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Prologue to Alice
ALL in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide.
Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour Beneath such dreamy weather, To beg a tale of breath too weak To stir the tiniest feather&xclm. Yet what can one poor voice avail Against three tongues together?
Imperious Prima flashes forth Her edict ``to begin it'': In gentler tones Secunda hopes ``There will be nonsense in it!'' While Tertia interrupts the tale Not more than once a minute.
Anon, to sudden silence won, In fancy they pursue The dream-child moving through a land Of wonders wild and new, In friendly chat with bird or beast-- And half believe it true.
And ever, as the story drained The wells of fancy dry, And faintly strove that weary one To put the subject by ``The rest next time--'' ``It is next time!'' The happy voices cry.
Thus grew the tale of Wonderland: Thus slowly, one by one, Its quaint events were hammered out-- And now the tale is done, And home we steer, a merry crew, Beneath the setting sun.
Alice! A childish story take, And with a gentle hand, Lay it where Childhoood's dreams are twined In Memory's mystic band, Like pilgrim's wither'd wreath of flowers Pluck'd in a far-off land.
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Bruce and the Spider
FOR Scotland's and for freedom's right The Bruce his part had played, In five successive fields of fight Been conqured and dismayed; Once more against the English host His band he led, and once more lost The meed for which he fought; And now from battle, faint and worn, The homeless fugitive forlorn A hut's lone shelter sought.
And cheerless was that resting-place For him who claimed a throne: His canopy devoid of grace, The rude, rough beams alone; The heather couch his only bed, -- Yet well I ween had slumber fled From couch of eider-down! Through darksome night till dawn of day, Absorbed in wakeful thought he lay Of Scotland and her crown.
The sun rose brightly, and its gleam Fell on that hapless bed, And tinged with light each shapeless beam Which roofed the lowly shed; When, looking up with wistful eye, The Bruce beheld a spider try His filmy thread to fling From beam to beam of that rude cot; And well the insect's toilsome lot Taught Scotland's future king.
Six times his gossamery thread The wary spider threw; In vain the filmy line was sped, For powerless or untrue Each aim appeared, and back recoiled The patient insect, six times foiled, And yet unconquered still; And soon the Bruce, with eager eye, Saw him prepare once more to try His courage, strength, and skill.
One effort more, his seventh and last! The hero hailed the sign! And on the wished-for beam hung fast That slender, silken line; Slight as it was, his spirit caught The more than omen, for his thought The lesson well could trace, Which even "he who runs may read," That Perseverance gains its meed, And Patience wins the race.
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NIRVANA.
DIVEST thyself, O Soul, of vain desire! Bid hope farewell, dismiss all coward fears; Take leave of empty laughter, emptier tears, And quench, for ever quench, the wasting fire Wherein this heart, as in a funeral pyre, Aye burns, yet is consumed not. Years on years Moaning with memories in thy maddened ears-- Let at thy word, like refluent waves, retire.
Enter thy soul's vast realm as Sovereign Lord, And, like that angel with the flaming sword, Wave off life's clinging hands. Then chains will fall From the poor slave of self's hard tyranny-- And Thou, a ripple rounded by the sea, In rapture lost be lapped within the All.
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NEW YEAR'S EVE.
ANOTHER full-orbed year hath waned to-day, And set in the irrevocable past, And headlong whirled long Time's winged blast My fluttering rose of youth is borne away: Ah rose once crimson with the blood of May, A honeyed haunt where bees would break their fast, I watch thy scattering petals flee aghast, And all the flickering rose-lights turning grey.
Poor fool of life! plagued ever with thy vain Regrets and futile longings! were the years Not cups o'erbrimming still with gall and tears? Let go thy puny personal joy and pain! If youth with all its brief hope disappears, To deathless hope we must be born again.
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THE EVENING OF THE YEAR.
WAN mists enwrap the still-born day; The harebell withers on the heath; And all the moorland seems to breathe The hectic beauty of decay. Within the open grave of May Dishevelled trees drop wreath on wreath; Wind-wrung and ravelled underneath Waste leaves choke up the woodland way.
The grief of many partings near Wails like an echo in the wind: The days of love lie far behind, The days of loss lie shuddering near. Life's morning-glory who shall bind? It is the evening of the year.
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CHRISTMAS EVE.
ALONE--with one fair star for company, The loveliest star among the hosts of night, While the grey tide ebbs with the ebbing light-- I pace along the darkening wintry sea. Now round the yule-log and the glittering tree Twinkling with festive tapers, eyes as bright Sparkle with Christmas joys and young delight, As each one gathers to his family.
