English

Quicquid agimus, quicquid Patimur venit ex Alto

The countries tears, be ye my spring; my hill
A general Grave; let Groans inspire my Quill
With an Heart-rending Sense, drawn from the Cries
Of Orphan Churches, and the Destinies
Of a Bereaved House: Let Children weep
They scarce know why; and let the Mother steep
Her lifeless Hopes in Brine; The Private Friend
O'rewhelm'd with grief falter his Comforts end .
By a warm Sympathie let Feaverish Heat
Roam through my Verse unseen; and a Cold Sweat

Count each affliction, whether light or grave,
God's messenger sent down to thee; do thou
With courtesy receive him, rise and bow;
And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave
Permission first his heavenly feet to lave;
Then lay before him all thou hast; allow
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,
Or mar thy hospitality; no wave
Of mortal tumult to obliterate
Thy soul's marmoreal calmness.
Grief should be
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate,
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free;

C OULDST thou, Great Fairy, give to me
The instant's wish, that I might see
Of all the earth's that one dear sight
Known only in a dream's delight,
I would, beneath some island steep,
In some remote and sun-bright deep,
See high in heaven above me now
A palm-tree wave its rhythmic bough!

And yet this old pine's haughty crown,
Shaking its clouds of silver down,
Whispers me snatches of strange tunes
And murmur of those awful runes
Which tell by subtle spell, and power
Of secret sympathies, the hour

Could you bid an acorn
When in earth it heaves
On Time's backward wing be borne
To forgotten leaves:
Could you quiet Noah's Flood
To an essence rare,
Or bid the roaring wind
Confine in his lair:

Could round iron shell
When the spark was in it
Hold gun-powder so well
That it never split:
Had you reins for the sun,
And curb, and spur,
Held you God in a net
So He might not stir:

Then might you take this thing,
Then strangle it, kill:
By weighing, considering,

Could we only see the goodness
Of the ones we meet each day,
We'd not stop to criticize them
As we pass along life's way.
We'd tell others of their merits,
Rather than of faults we see;
Could we only see the goodness
Much more pleasant it would be.
Could we only see the burden
Carried by our fellowman,
We would be less prone to taunt him
As this earthly sphere we span.
We would seek to aid our brother,
Could we see the load he bears;
Critics would be few and scattered

I

Could I but retrace
The winding stairs fate built me.
They fell from my feet.
Now I stand on the high round.
Down beneath height above depth —

II

Through the eyes of life
I looked in at my own heart:
A long furrowed field
Grown cement waiting for seed
Baking in desolation.

III

Drink in moods of joy!
Why should the sky be lonely?
Neither sun nor moon —
How my heart is shy of night
Like Autumn's leaf brown pendants.

IV

The cotton blouse you wear, your mother said,
After a day of toil, " I guess I'll buy it " ;
For ribbons on your head and blouse she paid
Two-bits a yard — as if you would deny it!

And nights, after a day of kitchen toil,
She stitched your re-made skirt of serge — once blue —
Weary of eye, beneath a lamp of oil:
McDonogh would be proud of her and you.

Next, came white " creepers " and white stockings, too —
They almost asked her blood when they were sold;
Like some dark princess, to the school go you,

The corpse rotted from its exhibiting noose
like a horrible fruit from the bough,
witness to an unbelievable sentence,
swaying pendulous above the road.

The obscene nakedness, the protruding tongue,
and a high tuft of hair like a cockscomb,
lent it a comic look; at my horse's feet
a group of rapscallions sported and guffawed.

And the dismal remains, with lolling head,
scandalous and swollen on the green gibbet,
spread their gust of stench upon the breeze,

swinging with a censer's measured gravity.

Content thyself with thy estate,
Seek not to climb above the skies;
For often love is mixed with hate,
And 'twixt the flowers the serpent lies:
Where fortune sends her greatest joys,
There once possessed they are but toys.

What thing can earthly pleasure give
That breeds delight when it is past?
Or who so quietly doth live
But storms of cares do drown at last?
This is the law of worldly hire,

contend in a sea which the land partly encloses
shielding them from the too-heavy blows
of an ungoverned ocean which when it chooses

tortures the biggest hulls, the best man knows
to pit against its beatings, and sinks them pitilessly.
Mothlike in mists, scintillant in the minute

brilliance of cloudless days, with broad bellying sails
they glide to the wind tossing green water
from their sharp prows while over them the crew crawls

ant-like, solicitously grooming them, releasing,