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Amelia Earharts Last Fligh

Just a ship out on the ocean, a speck against the sky,
Amelia earhart flying that sad day;
With her partner, captain noonan, on the second of july
Her plane fell in the ocean, far away.
Theres a beautiful, beautiful field
Far away-ay-ay in a land that is fair.
Happy landings to you, amelia earhart,
Farewell, first lady of the air.
Half an hour later her sos was heard,
Her signals weak, but still her voice was brave.
In shark-infested waters her aeroplane went down that night
In the blue pacific to a watery grave.
Theres a beautiful, beautiful field
Far away-ay-ay in a land that is fair.
Happy landings to you, amelia earhart,
Farewell, first lady of the air.
Now you heard my story bout this awful tragedy,
We all pray shell fly home safe again.
In years to come, though others blaze a trail across the sea,
Well neer forget amelia and her plane.
Theres a beautiful, beautiful field
Far away-ay-ay in a land that is fair.
Happy landings to you, amelia earhart,
Farewell, first lady of the air.
Farewell, first lady of the air.

song performed by Kinky Friedman
Added by Lucian Velea
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What Chains We Rattle

WHAT CHAINS WE RATTLE

What chains we rattle in our own emptiness.
The void gnashes its teeth to dust. Is there love
Anywhere that I'm worthy of?
I want to scream in this straitjacket of anti-matter
but you are not here; your person is absent;
so I scream into this paper ear;
I abandon my own blood, turn red white
in my fear of losing you, witnessing your anger,
the small glaciers that inch through my heart
like ice-ages. Maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm old,
maybe I'm burnt out, maybe all these words
I throw at you mean absolutely nothing to you
or to anyone else, or even me, but there you have it.

I'm sloughing my old skin like a star-riddled universe
and I don't know what I'm turning into.
When I want to know who I am I look at your face.
Lately I've felt like some kind of eclipse, some darkness
growing like fungus on the light. A leper in sunshine.

Am I broken glass; the black mirror, shattered? I mistake you
often; looking for you in every shard and splinter of my being
but the shadows are too young to give birth to stars
and you can't seem to give me the reassurance I need
to return the moon to the goblet it fell from.

It's not so much that I doubt you but that
the affirmations that should be anvils under the burning swords
crumble under the hammer-blows of the heart.

There is no fire in the answers; only the hiss
of metal cooling in black water. Now maybe I'm gone forever
and maybe you're some bridge collapsing under its own weight
and we're both acting too indignant to be honest,
but I feel a hole in me the size of darkness
and a silence that dreams like God. Are you still there; am I?
Have I woken up without you?

Burn for me, baby; fire all these love-crossed stars up
and let me see you shining and naked on the nightwatch.
I'm tired of issuing all these secret passwords
to an army of spies scrambling clarity in a coding machine.

Perhaps I'm not clear myself or haven't done or said it right,
or there are lies standing-by like unfueled flights to nowhere,
but I feel like my heart's been through a paper-shredder
and there are foreign troops entering the office with orders
to exterminate anyone not already in pieces
or out dancing around the fire at a book-burning. I know you're young;
I know your eyes would have to turn into skies
and your heart, the Hubble telescope,
for you to see me as I am to myself, an infinitely remote galaxy,
the faint smudge of a billion stars and planets
evaporating like breath on a cold windowpane into the void.

A match blown out. Forgive me. I am the light, unmoored, an empty boat
drifting through my own wreckage,
looking for survivors among a feeding frenzy of fins,
all my useless modifiers dangling in shark-infested waters.
I can't even remember what I died in the name of
if anything at all
or who among all these bodies I've hauled into my heart
brought me back to life
if it wasn't you.
But how ridiculous. Two hours to make love;
five and a half until you call
or don't call after our exchange with healing or hurt.
Why am I always the one who is waiting?
You always the one who seems to be labouring
under some onerous imposition?

You're little boxes of wind, back-alley gusts of being,
lifting me up a moment like a leaf
and then off to something else with a gust of indifference.
No sooner do I crawl out from under
these heavy Himalayas of heart-mud
that avalanche down upon me
with every telling remark you don't make, the opening for tenderness
missed again and again by your smouldering silence
then I find myself washed clean of myself
in one of your dry wells of emotion. Do you truly love me
or have I become some fading mirage in this black Sahara
that bares its teeth like pyramids?

And yes, and yes, and yes; I know I am not perfect. I do not think I'm god
unless you and him and her and the daylilies are too.
And if it's a revolution, a coup d'etat you seek
in the secret cells of your mind; remember, it's your own palace
you're overthrowing, your own window you smash.

There is nothing in me or my life
that is not already yours by an immaculate contract of stars.
I feel like a bottle of aged whiskey must feel
when it's been drained to the last drop
and the drinker isn't even tipsy. Have I failed with you
in some essential way that keeps the drunken dancers out of the garden,
the mystic lovers like wildflowers
who have eluded the conforming vases enduring on the mantlepiece?

I love you so much every bit of your seeming unhappiness,
your frustrated, frustrating petulance
is a wound I stitch up with my spinal cord, the ashes of an eye
that falls into the dense atmosphere of my planetary heart like a meteor.

When I'm angry, be certain; it's only a wave
in a measureless sea of devotion, weather squalling the surface of the mirror,
but in the depths, my love of you is law,
however the wind blows open the pages of the book of the moon,
however my name is erased from the water it's written on
even by your hand warping my reflection on the midnight lakes
of your tempestuous seeing.

I shape my body for you. I cajole my hair.
I scrape worlds from under my fingernails
and liberate the life that has lain dormant therein for aeons
in your honour, dedicating each first dawn of creation to your smile.
The golden marrow of my genius is worthless to me
except that it nourishes you in a market of one.

And I am happy to be the nothing that is added to you
so that it amplifies you over and over again by ten. Zero
was ever in love with one since before the beginning of time.

As I love you in this endless succession of an unmoving infinitely finite now.
I want to be your white voice, your green heart,
your black blood, the sky that catches you like a bird when you fall.
Do you see me? I'm standing here rooted to the earth
like a tree that's been gutted by your slow lightning
and yet still puts out leaves like eloquent tongues,
each one whispering you into the song of the other. My heart
is unquenchably yours like a star that turns its light inward
so that it can't be detected by anyone else.
Maybe we're doomed by circumstance and disposition, age
and essence, and maybe we're not, but even in the denying of love
you are the hidden harmony that affirms it.

PATRICK WHITE

poem by Patrick White
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No Longer Waiting

As these grey clouds come to surround me.
To choke the life out of me.
I've come to realize with a knife I can cut right through.
Cover my mouth and keep moving.
Hold my breath if only for a moment I stop breathing.
Why did they come?
Why do they want what I have?
Shark infested waters.
All I can see is their dorsal fins.
But I still know they are there.
Waiting for the right moment to strike.
I can not help but to want to stab them with a pike.
An urge resisted, and avoided.
Thoughts of this now completely devoid.
An emptying of a trashcan not quite yet filled.
Never the less it is enough.
That I must no longer wait.

poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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Yes, I Am B-l-e-s-s-e-d

I know I've been blessed!
How do I know that?
I've allowed you to dump your nonsense on me,
And I haven't 'blessed' you out!
I've had choice words to say to you for years.
And I've been fighting back the urge
Not to pull from those places you have encouraged.
I know I have been blessed.
To manifest goodwill and pray for the welfare of mankind
When many of those folks have done their best...
To drive me out of my mind!
I KNOW I have been blessed.
But I will cuss someone now and then.
One of 'them' who likes testing shark infested waters.
Just as a reminder how blessed I am
To keep myself from biting the heads off
Of those who can't get enough of agitating others
At their expense.
I don't leave anyone in suspense!
Yes, I am b-l-e-s-s-e-d.
And I leave no one guessing about it!

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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30 (Vivekananda) The Rock at Cape Comorin

Swamiji had arrived
At the India’s tail end,
Cape Comorin by name,
Kanyakumari, by other name

In the sea shore temple there,
He prayed to Divine Mother.
From the shore he had a look,
And saw, at a distance, a big rock.

In the shark infested waters,
He courageously swam across,
And sat on the rock in meditation,
Keeping aside his emotion.

Across the roaring sea,
From the rock he could see
The places he had visited,
Wherever he had travelled.

A monk was dedicated to God.
In every soul there was God.
So, he was keen to look after
God the wicked, God the poor.

He took a bold decision
To serve God in man.
But how to get resources
For India to stand on its legs?

He saw America as a country
That can free India’s poverty,
Thro’ exchange of knowledge
On science and technology.

With this idea, from the rock,
He got up and swam back.
His journey started again
Towards northern region.

To eat, when nothing he had
Someone gave him food.
As if directed by God
To share the donor’s food.

Not willing to be a burden
On any of those poor men,
Better to starve, he decided
When there was no food.

He went to the forest
To sit and meditate,
And there came a tiger
With its own hunger.

Swamiji said, “Oh tiger,
We both sit here in hunger.
Let my body be your food
If you find this good.”

God’s will was otherwise.
The hungry tiger, in silence,
Turned back and went away,
Sparing his precious life that day.

poem by Rajaram Ramachandran
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Another Sad Day

My hairs are now gray
But you are not here with me
Another sad day

poem by Asif Andalib
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A Sad Day

The meaning of leisure and to stand straight
Is the same.
A day such as today can never neatly be nice
As is the day and night.
A sad day is a good night and night is for sadness.
So sleep and then be sad, but not always.

poem by Naveed Akram
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Sad Sad Day

It's a sad sad day
When the lights go dim
It's a sad sad day
When the sun goes down
It's a sad sad day
When it rains
It's a sad sad day
When the moon get's govered by the mist of darkness

It's a sad sad day
When you cry
It's a sad sad day
When I make you lie
It's a sad sad day
When you fail
It's a sad sad day
When you sail in the sea of darkness

poem by Laura Green
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All Night Blue

Youve got a life somewhere without me
Ive gone on without you
It hasnt been easy getting used to
Being lonely and tonight is an all night blue
And I wonder how you look and who looks at you
In your nightgown
I can almost feel your body
Your warm and loving body when I lay down
Chorus:
Its an all night blue
Remembering you
Its an all night blue
Wondering whos loving you ... all night
Well it hurts me to see that youre
Happy without me cause I still need you
I just drank up my heart
Set it empty on the table cause i
Aint got nothing better to do
Still I wonder how you look and
Who looks at you every morning
I can still feel your warm breath
You kissing me on the chest
Im just dreaming
Chorus

song performed by John Prine
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The Sad Day

O THE sad day!
When friends shall shake their heads, and say
Of miserable me--
'Hark, how he groans!
Look, how he pants for breath!
See how he struggles with the pangs of death!'
When they shall say of these dear eyes--
'How hollow, O how dim they be!
Mark how his breast doth rise and swell
Against his potent enemy!'
When some old friend shall step to my bedside,
Touch my chill face, and thence shall gently slide.

But--when his next companions say
'How does he do? What hopes?'--shall turn away,
Answering only, with a lift-up hand--
'Who can his fate withstand?'

Then shall a gasp or two do more
Than e'er my rhetoric could before:
Persuade the world to trouble me no more!

poem by Thomas Flatman
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The Flying Dutchman

LONG time ago, from Amsterdam a vessel sailed away,—
As fair a ship as ever flung aside the laughing spray.
Upon the shore were tearful eyes, and scarfs were in the air,
As to her, o'er the Zuyder Zee, went fond adieu and prayer;
And brave hearts, yearning shoreward from the outwardgoing ship,
Felt lingering kisses clinging still to tear-wet cheek and lip.
She steered for some far eastern clime, and, as she skimmed the seas,
Each taper mast was bending like a rod before the breeze.

Her captain was a stalwart man,—an iron heart had he,—
From childhood's days he sailed upon the rolling Zuyder Zee:
He nothing feared upon the earth, and scarcely heaven feared,
He would have dared and done whatever mortal man had dared!
He looked aloft, where high in air the pennant cut the blue,
And every rope and spar and sail was firm and strong and true.
He turned him from the swelling sail to gaze upon the shore,—
Ah! little thought the skipper then 'twould meet his eye no more:
He dreamt not that an awful doom was hanging o'er his ship,
That Vanderdecken's name would yet make pale the speaker's lip.
The vessel bounded on her way, and spire and dome went down,—
Ere darkness fell, beneath the wave had sunk the distant town.
No more, no .more, ye hapless crew, shall Holland meet your eye.
In lingering hope and keen suspense, maid, wife, and child shall die!

Away, away the vessel speeds, till sea and sky alone
Are round her, as her course she steers across the torrid zone.
Away, until the North Star fades, the Southern Cross is high,
And myriad gems of brightest beam are sparkling In the sky.
The tropic winds are left behind; she nears the Cape of Storms,
Where awful Tempest ever sits enthroned in wild alarms;
Where Ocean in his anger shakes aloft his foamy crest,
Disdainful of the weakly toys that ride upon his breast.

