THEY are all gone into the world of light, And I alone sit lingering here! Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear.
It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, Like stars upon some gloomy grove- Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest, After the sun's remove.
I see them walking in an air of glory, Whose light doth trample on my days- My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, Mere glimmering and decays.
O holy Hope! and high Humility
High as the heavens above!
These are your walks, and you have shewed them me,
Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just
Shining nowhere, but in the dark!
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust;
Could man outlook that mark!
He that hath found some fledged bird's nest, may know
At first sight, if the bird be flown;
But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.
And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul, when man doth sleep;
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, And into glory peep.
If a star were confined into a tomb
Her captive flames must needs burn there; But when the hand that locked her up, gives room, She'll shine through all the sphere.
O Father of eternal life, and all
Created glories under Thee!
Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall
Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill My perspective, still, as they pass;
Or else remove me hence unto that hill, Where I shall need no glass.
A SLUMBER DID MY SPIRIT SEAL.
A SLUMBER did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seem'd a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees;
Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
Ir little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honor'd of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labor, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail :
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil'd and wrought, and thought with me
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans sound with many voices. Come, my friends, "Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down : It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
ON A BUST OF GENERAL GRANT.
STRONG, simple, silent are the [steadfast] laws That sway this universe, of none withstood, Unconscious of man's outcries or applause, Or what man deems his evil or his good; And when the Fates ally them with a cause That wallows in the sea-trough and seems lost, Drifting in danger of the reefs and sands
Of shallow counsels, this way, that way, tost, Strength, silence, simpleness, of these three strands They twist the cable shall the world hold fast To where its anchors clutch the bed-rock of the Past.
Strong, simple, silent, therefore such was he Who helped us in our need; the eternal law That who can saddle Opportunity
Is God's elect, though many a mortal flaw May minish him in eyes that closely see,
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