earthly help of voice and hands, And in His light behold the Light. ``Had my poor Love but been more wise, I should have ta'en you to my breast, Striving to hush your plaintive cries, And rock your Reason back to rest. ``But, though alone you now must tread Where we together should have trod, In loneliness you may be led, Through faith in me, to Faith in God. ``With tranquil purpose, fervent mind, Foster, while you abide on earth, And humbly proffer to your kind, The gift assigned to you at birth. ``As in the far-off boyish year When did your singing voice awake, Disinterestedly revere And love it for its own great sake. ``And when life takes autumnal hues, With fervent reminiscence woo All the affections of the Muse, And write the poem lived by you. ``And should, until your days shall end, You still the lyric voice retain, With its seductive music blend A graver note, a loftier strain. ``While buoyant youth and manhood strong Follow where Siren sounds entice, The Deities of Love and Song, Rapture and loveliness, suffice. 474 ``But when decay, and pain, and loss, Remind one of the Goal forgot, And we in turn must bear the Cross, The Pagan Gods can help us not. ``Nor need you then seek, far and near, More sumptuous shrines on alien strand, But with domestic mind revere The Ritual of your native Land. ``The Little Door stands open wide, And, if you meekly pass therethrough, Though I no longer kneel inside, I shall be hovering near to you. ``Farewell! till you shall learn the whole Of what we here but see in part. Now I to God commend my soul, And unto you I leave my heart.'' LVII I wended up the slope once more To where the Church stands lone and still, And passed beneath the Little Door, My will the subject of Her will. The sunset rays through pictured pane Fell, fretted into weft and woof, On transept, nave, and aisle, to wane On column cold and vaulted roof. Within the carven altar screen Were lilies tall, and white, and fair, So like to those I late had seen, It seemed She must be sleeping there. Mutely I knelt, with bended brow And shaded eyes, but heart intent, To learn, should any teach me now, What Life, and Love, and Sorrow meant. 475 And there remained until the shroud Of dusk foretold the coming night; And then I rose, and prayed aloud, ``Let there be Light! Let there be Light!'' ~ Alfred Austin,

918:Obiit Mdcccxxxiii (Entire) Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made. Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just. Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine. Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they. We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see; And yet we trust it comes from thee, A beam in darkness: let it grow. Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before, But vaster. We are fools and slight; We mock thee when we do not fear: But help thy foolish ones to bear; Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. 414 Forgive what seem’d my sin in me; What seem’d my worth since I began; For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to thee. Forgive my grief for one removed, Thy creature, whom I found so fair. I trust he lives in thee, and there I find him worthier to be loved. Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Confusions of a wasted youth; Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in thy wisdom make me wise. I. I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things. But who shall so forecast the years And find in loss a gain to match? Or reach a hand thro’ time to catch The far-off interest of tears? Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d, Let darkness keep her raven gloss: Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground, Than that the victor Hours should scorn The long result of love, and boast, ‘Behold the man that loved and lost, But all he was is overworn.’ II. 415 Old Yew, which graspest at the stones That name the under-lying dead, Thy fibres net the dreamless head, Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. The seasons bring the flower again, And bring the firstling to the flock; And in the dusk of thee, the clock Beats out the little lives of men. O not for thee the glow, the bloom, Who changest not in any gale, Nor branding summer suns avail To touch thy thousand years of gloom: And gazing on thee, sullen tree, Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, I seem to fail from out my blood And grow incorporate into thee. III. O Sorrow, cruel fellowship, O Priestess in the vaults of Death, O sweet and bitter in a breath, What whispers from thy lying lip? ‘The stars,’ she whispers, ‘blindly run; A web is wov’n across the sky; From out waste places comes a cry, And murmurs from the dying sun: ‘And all the phantom, Nature, stands– With all the music in her tone, A hollow echo of my own,– A hollow form with empty hands.’ And shall I take a thing so blind, Embrace her as my natural good; Or crush her, like a vice of blood, Upon the threshold of the mind? 416 IV. To Sleep I give my powers away; My will is bondsman to the dark; I sit within a helmless bark, And with my heart I muse and say: O heart, how fares it with thee now, That thou should’st fail from thy desire, Who scarcely darest to inquire, ‘What is it makes me beat so low?’ Something it is which thou hast lost, Some pleasure from thine early years. Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears, That grief hath shaken into frost! Such clouds of nameless trouble cross All night below the darken’d eyes; With morning wakes the will, and cries, ‘Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.’ V. I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap me o’er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold: But that large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more. 417 VI. One writes, that ‘Other friends remain,’ That ‘Loss is common to the race’– And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain. That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more: Too common! Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break. O father, wheresoe’er thou be, Who pledgest now thy gallant son; A shot, ere half thy draught be done, Hath still’d the life that beat from thee. O mother, praying God will save Thy sailor,–while thy head is bow’d, His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud Drops in his vast and wandering grave. Ye know no more than I who wrought At that last hour to please him well; Who mused on all I had to tell, And something written, something thought; Expecting still his advent home; And ever met him on his way With wishes, thinking, ‘here to-day,’ Or ‘here to-morrow will he come.’ O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove, That sittest ranging golden hair; And glad to find thyself so fair, Poor child, that waitest for thy love! For now her father’s chimney glows In expectation of a guest; And thinking ‘this will please him best,’ She takes a riband or a rose; 418 For he will see them on to-night; And with the thought her colour burns; And, having left the glass, she turns Once more to set a ringlet right; And, even when she turn’d, the curse Had fallen, and her future Lord Was drown’d in passing thro’ the ford, Or kill’d in falling from his horse. O what to her shall be the end? And what to me remains of good? To her, perpetual maidenhood, And unto me no second friend. VII. Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand, A hand that can be clasp’d no more– Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door. He is not here; but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day. VIII. A happy lover who has come To look on her that loves him well, Who ’lights and rings the gateway bell, And learns her gone and far from home; 419 He saddens, all the magic light Dies off at once from bower and hall, And all the place is dark, and all The chambers emptied of delight: So find I every pleasant spot In which we two were wont to meet, The field, the chamber and the street, For all is dark where thou art not. Yet as that other, wandering there In those deserted walks, may find A flower beat with rain and wind, Which once she foster'd up with care; So seems it in my deep regret, O my forsaken heart, with thee And this poor flower of poesy Which little cared for fades not yet. But since it pleased a vanish’d eye, I go to plant it on his tomb, That if it can it there may bloom, Or dying, there at least may die. IX. Fair ship, that from the Italian shore Sailest the placid ocean-plains With my lost Arthur’s loved remains, Spread thy full wings, and waft him o’er. So draw him home to those that mourn In vain; a favourable speed Ruffle thy mirror’d mast, and lead Thro’ prosperous floods his holy urn. All night no ruder air perplex Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright As our pure love, thro’ early light Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. 420 Sphere all your lights around, above; Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow; Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, My friend, the brother of my love; My Arthur, whom I shall not see Till all my widow’d race be run; Dear as the mother to the son, More than my brothers are to me. X. I hear the noise about thy keel; I hear the bell struck in the night: I see the cabin-window bright; I see the sailor at the wheel. Thou bring’st the sailor to his wife, And travell’d men from foreign lands; And letters unto trembling hands; And, thy dark freight, a vanish’d life. So bring him: we have idle dreams: This look of quiet flatters thus Our home-bred fancies: O to us, The fools of habit, sweeter seems To rest beneath the clover sod, That takes the sunshine and the rains, Or where the kneeling hamlet drains The chalice of the grapes of God; Than if with thee the roaring wells Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine; And hands so often clasp’d in mine, Should toss with tangle and with shells. XI. 421 Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only thro’ the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground: Calm and deep peace on this high wold, And on these dews that drench the furze, And all the silvery gossamers That twinkle into green and gold: Calm and still light on yon great plain That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, And crowded farms and lessening towers, To mingle with the bounding main: Calm and deep peace in this wide air, These leaves that redden to the fall; And in my heart, if calm at all, If any calm, a calm despair: Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, And waves that sway themselves in rest, And dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep. XII. Lo, as a dove when up she springs To bear thro’ Heaven a tale of woe, Some dolorous message knit below The wild pulsation of her wings; Like her I go; I cannot stay; I leave this mortal ark behind, A weight of nerves without a mind, And leave the cliffs, and haste away O’er ocean-mirrors rounded large, And reach the glow of southern skies, And see the sails at distance rise, And linger weeping on the marge, 422 And saying; ‘Comes he thus, my friend? Is this the end of all my care?’ And circle moaning in the air: ‘Is this the end? Is this the end?’ And forward dart again, and play About the prow, and back return To where the body sits, and learn That I have been an hour away. XIII. Tears of the widower, when he sees A late-lost form that sleep reveals, And moves his doubtful arms, and feels Her place is empty, fall like these; Which weep a loss for ever new, A void where heart on heart reposed; And, where warm hands have prest and closed, Silence, till I be silent too. Which weeps the comrade of my choice, An awful thought, a life removed, The human-hearted man I loved, A Spirit, not a breathing voice. Come Time, and teach me, many years, I do not suffer in a dream; For now so strange do these things seem, Mine eyes have leisure for their tears; My fancies time to rise on wing, And glance about the approaching sails, As tho’ they brought but merchants’ bales, And not the burthen that they bring. XIV. 423 If one should bring me this report, That thou hadst touch’d the land to-day, And I went down unto the quay, And found thee lying in the port; And standing, muffled round with woe, Should see thy passengers in rank Come stepping lightly down the plank, And beckoning unto those they know; And if along with these should come The man I held as half-divine; Should strike a sudden hand in mine, And ask a thousand things of home; And And And And I should tell him all my pain, how my life had droop’d of late, he should sorrow o’er my state marvel what possess’d my brain; And I perceived no touch of change, No hint of death in all his frame, But found him all in all the same, I should not feel it to be strange. XV. To-night the winds begin to rise And roar from yonder dropping day: The last red leaf is whirl’d away, The rooks are blown about the skies; The forest crack’d, the waters curl’d, The cattle huddled on the lea; And wildly dash’d on tower and tree The sunbeam strikes along the world: And but for fancies, which aver That all thy motions gently pass Athwart a plane of molten glass, I scarce could brook the strain and stir 424 That makes the barren branches loud; And but for fear it is not so, The wild unrest that lives in woe Would dote and pore on yonder cloud That rises upward always higher, And onward drags a labouring breast, And topples round the dreary west, A looming bastion fringed with fire. XVI. What words are these have fall’n from me? Can calm despair and wild unrest Be tenants of a single breast, Or sorrow such a changeling be? Or doth she only seem to take The touch of change in calm or storm; But knows no more of transient form In her deep self, than some dead lake That holds the shadow of a lark Hung in the shadow of a heaven? Or has the shock, so harshly given, Confused me like the unhappy bark That strikes by night a craggy shelf, And staggers blindly ere she sink? And stunn’d me from my power to think And all my knowledge of myself; And made me that delirious man Whose fancy fuses old and new, And flashes into false and true, And mingles all without a plan? XVII. 425 Thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze Compell’d thy canvas, and my prayer Was as the whisper of an air To breathe thee over lonely seas. For I in spirit saw thee move Thro’ circles of the bounding sky, Week after week: the days go by: Come quick, thou bringest all I love. Henceforth, wherever thou may’st roam, My blessing, like a line of light, Is on the waters day and night, And like a beacon guards thee home. So may whatever tempest mars Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark; And balmy drops in summer dark Slide from the bosom of the stars. So kind an office hath been done, Such precious relics brought by thee; The dust of him I shall not see Till all my widow’d race be run. XVIII. ’Tis well; ’tis something; we may stand Where he in English earth is laid, And from his ashes may be made The violet of his native land. ’Tis little; but it looks in truth As if the quiet bones were blest Among familiar names to rest And in the places of his youth. Come then, pure hands, and bear the head That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep, And come, whatever loves to weep, And hear the ritual of the dead. 426 Ah yet, ev’n yet, if this might be, I, falling on his faithful heart, Would breathing thro’ his lips impart The life that almost dies in me; That dies not, but endures with pain, And slowly forms the the firmer mind, Treasuring the look it cannot find, The words that are not heard again. XIX. The Danube to the Severn gave The darken’d heart that beat no more; They laid him by the pleasant shore, And in the hearing of the wave. There twice a day the Severn fills; That salt sea-water passes by, And hushes half the babbling Wye, And makes a silence in the hills. The Wye is hush’d nor moved along, And hush’d my deepest grief of all, When fill’d with tears that cannot fall, I brim with sorrow drowning song. The tide flows down, the wave again Is vocal in its wooded walls; My deeper anguish also falls, And I can speak a little then. XX. The lesser griefs that may be said, That breathe a thousand tender vows, Are but as servants in a house Where lies the master newly dead; 427 Who speak their feeling as it is, And weep the fulness from the mind: ‘It will be hard,’ they say, ‘to find Another service such as this.’ My lighter moods are like to these, That out of words a comfort win; But there are other griefs within, And tears that at their fountain freeze; For by the hearth the children sit Cold in that atmosphere of Death, And scarce endure to draw the breath, Or like to noiseless phantoms flit: But open converse is there none, So much the vital spirits sink To see the vacant chair, and think, ‘How good! how kind! and he is gone.’ XXI. I sing to him that rests below, And, since the grasses round me wave, I take the grasses of the grave, And make them pipes whereon to blow. The traveller hears me now and then, And sometimes harshly will he speak: ‘This fellow would make weakness weak, And melt the waxen hearts of men.’ Another answers, ‘Let him be, He loves to make parade of pain, That with his piping he may gain The praise that comes to constancy.’ A third is wroth: ‘Is this an hour For private sorrow’s barren song, When more and more the people throng The chairs and thrones of civil power? 428 ‘A time to sicken and to swoon, When Science reaches forth her arms To feel from world to world, and charms Her secret from the latest moon?’ Behold, ye speak an idle thing: Ye never knew the sacred dust: I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing: And one is glad; her note is gay, For now her little ones have ranged; And one is sad; her note is changed, Because her brood is stol’n away. XXII. The path by which we twain did go, Which led by tracts that pleased us well, Thro’ four sweet years arose and fell, From flower to flower, from snow to snow: And we with singing cheer’d the way, And, crown’d with all the season lent, From April on to April went, And glad at heart from May to May: But where the path we walk’d began To slant the fifth autumnal slope, As we descended following Hope, There sat the Shadow fear’d of man; Who broke our fair companionship, And spread his mantle dark and cold, And wrapt thee formless in the fold, And dull’d the murmur on thy lip, And bore thee where I could not see Nor follow, tho’ I walk in haste, And think, that somewhere in the waste 429 The Shadow sits and waits for me. XXIII. Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, Or breaking into song by fits, Alone, alone, to where he sits, The Shadow cloak’d from head to foot, Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, I wander, often falling lame, And looking back to whence I came, Or on to where the pathway leads; And crying, How changed from where it ran Thro’ lands where not a leaf was dumb; But all the lavish hills would hum The murmur of a happy Pan: When each by turns was guide to each, And Fancy light from Fancy caught, And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech; And all we met was fair and good, And all was good that Time could bring, And all the secret of the Spring Moved in the chambers of the blood; And many an old philosophy On Argive heights divinely sang, And round us all the thicket rang To many a flute of Arcady. XXIV. And was the day of my delight As pure and perfect as I say? The very source and fount of Day 430 Is dash’d with wandering isles of night. If all was good and fair we met, This earth had been the Paradise It never look’d to human eyes Since our first Sun arose and set. And is it that the haze of grief Makes former gladness loom so great? The lowness of the present state, That sets the past in this relief? Or that the past will always win A glory from its being far; And orb into the perfect star We saw not, when we moved therein? XXV. I know that this was Life,–the track Whereon with equal feet we fared; And then, as now, the day prepared The daily burden for the back. But this it was that made me move As light as carrier-birds in air; I loved the weight I had to bear, Because it needed help of Love: Nor could I weary, heart or limb, When mighty Love would cleave in twain The lading of a single pain, And part it, giving half to him. XXVI. Still onward winds the dreary way; I with it; for I long to prove No lapse of moons can canker Love, Whatever fickle tongues may say. 431 And if that eye which watches guilt And goodness, and hath power to see Within the green the moulder’d tree, And towers fall’n as soon as built– Oh, if indeed that eye foresee Or see (in Him is no before) In more of life true life no more And Love the indifference to be, Then might I find, ere yet the morn Breaks hither over Indian seas, That Shadow waiting with the keys, To shroud me from my proper scorn. XXVII. I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods: I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time, Unfetter’d by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes; Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; ’Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. XXVIII. 432 The time draws near the birth of Christ: The moon is hid; the night is still; The Christmas bells from hill to hill Answer each other in the mist. Four voices of four hamlets round, From far and near, on mead and moor, Swell out and fail, as if a door Were shut between me and the sound: Each voice four changes on the wind, That now dilate, and now decrease, Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace, Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. This year I slept and woke with pain, I almost wish’d no more to wake, And that my hold on life would break Before I heard those bells again: But they my troubled spirit rule, For they controll’d me when a boy; They bring me sorrow touch’d with joy, The merry merry bells of Yule. XXIX. With such compelling cause to grieve As daily vexes household peace, And chains regret to his decease, How dare we keep our Christmas-eve; Which brings no more a welcome guest To enrich the threshold of the night With shower’d largess of delight In dance and song and game and jest? Yet go, and while the holly boughs Entwine the cold baptismal font, Make one wreath more for Use and Wont, That guard the portals of the house; 433 Old sisters of a day gone by, Gray nurses, loving nothing new; Why should they miss their yearly due Before their time? They too will die. XXX. With trembling fingers did we weave The holly round the Christmas hearth; A rainy cloud possess’d the earth, And sadly fell our Christmas-eve. At our old pastimes in the hall We gambol’d, making vain pretence Of gladness, with an awful sense Of one mute Shadow watching all. We paused: the winds were in the beech: We heard them sweep the winter land; And in a circle hand-in-hand Sat silent, looking each at each. Then echo-like our voices rang; We sung, tho’ every eye was dim, A merry song we sang with him Last year: impetuously we sang: We ceased: a gentler feeling crept Upon us: surely rest is meet: ‘They rest,’ we said, ‘their sleep is sweet,’ And silence follow’d, and we wept. Our voices took a higher range; Once more we sang: ‘They do not die Nor lose their mortal sympathy, Nor change to us, although they change; ‘Rapt from the fickle and the frail With gather’d power, yet the same, Pierces the keen seraphic flame From orb to orb, from veil to veil.’ 434 Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn, Draw forth the cheerful day from night: O Father, touch the east, and light The light that shone when Hope was born. XXXI. When Lazarus left his charnel-cave, And home to Mary’s house return’d, Was this demanded–if he yearn’d To hear her weeping by his grave? ‘Where wert thou, brother, those four days?’ There lives no record of reply, Which telling what it is to die Had surely added praise to praise. From every house the neighbours met, The streets were fill’d with joyful sound, A solemn gladness even crown’d The purple brows of Olivet. Behold a man raised up by Christ! The rest remaineth unreveal’d; He told it not; or something seal’d The lips of that Evangelist. XXXII. Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, Nor other thought her mind admits But, he was dead, and there he sits, And he that brought him back is there. Then one deep love doth supersede All other, when her ardent gaze Roves from the living brother’s face, And rests upon the Life indeed. 435 All subtle thought, all curious fears, Borne down by gladness so complete, She bows, she bathes the Saviour’s feet With costly spikenard and with tears. Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, Whose loves in higher love endure; What souls possess themselves so pure, Or is there blessedness like theirs? XXXIII. O thou that after toil and storm Mayst seem to have reach’d a purer air, Whose faith has centre everywhere, Nor cares to fix itself to form, Leave thou thy sister when she prays, Her early Heaven, her happy views; Nor thou with shadow’d hint confuse A life that leads melodious days. Her faith thro’ form is pure as thine, Her hands are quicker unto good: Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood To which she links a truth divine! See thou, that countest reason ripe In holding by the law within, Thou fail not in a world of sin, And ev’n for want of such a type. XXXIV. My own dim life should teach me this, That life shall live for evermore, Else earth is darkness at the core, And dust and ashes all that is; This round of green, this orb of flame, 436 Fantastic beauty; such as lurks In some wild Poet, when he works Without a conscience or an aim. What then were God to such as I? ’Twere hardly worth my while to choose Of things all mortal, or to use A little patience ere I die; ’Twere best at once to sink to peace, Like birds the charming serpent draws, To drop head-foremost in the jaws Of vacant darkness and to cease. XXXV. Yet if some voice that man could trust Should murmur from the narrow house, ‘The cheeks drop in; the body bows; Man dies: nor is there hope in dust:’ Might I not say? ‘Yet even here, But for one hour, O Love, I strive To keep so sweet a thing alive:’ But I should turn mine ears and hear The moanings of the homeless sea, The sound of streams that swift or slow Draw down Æonian hills, and sow The dust of continents to be; And Love would answer with a sigh, ‘The sound of that forgetful shore Will change my sweetness more and more, Half-dead to know that I shall die.’ O me, what profits it to put And idle case? If Death were seen At first as Death, Love had not been, Or been in narrowest working shut, 437 Mere fellowship of sluggish moods, Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape Had bruised the herb and crush’d the grape, And bask’d and batten’d in the woods. XXXVI. Tho’ truths in manhood darkly join, Deep-seated in our mystic frame, We yield all blessing to the name Of Him that made them current coin; For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, Where truth in closest words shall fail, When truth embodied in a tale Shall enter in at lowly doors. And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thought; Which he may read that binds the sheaf, Or builds the house, or digs the grave, And those wild eyes that watch the wave In roarings round the coral reef. XXXVII. Urania speaks with darken’d brow: ‘Thou pratest here where thou art least; This faith has many a purer priest, And many an abler voice than thou. ‘Go down beside thy native rill, On thy Parnassus set thy feet, And hear thy laurel whisper sweet About the ledges of the hill.’ And my Melpomene replies, 438 A touch of shame upon her cheek: ‘I am not worthy ev’n to speak Of thy prevailing mysteries; ‘For I am but an earthly Muse, And owning but a little art To lull with song an aching heart, And render human love his dues; ‘But brooding on the dear one dead, And all he said of things divine, (And dear to me as sacred wine To dying lips is all he said), ‘I murmur’d, as I came along, Of comfort clasp’d in truth reveal’d; And loiter’d in the master’s field, And darken’d sanctities with song.’ XXXVIII. With weary steps I loiter on, Tho’ always under alter’d skies The purple from the distance dies, My prospect and horizon gone. No joy the blowing season gives, The herald melodies of spring, But in the songs I love to sing A doubtful gleam of solace lives. If any care for what is here Survive in spirits render’d free, Then are these songs I sing of thee Not all ungrateful to thine ear. XXXIX. Old warder of these buried bones, 439 And answering now my random stroke With fruitful cloud and living smoke, Dark yew, that graspest at the stones And dippest toward the dreamless head, To thee too comes the golden hour When flower is feeling after flower; But Sorrow–fixt upon the dead, And darkening the dark graves of men,– What whisper’d from her lying lips? Thy gloom is kindled at the tips, And passes into gloom again. XL. Could we forget the widow’d hour And look on Spirits breathed away, As on a maiden in the day When first she wears her orange-flower! When crown’d with blessing she doth rise To take her latest leave of home, And hopes and light regrets that come Make April of her tender eyes; And doubtful joys the father move, And tears are on the mother’s face, As parting with a long embrace She enters other realms of love; Her office there to rear, to teach, Becoming as is meet and fit A link among the days, to knit The generations each with each; And, doubtless, unto thee is given A life that bears immortal fruit In those great offices that suit The full-grown energies of heaven. Ay me, the difference I discern! 440 How often shall her old fireside Be cheer’d with tidings of the bride, How often she herself return, And tell them all they would have told, And bring her babe, and make her boast, Till even those that miss’d her most Shall count new things as dear as old: But thou and I have shaken hands, Till growing winters lay me low; My paths are in the fields I know, And thine in undiscover’d lands. XLI. The spirit ere our fatal loss Did ever rise from high to higher; As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, As flies the lighter thro’ the gross. But thou art turn’d to something strange, And I have lost the links that bound Thy changes; here upon the ground, No more partaker of thy change. Deep folly! yet that this could be– That I could wing my will with might To leap the grades of life and light, And flash at once, my friend, to thee. For tho’ my nature rarely yields To that vague fear implied in death; Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath, The howlings from forgotten fields; Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor An inner trouble I behold, A spectral doubt which makes me cold, That I shall be thy mate no more, 441 Tho’ following with an upward mind The wonders that have come to thee, Thro’ all the secular to-be, But evermore a life behind. XLII. I vex my heart with fancies dim: He still outstript me in the race; It was but unity of place That made me dream I rank’d with him. And so may Place retain us still, And he the much-beloved again, A lord of large experience, train To riper growth the mind and will: And what delights can equal those That stir the spirit’s inner deeps, When one that loves but knows not, reaps A truth from one that loves and knows? XLIII. If Sleep and Death be truly one, And every spirit’s folded bloom Thro’ all its intervital gloom In some long trance should slumber on; Unconscious of the sliding hour, Bare of the body, might it last, And silent traces of the past Be all the colour of the flower: So then were nothing lost to man; So that still garden of the souls In many a figured leaf enrolls The total world since life began; And love will last as pure and whole 442 As when he loved me here in Time, And at the spiritual prime Rewaken with the dawning soul. XLIV. How fares it with the happy dead? For here the man is more and more; But he forgets the days before God shut the doorways of his head. The days have vanish’d, tone and tint, And yet perhaps the hoarding sense Gives out at times (he knows not whence) A little flash, a mystic hint; And in the long harmonious years (If Death so taste Lethean springs), May some dim touch of earthly things Surprise thee ranging with thy peers. If such a dreamy touch should fall, O turn thee round, resolve the doubt; My guardian angel will speak out In that high place, and tell thee all. XLV. The baby new to earth and sky, What time his tender palm is prest Against the circle of the breast, Has never thought that ‘this is I:’ But as he grows he gathers much, And learns the use of ‘I,’ and ‘me,’ And finds ‘I am not what I see, And other than the things I touch.’ So rounds he to a separate mind From whence clear memory may begin, 443 As thro’ the frame that binds him in His isolation grows defined. This use may lie in blood and breath, Which else were fruitless of their due, Had man to learn himself anew Beyond the second birth of Death. XLVI. We ranging down this lower track, The path we came by, thorn and flower, Is shadow’d by the growing hour, Lest life should fail in looking back. So be it: there no shade can last In that deep dawn behind the tomb, But clear from marge to marge shall bloom The eternal landscape of the past; A lifelong tract of time reveal’d; The fruitful hours of still increase; Days order’d in a wealthy peace, And those five years its richest field. O Love, thy province were not large, A bounded field, nor stretching far; Look also, Love, a brooding star, A rosy warmth from marge to marge. XLVII. That each, who seems a separate whole, Should move his rounds, and fusing all The skirts of self again, should fall Remerging in the general Soul, Is faith as vague as all unsweet: Eternal form shall still divide The eternal soul from all beside; 444 And I shall know him when we meet: And we shall sit at endless feast, Enjoying each the other’s good: What vaster dream can hit the mood Of Love on earth? He seeks at least Upon the last and sharpest height, Before the spirits fade away, Some landing-place, to clasp and say, ‘Farewell! We lose ourselves in light.’ XLVIII. If these brief lays, of Sorrow born, Were taken to be such as closed Grave doubts and answers here proposed, Then these were such as men might scorn: Her care is not to part and prove; She takes, when harsher moods remit, What slender shade of doubt may flit, And makes it vassal unto love: And hence, indeed, she sports with words, But better serves a wholesome law, And holds it sin and shame to draw The deepest measure from the chords: Nor dare she trust a larger lay, But rather loosens from the lip Short swallow-flights of song, that dip Their wings in tears, and skim away. XLIX. From art, from nature, from the schools, Let random influences glance, Like light in many a shiver’d lance 445 That breaks about the dappled pools: The lightest wave of thought shall lisp, The fancy’s tenderest eddy wreathe, The slightest air of song shall breathe To make the sullen surface crisp. And look thy look, and go thy way, But blame not thou the winds that make The seeming-wanton ripple break, The tender-pencil’d shadow play. Beneath all fancied hopes and fears Ay me, the sorrow deepens down, Whose muffled motions blindly drown The bases of my life in tears. L. Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick, And all the wheels of Being slow. Be near me when the sensuous frame Is rack’d with pangs that conquer trust; And Time, a maniac scattering dust, And Life, a Fury slinging flame. Be near me when my faith is dry, And men the flies of latter spring, That lay their eggs, and sting and sing And weave their petty cells and die. Be near me when I fade away, To point the term of human strife, And on the low dark verge of life The twilight of eternal day. LI. 446 Do we indeed desire the dead Should still be near us at our side? Is there no baseness we would hide? No inner vileness that we dread? Shall he for whose applause I strove, I had such reverence for his blame, See with clear eye some hidden shame And I be lessen’d in his love? I wrong the grave with fears untrue: Shall love be blamed for want of faith? There must be wisdom with great Death: The dead shall look me thro’ and thro’. Be near us when we climb or fall: Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours With larger other eyes than ours, To make allowance for us all. LII. I cannot love thee as I ought, For love reflects the thing beloved; My words are only words, and moved Upon the topmost froth of thought. ‘Yet blame not thou thy plaintive song,’ The Spirit of true love replied; ‘Thou canst not move me from thy side, Nor human frailty do me wrong. ‘What keeps a spirit wholly true To that ideal which he bears? What record? not the sinless years That breathed beneath the Syrian blue: ‘So fret not, like an idle girl, That life is dash’d with flecks of sin. Abide: thy wealth is gather’d in, When Time hath sunder’d shell from pearl.’ 447 LIII. How many a father have I seen, A sober man, among his boys, Whose youth was full of foolish noise, Who wears his manhood hale and green: And dare we to this fancy give, That had the wild oat not been sown, The soil, left barren, scarce had grown The grain by which a man may live? Or, if we held the doctrine sound For life outliving heats of youth, Yet who would preach it as a truth To those that eddy round and round? Hold thou the good: define it well: For fear divine Philosophy Should push beyond her mark, and be Procuress to the Lords of Hell. LIV. Oh yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy’d, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete; That not a worm is cloven in vain; That not a moth with vain desire Is shrivell’d in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another’s gain. 448 Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall At last–far off–at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. So runs my dream: but what am I? An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light: And with no language but a cry. LV. The wish, that of the living whole No life may fail beyond the grave, Derives it not from what we have The likest God within the soul? Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; That I, considering everywhere Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear, I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world’s altar-stairs That slope thro’ darkness up to God, I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope. LVI. 449 ‘So careful of the type?’ but no. From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, ‘A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go. ‘Thou makest thine appeal to me: I bring to life, I bring to death: The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more.’ And he, shall he, Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation’s final law– Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek’d against his creed– Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just, Be blown about the desert dust, Or seal’d within the iron hills? No more? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime, That tare each other in their slime, Were mellow music match’d with him. O life as futile, then, as frail! O for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer, or redress? Behind the veil, behind the veil. LVII. Peace; come away: the song of woe Is after all an earthly song: Peace; come away: we do him wrong To sing so wildly: let us go. 450 Come; let us go: your cheeks are pale; But half my life I leave behind: Methinks my friend is richly shrined; But I shall pass; my work will fail. Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, One set slow bell will seem to toll The passing of the sweetest soul That ever look’d with human eyes. I hear it now, and o’er and o’er, Eternal greetings to the dead; And ‘Ave, Ave, Ave,’ said, ‘Adieu, adieu’ for evermore. LVIII. In those sad words I took farewell: Like echoes in sepulchral halls, As drop by drop the water falls In vaults and catacombs, they fell; And, falling, idly broke the peace Of hearts that beat from day to day, Half-conscious of their dying clay, And those cold crypts where they shall cease. The high Muse answer’d: ‘Wherefore grieve Thy brethren with a fruitless tear? Abide a little longer here, And thou shalt take a nobler leave.’ LIX. O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me No casual mistress, but a wife, My bosom-friend and half of life; As I confess it needs must be; O Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood, 451 Be sometimes lovely like a bride, And put thy harsher moods aside, If thou wilt have me wise and good. My centred passion cannot move, Nor will it lessen from to-day; But I’ll have leave at times to play As with the creature of my love; And set thee forth, for thou art mine, With so much hope for years to come, That, howsoe’er I know thee, some Could hardly tell what name were thine. LX. He past; a soul of nobler tone: My spirit loved and loves him yet, Like some poor girl whose heart is set On one whose rank exceeds her own. He mixing with his proper sphere, She finds the baseness of her lot, Half jealous of she knows not what, And envying all that meet him there. The little village looks forlorn; She sighs amid her narrow days, Moving about the household ways, In that dark house where she was born. The foolish neighbours come and go, And tease her till the day draws by: At night she weeps, ‘How vain am I! How should he love a thing so low?’ LXI. If, in thy second state sublime, 452 Thy ransom’d reason change replies With all the circle of the wise, The perfect flower of human time; And if thou cast thine eyes below, How dimly character’d and slight, How dwarf’d a growth of cold and night, How blanch'd with darkness must I grow! Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore, Where thy first form was made a man: I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can The soul of Shakespeare love thee more. LXII. Tho’ if an eye that’s downward cast Could make thee somewhat blench or fail, Then be my love an idle tale, And fading legend of the past; And thou, as one that once declined, When he was little more than boy, On some unworthy heart with joy, But lives to wed an equal mind; And breathes a novel world, the while His other passion wholly dies, Or in the light of deeper eyes Is matter for a flying smile. LXIII. Yet pity for a horse o’er-driven, And love in which my hound has part, Can hang no weight upon my heart In its assumptions up to heaven; And I am so much more than these, As thou, perchance, art more than I, And yet I spare them sympathy, 453 And I would set their pains at ease. So mayst thou watch me where I weep, As, unto vaster motions bound, The circuits of thine orbit round A higher height, a deeper deep. LXIV. Dost thou look back on what hath been, As some divinely gifted man, Whose life in low estate began And on a simple village green; Who breaks his birth’s invidious bar, And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star; Who makes by force his merit known And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty state’s decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne; And moving up from high to higher, Becomes on Fortune’s crowning slope The pillar of a people’s hope, The centre of a world’s desire; Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, When all his active powers are still, A distant dearness in the hill, A secret sweetness in the stream, The limit of his narrower fate, While yet beside its vocal springs He play’d at counsellors and kings, With one that was his earliest mate; Who ploughs with pain his native lea And reaps the labour of his hands, 454 Or in the furrow musing stands; ‘Does my old friend remember me?’ LXV. Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt; I lull a fancy trouble-tost With ‘Love’s too precious to be lost, A little grain shall not be spilt.’ And in that solace can I sing, Till out of painful phases wrought There flutters up a happy thought, Self-balanced on a lightsome wing: Since we deserved the name of friends, And thine effect so lives in me, A part of mine may live in thee And move thee on to noble ends. LXVI. You thought my heart too far diseased; You wonder when my fancies play To find me gay among the gay, Like one with any trifle pleased. The shade by which my life was crost, Which makes a desert in the mind, Has made me kindly with my kind, And like to him whose sight is lost; Whose feet are guided thro’ the land, Whose jest among his friends is free, Who takes the children on his knee, And winds their curls about his hand: He plays with threads, he beats his chair For pastime, dreaming of the sky; His inner day can never die, 455 His night of loss is always there. LXVII. When on my bed the moonlight falls, I know that in thy place of rest By that broad water of the west, There comes a glory on the walls: Thy marble bright in dark appears, As slowly steals a silver flame Along the letters of thy name, And o’er the number of thy years. The mystic glory swims away; From off my bed the moonlight dies; And closing eaves of wearied eyes I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray: And then I know the mist is drawn A lucid veil from coast to coast, And in the dark church like a ghost Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn. LXVIII. When in the down I sink my head, Sleep, Death’s twin-brother, times my breath; Sleep, Death’s twin-brother, knows not Death, Nor can I dream of thee as dead: I walk as ere I walk’d forlorn, When all our path was fresh with dew, And all the bugle breezes blew Reveillée to the breaking morn. But what is this? I turn about, I find a trouble in thine eye, Which makes me sad I know not why, Nor can my dream resolve the doubt: 456 But ere the lark hath left the lea I wake, and I discern the truth; It is the trouble of my youth That foolish sleep transfers to thee. LXIX. I dream’d there would be Spring no more, That Nature’s ancient power was lost: The streets were black with smoke and frost, They chatter’d trifles at the door: I wander’d from the noisy town, I found a wood with thorny boughs: I took the thorns to bind my brows, I wore them like a civic crown: I met with scoffs, I met with scorns From youth and babe and hoary hairs: They call’d me in the public squares The fool that wears a crown of thorns: They call’d me fool, they call’d me child: I found an angel of the night; The voice was low, the look was bright; He look’d upon my crown and smiled: He reach’d the glory of a hand, That seem’d to touch it into leaf: The voice was not the voice of grief, The words were hard to understand. LXX. I cannot see the features right, When on the gloom I strive to paint The face I know; the hues are faint And mix with hollow masks of night; 457 Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought, A gulf that ever shuts and gapes, A hand that points, and palled shapes In shadowy thoroughfares of thought; And crowds that stream from yawning doors, And shoals of pucker’d faces drive; Dark bulks that tumble half alive, And lazy lengths on boundless shores; Till all at once beyond the will I hear a wizard music roll, And thro’ a lattice on the soul Looks thy fair face and makes it still. LXXI. Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance And madness, thou hast forged at last A night-long Present of the Past In which we went thro’ summer France. Hadst thou such credit with the soul? Then bring an opiate trebly strong, Drug down the blindfold sense of wrong That so my pleasure may be whole; While now we talk as once we talk’d Of men and minds, the dust of change, The days that grow to something strange, In walking as of old we walk’d Beside the river’s wooded reach, The fortress, and the mountain ridge, The cataract flashing from the bridge, The breaker breaking on the beach. LXXII. 458 Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again, And howlest, issuing out of night, With blasts that blow the poplar white, And lash with storm the streaming pane? Day, when my crown’d estate begun To pine in that reverse of doom, Which sicken’d every living bloom, And blurr’d the splendour of the sun; Who usherest in the dolorous hour With thy quick tears that make the rose Pull sideways, and the daisy close Her crimson fringes to the shower; Who might’st have heaved a windless flame Up the deep East, or, whispering, play’d A chequer-work of beam and shade Along the hills, yet look’d the same. As wan, as chill, as wild as now; Day, mark’d as with some hideous crime, When the dark hand struck down thro’ time, And cancell’d nature’s best: but thou, Lift as thou may’st thy burthen’d brows Thro’ clouds that drench the morning star, And whirl the ungarner’d sheaf afar, And sow the sky with flying boughs, And up thy vault with roaring sound Climb thy thick noon, disastrous day; Touch thy dull goal of joyless gray, And hide thy shame beneath the ground. LXXIII. So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be, How know I what had need of thee, For thou wert strong as thou wert true? 459 The fame is quench’d that I foresaw, The head hath miss’d an earthly wreath: I curse not nature, no, nor death; For nothing is that errs from law. We pass; the path that each man trod Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds: What fame is left for human deeds In endless age? It rests with God. O hollow wraith of dying fame, Fade wholly, while the soul exults, And self-infolds the large results Of force that would have forged a name. LXXIV. As sometimes in a dead man’s face, To those that watch it more and more, A likeness, hardly seen before, Comes out–to some one of his race: So, dearest, now thy brows are cold, I see thee what thou art, and know Thy likeness to the wise below, Thy kindred with the great of old. But there is more than I can see, And what I see I leave unsaid, Nor speak it, knowing Death has made His darkness beautiful with thee. LXXV. I leave thy praises unexpress’d In verse that brings myself relief, And by the measure of my grief I leave thy greatness to be guess’d; What practice howsoe’er expert 460 In fitting aptest words to things, Or voice the richest-toned that sings, Hath power to give thee as thou wert? I care not in these fading days To raise a cry that lasts not long, And round thee with the breeze of song To stir a little dust of praise. Thy leaf has perish’d in the green, And, while we breathe beneath the sun, The world which credits what is done Is cold to all that might have been. So here shall silence guard thy fame; But somewhere, out of human view, Whate’er thy hands are set to do Is wrought with tumult of acclaim. LXXVI. Take wings of fancy, and ascend, And in a moment set thy face Where all the starry heavens of space Are sharpen’d to a needle’s end; Take wings of foresight; lighten thro’ The secular abyss to come, And lo, thy deepest lays are dumb Before the mouldering of a yew; And if the matin songs, that woke The darkness of our planet, last, Thine own shall wither in the vast, Ere half the lifetime of an oak. Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain; And what are they when these remain The ruin’d shells of hollow towers? 