XVI.
“Do souls alone clear-eyed, strong-kneed,
To Him true service render,
And they who need His hand to lead,
Find they His heart untender?
Through all your various ranks and fates
He opens doors to duty,
And he that waits there at your gates
Was servant of His Beauty.”
To Him true service render,
And they who need His hand to lead,
Find they His heart untender?
Through all your various ranks and fates
He opens doors to duty,
And he that waits there at your gates
Was servant of His Beauty.”
XVII.
“The Earth must richer sap secrete,
(Could ye in time but know it!)
Must juice concrete with fiercer heat,
Ere she can make her poet;
Long generations go and come,
At last she bears a singer,
For ages dumb, of senses numb
The compensation-bringer!”
(Could ye in time but know it!)
Must juice concrete with fiercer heat,
Ere she can make her poet;
Long generations go and come,
At last she bears a singer,
For ages dumb, of senses numb
The compensation-bringer!”
XVIII.
XIX.
“These larger hearts must feel the rolls
Of stormier-waved temptation;
These star-wide souls between their poles
Bear zones of tropic passion.
He loved much!—that is gospel good,
Howe’er the text you handle;
From common wood the cross was hewed,
By love turned priceless sandal.
Of stormier-waved temptation;
These star-wide souls between their poles
Bear zones of tropic passion.
He loved much!—that is gospel good,
Howe’er the text you handle;
From common wood the cross was hewed,
By love turned priceless sandal.
XX.
“If scant his service at the kirk,
He paters heard and aves
From choirs that lurk in hedge and birk,
From blackbird and from mavis;
The cowering mouse, poor unroofed thing,
In him found Mercy’s angel;
The daisy’s ring brought every spring
To him Love’s fresh evangel!
He paters heard and aves
From choirs that lurk in hedge and birk,
From blackbird and from mavis;
The cowering mouse, poor unroofed thing,
In him found Mercy’s angel;
The daisy’s ring brought every spring
To him Love’s fresh evangel!
XXI.
XXII.
“They make Religion be abhorred
Who round with darkness gulf her,
And think no word can please the Lord
Unless it smell of sulphur.
Dear Poet-heart, that childlike guessed
The Father’s loving kindness,
Come now to rest! Thou didst His hest,
If haply ’twas in blindness!”
Who round with darkness gulf her,
And think no word can please the Lord
Unless it smell of sulphur.
Dear Poet-heart, that childlike guessed
The Father’s loving kindness,
Come now to rest! Thou didst His hest,
If haply ’twas in blindness!”
XXIII.
Then leapt heaven’s portals wide apart,
And at their golden thunder
With sudden start I woke, my heart
Still throbbing-full of wonder.
“Father,” I said, “'tis known to Thee
How Thou thy Saints preparest;
But this I see,—Saint Charity
Is still the first and fairest!”
And at their golden thunder
With sudden start I woke, my heart
Still throbbing-full of wonder.
“Father,” I said, “'tis known to Thee
How Thou thy Saints preparest;
But this I see,—Saint Charity
Is still the first and fairest!”
XXIV.
IN AN ALBUM.
The misspelt scrawl, upon the wall
By some Pompeian idler traced,
In ashes packed (ironic fact!)
Lies eighteen centuries uneffaced,
While many a page of bard and sage,
Deemed once mankind’s immortal gain,
Lost from Time’s ark, leaves no more mark
Than a keel’s furrow through the main.
By some Pompeian idler traced,
In ashes packed (ironic fact!)
Lies eighteen centuries uneffaced,
While many a page of bard and sage,
Deemed once mankind’s immortal gain,
Lost from Time’s ark, leaves no more mark
Than a keel’s furrow through the main.
O Chance and Change! our buzz’s range
Is scarcely wider than a fly’s;
Then let us play at fame to-day,
To-morrow be unknown and wise;
And while the fair beg locks of hair,
And autographs, and Lord knows what,
Quick! let us scratch our moment’s match,
Make our brief blaze, and be forgot!
