Of the dark past
A child is born;
With joy and grief
My heart is torn.
Calm in his cradle
The living lies.
May love and mercy
Unclose his eyes!
Young life is breathed
On the glass;
The world that was not
Comes to pass.
A child is sleeping:
An old man gone.
O, father forsaken,
Forgive your son!
A frightening stillness will mark that day
And the shadow of streetlights and fire-alarms will exhaust the light
All things, the quietest and the loudest, will be silent
The suckling brats will die
The tugboats the locomotives the wind will glide by in silence
We will hear the great voice which coming from far away will pass over the city
We will wait a long time for it
Then at the rich man's time of day
When the dust the stones the missing tears
form the sun's robe on the huge deserted squares
MOST glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day,
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin;
And, having harrowd hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin;
And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye,
Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin,
May live for ever in felicity!
And that Thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love Thee for the same againe;
And for Thy sake, that all lyke deare didst buy,
So swift the hours are moving
Unto the time unproved:
Farewell my love unloving,
Farewell my love beloved!
What! are we not glad-hearted?
Is there no deed to do?
Is not all fear departed
And Spring-tide blossomed new?
The sails swell out above us,
The sea-ridge lifts the keel;
For They have called who love us,
Who bear the gifts that heal:
A crown for him that winneth,
A bed for him that fails,
A glory that beginneth
In never-dying tales.
Yet now the pain is ended
SAD is my lot; among the shining spheres
Wheeling, I weave incessant day and night,
And ever, in my never-ending flight,
Add woes to woes, and count up tears on tears.
Young wives’ and new-born infants’ hapless biers
Lie on my breast, a melancholy sight;
Fresh griefs abhor my fresh returning light;
Pain and remorse and want fill up my years.
My happier children’s farther-piercing eyes
Into the blessed solvent future climb,
And knit the threads of joy and hope and warning;
How can you say
earth should give me joy? Each thing
born is my burden; I cannot succeed
with all of you.
And you would like to dictate to me,
you would like to tell me
who among you is most valuable,
who most resembles me.
And you hold up as an example
the pure life, the detachment
you struggle to acheive--
How can you understand me
when you cannot understand yourselves?
Your memory is not
powerful enough, it will not
reach back far enough--
Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.
She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.
Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
I.
Abash'd the rebel squadrons yield--
MACBETH , the victor of the field,
Exulting, past the blasted wild;
And where his dark o'erhanging towers
Frown on the heath, with pleasures mild
Now DUNCAN hastes to wing the hours--
Sweet are the rosy beams that chase
The angry tempest from the sky;
When winds have shook the mountain's base,
Sweet is the zephyr's balmy sigh;
But sweeter to the breast the social charms
Whose grateful rapture sooths the toil of arms.
II.
Long, long ago I heard a little song,
(Ah, was it long ago, or yesterday?)
So lowly, slowly wound the tune along,
That far into my heart it found the way:
A melody consoling and endearing;
And still, in silent hours, I'm often hearing
The small, sweet song that does not die away.
Long, long ago I saw a little flower,--
(Ah, was it long ago, or yesterday?)
So fair of face and fragrant for an hour,
That something dear to me it seemed to say:
A thought of joy that blossomed into being
I
There dwells a mighty pair -
Slow, statuesque, intense -
Amid the vague Immense:
None can their chronicle declare,
Nor why they be, nor whence.
,h II
Mother of all things made,
Matchless in artistry,
Unlit with sight is she. -
And though her ever well-obeyed
Vacant of feeling he.
III
The Matron mildly asks -
A throb in every word -
"Our clay-made creatures, lord,
How fare they in their mortal tasks