461 LXXVII. What hope is here for modern rhyme To him, who turns a musing eye On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie Foreshorten’d in the tract of time? These mortal lullabies of pain May bind a book, may line a box, May serve to curl a maiden’s locks; Or when a thousand moons shall wane A man upon a stall may find, And, passing, turn the page that tells A grief, then changed to something else, Sung by a long-forgotten mind. But what of that? My darken’d ways Shall ring with music all the same; To breathe my loss is more than fame, To utter love more sweet than praise. LXXVIII. Again at Christmas did we weave The holly round the Christmas hearth; The silent snow possess’d the earth, And calmly fell our Christmas-eve: The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost, No wing of wind the region swept, But over all things brooding slept The quiet sense of something lost. As in the winters left behind, Again our ancient games had place, The mimic picture’s breathing grace, And dance and song and hoodman-blind. Who show’d a token of distress? 462 No single tear, no mark of pain: O sorrow, then can sorrow wane? O grief, can grief be changed to less? O last regret, regret can die! No–mixt with all this mystic frame, Her deep relations are the same, But with long use her tears are dry. LXXIX. ‘More than my brothers are to me,’– Let this not vex thee, noble heart! I know thee of what force thou art To hold the costliest love in fee. But thou and I are one in kind, As moulded like in Nature’s mint; And hill and wood and field did print The same sweet forms in either mind. For us the same cold streamlet curl’d Thro’ all his eddying coves; the same All winds that roam the twilight came In whispers of the beauteous world. At one dear knee we proffer’d vows, One lesson from one book we learn’d, Ere childhood’s flaxen ringlet turn’d To black and brown on kindred brows. And so my wealth resembles thine, But he was rich where I was poor, And he supplied my want the more As his unlikeness fitted mine. LXXX. If any vague desire should rise, 463 That holy Death ere Arthur died Had moved me kindly from his side, And dropt the dust on tearless eyes; Then fancy shapes, as fancy can, The grief my loss in him had wrought, A grief as deep as life or thought, But stay’d in peace with God and man. I make a picture in the brain; I hear the sentence that he speaks; He bears the burthen of the weeks But turns his burthen into gain. His credit thus shall set me free; And, influence-rich to soothe and save, Unused example from the grave Reach out dead hands to comfort me. LXXXI. Could I have said while he was here, ‘My love shall now no further range; There cannot come a mellower change, For now is love mature in ear.’ Love, then, had hope of richer store: What end is here to my complaint? This haunting whisper makes me faint, ‘More years had made me love thee more.’ But Death returns an answer sweet: ‘My sudden frost was sudden gain, And gave all ripeness to the grain, It might have drawn from after-heat.’ LXXXII. I wage not any feud with Death For changes wrought on form and face; 464 No lower life that earth’s embrace May breed with him, can fright my faith. Eternal process moving on, From state to state the spirit walks; And these are but the shatter’d stalks, Or ruin’d chrysalis of one. Nor blame I Death, because he bare The use of virtue out of earth: I know transplanted human worth Will bloom to profit, otherwhere. For this alone on Death I wreak The wrath that garners in my heart; He put our lives so far apart We cannot hear each other speak. LXXXIII. Dip down upon the northern shore, O sweet new-year delaying long; Thou doest expectant nature wrong; Delaying long, delay no more. What stays thee from the clouded noons, Thy sweetness from its proper place? Can trouble live with April days, Or sadness in the summer moons? Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, The little speedwell’s darling blue, Deep tulips dash’d with fiery dew, Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire. O thou, new-year, delaying long, Delayest the sorrow in my blood, That longs to burst a frozen bud And flood a fresher throat with song. 465 LXXXIV. When I contemplate all alone The life that had been thine below, And fix my thoughts on all the glow To which thy crescent would have grown; I see thee sitting crown’d with good, A central warmth diffusing bliss In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss, On all the branches of thy blood; Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine; For now the day was drawing on, When thou should’st link thy life with one Of mine own house, and boys of thine Had babbled ‘Uncle’ on my knee; But that remorseless iron hour Made cypress of her orange flower, Despair of Hope, and earth of thee. I seem to meet their least desire, To clap their cheeks, to call them mine. I see their unborn faces shine Beside the never-lighted fire. I see myself an honour’d guest, Thy partner in the flowery walk Of letters, genial table-talk, Or deep dispute, and graceful jest; While now thy prosperous labour fills The lips of men with honest praise, And sun by sun the happy days Descend below the golden hills With promise of a morn as fair; And all the train of bounteous hours Conduct by paths of growing powers, To reverence and the silver hair; Till slowly worn her earthly robe, 466 Her lavish mission richly wrought, Leaving great legacies of thought, Thy spirit should fail from off the globe; What time mine own might also flee, As link’d with thine in love and fate, And, hovering o’er the dolorous strait To the other shore, involved in thee, Arrive at last the blessed goal, And He that died in Holy Land Would reach us out the shining hand, And take us as a single soul. What reed was that on which I leant? Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake The old bitterness again, and break The low beginnings of content. LXXXV. This truth came borne with bier and pall, I felt it, when I sorrow’d most, ’Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all– O true in word, and tried in deed, Demanding, so to bring relief To this which is our common grief, What kind of life is that I lead; And whether trust in things above Be dimm’d of sorrow, or sustain’d; And whether love for him have drain’d My capabilities of love; Your words have virtue such as draws A faithful answer from the breast, Thro’ light reproaches, half exprest, And loyal unto kindly laws. 467 My blood an even tenor kept, Till on mine ear this message falls, That in Vienna’s fatal walls God’s finger touch’d him, and he slept. The great Intelligences fair That range above our mortal state, In circle round the blessed gate, Received and gave him welcome there; And led him thro’ the blissful climes, And show'd him in the fountain fresh All knowledge that the sons of flesh Shall gather in the cycled times. But I remained, whose hopes were dim, Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth, To wander on a darkened earth, Where all things round me breathed of him. friendship, equal poised control, heart, with kindliest motion warm, sacred essence, other form, solemn ghost, O crowned soul! Yet none could better know than I, How much of act at human hands The sense of human will demands By which we dare to live or die. Whatever way my days decline, I felt and feel, tho’ left alone, His being working in mine own, The footsteps of his life in mine; A life that all the Muses decked With gifts of grace, that might express All comprehensive tenderness, All-subtilising intellect: And so my passion hath not swerved To works of weakness, but I find 468 An image comforting the mind, And in my grief a strength reserved. Likewise the imaginative woe, That loved to handle spiritual strife, Diffused the shock thro’ all my life, But in the present broke the blow. My pulses therefore beat again For other friends that once I met; Nor can it suit me to forget The mighty hopes that make us men. I woo your love: I count it crime To mourn for any overmuch; I, the divided half of such A friendship as had master’d Time; Which masters Time indeed, and is Eternal, separate from fears: The all-assuming months and years Can take no part away from this: But Summer on the steaming floods, And Spring that swells the narrow brooks, And Autumn, with a noise of rooks, That gather in the waning woods, And every pulse of wind and wave Recalls, in change of light or gloom, My old affection of the tomb, And my prime passion in the grave: My old affection of the tomb, A part of stillness, yearns to speak: ‘Arise, and get thee forth and seek A friendship for the years to come. ‘I watch thee from the quiet shore; Thy spirit up to mine can reach; But in dear words of human speech We two communicate no more.’ 469 And I, ‘Can clouds of nature stain The starry clearness of the free? How is it? Canst thou feel for me Some painless sympathy with pain?’ And lightly does the whisper fall; ‘’Tis hard for thee to fathom this; I triumph in conclusive bliss, And that serene result of all.’ So hold I commerce with the dead; Or so methinks the dead would say; Or so shall grief with symbols play And pining life be fancy-fed. Now looking to some settled end, That these things pass, and I shall prove A meeting somewhere, love with love, I crave your pardon, O my friend; If not so fresh, with love as true, I, clasping brother-hands aver I could not, if I would, transfer The whole I felt for him to you. For which be they that hold apart The promise of the golden hours? First love, first friendship, equal powers, That marry with the virgin heart. Still mine, that cannot but deplore, That beats within a lonely place, That yet remembers his embrace, But at his footstep leaps no more, My heart, tho’ widow’d, may not rest Quite in the love of what is gone, But seeks to beat in time with one That warms another living breast. Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring, 470 Knowing the primrose yet is dear, The primrose of the later year, As not unlike to that of Spring. LXXXVI. Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, That rollest from the gorgeous gloom Of evening over brake and bloom And meadow, slowly breathing bare The round of space, and rapt below Thro’ all the dewy-tassell’d wood, And shadowing down the horned flood In ripples, fan my brows and blow The fever from my cheek, and sigh The full new life that feeds thy breath Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, Ill brethren, let the fancy fly From belt to belt of crimson seas On leagues of odour streaming far, To where in yonder orient star A hundred spirits whisper ‘Peace.’ LXXXVII. I past beside the reverend walls In which of old I wore the gown; I roved at random thro’ the town, And saw the tumult of the halls; And heard one more in college fanes The storm their high-built organs make, And thunder-music, rolling, shake The prophet blazon’d on the panes; And caught one more the distant shout, The measured pulse of racing oars 471 Among the willows; paced the shores And many a bridge, and all about The same gray flats again, and felt The same, but not the same; and last Up that long walk of limes I past To see the rooms in which he dwelt. Another name was on the door: I linger’d; all within was noise Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys That crash’d the glass and beat the floor; Where once we held debate, a band Of youthful friends, on mind and art, And labour, and the changing mart, And all the framework of the land; When one would aim an arrow fair, But send it slackly from the string; And one would pierce an outer ring, And one an inner, here and there; And last the master-bowman, he, Would cleave the mark. A willing ear We lent him. Who, but hung to hear The rapt oration flowing free From point to point, with power and grace And music in the bounds of law, To those conclusions when we saw The God within him light his face, And seem to lift the form, and glow In azure orbits heavenly wise; And over those ethereal eyes The bar of Michael Angelo. LXXXVIII. 472 Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, Rings Eden thro’ the budded quicks, O tell me where the senses mix, O tell me where the passions meet, Whence radiate: fierce extremes employ Thy spirits in the darkening leaf, And in the midmost heart of grief Thy passion clasps a secret joy: And I–my harp would prelude woe– I cannot all command the strings; The glory of the sum of things Will flash along the chords and go. LXXXIX. Witch-elms that counterchange the floor Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright; And thou, with all thy breadth and height Of foliage, towering sycamore; How often, hither wandering down, My Arthur found your shadows fair, And shook to all the liberal air The dust and din and steam of town: He brought an eye for all he saw; He mixt in all our simple sports; They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts And dusty purlieus of the law. O joy to him in this retreat, Immantled in ambrosial dark, To drink the cooler air, and mark The landscape winking thro’ the heat: O sound to rout the brood of cares, The sweep of scythe in morning dew, The gust that round the garden flew, And tumbled half the mellowing pears! 