Produced by Ted Garvin, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and PG Distributed Proofreaders

New York
Macmillan & Co.
And London
1893

Norwood Press
J.S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith.
Boston, MA, USA.

MISCELLANEOUS—
  PRELUDE
  AUTUMN
  WORLD-STRANGENESS
  "WHEN BIRDS WERE SONGLESS"
  THE MOCK SELF
  "YOUR VOICE FROM DEEP DREAMLAND CALLS"
  IN LALEHAM CHURCHYARD
  THE FLIGHT OF YOUTH
  "PLEASE DON’T ASK ME TO LEAVE MY CARES BEHIND"
  A CHILD'S HAIR
  THE KEY-BOARD
  "SCENTLESS FLOWERS I BRING YOU"
  ON LANDOR'S "HELLENICS"
  To ——
  ON EXAGGERATED RESPECT FOR FOREIGN LITERARY OPINION
  ENGLAND TO IRELAND
  MENSIS LACRIMARUM
  "UNDER THE DARK AND PINY SLOPE"
  THE BLIND SUMMIT
  TO LORD TENNYSON
  SKETCH OF A POLITICAL CHARACTER
  ART MAXIMS
  THE GLIMPSE
  THE BALLAD OF "BRITAIN'S PRIDE"
  LINES
  THE RAVEN'S SHADOW
  LUX PERDITA
  ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES
  HISTORY
  THE EMPTY NEST
  IRELAND
  THE LUTE-PLAYER
  "AND THESE—ARE THESE TRULY THE END"
  THE RUSS AT KARA
  LIBERTY REJECTED
  LIFE WITHOUT HEALTH
  TO A FRIEND, ANXIOUS ABOUT FORCED IDLENESS
    FROM INTERRUPTED HEALTH
  "HE SLEEPS WELL, GREATLY SLAIN"
  AN EPISTLE
  TO AUSTIN DOBSON
  TO EDWARD CLODD
  TO EDWARD DOWDEN
  FELICITY
VER TENEBROSUM, SONNETS OF MARCH AND APRIL 1885—
  THE SOUDANESE
  HASHEEN
  THE ENGLISH DEAD
  GORDON
  GORDON (concluded)
  THE TRUE PATRIOTISM
  RESTORED LOYALTY
  THE POLITICAL LIGHT
  FOREIGN MENACE
  HOME ROOTEDNESS
  OUR EASTERN TREASURE
  REPORTED CONCESSIONS
  NIGHTMARE
  FINAL WORD: TO THE COLONIES
EPIGRAMS
WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE
LACHRYMÆ MUSARUM
DEDICATION OF "THE DREAM OF MAN"
THE DREAM OF MAN
SHELLEY'S CENTENARY
A GOLDEN HOUR
AT THE GRAVE OF CHARLES LAMB
LINES IN A FLYLEAF OF "CHRISTABEL"
LINES TO OUR NEW CENSOR
RELUCTANT SUMMER
THE GREAT MISGIVING
"THE THINGS THAT ARE MORE EXCELLENT"
BEAUTY'S REINCARNATION
ENGLAND MY MOTHER
NIGHT
THE FUGITIVE IDEAL
"THE FORESTERS"
SONG
COLUMBUS
THE PRINCE'S QUEST
ANGELO
THE QUESTIONER
THE RIVER
CHANGED VOICES
A SUNSET
A SONG OF THREE SINGERS
LOVE'S ASTROLOGY
THREE FLOWERS
THREE ETERNITIES
LOVE OUTLIVED
VANISHINGS
BEETHOVEN
GOD-SEEKING
SKYFARING

The great poets share their abundant treasures
Generously, like spare change given to the needy;
Amid crowds, they walk their solitary path,
Letting their valuable thoughts tumble out, seemingly unaware.—
I don't possess the generous hand that scatters
The effortless gifts of a limitless Muse.
A fleeting presence, rarely staying for long,
She whimsically inspires me to write—
Then abandons me to mourn her departure in vain,
And I can only wonder if she'll ever return.

You burden of all the songs the earth has sung,
  You reflection in Time's backward gaze,
  You symbol of everything that dies,
That dies unfortunate, or dies loved and young
    And therefore blessed and wise,—
O be less beautiful, or be less brief,
  You tragic beauty, strange and full of fear!
  In vain will Summer raise her pageant?
At your silent signal, leaf by golden leaf,
    Falls apart the stunning year.

Ah, as ghostly as remembered joy, the story
  Of Summer's bloom, the legend of Spring!
  And you, too, flutter an impatient wing,
Your presence even more fleeting and delicate,
    You most unembodied thing,
Whose very essence is your leaving,
  And your journey and farewell are all your theme;
  Whose life still seems to be a brilliant fade,
And you, at the peak of your splendor,
    Are just a figment and a dream.

Stilled is the pure joy that was June,
  And cold is August's burning heart;
  And in the storm-shattered forest choir
For your own farewell, your winds play
    Their wild and mystical melody:
And the charm of your decay becomes more intense,
  The sadness of your beauty, and the pain,
  You example of greatness disappearing!
For me, your golden woods and grey skies
    Resound with amazing speech.

For me, dreams have faded away, appearing and disappearing,
  Between mountains shrouded in the darkness of night and dawn,
  Fleeting melodies carried on the breeze,
From unknown lips that play
    An intangible horn;
And your winter-predicting trees look ghostly,
  Your decaying arches and wet, scattered leaves—
  Past and Future sadly intertwined,
O voice of everything that fades away,
    And essence of all regret!

Strange is the world around me,
  Never really felt familiar—
It still surprises me,
  Haunting me like a face I barely know.

In this house with a starry ceiling,
  With floors made of shiny plains and oceans,
Will I ever feel at home,
  Will I never be completely at ease?

On from room to room I wander,
  Yet my Host can never see me,
And I still don’t know today
  Whether I’m a guest or a prisoner.

So, between the starry sky
  And the flat lands and oceans,
I have never felt at home,
  Never truly been at ease.

When the birds were quiet in the trees
    I heard you sing.
The world was wrapped in winter, you
    Were full of spring.

Today the world's heart feels renewed
    With the springtime thrill,
And yours beneath the sad yew
    Is a wintry chill.

I have few friends, but there are many people out there
Who often encounter a ghost that claims
To be me, sharing my face and name,
And whose thin disguise I secretly ignore,
They think this light impostor is really me.
What good does it do to set them straight and shout
That I am truly myself, and drown this fraud in shame?
I don’t care, as long as he leaves my true self alone,
Don’t try to deceive me too; but sadly!
I, too, sometimes get confused and mistakenly see
Him as myself, and far from my own awareness,
Dull and indifferent, my true self slips by;
And then suddenly, I wake up,
And kick the chattering imposter into the night.

Your voice calls from the deepest dreamland;
  You make the empty sleep beautiful;
Bright over the edge of darkness falls
  The waterfall of your hair.

The morning brings its golden light:
  You fade with the defeated night;
And leave the heavy earth
  Less real than your shadow.

'Twas at this season, year by year,
The singer who lies silent here
Used to pursue a less serious,
    Less deep rest,
Where Rotha to Windermere
    Unending flows,—

Flows through a land where rushing waters call
To distant streams as they cascade,
And mountains in their cloudy shroud
    Maintain a ghostly presence,
And Nature creates something majestic
    Out of man's humble fate.

There, in the August glow, still came
He of the twice-famous name,
The loud arrogance of fame
    Not unwilling to escape—
Not unwilling to join with streams and hills
    In brotherhood.

Connected to his joyful youth,
Is Loughrigg, now finally forgotten?
Neither silent peak nor the shepherd's home
    Overlooks his grave.
Calm by the Thames he rests, and not
    By Rotha's wave.

'It’s best this way! For even though with skill
He sang of stream and pond and ravine,
The deep, genuine mountain thrill
    Never moved his page!
A bit of worldly wisdom mingled still
    With poet and philosopher.

And it would be less fitting for him to lie
Guarded by lonely, towering peaks
That connect with the endless sky
    And hear, without fear,
The timeless hands work
    The loom of God,

Then, in this village on the plain,
A less grand peace to find,
Where Nature, kind and civilized,
    Defers to us,
Granting us the right to rule,
    Though it still belongs to her.

And near where his remains rest,
The Thames with its calm flow
Feels like a reflection of his genius,—
    Its strength, its elegance,
Its clear shine, its quiet pride,
    Its steady pace.

But oh! not his the final outcome
That the traveling wave is waiting for—
Destined to lose its clear state
    And swiftly become
Cloudy as passion, dark as hate,
    And vast as sorrow.

Rather, it might be too much
He avoided the usual dirt and smudge,
From the taint of unworthy contact
    Too grandly untouchable,
Too confidently safe in such
    Cold cleanliness.

But he protected his solid soul from random events;
The fortress of his established spirit;
In everything, he aimed to understand the bigger picture;
    Couldn’t tolerate any pretense;
And focused his heart on the objective,
    Not the reward.

With those chosen, he will endure
Who don’t seem to compete or fight,
Yet still reach the front line,
    Always winning:
Souls who align with the stars
    To achieve their desires.

And you, the confused crowd, who,
Feeling down, watch from a distance
The easily triumphant few
Of quiet fame,—
Don't you have your own sad glory too,
And sorrowful crown?

Great is the easy conqueror;
Yet maybe he, who, badly hurt,
Breathless, unseated, all covered in
    Blood and sweat,
Falls defeated, but still fighting on—
    Is even greater still.

Youth! before you vanish away.
Surely you’ll grant one last favor today
    You will—
One last moment of joy to give,
Rich and noble runaway!
    Before you leave.

What, you can't? What, all out of energy?
All your charms of enchantment
    Powerless now?
Has your magic become outdated?
Has everything that made you great disappeared?—
    Follow along!

No, don't ask me to leave my worries,
  When I can’t escape their shadow.
I only gain a brief break,
  Running away to pleasure and to you.

I might, at most, get a moment of freedom,
  And a chance to be free;
Paused for just a little while,
  Before I'm back in chains again.

A letter from overseas. I rip
Its wrapping open, not knowing
What treasure shines inside; and there—
    Like a bird escaping a cage—
Floats a lock of golden hair
    Out of the page.

From such a playful time it was taken!
(It’s only been five years since he was born.)
Not even sunlight dancing on corn
    Was a happier sight.
A child? A part of the morning,
    A piece of Spring!

Surely a brighter, fuller day
Than covers our English skies with grey—
A deeper light, a richer ray
    Than what we know—
To this bright hair have given away
    Their living glow.

For Willie lives where gentian flowers
Create a sky in mountain retreats;
And vineyards soaked in warm sunlight
    Slope to the waves
Where the historic towers of Chillon
    Are washed at their bases;

And across the pine-covered areas of Vaud
The evening rose climbs up the snow;
And on the waters far below
    Strange sails like wings
Half-bodiedly come and go,
    Amazing things;

And gentle night descends like a sigh
On low cabins and high castles;
And the distant waterfall's voice comes near,
    Where no one hears;
And ghostly peaks pierce the sky
    On silver spears.

Ah, Willie, whose severed hair
Lies in my hand!—may you have
At least one true happiness,
    Even to your grave;
One gift that I ask for, nothing less,
    Nothing more crave:

May cloud and mountain, lake and valley,
Never feel boring or dull to you
Like they do for souls whose wells run dry
    Or flow polluted,
Until Nature's happiest fairy-tale
    No longer enchants her child!

For when the spirit grows numb,
These sights become foreign and strange,
And weighed down by life's boredom
    The streams run dry,
The choric spheres themselves are silent,
    And dead the sky,—

Dead as captives lying still,
Chained to their work in a dark mine:
Above, the calm day smiles gently,
    Birds sing freely,
In powerful bursts of divine life
    Jumps the joyful sea;

But they—their day and night are the same.
What does it matter to them if streams flow,
Or what do they care about the sun?
    It feels like
Their dealings with these things were finished
    A long time ago:

Only, at times, each numb heart feels
That somewhere, locked away with despairing seals,
The pointless universe around him spins,
    And he lies thrown
Beyond the noise of all the wheels
    Of the entire world.

Please provide the text you would like me to modernize.

On what odd path do our thoughts wander!
To a blind night in a sunless den
It's a long way from Willie's hair;
    And here it is—
Human, yet something that can never
    Become sad and wise:

Which, when the head where it once rested
In life's gray twilight is gray,
And when the curfew of life's day
    Is sounded by death,
Shall not lose the dawn's light
    And morning's gold.

