Now chiefly is my natal hour,
And only now my prime of life;
Of manhood's strength it is the flower, 'Tis peace's end, and war's beginning strife.
It comes in summer's broadest noon,
By a gray wall, or some chance place,
Unseasoning time, insulting June,
And vexing day with its presuming face.
I will not doubt the love untold,
Which not my worth nor want hath bought, Which wooed me young, and wooes me old, And to this evening hath me brought.
"HAVE you not seen,
In ancient times,
Pilgrims pass by
Toward other climes,
With shining faces,
Youthful and strong,
Mounting this hill
With speech and with song?"
"Ah, my good sir,
I know not those ways:
Little my knowledge,
Tho' many my days.
When I have slumbered,
I have heard sounds
As of travelers passing
These my grounds.
""T was a sweet music
Wafted them by,
I could not tell
If afar off or nigh.
Unless I dreamed it,
This was of yore:
I never told it
To mortal before,
Never remembered
But in my dreams
What to me waking
A miracle seems."
POOR bird! destined to lead thy life
Far in the adventurous west,
And here to be debarred to-night
From thy accustomed nest;
Must thou fall back upon old instinct now, Well-nigh extinct under man's fickle care? Did Heaven bestow its quenchless inner light,
So long ago, for thy small want to-night?
Why stand'st upon thy toes to crow so late?
The moon is deaf to thy low feathered fate;
Or dost thou think so to possess the night,
And people the drear dark with thy brave
sprite?
And now with anxious eye thou look'st about,
While the relentless shade draws on its veil,
For some sure shelter from approaching dews,
And the insidious steps of nightly foes.
I fear imprisonment has dulled thy wit,
Or ingrained servitude extinguished it.
But no; dim memory of the days of yore,
By Brahmapootra and the Jumna's shore,
Where thy proud race flew swiftly o'er the
heath,
And sought its food the jungle's shade beneath,
Has taught thy wings to seek yon friendly
As erst by Indus' banks and far Ganges.
Be sure your fate
Doth keep apart its state,
Not linked with any band,
Even the nobles of the land;
In tented fields with cloth of gold
No place doth hold
But is more chivalrous than they are,
And sigheth for a nobler war;
A finer strain its trumpet sings,
A brighter gleam its armor flings.
The life that I aspire to live
No man proposeth me;
Only the promise of my heart
Wears its emblazonry.
Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide;
Mortality below her orb is placed.
THE full-orbed moon with unchanged ray Mounts up the eastern sky,
Not doomed to these short nights for aye, But shining steadily.
She does not wane, but my fortune,
Which her rays do not bless;
My wayward path declineth soon,
But she shines not the less.
And if she faintly glimmers here,
And palèd is her light,
Yet alway in her proper sphere
She's mistress of the night.
WHO equaleth the coward's haste,
And still inspires the faintest heart;
Whose lofty fame is not disgraced,
Though it assume the lowest part.
If thou wilt but stand by my ear,
When through the field thy anthem's rung,
When that is done I will not fear
But the same power will abet my tongue.
GREAT God! I ask thee for no meaner pelf
Than that I may not disappoint myself;
That in my conduct I may soar as high
As I can now discern with this clear eye;
And next in value, which thy kindness lends,
That I may greatly disappoint my friends,
Howe'er they think or hope that it may be,
They may not dream how thou 'st distinguished
That my weak hand may equal my firm faith, And my life practice more than my tongue
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