473 O bliss, when all in circle drawn About him, heart and ear were fed To hear him, as he lay and read The Tuscan poets on the lawn: Or in the all-golden afternoon A guest, or happy sister, sung, Or here she brought the harp and flung A ballad to the brightening moon: Nor less it pleased in livelier moods, Beyond the bounding hill to stray, And break the livelong summer day With banquet in the distant woods; Whereat we glanced from theme to theme, Discuss’d the books to love or hate, Or touch’d the changes of the state, Or threaded some Socratic dream; But if I praised the busy town, He loved to rail against it still, For ‘ground in yonder social mill We rub each other’s angles down, ‘And merge’ he said ‘in form and gloss The picturesque of man and man.’ We talk’d: the stream beneath us ran, The wine-flask lying couch’d in moss, Or cool’d within the glooming wave; And last, returning from afar, Before the crimson-circled star Had fall’n into her father’s grave, And brushing ankle-deep in flowers, We heard behind the woodbine veil The milk that bubbled in the pail, And buzzings of the honied hours. 474 XC. He tasted love with half his mind, Nor ever drank the inviolate spring Where nighest heaven, who first could fling This bitter seed among mankind; That could the dead, whose dying eyes Were closed with wail, resume their life, They would but find in child and wife An iron welcome when they rise: ’Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine, To pledge them with a kindly tear, To talk them o’er, to wish them here, To count their memories half divine; But if they came who past away, Behold their brides in other hands; The hard heir strides about their lands, And will not yield them for a day. Yea, tho’ their sons were none of these, Not less the yet-loved sire would make Confusion worse than death, and shake The pillars of domestic peace. Ah dear, but come thou back to me: Whatever change the years have wrought, I find not yet one lonely thought That cries against my wish for thee. XCI. When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, And rarely pipes the mounted thrush; Or underneath the barren bush Flits by the sea-blue bird of March; Come, wear the form by which I know Thy spirit in time among thy peers; The hope of unaccomplish’d years 475 Be large and lucid round thy brow. When summer’s hourly-mellowing change May breathe, with many roses sweet, Upon the thousand waves of wheat, That ripple round the lonely grange; Come: not in watches of the night, But where the sunbeam broodeth warm, Come, beauteous in thine after form, And like a finer light in light. XCII. If any vision should reveal Thy likeness, I might count it vain As but the canker of the brain; Yea, tho’ it spake and made appeal To chances where our lots were cast Together in the days behind, I might but say, I hear a wind Of memory murmuring the past. Yea, tho’ it spake and bared to view A fact within the coming year; And tho’ the months, revolving near, Should prove the phantom-warning true, They might not seem thy prophecies, But spiritual presentiments, And such refraction of events As often rises ere they rise. XCIII. I shall not see thee. Dare I say No spirit ever brake the band That stays him from the native land 476 Where first he walk’d when claspt in clay? No visual shade of some one lost, But he, the Spirit himself, may come Where all the nerve of sense is numb; Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost. O, therefore from thy sightless range With gods in unconjectured bliss, O, from the distance of the abyss Of tenfold-complicated change, Descend, and touch, and enter; hear The wish too strong for words to name; That in this blindness of the frame My Ghost may feel that thine is near. XCIV. How pure at heart and sound in head, With what divine affections bold Should be the man whose thought would hold An hour’s communion with the dead. In vain shalt thou, or any, call The spirits from their golden day, Except, like them, thou too canst say, My spirit is at peace with all. They haunt the silence of the breast, Imaginations calm and fair, The memory like a cloudless air, The conscience as a sea at rest: But when the heart is full of din, And doubt beside the portal waits, They can but listen at the gates, And hear the household jar within. XCV. 477 By night we linger’d on the lawn, For underfoot the herb was dry; And genial warmth; and o’er the sky The silvery haze of summer drawn; And calm that let the tapers burn Unwavering: not a cricket chirr’d: The brook alone far-off was heard, And on the board the fluttering urn: And bats went round in fragrant skies, And wheel’d or lit the filmy shapes That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes And woolly breasts and beaded eyes; While now we sang old songs that peal’d From knoll to knoll, where, couch’d at ease, The white kine glimmer’d, and the trees Laid their dark arms about the field. But when those others, one by one, Withdrew themselves from me and night, And in the house light after light Went out, and I was all alone, A hunger seized my heart; I read Of that glad year which once had been, In those fall’n leaves which kept their green, The noble letters of the dead: And strangely on the silence broke The silent-speaking words, and strange Was love’s dumb cry defying change To test his worth; and strangely spoke The faith, the vigour, bold to dwell On doubts that drive the coward back, And keen thro’ wordy snares to track Suggestion to her inmost cell. So word by word, and line by line, The dead man touch’d me from the past, 478 And all at once it seem’d at last The living soul was flash’d on mine, And mine in this was wound, and whirl’d About empyreal heights of thought, And came on that which is, and caught The deep pulsations of the world, Æonian music measuring out The steps of Time–the shocks of Chance– The blows of Death. At length my trance Was cancell’d, stricken thro’ with doubt. Vague words! but ah, how hard to frame In matter-moulded forms of speech, Or ev’n for intellect to reach Thro’ memory that which I became: Till now the doubtful dusk reveal’d The knolls once more where, couch’d at ease, The white kine glimmer’d, and the trees Laid their dark arms about the field: And suck’d from out the distant gloom A breeze began to tremble o’er The large leaves of the sycamore, And fluctuate all the still perfume, And gathering freshlier overhead, Rock’d the full-foliaged elms, and swung The heavy-folded rose, and flung The lilies to and fro, and said ‘The dawn, the dawn,’ and died away; And East and West, without a breath, Mixt their dim lights, like life and death, To broaden into boundless day. XCVI. 479 You say, but with no touch of scorn, Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes Are tender over drowning flies, You tell me, doubt is Devil-born. I know not: one indeed I knew In many a subtle question versed, Who touch’d a jarring lyre at first, But ever strove to make it true: Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, At last he beat his music out. There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds. He fought his doubts and gather’d strength, He would not make his judgment blind, He faced the spectres of the mind And laid them: thus he came at length To find a stronger faith his own; And Power was with him in the night, Which makes the darkness and the light, And dwells not in the light alone, But in the darkness and the cloud, As over Sinaï’s peaks of old, While Israel made their gods of gold, Altho’ the trumpet blew so loud. XCVII. My love has talk’d with rocks and trees; He finds on misty mountain-ground His own vast shadow glory-crown’d; He sees himself in all he sees. Two partners of a married life– I look’d on these and thought of thee In vastness and in mystery, And of my spirit as of a wife. 480 These two–they dwelt with eye on eye, Their hearts of old have beat in tune, Their meetings made December June, Their every parting was to die. Their love has never past away; The days she never can forget Are earnest that he loves her yet, Whate’er the faithless people say. Her life is lone, he sits apart, He loves her yet, she will not weep, Tho’ rapt in matters dark and deep He seems to slight her simple heart. He He He He thrids the labyrinth of the mind, reads the secret of the star, seems so near and yet so far, looks so cold: she thinks him kind. She keeps the gift of years before, A wither’d violet is her bliss: She knows not what his greatness is, For that, for all, she loves him more. For him she plays, to him she sings Of early faith and plighted vows; She knows but matters of the house, And he, he knows a thousand things. Her faith is fixt and cannot move, She darkly feels him great and wise, She dwells on him with faithful eyes, ‘I cannot understand: I love.’ XCVIII. You leave us: you will see the Rhine, And those fair hills I sail’d below, When I was there with him; and go 481 By summer belts of wheat and vine To where he breathed his latest breath, That City. All her splendour seems No livelier than the wisp that gleams On Lethe in the eyes of Death. Let her great Danube rolling fair Enwind her isles, unmark’d of me: I have not seen, I will not see Vienna; rather dream that there, A treble darkness, Evil haunts The birth, the bridal; friend from friend Is oftener parted, fathers bend Above more graves, a thousand wants Gnarr at the heels of men, and prey By each cold hearth, and sadness flings Her shadow on the blaze of kings: And yet myself have heard him say, That not in any mother town With statelier progress to and fro The double tides of chariots flow By park and suburb under brown Of lustier leaves; nor more content, He told me, lives in any crowd, When all is gay with lamps, and loud With sport and song, in booth and tent, Imperial halls, or open plain; And wheels the circled dance, and breaks The rocket molten into flakes Of crimson or in emerald rain. XCIX. Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again, So loud with voices of the birds, 482 So thick with lowings of the herds, Day, when I lost the flower of men; Who tremblest thro’ thy darkling red On yon swoll’n brook that bubbles fast By meadows breathing of the past, And woodlands holy to the dead; Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves A song that slights the coming care, And Autumn laying here and there A fiery finger on the leaves; Who wakenest with thy balmy breath To myriads on the genial earth, Memories of bridal, or of birth, And unto myriads more, of death. O wheresoever those may be, Betwixt the slumber of the poles, To-day they count as kindred souls; They know me not, but mourn with me. C. I climb the hill: from end to end Of all the landscape underneath, I find no place that does not breathe Some gracious memory of my friend; No gray old grange, or lonely fold, Or low morass and whispering reed, Or simple stile from mead to mead, Or sheepwalk up the windy wold; Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw That hears the latest linnet trill, Nor quarry trench’d along the hill And haunted by the wrangling daw; Nor runlet tinkling from the rock; Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves 483 To left and right thro’ meadowy curves, That feed the mothers of the flock; But each has pleased a kindred eye, And each reflects a kindlier day; And, leaving these, to pass away, I think once more he seems to die. CI. Unwatch’d, the garden bough shall sway, The tender blossom flutter down, Unloved, that beech will gather brown, This maple burn itself away; Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, Ray round with flames her disk of seed, And many a rose-carnation feed With summer spice the humming air; Unloved, by many a sandy bar, The brook shall babble down the plain, At noon or when the lesser wain Is twisting round the polar star; Uncared for, gird the windy grove, And flood the haunts of hern and crake; Or into silver arrows break The sailing moon in creek and cove; Till from the garden and the wild A fresh association blow, And year by year the landscape grow Familiar to the stranger’s child; As year by year the labourer tills His wonted glebe, or lops the glades; And year by year our memory fades From all the circle of the hills. 