Thirty-five black slaves,
  Fifty white,
All they do is sing
  For their Queen's enjoyment,
Sometimes with powerful voices,
  Sometimes with sweet tones,
While she governs them majestically
  With just a touch!

When she leaves her palace,
  Everyone is silent—
Silent with sorrow until the Queen
  Returns to Court:
Silent are the roaring storms,
  Silent are the sweet voices,
Missing all the power
  Of her fingertips.

Dusky slaves and pale,
  Ebony slaves and white,
When the Queen was on her throne
  How you sang tonight!
Ah, the voices like thunder!
  Ah, the sweet lips!
Ah, the charming tyrannies
  Of her fingertips!

Silent, silent, silent,
  All your voices now;
Was her life the only one
  That gave yours meaning somehow?
Wake up, voices like thunder!
  Wake up, sweet lips!
Touched with immortality
  By her fingertips.

Scentless flowers I bring you—yet
In your heart let them be placed;
In your heart each one blooms
Fragrant beyond any rose.

Sweet enough was she who could,
In your heart's sweet neighborhood,
Some extra sweetness like this
Borrow from that extravagance.

Come here, you who have grown tired from too much sweetness
From overly sweet songs, like the waters that flow
From Hybla, not Parnassus mountain: come
With cups cleaned of the sweet-tasting water
Here, and witness a magical miracle
Of the happiest knowledge, the gentle Attic skies
Reflected perfectly by an English well;—no stream
Whose surface defies the heavens by making the stars
Dance, with its restless nature;
But calm and still, except when it occasionally captures
The tribute of lovers' tears, and sometimes
Bubbles with the laughter of a spirit below.

Unto the Lady of The Nook
    Fly, little book.
There you have lovers—even you!
    Fly there now.

Seven years you’ve longed for glory,
    And received little praise;
But ah! to finally gain such friends,
    Is totally worth it.

What! Are we really going to act so submissively, just as older people expect young ones to? Are we going to wait for these crumbs of praise thrown our way by Europe and doubt our own greatness until it has the stamp of approval from your Goethes or Voltaires? We, who in recent times have sung with nearly as much power as the voice of Arno's exiled tongue— we, who are the descendants of Milton and heirs of Shakespeare. Who will win the prize of lyrical victory if the laurel and the palm don't belong to us? More than just the froth and debris of the Seine, more than your Hugo's brilliance against the dark, and more than Weimar's proud and detailed calm, we need just one flash of Byron's lightning and Wordsworth's light.

Spouse who my sword won me in the past,
  Winning me hatred sharper than a sword—
Mother of kids who either hiss at me or ignore me,
  Curse me or insult me, and hold me in disgust—
Heiress of anger that nothing eases,
  Crazy for the future, and crazy from the past—
Daughter of all the relentless ages,
  Look, let’s turn and finally be lovers!

Lovers who tragic mistakes have made equal,
  One in wrongdoing and one in regret.
Connections can be broken, but what comes after?
  It's unlikely that friendship will come from separation.
Let the dead past have a grand burial,
  Over it let the future be built as a shrine!
I, who am proud from overcoming so much,
  Beg you, plead—wait, is this in vain?

Hate and mistrust come from ignorance,—
  If only we could see each other, it would be good!
Understanding brings sympathy, compassion, kindness,
  Only ignorance creates suffering.
If we could just look for an hour, just a minute,
  Deep into each other's unwavering eyes,
Love would start—because that look would spark it—
  Born from the sudden realization.

Then the dark night-bird of Error,
  Frightened by a sudden burst of daylight,
Should flap his evil wings and, in fear,
  Flee to the wilderness, leaving his victim behind.
Then we should, growing stronger and sweeter,
  Merge into one inseparable soul,
Dazzle the world with a brilliant wholeness,
  Powerfully united, completely intact.

You, like a flame when the stormy winds blow,
  I, like a rock against the elements—
Combined by love's magic, the fire and the stone,
  Who could challenge us, what could compare?
Strong with a power that no fate could break,
  United in a way no force could split,
So we were married and joined forever,
  Lover with lover, and groom with bride.

March comes in like a lion, fierce and wild,
      And leaves with a bleating farewell;
March—it's the year's strange blend,
      That arrives when frost has chilled
The trembling fields, or storms have battered the hills,
      And dies adorned with daffodils.
The month of the earth's rebirth
      Through a mix of death and new life:
But, England! in these final days of your years,
      Call it—the Month of Tears.

Under the dark, pine-covered slope
  We watched the storm pass by:
We saw the bright lightning flash and flash
  Out of the shattered sky.

The elements were ministering
  To make one person blessed;
For, ring by ring, you did but cling
  The closer to his chest.

[A Viennese gentleman, who had climbed the Hoch-König without a guide, was found dead, sitting up, near the summit, where he had written, "It's cold, and clouds block the view."—See the Daily News from September 10, 1891.]

So rises the child of centuries of longing,
Man, up the heights of Thought; and wishes to see
Even purer peaks, illuminated with a more otherworldly fire,
In a sudden view, completely fresh;
But on the solitary final height he sighs: "It's cold,
And clouds block the sight."

Ah, the fate of humans! Troubled by old ghosts,
Old ghosts that ambush us and chase us,—
Tired of dreams,—we hope to see revealed
The endless scenery of what's Real and True;
And from our vantage point we can only write: "It's cold,
      And clouds block the view."

Master and magician, our prince of song, whom Time,
  In this beautiful and calm autumn of yours,
  Always crowns with fresh laurels, just as green
Than garlands glistening with the dew of your prime;
Heir to the wealth of the world's poetry,
  Blessed with the Doric elegance, the Mantuan style,
  With the depth of the Arno and the golden glow of Avon;
Singer to whom the ages of song gather,
Cumulatively;—if the youngest of the choir
  Can grab a fleeting brilliance from your name,
Making his page noteworthy, and wishes to
  For one rich moment earn your attention,
Allow him at your feet to place his lyre
  And touch the edges and fringes of your fame.

(1885)

There’s a group of people who have mastered life,
Their success comes not from struggle or strife;
They succeed by holding back instead of chasing;
They don’t shake the tree, yet their hands are full of fruit;
They reach the heights of the earth by being still,
Most resiliently, they sit without a thrill.
Meanwhile, others attack the fortress with force,
Launching fiery sieges against the world, of course,
They feel no need for such harsh methods;
Incredibly still, they effortlessly achieve;
They find happiness in balance and peace,
And by doing nothing, they never cease to please;
They live and die wrapped in others' goodwill,
Mourned by all, though no one knows why still.

Shaped in this fortunate Olympian style,
The admirable * * * * looks on;
Nothing can dazzle or mislead him, unless
It's the wild light of fatal caution;
He never steps outside his door
Without looking back before he looks ahead.
Once he starts, it’s too much to say
He visibly moves forward on his path:
But everyone agrees, he carefully considers his way—
Saving up present strength for future use.
Those who are flippant think he’s slow and serious,
The collected calm of that famous line;
But we, his honest opponents, who
Value him more than his fake friends do,
Genuinely admire that simple mass and weight—
A strong Roman pillar of the State,
So mismatched with the lesser style
Of neighboring columns attached to the structure,
So proud and unshakeable and cold,
Chosen and paired so perfectly wrong,
He seems a monument of thoughtful grace,
Ah, how sadly out of place!

If only there was a call he couldn't ignore—
Whether it was for personal desire or a public necessity—
Ultimately, it might awaken that lazy potential,
And trap him into greatness, if only for a moment!

Often, elaborate things
Go hand in hand with greatness;
More often, happiness
Comes from simplicity.

Talent that's cheapest
Affects uniqueness.
Thoughts that dive deepest
Rise bright in clarity.

Life is tough:
Sing sweetly, O Bard.
That's it, that's it,
To have discovered life difficult.

No record Art holds
Of her struggles and pains.
There's hard work on the heights,—
On the peaks, there's rest.

Just for a day you passed through my boring life,
  Made my lesser dreams feel completely embarrassed,
You went your cheerful way, and left me to return
  To my own world of lesser actions and goals;

To retreat to my harsher reality, and feel
  Like someone living in a smoke-filled town,—
In a short break from the monotonous grind,—
  Escaped from the street's lifeless grime and the factory's scowl,—

In bright daylight, he saw the clear seas roll,
  Saw mountains rising against the perfect sky:
Then he journeyed home, carrying in his soul
  The pain of the difference until he died.

It was a captain from Lowestoft
    that fished the northern sea,
In a boat of thirty-seven tons,
    and the Britain's Pride was she.
And the waves were high against the wind,
    and the waves were high on the other side,
And he said as he lost his fishing net,
    "Whatever will happen, will happen."

His boat rocked and swayed,
  But he guided her to the landing,
In a storm that seemed ready to take her down
  Like grass cut by a scythe;
When suddenly, through the break in the clouds,
  The moon appeared softly,
And he spotted one mast of a sunken ship
  Like a lifeless arm raised high.

And a voice faintly called from the rigging—
  "Help! Help!" it whispered and sighed—
And one figure clung to the mast,
  In the vast, roaring darkness.
Oh, there were only four crew members in total,
  On board the Britain's Pride,
And they kept shouting, "Hold on until dawn!"
  Across the night they cried.

Slowly, the darkness melted away,
  Slowly, the sun rose,
And only the boy in the rigging
  Was left, out of thirty-one,
To tell the story of his captain,
  The true English sailor,
Who did his duty and met his death
  Like English sailors do.

Peace to the brave soul,
  The one who has been greatly tested,
And to all who have fed the hungry sea
  That remains unsatisfied;
And honor and glory forever,
  While the restless tide rolls on,
To the captain of little Lowestoft,
  And the crew of the Britain's Pride.

Go, Verse, and don’t let the grass of waiting grow
Beneath your iambic feet. Head south
Over the Thames River, and don’t stop until
You reach the top of a suburban hill
To the literary fame that isn't unfamiliar: there
Seek rest and shelter from a kind scholar,
Who lives in a world of old romance,
Magical adventures and fairy tales.
Tell her that the one who created you, years ago,
By northern streams and mountains, where breezes blow
From the sea at sunset, desires today
To erase half of your form;
But she must accept you flaws and all, my Verse,
Forgive the good and forget the bad.
Surely, she will place you, not scorned, among
More famous songs sung by happier minstrels;—
In Shakespeare's shadow, you will find a home,
You’ll dwell with the poets of Greece and Rome,
Or be awed by Dante's icy presence,
Or charmed by Goethe’s royal charm,
Or rest with those masters who are hardly less adored
From Rydal and Farringford;
And—like a mortal taken from humans’ abodes
Into some heavenly stronghold of the gods—
Divinely surrounded, in such a shrine,
You may for a moment dream of being divine.

Seabird, nature's spirit,
  Shaped from sunlight and ocean spray—
Raven, gloomy piece of night
  Floating in the light of day—
What do you two have in common,
Coming together between the skies?

You carry to the east
  The sharp scent of the sea foam,—
You bring to the west
  Fragrance from your forest home,
Where perhaps a house is yours
Scented with the damp pine.

Eastward, your important tasks,
  Things of great significance, call;
To the west, your affairs
  Summon, all urgent matters:
I, where land and sea meet,
Watch you eastward, watch you west,

Until, caught in the traps of imagination,
  You appear to be transformed mysteriously,
And the bird turns into an idea,
  And the idea turns into a dream,
And the dream, spread wide above,
Rules over the wretched sky.

Surely I have known before
  Phantoms of the shapes you are—
Haunters of another shore
  Surrounded by another sea.
There my wanderings night and morning
Reconcile me to the end.

There the joyful bird
  Carries the ocean news I want;
He brings tales of an island
  Sparkling on the golden wave:
But the evil beak and feathers
Spread a deep, gloomy sound.

Though the flowers are perfectly made,
  Perfectly to live and die—
Though the bright clouds come and go
  Flower-like in a meadow sky—
Where this raven wanders alone
Veins of midnight mark the dawn.

He will keep on croaking
  Just like he always caws,
Until he interrupts the starry dance,
  Until the heavenly song stops,
And the universal chime
Fades out of tune and time.

Coils the winding sea
  Obedient to the moon's command,
But some hidden conflict
  Disturbs the world's song still,
And the bird that cries and cries
Holds creation with his claws.

Your weak, delicate hands
Could have taken this strong soul and shaped
Its stubborn nature to your gentle plan,
And held it willingly, with such ties
As not even the envy of heaven could break.

