strength

And wilt thou, faithless one, then, leave me,
With all thy magic phantasy,--
With all the thoughts that joy or grieve me,
Wilt thou with all forever fly?
Can naught delay thine onward motion,
Thou golden time of life's young dream?
In vain! eternity's wide ocean
Ceaselessly drowns thy rolling stream.

The glorious suns my youth enchanting
Have set in never-ending night;
Those blest ideals now are wanting
That swelled my heart with mad delight.
The offspring of my dream hath perished,

Forever fair, forever calm and bright,
Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light,
For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice--
Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb,
And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom
The rosy days of Gods--With man, the choice,
Timid and anxious, hesitates between
The sense's pleasure and the soul's content;
While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen,
The beams of both are blent.

Seekest thou on earth the life of gods to share,
Safe in the realm of death?--beware

Spirit of Dreams! When many a toilsome height
Shut paradise from exiled Adam’s sight,
Two wedded powers were given thenceforth to stray
On either hand, companions of his way;
This Hope was named in heaven, whence he came,
And that of Melancholy bore the name;
Thy parents these—who clothed thee with a ray
Snatched from Perfection as she passed away,
And to their gentle child bequeathed the grace
Wherewith they once adorned unfallen nature’s face.
Queen-mother of Elysiums, and all fair

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend
Who'd showed us in the end
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.

I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,

We sent a word across the seas that said,
   "The house is finished and the doors are wide,
   Come, enter in.
A stately house it is, with tables spread,
   Where men in liberty and love abide
   With hearts akin.

"Behold, how high our hands have lifted it!
   The soil it stands upon is pure and sweet
   As are our skies.
Our title deeds in holy sweat are writ,
   Not red accusing blood -- and 'neath our feet
   No foeman lies."

And England, Mother England, leans her face

Well, as you say, we live for small horizons:
We move in crowds, we flow and talk together,
Seeing so many eyes and hands and faces,
So many mouths, and all with secret meanings,—
Yet know so little of them; only seeing
The small bright circle of our consciousness,
Beyond which lies the dark. Some few we know—
Or think we know. . . Once, on a sun-bright morning,
I walked in a certain hallway, trying to find
A certain door: I found one, tried it, opened,
And there in a spacious chamber, brightly lighted,

Our Fathers in a wondrous age,
Ere yet the Earth was small,
Ensured to us a heritage,
And doubted not at all
That we the children of their heart,
Which then did beat so high,
In later rime should play like part
For our posterity.

A thousand years they steadfast built,
To 'vantage us and ours,
The Walls that were a world's despair,
The sea-constraining Towers:
Yet in their midmost pride they knew,
And unto Kings made known,
Not all from these their strength they drew,

The tyrant Dionys to seek,
Stern Moerus with his poniard crept;
The watchful guard upon him swept;
The grim king marked his changeless cheek:
"What wouldst thou with thy poniard? Speak!"
"The city from the tyrant free!"
"The death-cross shall thy guerdon be."

"I am prepared for death, nor pray,"
Replied that haughty man, "I to live;
Enough, if thou one grace wilt give
For three brief suns the death delay
To wed my sister--leagues away;
I boast one friend whose life for mine,

The 27th Regiment has mutinied at Kalapore;
That was the substance of a telegram, which caused great uproar,
At Sattara, on the evening of the 8th of July,
And when the British officers heard it, they heaved a bitter sigh.

'Twas in the year of 1857,
Which will long be remembered: Oh! Heaven!
That the Sepoys revolted, and killed their British officers and their wives;
Besides, they killed their innocent children, not sparing one of their lives.

There was one man there who was void of fear,

Here may the band, that now in triumph shines,
And that (before they were invested thus)
In earthly bodies carried heavenly minds,
Pitched round about in order glorious,
Their sunny tents, and houses luminous,
All their eternal day in songs employing,
Joying their end, without end of their joying,
While their almighty prince destruction is destroying.

How can such joy as this want words to speak?
And yet what words can speak such joy as this?
Far from the world, that might their quiet break,