English

Sublime, where traffic's billows beat
A nation's wealth about his feet,
He stands; upon the surging street
He looks benignly down.
He hears the distant, wall-hid sea,
The silver chime of Trinity,
And, voicing passion, grief, or glee,
Our million-throated town.

And, up and down, our tasks we ply
With rapid step and heedless eye,
Alert alone to sell and buy;
But when the day grows dim,
When evening brings its sweet release
From toil and care, when tumults cease,

The Hyperborean hills, Ceraunus' snow,
Or Arimaspus cruell, first thee bred,
The Caspian tigers with their milke thee fed,
And Faunes did humane bloud on thee bestow;
Fierce Orithya's louer in thy bed
Thee lull'd asleepe, where he enrag'd doth blow;
Thou didst not drinke the flouds which here doe flow,
But teares, or those by ycie Tanais' hed.
Sith thou disdaines my loue, neglects my griefe,
Laughs at my grones, and still affects my death,
Of thee, nor heauen, I'll seeke no more reliefe,

Too long have I dreamed
Of a broken body and sullen brain,
Blind eyes that wept to heaven in vain,
And trembling endeavour,
Of lips that could never
Utter the pain
Of a soul that was dumb.

I am become
As a little child again,
For wonder and love are all that remain
Of the dream I used to be —
Sailing out to sea,
On the ebbing silence that rises and falls,
To the cadence of silver trumpet-calls,
Sounding from eternity —

Dead sorrow lies
Where the sunset dies —
O steadfast stars,

I muse and read, from day to day,
Of human thought's far-widening sway.
Its gradual exodus I note
From shadowy periods remote.

I see false faiths in ruin lie,
Whose thronging towers once cleft the sky.
I mark, amid the past's renown,
Colossal bigotries flung down!

And yet from history's feeblest youth
I watch in joy how deathless truth
Has striven to make, with stoic breast,
Her immortality manifest!

And now, since they that love her strive
To strip the last barbaric gyve

I'll have thee greet me in thine early hours;
The dew of morning thrilling in thy words,
And the first music of the wakened birds
That pant at noon, and hang their heads at even;
Thou, radiant in the first surprise of heaven,
And the sweet shock of re-created powers,
Shalt welcome me, with thought and hope returning,
Ere Day has set his weary task of learning,
While, on the breezy vantage, standing free,
Thou renderest glad obeisance to the Sun;
Thus shalt thou meet th' impulsive bound of one

She beckoned me over the misty rise
Her radiant feet were bare,
The grey-blue dawn was in her eyes
Stars glimmered in her hair:
She murmured the spell of Paradise
— And Paradise was there:


" O follow me Love, wherever I will,
And lose thy soul with me
Deep in the shadowy scrub, where still
Broods grey-winged mystery,
And strange dim flowers are dreaming till
I waken them for thee. "

We fled where the forest was silent and sere,
And shadows filled the shade,

From those who seize in sensual haste
Life's best of fruitage, day by day,
Who eat with greed, revile the taste,
Then cast the empty rind away;

From those who crave the moment's ease
To miss the lifetime's larger cheer,
How false, how tame, from such as these,
How slight of worth, the ironic sneer!

Off grave philosophy they steal
The classic robe her stature vaunts,
Dress her anew and praise with zeal
The bells and motley that she flaunts.

They carp at wisdom's gathered lore;

None sang of love more nobly; few as well;
Of friendship none with pathos so profound;
Of duty sternliest-proved when myrtle-crowned;
Of English grove and rivulet, mead and dell;
Great Arthur's Legend he alone dared tell;
Milton and Dryden feared to tread that ground;
For him alone o'er Camelot's faery bound
The “horns of Elf-land” blew their magic spell.
Since Shakespeare and since Wordsworth none hath sung
So well his England's greatness; none hath given
Reproof more fearless or advice more sage:

Me shalt thou quicken unto life renewed,
Thou living brightness, falling on dead faith;
Scattering my patient gloom, as one returned
From golden travels his glad lesson saith,
And, telling of far climes, and faery pleasures,
Makes rich the hearer's heart with fancied treasures.

A circling star that comes with counted years,
Bringing the heavens unnumbered to our sight,
Startling our twilight with immortal joys
For which we wrestle with the spell of night,
Fling off the measured burthen of our sleeping,

WRITTEN FOR THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY OF THE STATE OF NEW
YORK, AND SUNG THE TWENTY FIRST DECEMBER , 1805, AT THE
CELEBRATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FIFTH
ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST LANDING OF THE COLONISTS AT
PLYMOUTH.

Tune Anacreon in Heaven.
While round the full board, in festivity's glee
The sons of New England all joyous assemble,
Let us swear to live ever united and free,
That our friends may rejoice, and our enemies tremble;
For friendship carest
In each patriot breast,