Your calming eyes
Could have calmed the sea around my boat,
And brought your traveler home, telling him to be
Pure with their purity, wise with their wisdom,
Merged in their light, and deeply lost in you.

But you— you moved on,
Dressed in the brightness of your chosen days,
Cold, like a star; and left me in unfamiliar paths
Following life's tempting pull, where glimmered
The fleeting light that calls and deceives.

She stands, a tree that's weathered a thousand winters,
  Adorned by countless mornings;
Her wide roots twist beneath the sea,
  Her branches stretch across the globe;
Her seeds, carried by careless winds,
  Cover the farthest shores
With forests grown from her scattered seeds,
New nations thrive in her shade,
  Connecting one land to another.

O you who are scattered by the wandering storm
  Under every foreign star,
Don’t forget where the breath came from
  That carried you so far!
For you are still her ancient seeds
  Dropped on newer ground—
Children of Britain’s island-bred,
To whom the Mother, in her time of need,
  May someday reach out and call.

Here, perhaps, in this mirror glassed,
Who gazes long and carefully sometimes sees
Some hidden feature of the mummified Past,
But more often just the embroidered folds
And soiled grandeur of her tattered gown
Whose worn edges are ruined empires
That sweep the dust of ages into our eyes
And with their trailing pride burden the world.—
For look! the high, imperial Past is dead:
The air is full of its dissolved remains;
Invincible armies long ago defeated,
Kings who no longer remember their terrible thrones,
Powerless rulers and foolish thinkers,
Hinder the slow progress of the pompous ages.

I stroll around this lovely place
  You made three times more enjoyable, my friends;
But you’re gone where laughter shines brightly
  That endless, peaceful sea full of memories.
To the legendary shores of the southern coast,
  Dear travelers, you have taken flight,
And oh! when April brings you back,
  Spring will feel even more like spring.
Still beautiful, as before, this cherished ground;
  Gently, still, the autumn sun shines down;
And magnificently the forests rise around,
  Dappled with wild light at golden moments:
Yet, for the pain your absence brings, oh friends,
Earth's lifeless celebrations are a poor substitute.

In the wild and intense desert, on the paths shaped by storms,
Under the night that quickly rushes to a dawn that still lingers,
She grasps at illusions and chases a ghostly goal
With the relentless desire that consumes her restless soul:
And disaster surrounds her, like the weight of a curse,
And Nature’s stinginess heightens human suffering:
And in vain, a hand reaches out to lift her, stumbling in

She was a grand and magnificent lady,
  I was a musician in her halls.
A warrior like a prince stood by,
  Kept his horse by the castle walls.

He had traveled far to see her.
  "Please rest now, Sir Knight," she said.
The warrior courted her, and eventually won her,
  They got married in the season of snowdrops.
I played beautiful music in his honor,
  And secretly wished to kill him.

I crossed through her door at midnight,
  Wandering through the world until I die:
Ah, let me make this lute eternal
  With the passion of my hate and love!

And these—are these really the end,
  This grinning skull, this heavy dirt?
Do all the green paths we walk
  Only lead to that shameful place?

Ah well! Your eyes invite happiness;
  Your lips are a source of summer still.
I don't need other worlds while this
  Offers me all the joys I want.

O King of kings, watching from Your throne
  You allow the monster of Ust-Kara's prison,
  With a heart colder than Siberia's barren land,
And hear the cries of captives crushed and lying down,
And show no sign in heaven! Will nothing make up
  For their intense suffering whose story is barely told,
  Women made fierce by unimaginable pain,
In the distant dungeon's darkness that concealed their cries?
Why does Your powerful arm wait and not strike this Evil
  Whose beak and claws tear into the unprotected heart,
    Whose wings bring terror and a cloud of despair,
  Whose hunger is the hearts of the oppressed;
Whose offspring are the spawn of hell—Hate that waits its moment,
    Anger, and a people's curse that despise their fate?

About this heart you have
  Your chains made tight,
And do you think I would be
  Set free from that,
And thrown out unbound?

The ocean would just as quickly
  Beg the moon
To take back the magic words
  That make him hers
From shining noon to noon.

She bent her beautiful head
  Toward the sea and said:
"Do you want me to give you
  Your freedom,
That you lost in your youth?"

And from his deepest place
  The answer came:
"My servant to stay
  Is a sweeter pain,
Worth a hundred times more."

Look at life built like a fine house
Now turned into a crumbling mansion
With winter blowing through its falling walls!
The owner walks back and forth in his halls,
And in the empty hours
Can hear the shaky sounds of his towers
And the tremors of their foundations below.
And often he jumps and looks around
At the creaking of a faraway door
Or the echo of his footsteps on the floor,
Thinking it might be someone he’s been waiting for
And has waited for many days,
Coming to guide him through the decaying gates
Out into the world beyond his broken home.

Soon the decree will end that places on you
This heavy burden of unproductive days,
This hardest, punishing work, unwilling rest!
In the meantime, I consider you truly blessed,
Happy from the work you've done so well,
Happy in the tasks you've started off right.
For they are blessed who have little to regret—
Who haven't often misunderstood the prompt,
Stuttered and tripped and played the wrong roles,
And whose lives haven't turned into a Tragedy of Mistakes.

Well, he sleeps deeply, having been greatly defeated,
  Who dies in a magnificent battle;
His sleep is profound in the open sea
  Cushioned on pearls where he lies.

Comfort, the greatest of all gifts,
  War and waves ultimately decide:
Love alone keeps us from peace,
  More brutal than sword or sea.

(To N.A.)

So, off to Cornwall you go,
And leave me hanging out here in town.
For me, it’s the ebb of London’s energy,
Not the ocean roar in a Cornish cave.
My friends (except for just one or two)
Have gone to the sparkling shore, like you,—
The opera season with its loud buzz
Fading beautifully in Lohengrin,—
Houses darkened, their covered windows
Shut out all thoughts, except of the dead,—
The parks a puddle from tropical rains,—
Clubland a thoughtful solitude,—
For me, now that you and yours have gone,
The company of books is all I have!

For you, the twisting wave, thrown up
With writhing head and hissing tongue;
The seaweed whose tangled fibers tell
Of some untouched deep-sea valley;
The perfect, secret-chambered shell,
Whose sound is a summary
Of all the voices of the sea;
Great, basking, sparkling stretches of saltwater;
Far clouds of gulls that circle and swoop
In divine harmony,
With serpentine movement,
And incredible, synchronized curve,
Flashing in sudden silver light,
Then fading on the sharp skyline;
The world-forgotten coves that seem
Wrapped in some magical old sea-dream,
Where, shivering off the milk-white foam,
Lost breezes wander, searching for home,
And peek into crevices and caves,
Fissures paved with powdered shell,
Recesses of ancient sleep,
Entranced by an eternal spell;
The granite jaws eternally
Tearing at the pale lips of the sea;
The wave crashing onto land, then thrown
Back onto its own tormented world;
The towering roars,
The glorious energy of life,
The power, the joy, the cosmic thrill,
Earth's ecstasy made visible,
World-rapture as old as Night and as new
As sunrise;—this, all this, for you!

So, with the Atlantic breezes blowing,
You explore the borders of the land,
And I stay in London's realm,
Just drifting along with the crowd!—
No, more like an island in the current—
Observing the flow—and, partly lost in thought
Wondering where it all began,
And thinking about where it all ends.

For still the ancient riddles mar
Our joy in people, in leaves, in stars.
The Where we come from and Where we're going give no peace,
The Why is a hopeless search;
And the dull person who never thinks,—
Who, stumbling upon the sleeping Sphinx,
Gets through unchallenged,—does the best!

But it doesn't really fit this random verse
To talk about the big mysteries,
And touch with a casual tongue
Secrets no one has pulled from Night.
We think, question, doubt—and pray
For the Deep to respond Yes or No;
And what does the surrounding wave,
The silent, give us, except
A sprinkle of confusing spray?
We just linger on the shore,
Writing our little thoughts in big letters,
While Ocean with commanding words
Laughs at us messing around by the edge.
No, we are children, who all day
Play beside the unknown waters,
And dig with our small toy shovels in the sand,
Thinking our trenches are incredibly deep,
Until twilight falls, and hand-in-hand
Nurse takes us home, worn out, to sleep;
Sleep, and forget our toys, and be
Lulled by the great unending sea.

Enough!—off to Cornwall you head,
While I stay back, rhyming in London instead.

Yes! urban is your Muse, and owns
An empire built on London stones;
Yet flowers, like mountain violets sweet,
Spring from the pavement beneath her feet.

Of wilder origins, this Muse of mine,
Raised in the hills and touched by the sea;
And for her, it's a bittersweet longing
To see that elegant step and demeanor!

Yet surely she, without any criticism,
Can send her greetings from far away,
And even claim a family connection,
And have the audacity to think of it as sisterhood.

For we know well that those Maidens are
All daughters of Mnemosyne;
And under the unifying sun,
There are many songs—but Song is one.

Friend, in whose friendship I am doubly blessed,
  A debt that time can’t erase is what I owe you;
  Was it not your praise that first inspired,
My obscure self, with that noble regard,
Even from him, who, knowing how tough fame is,
  With generous words raised no hesitant call,
  Urging people to listen to a lyre that few
Paid attention to, nor begrudge glory to another bard?
It’s a tough job, year after year,
Trying to get the world to listen.
  One can’t sing forever, like a bird,
Just for the joy of singing! His mate
Is enough for him, listening with a happy heart;
  Nor would he feel more joy even if the whole sky listened.

First, before I satisfy my hunger, let me thank
The one who provided the feast. It truly is a feast,
Even though it's of otherworldly, celestial food—
His story, who seemed, more than any other man,
To be nourished on star beams and the essence
Of rainbows, storms, and ocean foam;
Who hardly endured the limits of his earthly body;
Whom at last the sea delivered to the fire,
From whose wild embrace the winds
Carried him away and scattered him across the world.
In my youthful days of passionate poetry,
He attracted me with his strange, distant light—
He held me in a realm of clouds and gleams,
And vast illusions, where even Man himself
Moved like a ghost among the clouds and gleams.
Soon, the Earth called me back, and a voice
Whispered of fallen deities
And immortal times etched on sculptured urns—
And Philomela's ancient sorrow
Filling the night—along with maidens of romance
To whom St. Agnes’ love-dreams arrive in sleep—
For a while, it bound me in sweet captivity,
Enveloping me in deep content,
Soft as the embrace of loving white arms.
Then a third voice, long ignored—cold and distant,
Familiar yet restrained—
Finally reached me with ears ready to listen. It sang
Of humble sorrows and everyday joys,
Of simple manhood, genuine womanhood,
And childhood as fresh as the clear morning;
And from the everyday experiences right around me,
It rose and expanded, revealing
Open spaces and calm heights,
From where I saw each blade of grass
With roots searching for eternity,
And in every dew drop on every blade
The reflection of the inseparable Whole.
The first voice, then the second, in turn,
Had made me a captive. This voice set me free.
So, above all the voices of men,
Since the one whose blind eyes saw hell and heaven,
To Wordsworth go my admiration, gratitude, and love.
Yet I hold dear Keats, a clear presence, great
With a bit of glorious emptiness.
And dear and great with a wealth of spirit,
Shelley, the feverish, fiery poet,
All color, all fragrance, and all bloom,
Bathed in the midday light, saturated with the sun,
But somewhat lacking roots in everyday earth,
Lacking the human moisture that nourishes
His no less starry lyrical stem, who, entranced
Not less in vivid vision, still held
On to the tangible, kept
The warm touch of the world close by,
Not in hazy dreams of forgetting humanity,
Nor in grand tomorrows losing today;
Who trusted nature, trusted fate, never finding
A monster, ruling over all things;
Who felt the weight of the unknown but carried
Without bitterness the Divine mystery;
Who did not let his spirit crash
Against the cliffs and wave-like sprays,
But amid infinite calmness
Moved peacefully, and from then on, by the Rotha stream,
And Rydal's mountain-mirror, and wherever flows
Yarrow sung three times or Duddon to the sea,
And wherever human hearts resonate with sounds
Played from the lyric heartstrings of humans, shall endure.

