He stood upon the earth, and turned
To gaze on sky and land and sea,
While in his ear the whisper burned,
“Behold, these all belong to thee!”
O wondrous call to conquests new!
O thrill of blood! O joy of Soul!
O peaks with ever-widening view!
O race, with still-receding goal!
He heard; he followed, evermore
...
Paraphrased from the Persian by Edward Fitzgerald
I.
WAKE! for the Sun, who scattered into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heaven, and strikes
The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light.
II.
Before the phantom of False morning died,
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,...
Ever eating, never cloying,
All-devouring, all-destroying,
Never finding full repast
Till I eat the world at last.
This Life, which seems so fair,
Is like a bubble blown up in the air
By sporting children’s breath,
Who chase it everywhere
And strive who can most motion it bequeath.
And though it sometimes seem of its own might
Like to an eye of gold to be fixed there,
And firm to hover in that empty height,
That only is because it is so light...
How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another’s will;
Whose armor is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Not tied unto the world with care
Of public fame or private breath;
Who envies none that chance doth raise,...
From the German by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
[Greek]
(“The mills of the gods grind late, but they grind fine.”)
—Greek Poet.
THOUGH the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.
Goe, soule, the bodie’s guest,
Upon a thanklesse arrant;
Feare not to touche the best—
The truth shall be thy warrant;
Goe, since I needs must dye,
And give the world the lye.
Goe tell the court it glowes
And shines like rotten wood;
Goe tell the church it showes
What ’s good, and doth no good;...
From the Greek by William M. Hardinge
BREATHING the thin breath through our nostrils, we
Live, and a little space the sunlight see—
Even all that live—each being an instrument
To which the generous air its life has lent.
If with the hand one quench our draught of breath,
He sends the stark soul shuddering down to death.
We that are...
IT is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night,—
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just...
My life is like the summer rose,
That opens to the morning sky,
But, ere the shades of evening close,
Is scattered on the ground—to die!
Yet on the rose’s humble bed
The sweetest dews of night are shed,
As if she wept the waste to see,—
But none shall weep a tear for me!
My life is like the autumn leaf
That trembles in...
