Thought's self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb, And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam: Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing. A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle, I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing. We spur to a land of no name, outracing the storm-wind; We leap to the infinite dark like the sparks from the anvil. Thou leadest, O God! All's well with Thy troopers that follow. Louise Imogen Guiney [1861 "I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAY " I WOULD not live alway-live alway below! Oh no, I'll not linger when bidden to go: Are enough for life's woes, full enough for its cheer: Like a spirit unblest, o'er the earth would I roam, I would not live alway: I ask not to stay "I Would Not Live Alway" 3263 I would not live alway-thus fettered by sin, I would not live alway-no, welcome the tomb, Who, who would live alway? away from his God, Where the rivers of pleasure flow o'er the bright plains, That heavenly music! what is it I hear? Oh give me, oh give me, the wings of a dove, To adore Him-be near Him-enwrapped with his love; William Augustus Muhlenberg [1796-1877] "ONE FIGHT MORE" PROSPICE FEAR death?-to feel the fog in my throat, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote The power of the night, the press of the storm, Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, For the journey is done and the summit attained, Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more, The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past. No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, Robert Browning [1812-1889] “Oh May I Join the Choir Invisible" 3265 REQUIEM UNDER the wide and starry sky And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: And the hunter home from the hill. Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-1894]. "OH MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE" Longum illud tempus, quum non ero, magis me movet, quam hoc exiguum.— Cicero, ad Att., xii. 18. OH MAY I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world, For which we struggled, failed, and agonized, And all our rarer, better, truer self, That sobbed religiously in yearning song, That watched to ease the burden of the world, And what may yet be better,—saw within To higher reverence more mixed with love,— This is life to come, Which martyred men have made more glorious Whose music is the gladness of the world. George Eliot [1819-1880] LAST LINES No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven's glories shine, And faith shines equal, arming me from fear. O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity! Life-that in me has rest, As I undying Life-have power in Thee! Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts: unutterably vain; Or idlest froth amid the boundless main, |