NOT of desire alone is music born,

Not till the Muse wills is our passion crowned;

Unsought she comes; if sought, but seldom found,

Repaying thus our longing with her scorn.

Hence is it poets often are forlorn,

In super-subtle chains of silence bound,

And mid the crowds that compass them around

Still dwell in isolation night and morn,

With knitted brow and cheek all passion-pale

Showing the baffled purpose of the mind.

Hence is it I, that find no prayers avail

To move my Lyric mistress to be kind,

Have stolen away into this leafy dale

Drawn by the flutings of the silvery wind.

II. Fredericksburg

THE increasing moonlight drifts across my bed,

And on the churchyard by the road, I know

It falls as white and noiselessly as snow . . . .

'Twas such a night two weary summers fled;

The stars, as now, were waning overhead.

Listen! Again the shrill-lipped bugles blow

Where the swift currents of the river flow

Past Fredericksburg; far off the heavens are red

With sudden conflagration; on yon height,

Linstock in hand, the gunners hold their breath;

A signal rocket pierces the dense night,

Flings its spent stars upon the town beneath;

Hark! -- the artillery massing on the right,

Hark! -- the black squadrons wheeling down to Death!

III. By the Potomac

THE soft new grass is creeping o'er the graves

By the Potomac; and the crisp ground-flower

Tilts its blue cup to catch the passing shower;

The pine-cone ripens, and the long moss waves

Its tangled gonfalons above our braves.

Hark, what a burst of music from yon bower! --

The Southern nightingale that hour by hour

In its melodious summer madness raves.

Ah, with what delicate touches of her hand,

With what sweet voice of bird and rivulet

And drowsy murmur of the rustling leaf

Would Nature soothe us, bidding us forget

The awful crime of this distracted land

And all our heavy heritage of grief.

IV. Pursuit and Possession

WHEN I behold what pleasure is pursuit,

What life, what glorious eagerness it is;

Then mark how full possession falls from this,

How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit --

I am perplexed, and often stricken mute

Wondering which attained the higher bliss,

The wingèd insect, or the chrysalis

It thrust aside with unreluctant foot.

Spirit of verse, that still elud'st my art,

Thou uncaught rapture, thou swift-fleeting fire,

O let me follow thee with hungry heart

If beauty's full possession kill desire!

Still flit away in moonlight, rain, and dew,

Will-of-the-wisp, that I may still pursue!

V. Miracles

SICK of myself and all that keeps the light

Of the wide heavens away from me and mine,

I climb this ledge, and by this wind-swept pine

Lingering, watch the coming of the night:

'Tis ever a new wonder to my sight.

Men look to God for some mysterious sign,

For other stars than such as nightly shine,

For some unwonted symbol of His might.

Wouldst see a miracle not less than those

The Master wrought of old in Galilee?

Come watch with me the azure turn to rose

In yonder West, the changing pageantry,

The fading alps and archipelagoes,

And spectral cities of the sunset-sea.

VI. "Enamored architect of airy rhyme"

ENAMORED architect of airy rhyme,

Build as thou wilt, heed not what each man says:

Good souls, but innocent of dreamers' ways,

Will come, and marvel why thou wastest time;

Others, beholding how thy turrets climb

'Twixt theirs and heaven, will hate thee all thy days;

But most beware of those who come to praise.

O Wondersmith, O worker in sublime

And heaven-sent dreams, let art be all in all;

Build as thou wilt, unspoiled by praise or blame,

Build as thou wilt, and as thy light is given;

Then, if at last the airy structure fall,

Dissolve, and vanish -- take thyself no shame.

They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.

VII. Eidolons

THOSE forms we fancy shadows, those strange lights

That flash on lone morasses, the quick wind

That smites us by the roadside are the Night's

Innumerable children. Unconfined

By shroud or coffin, disembodied souls,

Still on probation, steal into the air

From ancient battlefields and churchyard knolls

At the day's ending. Pestilence and despair

Fly with the startled bats at set of sun;

And wheresoever murders have been done,

In crowded palaces or lonely woods,

Where'er a soul has sold itself and lost

Its high inheritance, there, hovering, broods

Some mute, invisible, accursèd ghost.