A grimy, ugly town, where streams run black
With the waste from a hundred noisy mills,—
Here, I'm called to be; and even here,
In the dark, foul air that carelessly
Scorns the sunlight and ruins the morning,
One can at least imagine the sky is still blue.
Even here, the countless workers of the machine
Consider life a gift; and here, in days long gone,
I heard a kind-hearted girl tell
Her friends how a lucky break
From a few extra shillings each week had boosted
Her family’s income, and she said:
"So now we’re happy, having everything we wanted,"—
True happiness indeed! though it came more
From wanting little than from having it all.

Felicity indeed! Across the years
Her voice comes back to me, scolding me,
As the one who creates traps to catch the wandering Joy
That no trick can capture and no power can catch—
Only by those who never pursued her, did she come to them.

O cursed with big desires and grand dreams,
You too cleverly gather
The tools and ways of happiness,
Always aiming to be happy! Generous hosts, you create
Elaborate setups to welcome
A shy and simple guest, who, aware of all
The formality and details with which
You intend to entertain her, will not show up.

They didn’t wrong us, nor did they try to fight
The bitter battle against us. They called out
To their God for help, believing that justice
Would be upheld in heaven, even if it was
Driven away from this earth. And when they rose
With the fury of a wounded lion,
We stood with the captor, the keeper, the tamer,
We, allied with the foreign tyranny,
We sent them back to their Egyptian cage.
They hardly even knew who we were! We came
Like a destructive wind from the mysterious far northwest.
Our greatness is now something even their little ones have learned,
Where, in wild desert homes, day and night,
Thousands weep for their warriors who didn’t return,
O England, O my country, curse your name!

"Another victory for British forces!"
Those triumphant words spread across the entire land.
Triumphant words, but when you really think about them,
They're words that sound terrible, as sad as they can be.
Another massacre by the bleak Red Sea—
Another outpouring of a sea that's even redder!
Another blow to the unfortunate head
Of a wronged people desperate for freedom.
Another stain on her great reputation, who stands
Confused, left unbearably alone
With the growing ghost of her own
Dark guilt, rising from those spectral sands:
More remorseful than she would ever admit;
England, horrified by her own bloody hands.

Give honor to our fallen heroes, no matter how
Bad the reason that sent them out to die.
Honor to him, who fell too soon, whose high
Position and even higher hopes were met by fate's cruel
Slow and unglamorous death.
Honor to him, destined to die with glory,
Child of the city who raised me,
Who, fiercely leading his brave thousand up
The bloody hill, fell without a word—
Fell, but will never be forgotten by us.
Let’s also honor those whose voices remain unheard,
Who sleep nameless while dull time covers
Them with no glorious shade of laurel tree,
But only the poppy, marking their deeds and death.

Even though our tribute may seem idle and pointless,
We push loudly through the door of silence
And compete in our eagerness to honor death’s reality,
Yet we will not hold back our melodious voices
From singing your praises, gentlest warrior without stain,
Though you may have been denied the joyful crown of success,
Defeated by dark fate, but still glorious,
The greatest of losers, slain on the lonely peak
Of Alp-like virtue. Not today, and not
Tomorrow, will your spirit’s brilliance be
A victim of oblivion; but when God finds
All human greatness among men forgotten,
Only then will the world, grown old and blind,
Stop, in its senility, from remembering you.

GORDON (finished)

Arab, Egyptian, English—by the sword
Cut down, pierced with spears, or shot down—
In the end, they all rest in the same fate: their dust
Becoming a part of the hated fiery sands.
And you, what do you have, hero, as a reward,
You, England's glory and her disgrace? Overthrown
You lie, unburied, or with a grave unknown
Like the one to whom the Lord on Nebo's height
Showed all the land of Gilead, up to Dan;
Judah by the sea; Manasseh and Ephraim;
And Jericho full of palm trees, where Zoar was;
And in a valley of Moab He buried him,
Opposite Beth-Peor, but no one
Knows where his burial place is to this day.

The ever-bright name of patriot
Shouldn’t be denied to anyone who recognized
Where in their country’s entirety there’s a flaw,
Where, on her purity, there’s an ugly stain.
England! your loyal sons condemn you.—What!
Should we be submissive when we draw
Our passion from you? Not even you can intimidate
Us, your proud children who are no way lowly.
Let this be the measure of our loyalty—
To feel you are noble and mourn your failures even more.
This truth is acknowledged by your true servants—
Those who love you most lament your sins the most.
Know your loyal ones! The best way to honor you
Is to only honor what is best in you.

Your wrongdoing is serious, and you should feel deep regret,
O England! It's only right that your own feet bleed,
Giving in to the blindly foolish guides that lead
Your tired steps along this rough path.
Yet … as I look around and see the source
Of other nations' actions, which are much more selfish,
And notice their twisted tactics, their jealous greed,
Their clever deceit or simply ruthless force,
My wandering loyalty returns home,
Crying, "O England, if one day you should fall,
Shattered in ruins by some great enemy,
Justice would then be weaker everywhere,
And Truth less vigorously free,
And God would be poorer for your defeat."

A skilled politician, while we were intact:
Who examined every surface of the nation,
But sadly misread the pulse of its heart.
Father of great sorrows, yet strong in spirit.
Fast rider with disaster as his goal,
Who, pushing his horse-riding skills too far,
Released a horse eager to start,
But incredibly hard to rein in or control.
Sometimes we thought he guided the people forward:
Then he seemed to chase after where they flew;
Master of persuasive speech and piercing eyes;
Brilliant but out of place, and wise at the wrong time:
A man whose virtues, talent, greatness, and worth
Caused greater harm than ages can fix.

I’m amazed that this land, which I proudly claim
The honor of being a son of—because it was once
A pride to come from Britain’s island,
Even though now it almost seems like shame—
I’m astonished that this land with such a calm heart
Can endure the north's arrogance and deceit.
But what angers me most is to think how low
You are, how despicable, from whom the insult came,
Clumsy and slow, ages behind
Your sister Powers, in both mind and conscience;
In acknowledging the expanding mind of man
And its flexible adaptation to its growth:
Heavy and brutish, that carries on your back, reluctantly,
One miserable man, the most pitiful of all mankind.

I can't really call myself a cosmopolitan;
I admit to being "insular," even though
I know it's not in style anymore.
Because somehow, being a plain and simple guy,
I’m at my core a child of the new era,
But mostly, I’m just a true Englishman,
Raised on an island; I can hate an enemy,
And trust my family more than the Russians.
Who should I trust if not my family? And who
Can be closer to me than those
Born from the great mother England,
Cared for on my mother England's strong knees,
And cradled as I was in both glory and sorrow
With lullabies of her protective seas?

In dusty, dark corners, I hear
A faint voice that's recently come alive,
Saying our India is a burdensome weight,
An unnecessary ornament, way too costly.
The smarter world doesn't ignore flashy things;
True pride is an important part of a state;
The feeling of greatness keeps a nation strong;
And those who seem powerful truly are.
It might be that if greedy hands could take
From England's hold the desired eastern treasure,
This wealth would flow to her, still as now:
But would she still be the same England, feeling
A light lost from those starry eyes,
A brilliance missing from that shining face?

So we have to hesitate, stumble, cringe, and pull back,
And when the bully threatens, either cower or run away.—
There are those who tell me with a fearful look
That war's bloody cup is the drink chosen by the devil.
Who can argue with them? I truly believe
War is nearly as detestable, and almost
As horrifying, as this dreadful Peace where
We linger forever on the edge of a volcano
And fill the air with empty words, while we know
The hellish cliff looms right in front of us,
Over which we cast a fragile bridge of words,
Yet can’t help but hear from the void
The deep, suffocating hiss of the gloom
And the underground flow of simmering lava.

(Written during the apparent approach of war)

In a false dream, I saw the enemy win.
The war was over; the last smoke had cleared
Away: and we, once the strong and brave,
Stood broken, humbled, shriveled, weak and pale,
And moaned, "Our greatness has become a story
To tell our children's children when we're old.
They'll set aside their toys to hear
How England once, before the years of struggle,
Was throned above, trembling, powerful, grand, and calm,
Holding Asia's richest jewel in her hand;
And with countless barbaric isles, she
Adorned the broad edge of her shining robe;
Then, when she wrapped her arms around the world,
And had the submissive sea as her vassal."

Brothers across the loud expanse of the Atlantic;
And you who raise countless sheep
Far south in the ocean called the peaceful one;
Britons who sail past the Indian waves
Carrying our name, spirit, and global presence;
And you, our relatives, who harvest the land's bounty
Where that long-backed mountain stretches until it stops
Crowned with the headland of bright hope:—
Distant compatriots wherever you may be,
By your clear and true voices,
We know that everything is well with our England:
She is still young, her global mission just starting!
Through you, we see her safe, knowing through you
Her veins may be countless, but her heart is one.

It's the highest point of human fortune to be
  A spirit that's melodic, clear, balanced, and complete;
Next in line for happiness
  I believe it is to have walked with such a soul.

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The statue—Buonarroti said—waits,
Trapped in the block, for me to set it free.
The poem—the poet says—roams freely
Until I confine it to captivity.

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To keep an eye on Perfection and admire
  The vision is the greatest joy for an artist;
His deepest sorrow is that he can never do more
  Than keep her desired beauty in view.

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If nature is just an illusion, as you say,
  A brilliant story and an incredible dream,
I won’t rush to find what’s real and true,
  More than satisfied with worlds that only appear.

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The Poet picks fruit from every tree,
Even grapes from thorns and figs from thistles he.
Picked by his hand, the simplest weed that grows
Rises to a lily, turns red like a rose.

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Brook, from whose bridge the wandering idler looks
  To watch your little fish dart or the cool floor gleam,
I wish that bridge, whose arches have all those years
  Spanned a wave as clear as yours!

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To art we go like someone who is thirsty to a well,
  And we see our reflection against its imitative skies,
But we must dive deep and get fully immersed
  To grasp the water nymph Truth where she lies below.

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In youth, the artist makes promises of love
To Art, and in adulthood takes her as his partner.
It’s good if her beauty still brings him such happiness
As when he sought a favor and she was teasing!

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Trapped in our senses, bound by five chains,
  We find peace if whispers from the stars
In the currents of the endless wind
  Drift through our prison bars at midnight.

* * * * *

Love, like a bird, has landed on a branch
  For us to listen to what it sings.
Happy, it forgets to fly away;
  But shh!… don’t remind Eros of his wings.

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Don't think your wisdom can illuminate away
The ancient entanglement of night and day.
It’s enough to recognize both, and to respect them:
Those who see everything clearly don’t necessarily see the best.

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In the midst of the dance of Time, you begin,
  Startled by the cold presence of Eternity,
And wrap your cloaks around you and leave:
  The musicians don’t stop their music.

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The animals in the field are happy, without a clue
  Why their hearts leap when spring arrives.
People look at their own happiness, think about it,
  Examine it closely; and then it's gone.

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Momentous to himself as I am to myself
  Has each man been that any woman has ever brought into the world;
Once, in a quick flash of understanding,
  I felt this truth, for just a moment, and that was it.

* * * * *

The gods that people create, they eventually destroy; they declare each one
  Immortal, yet they themselves outlast them all:
But those who were not created by him are beyond his grasp
  To shake their pedestal that is both clouded and sun-bright.

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The kids play around the graveyard's edge;
The lark sings over a mental hospital or a jail;—
Such nice contrasts of perfect balance
Chance uses in her interesting way of speaking.

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Our nimble thoughts dance near God's edge,
Kids whose home is by the cliff.
Don't worry, your little ones won't fall:
Strong, though unseen, is the surrounding wall.

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Is there anyone who hasn't been touched by pain
And hasn't had sorrow turn away from them?
Feel sorry for him, more than anyone else,
For he is the most unfortunate of all mortals.

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Say what you want, the young are never happy.
Give me blessed old age, beyond the fire and fever,—
Past the joy that breaks you, hope that hurts,
And the restless flapping of life's clueless wings.

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Onward moves the chariot of the Unstoppable;
  Neither day reveals it nor night hides it;
You hear the sound of unreturning hooves
  And the rumble of unchangeable wheels.

* * * * *

A skilled musician turns into the breeze
  Whenever it discovers an Aeolian harp:
Hornpipe and hurdy-gurdy are both silent
  To the most musical of winds.

* * * * *

I follow Beauty; I am part of her retinue:
  Beauty whose voice is the earth, sea, and sky;
Who serves, and her hands work for everything;
  Who reigns, and her throne is everywhere.

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Working hard and longing, it's man's fate to see
  No perfect being created by his hands.
Insulted by a flower's purity,
  And mocked by the perfect stars, he stands.