But I--a waif on earth where'er I roam-- Uprooted with life's bleeding hopes and fears From that one heart that was my heart's sole home, Feel the old pang pierce through the severing years, And as I think upon the years to come That fair star trembles through my falling tears.
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THE PASSING YEAR.
NO breath of wind stirs in the painted leaves, The meadows are as stirless as the sky, Like a Saint's halo golden vapours lie Above the restful valley's garnered sheaves. The journeying Sun, like one who fondly grieves, Above the hills seems loitering with a sigh, As loth to bid the fruitful earth good-bye, On these hushed hours of luminous autumn eves.
There is a pathos in his softening glow, Which like a benediction seems to hover O'er the tranced earth, ere he must sink below And leave her widowed of her radiant Lover, A frost-bound sleeper in a shroud of snow, While winter winds howl a wild dirge above her.
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UNTIMELY LOVE.
PEACE, throbbing heart, nor let us shed one tear O'er this late love's unseasonable glow; Sweet as a violet blooming in the snow, The posthumous offspring of the widowed year That smells of March when all the world is sere, And, while around the hurtling sea-winds blow-- Which twist the oak and lay the pine tree low-- Stands childlike in the storm and has no fear.
Poor helpless blossom orphaned of the sun, How could it thus brave winter's rude estate? Oh love, more helpless, why bloom so late, Now that the flower-time of the year is done? Since thy dear course must end when scarce begun, Nipped by the cold touch of relentless fate.
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HEART'S-EASE.
AS opiates to the sick on wakeful nights, As light to flowers, as flowers in poor men's rooms, As to the fisher when the tempest glooms The cheerful twinkling of his village lights; As emerald isles to flagging swallow flights, As roses garlanding with tendrilled blooms The unweeded hillocks of forgotten tombs, As singing birds on cypress-shadowed heights,
Thou art to me--a comfort past compare-- For thy joy-kindling presence, sweet as May, Sets all my nerves to music, makes away With sorrow and the numbing frost of care, Until the influence of thine eyes' bright sway Has made life's glass go up from foul to fair.
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CAGNES. ON THE RIVIERA.
IN tortuous windings up the steep incline The sombre street toils to the village square, Whose antique walls in stone and moulding bear Dumb witness to the Moor. Afar off shine, With tier on tier, cutting heaven's blue divine, The snowy Alps; and lower the hills are fair, With wave-green olives rippling down to where Gold clusters hang and leaves of sunburnt vine.
You may perchance, I never shall forget When, between twofold glory of land and sea, We leant together o'er the old parapet, And saw the sun go down. For, oh, to me, The beauty of that beautiful strange place Was its reflection beaming from your face.
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IN THE ST. GOTTHARDT PASS.
THE storm which shook the silence of the hills And sleeping pinnacles of ancient snow Went muttering off in one last thunder throe Mixed with a moan of multitudinous rills; Yea, even as one who has wept much, but stills The flowing tears of some convulsive woe When a fair light of hope begins to glow Athwart the gloom of long remembered ills:
So does the face of this scarred mountain height Relax its stony frown, while slow uprolled Invidious mists are changed to veiling gold. Wild peaks still fluctuate between dark and bright, But when the sun laughs at them, as of old, They kiss high heaven in all embracing light.
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BEAUTY.
EVEN as on some black background full of night And hollow storm in cloudy disarray, The forceful brush of some great master may More brilliantly evoke a higher light; So beautiful, so delicately white, So like a very metaphor of May, Your loveliness on my life's sombre grey In its perfection stands out doubly bright.
And yet your beauty breeds a strange despair, And pang of yearning in the helpless heart; To shield you from time's fraying wear and tear, That from yourself yourself would wrench apart, How save you, fairest, but to set you where Mortality kills death in deathless art?
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ON THE LIGHTHOUSE AT ANTIBES.
A STORMY light of sunset glows and glares Between two banks of cloud, and o'er the brine Thy fair lamp on the sky's carnation line Alone on the lone promontory flares: Friend of the Fisher who at nightfall fares Where lurk false reefs masked by the hyaline Of dimpling waves, within whose smile divine Death lies in wait behind Circean snares.
The evening knows thee ere the evening star; Or sees that flame sole Regent of the bight, When storm, hoarse rumoured by the hills afar, Makes mariners steer landward by thy light, Which shows through shock of hostile nature's war How man keeps watch o'er man through deadliest night