Pierce swell the winds and waters round the Dutchman's gallant ship,
But, to their rage, defiance rings from Vanderdecken's lip:
Impotent they to make him swerve, their might he dares despise,
As straight he holds his onward course, and wind and wave defies.
For days and nights he struggles in the weird, unearthly fight.
His brow is bent, his eye is fierce, but looks of deep affright
Amongst the mariners go round, as hopelessly they steer:
They do not dare to murmur, but they whisper what they fear.
Their black-browed captain awes them: 'neath his darkened eye they quail,
And in a grim and sullen mood their bitter fate bewail.
As some fierce rider ruthless spurs a timid, wavering horse,
He drives his shapely vessel, and they watch the reckless course,
Till once again their skipper's laugh is flung upon the blast:
The placid ocean smiles beyond, the dreaded Cape is passed!

Away across the Indian main the vessel northward glides;
A thousand murmuring ripples break along her graceful sides:
The perfumed breezes fill her sails,—her destined port she nears,—
The captain's brow has lost its frown, the mariners their fears.
'Land ho!' at length the welcome sound the watchful sailor sings,
And soon within an Indian bay the ship at anchor swings.
Not idle then the busy crew: ere long the spacious hold
Is emptied of its western freight, and stored with silk and gold.

Again the ponderous anchor's weighed; the shore is left behind,
The snowy sails are bosomed out before the favoring wind.
Across the warm blue Indian sea the vessel southward flies,
And once again the North Star fades and Austral beacons rise.
For home she steers I she seems to know and answer to the word,
And swifter skims the burnished deep, like some fair oceanbird.
'For home! for home!' the merry crew with gladsome voices cry,
And dark-browed Vanderdecken has a mild light in his eye.

But once again the Cape draws near, and furious billows rise;
And still the daring Dutchman's laugh the hurricane defies.
But wildly shrieked the tempest ere the scornful sound had died,
A warning to the daring man to curb his impious pride.
A crested mountain struck the ship, and like a frighted bird
She trembled 'neath the awful shock. Then Vanderdecken heard
A pleading voice.-within the gale,—his better angel spoke,
But fled before his scowling look, as mast-high mountains broke
Around the trembling vessel, till the crew with terror paled;
But Vanderdecken never flinched, nor 'neath the thunders quailed.
With folded arms and stern-pressed lips, dark anger in his eye,
He answered back the threatening frown that lowered o'er the sky.
With fierce defiance in his heart, and scornful look of flame,
He spoke, and thus with impious voice blasphemed God's holy name:
'Howl on, ye winds! ye tempests, howl! your rage is spent in vain:
Despite your strength, your frowns, your hate, I'll ride upon the main.
Defiance to your idle shrieks! I'll sail upon my path:
I cringe not for thy Maker's smile,—I care not for His wrath!'

He ceased. An awful silence fell; the tempest and the sea
Were hushed in sudden stillness by the Ruler's dread decree.
The ship was riding motionless within the gathering gloom;
The Dutchman stood upon the poop and heard his dreadful doom.
The hapless crew were on the deck in swooning terror prone,—
They, too, were bound in fearful fate. In angered thunder-tone
The judgment words swept o'er the sea: 'Go, wretch, accurst, condemned!
Go sail for ever on the deep, by shrieking tempests hemmed!
No home, no port, no calm, no rest, no gentle favoring breeze,
Shall ever greet thee. Go, accurst! and battle with the seas!
Go, braggart! struggle with the storm, nor ever cease to live,
But bear a million times the pangs that death and fear can give!
Away! and hide thy guilty head, a curse to all thy kind
Who ever see thee struggling, wretch, with ocean and with wind!
Away, presumptuous worm of earth! Go teach thy fellow worms
The awful fate that waits on him who braves the King of Storms!'

'Twas o'er. A lurid lightning flash lit up the sea and sky
Around and o'er the fated ship; then rose a wailing cry
From every heart within her, of keen anguish and despair;
But mercy was for them no more,—it died away in air.

Once more the lurid light gleamed out,—the ship was still at rest,
The crew were standing at their posts; with arms across his breast
Still stood the captain on the poop, but bent and crouching now
He bowed beneath that fiat dread, and o'er his swarthy brow
Swept lines of anguish, as if he a thousand years of pain
Had lived and suffered. Then across the heaving, angry main
The tempest shrieked triumphant, and the angry waters hissed
Their vengeful hate against the toy they oftentimes bad kissed.
And ever through the midnight storm that hapless crew must speed:
They try to round the stormy Cape, but never can succeed.
And oft when gales are wildest,, and the lightning's vivid sheen
Flashes back the ocean's anger, still the Phantom Ship is seen
Ever sailing to the southward in the fierce tornado's swoop,
With her ghostly crew and canvas, and her captain on the poop,
Unrelenting, unforgiven! and 'tis said that every word
Of his blasphemous defiance still upon the gale is heard!
But Heaven help the ship near which the dismal sailor steers,—
The doom of those is sealed to whom that Phantom Ship appears:
They'll never reach their destined port,—they'll see their homes no more,—
They who see the Flying Dutchman—never, never reach the shore!

poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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The Coming Of Arthur

Leodogran, the King of Cameliard,
Had one fair daughter, and none other child;
And she was the fairest of all flesh on earth,
Guinevere, and in her his one delight.

For many a petty king ere Arthur came
Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war
Each upon other, wasted all the land;
And still from time to time the heathen host
Swarmed overseas, and harried what was left.
And so there grew great tracts of wilderness,
Wherein the beast was ever more and more,
But man was less and less, till Arthur came.
For first Aurelius lived and fought and died,
And after him King Uther fought and died,
But either failed to make the kingdom one.
And after these King Arthur for a space,
And through the puissance of his Table Round,
Drew all their petty princedoms under him.
Their king and head, and made a realm, and reigned.

And thus the land of Cameliard was waste,
Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein,
And none or few to scare or chase the beast;
So that wild dog, and wolf and boar and bear
Came night and day, and rooted in the fields,
And wallowed in the gardens of the King.
And ever and anon the wolf would steal
The children and devour, but now and then,
Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat
To human sucklings; and the children, housed
In her foul den, there at their meat would growl,
And mock their foster mother on four feet,
Till, straightened, they grew up to wolf-like men,
Worse than the wolves. And King Leodogran
Groaned for the Roman legions here again,
And Csar's eagle: then his brother king,
Urien, assailed him: last a heathen horde,
Reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood,
And on the spike that split the mother's heart
Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed,
He knew not whither he should turn for aid.

But--for he heard of Arthur newly crowned,
Though not without an uproar made by those
Who cried, `He is not Uther's son'--the King
Sent to him, saying, `Arise, and help us thou!
For here between the man and beast we die.'

And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms,
But heard the call, and came: and Guinevere
Stood by the castle walls to watch him pass;
But since he neither wore on helm or shield
The golden symbol of his kinglihood,
But rode a simple knight among his knights,
And many of these in richer arms than he,
She saw him not, or marked not, if she saw,
One among many, though his face was bare.
But Arthur, looking downward as he past,
Felt the light of her eyes into his life
Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pitched
His tents beside the forest. Then he drave
The heathen; after, slew the beast, and felled
The forest, letting in the sun, and made
Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight
And so returned.

For while he lingered there,
A doubt that ever smouldered in the hearts
Of those great Lords and Barons of his realm
Flashed forth and into war: for most of these,
Colleaguing with a score of petty kings,
Made head against him, crying, `Who is he
That he should rule us? who hath proven him
King Uther's son? for lo! we look at him,
And find nor face nor bearing, limbs nor voice,
Are like to those of Uther whom we knew.
This is the son of Gorlos, not the King;
This is the son of Anton, not the King.'

And Arthur, passing thence to battle, felt
Travail, and throes and agonies of the life,
Desiring to be joined with Guinevere;
And thinking as he rode, `Her father said
That there between the man and beast they die.
Shall I not lift her from this land of beasts
Up to my throne, and side by side with me?
What happiness to reign a lonely king,
Vext--O ye stars that shudder over me,
O earth that soundest hollow under me,
Vext with waste dreams? for saving I be joined
To her that is the fairest under heaven,
I seem as nothing in the mighty world,
And cannot will my will, nor work my work
Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm
Victor and lord. But were I joined with her,
Then might we live together as one life,
And reigning with one will in everything
Have power on this dark land to lighten it,
And power on this dead world to make it live.'

Thereafter--as he speaks who tells the tale--
When Arthur reached a field-of-battle bright
With pitched pavilions of his foe, the world
Was all so clear about him, that he saw
The smallest rock far on the faintest hill,
And even in high day the morning star.
So when the King had set his banner broad,
At once from either side, with trumpet-blast,
And shouts, and clarions shrilling unto blood,
The long-lanced battle let their horses run.
And now the Barons and the kings prevailed,
And now the King, as here and there that war
Went swaying; but the Powers who walk the world
Made lightnings and great thunders over him,
And dazed all eyes, till Arthur by main might,
And mightier of his hands with every blow,
And leading all his knighthood threw the kings
Cardos, Urien, Cradlemont of Wales,
Claudias, and Clariance of Northumberland,
The King Brandagoras of Latangor,
With Anguisant of Erin, Morganore,
And Lot of Orkney. Then, before a voice
As dreadful as the shout of one who sees
To one who sins, and deems himself alone
And all the world asleep, they swerved and brake
Flying, and Arthur called to stay the brands
That hacked among the flyers, `Ho! they yield!'
So like a painted battle the war stood
Silenced, the living quiet as the dead,
And in the heart of Arthur joy was lord.
He laughed upon his warrior whom he loved
And honoured most. `Thou dost not doubt me King,
So well thine arm hath wrought for me today.'
`Sir and my liege,' he cried, `the fire of God
Descends upon thee in the battle-field:
I know thee for my King!' Whereat the two,
For each had warded either in the fight,
Sware on the field of death a deathless love.
And Arthur said, `Man's word is God in man:
Let chance what will, I trust thee to the death.'

Then quickly from the foughten field he sent
Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere,
His new-made knights, to King Leodogran,
Saying, `If I in aught have served thee well,
Give me thy daughter Guinevere to wife.'

Whom when he heard, Leodogran in heart
Debating--`How should I that am a king,
However much he holp me at my need,
Give my one daughter saving to a king,
And a king's son?'--lifted his voice, and called
A hoary man, his chamberlain, to whom
He trusted all things, and of him required
His counsel: `Knowest thou aught of Arthur's birth?'

Then spake the hoary chamberlain and said,
`Sir King, there be but two old men that know:
And each is twice as old as I; and one
Is Merlin, the wise man that ever served
King Uther through his magic art; and one
Is Merlin's master (so they call him) Bleys,
Who taught him magic, but the scholar ran
Before the master, and so far, that Bleys,
Laid magic by, and sat him down, and wrote
All things and whatsoever Merlin did
In one great annal-book, where after-years
Will learn the secret of our Arthur's birth.'

To whom the King Leodogran replied,
`O friend, had I been holpen half as well
By this King Arthur as by thee today,
Then beast and man had had their share of me:
But summon here before us yet once more
Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere.'

Then, when they came before him, the King said,
`I have seen the cuckoo chased by lesser fowl,
And reason in the chase: but wherefore now
Do these your lords stir up the heat of war,
Some calling Arthur born of Gorlos,
Others of Anton? Tell me, ye yourselves,
Hold ye this Arthur for King Uther's son?'

And Ulfius and Brastias answered, `Ay.'
Then Bedivere, the first of all his knights
Knighted by Arthur at his crowning, spake--
For bold in heart and act and word was he,
Whenever slander breathed against the King--

`Sir, there be many rumours on this head:
For there be those who hate him in their hearts,
Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet,
And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man:
And there be those who deem him more than man,
And dream he dropt from heaven: but my belief
In all this matter--so ye care to learn--
Sir, for ye know that in King Uther's time
The prince and warrior Gorlos, he that held
Tintagil castle by the Cornish sea,
Was wedded with a winsome wife, Ygerne:
And daughters had she borne him,--one whereof,
Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent,
Hath ever like a loyal sister cleaved
To Arthur,--but a son she had not borne.
And Uther cast upon her eyes of love:
But she, a stainless wife to Gorlos,
So loathed the bright dishonour of his love,
That Gorlos and King Uther went to war:
And overthrown was Gorlos and slain.
Then Uther in his wrath and heat besieged
Ygerne within Tintagil, where her men,
Seeing the mighty swarm about their walls,
Left her and fled, and Uther entered in,
And there was none to call to but himself.
So, compassed by the power of the King,
Enforced was she to wed him in her tears,
And with a shameful swiftness: afterward,
Not many moons, King Uther died himself,
Moaning and wailing for an heir to rule
After him, lest the realm should go to wrack.
And that same night, the night of the new year,
By reason of the bitterness and grief
That vext his mother, all before his time
Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born
Delivered at a secret postern-gate
To Merlin, to be holden far apart
Until his hour should come; because the lords
Of that fierce day were as the lords of this,
Wild beasts, and surely would have torn the child
Piecemeal among them, had they known; for each
But sought to rule for his own self and hand,
And many hated Uther for the sake
Of Gorlos. Wherefore Merlin took the child,
And gave him to Sir Anton, an old knight
And ancient friend of Uther; and his wife
Nursed the young prince, and reared him with her own;
And no man knew. And ever since the lords
Have foughten like wild beasts among themselves,
So that the realm has gone to wrack: but now,
This year, when Merlin (for his hour had come)
Brought Arthur forth, and set him in the hall,
Proclaiming, "Here is Uther's heir, your king,"
A hundred voices cried, "Away with him!
No king of ours! a son of Gorlos he,
Or else the child of Anton, and no king,
Or else baseborn." Yet Merlin through his craft,
And while the people clamoured for a king,
Had Arthur crowned; but after, the great lords
Banded, and so brake out in open war.'