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For symbols of humanity, we look to the heavens,
  And discover our stories all around us.
We look at Nature with self-absorbed eyes,
Falling in love with our reflection everywhere.

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One music creates its hidden home
  In everything scattered from great Beauty's hand;
And always the deepest words of God
  Are still the easiest to understand.

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Enough with the sad songs, my lute!
From now on, be cheerful or just be silent.
The breath of song is wasted when it only stirs
The smoldering misery of humanity.

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I picked this flower, oh beautiful flower, for you,
Where the river meets the sea.
The wild west wind has made it free to kiss:
Kiss it yourself and give it back to me.

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To be like this old elm, I would hate it,
  That shakes its frail head in the autumn storm.
Let me rest, chopped down by the strange last woodman,
  Before the path grows quiet with my fallen leaves.

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Ah, pointless, so pointless in the end, your hate and anger,
And the loud storm of your noisy words.
True poets are just exceptional lovers,
And one big love confession is poetry.

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His rhymes the poet throws at everyone's feet,
  And anyone can walk all over his rhymes.
If Time lets a true and sweet song die,
  The loss for the singer would be outweighed by Time's.

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No powerful singer he, whose silence saddens
  Today the great West's gentle heart and strong;
No singer with a huge voice: yet one who makes
  His native air sweeter for his song.

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Too eager for the pleasures of life, he was one of those
  Whom Joy escapes because they pursue her.
Only the scent of her untamed hair wafts
  Back in their faces longing for her presence.

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He maintains a questionable balance:—yet that scale,
Whose load the world is, will it really win?
No; Cleopatra falls into this
One opposing warm kiss from the east.

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The thousand painful steps are finally behind us,
  We’ve finally made it through the tough door of the temple;
But the god, perfect on his pedestal,
  Paralyzes us with hopelessness as we step inside.

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He lived with the shining gods of ancient times,
  On earth and in their misty homes above.
He loved them: and in a grand reward,
  The gods, unfortunately! gave him their deadly love.

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Your Marlowe's page I close, my Shakespeare's open.
  How welcome—after the noise of the gong and cymbals—
The flow, the long slow incline
  And wide arcs of the gradual violin!

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A star looked down from the sky and loved a flower
Grown in earth's garden—loved it for an hour:

Let eyes that follow his path in the skies
Not deny, to a withered rosebud, tears.

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Here Love the slain with Love the slayer lies;
  Deep drowned are both in the same sunless pool.
Up from its depths that mirror thundering skies
  Bubbles the pale laughter of the joyless Fool.

* * * *

Time, the thief, takes from the richest beauty
A heavy price and demands its greedy dues.
If you carve your rhyme with serious intent,
Maybe it’ll pay a smaller price to Time.

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Spring, the quiet beginning of a grander melody:
  Summer, a tune with no hint of mortality:
Autumn, a rhythm that stretches on:
  Winter, a break;—the Minstrel-Year catches its breath.

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Flower touched, wrapped in ivy's gentle embrace,
  It feels connected to Nature, yet separate:—
Of the senseless beauty of woods and waves
  The joyful, sorrowful, calm, passionate human heart.

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The captain's power, and the mystery of the seer—
  Distance of Jehovah's speaker,
Proximity of man's heavenly supporter—are here:
  Only Mount Nebo's harsh outline is absent.

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Goodbye, white brows of Europe! regal brows,
  That wear the sunset like a golden crown.
With me in memory, your shadows will dwell
  Forever, whiter than you and higher still.

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It rises like the hearts of unfortunate men who dare
  To ask for gifts the gods refuse to give;
Who endlessly reach for a destination unknown,
  Constantly confused by what they can't understand.

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He loved his friends. As for his fiercest enemies—
  Cats—I think he pretended to hate them.
I will miss the little nose that nudged my hand,
  And my eyes will miss the tail that wagged in defiance of Fate.

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Here was a nice place to die;—
  Lately I've become averse to sudden changes,
I would gladly avoid all violent contrasts
  As I move from this world into a worse one.

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I would gladly have you trade destinies with me,—
Solitary wanderer where the shells sparkle like jewels,
Hanging on the edge and tattered hem of the sea.
But no,—that would be harsh, wild-winged Happiness! to you.

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What keeps her distant gaze from wandering?
Not the unfamiliar sea, the strange land, or the even stranger sky;
But her own ghost, overshadowing these great three,
Stranger than all, older than the sky, land, and sea.

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He keeps trying forever, with parched lips,
The wave that never tires of teasing him.
It's from Lethe; only those who have drunk from that current
Have never longed for the forgetful drink.

* * * * *

She lived among us until the flowers, it's said,
  Became jealous of her: with hurried steps,
As if to avoid hurting them without realizing, she ran away.
  The earth smells less sweet now, and heaven feels more lovely.

Before the greedy lords with their lust for gold
  Destroy the sacred hills we honor—
Before cities with their countless demands
  Threaten every sacred pond—
Let's give thanks that one spot has remained
  Untouched by the wave of desecration,
The little churchyard in the green valley
  That holds our Wordsworth’s grave.

It was there I picked these mournful flowers,
  The place where he rests among a few worthy friends,
And from there I bring this piece from classic graves,
  As a gift, my friend, for you—
You who have cherished, like I, his straightforward themes,
  Loved his honest, grand expressions that are beautifully simple,
And loved the land whose mountains and streams
  Are even more beautiful because of his work.

It might be that his strong song, next to
  More delicate melodies, feels like a country tune;
It might be, thinking has expanded since he passed
  At the height of the century;
It might be that we can no longer hold
  The faith that he inherited from his ancestors;
It might be that our fate is to lose hope
  Where he believed with joy;—

Enough that there hasn’t been anyone since who sings
  A song so deeply from the immediate soul,
So instantly from the vital source of things
  Which is our origin and destination;
And even though there are now more skillful sounds
  Than those his lyre produced,
Years may go by before another note
  Is sung so sweet, so profound, so genuine.

The old, rough church with its empty, bald tower is here;
  Beneath its shadow, the noble Rotha flows;
Rotha, who remembers well those resting nearby,
  And with a gentle murmur, soothes his sleep

Rotha, remembering well who sleeps nearby.
  His hills, his lakes, his streams are still with him.
Surely the heart that understood its own heart clearly
  Nature doesn’t forget quickly: it’s us who forget.

We who with wandering souls ignored his steadiness
  Have betrayed him; unfaithful, we did his deep trust wrong;
Abandoned him for lesser loves, and knelt down
  To odd, ill-conceived new gods of music.

Yet, guided by a hollow ghost or a beckoning elf
  Far from her home to the desert creek,
The wandering soul returning to herself
  Weary but wise, must inevitably return to him.

To him and to the forces that exist with him:—
  Inflowings that revealed not where they originated;
And that hidden spirit we can't understand,
  The mystery we complicate by giving it a name;

The Something that we label but can’t fully understand,
  Just like we name a star and can only see
Its endless sparks of light, which always appear
  And always disappear, and which aren’t the star itself.

Poet who sleeps by this wandering wave!
  When you were born, what gift did you receive then?
What wealth did the Immortals give to you,
  The wealth that you in turn gave to people?

Not Milton's sharp, otherworldly music yours;
  Not Shakespeare's clear, limitless human perspective;
Not Shelley's blush of pink on heavenly peaks;
  Nor the magical twilight that Coleridge experienced.

What did you have that could make up for
  Everything you lacked and what your peers had,
Movement and passion, quick ways to bright results?—
  You had, for tired feet, the gift of rest.

From Shelley's brilliant shine or stormy haze,
  From Byron's furious storms, joyful storms,
People turned to you and found—not explosions and fire,
  Chaos of unstable skies, but calm on earth,

Nor peace that grows by Lethe, scentless flower,
  There in white languors to decline and cease;
But peace whose names are also joy, strength,
  Clarity, and love: for these are parts of peace.

I hear it said that the Muse is still with us;—
  If she's not as divinely wild as before,
Instead of genuine feelings, she has amazing talent
  To imitate emotions that are no longer felt.

Not the same true presence that made
  This valley sing in the good old days!—
In his great days, while spring was still in bloom
  And the powerful morning sparkled.

No wordsmith, he sang
  A grand song about simple joys and sorrows.
Straight from the heart, straight to the heart it came,
  Or from the soul jumped instantly to the soul.

He felt the magic of childhood, the beauty of youth,
  The majesty of old age, demanding to be celebrated.
The heartfelt reasoning was pure honesty
  Half-curious about its own beautiful expression.

Passionate? Yes, to the song's ecstatic core!
  But far away were noise, chaos, and conflict;
For abundant health was his, more than enough
  Of joy, and a passionate calmness.

A hundred years before he reached adulthood,
  A song from heavenly heights had come down,
She shed her robe of sunlight, dew, and flame,
  And put on a stylish outfit to captivate the city.

From then on, she just decorated the porch with things;
  Skilled in life's knowledge, uninterested in what life meant.
With skilled hands, she played her lute's few strings;
  Unremarkably perfect, emptily satisfied.

Unfazed and unimpressed,
  Her lips twisted in useless mockery,
She looked on with dull feelings—if she looked—
  At the image of the world's glory.

The human mask she watched, with blank eyes
  In whose clear depths there was no trembling shadow:
The stars, unknown to her, might set and rise,
  Unnoticed by her, the daisies bloom and wither.

The era became tired of her dry humor.
  She herself grew tired on her emotionless throne.
Men sensed the flow of life, its highs and lows,
  And longed for a genuine voice, a natural tone.

For none the less, though the song was only half true,
  The world was shared, with one overflowing theme.
People laughed and cried, and fate was always fresh,
  And love was sweet, life was real, death was no dream.

In serious, harsh lines, the tough scholar-sage
  Mourned his unappreciated labor, uncheered youth.
His verses carried the style of the times,
  But beneath it, the powerful heart could be felt.

From dewy fields, hills sweet with thyme,
  A fresh breeze refreshed the tired day.
It carried Collins' lonely evening chime,
  It spread the simple tone of Gray.

It fluttered around, not moving in vain
  Through the dusty places where pointless echoes linger,—
Then, in a rhythm gentle like summer rain,
  And sadly from Auburn silent, it drooped and fell.

It drooped and fell, and one beneath northern skies,
  With a southern heart, who worked his father's land,
Found Poetry dying, told her to rise
  And touch quick nature's edge and go forth healed.

On life's vast field, the farmer's plowshare
  Turned the uncultivated soil of truth once more,
And across the neat garden's tidy beds
  The worker's team carved a harsh furrow.

Bright was his departure, but clouds soon
  Overwhelmed him; in darkness his light faded, and those
Twin morning stars of the new century's anthem,
  Those morning stars that sang in unison, rose.

In elvish speech, the Dreamer shared his story
  Of amazing oceans carried by destined winds.—
The Seër didn’t wander beyond the human realm,
  But the enigmatic nature of ordinary things

He reflects like the moon in Rydal Mere
  Reflects, when the still night hangs blue:
Strangely distant she seems and wonderfully close,
  And through some mysterious difference, reborn.

Peace—peace—and rest! Ah, how the lyre is reluctant,
  Or powerless now, to provide what everyone seeks!
Either it numbs with unworthy laziness
  Or overwhelms with harsh noise, painfully weak.

Where’s the singer whose powerful notes and clarity
  Can heal, strengthen, nourish, and support?
Look, someone with shallow music fills the air,
  And another, refreshing the heart, exhausts the mind.

And casually cheerful, the chatty crowd
  Flutters and tweets, wasting their time,
And little ones turn songs into playthings
  Until serious people get tired of the sound of rhyme.

And some act playfully in old-fashioned clothes,
  Disliking to be healthy, happy, and free;
And some show off a deliberate authenticity,
  The scholar's not the same as the child's innocence.

Enough;—and the wisest are those who hold back from words.
  The gentle river doesn’t complain as it flows;
And smooth and generous, the charming breeze
  Doesn’t scold at all, or only the one who scolds.

Nature! We call out to you with our collective voices.
  You respond through the peaceful, vast nights and days,
"Let those who will praise me: your voices are not silent;
  Yet if you paused, I wouldn't miss the compliments."

We hesitate, feeling partly scolded, and sing once more.
  We sing of your desolation and tired darkness,
Or with your glorious anger elevate the tune,
  Or enhance it with your vividness and scent.

One, his sweet blood burning for you,
  Enticed by fierce desire, his heart corrupted by the world.
One, with the innocent gaze of a child,
  Looked into your face and felt like your child.

