fire

Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on -
Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel's track:
Whilst above the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily,
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,

He is ever drifted on
O'er the unreposing wave
To the haven of the grave.
What, if there no friends will greet;

I've always wanted to play the part
of that puckish pubescent Filipino boy

in those John Wayne Pacific-War movies.
Pepe, Jose, or Juanito would be smiling,

bare-chested and eager to please
for most of the steamy jungle scenes.

I'd be the one who would cross
the Japanese lines and ask for tanks,

air support, or more men. I'd miraculously
make it back to the town where John Wayne

is holding his position against the enemy
with his Thompson machine-gun. As a reward,

O Lord, we come this morning
Knee-bowed and body-bent
Before Thy throne of grace.
O Lord--this morning--
Bow our hearts beneath our knees,
And our knees in some lonesome valley.
We come this morning--
Like empty pitchers to a full fountain,
With no merits of our own.
O Lord--open up a window of heaven,
And lean out far over the battlements of glory,
And listen this morning.

Lord, have mercy on proud and dying sinners--
Sinners hanging over the mouth of hell,
Who seem to love their distance well.

How well my heart remembers
Beside these camp-fire embers
The eyes that smiled so far away,
The joy that was November's.

Her voice to laughter moving,
So merrily reproving,
We wandered through the autumn woods
And neither thought of loving.

The hills with light were glowing,
The waves in joy were flowing,
It was not to the clouded sun
The day's delight was owing.

Though through the brown leaves straying,
Our lives seemed gone a-Maying;

Un giorno che arrestai propio a la fetta,
Senz'avé manco l'arma d'un quadrino,
Senti che cosa fo: curro ar camino
E roppo in quattro pezzi la paletta.

Poi me l'invorto sott'a la giacchetta,
E vado a spasso pe Campovaccino
A aspettà quarche ingrese milordino
Da daje una corcata co l'accetta.

De fatti, ecco che viè quer c'aspettavo.
"Siggnore, guardi un po' quest'anticaja
C'avemo trovo jeri in de lo scavo?"

Lui se ficca l'occhiali, la scannaja,

In the sad November time,
When the leaf has left the lime,
And the Cam, with sludge and slime,
Plasters his ugly channel,
While, with sober step and slow,
Round about the marshes low,
Stiffening students stumping go
Shivering through their flannel.

Then to me in doleful mood
Rises up a question rude,
Asking what sufficient good
Comes of this mode of living?
Moping on from day to day,
Grinding up what will not "pay,"
Till the jaded brain gives way
Under its own misgiving.

THOU art no more my bosom's FRIEND;
Here must the sweet delusion end,
That charm'd my senses many a year,
Thro' smiling summers, winters drear.­
O, FRIENDSHIP! am I doom'd to find
Thou art a phantom of the mind?
A glitt'ring shade, an empty name,
An air-born vision's vap'rish flame?
And yet, the dear DECEIT so long
Has wak'd to joy my matin song,
Has bid my tears forget to flow,
Chas'd ev'ry pain, soothed ev'ry woe;
That TRUTH, unwelcome to my ear,
Swells the deep sigh, recalls the tear,

Accept, bright spirit, reft in life's best bloom
This votive wreath to thy untimely tomb.
Formed to adorn all scenes, and charm in all,
The fire-side circle, and the courtly hall;
Thy friends to gladden, and thy home to bless;---
Fair form thou hadst, and grace, and graciousness;
A mind that sought, a tongue that spoke, the truth,
And thought mature beneath the smiles of youth.
Dear, dear young friend! ingenuous, cordial heart!
And can it be, that thou shouldst first depart?
That age should sorrow o'er thy youthful shrine?

When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down
To make a man to meet the mortal need.
She took the tried clay of the common road --
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth,
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy;
Tempered the heap with thrill of human tears;
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff.
Into the shape she breathed a flame to light
That tender, tragic, ever-changing face.

Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all,
That which is gendered in the wilderness
From lonely prairies and God's tenderness.
Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream,
Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream,
Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave,
Above that breast of earth and prairie-fire —
Fire that freed the slave.