Suckle him with the she-wolf’s teat,

Wintered with the hawk and fox,

Power and speed be hands and feet.

Climacteric

I am not wiser for my age,

Nor skilful by my grief;

Life loiters at the book’s first page, –

Ah! could we turn the leaf.

Heri, Cras, Hodie

Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen,

To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between:

Future or Past no richer secret folds,

O friendless Present! than thy bosom holds.

Memory

Night-dreams trace on Memory’s wall

Shadows of the thoughts of day,

And thy fortunes, as they fall,

The bias of the will betray.

Love

Love on his errand bound to go

Can swim the flood, and wade through snow,

Where way is none, ’t will creep and wind

And eat through Alps its home to find.

Sacrifice

Though love repine, and reason chafe,

There came a voice without reply, –

‘ ’Tis man’s perdition to be safe,

When for the truth he ought to die.’

Pericles

Well and wisely said the Greek,

Be thou faithful, but not fond;

To the altar’s foot thy fellow seek,

The Furies wait beyond.

Casella

Test of the poet is knowledge of love,

For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove;

Never was poet, of late or of yore,

Who was not tremulous with love-lore.

Shakspeare

I see all human wits

Are measured but a few,

Unmeasured still my Shakspeare sits,

Lone as the blessed Jew.

Hafiz

Her passions the shy violet

From Hafiz never hides;

Love-longings of the raptured bird

The bird to him confides.

Nature in Leasts

As sings the pine-tree in the wind,

So sings in the wind a sprig of the pine;

Her strength and soul has laughing France

Shed in each drop of wine.

’AΔAKPϒN NEMONTAI AIΩNA

‘A new commandment,’ said the smiling Muse,

‘I give my darling son, Thou shalt not preach’; –

Luther, Fox, Behmen, Swedenborg, grew pale,

And, on the instant, rosier clouds upbore

Hafiz and Shakspeare with their shining choirs.

From
SELECTED POEMS (1876)

THE NUN’S ASPIRATION

The yesterday doth never smile,

To-day goes drudging through the while,

Yet in the name of Godhead, I

The morrow front, and can defy;

Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed,

Cannot withhold his conquering aid.

Ah me! it was my childhood’s thought,

If He should make my web a blot

On life’s fair picture of delight,

My heart’s content would find it right.

But O, these waves and leaves, –

When haply stoic Nature grieves, –

No human speech so beautiful

As their murmurs mine to lull.

On this altar God hath built

I lay my vanity and guilt;

Nor me can Hope or Passion urge

Hearing as now the lofty dirge

Which blasts of Northern mountains hymn,

Nature’s funeral, high and dim, –

Sable pageantry of clouds,

Mourning summer laid in shrouds.

Many a day shall dawn and die,

Many an angel wander by,

And passing, light my sunken turf

Moist perhaps by ocean surf,

Forgotten amid splendid tombs,