He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide, Still patient in his simple faith sublime, Great captains, with their guns and drums, These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, TO A SKYLARK Hail to thee, blithe spirit! That from heaven, or near it, In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, - Lowell. And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen as are the arrows In the white dawn clear Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower · Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view: Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy winged thieves Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous and clear and fresh thy music doth surpass: Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thinə! I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear, keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? We look before and after, With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate and pride and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, i know not how thy joy we ever should come near. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now! GRADATIM1 -Shelley. Heaven is not gained at a single bound; I count this thing to be grandly true, That a noble deed is a step toward God, 1 From "The Complete Poetical Writings of J. G. Holland," copyright, 1879, 1881, by Charles Scribner's Sous. We rise by things that are 'neath our feet; We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust, When the morning calls us to life and light, But our hearts grow weary, and, ere the night, Our lives are trailing the sordid dust. We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray, And we think that we mount the air on wings While our feet still cling to the heavy clay. Wings for the angels, but feet for the men! We may borrow the wings to find the way- Only in dreams is a ladder thrown From the weary earth to the sapphire walls; But the dreams depart, and the vision falls, And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone. Heaven is not reached at a single bound; But we build the ladder by which we rise From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, And we mount to its summit round by round. ON HIS BLINDNESS When I consider how my light is spent -Holland Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, |