Then while the King debated with himself
If Arthur were the child of shamefulness,
Or born the son of Gorlos, after death,
Or Uther's son, and born before his time,
Or whether there were truth in anything
Said by these three, there came to Cameliard,
With Gawain and young Modred, her two sons,
Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent;
Whom as he could, not as he would, the King
Made feast for, saying, as they sat at meat,

`A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas.
Ye come from Arthur's court. Victor his men
Report him! Yea, but ye--think ye this king--
So many those that hate him, and so strong,
So few his knights, however brave they be--
Hath body enow to hold his foemen down?'

`O King,' she cried, `and I will tell thee: few,
Few, but all brave, all of one mind with him;
For I was near him when the savage yells
Of Uther's peerage died, and Arthur sat
Crowned on the das, and his warriors cried,
"Be thou the king, and we will work thy will
Who love thee." Then the King in low deep tones,
And simple words of great authority,
Bound them by so strait vows to his own self,
That when they rose, knighted from kneeling, some
Were pale as at the passing of a ghost,
Some flushed, and others dazed, as one who wakes
Half-blinded at the coming of a light.

`But when he spake and cheered his Table Round
With large, divine, and comfortable words,
Beyond my tongue to tell thee--I beheld
From eye to eye through all their Order flash
A momentary likeness of the King:
And ere it left their faces, through the cross
And those around it and the Crucified,
Down from the casement over Arthur, smote
Flame-colour, vert and azure, in three rays,
One falling upon each of three fair queens,
Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends
Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright
Sweet faces, who will help him at his need.

`And there I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit
And hundred winters are but as the hands
Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege.

`And near him stood the Lady of the Lake,
Who knows a subtler magic than his own--
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful.
She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword,
Whereby to drive the heathen out: a mist
Of incense curled about her, and her face
Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom;
But there was heard among the holy hymns
A voice as of the waters, for she dwells
Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms
May shake the world, and when the surface rolls,
Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord.

`There likewise I beheld Excalibur
Before him at his crowning borne, the sword
That rose from out the bosom of the lake,
And Arthur rowed across and took it--rich
With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt,
Bewildering heart and eye--the blade so bright
That men are blinded by it--on one side,
Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world,
"Take me," but turn the blade and ye shall see,
And written in the speech ye speak yourself,
"Cast me away!" And sad was Arthur's face
Taking it, but old Merlin counselled him,
"Take thou and strike! the time to cast away
Is yet far-off." So this great brand the king
Took, and by this will beat his foemen down.'

Thereat Leodogran rejoiced, but thought
To sift his doubtings to the last, and asked,
Fixing full eyes of question on her face,
`The swallow and the swift are near akin,
But thou art closer to this noble prince,
Being his own dear sister;' and she said,
`Daughter of Gorlos and Ygerne am I;'
`And therefore Arthur's sister?' asked the King.
She answered, `These be secret things,' and signed
To those two sons to pass, and let them be.
And Gawain went, and breaking into song
Sprang out, and followed by his flying hair
Ran like a colt, and leapt at all he saw:
But Modred laid his ear beside the doors,
And there half-heard; the same that afterward
Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom.

And then the Queen made answer, `What know I?
For dark my mother was in eyes and hair,
And dark in hair and eyes am I; and dark
Was Gorlos, yea and dark was Uther too,
Wellnigh to blackness; but this King is fair
Beyond the race of Britons and of men.
Moreover, always in my mind I hear
A cry from out the dawning of my life,
A mother weeping, and I hear her say,
"O that ye had some brother, pretty one,
To guard thee on the rough ways of the world."'

`Ay,' said the King, `and hear ye such a cry?
But when did Arthur chance upon thee first?'

`O King!' she cried, `and I will tell thee true:
He found me first when yet a little maid:
Beaten I had been for a little fault
Whereof I was not guilty; and out I ran
And flung myself down on a bank of heath,
And hated this fair world and all therein,
And wept, and wished that I were dead; and he--
I know not whether of himself he came,
Or brought by Merlin, who, they say, can walk
Unseen at pleasure--he was at my side,
And spake sweet words, and comforted my heart,
And dried my tears, being a child with me.
And many a time he came, and evermore
As I grew greater grew with me; and sad
At times he seemed, and sad with him was I,
Stern too at times, and then I loved him not,
But sweet again, and then I loved him well.
And now of late I see him less and less,
But those first days had golden hours for me,
For then I surely thought he would be king.

`But let me tell thee now another tale:
For Bleys, our Merlin's master, as they say,
Died but of late, and sent his cry to me,
To hear him speak before he left his life.
Shrunk like a fairy changeling lay the mage;
And when I entered told me that himself
And Merlin ever served about the King,
Uther, before he died; and on the night
When Uther in Tintagil past away
Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two
Left the still King, and passing forth to breathe,
Then from the castle gateway by the chasm
Descending through the dismal night--a night
In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost--
Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps
It seemed in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof
A dragon winged, and all from stern to stern
Bright with a shining people on the decks,
And gone as soon as seen. And then the two
Dropt to the cove, and watched the great sea fall,
Wave after wave, each mightier than the last,
Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged
Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame:
And down the wave and in the flame was borne
A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet,
Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried "The King!
Here is an heir for Uther!" And the fringe
Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand,
Lashed at the wizard as he spake the word,
And all at once all round him rose in fire,
So that the child and he were clothed in fire.
And presently thereafter followed calm,
Free sky and stars: "And this the same child," he said,
"Is he who reigns; nor could I part in peace
Till this were told." And saying this the seer
Went through the strait and dreadful pass of death,
Not ever to be questioned any more
Save on the further side; but when I met
Merlin, and asked him if these things were truth--
The shining dragon and the naked child
Descending in the glory of the seas--
He laughed as is his wont, and answered me
In riddling triplets of old time, and said:

`"Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky!
A young man will be wiser by and by;
An old man's wit may wander ere he die.
Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow on the lea!
And truth is this to me, and that to thee;
And truth or clothed or naked let it be.
Rain, sun, and rain! and the free blossom blows:
Sun, rain, and sun! and where is he who knows?
From the great deep to the great deep he goes."

`So Merlin riddling angered me; but thou
Fear not to give this King thy only child,
Guinevere: so great bards of him will sing
Hereafter; and dark sayings from of old
Ranging and ringing through the minds of men,
And echoed by old folk beside their fires
For comfort after their wage-work is done,
Speak of the King; and Merlin in our time
Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn
Though men may wound him that he will not die,
But pass, again to come; and then or now
Utterly smite the heathen underfoot,
Till these and all men hail him for their king.'

She spake and King Leodogran rejoiced,
But musing, `Shall I answer yea or nay?'
Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept, and saw,
Dreaming, a slope of land that ever grew,
Field after field, up to a height, the peak
Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king,
Now looming, and now lost; and on the slope
The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was driven,
Fire glimpsed; and all the land from roof and rick,
In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind,
Streamed to the peak, and mingled with the haze
And made it thicker; while the phantom king
Sent out at times a voice; and here or there
Stood one who pointed toward the voice, the rest
Slew on and burnt, crying, `No king of ours,
No son of Uther, and no king of ours;'
Till with a wink his dream was changed, the haze
Descended, and the solid earth became
As nothing, but the King stood out in heaven,
Crowned. And Leodogran awoke, and sent
Ulfius, and Brastias and Bedivere,
Back to the court of Arthur answering yea.

Then Arthur charged his warrior whom he loved
And honoured most, Sir Lancelot, to ride forth
And bring the Queen;--and watched him from the gates:
And Lancelot past away among the flowers,
(For then was latter April) and returned
Among the flowers, in May, with Guinevere.
To whom arrived, by Dubric the high saint,
Chief of the church in Britain, and before
The stateliest of her altar-shrines, the King
That morn was married, while in stainless white,
The fair beginners of a nobler time,
And glorying in their vows and him, his knights
Stood around him, and rejoicing in his joy.
Far shone the fields of May through open door,
The sacred altar blossomed white with May,
The Sun of May descended on their King,
They gazed on all earth's beauty in their Queen,
Rolled incense, and there past along the hymns
A voice as of the waters, while the two
Sware at the shrine of Christ a deathless love:
And Arthur said, `Behold, thy doom is mine.
Let chance what will, I love thee to the death!'
To whom the Queen replied with drooping eyes,
`King and my lord, I love thee to the death!'
And holy Dubric spread his hands and spake,
`Reign ye, and live and love, and make the world
Other, and may thy Queen be one with thee,
And all this Order of thy Table Round
Fulfil the boundless purpose of their King!'

So Dubric said; but when they left the shrine
Great Lords from Rome before the portal stood,
In scornful stillness gazing as they past;
Then while they paced a city all on fire
With sun and cloth of gold, the trumpets blew,
And Arthur's knighthood sang before the King:--

`Blow, trumpet, for the world is white with May;
Blow trumpet, the long night hath rolled away!
Blow through the living world--"Let the King reign."

`Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur's realm?
Flash brand and lance, fall battleaxe upon helm,
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.

`Strike for the King and live! his knights have heard
That God hath told the King a secret word.
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.

`Blow trumpet! he will lift us from the dust.
Blow trumpet! live the strength and die the lust!
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.

`Strike for the King and die! and if thou diest,
The King is King, and ever wills the highest.
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.

`Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May!
Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day!
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.

`The King will follow Christ, and we the King
In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing.
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.'

So sang the knighthood, moving to their hall.
There at the banquet those great Lords from Rome,
The slowly-fading mistress of the world,
Strode in, and claimed their tribute as of yore.
But Arthur spake, `Behold, for these have sworn
To wage my wars, and worship me their King;
The old order changeth, yielding place to new;
And we that fight for our fair father Christ,
Seeing that ye be grown too weak and old
To drive the heathen from your Roman wall,
No tribute will we pay:' so those great lords
Drew back in wrath, and Arthur strove with Rome.

And Arthur and his knighthood for a space
Were all one will, and through that strength the King
Drew in the petty princedoms under him,
Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame
The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned.

poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Added by Poetry Lover
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The Bridal of Pennacook

We had been wandering for many days
Through the rough northern country. We had seen
The sunset, with its bars of purple cloud,
Like a new heaven, shine upward from the lake
Of Winnepiseogee; and had felt
The sunrise breezes, midst the leafy isles
Which stoop their summer beauty to the lips
Of the bright waters. We had checked our steeds,
Silent with wonder, where the mountain wall
Is piled to heaven; and, through the narrow rift
Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet
Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar,
Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind
Comes burdened with the everlasting moan
Of forests and of far-off waterfalls,
We had looked upward where the summer sky,
Tasselled with clouds light-woven by the sun,
Sprung its blue arch above the abutting crags
O'er-roofing the vast portal of the land
Beyond the wall of mountains. We had passed
The high source of the Saco; and bewildered
In the dwarf spruce-belts of the Crystal Hills,
Had heard above us, like a voice in the cloud,
The horn of Fabyan sounding; and atop
Of old Agioochook had seen the mountains'
Piled to the northward, shagged with wood, and thick
As meadow mole-hills,—the far sea of Casco,
A white gleam on the horizon of the east;
Fair lakes, embosomed in the woods and hills;
Moosehillock's mountain range, and Kearsarge
Lifting his granite forehead to the sun!

And we had rested underneath the oaks
Shadowing the bank, whose grassy spires are shaken
By the perpetual beating of the falls
Of the wild Ammonoosuc. We had tracked
The winding Pemigewasset, overhung
By beechen shadows, whitening down its rocks,
Or lazily gliding through its intervals,
From waving rye-fields sending up the gleam
Of sunlit waters. We had seen the moon
Rising behind Umbagog's eastern pines,
Like a great Indian camp-fire; and its beams
At midnight spanning with a bridge of silver
The Merrimac by Uncanoonuc's falls.

There were five souls of us whom travel's chance
Had thrown together in these wild north hills
A city lawyer, for a month escaping
From his dull office, where the weary eye
Saw only hot brick walls and close thronged streets;
Briefless as yet, but with an eye to see
Life's sunniest side, and with a heart to take
Its chances all as godsends; and his brother,
Pale from long pulpit studies, yet retaining
The warmth and freshness of a genial heart,
Whose mirror of the beautiful and true,
In Man and Nature, was as yet undimmed
By dust of theologic strife, or breath
Of sect, or cobwebs of scholastic lore;
Like a clear crystal calm of water, taking
The hue and image of o'erleaning flowers,
Sweet human faces, white clouds of the noon,
Slant starlight glimpses through the dewy leaves,
And tenderest moonrise. 'Twas, in truth, a study,
To mark his spirit, alternating between
A decent and professional gravity
And an irreverent mirthfulness, which often
Laughed in the face of his divinity,
Plucked off the sacred ephod, quite unshrined
The oracle, and for the pattern priest
Left us the man. A shrewd, sagacious merchant,
To whom the soiled sheet found in Crawford's inn,
Giving the latest news of city stocks
And sales of cotton, had a deeper meaning
Than the great presence of the awful mountains
Glorified by the sunset; and his daughter,
A delicate flower on whom had blown too long
Those evil winds, which, sweeping from the ice
And winnowing the fogs of Labrador,
Shed their cold blight round Massachusetts Bay,
With the same breath which stirs Spring's opening leaves
And lifts her half-formed flower-bell on its stem,
Poisoning our seaside atmosphere.

