Puslapio vaizdai
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I blame her not; but Nature hath no care,
She heedeth not my laughter or my tears;
Not one of all my sorrows will she share,
Nor take a part in one of all my fears.
Waifs, strangers, lonely sojourners are we,
Of birth unknown and alien ancestry.

Her fields that bloomed a thousand years agone
Will bloom as witchingly when we are dead.
The daisies will return, the larks sing on,

The dawning and the setting flame with red. There is no pity in the summer seaThere is no knowledge in earth's witchery. Ye prate of virtue and unselfishness

The one a myth, the other but a name. These idle maxims that our lips express

Leave not a trace but falsity and shame; Our words, our boastings formulate a lie, Flouting the self for which we live and die.

Therefore I feign no merit in my life;

No friends applaud me and no friend I serve. Far from the whirl of passion's useless strife,

No doubts perplex me and no fears unnerve.
One target for the shafts of fate alone,
One breast is open to the blow-mine own.

Ye die a thousand times through tenderness;
Life is but dread and long anxiety.

By what unguarded avenues distress
Steals on apace ye cannot know or see.
Unpastured sheep, ye lack and cannot feed,
Nor find a drink to satisfy your need.

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No spouse is mine-no babes cling to my knee;
These harbingers of grief I never sued.
I have not bartered peaceful liberty

For earth's affections and solicitude,
Nor vested all in one precarious stake,

Like loving human hearts that bleed and break.

II.

O love, there is no light unless thou light us—
There is no darkness, love, unless thou fail;
There is no recompense save thou requite us—
No guidance but the glory of thy trail.
Thou art our strength, our sustenance-the breath
Whereby we live; without thee all is death.

Teach me the love of every living thing,
Lest lacking love I grow corrupt and die.
For cleansing and for solace let there spring
A well of love that never shall run dry.
Give me the bread of love throughout my years,
Though it may chance to prove the bread of tears.

Teach me the bate of sordid selfishness-

The hate of petty toil for petty gain; Teach me that years of selfish joy are less Than one true hour of sacrificing pain; Teach me that all supremely great and good Is born with birth-pangs of disquietude;

Not to make lonely desert of my heart,

From fear of tempting a despoiler's hand, But to illumine it in every part

With smiling blossom like a summer land.

Better a harvest foiled, a field defaced,
Than acres spreading cultureless and waste.
And from the leafy woods shall issue words,
And from the passionate ocean come a cry.
The vesper twitterings of wayside birds

Shall reach the depths where strangest memories lie--
The sweeping of night's wind along the plain
Touch deepest chords, and touch them not in vain.

Shall I protest that Nature is but dumb?——

The dumbness is mine own and is not hers.
From her completest silence voices come,
And in her solitude a spirit stirs.

Where men have seen a vesture of the Unknown,
Shall I see only naked stock and stone?

The simplest daisy from the rustling grass
Gives to me greater gifts than I return;
The sunset glories unrequited pass,

Unthanked the pageants of the heavens burn.
I give them nothing, but they give to me
New worlds of thought, new homes of memory.

Shall I renounce the love of fellow-man,

Because of men's deceitfulness and blindness? Since the dim day when consciousness began How oft my heart has thrilled at human kindness! Shall I repose in sluggard ease or fretting Because some souls are careless and forgetting?

Teach me the love of beauty's plenitude-

The glow of health, the loveliness of form-The grace of children and of maidenhood, Pulsating life, delightful, sentient, warm;

Give me a love whose steady affluence
Transcends, yet not ignores, the life of sense.

And if the double joy bring double woe,
If sorrow come by unexpected ways,
Better the height and depth of life to know
Than live upon the lowland all my days.
Never for ease or pleasures fugitive
May I forswear the soul by which I live.

The Storm.

THEY say it is the wind in midnight skies,

Loud shrieking past the window, that doth make Each casement shudder with its storm of cries, And the barred door with pushing shoulders shake. Ah, no! ah, no! It is the souls pass by;

Their lot to run from earth to God's high place, Pursued by each black sin that death let fly

From their sad flesh, to break them in their chase.

They say it is the rain from leaf to leaf

Doth slip, and roll into the thirsting ground, That where the corn is trampled sheaf by sheaf The heavy sorrow of the storm is found.

Ah, no! ah, no! It is repentant tears

By those let fall who make their direful flight,
And drop by drop the anguish of their fears.
Comes down around us all the awful night.
They say that in the lightning-flash, and roar
Of clashing clouds, the tempest is about;
And draw their chairs the glowing hearth before,
The casement close to shut the danger out.
Ah, no! The doors of Paradise, they swing
A moment open for a soul nigh spent,
Then come together till the thunder's ring

Leaves us half-blinded by God's element.

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