Is scarcely wider than a fly’s;
Then let us play at fame to-day,
To-morrow be unknown and wise;
And while the fair beg locks of hair,
And autographs, and Lord knows what,
Quick! let us scratch our moment’s match,
Make our brief blaze, and be forgot!
AT THE COMMENCEMENT DINNER, 1866, IN ACKNOWLEDGING A TOAST TO THE SMITH PROFESSOR.
I rise, Mr. Chairman, as both of us know,
With the impromptu I promised you three weeks ago,
Dragged up to my doom by your might and my mane,
To do what I vowed I’d do never again;
And I feel like your good honest dough when possest
By a stirring, impertinent devil of yeast.
“You must rise,” says the leaven. “I can’t,” says the dough;
“Just examine my bumps, and you’ll see it’s no go.”
“But you must,” the tormentor insists, “'tis all right;
You must rise when I bid you, and, what’s more, be light.”
With the impromptu I promised you three weeks ago,
Dragged up to my doom by your might and my mane,
To do what I vowed I’d do never again;
And I feel like your good honest dough when possest
By a stirring, impertinent devil of yeast.
“You must rise,” says the leaven. “I can’t,” says the dough;
“Just examine my bumps, and you’ll see it’s no go.”
“But you must,” the tormentor insists, “'tis all right;
You must rise when I bid you, and, what’s more, be light.”
’Tis a dreadful oppression, this making men speak
What they ’re sure to be sorry for all the next week;
This asking some poor stick, like Aaron’s, to bud
Into eloquence, pathos, or wit in cold blood,
As if the dull brain that you vented your spite on
Could be got, like an ox, by mere poking, to Brighton.
What they ’re sure to be sorry for all the next week;
This asking some poor stick, like Aaron’s, to bud
Into eloquence, pathos, or wit in cold blood,
As if the dull brain that you vented your spite on
Could be got, like an ox, by mere poking, to Brighton.
They say it is wholesome to rise with the sun,
And I dare say it may be if not overdone;
(I think it was Thomson who made the remark
’Twas an excellent thing in its way—for a lark;)
But to rise after dinner and look down the meeting
On a distant (as Gray calls it) prospect of Eating,
With a stomach half full and a cerebrum hollow
As the tortoise-shell ere it was strung for Apollo,
Under contract to raise anerithmon gelasma
With rhymes so hard hunted they gasp with the asthma,
And jokes not much younger than Jethro’s phylacteries,
Is something I leave you yourselves to characterize.
And I dare say it may be if not overdone;
(I think it was Thomson who made the remark
’Twas an excellent thing in its way—for a lark;)
But to rise after dinner and look down the meeting
On a distant (as Gray calls it) prospect of Eating,
With a stomach half full and a cerebrum hollow
As the tortoise-shell ere it was strung for Apollo,
Under contract to raise anerithmon gelasma
With rhymes so hard hunted they gasp with the asthma,
And jokes not much younger than Jethro’s phylacteries,
Is something I leave you yourselves to characterize.
I’ve a notion, I think, of a good dinner speech,
Tripping light as a sandpiper over the beach,
Swerving this way and that as the wave of the moment
Washes out its slight trace with a dash of whim’s foam on ’t,
And leaving on memory’s rim just a sense
Something graceful had gone by, a live present tense;
Not poetry,—no, not quite that, but as good,
A kind of winged prose that could fly if it would.
’Tis a time for gay fancies as fleeting and vain
As the whisper of foam-beads on fresh-poured champagne,
Since dinners were not perhaps strictly designed
For manœuvering the heavy dragoons of the mind.
When I hear your set speeches that start with a pop,
Then wander and maunder, too feeble to stop,
With a vague apprehension from popular rumor
There used to be something by mortals called humor,
Beginning again when you thought they were done,
Respectable, sensible, weighing a ton,
And as near to the present occasions of men
As a Fast Day discourse of the year eighteen ten,
I—well, I sit still, and my sentiments smother,
For am I not also a bore and a brother?
