The Midday sun, with fiercest glare,
Broods over the hazy, twinkling air;
Along the level sand
The palm-tree’s shade unwavering lies,
Just as thy towers, Damascus, rise
To greet yon wearied band.
The leader of that martial crew
Seems bent some mighty deed to do,
So steadily he speeds,
With lips firm closed...
Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!
All common things, each day’s events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.
The low desire, the base design,...
“CARRY me across!”
The Syrian heard, rose up, and braced
His huge limbs to the accustomed toil:
“My child, see how the waters boil?
The night-black heavens look angry-faced;
But life is little loss.
“I ’ll carry thee with joy,
If needs be, safe as nestling dove:
For o’er this stream I pilgrims bring...
From the Persian by William R. Alger
TO heaven approached a Sufi Saint,
From groping in the darkness late,
And, tapping timidly and faint,
Besought admission at God’s gate.
Said God, “Who seeks to enter here?”
“’T is I, dear Friend,” the Saint replied,
And trembling much with hope and fear.
“If it be thou, without abide...
Deep on the convent-roof the snows
Are sparkling to the moon:
My breath to heaven like vapor goes:
May my soul follow soon!
The shadows of the convent-towers
Slant down the snowy sward,
Still creeping with the creeping hours
That lead me to my Lord:
Make Thou my spirit pure and clear
As are the frosty skies,...
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began;
When Nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead!
Then cold and hot, and moist and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And Music’...
From “Childe Harold,” Canto IV.
VASTNESS which grows, but grows to harmonize,
All musical in its immensities;
Rich marbles, richer painting, shrines where flame
The lamps of gold, and haughty dome which vies
In air with earth’s chief structures, though their frame
Sits on the firm-set ground,—and this the cloud must claim...
Long pored Saint Austin o’er the sacred page,
And doubt and darkness overspread his mind;
On God’s mysterious being thought the Sage,
The Triple Person in one Godhead joined.
The more he thought, the harder did he find
To solve the various doubts which fast arose;
And as a ship, caught by imperious wind,
Tosses where chance its...
Saint Anthony at church
Was left in the lurch,
So he went to the ditches
And preached to the fishes;
They wriggled their tails,
In the sun glanced their scales.
The carps, with their spawn,
Are all hither drawn;
Have opened their jaws,
Eager for each clause.
No sermon beside
Had the carps so...
* * *
I Rubens am a Statesman & a Saint
Deceptions? O no—so I'll learn to Paint[4]
