s: Were seen,--but clouds and darkness veil'd the rest.


s: Fear chill'd my heart:  to one of mortal race,


s: How awful seem'd the Genius of the place!


s: His parent-shade, and shrunk in pious awe;


s: Like him I stood, and wrapt in thought profound,


s: When from the pitying power broke forth a solemn sound:-


s: "Care lives with all; no rules, no precepts save


s: The wise from woe, no fortitude the brave;


s: Grief is to man as certain as the grave:


s: Tempests and storms in life's whole progress rise,


s: And hope shines dimly through o'erclouded skies.


s: Some drops of comfort on the favour'd fall,


s: But showers of sorrow are the lot of ALL:


s: Partial to talents, then, shall Heav'n withdraw


s: Th' afflicting rod, or break the general law?


s: Shall he who soars, inspired by loftier views,


s: Life's little cares and little pains refuse?


s: Of mortal woe, when doubly arm'd to bear?


s: "Hard is his fate who builds his peace of mind


s: Who hopes for wild and visionary things,


s: And mounts o'er unknown seas with vent'rous wings;


s: The human race, some portion goes to all;


s: To him perhaps the milder lot's assigned


s: And, lock'd within his bosom, bears about


s: E'en in the pangs of each domestic grief,


s: Or health or vigorous hope affords relief;


s: And every wound the tortured bosom feels,


s: Or virtue bears, or some preserver heals;


s: Some generous friend of ample power possess'd;


s: Some feeling heart, that bleeds for the distress'd;


s: Some breast that glows with virtues all divine;


s: Some noble RUTLAND, misery's friend and thine.


s: "Nor say, the Muse's song, the Poet's pen,


s: Merit the scorn they meet from little men.


s: With cautious freedom if the numbers flow,


s: Why so ashamed their friends, so loud their foes?


s: If all the sons of vision dealt in rhyme.


s: Go on, then, Son of Vision! still pursue


s: Thy airy dreams; the world is dreaming too.


s: Ambition's lofty views, the pomp of state,


s: The pride of wealth, the splendour of the great,


s: Stripp'd of their mask, their cares and troubles known,


s: Are visions far less happy than thy own:


s: Go on! and, while the sons of care complain,


s: While serious souls are by their fears undone,


s: Blow sportive bladders in the beamy sun,


s: And call them worlds! and bid the greatest show


s: More radiant colours in their worlds below:


s: Then, as they break, the slaves of care reprove,


s: And tell them, Such are all the toys they love."


s: {1}  Indentation and punctuation as original.


s: {2}  In ancient libraries, works of value and importance were


s: fastened to their places by a length of chain; and might so be


s: Translated from the Original Bornese into English Verse by


s: author of "The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum,"


s: with eight illustrations and cover design by


s: sentiment and philosophy they have points of superiority over the


s: Persia was brought into the proper realm of English poesy. What


s: "There's Comfort only in the Smoking Car."


s: Have done my credit in Men's eyes much wrong.''


s: "O foozied Poetasters, fogged with Wine,


s: Go bid them then, but leave to me, the Tenth


s: Whose name is Nicotine, for she is mine!''


s: "Enough! - of Kisses can there be Enough?"


s: chroniclers the quatrain (number XCVIII) -


s: "Then let the balmed Tobacco be my Sheath,


s: "Sohrab and Rustam'' being a fragment of the Persian epic.


s: He lets me have good tobacco, and he does not


s: Wrapped up in greasy leather or sour clouts;


s: But keeps it in fine lily-pots, that, opened,


s: Smell like conserve of roses or French beans.


s: Therefore, O Love, because to all Life's plans


s: And projects some promotion thou impartest,


s: Avaunt, acerbid Brat of Death, that sours


s: The Milk of Life and blasts the nascent Flowers!


s: Back to your morbid, mouldering Cairns, and let


s: What though Gorgona at the Portal knocks


s: And charms the squamiest Serpent in her Locks -


s: And there are more Perfectos in the box.


s: The craving Phoenix rises from its Fires.


s: But last Year's Pledge with this New Year expires.


s: Mark how Havana's sensuous-philtred Mead


s: Dispels the cackling Hag of Night at Need,


s: The Poppy Flowers that blossom from the Weed.


s: Come, fill the Pipe, and in the Fire of Spring


s: On Woman's Ways and all that sort of Thing.


s: While the tired Dog Watch hailed the sea-merged Star


s: I heard the Voice of Travellers from Afar


s: "There's Comfort only in the Smoking Car!"


