Written by
William Cullen Bryant |
TO HIM who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness and a smile
And eloquence of beauty and she glides 5
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit and sad images 10
Of the stern agony and shroud and pall
And breathless darkness and the narrow house
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart;¡ª
Go forth under the open sky and list
To Nature's teachings while from all around¡ª 15
Earth and her waters and the depths of air¡ª
Comes a still voice¡ªYet a few days and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears 20
Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist
Thy image. Earth that nourished thee shall claim
Thy growth to be resolved to earth again
And lost each human trace surrendering up
Thine individual being shalt thou go 25
To mix forever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain
Turns with his share and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad and pierce thy mould. 30
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world ¡ªwith kings
The powerful of the earth ¡ªthe wise the good 35
Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods¡ªrivers that move 40
In majesty and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and poured round all
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste ¡ª
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun 45
The planets all the infinite host of heaven
Are shining on the sad abodes of death
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.¡ªTake the wings 50
Of morning pierce the Barcan wilderness
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound
Save his own dashings ¡ªyet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes since first 55
The flight of years began have laid them down
In their last sleep¡ªthe dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe 60
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone the solemn brood of care
Plod on and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments and shall come 65
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away the sons of men
The youth in life's green spring and he who goes
In the full strength of years matron and maid
The speechless babe and the gray-headed man¡ª 70
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 75
His chamber in the silent halls of death
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night
Scourged to his dungeon but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 80
About him and lies down to pleasant dreams.
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Written by
Walt Whitman |
NATIONS ten thousand years before These States, and many times ten thousand years before
These
States;
Garner’d clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travel’d their
course, and pass’d on;
What vast-built cities—what orderly republics—what pastoral tribes and nomads;
What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others;
What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions;
What sort of marriage—what costumes—what physiology and phrenology;
What of liberty and slavery among them—what they thought of death and the soul;
Who were witty and wise—who beautiful and poetic—who brutish and
undevelop’d;
Not a mark, not a record remains—And yet all remains.
O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than we are for nothing;
I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as we now belong to
it,
and as all will henceforth belong to it.
Afar they stand—yet near to me they stand,
Some with oval countenances, learn’d and calm,
Some naked and savage—Some like huge collections of insects,
Some in tents—herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,
Some prowling through woods—Some living peaceably on farms, laboring, reaping,
filling
barns,
Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts,
theatres, wonderful monuments.
Are those billions of men really gone?
Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?
Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?
Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves?
I believe of all those billions of men and women that fill’d the unnamed lands, every
one
exists this hour, here or elsewhere, invisible to us, in exact proportion to what he or
she
grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn’d, in
life.
I believe that was not the end of those nations, or any person of them, any more than this
shall be the end of my nation, or of me;
Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products, games, wars, manners,
crimes,
prisons, slaves, heroes, poets, I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen
world—counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world.
I suspect I shall meet them there,
I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands.
|
Written by
Yehuda Amichai |
My child wafts peace.
When I lean over him,
It is not just the smell of soap.
All the people were children wafting peace.
(And in the whole land, not even one
Millstone remained that still turned).
Oh, the land torn like clothes
That can't be mended.
Hard, lonely fathers even in the cave of the Makhpela*
Childless silence.
My child wafts peace.
His mother's womb promised him
What God cannot
Promise us.
* The traditional burial place in Hebron of Abraham
and the other Patriarchs and Matriarchs of Israel.
|
Written by
Thomas Warton |
Ah, stay thy treacherous hand, forbear to trace
Those faultless forms of elegance and grace!
Ah, cease to spread the bright transparent mass,
With Titian's pencil, o'er the speaking glass!
Nor steal, by strokes of art with truth combin'd,
The fond illusions of my wayward mind!
For long, enamour'd of a barbarous age,
A faithless truant to the classic page;
Long have I lov'd to catch the simple chime
Of minstrel-harps, and spell the fabling rime;
To view the festive rites, the knightly play,
That deck'd heroic Albion's elder day;
To mark the mouldering halls of barons bold,
And the rough castle, cast in giant mould;
With Gothic manners Gothic arts explore,
And muse on the magnificence of yore.