Tripping light as a sandpiper over the beach,
Swerving this way and that as the wave of the moment
Washes out its slight trace with a dash of whim’s foam on ’t,
And leaving on memory’s rim just a sense
Something graceful had gone by, a live present tense;
Not poetry,—no, not quite that, but as good,
A kind of winged prose that could fly if it would.
’Tis a time for gay fancies as fleeting and vain
As the whisper of foam-beads on fresh-poured champagne,
Since dinners were not perhaps strictly designed
For manœuvering the heavy dragoons of the mind.
When I hear your set speeches that start with a pop,
Then wander and maunder, too feeble to stop,
With a vague apprehension from popular rumor
There used to be something by mortals called humor,
Beginning again when you thought they were done,
Respectable, sensible, weighing a ton,
And as near to the present occasions of men
As a Fast Day discourse of the year eighteen ten,
I—well, I sit still, and my sentiments smother,
For am I not also a bore and a brother?
And a toast,—what should that be? Light, airy, and free,
The foam-Aphrodite of Bacchus’s sea,
A fancy-tinged bubble, an orbed rainbow-stain,
That floats for an instant ’twixt goblet and brain;
A breath-born perfection, half something, half naught,
And breaks if it strike the hard edge of a thought.
Do you ask me to make such? Ah no, not so simple;
Ask Apelles to paint you the ravishing dimple
Whose shifting enchantment lights Venus’s cheek,
And the artist will tell you his skill is too weak;
Once fix it, ’tis naught, for the charm of it rises
From the sudden bopeeps of its smiling surprises.
The foam-Aphrodite of Bacchus’s sea,
A fancy-tinged bubble, an orbed rainbow-stain,
That floats for an instant ’twixt goblet and brain;
A breath-born perfection, half something, half naught,
And breaks if it strike the hard edge of a thought.
Do you ask me to make such? Ah no, not so simple;
Ask Apelles to paint you the ravishing dimple
Whose shifting enchantment lights Venus’s cheek,
And the artist will tell you his skill is too weak;
Once fix it, ’tis naught, for the charm of it rises
From the sudden bopeeps of its smiling surprises.
I’ve tried to define it, but what mother’s son
Could ever yet do what he knows should be done?
My rocket has burst, and I watch in the air
Its fast-fading heart’s-blood drop back in despair;
Yet one chance is left me, and, if I am quick,
I can palm off, before you suspect me, the stick.
Could ever yet do what he knows should be done?
My rocket has burst, and I watch in the air
Its fast-fading heart’s-blood drop back in despair;
Yet one chance is left me, and, if I am quick,
I can palm off, before you suspect me, the stick.
Now since I’ve succeeded—I pray do not frown—
To Ticknor’s and Longfellow’s classical gown,
And profess four strange languages, which, luckless elf,
I speak like a native (of Cambridge) myself,
Let me beg, Mr. President, leave to propose
A sentiment treading on nobody’s toes,
And give, in such ale as with pump-handles we brew,
Their memory who saved us from all talking Hebrew,—
A toast that to deluge with water is good,
For in Scripture they come in just after the flood:
I give you the men but for whom, as I guess, sir,
Modern languages ne’er could have had a professor,
The builders of Babel, to whose zeal the lungs
Of the children of men owe confusion of tongues;
And a name all-embracing I couple therewith,
Which is that of my founder—the late Mr. Smith.
To Ticknor’s and Longfellow’s classical gown,
And profess four strange languages, which, luckless elf,
I speak like a native (of Cambridge) myself,
Let me beg, Mr. President, leave to propose
A sentiment treading on nobody’s toes,
And give, in such ale as with pump-handles we brew,
Their memory who saved us from all talking Hebrew,—
A toast that to deluge with water is good,
For in Scripture they come in just after the flood:
I give you the men but for whom, as I guess, sir,
Modern languages ne’er could have had a professor,
The builders of Babel, to whose zeal the lungs
Of the children of men owe confusion of tongues;
And a name all-embracing I couple therewith,
Which is that of my founder—the late Mr. Smith.