484 CII. We leave the well-beloved place Where first we gazed upon the sky; The roofs, that heard our earliest cry, Will shelter one of stranger race. We go, but ere we go from home, As down the garden-walks I move, Two spirits of a diverse love Contend for loving masterdom. One whispers, ‘Here thy boyhood sung Long since its matin song, and heard The low love-language of the bird In native hazels tassel-hung.’ The other answers, ‘Yea, but here Thy feet have stray’d in after hours With thy lost friend among the bowers, And this hath made them trebly dear.’ These two have striven half the day, And each prefers his separate claim, Poor rivals in a losing game, That will not yield each other way. I turn to go: my feet are set To leave the pleasant fields and farms; They mix in one another’s arms To one pure image of regret. CIII. On that last night before we went From out the doors where I was bred, I dream’d a vision of the dead, Which left my after-morn content. Methought I dwelt within a hall, And maidens with me: distant hills 485 From hidden summits fed with rills A river sliding by the wall. The hall with harp and carol rang. They sang of what is wise and good And graceful. In the centre stood A statue veil’d, to which they sang; And which, tho’ veil’d, was known to me, The shape of him I loved, and love For ever: then flew in a dove And brought a summons from the sea: And when they learnt that I must go They wept and wail’d, but led the way To where a little shallop lay At anchor in the flood below; And on by many a level mead, And shadowing bluff that made the banks, We glided winding under ranks Of iris, and the golden reed; And still as vaster grew the shore And roll’d the floods in grander space, The maidens gather’d strength and grace And presence, lordlier than before; And I myself, who sat apart And watch’d them, wax’d in every limb; I felt the thews of Anakim, The pulses of a Titan’s heart; As one would sing the death of war, And one would chant the history Of that great race, which is to be, And one the shaping of a star; Until the forward-creeping tides Began to foam, and we to draw From deep to deep, to where we saw A great ship lift her shining sides. 486 The man we loved was there on deck, But thrice as large as man he bent To greet us. Up the side I went, And fell in silence on his neck: Whereat those maidens with one mind Bewail’d their lot; I did them wrong: ‘We served thee here’ they said, ‘so long, And wilt thou leave us now behind?’ So rapt I was, they could not win An answer from my lips, but he Replying, ‘Enter likewise ye And go with us:’ they enter’d in. And while the wind began to sweep A music out of sheet and shroud, We steer’d her toward a crimson cloud That landlike slept along the deep. CIV. The time draws near the birth of Christ; The moon is hid, the night is still; A single church below the hill Is pealing, folded in the mist. A single peal of bells below, That wakens at this hour of rest A single murmur in the breast, That these are not the bells I know. Like strangers’ voices here they sound, In lands where not a memory strays, Nor landmark breathes of other days, But all is new unhallow’d ground. CV. 487 To-night ungather’d let us leave This laurel, let this holly stand: We live within the stranger’s land, And strangely falls our Christmas-eve. Our father’s dust is left alone And silent under other snows: There in due time the woodbine blows, The violet comes, but we are gone. No more shall wayward grief abuse The genial hour with mask and mime; For change of place, like growth of time, Has broke the bond of dying use. Let cares that petty shadows cast, By which our lives are chiefly proved, A little spare the night I loved, And hold it solemn to the past. But let no footstep beat the floor, Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm; For who would keep an ancient form Thro’ which the spirit breathes no more? Be neither song, nor game, nor feast; Nor harp be touch’d, nor flute be blown; No dance, no motion, save alone What lightens in the lucid east Of rising worlds by yonder wood. Long sleeps the summer in the seed; Run out your measured arcs, and lead The closing cycle rich in good. CVI. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; 488 Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring Ring Ring Ring out old shapes of foul disease; out the narrowing lust of gold; out the thousand wars of old, in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. CVII. It is the day when he was born, A bitter day that early sank 489 Behind a purple-frosty bank Of vapour, leaving night forlorn. The time admits not flowers or leaves To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies The blast of North and East, and ice Makes daggers at the sharpen’d eaves, And bristles all the brakes and thorns To yon hard crescent, as she hangs Above the wood which grides and clangs Its leafless ribs and iron horns Together, in the drifts that pass To darken on the rolling brine That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine, Arrange the board and brim the glass; Bring in great logs and let them lie, To make a solid core of heat; Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat Of all things ev’n as he were by; We keep the day. With festal cheer, With books and music, surely we Will drink to him, whate’er he be, And sing the songs he loved to hear. CVIII. I will not shut me from my kind, And, lest I stiffen into stone, I will not eat my heart alone, Nor feed with sighs a passing wind: What profit lies in barren faith, And vacant yearning, tho’ with might To scale the heaven’s highest height, Or dive below the wells of Death? What find I in the highest place, But mine own phantom chanting hymns? 490 And on the depths of death there swims The reflex of a human face. I'll rather take what fruit may be Of sorrow under human skies: ’Tis held that sorrow makes us wise, Whatever wisdom sleep with thee. CIX. Heart-affluence in discursive talk From household fountains never dry; The critic clearness of an eye, That saw thro’ all the Muses’ walk; Seraphic intellect and force To seize and throw the doubts of man; Impassion’d logic, which outran The hearer in its fiery course; High nature amorous of the good, But touch’d with no ascetic gloom; And passion pure in snowy bloom Thro’ all the years of April blood; A love of freedom rarely felt, Of freedom in her regal seat Of England; not the schoolboy heat, The blind hysterics of the Celt; And manhood fused with female grace In such a sort, the child would twine A trustful hand, unask’d, in thine, And find his comfort in thy face; All these have been, and thee mine eyes Have look’d on: if they look’d in vain, My shame is greater who remain, Nor let thy wisdom make me wise. 491 CX. Thy converse drew us with delight, The men of rathe and riper years: The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, Forgot his weakness in thy sight. On thee the loyal-hearted hung, The proud was half disarm’d of pride, Nor cared the serpent at thy side To flicker with his double tongue. The stern were mild when thou wert by, The flippant put himself to school And heard thee, and the brazen fool Was soften’d, and he knew not why; While I, thy nearest, sat apart, And felt thy triumph was as mine; And loved them more, that they were thine, The graceful tact, the Christian art; Nor mine the sweetness or the skill, But mine the love that will not tire, And, born of love, the vague desire That spurs an imitative will. CXI. The churl in spirit, up or down Along the scale of ranks, thro’ all, To him who grasps a golden ball, By blood a king, at heart a clown; The churl in spirit, howe’er he veil His want in forms for fashion’s sake, Will let his coltish nature break At seasons thro’ the gilded pale: For who can always act? but he, To whom a thousand memories call, 492 Not being less but more than all The gentleness he seem’d to be, Best seem’d the thing he was, and join’d Each office of the social hour To noble manners, as the flower And native growth of noble mind; Nor ever narrowness or spite, Or villain fancy fleeting by, Drew in the expression of an eye, Where God and Nature met in light; And thus he bore without abuse The grand old name of gentleman, Defamed by every charlatan, And soil’d with all ignoble use. CXII. High wisdom holds my wisdom less, That I, who gaze with temperate eyes On glorious insufficiencies, Set light by narrower perfectness. But thou, that fillest all the room Of all my love, art reason why I seem to cast a careless eye On souls, the lesser lords of doom. For what wert thou? some novel power Sprang up for ever at a touch, And hope could never hope too much, In watching thee from hour to hour, Large elements in order brought, And tracts of calm from tempest made, And world-wide fluctuation sway’d In vassal tides that follow’d thought. 493 CXIII. ’Tis held that sorrow makes us wise; Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee Which not alone had guided me, But served the seasons that may rise; For can I doubt, who knew thee keen In intellect, with force and skill To strive, to fashion, to fulfil– I doubt not what thou wouldst have been: life in civic action warm, soul on highest mission sent, potent voice of Parliament, pillar steadfast in the storm, Should licensed boldness gather force, Becoming, when the time has birth, A lever to uplift the earth And roll it in another course, With thousand shocks that come and go, With agonies, with energies, With overthrowings, and with cries, And undulations to and fro. CXIV. Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail Against her beauty? May she mix With men and prosper! Who shall fix Her pillars? Let her work prevail. But on her forehead sits a fire: She sets her forward countenance And leaps into the future chance, Submitting all things to desire. Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain– She cannot fight the fear of death. 494 What is she, cut from love and faith, But some wild Pallas from the brain Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst All barriers in her onward race For power. Let her know her place; She is the second, not the first. A higher hand must make her mild, If all be not in vain; and guide Her footsteps, moving side by side With wisdom, like the younger child: For she is earthly of the mind, But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. O, friend, who camest to thy goal So early, leaving me behind, I would the great world grew like thee, Who grewest not alone in power And knowledge, but by year and hour In reverence and in charity. CXV. Now fades the last long streak of snow, Now burgeons every maze of quick About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow. Now rings the woodland loud and long, The distance takes a lovelier hue, And drown’d in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song. Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, The flocks are whiter down the vale, And milkier every milky sail On winding stream or distant sea; Where now the seamew pipes, or dives 495 In yonder greening gleam, and fly The happy birds, that change their sky To build and brood; that live their lives From land to land; and in my breast Spring wakens too; and my regret Becomes an April violet, And buds and blossoms like the rest. CXVI. Is it, then, regret for buried time That keenlier in sweet April wakes, And meets the year, and gives and takes The colours of the crescent prime? Not all: the songs, the stirring air, The life re-orient out of dust, Cry thro’ the sense to hearten trust In that which made the world so fair. Not all regret: the face will shine Upon me, while I muse alone; And that dear voice, I once have known, Still speak to me of me and mine: Yet less of sorrow lives in me For days of happy commune dead; Less yearning for the friendship fled, Than some strong bond which is to be. CXVII. O days and hours, your work is this To hold me from my proper place, A little while from his embrace For fuller gain of after bliss: That out of distance might ensue Desire of nearness doubly sweet; 496 And unto meeting when we meet, Delight a hundredfold accrue, For every grain of sand that runs, And every span of shade that steals, And every kiss of toothed wheels, And all the courses of the suns. CXVIII. Contemplate all this work of Time, The giant labouring in his youth; Nor dream of human love and truth, As dying Nature’s earth and lime; But trust that those we call the dead Are breathers of an ampler day For ever nobler ends. They say, The solid earth whereon we tread In tracts of fluent heat began, And grew to seeming-random forms, The seeming prey of cyclic storms, Till at the last arose the man; Who throve and branch’d from clime to clime, The herald of a higher race, And of himself in higher place, If so he type this work of time Within himself, from more to more; Or, crown’d with attributes of woe Like glories, move his course, and show That life is not as idle ore, But iron dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears, And dipt in baths of hissing tears, And batter’d with the shocks of doom To shape and use. Arise and fly 497 The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; Move upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die. CXIX. Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, not as one that weeps I come once more; the city sleeps; I smell the meadow in the street; I hear a chirp of birds; I see Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn A light-blue lane of early dawn, And think of early days and thee, And bless thee, for thy lips are bland, And bright the friendship of thine eye; And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh I take the pressure of thine hand. CXX. I trust I have not wasted breath: I think we are not wholly brain, Magnetic mockeries; not in vain, Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death; Not only cunning casts in clay: Let Science prove we are, and then What matters Science unto men, At least to me? I would not stay. Let him, the wiser man who springs Hereafter, up from childhood shape His action like the greater ape, But I was born to other things. 498 CXXI. Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun And ready, thou, to die with him, Thou watchest all things ever dim And dimmer, and a glory done: The team is loosen’d from the wain, The boat is drawn upon the shore; Thou listenest to the closing door, And life is darken’d in the brain. Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, By thee the world’s great work is heard Beginning, and the wakeful bird; Behind thee comes the greater light: The market boat is on the stream, And voices hail it from the brink; Thou hear’st the village hammer clink, And see’st the moving of the team. Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name For what is one, the first, the last, Thou, like my present and my past, Thy place is changed; thou art the same. CXXII. Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then, While I rose up against my doom, And yearn’d to burst the folded gloom, To bare the eternal Heavens again, To feel once more, in placid awe, The strong imagination roll A sphere of stars about my soul, In all her motion one with law; If thou wert with me, and the grave Divide us not, be with me now, And enter in at breast and brow, 499 Till all my blood, a fuller wave, Be quicken’d with a livelier breath, And like an inconsiderate boy, As in the former flash of joy, I slip the thoughts of life and death; And all the breeze of Fancy blows, And every dew-drop paints a bow, The wizard lightnings deeply glow, And every thought breaks out a rose. CXXIII. There rolls the deep where grew the tree. O earth, what changes hast thou seen! There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea. The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go. But in my spirit will I dwell, And dream my dream, and hold it true; For tho’ my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thing farewell. CXXIV. That which we dare invoke to bless; Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt; He, They, One, All; within, without; The Power in darkness whom we guess; I found Him not in world or sun, Or eagle’s wing, or insect’s eye; Nor thro’ the questions men may try, The petty cobwebs we have spun: 500 If e’er when faith had fall’n asleep, I heard a voice ‘believe no more’ And heard an ever-breaking shore That tumbled in the Godless deep; A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason’s colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer’d ‘I have felt.’ No, like a child in doubt and fear: But that blind clamour made me wise; Then was I as a child that cries, But, crying, knows his father near; And what I am beheld again What is, and no man understands; And out of darkness came the hands That reach thro’ nature, moulding men. CXXV. Whatever I have said or sung, Some bitter notes my harp would give, Yea, tho’ there often seem’d to live A contradiction on the tongue, Yet Hope had never lost her youth; She did but look through dimmer eyes; Or Love but play’d with gracious lies, Because he felt so fix’d in truth: And if the song were full of care, He breathed the spirit of the song; And if the words were sweet and strong He set his royal signet there; Abiding with me till I sail To seek thee on the mystic deeps, And this electric force, that keeps 501 A thousand pulses dancing, fail. CXXVI. Love is and was my Lord and King, And in his presence I attend To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his couriers bring. Love is and was my King and Lord, And will be, tho’ as yet I keep Within his court on earth, and sleep Encompass’d by his faithful guard, And hear at times a sentinel Who moves about from place to place, And whispers to the worlds of space, In the deep night, that all is well. CXXVII. And all is well, tho’ faith and form Be sunder’d in the night of fear; Well roars the storm to those that hear A deeper voice across the storm, Proclaiming social truth shall spread, And justice, ev’n tho’ thrice again The red fool-fury of the Seine Should pile her barricades with dead. But ill for him that wears a crown, And him, the lazar, in his rags: They tremble, the sustaining crags; The spires of ice are toppled down, And molten up, and roar in flood; The fortress crashes from on high, The brute earth lightens to the sky, And the great Æon sinks in blood, 502 And compass’d by the fires of Hell; While thou, dear spirit, happy star, O’erlook’st the tumult from afar, And smilest, knowing all is well. CXXVIII. The love that rose on stronger wings, Unpalsied when he met with Death, Is comrade of the lesser faith That sees the course of human things. No doubt vast eddies in the flood Of onward time shall yet be made, And throned races may degrade; Yet O ye mysteries of good, Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear, If all your office had to do With old results that look like new; If this were all your mission here, To To To To draw, to sheathe a useless sword, fool the crowd with glorious lies, cleave a creed in sects and cries, change the bearing of a word, To shift an arbitrary power, To cramp the student at his desk, To make old bareness picturesque And tuft with grass a feudal tower; Why then my scorn might well descend On you and yours. I see in part That all, as in some piece of art, Is toil coöperant to an end. CXXIX. 503 Dear friend, far off, my lost desire, So far, so near in woe and weal; O loved the most, when most I feel There is a lower and a higher; Known and unknown; human, divine; Sweet human hand and lips and eye; Dear heavenly friend that canst not die, Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine; Strange friend, past, present, and to be; Loved deeplier, darklier understood; Behold, I dream a dream of good, And mingle all the world with thee. CXXX. Thy voice is on the rolling air; I hear thee where the waters run; Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair. What art thou then? I cannot guess; But tho’ I seem in star and flower To feel thee some diffusive power, I do not therefore love thee less: My love involves the love before; My love is vaster passion now; Tho’ mix’d with God and Nature thou, I seem to love thee more and more. Far off thou art, but ever nigh; I have thee still, and I rejoice; I prosper, circled with thy voice; I shall not lose thee tho’ I die. CXXXI. 504 O living will that shalt endure When all that seems shall suffer shock, Rise in the spiritual rock, Flow thro’ our deeds and make them pure, That we may lift from out of dust A voice as unto him that hears, A cry above the conquer’d years To one that with us works, and trust, With faith that comes of self-control, The truths that never can be proved Until we close with all we loved, And all we flow from, soul in soul. _________ O true and tried, so well and long, Demand not thou a marriage lay; In that it is thy marriage day Is music more than any song. Nor have I felt so much of bliss Since first he told me that he loved A daughter of our house; nor proved Since that dark day a day like this; Tho’ I since then have number’d o’er Some thrice three years: they went and came, Remade the blood and changed the frame, And yet is love not less, but more; No longer caring to embalm In dying songs a dead regret, But like a statue solid-set, And moulded in colossal calm. Regret is dead, but love is more Than in the summers that are flown, For I myself with these have grown To something greater than before; Which makes appear the songs I made 505 As echoes out of weaker times, As half but idle brawling rhymes, The sport of random sun and shade. But where is she, the bridal flower, That must he made a wife ere noon? She enters, glowing like the moon Of Eden on its bridal bower: On me she bends her blissful eyes And then on thee; they meet thy look And brighten like the star that shook Betwixt the palms of paradise. O when her life was yet in bud, He too foretold the perfect rose. For thee she grew, for thee she grows For ever, and as fair as good. And thou art worthy; full of power; As gentle; liberal-minded, great, Consistent; wearing all that weight Of learning lightly like a flower. But now set out: the noon is near, And I must give away the bride; She fears not, or with thee beside And me behind her, will not fear. For I that danced her on my knee, That watch’d her on her nurse’s arm, That shielded all her life from harm At last must part with her to thee; Now waiting to be made a wife, Her feet, my darling, on the dead; Their pensive tablets round her head, And the most living words of life Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, The ‘wilt thou’ answer’d, and again The ‘wilt thou’ ask’d, till out of twain 506 Her sweet ‘I will’ has made you one. Now sign your names, which shall be read, Mute symbols of a joyful morn, By village eyes as yet unborn; The names are sign’d, and overhead Begins the clash and clang that tells The joy to every wandering breeze; The blind wall rocks, and on the trees The dead leaf trembles to the bells. O happy hour, and happier hours Await them. Many a merry face Salutes them–maidens of the place, That pelt us in the porch with flowers. O happy hour, behold the bride With him to whom her hand I gave. They leave the porch, they pass the grave That has to-day its sunny side. To-day the grave is bright for me, For them the light of life increased, Who stay to share the morning feast, Who rest to-night beside the sea. Let all my genial spirits advance To meet and greet a whiter sun; My drooping memory will not shun The foaming grape of eastern France. It circles round, and fancy plays, And hearts are warm’d and faces bloom, As drinking health to bride and groom We wish them store of happy days. Nor count me all to blame if I Conjecture of a stiller guest, Perchance, perchance, among the rest, And, tho’ in silence, wishing joy. 507 But they must go, the time draws on, And those white-favour’d horses wait; They rise, but linger; it is late; Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. A shade falls on us like the dark From little cloudlets on the grass, But sweeps away as out we pass To range the woods, to roam the park, Discussing how their courtship grew, And talk of others that are wed, And how she look’d, and what he said, And back we come at fall of dew. Again the feast, the speech, the glee, The shade of passing thought, the wealth Of words and wit, the double health, The crowning cup, the three-times-three, And last the dance;–till I retire: Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, And high in heaven the streaming cloud, And on the downs a rising fire: And rise, O moon, from yonder down, Till over down and over dale All night the shining vapour sail And pass the silent-lighted town, The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, And catch at every mountain head, And o’er the friths that branch and spread Their sleeping silver thro’ the hills; And touch with shade the bridal doors, With tender gloom the roof, the wall; And breaking let the splendour fall To spangle all the happy shores By which they rest, and ocean sounds, And, star and system rolling past, 508 A soul shall draw from out the vast And strike his being into bounds, And, moved thro’ life of lower phase, Result in man, be born and think, And act and love, a closer link Betwixt us and the crowning race Of those that, eye to eye, shall look On knowledge; under whose command Is Earth and Earth’s, and in their hand Is Nature like an open book; No longer half-akin to brute, For all we thought and loved and did, And hoped, and suffer’d, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit; Whereof the man, that with me trod This planet, was a noble type Appearing ere the times were ripe, That friend of mine who lives in God, That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,