It chanced that as we turned upon our homeward way,
A drear northeastern storm came howling up
The valley of the Saco; and that girl
Who had stood with us upon Mount Washington,
Her brown locks ruffled by the wind which whirled
In gusts around its sharp, cold pinnacle,
Who had joined our gay trout-fishing in the streams
Which lave that giant's feet; whose laugh was heard
Like a bird's carol on the sunrise breeze
Which swelled our sail amidst the lake's green islands,
Shrank from its harsh, chill breath, and visibly drooped
Like a flower in the frost. So, in that quiet inn
Which looks from Conway on the mountains piled
Heavily against the horizon of the north,
Like summer thunder-clouds, we made our home
And while the mist hung over dripping hills,
And the cold wind-driven rain-drops all day long
Beat their sad music upon roof and pane,
We strove to cheer our gentle invalid.

The lawyer in the pauses of the storm
Went angling down the Saco, and, returning,
Recounted his adventures and mishaps;
Gave us the history of his scaly clients,
Mingling with ludicrous yet apt citations
Of barbarous law Latin, passages
From Izaak Walton's Angler, sweet and fresh
As the flower-skirted streams of Staffordshire,
Where, under aged trees, the southwest wind
Of soft June mornings fanned the thin, white hair
Of the sage fisher. And, if truth be told,
Our youthful candidate forsook his sermons,
His commentaries, articles and creeds,
For the fair page of human loveliness,
The missal of young hearts, whose sacred text
Is music, its illumining, sweet smiles.
He sang the songs she loved; and in his low,
Deep, earnest voice, recited many a page
Of poetry, the holiest, tenderest lines
Of the sad bard of Olney, the sweet songs,
Simple and beautiful as Truth and Nature,
Of him whose whitened locks on Rydal Mount
Are lifted yet by morning breezes blowing
From the green hills, immortal in his lays.
And for myself, obedient to her wish,
I searched our landlord's proffered library,—
A well-thumbed Bunyan, with its nice wood pictures
Of scaly fiends and angels not unlike them;
Watts' unmelodious psalms; Astrology's
Last home, a musty pile of almanacs,
And an old chronicle of border wars
And Indian history. And, as I read
A story of the marriage of the Chief
Of Saugus to the dusky Weetamoo,
Daughter of Passaconaway, who dwelt
In the old time upon the Merrimac,
Our fair one, in the playful exercise
Of her prerogative,—the right divine
Of youth and beauty,—bade us versify
The legend, and with ready pencil sketched
Its plan and outlines, laughingly assigning
To each his part, and barring our excuses
With absolute will. So, like the cavaliers
Whose voices still are heard in the Romance
Of silver-tongued Boccaccio, on the banks
Of Arno, with soft tales of love beguiling
The ear of languid beauty, plague-exiled
From stately Florence, we rehearsed our rhymes
To their fair auditor, and shared by turns
Her kind approval and her playful censure.

It may be that these fragments owe alone
To the fair setting of their circumstances,—
The associations of time, scene, and audience,—
Their place amid the pictures which fill up
The chambers of my memory. Yet I trust
That some, who sigh, while wandering in thought,
Pilgrims of Romance o'er the olden world,
That our broad land,—our sea-like lakes and mountains
Piled to the clouds, our rivers overhung
By forests which have known no other change
For ages than the budding and the fall
Of leaves, our valleys lovelier than those
Which the old poets sang of,—should but figure
On the apocryphal chart of speculation
As pastures, wood-lots, mill-sites, with the privileges,
Rights, and appurtenances, which make up
A Yankee Paradise, unsung, unknown,
To beautiful tradition; even their names,
Whose melody yet lingers like the last
Vibration of the red man's requiem,
Exchanged for syllables significant,
Of cotton-mill and rail-car, will look kindly
Upon this effort to call up the ghost
Of our dim Past, and listen with pleased ear
To the responses of the questioned Shade.

I. THE MERRIMAC

O child of that white-crested mountain whose springs
Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's wings,
Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters shine,
Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the dwarf pine;
From that cloud-curtained cradle so cold and so lone,
From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of stone,
By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and free,
Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to the sea.

No bridge arched thy waters save that where the trees
Stretched their long arms above thee and kissed in the breeze:
No sound save the lapse of the waves on thy shores,
The plunging of otters, the light dip of oars.

Green-tufted, oak-shaded, by Amoskeag's fall
Thy twin Uncanoonucs rose stately and tall,
Thy Nashua meadows lay green and unshorn,
And the hills of Pentucket were tasselled with corn.
But thy Pennacook valley was fairer than these,
And greener its grasses and taller its trees,
Ere the sound of an axe in the forest had rung,
Or the mower his scythe in the meadows had swung.

In their sheltered repose looking out from the wood
The bark-builded wigwams of Pennacook stood;
There glided the corn-dance, the council-fire shone,
And against the red war-post the hatchet was thrown.

There the old smoked in silence their pipes, and the young
To the pike and the white-perch their baited lines flung;
There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the shy maid
Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum braid.

O Stream of the Mountains! if answer of thine
Could rise from thy waters to question of mine,
Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a moan
Of sorrow would swell for the days which have gone.

Not for thee the dull jar of the loom and the wheel,
The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel;
But that old voice of waters, of bird and of breeze,
The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees.

II. THE BASHABA

Lift we the twilight curtains of the Past,
And, turning from familiar sight and sound,
Sadly and full of reverence let us cast
A glance upon Tradition's shadowy ground,
Led by the few pale lights which, glimmering round
That dim, strange land of Eld, seem dying fast;
And that which history gives not to the eye,
The faded coloring of Time's tapestry,
Let Fancy, with her dream-dipped brush, supply.

Roof of bark and walls of pine,
Through whose chinks the sunbeams shine,
Tracing many a golden line
On the ample floor within;
Where, upon that earth-floor stark,
Lay the gaudy mats of bark,
With the bear's hide, rough and dark,
And the red-deer's skin.

Window-tracery, small and slight,
Woven of the willow white,
Lent a dimly checkered light;
And the night-stars glimmered down,
Where the lodge-fire's heavy smoke,
Slowly through an opening broke,
In the low roof, ribbed with oak,
Sheathed with hemlock brown.

Gloomed behind the changeless shade
By the solemn pine-wood made;
Through the rugged palisade,
In the open foreground planted,
Glimpses came of rowers rowing,
Stir of leaves and wild-flowers blowing,
Steel-like gleams of water flowing,
In the sunlight slanted.

Here the mighty Bashaba
Held his long-unquestioned sway,
From the White Hills, far away,
To the great sea's sounding shore;
Chief of chiefs, his regal word
All the river Sachems heard,
At his call the war-dance stirred,
Or was still once more.

There his spoils of chase and war,
Jaw of wolf and black bear's paw,
Panther's skin and eagle's claw,
Lay beside his axe and bow;
And, adown the roof-pole hung,
Loosely on a snake-skin strung,
In the smoke his scalp-locks swung
Grimly to and fro.

Nightly down the river going,
Swifter was the hunter's rowing,
When he saw that lodge-fire, glowing
O'er the waters still and red;
And the squaw's dark eye burned brighter,
And she drew her blanket tighter,
As, with quicker step and lighter,
From that door she fled.

For that chief had magic skill,
And a Panisee's dark will,
Over powers of good and ill,
Powers which bless and powers which ban;
Wizard lord of Pennacook,
Chiefs upon their war-path shook,
When they met the steady look
Of that wise dark man.

Tales of him the gray squaw told,
When the winter night-wind cold
Pierced her blanket's thickest fold,
And her fire burned low and small,
Till the very child abed,
Drew its bear-skin over bead,
Shrinking from the pale lights shed
On the trembling wall.

All the subtle spirits hiding
Under earth or wave, abiding
In the caverned rock, or riding
Misty clouds or morning breeze;
Every dark intelligence,
Secret soul, and influence
Of all things which outward sense
Feels, or bears, or sees,—

These the wizard's skill confessed,
At his bidding banned or blessed,
Stormful woke or lulled to rest
Wind and cloud, and fire and flood;
Burned for him the drifted snow,
Bade through ice fresh lilies blow,
And the leaves of summer grow
Over winter's wood!

Not untrue that tale of old!
Now, as then, the wise and bold
All the powers of Nature hold
Subject to their kingly will;
From the wondering crowds ashore,
Treading life's wild waters o'er,
As upon a marble floor,
Moves the strong man still.

Still, to such, life's elements
With their sterner laws dispense,
And the chain of consequence
Broken in their pathway lies;
Time and change their vassals making,
Flowers from icy pillows waking,
Tresses of the sunrise shaking
Over midnight skies.
Still, to th' earnest soul, the sun
Rests on towered Gibeon,
And the moon of Ajalon
Lights the battle-grounds of life;
To his aid the strong reverses
Hidden powers and giant forces,
And the high stars, in their courses,
Mingle in his strife!

III. THE DAUGHTER

The soot-black brows of men, the yell
Of women thronging round the bed,
The tinkling charm of ring and shell,
The Powah whispering o'er the dead!

All these the Sachem's home had known,
When, on her journey long and wild
To the dim World of Souls, alone,
In her young beauty passed the mother of his child.

Three bow-shots from the Sachem's dwelling
They laid her in the walnut shade,
Where a green hillock gently swelling
Her fitting mound of burial made.
There trailed the vine in summer hours,
The tree-perched squirrel dropped his shell,—
On velvet moss and pale-hued flowers,
Woven with leaf and spray, the softened sunshine fell!

The Indian's heart is hard and cold,
It closes darkly o'er its care,
And formed in Nature's sternest mould,
Is slow to feel, and strong to bear.
The war-paint on the Sachem's face,
Unwet with tears, shone fierce and red,
And still, in battle or in chase,
Dry leaf and snow-rime crisped beneath his foremost tread.

Yet when her name was heard no more,
And when the robe her mother gave,
And small, light moccasin she wore,
Had slowly wasted on her grave,
Unmarked of him the dark maids sped
Their sunset dance and moonlit play;
No other shared his lonely bed,
No other fair young head upon his bosom lay.

A lone, stern man. Yet, as sometimes
The tempest-smitten tree receives
From one small root the sap which climbs
Its topmost spray and crowning leaves,
So from his child the Sachem drew
A life of Love and Hope, and felt
His cold and rugged nature through
The softness and the warmth of her young being melt.

A laugh which in the woodland rang
Bemocking April's gladdest bird,—
A light and graceful form which sprang
To meet him when his step was heard,—
Eyes by his lodge-fire flashing dark,
Small fingers stringing bead and shell
Or weaving mats of bright-hued bark,—
With these the household-god had graced his wigwam well.

Child of the forest! strong and free,
Slight-robed, with loosely flowing hair,
She swam the lake or climbed the tree,
Or struck the flying bird in air.
O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon
Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way;
And dazzling in the summer noon
The blade of her light oar threw off its shower of spray!

Unknown to her the rigid rule,
The dull restraint, the chiding frown,
The weary torture of the school,
The taming of wild nature down.
Her only lore, the legends told
Around the hunter's fire at night;
Stars rose and set, and seasons rolled,
Flowers bloomed and snow-flakes fell, unquestioned in her sight.

Unknown to her the subtle skill
With which the artist-eye can trace
In rock and tree and lake and hill
The outlines of divinest grace;
Unknown the fine soul's keen unrest,
Which sees, admires, yet yearns alway;
Too closely on her mother's breast
To note her smiles of love the child of Nature lay!

It is enough for such to be
Of common, natural things a part,
To feel, with bird and stream and tree,
The pulses of the same great heart;
But we, from Nature long exiled,
In our cold homes of Art and Thought
Grieve like the stranger-tended child,
Which seeks its mother's arms, and sees but feels them not.

The garden rose may richly bloom
In cultured soil and genial air,
To cloud the light of Fashion's room
Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair;
In lonelier grace, to sun and dew
The sweetbrier on the hillside shows
Its single leaf and fainter hue,
Untrained and wildly free, yet still a sister rose!

Thus o'er the heart of Weetamoo
Their mingling shades of joy and ill
The instincts of her nature threw;
The savage was a woman still.
Midst outlines dim of maiden schemes,
Heart-colored prophecies of life,
Rose on the ground of her young dreams
The light of a new home, the lover and the wife.

IV. THE WEDDING

Cool and dark fell the autumn night,
But the Bashaba's wigwam glowed with light,
For down from its roof, by green withes hung,
Flaring and smoking the pine-knots swung.

And along the river great wood-fires
Shot into the night their long, red spires,
Showing behind the tall, dark wood,
Flashing before on the sweeping flood.

In the changeful wind, with shimmer and shade,
Now high, now low, that firelight played,
On tree-leaves wet with evening dews,
On gliding water and still canoes.

