Lord! call thy pallid angel,
The tamer of the strong!
And bid him whip with want and woe
The champions of the wrong!
O, say not thou to ruin’s flood,
“Up, sluggard! why so slow?”
But alone, let them groan,
The lowest of the low;
And basely beg the bread they curse,
Where millions curse them now!
...
There ’s a good time coming, boys.
A good time coming:
We may not live to see the day,
But earth shall glisten in the ray
Of the good time coming.
Cannon-balls may aid the truth,
But thought ’s a weapon stronger;
We ’ll win our battle by its aid;—
Wait a little longer.
There ’s a good time coming, boys,...
Cleon hath a million acres, ne’er a one have I;
Cleon dwelleth in a palace, in a cottage I;
Cleon hath a dozen fortunes, not a penny I;
Yet the poorer of the twain is Cleon, and not I.
Cleon, true, possesseth acres, but the landscape I;
Half the charms to me it yieldeth money cannot buy.
Cleon harbors sloth and dulness, freshening vigor I;...
“WHY, when the world’s great mind
Hath finally inclined,
Why,” you say, Critias, “be debating still?
Why, with these mournful rhymes
Learned in more languid climes,
Blame our activity
Who, with such passionate will,
Are what we mean to be?”
Critias, long since, I know
(For Fate decreed...
TO spend the long warm days
Silent beside the silent-stealing streams,
To see, not gaze,—
To hear, not listen, thoughts exchanged for dreams:
See clouds that slowly pass
Trailing their shadows o’er the far faint down,
And ripening grass,
While yet the meadows wear their starry crown:
To hear the...
Two seas, amid the night,
In the moonshine roll and sparkle—
Now spread in the silver light,
Now sadden, and wail, and darkle.
The one has a billowy motion,
And from land to land it gleams;
The other is sleep’s wide ocean,
And its glimmering waves are dreams.
The one, with murmur and roar,
Bears fleets around...
True genius, but true woman! dost deny
Thy woman’s nature with a manly scorn,
And break away the gauds and armlets worn
By weaker women in captivity?
Ah, vain denial! that revolted cry
Is sobbed in by a woman’s voice forlorn;
Thy woman’s hair, my sister, all unshorn,
Floats back dishevelled strength in agony,
Disproving thy man’s...
1805–1875
a Being cleaves the moonlit air,
With eyes of dew and plumes of fire,
New-born, immortal, strong and fair;
Glance ere he goes!
His feet are shrouded like the dead,
But in his face a wild desire
Breaks like the dawn that flushes red,
And like a rose.
The stars shine out above his path,...
The Soul of man is larger than the sky,
Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark
Of the unfathomed centre. Like that ark,
Which in its sacred hold uplifted high,
O’er the drowned hills, the human family,
And stock reserved of every living kind,
So, in the compass of the single mind,
The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie,
That...
Charade
COME from my first, ay, come!
The battle-dawn is nigh;
And the screaming trump and the thundering drum
Are calling thee to die!
Fight as thy father fought;
Fall as thy father fell;
Thy task is taught; thy shroud is wrought;
So forward and farewell!
Toll ye my second, toll!
Fling high...