But chief, enraptur'd have I lov'd to roam,
A lingering votary, the vaulted dome,
Where the tall shafts, that mount in massy pride,
Their mingling branches shoot from side to side;
Where elfin sculptors, with fantastic clew,
O'er the long roof their wild embroidery drew;
Where Superstition with capricious hand
In many a maze the wreathed window plann'd,
With hues romantic ting'd the gorgeous pane,
To fill with holy light the wondrous fane;
To aid the builder's model, richly rude,
By no Vitruvian symmetry subdu'd;
To suit the genius of the mystic pile:
Whilst as around the far-retiring aisle,
And fretted shrines, with hoary trophies hung,
Her dark illumination wide she flung,
With new solemnity, the nooks profound,
The caves of death, and the dim arches frown'd.
From bliss long felt unwillingly we part:
Ah, spare the weakness of a lover's heart!
Chase not the phantoms of my fairy dream,
Phantoms that shrink at Reason's painful gleam!
That softer touch, insidious artist, stay,
Nor to new joys my struggling breast betray!
Such was a pensive bard's mistaken strain.--
But, oh, of ravish'd pleasures why complain?
No more the matchless skill I call unkind,
That strives to disenchant my cheated mind.
For when again I view thy chaste design,
The just proportion, and the genuine line;
Those native portraitures of Attic art,
That from the lucid surface seem to start;
Those tints, that steal no glories from the day,
Nor ask the sun to lend his streaming ray:
The doubtful radiance of contending dyes,
That faintly mingle, yet distinctly rise;
'Twixt light and shade the transitory strife;
The feature blooming with immortal life:
The stole in casual foldings taught to flow,
Not with ambitious ornaments to glow;
The tread majestic, and the beaming eye,
That lifted speaks its commerce with the sky;
Heaven's golden emanation, gleaming mild
O'er the mean cradle of the Virgin's child:
Sudden, the sombrous imagery is fled,
Which late my visionary rapture fed:
Thy powerful hand has broke the Gothic chain,
And brought my bosom back to truth again;
To truth, by no peculiar taste confin'd,
Whose universal pattern strikes mankind;
To truth, whose bold and unresisted aim
Checks frail caprice, and fashion's fickle claim;
To truth, whose charms deception's magic quell,
And bind coy Fancy in a stronger spell.
Ye brawny Prophets, that in robes so rich,
At distance due, possess the crisped niche;
Ye rows of Patriarchs, that sublimely rear'd
Diffuse a proud primeval length of beard:
Ye Saints, who clad in crimson's bright array,
More pride than humble poverty display:
Ye Virgins meek, that wear the palmy crown
Of patient faith, and yet so fiercely frown:
Ye Angels, that from clouds of gold recline,
But boast no semblance to a race divine:
Ye tragic tales of legendary lore,
That draw devotion's ready tear no more;
Ye martyrdoms of unenlighten'd days,
Ye miracles, that now no wonder raise:
Shapes, that with one broad glare the gazer strike,
Kings, bishops, nuns, apostles, all alike!
Ye colours, that th' unwary sight amaze,
And only dazzle in the noontide blaze!
No more the sacred window's round disgrace,
But yield to Grecian groups the shining space.
Lo, from the canvas Beauty shifts her throne,
Lo, Picture's powers a new formation own!
Behold, she prints upon the crystal plain,
With her own energy, th' expressive stain!
The mighty master spreads his mimic toil
More wide, nor only blends the breathing oil;
But calls the lineaments of life complete
From genial alchymy's creative heat;
Obedient forms to the bright fusion gives,
While in the warm enamel Nature lives.
Reynolds, 'tis thine, from the broad window's height,
To add new lustre to religious light:
Not of its pomp to strip this ancient shrine,
But bid that pomp with purer radiance shine:
With arts unknown before, to reconcile
The willing Graces to the Gothic pile.
|
Written by
Thomas Paine |
In a chariot of light from the regions of day,
The Goddess of Liberty came;
Ten thousand celestials directed the way,
And hither conducted the dame.
A fair budding branch from the gardens above,
Where millions with millions agree,
She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love,
And the plant she named Liberty Tree.
The celestial exotic struck deep in the ground,
Like a native it flourished and bore;
The fame of its fruit drew the nations around,
To seek out this peaceable shore.