The trapper that night on Turee's brook,
And the weary fisher on Contoocook,
Saw over the marshes, and through the pine,
And down on the river, the dance-lights shine.
For the Saugus Sachem had come to woo
The Bashaba's daughter Weetamoo,
And laid at her father's feet that night
His softest furs and wampum white.

From the Crystal Hills to the far southeast
The river Sagamores came to the feast;
And chiefs whose homes the sea-winds shook
Sat down on the mats of Pennacook.

They came from Sunapee's shore of rock,
From the snowy sources of Snooganock,
And from rough Coos whose thick woods shake
Their pine-cones in Umbagog Lake.

From Ammonoosuc's mountain pass,
Wild as his home, came Chepewass;
And the Keenomps of the bills which throw
Their shade on the Smile of Manito.

With pipes of peace and bows unstrung,
Glowing with paint came old and young,
In wampum and furs and feathers arrayed,
To the dance and feast the Bashaba made.

Bird of the air and beast of the field,
All which the woods and the waters yield,
On dishes of birch and hemlock piled,
Garnished and graced that banquet wild.

Steaks of the brown bear fat and large
From the rocky slopes of the Kearsarge;
Delicate trout from Babboosuck brook,
And salmon speared in the Contoocook;

Squirrels which fed where nuts fell thick
in the gravelly bed of the Otternic;
And small wild-hens in reed-snares caught
from the banks of Sondagardee brought;

Pike and perch from the Suncook taken,
Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills shaken,
Cranberries picked in the Squamscot bog,
And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog:

And, drawn from that great stone vase which stands
In the river scooped by a spirit's hands,
Garnished with spoons of shell and horn,
Stood the birchen dishes of smoking corn.

Thus bird of the air and beast of the field,
All which the woods and the waters yield,
Furnished in that olden day
The bridal feast of the Bashaba.

And merrily when that feast was done
On the fire-lit green the dance begun,
With squaws' shrill stave, and deeper hum
Of old men beating the Indian drum.

Painted and plumed, with scalp-locks flowing,
And red arms tossing and black eyes glowing,
Now in the light and now in the shade
Around the fires the dancers played.

The step was quicker, the song more shrill,
And the beat of the small drums louder still
Whenever within the circle drew
The Saugus Sachem and Weetamoo.

The moons of forty winters had shed
Their snow upon that chieftain's head,
And toil and care and battle's chance
Had seamed his hard, dark countenance.

A fawn beside the bison grim,—
Why turns the bride's fond eye on him,
In whose cold look is naught beside
The triumph of a sullen pride?

Ask why the graceful grape entwines
The rough oak with her arm of vines;
And why the gray rock's rugged cheek
The soft lips of the mosses seek.

Why, with wise instinct, Nature seems
To harmonize her wide extremes,
Linking the stronger with the weak,
The haughty with the soft and meek!

V. THE NEW HOME

A wild and broken landscape, spiked with firs,
Roughening the bleak horizon's northern edge;
Steep, cavernous hillsides, where black hemlock spurs
And sharp, gray splinters of the wind-swept ledge
Pierced the thin-glazed ice, or bristling rose,
Where the cold rim of the sky sunk down upon the snows.

And eastward cold, wide marshes stretched away,
Dull, dreary flats without a bush or tree,
O'er-crossed by icy creeks, where twice a day
Gurgled the waters of the moon-struck sea;
And faint with distance came the stifled roar,
The melancholy lapse of waves on that low shore.

No cheerful village with its mingling smokes,
No laugh of children wrestling in the snow,
No camp-fire blazing through the hillside oaks,
No fishers kneeling on the ice below;
Yet midst all desolate things of sound and view,
Through the long winter moons smiled dark-eyed Weetamoo.

Her heart had found a home; and freshly all
Its beautiful affections overgrew
Their rugged prop. As o'er some granite wall
Soft vine-leaves open to the moistening dew
And warm bright sun, the love of that young wife
Found on a hard cold breast the dew and warmth of life.

The steep, bleak hills, the melancholy shore,
The long, dead level of the marsh between,
A coloring of unreal beauty wore
Through the soft golden mist of young love seen.
For o'er those hills and from that dreary plain,
Nightly she welcomed home her hunter chief again.

No warmth of heart, no passionate burst of feeling,
Repaid her welcoming smile and parting kiss,
No fond and playful dalliance half concealing,
Under the guise of mirth, its tenderness;

But, in their stead, the warrior's settled pride,
And vanity's pleased smile with homage satisfied.

Enough for Weetamoo, that she alone
Sat on his mat and slumbered at his side;
That he whose fame to her young ear had flown
Now looked upon her proudly as his bride;
That he whose name the Mohawk trembling heard
Vouchsafed to her at times a kindly look or word.

For she had learned the maxims of her race,
Which teach the woman to become a slave,
And feel herself the pardonless disgrace
Of love's fond weakness in the wise and brave,—
The scandal and the shame which they incur,
Who give to woman all which man requires of her.

So passed the winter moons. The sun at last
Broke link by link the frost chain of the rills,
And the warm breathings of the southwest passed
Over the hoar rime of the Saugus hills;
The gray and desolate marsh grew green once more,
And the birch-tree's tremulous shade fell round the Sachem's door.

Then from far Pennacook swift runners came,
With gift and greeting for the Saugus chief;
Beseeching him in the great Sachem's name,
That, with the coming of the flower and leaf,
The song of birds, the warm breeze and the rain,
Young Weetamoo might greet her lonely sire again.

And Winnepurkit called his chiefs together,
And a grave council in his wigwam met,
Solemn and brief in words, considering whether
The rigid rules of forest etiquette
Permitted Weetamoo once more to look
Upon her father's face and green-banked Pennacook.

With interludes of pipe-smoke and strong water,
The forest sages pondered, and at length,
Concluded in a body to escort her
Up to her father's home of pride and strength,
Impressing thus on Pennacook a sense
Of Winnepurkit's power and regal consequence.

So through old woods which Aukeetamit's hand,
A soft and many-shaded greenness lent,
Over high breezy hills, and meadow land
Yellow with flowers, the wild procession went,
Till, rolling down its wooded banks between,
A broad, clear, mountain stream, the Merrimac was seen.

The hunter leaning on his bow undrawn,
The fisher lounging on the pebbled shores,
Squaws in the clearing dropping the seed-corn,
Young children peering through the wigwam doors,
Saw with delight, surrounded by her train
Of painted Saugus braves, their Weetamoo again.

VI. AT PENNACOOK

The hills are dearest which our childish feet
Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweet
Are ever those at which our young lips drank,
Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank.

Midst the cold dreary sea-watch, Home's hearth-light
Shines round the helmsman plunging through the night;
And still, with inward eye, the traveller sees
In close, dark, stranger streets his native trees.

The home-sick dreamer's brow is nightly fanned
By breezes whispering of his native land,
And on the stranger's dim and dying eye
The soft, sweet pictures of his childhood lie.

Joy then for Weetamoo, to sit once more
A child upon her father's wigwam floor!
Once more with her old fondness to beguile
From his cold eye the strange light of a smile.

The long, bright days of summer swiftly passed,
The dry leaves whirled in autumn's rising blast,
And evening cloud and whitening sunrise rime
Told of the coming of the winter-time.

But vainly looked, the while, young Weetamoo,
Down the dark river for her chief's canoe;
No dusky messenger from Saugus brought
The grateful tidings which the young wife sought.

At length a runner from her father sent,
To Winnepurkit's sea-cooled wigwam went
'Eagle of Saugus,—in the woods the dove
Mourns for the shelter of thy wings of love.'

But the dark chief of Saugus turned aside
In the grim anger of hard-hearted pride;
I bore her as became a chieftain's daughter,
Up to her home beside the gliding water.

If now no more a mat for her is found
Of all which line her father's wigwam round,
Let Pennacook call out his warrior train,
And send her back with wampum gifts again.'

The baffled runner turned upon his track,
Bearing the words of Winnepurkit back.
'Dog of the Marsh,' cried Pennacook, 'no more
Shall child of mine sit on his wigwam floor.

'Go, let him seek some meaner squaw to spread
The stolen bear-skin of his beggar's bed;
Son of a fish-hawk! let him dig his clams
For some vile daughter of the Agawams,

'Or coward Nipmucks! may his scalp dry black
In Mohawk smoke, before I send her back.'
He shook his clenched hand towards the ocean wave,
While hoarse assent his listening council gave.

Alas poor bride! can thy grim sire impart
His iron hardness to thy woman's heart?
Or cold self-torturing pride like his atone
For love denied and life's warm beauty flown?

On Autumn's gray and mournful grave the snow
Hung its white wreaths; with stifled voice and low
The river crept, by one vast bridge o'er-crossed,
Built by the boar-locked artisan of Frost.

And many a moon in beauty newly born
Pierced the red sunset with her silver horn,
Or, from the east, across her azure field
Rolled the wide brightness of her full-orbed shield.

Yet Winnepurkit came not,—on the mat
Of the scorned wife her dusky rival sat;
And he, the while, in Western woods afar,
Urged the long chase, or trod the path of war.

Dry up thy tears, young daughter of a chief!
Waste not on him the sacredness of grief;
Be the fierce spirit of thy sire thine own,
His lips of scorning, and his heart of stone.

What heeds the warrior of a hundred fights,
The storm-worn watcher through long hunting nights,
Cold, crafty, proud of woman's weak distress,
Her home-bound grief and pining loneliness?

VII. THE DEPARTURE

The wild March rains had fallen fast and long
The snowy mountains of the North among,
Making each vale a watercourse, each hill
Bright with the cascade of some new-made rill.

Gnawed by the sunbeams, softened by the rain,
Heaved underneath by the swollen current's strain,
The ice-bridge yielded, and the Merrimac
Bore the huge ruin crashing down its track.

On that strong turbid water, a small boat
Guided by one weak hand was seen to float;
Evil the fate which loosed it from the shore,
Too early voyager with too frail an oar!

Down the vexed centre of that rushing tide,
The thick huge ice-blocks threatening either side,
The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in view,
With arrowy swiftness sped that light canoe.

The trapper, moistening his moose's meat
On the wet bank by Uncanoonuc's feet,
Saw the swift boat flash down the troubled stream;
Slept he, or waked he? was it truth or dream?

The straining eye bent fearfully before,
The small hand clenching on the useless oar,
The bead-wrought blanket trailing o'er the water—
He knew them all—woe for the Sachem's daughter!

Sick and aweary of her lonely life,
Heedless of peril, the still faithful wife
Had left her mother's grave, her father's door,
To seek the wigwam of her chief once more.

Down the white rapids like a sear leaf whirled,
On the sharp rocks and piled-up ices hurled,
Empty and broken, circled the canoe
In the vexed pool below—but where was Weetamoo.

VIII. SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN

The Dark eye has left us,
The Spring-bird has flown;
On the pathway of spirits
She wanders alone.
The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore
Mat wonck kunna-monee! We hear it no more!

O dark water Spirit
We cast on thy wave
These furs which may never
Hang over her grave;
Bear down to the lost one the robes that she wore
Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!

Of the strange land she walks in
No Powah has told:
It may burn with the sunshine,
Or freeze with the cold.
Let us give to our lost one the robes that she wore:
Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!

The path she is treading
Shall soon be our own;
Each gliding in shadow
Unseen and alone!
In vain shall we call on the souls gone before:
Mat wonck kunna-monee! They hear us no more!

O mighty Sowanna!
Thy gateways unfold,
From thy wigwam of sunset
Lift curtains of gold!

Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er
Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!

So sang the Children of the Leaves beside
The broad, dark river's coldly flowing tide;
Now low, now harsh, with sob-like pause and swell,
On the high wind their voices rose and fell.
Nature's wild music,—sounds of wind-swept trees,
The scream of birds, the wailing of the breeze,
The roar of waters, steady, deep, and strong,—
Mingled and murmured in that farewell song.

poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Added by Poetry Lover
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Jubilate Agno: Fragment B, Part 2

LET PETER rejoice with the MOON FISH who keeps up the life in the waters by night.

Let Andrew rejoice with the Whale, who is array'd in beauteous blue and is a combination of bulk and activity.

Let James rejoice with the Skuttle-Fish, who foils his foe by the effusion of his ink.

Let John rejoice with Nautilus who spreads his sail and plies his oar, and the Lord is his pilot.

Let Philip rejoice with Boca, which is a fish that can speak.

Let Bartholomew rejoice with the Eel, who is pure in proportion to where he is found and how he is used.

Let Thomas rejoice with the Sword-Fish, whose aim is perpetual and strength insuperable.

Let Matthew rejoice with Uranoscopus, whose eyes are lifted up to God.

Let James the less, rejoice with the Haddock, who brought the piece of money for the Lord and Peter.

Let Jude bless with the Bream, who is of melancholy from his depth and serenity.

Let Simon rejoice with the Sprat, who is pure and innumerable.

Let Matthias rejoice with the Flying-Fish, who has a part with the birds, and is sublimity in his conceit.

Let Stephen rejoice with Remora -- The Lord remove all obstacles to his glory.

Let Paul rejoice with the Scale, who is pleasant and faithful!, like God's good ENGLISHMAN.