s: The Day has broken Night's unwholesome Dish,


s: The Lark is up betimes to hail the Dawn,


s: And chase the Steeds from Morning's Hippodrome,


s: Illumes your Eyes that languored gaze and wait


s: The world-old Question: "Is my Hat On Straight?"


s: Your Locks with countless glistening Pendants glare,


s: Then as the Fountain patters to the brim


s: A hundred Hairpins tumble from your Hair.


s: What reckons Love of Hairpins more or less?


s: Guard well your Heart and let the Hairpins go -


s: To lose your Heart were arrant Carelessness.


s: Acephalous Time to febrous Lengths bestirred


s: Strips the lush Blossom and outstrips the Bird,


s: Makes sweet the Wine - I cannot say the Same


s: Where Hymen Spring is hymning to his Own -


s: See how grave Mahmud gambols on the Glebe


s: And hangs the sign TO LET upon his Throne!


s: Chromatic Catches troll from yonder Hill


s: Where Bill to Beak the Wren and Whip-poor-Will


s: In deed and truth beshrew the Beldam Life


s: Who kisses first and then presents the Bill.


s: And on her Shoulder finds a Resting Place,


s: Breathes an awed Question in her stupored Ear.


s: And lights a Sulphur Match upon her Face,


s: I leaned the Secret of my Love to learn.


s: The Answering Riddle came: "She loves you, yes,


s: In just Proportion to the Sum you Earn."


s: Swound on the Dulcimer's reverbrant Thong;


s: Begrudge the Lips that waste their Time in Song.


s: Some clamour much for kisses, some for Few,


s: Others deep sup, their Thirstings to renew,


s: In Kissing, scorn the How Much for the Who.


s: And languored lifting, fasten unto mine,


s: Their rubric Message giving Hint and Clew


s: How frequently a Kiss in Time saves Nine.


s: While back Abaft I cower, for well I wot


s: To sell its spangled Wares of Age and Youth;


s: And there have I beheld the Wordlings buy


s: Their Paris Gowns to clothe the Naked Truth.


s: Making the Error lovely with the Thought -


s: Into your Soul may truculent Daemons pass


s: But while the Rouge is mantling to your Cheek,


s: Nothing will chide you in your Looking-Glass.


s: Beholding there Ten Myriad Fragments fly,


s: The Parts dispersing with lugubrious Din -


s: Oft have I heard the Cant of flattering Friend


s: Then to the Glass I've wreathed my sad Regard -


s: Breathes the fond Attar-musk up to the Sky,


s: Spreading her silken Blushes - does she know


s: That I have come to smell and not to Buy?


s: And hoard the soft Allurements that entice;


s: For One will come who holds the Golden Means


s: To buy your Blushes at the Standard Price.


s: Down to the Deeps of Sheol, anguish-torn,


s: What shallow Guerdon of terrestrial Strife,


s: For him who quits this Donjon Keep of Life,


s: And heard again the bodeful Adage spoke:


s: You know not what's Inside them till they're Broke.


s: Creation stands between the Won't and Will,


s: Yes, and that Doubt Infinitude might fill -


s: It took nine Tailors once to make a Man;


s: It took nine more to make him pay the Bill.


s: The Thunderbolts of Heaven's potent Sway


s: The Please Remit confronts the Cannot Pay.


s: And true as Star and Star pursue their Course


s: How many a Marriage License that is writ


s: 'Twas by much Gossip of the Fashions rent.


s: Speaking of Things a Woman ought to know.


s: "Better than Years with Ibsen spent," I said,


s: And that same Bard who strews rhythmatic Daisies


s: And many a Female Heart discreetly crazes,


s: Seek him not out, fair Maid, for oftentimes


s: His Head is vastly Balder than his Phrases.


s: rather write than read a Book like that.


s: Of errant Thought and Fancy's Lantern feed;


s: That sends you into Slumber when you read.


s: And better still than these gorglorious Things


s: The Briar's gracious Narcotine that clings


s: And Turkey for the transient Cigarette -


s: And when I Must I browse on Cigarettes -


s: Then, as you love me, take the Stubs away!


s: Waste not your Weed, the Leaves are all too few


s: For Cattle-Kings and Stevedores to chew.


s: While Israfel loud chanted from the Void,


s: And from its Bowl narcotic Joys beguile,


s: Suck Lethe from its Stem - what though I trace


s: A certain greenish Pallour in your Smile?


s: Strange is it not that, oft her Dolour cloaking


s: In hurried Puffs with Nonchalance provoking,


s: "How to be Happy Even Though You're Smoking?"


s: Look not so wild, the Fit will pass away -


s: found That waxes Strong and Stronger day by day.


