Making amends for the long northern night
They passed ere either knew the other loved.
It is the hour of hearts, when all hearts feel
As they could love to mad death, finding aught
To give back fire; for love, like nature, is
War - sweet war! Arms! To arms! so they be thine,
Woman! Old people may say what they please —
The heart of age is like an emptied wine-cup,
Its life lies in a heel-tap - how can they judge?
'T were waste of time to ask how they wasted theirs.
But while the blood is bright, breath sweet, skin smooth,
And limbs all made to minister delight
Ere yet we have shed our locks like trees their leaves,
And we stand staring bare into the air
He is a fool who is not for love and beauty.
I speak unto the young, for I am of them,
And always shall be. What are years to me?
Traitors! That vice-like fang the hand ye lick:
Ye fall like small birds beaten by a storm
Against a dead wall, dead. I pity ye.
Oh! that such mean things should raise hope or fear;
Those Titans of the heart, that fight at Heaven
And sleep by fits on fire; whose slightest stir 's
An earthquake. I am bound and blest to youth!
Oh! give me to the young - the fair - the free —
The brave, who would breast a rushing, burning world
Which came between them and their heart's delight.
None but the brave and beautiful can love.
Oh, for the young heart like a fountain playing!
Flinging its bright, fresh feelings up to the skies
It loves and strives to reach - strives, loves in vain ;
It is of earth, and never meant for Heaven.
Let us love both, and die. The sphinx-like heart,
Consistent in inconsistency,
Loathes life the moment that life's riddle is read:
The knot of our existence is untied,
And we lie loose and useless. Life is had;
And then we sigh, and say, can this be all?
It is not what we thought—it is very well
But we want something more there is but death. And when we have said, and seen, and done, and had, Enjoyed, and suffered, all we have wished and feared From fame to ruin, and from love to loathing.
There can come but one more change — try it — death.
Oh! it is great to feel we care for nothing
That hope, nor love, nor fear, nor aught of earth
Can check the royal lavishment of life;
But like a streamer strown upon the wind,
We fling our souls to fate and to the future.
And to die young is youth's divinest gift,
To pass from one world fresh into another,
Ere change hath lost the charm of soft regret,
And feel the immortal impulse from within
Which makes the coming, life, cry, alway, on!
And follow it while strong, is heaven's last mercy.
There is a fire-fly in the southern clime
Which shineth only when upon the wing;
So is it with the mind: when once we rest,
We darken. On! said God unto the soul
As to the earth, for ever.
A rejoicing native of the infinite
By the sweet muse of music, I could swear
I do believe it smiles upon me; see it
Full of unuttered music, like a bird;
Rich in invisible treasures, like a bud
Of unborn sweets and thick about the heart
With ripe and rosy beauty - full to trembling.
I love it like a sister. Hark! -its tones;
They melt the soul within one like a sword,
Albeit sheathed by lightning.
FESTUS speaks.
NEVER be in haste in writing.
Let that thou utterest be of nature's flow,
Not art's; a fountain's, not a pump's. But once
Begun, work thou all things into thy work;
And set thyself about it, as the sea
About earth, lashing at it day and night.
And leave the stamp of thine own soul in it
As thorough as the fossil flower in clay.
The theme shall start and struggle in thy breast, Like to a spirit in its tomb at rising,
Rending the stones and crying, Resurrection!
OUR life is comely as a whole; nay more,
Like rich brown ringlets, with odd hairs all gold.
We women have four seasons, like the year,
Our spring is in our lightsome girlish days,
When the heart laughs within us for sheer joy;
Ere, yet we know what love is or the ill
Of being loved by those whom we love not.
Summer is when we love and are beloved,
And seems short; from its very splendor seems
To pass the quickest; crowned with flowers it flies.
Autumn, when some young thing with tiny hands,
And rosy cheeks, and flossy tendrilled locks,
Is wantoning about us day and night.
And winter is when these we love have perished; For the heart ices then. And the next spring
Is in another world, if one there be.
Some miss one season, some another; this
Shall have them early, and that late; and yet
The year wears round with all as best it may,
There is no rule for it; but in the main
It is as I have said.
THE infinite opposition of Perfection
To imperfection leaves nor choice nor mean.
Thus the demeanor of thy world grieved God,
Till its destruction pleased Him, and its name
Was struck out of the starry scroll; thus all
Creation worketh infinite grief in Time.
When human nature is most perfect, then
Its fall is nearest, as of ripest fruit.
Man's pleasure in the world - to both of which
His nature is made fit—is not of God,
Save theirs on whom His spirit He bestows,
As in a twilight between earth and Heaven,
A promissory Being unfulfilled-
But still how glorious to the stone-blind world.
This is in time, but in eternity,
He raises, remakes, adds to all He made
His own immortalizing love and grace,
Which keeps them ever pure as is the sea,
And incorruptible in godly will.
The bliss of God and man originates,
Unites and ends in self-in Deity:
To whom is neither motive- good
Greater or less, or other than Himself.
IF I do not believe I do not scorn them.
Nay, I could mourn for them and pray for them.
I can scorn nothing which a nation's heart
Hath held, for ages, holy: for the heart
Is alike holy in its strength and weakness:
It ought not to be jested with, nor scorned.
All things, to me, are sacred that have been,
And, though earth, like a river, streaked with blood,
Which tells a long and silent tale of death,
May blush her history and hide her eyes,
The past is sacred - it is God's, not ours.
Let her and us do better if we can.
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