VIII. At Bay Ridge, Long Island

PLEASANT it is to lie amid the grass

Under these shady locusts, half the day,

Watching the ships reflected on the Bay,

Topmast and shroud, as in a wizard's glass;

To note the swift and meagre swallow pass,

Brushing the dewdrops from the lilac spray;

Or else to sit and while the noon away

With some old love-tale; or to muse, alas!

On Dante in his exile, sorrow-worn;

On Milton, blind, with inward-seeing eyes

That made their own deep midnight and rich morn;

To think that now, beneath Italian skies,

In such clear air as this, by Tiber's wave,

Daisies are trembling over Keats's grave.

IX. "Even This Will Pass Away"

TOUCHED with the delicate green of early May,

Or later, when the rose uplifts her face,

The world hangs glittering in starry space,

Fresh as a jewel found but yesterday.

And yet 'tis very old; what tongue may say

How old it is? Race follows upon race,

Forgetting and forgotten; in their place

Sink tower and temple; nothing long may stay.

We build on tombs, and live our day, and die;

From out our dust new towers and temples start;

Our very name becomes a mystery.

What cities no man ever heard of lie

Under the glacier, in the mountain's heart,

In violet glooms beneath the moaning sea!

X. Egypt

FANTASTIC sleep is busy with my eyes;

I seem in some waste solitude to stand

Once ruled of Cheops; upon either hand

A dark illimitable desert lies,

Sultry and still -- a zone of mysteries.

A wide-browed Sphinx, half buried in the sand,

With orbless sockets stares across the land,

The wofulest thing beneath these brooding skies

Save that loose heap of bleachèd bones, that lie

Where haply some poor Bedouin crawled to die.

Lo! while I gaze, beyond the vast sand-sea

The nebulous clouds are downward slowly drawn,

And one bleared star, faint glimmering like a bee,

Is shut in the rosy outstretched hand of Dawn.

XI. At Stratford-Upon-Avon

THUS spake his dust (so seemed it as I read

The words): Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare

(Poor ghost!) To digg the dust enclosèd heare --

Then came the malediction on the head

Of whoso dare disturb the sacred dead.

Outside the mavis whistled strong and clear,

The winding Avon murmured in its bed,

But in the solemn Stratford church the air

Was chill and dank, and on the foot-worn tomb

The evening shadows deepened momently.

Then a great awe fell on me, standing there,

As if some speechless presence in the gloom

Was hovering, and fain would speak with me.

XII. With Three Flowers

HEREWITH I send you three pressed withered flowers:

This one was white, with golden star; this, blue

As Capri's cave; that, purple and shot through

With sunset-orange. Where the Duomo towers

In diamond air, and under pendent bowers

The Arno glides, this faded violet grew

On Landor's grave; from Landor's heart it drew

Its clouded azure in the long spring hours.

Within the shadow of the Pyramid

Of Cais Cestius was the daisy found,

White as the soul of Keats in Paradise.

The pansy -- there were hundreds of them hid

In the thick grass that folded Shelley's mound,

Guarding his ashes with most lovely eyes.

XIII. The Lorelei

YONDER we see it from the steamer's deck,

The haunted Mountain of the Lorelei --

The hanging crags sharp-cut against a sky

Clear as a sapphire without flaw or fleck.

'Twas here the Siren lay in wait to wreck

The fisher-lad. At dusk, as he rowed by,

Perchance he heard her tender amorous cry,

And, seeing the wondrous whiteness of her neck,

Perchance would halt, and lean towards the shore;

Then she by that soft magic which she had

Would lure him, and in gossamers of her hair,

Gold upon gold, would wrap him o'er and o'er,

Wrap him, and sing to him, and drive him mad,

Then drag him down to no man knoweth where.

XIV. Sleep

WHEN to oft sleep we give ourselves away,

And in a dream as in a fairy bark

Drift on and on through the enchanted dark

To purple daybreak -- little thought we pay

To that sweet bitter world we know by day.

We are clean quit of it, as is a lark

So high in heaven no human eye can mark

The thin swift pinion cleaving through the gray.

Till we awake ill fate can do no ill,

The resting heart shall not take up again

The heavy load that yet must make it bleed;

For this brief space the loud world's voice is still,

No faintest echo of it brings us pain.

How will it be when we shall sleep indeed?

XV. Thorwaldsen

NOT in the fabled influence of some star,

Benign or evil, do our fortunes lie;

We are the arbiters of destiny,

Lords of the life we either make or mar.