Let Agrippa, which is Agricola, rejoice with Elops, who is a choice fish.

Let Joseph rejoice with the Turbut, whose capture makes the poor fisher-man sing.

Let Mary rejoice with the Maid -- blessed be the name of the immaculate CONCEPTION.

Let John, the Baptist, rejoice with the Salmon -- blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus for infant Baptism.

Let Mark rejoice with the Mullet, who is John Dore, God be gracious to him and his family.

Let Barnabus rejoice with the Herring -- God be gracious to the Lord's fishery.

Let Cleopas rejoice with the Mackerel, who cometh in a shoal after a leader.

Let Abiud of the Lord's line rejoice with Murex, who is good and of a precious tincture.

Let Eliakim rejoice with the Shad, who is contemned in his abundance.

Let Azor rejoice with the Flounder, who is both of the sea and of the river,

Let Sadoc rejoice with the Bleak, who playeth upon the surface in the Sun.

Let Achim rejoice with the Miller's Thumb, who is a delicious morsel for the water fowl.

Let Eliud rejoice with Cinaedus, who is a fish yellow all over.

Let Eleazar rejoice with the Grampus, who is a pompous spouter.

Let Matthan rejoice with the Shark, who is supported by multitudes of small value.

Let Jacob rejoice with the Gold Fish, who is an eye-trap.

Let Jairus rejoice with the Silver Fish, who is bright and lively.

Let Lazarus rejoice with Torpedo, who chills the life of the assailant through his staff.

Let Mary Magdalen rejoice with the Place, whose goodness and purity are of the Lord's making.

Let Simon the leper rejoice with the Eel-pout, who is a rarity on account of his subtlety.

Let Alpheus rejoice with the Whiting, whom God hath bless'd in multitudes, and his days are as the days of PURIM.

Let Onesimus rejoice with the Cod -- blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus for a miraculous draught of men.

Let Joses rejoice with the Sturgeon, who saw his maker in the body and obtained grace.

Let Theophilus rejoice with the Folio, who hath teeth, like the teeth of a saw.

Let Bartimeus rejoice with the Quaviver -- God be gracious to the eyes of him, who prayeth for the blind.

Let CHRISTOPHER, who is Simon of Cyrene, rejoice with the Rough -- God be gracious to the CAM and to DAVID CAM and his seed for ever.

Let Timeus rejoice with the Ling -- God keep the English Sailors clear of French bribery.

Let Salome rejoice with the Mermaid, who hath the countenance and a portion of human reason.

Let Zacharias rejoice with the Gudgeon, who improves in his growth till he is mistaken.

Let Campanus rejoice with the Lobster -- God be gracious to all the CAMPBELLs especially John.

Let Martha rejoice with the Skallop -- the Lord revive the exercise and excellence of the Needle.

Let Mary rejoice with the Carp -- the ponds of Fairlawn and the garden bless for the master.

Let Zebedee rejoice with the Tench -- God accept the good son for his parents also.

Let Joseph of Arimathea rejoice with the Barbel -- a good coffin and a tomb-stone without grudging!

Let Elizabeth rejoice with the Crab -- it is good, at times, to go back.

Let Simeon rejoice with the Oyster, who hath the life without locomotion.

Let Jona rejoice with the Wilk -- Wilks, Wilkie, and Wilkinson bless the name of the Lord Jesus.

Let Nicodemus rejoice with the Muscle, for so he hath provided for the poor.

Let Gamaliel rejoice with the Cockle -- I will rejoice in the remembrance of mercy.

Let Agabus rejoice with the Smelt -- The Lord make me serviceable to the HOWARDS.

Let Rhoda rejoice with the Sea-Cat, who is pleasantry and purity.

Let Elmodam rejoice with the Chubb, who is wary of the bait and thrives in his circumspection.

Let Jorim rejoice with the Roach -- God bless my throat and keep me from things stranggled.

Let Addi rejoice with the Dace -- It is good to angle with meditation.

Let Luke rejoice with the Trout -- Blessed be Jesus in Aa, in Dee and in Isis.

Let Cosam rejoice with the Perch, who is a little tyrant, because he is not liable to that, which he inflicts.

Let Levi rejoice with the Pike -- God be merciful to all dumb creatures in respect of pain.

Let Melchi rejoice with the Char, who cheweth the cud.

Let Joanna rejoice with the Anchovy -- I beheld and lo! 'a great multitude!

Let Neri rejoice with the Keeling Fish, who is also called the Stock Fish.

Let Janna rejoice with the Pilchard -- the Lord restore the seed of Abishai.

Let Esli rejoice with the Soal, who is flat and spackles for the increase of motion.

Let Nagge rejoice with the Perriwinkle -- 'for the rain it raineth every day.'

Let Anna rejoice with the Porpus, who is a joyous fish and of good omen.

Let Phanuel rejoice with the Shrimp, which is the childrens fishery.

Let Chuza rejoice with the Sea-Bear, who is full of sagacity and prank.

Let Susanna rejoice with the Lamprey, who is an eel with a title.

Let Candace rejoice with the Craw-fish -- How hath the Christian minister renowned the Queen.

Let The Eunuch rejoice with the Thorn-Back -- It is good to be discovered reading the BIBLE.

Let Simon the Pharisee rejoice with the Grigg -- the Lord bring up Issachar and Dan.

Let Simon the converted Sorcerer rejoice with the Dab quoth Daniel.

Let Joanna, of the Lord's line, rejoice with the Minnow, who is multiplied against the oppressor.

Let Jonas rejoice with the Sea-Devil, who hath a good name from his Maker.

Let Alexander rejoice with the Tunny -- the worse the time the better the eternity.

Let Rufus rejoice with the Needle-fish, who is very good in his element.

Let Matthat rejoice with the Trumpet-fish -- God revive the blowing of the TRUMPETS.

Let Mary, the mother of James, rejoice with the Sea-Mouse -- it is good to be at peace.

Let Prochorus rejoice with Epodes, who is a kind of fish with Ovid who is at peace in the Lord.

Let Timotheus rejoice with the Dolphin, who is of benevolence.

Let Nicanor rejoice with the Skeat -- Blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus in fish and in the Shewbread, which ought to be continually on the altar, now more than ever, and the want of it is the Abomination of Desolation spoken of by Daniel.

Let Timon rejoice with Crusion -- The Shew-Bread in the first place is gratitude to God to shew who is bread, whence it is, and that there is enough and to spare.

Let Parmenas rejoice with the Mixon -- Secondly it is to prevent the last extremity, for it is lawful that rejected hunger may take it.

Let Dorcas rejoice with Dracunculus -- blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus in the Grotto.

Let Tychicus rejoice with Scolopendra, who quits himself of the hook by voiding his intrails.

Let Trophimus rejoice with the Sea-Horse, who shoud have been to Tychicus the father of Yorkshiremen.

Let Tryphena rejoice with Fluta -- Saturday is the Sabbath for the mouth of God hath spoken it.

Let Tryphosa rejoice with Acarne -- With such preparation the Lord's Jubile is better kept.

Let Simon the Tanner rejoice with Alausa -- Five days are sufficient for the purposes of husbandry.

Let Simeon Niger rejoice with the Loach -- The blacks are the seed of Cain.

Let Lucius rejoice with Corias -- Some of Cain's seed was preserved in the loins of Ham at the flood.

Let Manaen rejoice with Donax. My DEGREE is good even here, in the Lord I have a better.

Let Sergius Paulus rejoice with Dentex -- Blessed be the name Jesus for my teeth.

Let Silas rejoice with the Cabot -- the philosophy of the times ev'n now is vain deceit.

Let Barsabas rejoice with Cammarus -- Newton is ignorant for if a man consult not the WORD how should he understand the WORK? --

Let Lydia rejoice with Attilus -- Blessed be the name of him which eat the fish and honey comb.

Let Jason rejoice with Alopecias, who is subtlety without offence.

Let Dionysius rejoice with Alabes who is peculiar to the Nile.

Let Damaris rejoice with Anthias -- The fountain of the Nile is known to the Eastern people who drink it.

Let Apollos rejoice with Astacus, but St Paul is the Agent for England.

Let Justus rejoice with Crispus in a Salmon-Trout -- the Lord look on the soul of Richard Atwood.

Let Crispus rejoice with Leviathan -- God be gracious to the soul of HOBBES, who was no atheist, but a servant of Christ, and died in the Lord -- I wronged him God forgive me.

Let Aquila rejoice with Beemoth who is Enoch no fish but a stupendous creeping Thing.

Let Priscilla rejoice with Cythera. As earth increases by Beemoth so the sea likewise enlarges.

Let Tyrannus rejoice with Cephalus who hath a great head.

Let Gaius rejoice with the Water-Tortoise -- Paul and Tychicus were in England with Agricola my father.

Let Aristarchus rejoice with Cynoglossus -- The Lord was at Glastonbury in the body and blessed the thorn.

Let Alexander rejoice with the Sea-Urchin -- The Lord was at Bristol and blessed the waters there.

Let Sopater rejoice with Elacate -- The waters of Bath were blessed by St Matthias.

Let Secundus rejoice with Echeneis who is the sea-lamprey.

Let Eutychus rejoice with Cnide -- Fish and honeycomb are blessed to eat after a recovery. --

Let Mnason rejoice with Vulvula a sort of fish -- Good words are of God, the cant from the Devil.

Let Claudius Lysias rejoice with Coracinus who is black and peculiar to Nile.

Let Bernice rejoice with Corophium which is a kind of crab.

Let Phebe rejoice with Echinometra who is a beautiful shellfish red and green.

Let Epenetus rejoice with Erythrinus who is red with a white belly.

Let Andronicus rejoice with Esox, the Lax, a great fish of the Rhine.

Let Junia rejoice with the Faber-Fish -- Broil'd fish and honeycomb may be taken for the sacrament.

Let Amplias rejoice with Garus, who is a kind of Lobster.

Let Urbane rejoice with Glanis, who is a crafty fish who bites away the bait and saves himself.

Let Stachys rejoice with Glauciscus, who is good for Women's milk.

Let Apelles rejoice with Glaucus -- behold the seed of the brave and ingenious how they are saved!

Let Aristobulus rejoice with Glycymerides who is pure and sweet.

Let Herodion rejoice with Holothuria which are prickly fishes.

Let Narcissus rejoice with Hordeia -- I will magnify the Lord who multiplied the fish.

Let Persis rejoice with Liparis -- I will magnify the Lord who multiplied the barley loaves.

Let Rufus rejoice with Icthyocolla of whose skin a water-glue is made.

Let Asyncritus rejoice with Labrus who is a voracious fish.

Let Phlegon rejoice with the Sea-Lizard -- Bless Jesus THOMAS BOWLBY and all the seed of Reuben.

Let Hermas rejoice with Lamyrus who is of things creeping in the sea.

Let Patrobas rejoice with Lepas, all shells are precious.

Let Hermes rejoice with Lepus, who is a venomous fish.

Let Philologus rejoice with Ligarius -- shells are all parries to the adversary.

Let Julia rejoice with the Sleeve-Fish -- Blessed be Jesus for all the TAYLERS.

Let Nereus rejoice with the Calamary -- God give success to our fleets.

Let Olympas rejoice with the Sea-Lantern, which glows upon the waters.

Let Sosipater rejoice with Cornuta. There are fish for the Sea-Night-Birds that glow at bottom.

Let Lucius rejoice with the Cackrel Fish. God be gracious to JMs FLETCHER who has my tackling.

Let Tertius rejoice with Maia which is a kind of crab.

Let Erastus rejoice with Melandry which is the largest Tunny.

Let Quartus rejoice with Mena. God be gracious to the immortal soul of poor Carte, who was barbarously and cowardly murder'd -- the Lord prevent the dealers in clandestine death.

Let Sosthenes rejoice with the Winkle -- all shells like the parts of the body are good kept for those parts.

Let Chloe rejoice with the Limpin -- There is a way to the terrestrial Paradise upon the knees.

Let Carpus rejoice with the Frog-Fish -- A man cannot die upon his knees.

Let Stephanas rejoice with Mormyra who is a fish of divers colours.

Let Fortunatus rejoice with the Burret -- it is good to be born when things are crossed.

Let Lois rejoice with the Angel-Fish -- There is a fish that swims in the fluid Empyrean.

Let Achaicus rejoice with the Fat-Back -- The Lord invites his fishers to the WEST INDIES.

Let Sylvanus rejoice with the Black-Fish -- Oliver Cromwell himself was the murderer in the Mask.

Let Titus rejoice with Mys -- O Tite siquid ego adjuero curamve levasso!

Let Euodias rejoice with Myrcus -- There is a perfumed fish I will offer him for a sweet savour to the Lord.

Let Syntyche rejoice with Myax -- There are shells in the earth which were left by the FLOOD.

Let Clement rejoice with Ophidion -- There are shells again in earth at sympathy with those in sea.

Let Epaphroditus rejoice with Opthalmias -- The Lord increase the Cambridge collection of fossils.

Let Epaphras rejoice with Orphus -- God be gracious to the immortal soul of Dr Woodward.

Let Justus rejoice with Pagrus -- God be gracious to the immortal soul of Dr Middleton.

