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I
THE BELLS
AWAKE! Awake! | |
| All living things that be, | |
| In nest or fold!— | |
| All lives that solace take, | |
| And dreamful ease, in tent, or wind-blown tree, | 5 |
| Or curtained couch, your wanderings forsake | |
| In the dim realms of unreality! | |
| Awake, for shame | |
| Of languor’s soft delight! | |
| Lo, once again earth’s heaving disk is rolled | 10 |
| In rosy flame, | |
| And through the camps of night, | |
| The flying Moon, beneath her splintered targe, | |
| Sore-stricken by the feathered shafts of Dawn, | |
| And harried by her hounds, like Actaeon, Kneels, | 15 |
| Stoops, and wheels | |
| Adown the western marge! | |
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II
Awake to toil! | |
| In wood, and rock-ribbed hill, | |
| And loamy mead, | 20 |
| What golden largess lies! | |
| Awake to strife, and far-resounding deed, | |
| In love’s sweet quest, or honor’s high emprise, | |
| With trumpets blown, and clash of steed with steed! | |
| Awake to care, | 25 |
| And triumph’s frequent foil! | |
| But still pursue! O hand with strength to take— | |
| O dauntless heart, to suffer, and to dare— | |
| O swerveless will, | |
| To bend, or else to break— | 30 |
| To life, to love, to conquest, and to spoil, | |
| Awake! Awake! | |
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THE FLOWER-SELLER
MYRTLE, and eglantine, | |
| For the old love and the new! | |
| And the columbine, | 35 |
| With its cap and bells, for folly! | |
| And the daffodil, for the hopes of youth! And the rue, | |
| For melancholy! | |
| But of all the blossoms that blow, | |
| Fair gallants all, I charge you to win, if ye may, | 40 |
| This gentle guest, | |
| Who dreams apart, in her wimple of purple and gray, | |
| Like the blessed Virgin, with meek head bending low | |
| Upon her breast. | |
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| For the orange flower | 45 |
| Ye may buy as ye will; but the violet of the wood | |
| Is the love of maidenhood; | |
| And he that hath worn it but once, though but for an hour,— | |
| He shall never again, though he wander by many a stream, | |
| No, never again shall he meet with a flower that shall seem | 50 |
| So sweet and pure; and forever, in after years, | |
| At the thought of its bloom, or the fragrance of its breath, | |
| The past shall arise, | |
| And his eyes shall be dim with tears, | |
| And his soul shall be far in the gardens of Paradise, | 55 |
| Though he stand in the shambles of death. | |
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THE CONSCIENCE-KEEPER
REPENT, O ye, predestinate to woe! | |
| ’T is mine to cry—albeit, well I wis, | |
| Ye may not heed. And ye, elect to bliss, | |
| Must e’en be saved, whether I cry or no. | 60 |
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| And yet, repent! Repent ye, and atone, | |
| In either case. Forswear your wisdom’s pride, | |
| And pray for faith—though some must be denied! | |
| Nor yet by prayer, nor yet by faith alone, | |
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| But by your works, attest your penitence. | 65 |
| Give to the poor!—of whom ye see in me | |
| God’s almoner—and in your charity | |
| Deign to forget not Peter and his pence. | |
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THE PAWNS
PRINCE, and Bishop, and Knight, and Dame, | |
| Plot, and plunder, and disagree! | 70 |
| O but the game is a royal game! | |
| O but your tourneys are fair to see! | |
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| None too hopeful we found our lives; | |
| Sore was labor from day to day; | |
| Still we strove for our babes and wives— | 75 |
| Now, to the trumpet, we march away! | |
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| “Why?”—For some one hath willed it so! | |
| Nothing we know of the why or the where— | |
| To swamp, or jungle, or wastes of snow— | |
| Nothing we know, and little we care. | 80 |
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| Give us to kill!—since this is the end | |
| Of love and labor in Nature’s plan; | |
| Give us to kill and ravish and rend, | |
| Yea, since this is the end of man. | |
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| States shall perish, and states be born: | 85 |
| Leaders, out of the throng, shall press,— | |
| Some to honor, and some to scorn: | |
| We, that are little, shall yet be less. | |
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| Over our lines shall the vulture soar; | |
| Hard on our flanks shall the jackals cry; | 90 |
| And the dead shall be as the sands of the shore; | |
| And daily the living shall pray to die. | |
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| Nay, what matter!—When all is said, | |
| Prince and Bishop will plunder still: | |
| Lord and Lady must dance and wed. | 95 |
| Pity us, pray for us, ye that will! | |
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THE BRIDAL PAIR
He
THOUGH the roving bee, as lightly, | |
| Sip the sweets of thyme and clover, | |
| Though the moon of May, as whitely, | |
| Silver all the greensward over, | 100 |
| Yet, beneath the trysting tree, | |
| That hath been which shall not be! | |
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She
Drip the viols, ne’er so sweetly, | |
| With the honey-dew of pleasure— | |
| Trip the dancers, ne’er so featly, | 105 |
| Through the old remembered measure, | |
| Yet, the lighted lanthorn round, | |
| What is lost shall not be found! | |
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