A PARABLE.
An ass munched thistles, while a nightingale
From passion’s fountain flooded all the vale.
“Hee-haw!” cried he, “I hearken,” as who knew
For such ear-largess humble thanks were due.
“Friend,” said the wingèd pain, “in vain you bray,
Who tunnels bring, not cisterns, for my lay;
None but his peers the poet rightly hear,
Nor mete we listeners by their length of ear.”
From passion’s fountain flooded all the vale.
“Hee-haw!” cried he, “I hearken,” as who knew
For such ear-largess humble thanks were due.
“Friend,” said the wingèd pain, “in vain you bray,
Who tunnels bring, not cisterns, for my lay;
None but his peers the poet rightly hear,
Nor mete we listeners by their length of ear.”
V.
EPIGRAMS.
SAYINGS.
1.
In life’s small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscle trained: know’st thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she’ll say to thee,
“I find thee worthy; do this deed for me”?
To keep thy muscle trained: know’st thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she’ll say to thee,
“I find thee worthy; do this deed for me”?
2.
A camel-driver, angry with his drudge,
Beating him, called him hunchback; to the hind
Thus spake a dervish: “Friend, the Eternal Judge
Dooms not His work, but ours, the crooked mind.”
Beating him, called him hunchback; to the hind
Thus spake a dervish: “Friend, the Eternal Judge
Dooms not His work, but ours, the crooked mind.”
3.
Swiftly the politic goes: is it dark?—he borrows a lantern;
Slowly the statesman and sure, guiding his steps by the stars.
Slowly the statesman and sure, guiding his steps by the stars.
4.
INSCRIPTIONS.
FOR A BELL AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY.
I call as fly the irrevocable hours,
Futile as air or strong as fate to make
Your lives of sand or granite; awful powers,
Even as men choose, they either give or take.
Futile as air or strong as fate to make
Your lives of sand or granite; awful powers,
Even as men choose, they either give or take.
FOR A MEMORIAL WINDOW TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH, SET UP IN ST. MARGARET’S, WESTMINSTER, BY AMERICAN CONTRIBUTORS.
The New World’s sons, from England’s breasts we drew
Such milk as bids remember whence we came;
Proud of her Past wherefrom our Present grew,
This window we inscribe with Raleigh’s name.
Such milk as bids remember whence we came;
Proud of her Past wherefrom our Present grew,
This window we inscribe with Raleigh’s name.
PROPOSED FOR A SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT IN BOSTON.
A MISCONCEPTION.
B, taught by Pope to do his good by stealth,
’Twixt participle and noun no difference feeling,
In office placed to serve the Commonwealth,
Does himself all the good he can by stealing.
’Twixt participle and noun no difference feeling,
In office placed to serve the Commonwealth,
Does himself all the good he can by stealing.
THE BOSS.
Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature’s hope,
Who sure intended him to stretch a rope.
Who sure intended him to stretch a rope.
SUN-WORSHIP.
If I were the rose at your window,
Happiest rose of its crew,
Every blossom I bore would bend inward,
They’d know where the sunshine grew.
Happiest rose of its crew,
Every blossom I bore would bend inward,
They’d know where the sunshine grew.
CHANGED PERSPECTIVE.
WITH A PAIR OF GLOVES LOST IN A WAGER.
We wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain,
And I should hint sharp practice if I dared;
For was not she beforehand sure to gain
Who made the sunshine we together shared?
And I should hint sharp practice if I dared;
For was not she beforehand sure to gain
Who made the sunshine we together shared?
SIXTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY.
As life runs on, the road grows strange
With faces new, and near the end
The milestones into headstones change,
’Neath every one a friend.
With faces new, and near the end
The milestones into headstones change,
’Neath every one a friend.