Sonnets

APRIL DESIRE.

WHILE in these spacious fields is my sojourn, Needs must I bless the blossomy outbreak Of earth’s pent beauty, and for old love’s sake Trembling, the bees’ on-coming chant discern; Hail the rash hyacinth, the ambushed fern, High-bannered boughs that green defiance make, And watch from sheathing ice the brave Spring take Her broad, bright river-blade. Ah! then, in turn Long-hushèd forces stir in me; I feel All the most sharp unrest of the young year; Fain would my spirit, too, like idling steel Be snatched from its dull scabbard, for a strife With cold oppressions! straightway, if not here, In consummated freedom, ampler life.

TWOFOLD SERVICE.

CHAMPIONS of men with brawny fist and lung, You righteous! with eyes oped and utterance terse, Whose greed of energies would fain disperse Ere any mould be cast, or roundel sung, Your gentler brothers still at play among The smirch and jangle of the universe, Mere fool-blind trespassers for you to curse, The Sabbath-breakers, the unchristened young;-- Peace! These, too, know: these are as ye employed, Nor of laborious help and value void, Living; who, faithful to their fellows’ need, Fling life away for truth, art, fatherland, Like a gold largess from a princely hand, Without one trading thought of heavenly meed.

IN THE GYMNASIUM.

I LEAN against a pillar in the sun, The sandals loose on mine arrested feet, While from their paths orbicular the fleet Slim racers drop like stars. O loveliest one, Lender of sixfold wings the while I run, Whose tortoise-lyre saves yet for me its sweet Cyllenic suasions old, to thy dim seat Glory and grace! the votive rites are done. Thy sole rememberer honey hath, nor palm, Libation none, nor lamb to lead to thee, Ah, Maia’s son! once god, and once aye-living. Here stood thy shrine: here chants my heart in calm Sad as the centralmost weird wave’s at sea, Hermes! thy last June pæan and thanksgiving.

A SALUTATION.

HIGH-HEARTED Surrey! I do love your ways, Venturous, frank, romantic, vehement, All with inviolate honor sealed and blent, To the axe-edge that cleft your soldier-bays: I love your youth, your friendships, whims, and frays; Your strict, sweet verse, with its imperious bent, Heard as in dreams from some old harper’s tent, And stirring in the listener’s brain for days. Good father-poet! if to-night there be At Framlingham none save the north-wind’s sighs, No guard but moonlight’s crossed and trailing spears, Smile yet upon the pilgrim named like me, Close at your gates, whose fond and weary eyes Sought not one other down three hundred years!

AT A SYMPHONY.

OH, I would have these tongues oracular Dip into silence, tease no more, let be! They madden, like some choral of the free Gusty and sweet against a prison-bar. To earth the boast that her gold empires are, The menace of delicious death to me, Great Undesign, strong as by God’s decree, Piercing the heart with beauty from afar! Music too winning to the sense forlorn! Of what angelic lineage was she born, Bred in what rapture?--These her sires and friends: Censure, Denial, Gloom, and Hunger’s throe. Praised be the Spirit that thro’ thee, Schubert! so Wrests evil unto wholly heavenly ends.

SLEEP.

O GLORIOUS tide, O hospitable tide On whose moon-heaving breast my head hath lain, Lest I, all eased of wounds and washed of stain Thro’ holy hours, be yet unsatisfied, Loose me betimes! for in my soul abide Urgings of memory; and exile’s pain Weighs on me, as the spirit of one slain May throb for the old strife wherein he died.

Often and evermore, across the sea Of dark and dreams, to fatherlands of day O speed me! like that outworn king erewhile From kind Phæacia shoreward borne; for me, Thy loving healèd Greek, thou too shall lay Beneath the olive boughs of mine own isle.

THE ATONING YESTERDAY.

YE daffodilian days, whose fallen towers Shielded our paradisal prime from ill, Fair past, fair motherhood! let come what will, We, being yours, defy the anarch powers. For us the happy tidings fell, in showers Enjewelling the wind from every hill; We drained the sun against the winter’s chill; Our ways were barricadoed in with flowers:

And if from skyey minsters now unhoused, Earth’s massy workings at the forge we hear, The black roll of the congregated sea, And war’s live hoof: O yet, last year, last year We were the lark-lulled shepherdlings, that drowsed Grave-deep, at noon, in grass of Arcady!