English

It's a comfort to me in life's battle,
—When the conflict seems all going wrong,
When I seem to lose every ambition
—And the current of life grows too strong,
To think that the dusk ends the warfare,
—That the worry is done for the night;
And the little child there, at the window,
—Believes that his daddy's all right.

In the heat of the day and the hurry,
—I'm prompted so often to pause,
While my mind strays away from the striving,
—Away from the noise and applause.
The cheers may be meant for some other;

It's great to be alive, and be
—A part of all that's going on;
To live and work and feel and see
—Life lived each day from early dawn;
To rise and with the morning light
—Go forth until the hours grow late,
Then joyously return at night
—And rest from honest toil—it's great!

It's great to be a living part
—Of all the surging world alive,
And lend a hand in field and mart,
—A worker in this human hive;
To live and earn and dare to do,
—Nor ever shirk or deviate
From course or purpose we pursue!

There grew a fragrant rose-tree where the brook flows,
With two little tender buds, and one full rose;
When the sun went down to his bed in the west,
The little buds leaned on the rose-mother's breast,
While the bright-eyed stars their long watch kept,
And the flowers of the valley in their green cradles slept;
Then silently in odors they communed with each other,
The two little buds on the bosom of their mother.
“O sister,” said the little one, as she gazed at the sky,
“I wish that the Dew Elves, as they wander lightly by,

Queen of the upper air, crown'd Artemis!
Quick-girdled huntress and moon-diadem'd,
O patroness of all our keen endeavour,
Lady that life from life dost sever,
Hear thou from haunt Eubœan!
Life out of life, seed unto seed thou givest,
Thou potent in the Stygian shades infernal
As in the blue supernal;
Potent thou too in the green habitations
Of teeming Earth, whose nations
Adore in thee their holiest aspirations,
See their wholesome, see their pure
Stroke and striving imaged sure

This is the reed the dead musician dropped,
With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden;
The prompt allegro of its music stopped,
Its melodies unbidden

But who shall finish the unfinished strain,
Or wake the instrument to awe and wonder,
And bid the slender barrel breathe again,
An organ-pipe of thunder!

His pen! what humbler memories cling about
Its golden curves! what shapes and laughing graces
Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out
In smiles and courtly phrases?

These Autumn winds are growing chill,
They wander wailing o'er the hill,
And at the close-shut window cry
That summer opened lovingly;
But we can let them in no more,
And all the eve my heart is sore—
My heart is sore, I know not why.
They seem to say,
The summer day
Has past away,
And life goes with it silently.

Still o'er the mountain's darkening bar
We watch the new-born evening star,
That throbs and quivers in the sea
Of amber light—and musingly
We let our shaping fancy play

'Tis vain, Fonteus!—As the half-tamed steed,
Scenting the desert, lashes madly out,
And strains and storms and struggles to be freed,
Shaking his rattling harness all about—
So, fiercer for restraint, here in my breast
Hot passion rages, firing every thought;
For what is honour, prudence, interest
To the wild strength of love? Oh best of life,
My joy, hope, triumph, glory, my soul's wife,
My Cleopatra! I desire thee so
That all restraint to the wild winds I throw.
Come what come will, come life, come death, to me

Reft of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn,
Mourn, widowed queen, forgotten Sion, mourn!
Is this thy place, sad City, this thy throne,
Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone?
While suns unblest their angry lustre fling,
And way-worn pilgrims seek the scanty spring?—
Where now thy pomp, which kings with envy viewed?
Where now thy might, which all those kings subdued?
No martial myriads muster in thy gate;
No suppliant nations in thy Temple wait;
No prophet bards, thy glittering courts among,

What are you, love? A flame from heaven?
A radiant smile are you?
The heaven has not your eyes' bright gleams,
The heaven has not their blue.

The rose has not your snowy breast;
In the moon's face we seek
In vain the rosy flush that dyes
Your soft and blushing cheek.

By night you smile upon the stars,
And on the amorous moon,
By day upon the waves, the flowers—
Why not on one alone?

But, though I pray to you with tears,
With tears and bitter sighs,
You will not deign me yet one glance

Yes, let Art go, if it must be
That with it men must starve—
If Music, Painting, Poetry
Spring from the wasted hearth.

Pluck out the flower, however fair,
Whose beauty cannot bloom
(However sweet it be, or rare)
Save from a noisesome tomb.

These social manners, charm and ease
Are hideous to who knows
The degradation, the disease
From which their beauty flows.

So, Poet, must thy singing be;
O Painter, so thy scene;
Musician, so thy melody,
While misery is queen.