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A Picture from the Life
To serve with love,
And shed your blood,
        Approved may be above,
But here below
(Example shew,)
‘Tis dangerous to be good.

–Lord Oxford

 

Deep in a vale, a stranger now to arms,

Too poor to shine in courts, too proud to beg,

He, who once warred on Saratoga’s plains,

Sits musing o’er his scars, and wooden leg.

 

Remembering still the toil of former days,

To other hands he sees his earnings paid;—

They share the due reward—he feeds on praise.

Lost in the abyss of want, misfortune’s shade.

 

Far, far from domes where splendid tapers glare,

‘Tis his from dear bought peace no wealth to win,

Removed alike from courtly cringing ‘squires,

The great-man’s Levee, and the proud man’s grin.

 

Sold are those arms which once on Britons blaz’d,

When, flushed with conquest, to the charge they came;

That power repell’d, and Freedom’s fabrick rais’d,

She leaves her soldier—famine and a name!

Among the signs of autumn I perceive
The Roman wormwood (called by learned men
Ambrosia elatior, food for gods,—
For to impartial science the humblest weed
Is as immortal once as the proudest flower—)
Sprinkles its yellow dust over my shoes
As I cross the now neglected garden.
—We trample under foot the food of gods
And spill their nectar in each drop of dew—
My honest shoes, fast friends that never stray
Far from my couch, thus powdered, countryfied,
Bearing many a mile the marks of their adventure,
At the post-house disgrace the Gallic gloss
Of those well dressed ones who no morning dew
Nor Roman wormwood ever have been through,
Who never walk but are transported rather—
For what old crime of theirs I do not gather.

Suppose, my little lady,
      Your doll should break her head,
Could you make it whole by crying
      Till your eyes and nose are red?
And would n’t it be pleasanter
      To treat it as a joke;
And say you ’re glad “’T was Dolly’s
      And not your head that broke?”

Suppose you ’re dressed for walking,
      And the rain comes pouring down,
Will it clear off any sooner
      Because you scold and frown?
And would n’t it be nicer
      For you to smile than pout,
And so make sunshine in the house
      When there is none without?

Suppose your task, my little man,
      Is very hard to get,
Will it make it any easier
      For you to sit and fret?
And would n’t it be wiser
      Than waiting like a dunce,
To go to work in earnest
      And learn the thing at once?

Suppose that some boys have a horse,
      And some a coach and pair,
Will it tire you less while walking
      To say, “It is n’t fair?”
And would n’t it be nobler
      To keep your temper sweet,
And in your heart be thankful
      You can walk upon your feet?

And suppose the world don’t please you,
      Nor the way some people do,
Do you think the whole creation
      Will be altered just for you?
And is n’t it, my boy or girl,
      The wisest, bravest plan,
Whatever comes, or does n’t come,
      To do the best you can?

Cover me with your everlasting arms,
   Ye guardian giants of this solitude!
   From the ill-sight of men, and from the rude,
Tumultuous din of yon wild world’s alarms!
Oh, knit your mighty limbs around, above,
   And close me in for ever! let me dwell
   With the wood spirits, in the darkest cell
That ever with your verdant locks ye wove.
   The air is full of countless voices, joined
In one eternal hymn; the whispering wind,
The shuddering leaves, the hidden water springs,
The work-song of the bees, whose honeyed wings
Hang in the golden tresses of the lime,
Or buried lie in purple beds of thyme.

The fields are white;
The laborers are few;
Yet say the idle:
There’s nothing to do.

Jails are crowded;
In Sunday-schools few;
We still complain:
There’s nothing to do.

Drunkards are dying—
Your sons, it is true;
Mothers’ arms folded
With nothing to do.

Heathens are dying;
Their blood falls on you;
How can you people
Find nothing to do?
 

Half of my life is gone, and I have let
   The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
   The aspiration of my youth, to build
   Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
   Of restless passions that would not be stilled,
   But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
   Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past
   Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—
   A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—
   And hear above me on the autumnal blast
   The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.

Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal,
There where the vines cling crimson on the wall,
And in the twilight wait for what will come.
The leaves will whisper there of her, and some,
Like flying words, will strike you as they fall;
But go, and if you listen she will call.
Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal—
Luke Havergal.

No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies
To rift the fiery night that’s in your eyes;
But there, where western glooms are gathering,
The dark will end the dark, if anything:
God slays Himself with every leaf that flies,
And hell is more than half of paradise.
No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies—
In eastern skies.

Out of a grave I come to tell you this,
Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss
That flames upon your forehead with a glow
That blinds you to the way that you must go.
Yes, there is yet one way to where she is,
Bitter, but one that faith may never miss.
Out of a grave I come to tell you this—
To tell you this.

There is the western gate, Luke Havergal,
There are the crimson leaves upon the wall.
Go, for the winds are tearing them away,—
Nor think to riddle the dead words they say,
Nor any more to feel them as they fall;
But go, and if you trust her she will call.
There is the western gate, Luke Havergal—
Luke Havergal.

I see it as it looked one afternoon
In August,— by a fresh soft breeze o’erblown.
The swiftness of the tide, the light thereon,
A far-off sail, white as a crescent moon.
The shining waters with pale currents strewn,
The quiet fishing-smacks, the Eastern cove,
The semi-circle of its dark, green grove.
The luminous grasses, and the merry sun
In the grave sky; the sparkle far and wide,
Laughter of unseen children, cheerful chirp
Of crickets, and low lisp of rippling tide,
Light summer clouds fantastical as sleep
Changing unnoted while I gazed thereon.
All these fair sounds and sights I made my own.

Life, like a marble block, is given to all,
A blank, inchoate mass of years and days,
Whence one with ardent chisel swift essays
Some shape of strength or symmetry to call;
One shatters it in bits to mend a wall;
One in a craftier hand the chisel lays,
And one, to wake the mirth in Lesbia’s gaze,
Carves it apace in toys fantastical.

But least is he who, with enchanted eyes
Filled with high visions of fair shapes to be,
Muses which god he shall immortalize
In the proud Parian’s perpetuity,
Till twilight warns him from the punctual skies
That the night cometh wherein none shall see.

    The Dying Words of Goethe

 

“Light! more light! the shadows deepen,
And my life is ebbing low,
Throw the windows widely open:
Light! more light! before I go.

“Softly let the balmy sunshine
Play around my dying bed,
E’er the dimly lighted valley
I with lonely feet must tread.

“Light! more light! for Death is weaving
Shadows ‘round my waning sight,
And I fain would gaze upon him
Through a stream of earthly light.”

Not for greater gifts of genius;
Not for thoughts more grandly bright,
All the dying poet whispers
Is a prayer for light, more light.

Heeds he not the gathered laurels,
Fading slowly from his sight;
All the poet’s aspirations
Centre in that prayer for light.

Gracious Saviour, when life’s day-dreams
Melt and vanish from the sight,
May our dim and longing vision
Then be blessed with light, more light.