He approached you without any suspicion or fear—
  Saw you seated, a powerful queen, above—
Climbed onto your lap and simply rested his head
  Against your warm, wild heart of motherly love.

He felt that huge heart beating—you held
  Your child so close, and loved him without knowing

For you were not like the legendary lands
  That we explore with curious eyes and ears.
Nor were you like a shrine in quiet sands,
  Where travelers stop at dusk. You were home.

And here, at home, he still stays; but he sleeps;
  Not to be disturbed even by your words;
Though we, uncertain dreamers, wish he’s somewhere listening
  With an ear still open to your voice still heard,—

Your voice, as before, spoke of him,
  Always echoing around his silence now;
Your voice, though deeper, still so like his own
  That almost, when he sang, we thought it was you!

Behind Helm Crag and Silver Howe, the glow
  Of the fading day is becoming dimmer.
Soon the grander peaks, hidden from view,
  Will cloak themselves in the night’s embrace.

The faint bleating of sheep comes from the hill,
  Soft sounds of kids playing are in the air.
The river gently flows by. Everything else is quiet.
  Even the graves seem quieter than before.

Although one nation may be thrown against another,
  And life weighed down by hard work and old suffering,
Here, it’s hard to believe that the entire world
  Is not at peace, and that every human heart is not at ease.

Rest! It was the gift he gave; and peace! the shade
  He spread, for souls burned out by the sun.
To him his rewards have returned—here placed
  In rest, in peace, his work nobly finished.

Low, like someone else's, lies the laurel-crowned head:
The life that seemed like a perfect song is over:
Take the last great poet to his final resting place.
Land he loved, your noblest voice is silent.
Land he cherished, that loved him! never again
Will he walk your meadows, smooth lawns, or wild shores,
Gardens filled with fragrant blooms and trembling fruits,
Or ancient woodlands, like Druid beds spread out,
Where the master's feet shall tread.
Death's small crack has torn the flawless lute:
The singer of everlasting songs is gone.

Look, in this somber and reflective season,
As the doomed, unwilling leaves fade and fall
From the Earth's withered, unusual crown,
The sighs of the forest and the waves
Blend with the murmurs of a people's sorrow
For the one whose leaf will never fade or fall.
He has journeyed beyond these suns and rains.
For us, the autumn glow and the autumn blaze,
And soon the winter's silence will be ours:
Him, the eternal spring of timeless fame
Crowns with flowers that are not of this world.

Though he's far from us,
Virgil greets him, and Theocritus;
Catullus, brainiest Lucretius, each
Welcomes him, their brother, on the Stygian shore;
Proudly, a thin right hand reaches out from Dante;
Milton and Wordsworth welcome him back;
Bright Keats asks to touch his robe;
Coleridge, his hair sprinkled with fairy foam,
Calm Spenser, smooth Chaucer,
Seek his equal friendship;
And godlike spirits welcome him as a guest, speaking
Of Athens, Florence, Weimar, Stratford, Rome.

What good are our fleeting tears for his honor,
To protect him from the fate of decay?
Not in this temporary sunlight, right now, does that bay
Bloom, nor does he sing to the fragile human ears
With lips made of temporary clay;
For he has joined the chorus of his peers
In the homes of the perfect day:
His earthly tunes are heard by a heavenly audience,
And from now on, the spheres are more melodic,
Enriched with music taken from Earth away.

He has returned to the places he came from.
The divine spirit
Of universal beauty calls him back.
All of nature is his shrine.
Look for him from now on in the wind and sea,
In the feelings or stillness of earth and air,
In the calm dignity of every star,
And in the joy of the bright red rose.
There, look for him if you don't want to search in vain,
There, in the rhythm and music of everything;
Yes, and forever in the human soul
Made stronger and more beautiful by his influence.

For look! creation itself is one big choir,
And what is nature's order but the rhythm
To which the worlds keep time,
And all things move together from their beginning?
Who can explain the mystery of the lyre?
In the distant depths of elemental thought
The essential breath of song comes and goes
Like the wind,
Untraceable, and unknown where it blows.
Ask the lilies why they are white,
Force the rose to reveal her red secret,
But don't ask the Muse to explain
The meaning of her power's riddle:
She knows something of all things sealed and hidden,
Except the enigma of herself.
Even the master couldn't say, with all his knowledge,
Why he sang, or where the command came from;
Just like the linnet sings, he said;—
Ah, more like the majestic nightingale,
That captivated the ancient Athenian shore,
And enchants the ages with notes that
Forever resonate in the woods!
And now, having escaped our empty applause,
He lives instead in a holier silence,
And on no earthly sea with its fleeting roar,
To no earthly airs, does he set his sail,
But far beyond our sight and our calls,
He is heard forever and seen no more.

No more, oh never again,
Lord of the high and calm brow
Where neither the snows of time
Have fallen, nor winter’s rime,
Shall people see you, wise and great mage.
Once, in his unseen youth,
The creator of this verse, which will last
By the brilliance of its theme that can’t die,
Saw you face to face,
And through you, touched the hand
Of every hero of your divine lineage,
Even the father of all those crowned with laurels,
The blind wanderer on the Ionian shore,
With a soul as healthy as the sharp sea air,
As wide as his skies and bright as his seas,
Starry from the haunts of his nine Muses,
Glorious Mæonides.
Yes, I saw you, and I see you still:
You may have forgotten, but can I forget?
The sounds of your pure and sovereign voice,
Are they not always engraved
On memory's layered scroll?
I see the wizard locks hanging like night,
I walk the ground your sacred feet have touched;
I see the hands that played a nation's lyre,
The eyes that gazed through life and looked upon God.

The seasons change, the winds shift and turn;
The grass from last year
Is dead; the birds fly away, the trees fade:
Empires fall apart and people vanish:
Songs never fade away.
Leaders and conquerors leave just a bit of dust,
And kings leave behind a questionable story of their rule;
The swords of Caesars are worth less than rust:
But the poet lives on.
Augustus is dead, but Maro is alive;
And you, the Mantuan of our time and place,
Like Virgil, your race and language will endure,
Leaving behind just as sweet words for the future,
Preserved in amber of eternal verse,
And rich with delights from every source of inspiration;
While, to the rhythm of the universe,
For more discerning ears, you’ll tune your lyre,
And ignore the buzz of empty praise
In that great peace our chaos can’t reach,
Master who crowns our unmelodious days
With the flower of perfect speech.

City that’s waiting to be celebrated,—
  For whom no hand
Has strummed the lyre to mighty tunes
  In all this land,
Though even the greatest themes weren’t sung
  By the mightiest of old,
The godlike sons of the three Muses
  With golden lips,—
Until a greater voice sings your greatness
  In higher times,
Let a foreign muse bring
  Her dedicated rhymes.

Yes, I am an outsider among you,
  Not one of your kind;
The child of a northern sky
  With a harsher temperament:
To me, your uninvited guest, to me,
    Amid your loud noise,
Wandering images of the moor or sea
    Come to torment me.
Above the roar of the wheels
    That rush past,
From the lapping of lonely waves there comes
    A distant sigh;

And many a mountain peak shaped by dreams
    My feet have walked,
Where your cathedral in the West
    Reaches toward God.
Yet, if I leave your presence,
    Through deep woods
Or along the ocean's edge, I know
    You will haunt my sleep;
Your restless waves of life will surge,
    Still in my view;
Your unchanging dark sky
    Will fill my night.

O sea of living waves that roll
    On golden sands,
Or crash on tragic reefs and shallow waters
    Amid deadly lands;
O forest made of living leaves,
    Some filled with spring,
Where joy weaves life's festive clothing
    And all birds sing,—
Some trampled in the muddy paths,
    Or swept away
By the rage of stormy days—
    Take my song!

For you have not scorned before
    The gifts of rhyme
I dropped, half hesitating, at your door,
    Sublime city;
And although it’s true I am just a guest
    Within your gate,
To you I owe the best
    Rewards of fate.
Imperial hostess! Thanks from me
    Belong to you:
O living forest, living sea,
    Take my song!

To the eye and the ear of the Dreamer
  This Dream emerged from darkness,
Through the horn or the ivory gateway,
  But he didn't know which one it was.

It was the Human Spirit,
  Of all men's souls the Soul,
Man the tireless climber,
  That reached for the unknown goal.
And up the steps of time,
  The challenging steep ascent,
Man the tireless climber
  Without pause and fearless went.
Eons rolled behind him
  With the roar of far retreat,
And still as he pushed, he triumphed
  And brought his foes to their feet.
Hostile forces of nature,
  Storm and flood and fire,
The fickle seasons' anger
  That loved to stop his desire,
The breath of unwelcoming climates,
  The devastation of blight and famine,
The old unrest that troubles
  The heart of the moody earth,
The swift and radiant spirits
  Slicing heaven with flame,
He, with a sharper weapon,
  The sword of his wit, overcame.
Disease and her ravenous offspring,
  Pain with its thousand teeth,
He drove into the primordial night,
  To the deepest worlds beneath,
Until the Lord of Death, the undying,
  Even Asraël the King,
No longer with Furies as heralds
  Came armed with whip and sting,
But gentle of voice and appearance,
  Led by calm Age and grace,
As a guest, with a peaceful presence,
  Entering, he caused no dread.
And, as the rolling eons
  Retreated with a pompous sound,
Man's spirit, grown too grand
  For this humble world to contain,
By abilities in his youth unimagined
  Broke free from earthly chains,
With ethereal ambition
  Rejecting the bonds of birth,
And, driven by divine ambition,
  And fueled by glorious greed,
He claimed the stars and the planets
  And filled them with his seed.

Then he said, "The infinite Scripture
  I have read and interpreted clearly,
And searching all worlds, I have found no one
  Who is my ruler or my equal.
In which room of nature’s palace
  Does the invisible God reside?
For I have opened all her doors,
  And walked on all her floors.
If someone greater than I lives there,
  Let him respond to my challenge:
Until then, I acknowledge no rival,
  But crown myself master of all."
And as that word spread around,
  From Man to Man, were raised
Temples of self-worship,
  Where the one who praised was the praised;
And from vast creation to vast creation
  The new gospel spread,
And a scent of worldwide incense
  Rose from Man to Man;
Until, on a solemn feast day,
  When the world’s usurping lord
At countless impious altars
  Adored his own proud image,
God spoke as He stepped out of hiding:
  "O great in your own conceit,
I will show you your source, how humble,
  Your goal, for a god, how unfit."

There, by the word of the Creator
  The Spirit of Man was guided
To a great height of understanding,
  Where God said to His creature:
"Look eastward toward the dawn of time."
  And, through countless ages,
The Spirit of Man saw clearly
  The Past as a map unfurled,—
He witnessed his humble origins
  In the depths of time, and his struggle,
With beasts and creeping terrors
  For the chance to exist, when life
Was only about killing and reproducing,
  To eat and to rest, among
Pure hunger, insatiable desires,
  Blind urges, wants without words,
And massive brutality, fulfilling
  Their existence's cruel law,
While nature was one giant hunger,
  And one hate, all teeth and jaws.

With that, for just a moment,
  Embarrassed by his own fall,
In humility, Man's Spirit
  Bowed at the feet of the Creator;
But faster than light, he regained
  The stature and stance of his pride,
And said, "Don't think you can shame me
  With my humble beginnings," he shouted.
"This is my greatest strength,
  To have come from such lowly roots;
Greater than You, the stagnant
  Am I, who will forever grow."
And God chose not to scold him,
  But replied briefly and firmly,
Instructing him to look towards the sunset
  And turn his vision westward;
And the Spirit of Man, complying,
  Saw, like a map unfolding,
The shape and essence of the Future,
  Age upon age uncounted;
He saw his own peak,
  And he saw his dark decline,
His long fall to the lowest point
  From heights of divine light,
Until finally, amidst exhausted worlds,
  And drained of energy and fire,
He faced, in a surge of darkness,
  Like a flickering lamp ready to go out.

Then a war of shame and anger
  Split the realm of his soul;
"'Tis false, it's a lying vision,"
  He cried out in the presence of his God.
"You think to scare me with shadows;
  Not what you pretend is my fate:
From glory to rise into glory
  Is mine, who have emerged from despair.
I doubt whether you knew at my creation
  How close to your throne I would climb,
Over the mountainous slopes of the ages
  And the conquered peaks of time.
Nor will I look back or rest
  Until I have walked the greatest heights,
And am equal to You or above You,
  The companion or the master of God."