We are our own impediment and bar

To noble endings. With distracted eye

We let the golden moment pass us by,

Time's foolish spendthrifts, searching wide and far

For what lies close at hand. To serve our turn

We ask fair wind and favorable tide.

From the dead Danish sculptor let us learn

To make Occasion, not to be denied:

Against the sheer precipitous mountain-side

Thorwaldsen carved his Lion at Lucerne.

XVI. An Alpine Picture

STAND here and look, and softly draw your breath

Lest the dread avalanche come crashing down!

How many leagues away is yonder town

Set flower-wise in the valley? Far beneath

Out feet lies summer; here a realm of death,

Where never flower has blossomed nor bird flown.

The ancient water-courses are all strown

With drifts of snow, fantastic wreath on wreath;

And peak on peak against the stainless blue

The Alps like towering campanili stand,

Wondrous, with pinnacles of frozen rain,

Silvery, crystal, like the prism in hue.

O tell me, love, if this be Switzerland --

Or is it but the frost-work on the pane?

XVII. To L.T. in Florence

YOU by the Arno shape your marble dream,

Under the cypress and the olive trees,

While I, this side the wild wind-beaten seas,

Unrestful by the Charles's placid stream,

Long once again to catch the golden gleam

Of Brunelleschi's dome, and lounge at ease

In those pleached gardens and fair galleries.

And yet perchance you envy me, and deem

My star the happier, since it holds me here.

Even so one time, beneath the cypresses,

My heart turned longingly across the sea

To these familiar fields and woodlands dear,

And I had given all Titian's goddesses

For one poor cowslip or anemone.

XVIII. Henry Howard Brownell

THEY never crowned him, never dreamed his worth,

And let him go unlaurelled to the grave:

Hereafter there are guerdons for the brave,

Roses for martyrs who wear thorns on earth,

Balms for bruised hearts that languish in the dearth

Of human love. So let the grasses wave

Above him nameless. Little did he crave

Men's praises: modestly, with kindly mirth,

Not sad nor bitter, he accepted fate --

Drank deep of life, knew books, and hearts of men,

Cities and camps, and war's immortal woe,

Yet bore through all (such virtue in him sate

His spirit is not whiter now than then)

A simple, loyal nature, pure as snow.

XIX. The Rarity of Genius

WHILE yet my lip was breathing youth's first breath,

I all too young to know their deepest spell,

I saw Medea and Phædra in Rachel;

Later I saw the great Elizabeth.

Rachel, Ristori -- we shall speak with death

Ere we meet souls like these. In one age dwell

Not many such: a century shall tell

Its hundred beads before it braid a wreath

For two so queenly foreheads. If it take

Æons to form a diamond, grain on grain,

Æons to crystallize its fire and dew,

By what slow processes must Nature make

Her Shakespeares and her Raffaels? Great the gain

If she spoil millions making one or two.

XX. Books and Seasons

BECAUSE the sky is blue; because blithe May

Masks in the wren's note and the lilac's hue;

Because -- in fine, because the sky is blue

I will read none but piteous tales to-day.

Keep happy laughter till the skies be gray,

And the sad season cypress wears, and rue;

Then, when the wind is moaning in the flue,

And ways are dark, bid Chaucer make us gay.

But now a little sadness! All too sweet

This springtide riot, this most poignant air,

This sensuous world of color and perfume.

So listen, love, while I the woes repeat

Of Hamlet and Ophelia, and that pair

Whose bridal bed was builded in a tomb.

XXI. Outward Bound

I LEAVE behind me the elm-shadowed square

And carven portals of the silent street,

And wander on with listless, vagrant feet

Through seaward-leading alleys, till the air

Smells of the sea, and straightway then the care

Slips from my heart, and life once more is sweet.

At the lane's ending lie the white-winged fleet.

O restless Fancy, whither wouldst thou fare?

Here are brave pinions that shall take thee far --

Gaunt hulks of Norway; ships of red Ceylon;

Slim-masted lovers of the blue Azores!

'Tis but an instant hence to Zanzibar,

Or to the regions of the Midnight Sun;

Ionian isles are thine, and all the fairy shores!

