power

Yet what were Love if man remains unfree,
   And woman's sunshine sordid merchandise:
If children's Hope is blasted ere they see
   Its shoots of youth from out the branchlets rise:
   If thought is chained, and gagged is Speech, and Lies
Enthroned as Law befoul posterity,
   And haggard Sin's ubiquitous disguise
Insults the face of God where'er men be?

Ay, what were Love, my love, did we not love
   Our stricken brothers so, as to resign
   For Its own sake, the foison of Its dower:

I.
FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land
Unvisited over the sea,
Who tell me how lonely you stand
With a single gold curl in the hand
Held up to be looked at by me, --


II.
While you ask me to ponder and say
What a father and mother can do,
With the bright fellow-locks put away
Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay
Where the violets press nearer than you.


III.
Shall I speak like a poet, or run
Into weak woman's tears for relief ?

ONE'S-SELF I sing--a simple, separate Person;
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse.

Of Physiology from top to toe I sing;
Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse--I say
the Form complete is worthier far;
The Female equally with the male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful--for freest action form'd, under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.

(Lord Dufferin to Lord Lansdowne)


So here's your Empire. No more wine, then?
Good.
We'll clear the Aides and khitmatgars away.
(You'll know that fat old fellow with the knife --
He keeps the Name Book, talks in English too,
And almost thinks himself the Government.)
O Youth, Youth, Youth! Forgive me, you're so young.
Forty from sixty -- twenty years of work
And power to back the working. Ay def mi!
You want to know, you want to see, to touch,
And, by your lights, to act. It's natural.

ARGUMENT
Restored to sense, the beauteous Bradamant
Finds sage Melissa in the vaulted tomb,
And hears from her of many a famous plant
And warrior, who shall issue from her womb.
Next, to release Rogero from the haunt
Of old Atlantes, learns how from the groom,
Brunello hight, his virtuous ring to take;
And thus the knight's and others' fetters break.


I
Who will vouchsafe me voice that shall ascend
As high as I would raise my noble theme?

Only serpents let their skin be fallen
And a soul -- all grown up and old.
We, alas, change an eternal soul,
Leaving body in eternal hold.

Oh, remembrance, power, she-giant,
You direct a horse-life with a bridle,
You will tell me all these men about,
Who had had my body before I'd.

The first one was ugly, thin and tragic,
Loving darkness of the garden lane,
Falling Leaf, the child of gloomy magic,
Whose one word could fully stop the rain.

Second one -- he liked the wind from South,

I

Not once in all our days of poignant love,
Did I a single instant give to thee
My undivided being wholly free.
Not all thy potent passion could remove
The barrier that loomed between to prove
The full supreme surrendering of me.
Oh, I was beaten, helpless utterly
Against the shadow-fact with which I strove.
For when a cruel power forced me to face
The truth which poisoned our illicit wine,
That even I was faithless to my race
Bleeding beneath the iron hand of thine,

[Originally called the Place de Louis Seize,--next the Place de la
Revolution, where the perpetual guillotine stood.]


Proud Seine, along thy winding tide
Fair smiles yon plain expanding wide,
And, deckt with art and nature's pride,
Seems formed for jocund revelry.

Scene, formed the eye of taste to please!
There splendid domes attention seize,
There, proudly towering, spreading trees
Arise in beauteous rivalry:....

But there's a place amidst that plain
Which bids its beauties beam in vain;

Oh, it's pleasant sitting here,
Seeing all the people pass;
You beside your bock of beer,
I behind my demi-tasse.
Chatting of no matter what.
You the Mummer, I the Bard;
Oh, it's jolly, is it not? --
Sitting on the Boulevard.

More amusing than a book,
If a chap has eyes to see;
For, no matter where I look,
Stories, stories jump at me.
Moving tales my pen might write;
Poems plain on every face;
Monologues you could recite
With inimitable grace.

(Ah! Imagination's power)

Jesus! where'er Thy people meet,
There they behold Thy mercy seat;
Where'er they seek Thee, Thou art found,
And every place is hallow'd ground.

For Thou, within no walls confined,
Inhabitest the humble mind;
Such ever bring Thee where they come
And going, take Thee to their home.

Dear Shepherd of Thy chosen few!
Thy former mercies here renew;
Her to our waiting hearts proclaim
The sweetness of Thy saving name.

Here may we prove the power of prayer,