I fear no power a woman wields
While I can have the woods and fields,
With comradeship alone of gun,
Gray marsh-wastes and the burning sun.
For aye the heart’s most poignant pain
Will wear away ’neath hail and rain,
And rush of winds through branches bare
With something still to do and dare,
The lonely watch beside the shore,...
Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace
To look through and behind this mask of me,
(Against which, years have beat thus blanchingly
With their rains,) and behold my soul’s true face,
The dim and weary witness of life’s race,—
Because thou hast the faith and love to see,
Through that same soul’s distracting lethargy,
The patient...
From the French by Louise Stuart Costello
WHILE yet these tears have power to flow
For hours for ever past away;
While yet these swelling sighs allow
My faltering voice to breathe a lay;
While yet my hand can touch the chords,
My tender lute, to wake thy tone;
While yet my mind no thought affords,
But one remembered...
From “Sonnets in Shadow”
THERE is such power even in smallest things
To bring the dear past back; a flower’s tint,
A snatch of some old song, the fleeting glint
Of sunbeams on the wave—each vivid brings
The lost days up, as from the idle strings
Of wind-harp sad a breeze evokes the hint
Of antique tunes. A glove which keeps...
An Ode
’T WAS at the royal feast, for Persia won
By Philip’s warlike son:
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne:
His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
(So should desert in arms be crowned);
The lovely Thais,...
* * *
[4] [This world del.] Each Man is in [the del.] his Spectre’s power
[3] Until the arrival of that hour,
[1] [Until del.] When [the del.] Humanity awake,
[2] And cast [the del.] his own Spectre in the Lake...
I took my Power in my Hand —
And went against the World —
'Twas not so much as David — had —
But I — was twice as bold —
I aimed by Pebble — but Myself
Was all the one that fell —
Was it Goliath — was too large —
Or was myself — too small?
Power is a familiar growth —
Not foreign — not to be —
Beside us like a bland Abyss
In every company —
Escape it — there is but a chance —
When consciousness and clay
Lean forward for a final glance —
Disprove that and you may —
The power to be true to You,
Until upon my face
The Judgment push his Picture —
Presumptuous of Your Place —
Of This — Could Man deprive Me —
Himself — the Heaven excel —
Whose invitation — Yours reduced
Until it showed too small —
To be alive — is Power —
Existence — in itself —
Without a further function —
Omnipotence — Enough —
To be alive — and Will!
'Tis able as a God —
The Maker — of Ourselves — be what —
Such being Finitude!
