alone

Once in the wind of morning
I ranged the thymy wold;
The world-wide air was azure
And all the brooks ran gold.

There through the dews beside me
Behold a youth that trod,
With feathered cap on forehead,
And poised a golden rod.

With mien to match the morning
And gay delightful guise
And friendly brows and laughter
He looked me in the eyes.

Oh whence, I asked, and whither?
He smiled and would not say.
And looked at me and beckoned,
And laughed and led the way.

Troop home to silents grots and caves!
Troop home! And mimic as you go
The mournful winding of the waves
Which to their dark abysses flow!

At this sweet hour, all things beside
In amourous pairs to covert creep;
The swans that brush the evening tide
Homeward and snowy couples keep;

In his green den the murmuring seal
Close by his sleek companion lies;
While singly we to bedward steal,
And close in fruitless sleep our eyes.

In bowers of love men take their rest,

The youth in the woods spent the whole day long,
The whole day long;
For there he had heard such a wonderful song,
Wonderful song.

Willow-wood gave him a flute so fair,
A flute so fair,--
To try, if within were the melody rare,
Melody rare.

Melody whispered and said: "I am here!"
Said: "I am here!"
But while he was listening, it fled from his ear,
Fled from his ear.

Oft when he slept, it to him crept,
It to him crept;

I see her still--by her fair train surrounded,
The fairest of them all, she took her place;
Afar I stood, by her bright charms confounded,
For, oh! they dazzled with their heavenly grace.
With awe my soul was filled--with bliss unbounded,
While gazing on her softly radiant face;
But soon, as if up-borne on wings of fire,
My fingers 'gan to sweep the sounding lyre.

The thoughts that rushed across me in that hour,
The words I sang, I'd fain once more invoke;
Within, I felt a new-awakened power,

O Christ, true Son of God most high,
Thy name we praise for ever;
Whoe'er to Thee for help doth cry
Shall find Thee fail him never;
'Tis Thou wilt plead,
Thou intercede
With God, for us who need Thy prayers so sore:
Thy bitter strife
Hath wrought us life,
And Thine be thanks and praise for evermore!

To Thee the Father giveth now
All power in earth and heaven;
Sin, Satan, Death to Thee must bow,
All fetters Thou hast riven,
Bade fear to cease,
And made our peace,

A flying word from here and there
Had sown the name at which we sneered,
But soon the name was everywhere,
To be reviled and then revered:
A presence to be loved and feared,
We cannot hide it, or deny
That we, the gentlemen who jeered,
May be forgotten by and by.

He came when days were perilous
And hearts of men were sore beguiled;
And having made his note of us,
He pondered and was reconciled.
Was ever master yet so mild
As he, and so untamable?
We doubted, even when he smiled,

'What was the hardest hour’, you ask,
‘Ever I had at sea?’
There was that in the wreck of the Mary Ross
Is bitten into me.

Five merry weeks of sun and speed,
A ship well mann’d and stout—
One hour from home she falter’d, stopp’d
Short … and the lights went out.

What follow’d—O just-dealing God,
How firm must be Thy mind,
Such a beginning to have given
And such an end design’d!

…Sudden, from human eyes and hands

Not only on cross and gibbet,
By sword, and fire, and flood,
Have perished the world’s sad martyrs
Whose names are writ in blood.

A woman lay in a hovel,
Mean, dismal, gasping for breath;
One friend alone was beside her—
The name of him was—Death.

For the sake of her orphan children,
For money to buy them food,
She had slaved in the dismal hovel
And wasted her womanhood.

Winter and Spring and Summer
Came each with a load of cares;
And Autumn to her brought only

Some time ago, in simple verse
I sang the story true
Of CAPTAIN REECE, the MANTELPIECE,
And all her happy crew.

I showed how any captain may
Attach his men to him,
If he but heeds their smallest needs,
And studies every whim.

Now mark how, by Draconic rule
And HAUTEUR ill-advised,
The noblest crew upon the Blue
May be demoralized.

When his ungrateful country placed
Kind REECE upon half-pay,
Without much claim SIR BERKELY came,
And took command one day.

There came a child into the solemn hall
where great Pope Innocent sat throned and heard
angry disputings on Free-Will in man,
Grace, Purity, and the Pelagian creed--
an ignorantly bold poor child, who stood
shewing his rags before the Pope's own eyes,
and bade him come to shrive a beggar man
he found alone and dying in a shed,
who sent him for the Pope, "not any else
but the Pope's self." And Innocent arose
and hushed the mockers "Surely I will go:
servant of servants, I." So he went forth