In elvish speech the Dreamer told his tale
Of marvelous oceans swept by fateful wings.-
The Seër strayed not from earth's human pale
But the mysterious face of common things

He mirrored as the moon in Rydal Mere

Is mirrored, when the breathless night hangs blue:
Strangely remote she seems and wondrous near,
And by some nameless difference born anew.

V

Peace-peace and rest! Ah, how the lyre is loth,
Or powerless now, to give what all men seek!
Either it deadens with ignoble sloth

Or deafens with shrill tumult, loudly weak.

Where is the singer whose large notes and clear
Can heal, and arm, and plenish, and sustain?
Lo, one with empty music floods the ear,

And one, the heart refreshing, tires the brain.

And idly tuneful, the loquacious throng
Flutter and twitter, prodigal of time,
And little masters make a toy of song,

Till grave men weary of the sound of rhyme.

And some go pranked in faded antique dress,
Abhorring to be hale and glad and free;
And some parade a conscious naturalness,
The scholar's not the child's simplicity.

Enough; the wisest who from words forbear
The gentle river rails not as it glides;
And suave and charitable, the winsome air
Chides not at all, or only him who chides.

VI

Nature! we storm thine ear with choric notes.

Thou answerest through the calm great nights and days,

"Laud me who will: not tuneless are your throats;

Yet if ye paused I should not miss the praise."

Wordsworth's Grave

We falter, half-rebuked, and sing again.

We chant thy desertness and haggard gloom, Or with thy splendid wrath inflate the strain, Or touch it with thy color and perfume.

One, his melodious blood aflame for thee,

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Wooed with fierce lust, his hot heart world-defiled. One, with the upward eye of infancy,

Looked in thy face, and felt himself thy child.

Thee he approached without distrust or dread—
Beheld thee throned, an awful queen, above—
Climbed to thy lap and merely laid his head
Against thy warm wild heart of mother-love.

He heard that vast heart beating-thou didst press
Thy child so close, and lov'dst him unaware.
Thy beauty gladdened him; yet he scarce less
Had loved thee, had he never found thee fair!

For thou wast not as legendary lands

To which with curious eyes and ears we roam. Nor wast thou as a fane 'mid solemn sands,

Where palmers halt at evening. Thou wast home.

And here, at home, still bides he; but he sleeps;
Not to be wakened even at thy word;

Though we, vague dreamers, dream he somewhere keeps
An ear still open to thy voice still heard,-

Thy voice, as heretofore, about him blown,
For ever blown about his silence now;

Thy voice, though deeper, yet so like his own

That almost, when he sang, we deemed 'twas thou!

VII

Behind Helm Crag and Silver Howe the sheen
Of the retreating day is less and less.
Soon will the lordlier summits, here unseen,
Gather the night about their nakedness.

The half-heard bleat of sheep comes from the hill.
Faint sounds of childish play are in the air.
The river murmurs past. All else is still.

The very graves seem stiller than they were.

Afar though nation be on nation hurled,

And life with toil and ancient pain depressed, Here one may scarce believe the whole wide world Is not at peace, and all man's heart at rest.

Rest! 'twas the gift he gave, and peace! the shade
He spread, for spirits fevered with the sun.
To him his bounties are come back-here laid
In rest, in peace, his labor nobly done.

William Watson [1858

JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN

"JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN”*

JERUSALEM the Golden!

I weary for one gleam

Of all thy glory folden

In distance and in dream!

My thoughts, like palms in exile,
Climb up to look and pray
For a glimpse of thy dear country
That lies so far away.

Jerusalem the Golden!

Methinks each flower that blows,

And every bird a-singing

Of thee, some secret knows;
I know not what the flowers
Can feel, or singers see;
But all these summer raptures
Seem prophecies of thee.

Jerusalem the Golden!

When sunset's in the west,
It seems the gate of glory,
Thou city of the blest!
And midnight's starry torches
Through intermediate gloom
Are waving with our welcome
To thy eternal home!

Jerusalem the Golden!

When loftily they sing,
O'er pain and sorrow olden

Forever triumphing;

*For the original of this poem see page 3574.

Lowly may be the portal,

And dark may be the door, The mansion is immortalGod's palace for His poor!

Jerusalem the Golden!

There all our birds that flew-
Our flowers but half unfolden,

Our pearls that turned to dew,
And all the glad life-music
Now heard no longer here,
Shall come again to greet us
As we are drawing near.

Jerusalem the Golden!

I toil on day by day;
Heart-sore each night with longing,
I stretch my hands and pray,
That mid thy leaves of healing
My soul may find her nest;

Where the wicked cease from troubling,

And the weary are at rest!

Gerald Massey [1828-1907]

THE NEW JERUSALEM

*

From "Song of Mary the Mother of Christ "

JERUSALEM, my happy home,

When shall I come to thee?

When shall my sorrows have an end?

Thy joys when shall I see?

O happy harbor of the Saints!
O sweet and pleasant soil!
In thee no sorrow may be found,
No grief, no care, no toil.

There lust and lucre cannot dwell,

There envy bears no sway; There is no hunger, heat, nor cold,

But pleasure every way.

*For the original of this poem see page 3576.