The sea-bound landsman, looking back to shore,
Now learns what land is highest:—not the ring
Of hills that erewhile shut out everything
Beyond them from him: these are seen no more;
Nor yet the loftier heights that, from the lower,
He saw far inland, blue, and, worship ping,
Believed they touched the sky; the gull’s white wing
Long since...
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’t is something from that tangle to have won;
’T is something to have matched the wildbird’s flight;
’T is something to have soared and touched the sun.
What though the lashing billows roar beneath?
Better than death in life is life in death:—Good night! -
Not mine to draw the cloth-yard shaft
From straining palm to thrilling ear;
Then launch it through the monster’s hulk,
One thrust, from front to rear.Mine is the Bushman’s tiny bow,
Whose wounds the foeman hardly feels;
He laughs, and lifts his hand to smite,
Then suddenly he reels. -
Now, on a sudden, I know it, the secret, the secret of life.
Why, the very green of the grass in the fields with betrayal is rife!
The whirr of the grasshopper by the wayside proclaims it to all;
’T is unrolled as a scroll to all eyes in the curve of the waterfall.
But, for me, I can only wonder at mortals,—the secret out;
For they see, hear, taste,... -
When i went up the minster tower,
The minster clock rang out the hour;
The restless organ far below
Sent tides of music to and fro,
That rolled through nave and angel choir,
Whose builder knew what lines inspire,
And filled the lantern’s space profound
With climbing waves of glorious sound,
As I went up the... -
Turning from Shelley’s sculptured face aside,
And pacing thoughtfully the silent aisles
Of the gray church that overlooks the smiles
Of the glad Avon hastening its tide
To join the seaward-winding Stour, I spied
Close at my feet a slab among the tiles
That paved the minster, where the sculptor’s files
Had graven only “Died of Grief,”... -
They rise to mastery of wind and snow;
They go like soldiers grimly into strife
To colonize the plain. They plough and sow,
And fertilize the sod with their own life,
As did the Indian and the buffalo. -
O to lie in long grasses!
O to dream of the plain!
Where the west wind sings as it passes
A weird and unceasing refrain;
Where the rank grass wallows and tosses,
And the plains’ ring dazzles the eye;
Where hardly a silver cloud bosses
The flashing steel arch of the sky.To watch the gay gulls as they flutter
Like... -
A brave little bird that fears not God,
A voice that breaks from the snow-wet clod
With prophecy of sunny sod,
Set thick with wind-waved goldenrod.
From the first bare clod in the raw, cold spring,
From the last bare clod, when fall winds sting,
The farm-boys hears his brave song ring,
And work for the time is a pleasant thing. -
A cold coiled line of mottled lead,
He lies where grazing cattle tread,
And lifts a fanged and spiteful head.His touch is deadly, and his eyes
Are hot with hatred and surprise—
Death waits and watches where he lies!His hate is turned toward everything!
He is the undisputed king
Of every path and woodland spring....