Sometimes, when music sounds,
Towards some strange palace I am led
Where meet, methinks, the dead:
I travel through enchanted grounds.

Within those palace-walls, bright-eyed,
They dance, converse, — as love or music leads
But I, within the darkness, left outside,
Shiver, and hear the hoarse wind through the reeds.

When blood-red Revolution in the air
Waveth her banner — when thought's streams flow deep
Waking, loud-resonant, from their summer sleep —
When all the age one wide unrest doth share —
When the Republic's lions from their lair
Emerge, and with their roar make cowards creep, —
When vast ideas like cataracts overleap
The common bounds, and down the hill-sides tear:
Then is love sweet? Yea, sweeter than of old,

God sits sovereign on the throne,
He is HING OF KINGS alone;
Ye that sway an iron rod!
Hear a message from your God; —

" Heed the helpless orphan's cry,
Hear the friendless widow's sigh,
Plead the poor and needy's cause,
Save th' oppress'd from cruel laws. "

Lo! they heed not, — on they go,
Dealing scourges, chains and woe;
Justice weeps — her pillars shake —
All the old foundations quake!

What though call'd vicegerents now —
Gods on earth! — ye all must bow;
Haughty tyrants! ye must die;

Why so mournful, pretty maid?
Why these sobs and sighs,
Hair all loose and disarrayed,
Languid streaming eyes?
Did you your false lover see
With another on his knee?

Tell me all your trouble, dear,
Let me heal your grief.
Prithee, wipe away that tear;
Speech will bring relief.
Though your tongue may dumb remain,
In your eyes the truth is plain.

O artist dreaming thus thy life away,
There is a higher life than thou canst guess.
Art thou a poet? sweet love answers, “nay.”
Was Christ a poet? woman answers, “yes.”

The highest poethood is ever this:
To love as Christ loved, and to save the race.
Not to spend wild years, seeking kiss on kiss,
But to draw forth the soul in woman's face.

To aid the weary, and to lift the low:
To show God's pity in the human sphere:
Besought by sorrow, never to say “no”
To lend the helpless heart a ready ear:

Before the child the world expands,
And dreams of green or sunny lands
Float in upon his soul from space.
Each child upon the planet born
Brings back that planet's early morn
In the sweet sunrise of his face.

The world for each is recreate,
And each may meet and conquer Fate,
And mould his life to woe or weal.
For each the sea again is blue:
For each the mountain-summits new;
For each the morning bugles peal.

For each God sheds his glory again
On hill and dell and lake and plain:
To each he brings his flowers anew.

" A thousand down" — she cries, the ugly jade:
He pays the money and is still afraid.
My Lysianassa charges me a crown
And lets me kiss her anywhere in town.
Either I'm wrong, or else he should be sent
Straight to the gelder for his punishment.

High thoughts and soaring impulse hath the age,
  Our age, our age of passion and of song:
Fierce warfare with untruth its warriors wage,
 Pitiless battle with each hoary wrong
 That sits miscrowned, with impious sceptre strong.
A rose thou art, and I the rose's singer,
 Yet will I with a spear-shaft supple and long
Amid the tilters at the tourney linger,
Then sweep again my harp with boisterous finger,
 Strengthened by battle 'mid the echoing lists—
Of battle's red bloom I will be the bringer,

Zeus may turn to rain of gold,
As a bull Europa hold,
Come a swan to view.
As for me, I need not fly
While a crown or two can buy
All I want from Sue.

I fall, O Lord, before thy feet,
For thou hast taught me things most sweet,
Most pure, most grand.
Behold! I longed to conquer thee;
But am content — if this may be —
To kiss thine hand.

I dreamed of love, and passion wild,
But now, O Lord, am reconciled
To loveless hours.
Thou art so vast in purity!
I dreamed of sin; but, thanks to thee,
I dream of flowers.

Thou art my God: for thou hast taught
Truths reaching far beyond man's thought,
Deep truths and grave.
While other men defile, deflower,