Even so, man turned away from the Maker,
  With a wild, thunderous defiance,
And God, in a terrible silence,
  Reprimanded the words of His child.
And man went back to his work,
  And stiffened the resolve of his will;
And the ages continued to roll on,
  And his power was still growing.
But there remained one foe to conquer,
  The greatest—though
Stripped of his ancient terrors,
  At heart, as always, an enemy—
The unmaker of all, and restorer,
  Who sifts the world with his wings,
The Lord of Death, the undying,
  Even Asraël the King.

And then, Man gathered his forces
  To fight the ultimate war,
And with storms and thundering attacks
  Faced the greatest enemy,
And the Lord of Death, the immortal,
  Was troubled and pressed hard,
In his ancient stronghold
  At the heart of the night.
For a thousand years,
  Man surrounded his enemy's stronghold,
While nature trembled deeply,
  And the world's heart grew cold,
Until the phantom walls shook,
  And the ghostly fortress fell,
And Man, with shadowy chains,
  Bound the great Asraël tightly.

So, to every star in the sky,
  The joyful message was carried,
The amazing announcement,
  Death is defeated!
And Space, at her farthest edges,
  Echoed the celebratory tone,
With soft reverberations,
  Sighed, Death is defeated!
And God, in His silent domain,
  Where He lives apart, alone,
Paused in His work to listen:
  Death is defeated!

Then a serious and grand thanksgiving
  By one person to another was sung,
In his temples of self-worship,
  With his own countless voice;
And he said to his Soul: "Celebrate
  For your last great enemy is defeated,
Even Asraël the Unmaker,
  Unmade, disarmed, dethroned."

And look, his soul didn't rejoice,
  The essence of his being was struggle,
Because life with nothing to conquer
  Felt like just the shadow of life.
No goal was inviting or promising
  And nothing shone with divine allure;
And Fear having disappeared, her sister,
  Blessed Hope, had vanished too;
And the peak and prize of success
  Was worse than defeat itself—
The torment of having everything,
  The curse of wanting nothing;
And Man, the unbeatable conqueror,
  Man with his foot on his enemies,
In endless satisfaction hungered,
  Restless from total rest,
Victor over nature, victor
  Over the prince of the powers of the air,
By overwhelming weariness defeated,
  And crowned with great despair.

Then, at his terrible peak,
  He cried out to God: "O You
Whom I thought I didn’t need back in my days of struggle,
  Now, in this my pitiful state,
  My hopeless and helpless power,
Listen and comfort and help!"
  And God from His solitary height,
From the emotionless peaks of eternity,
  Looked down at pleading Man,
And His brow softened with human pity,
  Contradicting its terrible crown.
"Your greatest treasure," He replied,
  "Blessed Hope, I will restore,
And the endless riches of weakness
  Which were your strength before;
And I will wake from slumber,
  In his grasp where he lies bound,
Your most beneficial enemy;—
  O Asraël, hear and rise!"

And a sound like the heart of nature
  Split apart and torn,
Announced, to the world,
  An undying death reborn.
He rose up in his restraints,
  And shook off the chains
Just like someone waking up
  In the forests during autumn
Rises and shakes off lightly
  The leaves that gently fell
On his limbs and hair unnoticed
  While he was still sleeping well.

And the Deity paused and listened,
  Then turned to the mortal,
Saying, "Oh Man, My creation,
  Your fate was more blessed than Mine.
I don't experience the joy of seeking,
  Nor do I know the pleasure of longing.
There is only one joy that is truly great,
  And I don’t keep it to myself but share it.
I don’t keep it or have felt it,
  But I freely gave it to you—
The joy of striving for greatness,
  Which fades in victory."
So, to the Soul of the Dreamer,
  This Dream flew out of darkness,
Through the horn or the ivory gate,
  But he didn’t know which of the two.

Within a short period of time,
Three princes from the kingdom of rhyme,
At the peak of their youth or in their prime,
  Left this world,
To join the amazing fellowship
  Who, though dead, still sing.

He, first, his earliest wreath who wove
Of laurel grown in Latmian grove,
Conquered by pain and unfortunate love
  Found a calmer home,
Roofed by the heaven that shines above
  Eternal Rome.

A more passionate spirit, its own intense target,
And burdened with heavier flesh,
At Missolonghi burned out,
  And left the air
Echoing to this day
  Its loud despair.

Remote from Byron's scorn,
And Keats's magic, like the dawn
That’s always freshly born
  In ancient woods,
Waking a gray world forlorn
  With a touch of gold,

Shelley, born from the clouds, who thrived
Nourished by air, sun, and dew,
Into that Essence from which he drew
  His life and music
Was appropriately transformed again
  Through wave and fire.

It was like his restless spirit! It was fitting
That he, who couldn’t stand Time's slow pace,
With such a sudden and swift departure
  Should rush away,
Eager to meet the Great Maybe
  With Why? and Where from?

Impatient with the world's set ways,
He could never stand God's delay,
But he would create the future in a day
  As if it were divine,
And leave the whole past in ruins,
  An empty shrine.

Vain vision! But the warmth, the fire,
The passion of kind desire,
The glorious longing, lifts him higher
  Than many a soul
That gets a million steps closer
  To its lesser goal.

And power is his, if nothing else,
In that thin air where he travels,
Above the noise of human waves
  To rise high,
Lost in a whirlwind of light that conceals
  His dizzy chariot.

Below, the unhurried world keeps working,
And now and then, victories are achieved,
Some dragon defeated, some justice served,
  While, through the skies,
A meteor speeding toward the sun,
  It flares up and fades away.

But, as he breaks through the clear sky
Notes from the unexplored realm
He spreads to the enchanted ear
  Of earth's dim crowd,
Whose discord does more endear
  The pouring song.

In other ways than he predicted
The world is shaped: his fierce wind,—
His reckless attack on the Past,—
  These things are pointless;
Rebellion is temporary: what must endure
  Is that pure essence,

Which seems the wandering voices mixed
Of every pure element,—
A sound from ocean caves sent,—
  An airy call
From the canopied sky
  Covering all.

And in this world of everyday people, where
Souls gather dust in indifference, and never
A powerful feeling stirs the atmosphere,
  And life feels dull,
And noble impulses are hard to find, rare
  The passionate goal,

It's no small fortune to have heard
A singer who, if mistakes clouded
His vision, still had a spirit ignited
  By great desire,
And passion giving life to the quick word
  With flames of fire.

A being of reckless breath,
Our lethargy more lethal than death
He is unaware; whatever he says
  Burns with energy:
He urges people on, he energizes
  For glorious battles.

And in his bursts of song he brings
Wild scents shaken from strange wings,
And unfamiliar whispers
  From distant voices blown,
While all the ecstatic essence of things
  Throbs through his own,—

His own, from the burning pyre
One who had loved his wind-swept lyre
Out of the sharp teeth of the fire
  Unharmed drew,
Beside the sea that in her rage
  Struck him and killed.

A cheerful spirit seemed to linger,
  Dancing lightly in the joyful air around us:
The earth was perfectly in harmony, and you were a note
    In Nature's joyful song.

It was like a spring morning, yet overhead
  The bare branches across the road were weaving:
The spirit of some forgotten Spring, we said,
    Over Winter's world comes gliding.

Or was it Spring herself, who, lost her way,
  Decided to linger beyond the strange frontier?
Or just some daring scout of May,
    Some messenger from April?

The ghost slowly disappeared into the air,
  A whimsical and unpredictable visitor.—
Will you also leave, leaving my cold days empty,
    And my once bright summer gone?

Not here, O bustling City, is it right
  For your lover, your most faithful, to rest,
  But where the countless lives flow
Whose ocean-like sounds were sweeter to him
Than the songs of birds in the morning, or the
  Bleating of flocks in Spring, there should Earth hold
  His body, amid your crowding joys and sorrows,
There, beneath the rhythm of your million footsteps.
In love for you, this lover had no equal.
  Your eastern or western temple would have made
  A suitable home for his noble spirit.
Mother of the mighty, yet nurse of none more cherished,
Not here, in rural isolation, O not here,
  Should your Elia be laid like a stranger!

You’ve been pretty unwelcoming,
O Poet, inviting us to your table,
Yet in the middle of the feast, while we’re all
Unified in cheering for the food,
You dismiss us from your table, still hungry.
Still, we praise you more than many generous hosts,
And we appreciate your half-finished meal
More than many endless banquets, lavishly
Distributed over too many hours; we don’t praise you any less
Just because you haven’t stuffed our mouths, or satisfied
Our thirst for the richness of abundant souls,
Mixing our longing with our praise.

[Mr. Oscar Wilde, realizing that England doesn’t deserve him, has declared his intention to become a naturalized French citizen.]

And will you, Oscar, run away from us,
  And must we, from now on, completely part ways?
Will your hard-earned jeux-d'esprit
  No longer bring sadness to our lives?

And will you connect your entire future
  With that brave land you're heading to?
Unfortunate France! we once believed
  She hit, at Sedan, the bottom of her luck.

And you can be French as easily
  As you might change your outfit?
Fancy!—and it’s so tough to be
  A person of reason and modesty.

May strength under this blow
  Not fail the brave French nation!
From our past experiences, we know well
  Her talent for recovery.

And as for us—to our shame,
  We have to admit the truth of your criticism:
Who else but a foolish people
  Would have made such a big deal about you as we did?

Reluctant Summer! Once, a maid
  So easy to approach,
In many a spot filled with bees
  You blessed your lover.
Divinely carefree, I lived it up,
  Then, with each flowing lock—
And have you finally become afraid
  Of a touch that's too intimate?

Or do you think that if you stay
  My passion might fade away?
You leave me longing and turned away,
  You shyly say no way.
Even as I try to draw you near,
  You, pressured to remain,
Like Orpheus' half-reclaimed love
  Slip from my arms again.

"Not ours," say some, "we don't fear death;
  Without any desire for heaven, we’re not scared of a made-up hell:
Life is a celebration, and we've enjoyed it—
  Shouldn't the worms enjoy it too?

"The silence after the feast ends,
  And the spots where the musicians were are empty,
Is no different from what it was before,
  And it’s neither bad nor good."

Ah, but the ghost—the silent signal—
  The inviting finger urging me to give up
The camaraderie, the conversations, and the drinks,
  The songs, the festive vibe!

And oh, to not know, while I sit with friends,
  And while the purple joy is shared around,
Whether it’s a brighter day glowing more divine
  Or a homeless night without;

And whether, moving forward, my soul will discover
  New opportunities, or fall flat—completely lost!
There is, oh grave, your constant defeat,
  And there, oh death, your pain.

As we grow older on this earth,
  Many toys that once enchanted us
Feel empty of beauty, devoid of worth,
  And insignificant as dust and dead as dreams.—
For the trinkets that faded, the performances that ended,
  Some rewards the Fates have provided:
Things that endure shine three times brighter,
  The things that are truly extraordinary.

Tired of the Senate's empty fights,
  We would rather spend an hour in silence,
Where the woods rise grander than all
  Those towers of chatter at Westminster.
Let this guy talk and that one scheme,
  Chasing fame, status, or title:
The votes of fickle crowds aren't
  What truly matters.

Shall we disturb and annoy our souls
  For "wrongs" that don't actually hinder true freedom,
Which no one's honest behavior affects,
  And from no innocent act hold us back?
What does it matter if gossipers fix, or ignore
  The wounds they create?
Let's focus on real things, not illusions—
  The things that truly matter.

Nothing is nobler than being free:
  The stars in the sky are free because
In their vast liberty
  Their joy comes from following the laws.
From servitude to the name of freedom
  Free your mind from its bound chains;
Cast aside the idol, and declare
  The things that are greater.

And into the fitting dust be thrown
  That boring, meticulous god, whom they
Who call their little group the world,
  Serve and obediently follow:
Who memorize their ritual of Routine,
  With minds fused to one lifeless image,
And never even in dreams have glimpsed
  The things that are so much better.

To get dressed, to make a call, to eat, to have fun
  No rules of social etiquette,
The petty guidelines that servants create,
  The pointless list of fashion rules,—
How many people live for these things,
  With serious passion and intent!
While Nature casually provides
  The things that are truly better.

To embrace the wealth you can't use,
  And miss out on the riches everyone can have,—
O foolish one, lacking the sense to decide,
  Who keeps the worthless and discards the valuable!
And still life, with its shining goals,
  Entices toward the bright, divine heights!—
May you have the things you desire: may we
  Have the things that are truly better.

