'Who, to the Past's accumulated wealth,
Add, day by day, fresh stores that inward roll,
The large experience that bringeth health
And wisdom to the soul,
'Learn yet one thing. He who is wise above,
Leadeth in every age His children home;
And He, beholding, something found to love,
Even in Pagan Rome.'
Say that by night thou camest to me,
Like some poor bird, from o'er the sea
That feebly flutters;
Till, soaring with morn's strength to sing,
The tender hopes of budding Spring
Once more it utters.
O Song, like streamlet on its way,
That hath no respite, night or day,
Do not fatigue her!
But may thy melody at times
Floating, with its persistent rhymes,
Her heart beleaguer !
So, little song, without applause,
In secret plead with her my cause,
Till her heart, ringing
With thy low music, hath confessed
That, of all songs, she loves the best,
That of Love's singing!
Do you recall that night in June,
Upon the Danube River?
We listened to a Ländler tune,
We watched the moonbeams quiver.
I oft since then have watched the moon,
But never, Love, oh! never,
Can I forget that night in June,
Adown the Danube River!
Our boat kept measure with its oar,
The music rose in snatches,
From peasants dancing on the shore
With boist'rous songs and catches.
I know not why that Ländler rang
Through all my soul - but never
Can I forget the songs they sang
Adown the Danube River.
ROBERT LOUIS BALFOUR STEVENSON.
A NAKED house, a naked moor,
A shivering pool before the door,
A garden bare of flowers and fruit,
And poplars at the garden foot:
Such is the place that I live in,
Bleak without and bare within.
Yet shall your ragged moor receive
The incomparable pomp of eve,
And the cold glories of the dawn
Behind your shivering trees be drawn ;
And when the wind from place to place
Doth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase,
Your garden gloom and gleam again,
With leaping sun, with glancing rain.
Here shall the wizard moon ascend
The heavens, in the crimson end
Of day's declining splendor; here
The army of the stars appear.
The neighbor hollows dry or wet,
Spring shall with tender flowers beset;
And oft the morning muser see
Larks rising from the broomy lea,
And every fairy wheel and thread
Of cobweb dew-bediamonded.
When daisies go, shall winter time
Silver the simple grass with rime;
Autumnal frosts enchant the pool
And make the cart-ruts beautiful;
And when snow-bright the moor expands,
How shall your children clap their hands!
To make this earth, our hermitage,
A cheerful and a changeful page,
God's bright and intricate device
Of days and seasons doth suffice.
IF I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness;
If I have moved among my race
And shown no glorious morning face;
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain :
Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake;
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose thou, before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin,
And to my dead heart run them in!
'NOT YET, MY SOUL, THESE FRIENDLY FIELDS DESERT?
NOT yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert,
Where thou with grass, and rivers, and the breeze,
And the bright face of day, thy dalliance hadst;
Where to thine ear first sang the enraptured birds;
Where love and thou that lasting bargain made.
The ship rides trimmed, and from the eternal shore
Thou hearest airy voices; but not yet
Depart, my soul, not yet awhile depart.
Freedom is far, rest far. Thou art with life
Too closely woven, nerve with nerve intwined;
Service still craving service, love for love,
Love for dear love, still suppliant with tears.
Alas, not yet thy human task is done!
A bond at birth is forged; a debt doth lie
Immortal on mortality. It grows
By vast rebound it grows, unceasing growth;
Gift upon gift, alms upon alms, upreared,
From man, from God, from nature, till the soul
At that so huge indulgence stands amazed.
Leave not, my soul, the unfoughten field, nor leave
Thy debts dishonored, nor thy place desert
Without due service rendered. For thy life,
Up, spirit, and defend that fort of clay,
Thy body, now beleaguered; whether soon
Or late she fall; whether to-day thy friends
Bewail thee dead, or, after years, a man
Grown old in honor and the friend of peace.
Contend, my soul, for moments and for hours;
Each is with service pregnant; each reclaimed
Is as a kingdom conquered, where to reign.
As when a captain rallies to the fight
His scattered legions, and beats ruin back,
He, on the field, encamps, well pleased in mind.
Yet surely him shall fortune overtake,
Him smite in turn, headlong his ensigns drive;
And that dear land, now safe, to-morrow fall.
But he, unthinking, in the present good
Solely delights, and all the camps rejoice.
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