XXII. Ellen Terry in "The Merchant of Venice"

AS there she lives and moves upon the scene,

So lived and moved this radiant womanhood

In Shakespeare's vision; in such wise she stood

Smiling upon Bassanio; such her mien

When pity dimmed her eyelids' golden sheen,

Hearing Antonio's story, and the blood

Paled on her cheek, and all her lightsome mood

Was gone. This shape in Shakespeare's thought has been!

Thus dreamt he of her in gray London town;

Such were her eyes; on such gold-colored hair

The grave young judge's velvet cap was set;

So stood she lovely in her crimson gown.

Mine were a happy cast, could I but snare

Her beauty in a sonnet's fragile net.

XXIII. The Poets

WHEN this young Land has reached its wrinkled prime,

And we are gone and all our songs are done,

And naught is left unchanged beneath the sun,

What other singers shall the womb of Time

Bring forth to reap the sunny slopes of rhyme?

For surely till the thread of life be spun

The world shall not lack poets, though but one

Make lonely music like a vesper chime

Above the heedless turmoil of the street.

What new strange voices shall be given to these,

What richer accents of melodious breath?

Yet shall they, baffled, lie at Nature's feet

Searching the volume of her mysteries,

And vainly question the fixed eyes of Death.

XXIV. The Undiscovered Country

FOREVER am I conscious, moving here,

That should I step a little space aside

I pass the boundary of some glorified

Invisible domain -- it lies so near!

Yet nothing know we of that dim frontier

Which each must cross, whatever fate betide,

To reach the heavenly cities where abide

(Thus Sorrow whispers) those that were most dear,

Now all transfigured in celestial light!

Shall we indeed behold them, thine and mine,

Whose going hence made black the noonday sun? --

Strange is it that across the narrow night

They fling us not some token, or make sign

That all beyond is not Oblivion.

XXV. Andromeda

THE smooth-worn coin and threadbare classic phrase

Of Grecian myths that did beguile my youth,

Beguile me not as in the olden days:

I think more grief and beauty dwell with truth.

Andromeda, in fetters by the sea,

Star-pale with anguish till young Perseus came,

Less moves me with her suffering than she,

The slim girl figure fettered to dark shame,

That nightly haunts the park, there, like a shade,

Trailing her wretchedness from street to street.

See where she passes -- neither wife nor maid;

How all mere fiction crumbles at her feet!

Here is woe's self, and not the mask of woe:

A legend's shadow shall not move you so!

XXVI. Reminiscence

THOUGH I am native to this frozen zone

That half the twelvemonth torpid lies, or dead;

Though the cold azure arching overhead

And the Atlantic's never-ending moan

Are mine by heritage, I must have known

Life otherwhere in epochs long since fled;

For in my veins some Orient blood is red,

And through my thought are lotus blossoms blown.

I do remember . . . it was just at dusk,

Near a walled garden at the river's turn

(A thousand summers seem but yesterday!),

A Nubian girl, more sweet than Khoorja musk,

Came to the water-tank to fill her urn,

And, with the urn, she bore my heart away!

XXVII. On Reading William Watson's Sonnet Entitled "The Purple East"

RESTLESS the Northern Bear amid his snows

Crouched by the Neva; menacing is France,

That sees the shadow of the Uhlan's lance

On her clipped borders; struggling in the throes

Of wanton war lies Spain, and deathward goes.

And thou, O England, how the time's mischance

Hath fettered thee, that with averted glance

Thou standest, marble to Armenia's woes!

If 'twas thy haughty Dauther of the West

That stayed thy hand,, a word had driven away

Her sudden ire, and brought her to thy breast!

Thy blood makes quick her pulses, and some day,

Not now, yet some day, at thy soft behest

She by thy side shall hold the world at bay.

XXVIII. "I Vex Me Not with Brooding on the Years"

I VEX me not with brooding on the years

That were ere I drew breath: why should I then

Distrust the darkness that may fall again

When life is done? Perchance in other spheres --

Dead planets -- I once tasted mortal tears,

And walked as now amid a throng of men,

Pondering things that lay beyond my ken,

Questioning death, and solacing my fears.

Ofttimes indeed strange sense have I of this,

Vague memories that hold me with a spell,

Touches of unseen lips upon my brow,

Breathing some incommunicable bliss!

In years foregone, O Soul, was all not well?

Still lovelier life awaits thee. Fear not thou!