The beauty of friendship—mind and heart
  Connected with others' hearts and minds;
The benefits of science, treasures of art;
  The feeling of unity with our kind;
The desire to learn and comprehend—
  A broad and open-minded discontent:
These are the treasures in life's full grasp,
  The things that truly matter.

The ocean flows in perfect rhythm,
  A blissful silence fills the skies;
And on this earth are beautiful souls,
  That gaze gently with helpful eyes.
Though dark, O God, Your path and plan,
  I believe You must have intended
That nothing alive should completely miss   The things that are truly amazing.

That beauty like yours
    Can indeed fade,
If fate is too cruelly unkind:
No cleverness can align such a cold belief
  With beauty like yours.

From wave and star and flower
    Some rare gift
Was given to you, a divine but fleeting treasure:
You give it back through your eyes, lips, and hair
  To wave and star and flower.

Should you die tomorrow,
    You will still be
Found in the rose and seen in all the sky:
And from the ocean's heart, you will sing to me,
  Should you die tomorrow.

England, my mother,
Protector of waters.
Creator of communities,
  Shaper of men,—

Do you have any free time
Left for the muses?
Are you paying attention to the songwriter
  Creating the rhyme?

Deafened by chaos,
How can you listen?
Faction is loud,
  The crowd is noisy.

Lazarus, hungry,
Threatens Dives;
The giant laborer
  Struggles in his grip.

Yet the songwriters
Do not stop their work;
Still on life's anvil
  They forge the rhyme.

Still the enchanted faces
Glow from the furnace:
Breath of the forge
  Scorches their brows.

Yeah, and do you hear them?
So the hammers
Will not shape
  Meaningless
  Verses of gold.

Look, with the ancient
Roots of human nature,
Twines the everlasting
  Passion for song.

Ever Love fans it,
Ever Life feeds it,
Time cannot age it;
  Death cannot slay.

Deep in the heart of the world
Lie its foundations,
Intertwined with everything,
  Created together with all.

No, what is Nature's
Self, but an endless
Struggle toward music,
  Harmony, rhyme?

Trees in bloom,
Tides in motion,
Stars in their orbits,
  Vibrate with song.

God on His throne is
the oldest of poets:
To His rhythm
  the whole world moves.

Therefore, don't mock
The speech of the muses,
England, my mother,
  Creator of men.

Nations don't last forever,
Greatness is fragile;
Luck can abandon you,
  But song will endure.

Song the all-encompassing,
Song will never fade:
People will create music,
  Humans will listen.

Not while the choral
Song of creation
Flows from all things,
  Poured without pause,

Cease we to echo
Faintly the melody
To which forever
  Dances the world.

So let the songwriter
Share his gift of rhyme,
England my mother,
  Creator of men.

Gray grows your face,
Full of the ages;
Time on your forehead
  Sits like a dream:

Song is the magic
That brings everything back to life,
The only drink of youth,
  A morning fountain.

You, at the world loom
Weaving your future,
Can perfectly blend
  Hard work with joy.

Do you think, labor
Is only serious?
All beauty is deep,
  Joy is serious.

Song is not just a trinket—
Don’t underestimate the songwriter,
England, my mother,
  Creator of people.

In the night, in the night,
When you lie alone,
Ah, the sounds that are carried
  In the twists of the breeze,
By the spirit that brings
The voices of distant friends
  With the sigh of the seas
    In the night!

In the night, in the night,
When you lie alone,
Ah, the ghosts that wail
  From the days that are gone:
The old dreams, the old actions,
The old wound that still hurts,
  And the face of the dead
    In the night!

In the night, in the night,
When you lie alone,
With the grass and the stone
  Over your deep chamber,
Ah, the silence at last,
Life's dissonance gone,
  And only pure sleep
    In the night!

As a pure and noble face,
  Seen in the crowded and busy street,
Casts a sudden grace over the world,
    A fleeting sweet scent,
Then, as it passes, leaves the deceived senses
Disappointed with a ghostly excellence;

So, in our souls, the visions appear
  Of that beautiful life we never lived:
They shine with a brilliance before our eyes,
    We jump, and they are gone:
They come and leave us staring blankly,
Resigned to our undignified lives.

(Lines written on the appearance of Lord Tennyson's drama.)

As clear as ever, the great voice rings today,
While Sherwood's oak leaves intertwine with Aldworth's bay:
It's the voice of the master and the father
Of an entire era and a legion of the lyre,
Who sang his morning song when Coleridge still
Spoke dark prophecies from Highgate Hill,
And with new ships of rhyme he
Brightens and strengthens this darkening tide of time.
May the day be far off when lesser minds wear
The glorious laurel from that wintry hair—
When he, the ruler of our lyrical age,
Must be ferried away in Charon's boat,
And hear, hardly paying attention, amid the splash of oar,
The ave atque vale from the shore!

To him, neither a gentle nor heroic muse
Did her divine alliance reject:
He played the lyre of life in every mood,
And timeless notes of death flowed from his tongue.
He himself was the Merlin of his magical sound,
He called forth old glories to rise from the darkness again;
And so, free from being forgotten,
Through him, these days will forever blossom in beauty.

Lightly we met in the morning,
  Lightly we parted in the evening.
There was never a thought of the thorn
  That the rose of a day might leave.

We didn't notice Fate's touch,
  So casually we met in the morning!
So casually we said goodbye in the evening
  We had no idea that Love had been born.

I woke up the next day feeling sad,
  Thinking about what I lost and how much I hurt.
We met too casually in the morning!
  And we said goodbye too easily in the evening!

From his adventurous peak
He dreamed a grand dream:
  Throughout his wandering youth
    It shone, a guiding star.
Eventually, the vision faded,
And left him in its place
  The hardly more sublime truth,
    The world he discovered afar.

The scattered islands that stand
Guarding the stronger land
  Gave up their innocence
    To his commanding ship.
The mainland within reach
Lay huge and untouched:
  In its blue entrance he stood:
    No more did destiny permit.

No more! But oh, how much,
To be the first to touch
  The purest blue edge
    Of that grand garment!
Master of the mighty sea,
Earth's strongest sailor he:
  Great leader among them,
    The conquerors of the world.

When will the world forget
Your glory and our debt,
  Unstoppable spirit,
    Immortal Genoese?
Not while the sharp sea breeze
Whispers among the fog and sails,
  Above the rhythmic swell
    And roar of the seas.

There was a time, I can't say how long ago,
But it was a long time before the world had so much
Of foolish wisdom as it does now—before
It started to turn gray with the weight of years
And bitter knowledge, learned through tears—
When it felt like time moved to the music of a golden rhyme,
And nothing false was woven into that web of
Worldwide melody.
At that time, there lived a certain queen and king,
Untroubled by wars or any evil thing,
In a spacious palace built high,
From where they could see their main city lie
Around them, and partially hear from their tall towers
Its bustling sounds during the day,
And see beyond its walls the pleasant plain.
They had one child, these happy royal two:
It’s said—so incredibly handsome was he—
That sometimes there was a shadowy hint
Deep within the beauty of his face;
Like a suggestion of some unearthly grace,
Making the royal youth seem more like
The very imagined child of a dream
Than a human child of human ancestry;
And something strangely fantastical he was,
I have no doubt. As he grew up,
And after a few years approached manhood,
Those in his father's court
Rejoiced at his princely demeanor;
And many maidens’ eyes
Were happy at the sight of his beauty, and the sighs
Of many hinted at sweet stories I can’t say.

So, like a beautiful ship with sunlit sails,
His youth floated on a calm sea,
Until one night, a mysterious
Fateful wind came and carried him away
Over an unknown expanse. While he was sleeping,
He experienced a strange, dim dream.
It was as if he were drifting down a stream,
In a lonely boat that had no sail or oar
Yet seemed to glide endlessly,
Deep in the heart of a warm land
Full of beauty. On either side
Were green hills crowned with mist,
And all around their bases were woods spread out,
Holding onto the cool and leafy silence
In many sunless hollows and hidden spots.
Nothing unattractive could be seen there;
But deep in the woods and within,
There was Mystery—
Something more than the eye could see,
Something more than the ear could hear.
The very birds that came and sang nearby
Seemed to speak some magical language,
Singing a lot but leaving even more unsung.
At times, with a distant, wandering sound,
Far away, as if carried by some airy huntsmen,
Faint echoes of horns wound among the mountains,
Making the very air tremble with sound.

So hour by hour (that’s how the Prince's dream went)
The boat glided along the widening stream;
Until, having lost the sun her master,
The dim day groped towards the evening:
Then Sleep gently pulled in the feathered souls,
Sealing off the life-giving sources of their song.
Still, the Prince continued on through the night
And didn’t feel the slightest hint of tiredness,
Nor did weariness dim his eyes.
Eventually, he heard the breath
Of the brief winds that stir before darkness fades,
Sighing through the woods and the wide valley:
The rushes by the water responded with sighs:
The entire river sighed from its reedy throat.
And like a winged creature, the boat went,
Over the drifting water, wandering free,
Like some lone seabird over a lonely sea.

And Morn, with his pale hair and watery wide eyes,
Looked up. And, surprised, the Prince quickly jumped to his feet,
Leaning forward, his gaze fixed on something right in front of him
That resembled a city with towers and temples,
Distant, faint yet glowing with light, as
Polished seas at sunrise, when the waves
Create amber flashes in shadowy caves
That echo back faint rumblings. Long distances away,
By the river's lush right bank, it lay,
Like a jewel in the golden morning:
But as the Prince moved forward,
The dazzling lights of countless domes and sun-kissed spires
And many sky-reaching pinnacles, danced closer and closer,
More magnificent than words can describe;
And before the middle of the day's heat faded,
He could see, magnified by how close it was,
Hardly a furlong ahead of him,
The City, sloping down to the riverbank.

And just then, the boat started to glide on its own
Close to the shore, until,
Suddenly, as it passed near where
The shining white feet of a marble staircase
Led to the rippling water, the Prince jumped
Onto the gleaming steps and nearly sang
With joy to be back on his feet,
Amid the green grass and sweet flowers.
So he walked along the riverbank,
And saw many beautiful and grand barges,
Decorated with unusual designs and images,
Anchored in the calm waters.
Soon he came to a massive gold gate
That shone beautifully with ornate details,
Filled with mysterious symbols and a frieze
All covered in intricate carvings.
In the shadow of the golden gate,
A man dressed as a porter sat,
Looking at the Prince with curious eyes,
And greeted him with respectful courtesy,
Saying, "Noble sir, you are of human descent,
The first ever to journey to this place,—
For I can see you are a stranger here,
As your clothing clearly shows;
And if your attire does not deceive,
You must be some king's son. And I know,
If that is true, it was foretold long ago,
A wonderful fate is in store for you;
For though I am not well-versed in prophecies,
I have often heard wise men interpret them,
And indeed, the ominous texts say
The first mortal to arrive here
Shall surely have our Maiden-Queen as his wife,
And as long as the world exists, they shall live together."

Sure enough, the amazed young man,
Unsure if this was a lie or the truth,
Was speechless in shock and completely perplexed,
Not knowing what strange thing might happen to him next,
And before he could find the right words to respond,
The doorman told a young man standing nearby
To guide the royal stranger, as was appropriate,
Through the grand golden gate out onto the street,
And then across the entire city, wherever there
Was anything to show that was amazing or beautiful.

With that, the Prince, alongside his eager guide,
Walked straight through the gate and stood inside
The wall, built from rare white stone,
Enclosing the entire city like a silver belt.
From there, they passed down many shining streets,
Each one looking more beautiful than the last,
Cool from the presence of countless trees
And fountains playing in front of palaces.
No matter which way the Prince looked,
He saw more wonders, one after another,
Filling his eyes with amazement.
As they talked, the Prince asked his guide why
Among all the many people passing by,
Not one of them seemed old,
Or even middle-aged; they only saw
Young men and women everywhere,
And never one who wasn’t beautiful.
To this, the young man replied: "Master, have you seen,
Perhaps, the river flowing between
Flowers and grass at the city’s feet?"
And when the Prince answered appropriately,
The other said, "Then, know that anyone
Who drinks from that water you saw there
(It doesn’t matter how old they are)
From that moment becomes
As they were in their youth, before
Their summers added up to more than twenty:
And so, the people of this land keep
Their youth and beauty forever."