Unmindful of names or distinction they came,
For freemen like brothers agree;
With one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued,
And their temple was Liberty Tree.
Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old,
Their bread in contentment they ate,
Unvexed with the troubles of silver and gold,
The cares of the grand and the great.
With timber and tar they Old England supplied,
And supported her power on the sea;
Her battles they fought, without getting a groat,
For the honor of Liberty Tree.
But hear, O ye swains, 'tis a tale most profane,
How all the tyrannical powers,
Kings, Commons, and Lords, are uniting amain,
To cut down this guardian of ours;
From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms,
Through the land let the sound of it flee,
Let the far and the near, all unite with a cheer,
In defence of our Liberty Tree.
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Written by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,
Close by the street of this fair seaport town,
Silent beside the never-silent waves,
At rest in all this moving up and down!
The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep
Wave their broad curtains in the southwind's breath,
While underneath these leafy tents they keep
The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.
And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,
That pave with level flags their burial-place,
Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down
And broken by Moses at the mountain's base.
The very names recorded here are strange,
Of foreign accent, and of different climes;
Alvares and Rivera interchange
With Abraham and Jacob of old times.
"Blessed be God! for he created Death!"
The mourner said, "and Death is rest and peace!"
Then added, in the certainty of faith,
"And giveth Life that nevermore shall cease."
Closed are the portals of their Synagogue,
No Psalms of David now the silence break,
No Rabbi reads the ancient Decalogue
In the grand dialect the Prophets spake.
Gone are the living, but the dead remain,
And not neglected; for a hand unseen,
Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain,
Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green.
How came they here? What burst of Christian hate,
What persecution, merciless and blind,
Drove o'er the sea -that desert desolate -
These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?
They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire;
Taught in the school of patience to endure
The life of anguish and the death of fire.
All their lives long, with the unleavened bread
And bitter herbs of exile and its fears,
The wasting famine of the heart they fed,
And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears.
Anathema maranatha! was the cry
That rang from town to town, from street to street:
At every gate the accursed Mordecai
Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.
Pride and humiliation hand in hand
Walked with them through the world where'er they went;
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.
For in the background figures vague and vast
Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime,
And all the great traditions of the Past
They saw reflected in the coming time.
And thus forever with reverted look
The mystic volume of the world they read,
Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,
Till life became a Legend of the Dead.
But ah! what once has been shall be no more!
The groaning earth in travail and in pain
Brings forth its races, but does not restore,
And the dead nations never rise again.
|
Written by
Charlotte Bronte |
A Short Poem or Else Not Say I
True pleasure breathes not city air,
Nor in Art's temples dwells,
In palaces and towers where
The voice of Grandeur dwells.
No! Seek it where high Nature holds
Her court 'mid stately groves,
Where she her majesty unfolds,
And in fresh beauty moves;
Where thousand birds of sweetest song,
The wildly rushing storm
And hundred streams which glide along,
Her mighty concert form!
Go where the woods in beauty sleep
Bathed in pale Luna's light,
Or where among their branches sweep
The hollow sounds of night.
Go where the warbling nightingale
In gushes rich doth sing,
Till all the lonely, quiet vale
With melody doth ring.
Go, sit upon a mountain steep,
And view the prospect round;
The hills and vales, the valley's sweep,
The far horizon bound.
Then view the wide sky overhead,
The still, deep vault of blue,
The sun which golden light doth shed,
The clouds of pearly hue.
And as you gaze on this vast scene
Your thoughts will journey far,
Though hundred years should roll between
On Time's swift-passing car.
To ages when the earth was yound,
When patriarchs, grey and old,
The praises of their god oft sung,
And oft his mercies told.
You see them with their beards of snow,
Their robes of ample form,
Their lives whose peaceful, gentle flow,
Felt seldom passion's storm.
Then a calm, solemn pleasure steals
Into your inmost mind;
A quiet aura your spirit feels,
A softened stillness kind.
|
Written by
Anne Kingsmill Finch |
Give me, O indulgent Fate!
Give me yet before I die
A sweet, but absolute retreat,
'Mongst paths so lost and trees so high
That the world may ne'er invade
Through such windings and such shade
My unshaken liberty.