Let Nymphas rejoice with Fagurus -- God bless Charles Mason and all Trinity College.

Let Archippus rejoice with Nerita whose shell swimmeth.

Let Eunice rejoice with Oculata who is of the Lizard kind.

Let Onesephorus rejoice with Orca, who is a great fish.

Let Eubulus rejoice with Ostrum the scarlet -- God be gracious to Gordon and Groat.

Let Pudens rejoice with Polypus -- The Lord restore my virgin!

Let Linus rejoice with Ozsena who is a kind of Polype -- God be gracious to Lyne and Anguish.

Let Claudia rejoice with Pascer -- the purest creatures minister to wantoness by unthankfulness.

Let Artemas rejoice with Pastinaca who is a fish with a sting.

Let Zenas rejoice with Pecten -- The Lord obliterate the laws of man!

Let Philemon rejoice with Pelagia -- The laws and judgement are impudence and blindness.

Let Apphia rejoice with Pelamis -- The Lord Jesus is man's judgement.

Let Demetrius rejoice with Peloris, who is greatest of Shell-Fishes.

Let Antipas rejoice with Pentadactylus -- A papist hath no sentiment God bless CHURCHILL.

***

FOR I pray the Lord JESUS that cured the LUNATICK to be merciful to all my brethren and sisters in these houses.

For they work me with their harping-irons, which is a barbarous instrument, because I am more unguarded than others.

For the blessing of God hath been on my epistles, which I have written for the benefit of others.

For I bless God that the CHURCH of ENGLAND is one of the SEVEN ev'n the candlestick of the Lord.

For the ENGLISH TONGUE shall be the language of the WEST.

For I pray Almighty CHRIST to bless the MAGDALEN HOUSE and to forward a National purification.

For I have the blessing of God in the three POINTS of manhood, of the pen, of the sword, and of chivalry.

For I am inquisitive in the Lord, and defend the philosophy of the scripture against vain deceit.

For the nets come down from the eyes of the Lord to fish up men to their salvation.

For I have a greater compass both of mirth and melancholy than another.

For I bless the Lord JESUS in the innumerables, and for ever and ever.

For I am redoubted, and redoubtable in the Lord, as is THOMAS BECKET my father.

For I have had the grace to GO BACK, which is my blessing unto prosperity.

For I paid for my seat in St PAUL's, when I was six years old, and took possession against the evil day.

For I am descended from the steward of the island -- blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus king of England.

For the poor gentleman is the first object of the Lord's charity and he is the most pitied who hath lost the most.

For I am in twelve HARDSHIPS, but he that was born of a virgin shall deliver me out of all.

For I am safe, as to my head, from the female dancer and her admirers.

For I pray for CHICHISTER to give the glory to God, and to keep the adversary at bay.

For I am making to the shore day by day, the Lord Jesus take me.

For I bless the Lord JESUS upon RAMSGATE PIER -- the Lord forward the building of harbours.

For I bless the Lord JESUS for his very seed, which is in my body.

For I pray for R and his family, I pray for Mr Becher, and I bean for the Lord JESUS.

For I pray to God for Nore, for the Trinity house, for all light-houses, beacons and buoys.

For I bless God that I am not in a dungeon, but am allowed the light of the Sun.

For I pray God for the PYGMIES against their feathered adversaries, as a deed of charity.

For I pray God for all those, who have defiled themselves in matters inconvenient.

For I pray God be gracious to CORNELIUS MATTHEWS name and connection.

For I am under the same accusation with my Saviour -- -for they said, he is besides himself.

For I pray God for the introduction of new creatures into this island.

For I pray God for the ostriches of Salisbury Plain, the beavers of the Medway and silver fish of Thames.

For Charity is cold in the multitude of possessions, and the rich are covetous of their crumbs.

For I pray to be accepted as a dog without offence, which is best of all.

For I wish to God and desire towards the most High, which is my policy.

For the tides are the life of God in the ocean, and he sends his angel to trouble the great DEEP.

For he hath fixed the earth upon arches and pillars, and the flames of hell flow under it.

For the grosser the particles the nearer to the sink, and the nearer to purity, the quicker the gravitation.

For MATTER is the dust of the Earth, every atom of which is the life.

For MOTION is as the quantity of life direct, and that which hath not motion, is resistance.

For Resistance is not of GOD, but he -- hath built his works upon it.

For the Centripetal and Centrifugal forces are GOD SUSTAINING and DIRECTING.

For Elasticity is the temper of matter to recover its place with vehemence.

For Attraction is the earning of parts, which have a similitude in the life.

For the Life of God is in the Loadstone, and there is a magnet, which pointeth due EAST.

For the Glory of God is always in the East, but cannot be seen for the cloud of the crucifixion.

For due East is the way to Paradise, which man knoweth not by reason of his fall.

For the Longitude is (nevertheless) attainable by steering angularly notwithstanding.

For Eternity is a creature and is built upon Eternity ¥ê¥á¥ó¥á¥â¥ï¥ë¥ç ¥å¥g¥é ¥ó¥ç ¥ä¥é¥á¥â¥ï¥ë¥ç .

For Fire is a mixed nature of body and spirit, and the body is fed by that which hath not life.

For Fire is exasperated by the Adversary, who is Death, unto the detriment of man.

For an happy Conjecture is a miraculous cast by the Lord Jesus.

For a bad Conjecture is a draught of stud and mud.

For there is a Fire which is blandishing, and which is of God direct.

For Fire is a substance and distinct, and purifyeth ev'n in hell.

For the Shears is the first of the mechanical powers, and to be used on the knees.

For if Adam had used this instrument right, he would not have fallen.

For the power of the Shears Is direct as the life.

For the power of the WEDGE is direct as it's altitude by communication of Almighty God.

For the Skrew, Axle and Wheel, Pulleys, the Lever and Inclined Plane are known in the Schools.

For the Centre is not known but by the application of the members to matter.

For I have shown the Vis Inerti©¡ to be false, and such is all nonsense.

For the Centre is the hold of the Spirit upon the matter in hand.

For FRICTION is inevitable because the Universe is FULL of God's works.

For the PERPETUAL MOTION is in all the works of Almighty GOD.

For it is not so in the engines of man, which are made of dead materials, neither indeed can be.

For the Moment of bodies, as it is used, is a false term -- bless God ye Speakers on the Fifth of November.

For Time and Weight are by their several estimates.

For I bless GOD in the discovery of the LONGITUDE direct by the means of GLADWICK.

For the motion of the PENDULUM is the longest in that it parries resistance.

For the WEDDING GARMENTS of all men are prepared in the SUN against the day of acceptation.

For the Wedding Garments of all women are prepared in the MOON against the day of their purification.

For CHASTITY is the key of knowledge as in Esdras, Sr Isaac Newton and now, God be praised, in me.

For Newton nevertheless is more of error than of the truth, but I am of the WORD of GOD.

For WATER, is not of solid constituents, but is dissolved from precious stones above.

For the life remains in its dissolvent state, and that in great power.

For WATER is condensed by the Lord's FROST, tho' not by the FLORENTINE experiment.

For GLADWICK is a substance growing on hills in the East, candied by the sun, and of diverse colours.

For it is neither stone nor metal but a new creature, soft to the ax, but hard to the hammer.

For it answers sundry uses, but particularly it supplies the place of Glass.

For it giveth a benign light without the fragility, malignity or mischief of Glass.

For it attracteth all the colours of the GREAT BOW which is fixed in the EAST.

For the FOUNTAINS and SPRINGS are the life of the waters working up to God.

For they are in SYMPATHY with the waters above the Heavens, which are solid.

For the Fountains, springs and rivers are all of them from the sea, whose water is filtrated and purified by the earth.

For there is Water above the visible surface in a spiritualizing state, which cannot be seen but by application of a CAPILLARY TUBE.

For the ASCENT of VAPOURS is the return of thanksgiving from all humid bodies.

For the RAIN WATER kept in a reservoir at any altitude, suppose of a thousand feet, will make a fountain from a spout of ten feet of the same height.

For it will ascend in a stream two thirds of the way and afterwards prank itself into ten thousand agreeable forms.

For the SEA is a seventh of the Earth -- the spirit of the Lord by Esdras.

For MERCURY is affected by the AIR because it is of a similar subtlety.

For the rising in the BAROMETER is not effected by pressure but by sympathy.

For it cannot be seperated from the creature with which it is intimately and eternally connected.

For where it is stinted of air there it will adhere together and stretch on the reverse.

For it works by ballancing according to the hold of the spirit.

For QUICK-SILVER is spiritual and so is the AIR to all intents and purposes.

For the AIR-PUMP weakens and dispirits but cannot wholly exhaust.

For SUCKTION is the withdrawing of the life, but life will follow as fast as it can.

For there is infinite provision to keep up the life in all the parts of Creation.

For the AIR is contaminated by curses and evil language.

For poysonous creatures catch some of it and retain it or ere it goes to the adversary.

For IRELAND was without these creatures, till of late, because of the simplicity of the people.

For the AIR. is purified by prayer which is made aloud and with all our might.

For loud prayer is good for weak lungs and for a vitiated throat.

For SOUND is propagated in the spirit and in all directions.

For the VOICE of a figure compleat in all its parts.

For a man speaks HIMSELF from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet.

For a LION roars HIMSELF compleat from head to tail.

For all these things are seen in the spirit which makes the beauty of prayer.

For all whispers and unmusical sounds in general are of the Adversary.

For 'I will hiss saith the Lord' is God's denunciation of death.

For applause or the clapping of the hands is the natural action of a man on the descent of the glory of God.

For EARTH which is an intelligence hath a voice and a propensity to speak in all her parts.

For ECHO is the soul of the voice exerting itself in hollow places.

For ECHO cannot act but when she can parry the adversary.

For ECHO is greatest in Churches and where she can assist in prayer.

For a good voice hath its Echo with it and it is attainable by much supplication.

For the FOICE is from the body and the spirit -- and is a a body and a spirit.

For the prayers of good men are therefore visible to second-sighted persons.

For HARPSICHORDS are best strung with gold wire.

For HARPS and VIOLS are best strung with Indian weed.

For the GERMAN FLUTE is an indirect -- the common flute good, bless the Lord Jesus BENJIMIN HALLET.

For the feast of TRUMPETS should be kept up, that being the most direct and acceptable of all instruments.

For the TRUMPET of God is a blessed intelligence and so are all the instruments in HEAVEN.

For GOD the father Almighty plays upon the HARP of stupendous magnitude and melody.

For innumerable Angels fly out at every touch and his tune is a work of creation.

For at that time malignity ceases and the devils themselves are at peace.

For this time is perceptible to man by a remarkable stillness and serenity of soul.

For the ¨¡olian harp is improveable into regularity.

For when it is so improved it will be known to be the SHAWM.

For it woud be better if the LITURGY were musically performed.

For the strings of the SHAWM were upon a cylinder which turned to the wind.

For this was spiritual musick altogether, as the wind is a spirit.

For there is nothing but it may be played upon in delight.

For the flames of fire may lie blown thro musical pipes.

For it is so higher up in the vast empyrean.

For is so real as that which is spiritual.

For an IGNIS FATUUS is either the fool's conceit or a blast from the adversary.

For SHELL-FIRE or ELECTRICAL is the quick air when it is caught.

For GLASS is worked in the fire till it partakes of its nature.

For the electrical fire is easily obtain'd by the working of glass.

For all spirits are of fire and the air is a very benign one.

For the MAN in VACUO is a flat conceit of preposterous folly.

For the breath of our nostrils is an electrical spirit.

For an electrical spirit may be exasperated into a malignant fire.

For it is good to quicken in paralytic cases being the life applied unto death,

For the method of philosophizing is in a posture of Adoration.

For the School-Doctrine of Thunder and Lightning is a Diabolical Hypothesis.

For it is taking the nitre from the lower regions and directing it against the Infinite of Heights.

For THUNDER is the voice of God direct in verse and musick.

For LIGHTNING is a glance of the glory of God.

For the Brimstone that is found at the times of thunder and lightning is worked up by the Adversary.

For the voice is always for infinite good which he strives to impede.

For the Devil can work coals into shapes to afflict the minds of those that will not pray.

For the coffin and the cradle and the purse are all against a man.

For the coffin is for the dead and death came by disobedience.

For the cradle is for weakness and the child of man was originally strong from the womb.

For the purse is for money and money is dead matter with the stamp of human vanity.

For the adversary frequently sends these particular images out of the fire to those whom they concern.

For the coffin is for me because I have nothing to do with it.

For the cradle is for me because the old Dragon attacked me in it and overcame in Christ.

For the purse is for me because I have neither money nor human friends.

For LIGHT is propagated at all distances in an instant because it is actuated by the divine conception.

For the Satellites of the planet prove nothing in this matter but the glory of Almighty God.

For the SHADE is of death and from the adversary.

For Solomon said vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities all is vanity.

For Jesus says verity of verities, verity of verities all is verity.

For Solomon said THOU FOOL in malice from his own vanity.

For the Lord reviled not all in hardship and temptation unutterable.

For Fire hath this property that it reduces a thing till finally it is not.

For all the filth wicked of men shall be done away by fire in Eternity.

