O Land of Quiet! to thy shore the surf Of the perturbed Present rolls and sleeps; Our storms breathe soft as June upon thy turf And lure out blossoms; to thy bosom leaps, As to a mother's, the o'erwearied heart, Hearing far off and dim the toiling mart, The hurrying feet, the curses without number, Of thine exulting vision, Out of its very cares woos charms for peace and slumber. To thee the Earth lifts up her fettered hands The eternal law, Which makes the crime its own blindfold redresser, Shadows his heart with perilous foreboding, And he can see the grim-eyed Doom From out the trembling gloom Its silent-footed steeds toward his palace goading. What promises hast thou for Poets' eyes, Love leaves no grudge at less, no greed for more; In vain strives Self the godlike sense to smother; From the soul's deeps It throbs and leaps; The noble 'neath foul rags beholds his long-lost brother. To thee the Martyr looketh, and his fires Unlock their fangs and leave his spirit free; To thee the Poet 'mid his toil aspires, And grief and hunger climb about his knee, Welcome as children; thou upholdest The lone Inventor by his demon haunted; The Prophet cries to thee when hearts are coldest, And, gazing o'er the midnight's bleak abyss, Sees the drowsed soul awaken at thy kiss, And stretch its happy arms and leap up disenchanted. Thou bringest vengeance, but so loving-kindly Fierce tyrants drop the scourges wherewith blindly Their own souls they were scarring; conquerors see With horror in their hands the accursed spear That tore the meek One's side on Calvary, And from their trophies shrink with ghastly fear; Thou, too, art the Forgiver, The beauty of man's soul to man revealing; The arrows from thy quiver Pierce error's guilty heart, but only pierce for healing. O, whither, whither, glory-winged dreams, From out Life's sweat and turmoil would ye bear me? Shut, gates of Fancy, on your golden gleams,- A charm against the present sorrow From the vague Future's promise of delight: As life's alarums nearer roll, The ancestral buckler calls, Self-clanging, from the walls In the high temple of the soul; Where are most sorrows, there the poet's sphere is, To feed the soul with patience, To heal its desolations With words of unshorn truth, with love that never wearies. HEBE. I SAW the twinkle of white feet, I saw the flash of robes descending; Before her ran an influence fleet, That bowed my heart like barley bending. As, in bare fields, the searching bees Pilot to blooms beyond our finding, It led me on, by sweet degrees Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding. Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates; With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me; The long-sought Secret's golden gates On musical hinges swung before me. |