No intruders thither come
Who visit but to be from home!
None who their vain moments pass
Only studious of their glass;
News, that charm to list'ning ears,
That false alarm to hopes and fears,
That common theme for every fop,
From the statesman to the shop,
In those coverts ne'er be spread,
Of who's deceas'd, and who's to wed.
Be no tidings thither brought,
But silent as a midnight thought
Where the world may ne'er invade
Be those windings and that shade!
Courteous Fate! afford me there
A table spread, without my care,
With what the neighb'ring fields impart,
Whose cleanliness be all its art.
When of old the calf was drest
(Though to make an angel's feast)
In the plain unstudied sauce
Nor truffle nor morillia was;
Nor could the mighty patriarchs' board
One far-fetch'd ortolan afford.
Courteous Fate! then give me there
Only plain and wholesome fare;
Fruits indeed (would heaven bestow)
All that did in Eden grow,
All but the forbidden Tree
Would be coveted by me;
Grapes with juice so crowded up
As breaking through the native cup;
Figs yet growing candied o'er
By the sun's attracting power;
Cherries, with the downy peach,
All within my easy reach;
Whilst creeping near the humble ground
Should the strawberry be found
Springing wheresoe'er I stray'd
Through those windings and that shade.
For my garments: let them be
What may with the time agree;
Warm when Ph{oe}bus does retire
And is ill-supplied by fire:
But when he renews the year
And verdant all the fields appear,
Beauty every thing resumes,
Birds have dropp'd their winter plumes,
When the lily full-display'd
Stands in purer white array'd
Than that vest which heretofore
The luxurious monarch wore,
When from Salem's gates he drove
To the soft retreat of love,
Lebanon's all burnish'd house
And the dear Egyptian spouse.
Clothe me, Fate, though not so gay,
Clothe me light and fresh as May!
In the fountains let me view
All my habit cheap and new
Such as, when sweet zephyrs fly,
With their motions may comply,
Gently waving to express
Unaffected carelessness.
No perfumes have there a part
Borrow'd from the chemist's art,
But such as rise from flow'ry beds
Or the falling jasmine sheds!
'Twas the odour of the field
Esau's rural coat did yield
That inspir'd his father's prayer
For blessings of the earth and air:
Of gums or powders had it smelt,
The supplanter, then unfelt,
Easily had been descried
For one that did in tents abide,
For some beauteous handmaid's joy,
And his mother's darling boy.
Let me then no fragrance wear
But what the winds from gardens bear,
In such kind surprising gales
As gather'd from Fidentia's vales
All the flowers that in them grew;
Which intermixing as they flew
In wreathen garlands dropp'd again
On Lucullus and his men;
Who, cheer'd by the victorious sight,
Trebled numbers put to flight.
Let me, when I must be fine,
In such natural colours shine;
Wove and painted by the sun;
Whose resplendent rays to shun
When they do too fiercely beat
Let me find some close retreat
Where they have no passage made
Through those windings, and that shade.
|
Written by
Henry Vaughan |
Sweet, harmless lives! (on whose holy leisure
Waits innocence and pleasure),
Whose leaders to those pastures, and clear springs,
Were patriarchs, saints, and kings,
How happened it that in the dead of night
You only saw true light,
While Palestine was fast asleep, and lay
Without one thought of day?
Was it because those first and blessed swains
Were pilgrims on those plains
When they received the promise, for which now
'Twas there first shown to you?
'Tis true, He loves that dust whereon they go
That serve Him here below,
And therefore might for memory of those
His love there first disclose;
But wretched Salem, once His love, must now
No voice, nor vision know,
Her stately piles with all their height and pride
Now languished and died,
And Bethlem's humble cotes above them stepped
While all her seers slept;
Her cedar, fir, hewed stones and gold were all
Polluted through their fall,
And those once sacred mansions were now
Mere emptiness and show;
This made the angel call at reeds and thatch,
Yet where the shepherds watch,
And God's own lodging (though He could not lack)
To be a common rack;
No costly pride, no soft-clothed luxury
In those thin cells could lie,
Each stirring wind and storm blew through their cots
Which never harbored plots,
Only content, and love, and humble joys
Lived there without all noise,
Perhaps some harmless cares for the next day
Did in their bosoms play,
As where to lead their sheep, what silent nook,
What springs or shades to look,
But that was all; and now with gladsome care
They for the town prepare,
They leave their flock, and in a busy talk
All towards Bethlem walk
To see their souls' Great Shepherd, Who was come
To bring all stragglers home,
Where now they find Him out, and taught before
That Lamb of God adore,
That Lamb whose days great kings and prophets wished
And longed to see, but missed.
