pain

Just think! some night the stars will gleam
Upon a cold, grey stone,
And trace a name with silver beam,
And lo! 'twill be your own.
II
That night is speeding on to greet
Your epitaphic rhyme.
Your life is but a little beat
Within the heart of Time.
III
A little gain, a little pain,
A laugh, lest you may moan;
A little blame, a little fame,
A star-gleam on a stone.

788

Joy to have merited the Pain—
To merit the Release—
Joy to have perished every step—
To Compass Paradise—

Pardon—to look upon thy face—
With these old fashioned Eyes—
Better than new—could be—for that—
Though bought in Paradise—

Because they looked on thee before—
And thou hast looked on them—
Prove Me—My Hazel Witnesses
The features are the same—

So fleet thou wert, when present—
So infinite—when gone—
An Orient's Apparition—
Remanded of the Morn—

FIRST SPIRIT

Sister spirit, listen!
Methinks I hear a song,
Resounding strangely, sadly,
These peaceful plains along.

SECOND SPIRIT

'Tis like those lays we sang in earthly days,
When we trod our pilgrimage of pain;

FIRST SPIRIT

And earthlike are those values
Which chant the solemn strain:

CHORUS OF MORTALS

Low in the dust before Thee,
Great King of Kings, we fall!
Least of the host which adore Thee,
Do not despise our call!
From the paths of right,

Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee.
Destitute, despised, forsaken, Thou from hence my all shall be.
Perish every fond ambition, all I’ve sought or hoped or known.
Yet how rich is my condition! God and heaven are still mine own.

Let the world despise and leave me, they have left my Savior, too.
Human hearts and looks deceive me; Thou art not, like them, untrue.
And while Thou shalt smile upon me, God of wisdom, love and might,
Foes may hate and friends disown me, show Thy face and all is bright.

THE ARGUMENT.
The camp at great Jerusalem arrives:
Clorinda gives them battle, in the breast
Of fair Erminia Tancred's love revives,
He jousts with her unknown whom he loved best;
Argant th' adventurers of their guide deprives,
With stately pomp they lay their Lord in chest:
Godfrey commands to cut the forest down,
And make strong engines to assault the town.


I
The purple morning left her crimson bed,
And donned her robes of pure vermilion hue,
Her amber locks she crowned with roses red,

XXXI
Thus spake the nymph, yet spake but to the wind,
She could not alter his well-settled thought;
O miracle! O strife of wondrous kind!
Where love and virtue such contention wrought,
Where death the victor had for meed assigned;
Their own neglect, each other's safety sought;
But thus the king was more provoked to ire,
Their strife for bellows served to anger's fire.

XXXII
He thinks, such thoughts self-guiltiness finds out,
They scorned his power, and therefore scorned the pain,

THE ARGUMENT.
Ismeno conjures, but his charms are vain;
Aladine will kill the Christians in his ire:
Sophronia and Olindo would be slain
To save the rest, the King grants their desire;
Clorinda hears their fact and fortunes plain,
Their pardon gets and keeps them from the fire:
Argantes, when Aletes' speeches are
Despised, defies the Duke to mortal war.


I
While thus the tyrant bends his thoughts to arms,
Ismeno gan tofore his sight appear,
Ismen dead bones laid in cold graves that warms

There were two little girls, neither handsome nor plain;
One's name was Eliza, the other's was Jane:
They were both of one height, as I've heard people say,
They were both of one age, I believe, to a day.

'Twas fancied by some, who but slightly had seen them,
That scarcely a difference was there between them;
But no one for long in this notion persisted,
So great a distinction there really existed.

Eliza knew well that she could not be pleasing,
While fretting and fuming, while sulky or teasing;

BE HIS rest the rest he sought:
Calm and deep.
Let no wayward word or thought
Vex his sleep.
Peace—the peace that no man knows—
Now remains
Where the wasted woodwind blows,
Wakes and wanes.

Latter leaves, in Autumn’s breath,
White and sere,
Sanctify the scholar’s death,
Lying here.

Soft surprises of the sun—
Swift, serene—
O’er the mute grave-grasses run,
Cold and green.

Lone amid the cafe's cheer,
Sad of heart am I to-night;
Dolefully I drink my beer,
But no single line I write.
There's the wretched rent to pay,
Yet I glower at pen and ink:
Oh, inspire me, Muse, I pray,
It is later than you think!
II
Hello! there's a pregnant phrase.
Bravo! let me write it down;
Hold it with a hopeful gaze,
Gauge it with a fretful frown;
Tune it to my lyric lyre . . .
Ah! upon starvation's brink,
How the words are dark and dire:
It is later than you think.
III