For the furnace itself shall come up at the last according to Abraham's vision.

For the Convex Heaven of shall work about on that great event.

For the ANTARTICK POLE is not yet but shall answer in the Consummation.

For the devil hath most power in winter, because darkness prevails.

For the Longing of Women is the operation of the Devil upon their conceptions.

For the marking of their children is from the same cause both of which are to be parried by prayer.

For the laws of King James the first against Witchcraft were wise, had it been of man to make laws.

For there are witches and wizards even now who are spoken to by their familiars.

For the visitation of their familiars is prevented by the Lord's incarnation.

For to conceive with intense diligence against one's neighbour is a branch of witchcraft.

For to use pollution, exact and cross things and at the same time to think against a man is the crime direct.

For prayer with musick is good for persons so exacted upon.

For before the NATIVITY is the dead of the winter and after it the quick.

For the sin against the HOLY GHOST is INGRATITUDE.

For stuff'd guts make no musick; strain them strong and you shall have sweet melody.

For the SHADOW is of death, which is the Devil, who can make false and faint images of the works of Almighty God.

For every man beareth death about him ever since the transgression of Adam, but in perfect light there is no shadow.

For all Wrath is Fire, which the adversary blows upon and exasperates.

For SHADOW is a fair Word from God, which is not returnable till the furnace comes up.

For the ECLIPSE is of the adversary -- blessed be the name of Jesus for Whisson of Trinity.

For the shadow is his and the penumbra is his and his the perplexity of the the phenomenon.

For the eclipses happen at times when the light is defective.

For the more the light is defective, the more the powers of darkness prevail.

For deficiencies happen by the luminaries crossing one another.

For the SUN is an intelligence and an angel of the human form.

For the MOON is an intelligence and an angel in shape like a woman.

For they are together in the spirit every night like man and wife.

For Justice is infinitely beneath Mercy in nature and office.

For the Devil himself may be just in accusation and punishment.

For HELL is without eternity from the presence of Almighty God.

For Volcanos and burning mountains are where the adversary hath most power.

For the angel GRATITUDE is my wife -- God bring me to her or her to me.

For the propagation of light is quick as the divine Conception.

For FROST is damp and unwholsome air candied to fall to the best advantage.

For I am the Lord's News-Writer -- the scribe-evangelist -- Widow Mitchel, Gun and Grange bless the Lord Jesus.

For Adversity above all other is to be deserted of the grace of God.

For in the divine Idea this Eternity is compleat and the Word is a making many more.

For there is a forlorn hope ev'n for impenitent sinners because the furnace itself must be the crown of Eternity.

For my hope is beyond Eternity in the bosom of God my saviour.

For by the grace of God I am the Reviver of ADORATION amongst ENGLISH-MEN.

For being desert-ed is to have desert in the sight of God and intitles one to the Lord's merit.

For things that are not in the sight of men are thro' God of infinite concern.

For envious men have exceeding subtlety quippe qui in -- videant.

For avaricious men are exceeding subtle like the soul seperated from the body.

For their attention is on a sinking object which perishes.

For they can go beyond the children of light in matters of their own misery.

For Snow is the dew candied and cherishes.

For TIMES and SEASONS are the Lord's -- Man is no CHRONOLOGER.

For there is a CIRCULATION of the SAP in all vegetables.

For SOOT is the dross of Fire.

For the CLAPPING of the hands is naught unless it be to the glory of God.

For God will descend in visible glory when men begin to applaud him.

For all STAGE-Playing is Hypocrisy and the Devil is the master of their revels.

For the INNATATION of corpuscles is solved by the Gold-beater's hammer -- God be gracious to Christopher Peacock and to all my God-Children.

For the PRECESSION of the Equinoxes is improving nature -- something being gained every where for the glory of God perpetually.

For the souls of the departed are embodied in clouds and purged by the Sun.

For the LONGITUDE may be discovered by attending the motions of the Sun. Way 2d.

For you must consider the Sun as dodging, which he does to parry observation.

For he must be taken with an Astrolabe, and considered respecting the point he left.

For you must do this upon your knees and that will secure your point.

For I bless God that I dwell within the sound of Success, and that it is well with ENGLAND this blessed day. NATIVITY of our LORD N.S. 1759.

poem by Christopher Smart
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Solomon on the Vanity of the World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Power. Book III.

The Argument

Solomon considers man through the several stages and conditions of life, and concludes, in general, that we are all miserable. He reflects more particularly upon the trouble and uncertainty of greatness and power; gives some instances thereof from Adam down to himself; and still concludes that All Is Vanity. He reasons again upon life, death, and a future being; finds human wisdom too imperfect to resolve his doubts; has recourse to religion; is informed by an angel what shall happen to himself, his family, and his kingdom, till the redemption of Israel; and, upon the whole, resolves to submit his inquiries and anxieties to the will of his Creator.

Come then, my soul: I call thee by that name,
Thou busy thing, from whence I know I am;
For, knowing that I am, I know thou art,
Since that must needs exist which can impart:
But how thou camest to be, or whence thy spring,
For various of thee priests and poets sing.

Hearest thou submissive, but a lowly birth,
Some secret particles of finer earth,
A plain effect which Nature must beget,
As motion orders, and as atoms meet,
Companion of the body's good or ill,
From force of instinct more than choice of will,
Conscious of fear or valour, joy or pain,
As the wild courses of the blood ordain;
Who, as degrees of heat and cold prevail,
In youth dost flourish, and with age shalt fail,
Till, mingled with thy partner's latest breath,
Thou fliest, dissolved in air and lost in death.

Or, if thy great existence would aspire
To causes more sublime, of heavenly fire
Wert thou a spark struck off, a separate ray,
Ordain'd to mingle with terrestrial clay,
With it condemn'd for certain years to dwell,
To grieve its frailties, and its pains to feel,
To teach it good and ill, disgrace or fame,
Pale it with rage, or redden it with shame,
To guide its actions with informing care,
In peace to judge, to conquer in the war;
Render it agile, witty, valiant, sage,
As fits the various course of human age,
Till, as the earthly part decays and falls,
The captive breaks her prison's mouldering walls,
Hovers awhile upon the sad remains,
Which now the pile or sepulchre contains,
And thence, with liberty unbounded, flies,
Impatient to regain her native skies?

Whate'er thou art, where'er ordain'd to go,
(Points which we rather may dispute than know)
Come on, thou little inmate of this breast,
Which for thy sake from passions'l divest
For these, thou say'st, raise all the stormy strife,
Which hinder thy repose, and trouble life;
Be the fair level of thy actions laid
As temperance wills and prudence may persuade
By thy affections undisturb'd and clear,
Guided to what may great or good appear,
And try if life be worth the liver's care.

Amass'd in man, there justly is beheld
What through th whole creation has excell'd,
The angel's forecast and intelligence:
Say, from these glorious seeds what harvest flows?
Recount our blessings, and compare our woes:
In its true light let clearest reason see
The man dragg'd out to act, and forced to be;
Helpless and naked, on a woman's knees,
To be exposed or rear'd as she may please,
Feel her neglect, and pine from her disease:
His tender eye by too direct a ray
Wounded, and flying from unpractised day;
His heart assaulted by invading air,
And beating fervent to the vital war;
To his young sense how various forms appear,
That strike this wonder, and excite his fear;
By his distortions he reveals his pains;
He by his tears and by his sighs complains,
Till time and use assist the infant wretch,
By broken words, and rudiments of speech,
His wants in plainer characters to show,
And paint more perfect figures of his wo,
Condemn'd to sacrifice his childish years
To babbling ignorance, and to empty fears;
To pass the riper period of his age,
Acting his part upon a crowded stage;
To lasting toils exposed, and endless cares,
To open dangers, and to secret snares;
To malice which the vengeful foe intends,
And the more dangerous love of seeming friends:
His deeds examined by the people's will.
Prone to forget the good, and blame the ill;
Or, sadly censured in their cursed debate,
Who, in the scorner's or the judge's seat
Dare to condemn the virtue which they hate:
Or would he rather leave this frantic scene,
And trees and beasts prefer to courts and men,
In the remotest wood and lonely grot
Certain to meet that worst of evils, thought,
Different ideas to his memory brought,
Some intricate, as are the pathless woods,
Impetuous some, as the descending floods;
With anxious doubts, with raging passions torn,
No sweet companion near with whom to mourn,
He hears the echoing rock return his sighs,
And from himself the frighted hermit flies.

Thus, through what path soe'er of life we rove,
Rage companies our hate, and grief our love;
Vex'd with the present moment's heavy gloom,
Why seek we brightness from the years to come?
Disturb'd and broken, like a sick man's sleep,
Our troubled thoughts to distant prospects leap,
Desirous still what flies us to o'ertake;
For hope is but the dream of those that wake:
But looking back we see the dreadful train
Of woes, anew, which, were we to sustain,
We should refuse to tread the path again:
Still adding grief, still counting from the first,
Judging the latest evil still the worst,
And sadly finding each progressive hour
Heighten their number and augment their power,
Till by one countless sum of woes oppress'd,
Hoary with cares, and ignorant of rest,
We find the vital springs relax'd and worn,
Compell'd our common impotence to mourn:
Thus, through the round of age, to childhood we return;
Reflecting find, that naked, from the womb
We yesterday came forth; that in the tomb
Naked again we must to-morrow lie,
Born to lament, to labour, and to die.

Pass we the ills which each man feels or dreads,
The weight or fall'n or hanging o'er our heads;
The bear, the lion, terrors of the plain,
The sheepfold scatter'd, and the shepherd slain;
The frequent errors of the pathless wood,
The giddy precipice, and the dangerous flood;
The noisome pestilence, that in open war
Terrible, marches through the mid-way air,
And scatters death; the arrow that by night
Cuts the dank mist, and fatal wings its flight;
The billowing snow, and violence of the shower,
That from the hills disperse their dreadful store,
And o'er the vales collected ruin pour;
The worm that gnaws the ripening fruit, sad guest,
Canker or locust, hurtful to infest
The blade; while husks elude the tiller's care,
And eminence of want distinguishes the year.

Pass we the slow disease, and subtile pain
Which our weak frame is destined to sustain;
The cruel stone with congregated war,
Tearing his bloody way; the cold catarrh,
With frequent impulse, and continued strife
Weakening the wasted seeds of irksome life;
The gout's fierce rack, the burning fever's rage,
The sad experience of decay and age,
Herself the sorest ill, while death and ease,
Oft and in vain invoked, or to appease
Or end the grief, with hasty wings recede
From the vex'd patient and the sickly bed.

Nought shall it profit that the charming fair,
Angelic, softest work of Heaven, draws near
To the cold shaking paralytic hand,
Senseless of Beauty's touch, or Love's command,
No longer apt or able to fulfil
The dictates of its feeble master's will.
Nought shall the psaltery and the harp avail,
The pleasing song, or well-repeated tale,
When the quick spirits their warm march forbear,
And numbing coldness has unbraced the ear.

The verdant rising of the flowery hill,
The vale enamell'd, and the crystal rill,
The ocean rolling, and the shelly shore,
Beautiful objects, shall delight no more,
When the lax'd sinews of the weaken'd eye
Day follows night; the clouds return again
After the falling of the latter rain;
But to the aged blind shall ne'er return
Grateful vicissitude; he still must mourn,
The sun, and moon, and every starry light,
Eclipsed to him, and lost in everlasting night.

Behold where Age's wretched victim lies;
See his head trembling, and his half-closed eyes;
Frequent for breath his panting bosom heaves;
To broken sleeps his remnant sense he gives,
And only by his pains awaking finds he lives.

Loosed by devouring Time, the silver cord
Dissever'd lies; unhonour'd from the board
The crystal urn, when broken, is thrown by,
And apter utensils their place supply.
These things and thou must share one equal lot;
Die and be lost, corrupt and be forgot;
While still another and another race
Shall now supply and now give up the place.
From earth all came, to earth must all return,
Frail as the cord, and brittle as the urn.

But the terror of these ills suppress'd,
And view we man with health and vigour bless'd.
Home he returns with the declining sun,
His destined task of labour hardly done;
Goes forth again with the ascending ray,
Again his travail for his bread to pay,
And find the ill sufficient to the day.
Haply at night he does with honour shun
A widow'd daughter, or a dying son;
His neighbour's offspring he to-morrow sees,
And doubly feels his want in their increase:
The next day, and the next, he must attend
His foe triumphant, or his buried friend.
In every act and turn of life he feels
Public calamities, or household ills;
The due reward to just desert refused,
The trust betray'd, the nuptial bed abused:
The judge corrupt, the long-depending cause,
And doubtful issue of misconstrued laws:
The crafty turns of a dishonest state,
And violent will of the wrong-doing great;
The venom'd tongue, injurious to his fame,
Which nor can wisdom shun nor fair advice reclaim.

Esteem we these, my friend, event and chance,
Produced as atoms form their fluttering dance?
Or higher yet their essence may we draw
From destined order and eternal law?
Again, my Muse, the cruel doubt repeat?
Spring they, I say, from accident or fate?
Yet such we find they are, as can control
The servile actions of our wavering soul;
Can fright, can alter, or can chain the will;
Their ills all built on life, that fundamental ill.