The first light they beheld was bright and gay
And turned their night to day,
But to this later light they saw in Him,
Their day was dark, and dim.
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Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
Come all you little rouseabouts and climb upon my knee;
To-day, you see, is Christmas Day, and so it’s up to me
To give you some instruction like—a kind of Christmas tale—
So name your yarn, and off she goes. What, “Jonah and the Whale”?
Well, whales is sheep I’ve never shore; I’ve never been to sea,
So all them great Leviathans is mysteries to me;
But there’s a tale the Bible tells I fully understand,
About the time the Patriarchs were settling on the land.
Those Patriarchs of olden time, when all is said and done,
They lived the same as far-out men on many a Queensland run—
A lot of roving, droving men who drifted to and fro,
The same we did out Queensland way a score of years ago.
Now Isaac was a squatter man, and Jacob was his son,
And when the boy grew up, you see, he wearied of the run.
You know the way that boys grow up—there’s some that stick at home;
But any boy that’s worth his salt will roll his swag and roam.
So Jacob caught the roving fit and took the drovers’ track
To where his uncle had a run, beyond the outer back;
You see they made for out-back runs for room to stretch and grow,
The same we did out Queensland way a score of years ago.
Now, Jacob knew the ways of stock—that’s most uncommon clear—
For when he got to Laban’s Run, they made him overseer;
He didn’t ask a pound a week, but bargained for his pay
To take the roan and strawberry calves—the same we’d take to-day.
The duns and blacks and “Goulburn roans” (that’s brindles), coarse and hard,
He branded them with Laban’s brand, in Old Man Laban’s yard;
So, when he’d done the station work for close on seven year,
Why, all the choicest stock belonged to Laban’s overseer.
It’s often so with overseers—I’ve seen the same thing done
By many a Queensland overseer on many a Queensland run.
But when the mustering time came on old Laban acted straight,
And gave him country of his own outside the boundary gate.
He gave him stock, and offered him his daughter’s hand in troth;
And Jacob first he married one, and then he married both;
You see, they weren’t particular about a wife or so—
No more were we up Queensland way a score of years ago.
But when the stock were strong and fat with grass and lots of rain,
Then Jacob felt the call to take the homeward road again.
It’s strange in every creed and clime, no matter where you roam,
There comes a day when every man would like to make for home.
So off he set with sheep and goats, a mighty moving band,
To battle down the homeward track along the Overland—
It’s droving mixed-up mobs like that that makes men cut their throats.
I’ve travelled rams, which Lord forget, but never travelled goats.
But Jacob knew the ways of stock, for (so the story goes)
When battling through the Philistines—selectors, I suppose—
He thought he’d have to fight his way, an awkward sort of job;
So what did Old Man Jacob do? of course, he split the mob.
He sent the strong stock on ahead to battle out the way;
He couldn’t hurry lambing ewes—no more you could to-day—
And down the road, from run to run, his hand ’gainst every hand,
He moved that mighty mob of stock across the Overland.
The thing is made so clear and plain, so solid in and out,
There isn’t any room at all for any kind of doubt.
It’s just a plain straightforward tale—a tale that lets you know
The way they lived in Palestine three thousand years ago.
It’s strange to read it all to-day, the shifting of the stock;
You’d think you see the caravans that loaf behind the flock,
The little donkeys and the mules, the sheep that slowly spread,
And maybe Dan or Naphthali a-ridin’ on ahead.
The long, dry, dusty summer days, the smouldering fires at night;
The stir and bustle of the camp at break of morning light;
The little kids that skipped about, the camels’ dead-slow tramp—
I wish I’d done a week or two in Old Man Jacob’s camp!
But if I keep the narrer path, some day, perhaps, I’ll know
How Jacob bred them strawberry calves three thousand years ago.
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