s: Come, rest your Head if Earth rotative seems


s: And close your Lids from these o'er wakeful Gleams -


s: Although your Palate cringe you shall not shrink


s: Murkly I muse on that transcendent State


s: Where all my Pasts within the Future wait -


s: Minnie and Maud across my Flight will wing,


s: Birdie and Bess and Gwendolyn will bring


s: A Score of Other Pasts and make a Scene,


s: Some I have known are jabbering in Hell,


s: Others have passed in Heaven's Reward to dwell;


s: So, when my Soul has flitted, must I find


s: The same bland Bores, the same old Tales to tell.


s: There is the Thought beneath whose vampire Tooth


s: The Soul outshrieks at such unseemly Sooth:


s: The Solemn Bore still waits beyond the Grave -


s: Ah, let me stay and taste undying Youth!


s: Into some secret, migrant Realm without,


s: By the dun Cloak of Darkness wrapped about,


s: Or by ringed Saturn's Swirl thou may'st be hid


s: In vain: be sure the Bore will find you out.


s: Were't not a shame, were't not a shame I say,


s: To keep Mosquitoes, Death and Bores away?


s: Beneath the glacial Crag or fronded Stalk,


s: But still the Spectre gibbers in my Ears


s: The Noun and Verb he scatters without End


s: And Adjectives to Pronouns Horror lend -


s: Ah, fumid Pipe, I thank you hour by hour


s: That you have never learned to talk, my Friend!


s: Better the pleasaunce-breathing Pipe for me


s: Where Birds of aureate Plumage preen their Quills


s: And we that now make Madness in the Room


s: Where last week's Lion had his little Boom


s: Ourselves must go and leave that flattering Din


s: And let them brew another Tea - for whom?


s: The Court where Johnson jested and drank deep;


s: And sell their Reputations passing cheap.


s: Go bid them, then, but leave to me the Tenth,


s: Whose name is Nicotine, for she is mine!


s: Whose spiral-twisted Coils Discretion spell!


s: How many Take - and yet he will not Tell.


s: "Oh, how can you respect me after This?"


s: But at the Third Kiss all she asked or wist


s: But One there is more sage in that Caress,


s: Her Lips no Questions ask - Content is hers


s: Nor recks of those Romances Heretofore -


s: Engagements where I won my Brazen Spurs.


s: What, then, of Him in dizzy Heights profound


s: Who scans the Zenith's constellated Round?


s: Too often runs his Trade into the Ground.


s: A Solon ponders till his Years are great


s: Then in his Age he leaves the Questions to


s: And in his starry Shroud the Poet starves


s: Forgive, ye Wise, the Oaf who nothing knows


s: And glories in the Bubbles that he blows,


s: And while you wrestle blindly with the World,


s: He whistles on his Fingers and his Toes.


s: What good to dread the Storm's impending Black


s: Can never bring your lost Umbrella back.


s: So what of Secrets mouthed beneath the Rose,


s: Knows all you do and say - she knows - she knows!


s: She knows, but though her cavernous Ears are sage,


s: Nought can she fathom of one glyphic Page,


s: Nought from a Woman's Record can she tell -


s: Time only knows, whose spinning Axes quake


s: The astral Turrets where the Patient wake


s: To count the Stars and Planets as they pass -


s: To keep me in a wholesome State of Fear.


s: From shrewd empiric Paths where Knowledge lies;


s: Throw Truth to the Unlovely, when to you


s: Oh, like the Smoke that rises and is gone,


s: Let your own Spirit lift from Dawn to Dawn


s: Even the Grave will quite forget to yawn!


s: Some were whose Scent exhaled the Asphodel,


s: And some whose Smoke gave forth a roseate Smell,


s: And some poor Weeds that told you at a Whiff


s: How they were made to Give Away, not Sell.


s: The Edict that foredestined me to Smoke,


s: A Second murmured, "Surely we might learn


s: But wished Another Like It might return."


s: "The One who puffs my Wrappings to the End


s: A high-born Mouth whose Teeth are filled with Gold."


s: "If for a Martyr's Death I so am prized,


s: "Well," murmured One, "when in my ashen Shroud


s: My Stump descends to meet the shrieking Crowd,


s: There stands no Placard, 'Smoking Not Allowed.'"


s: And while this corvine Clatter still endured


s: A lambent Flame, by fragrant Promise lured,


s: Crept in, as all the Inmates cried amain,


s: "The Shop's afire and we are Uninsured!"


s: The Shepherd pipes his sundered Flocks to Fold,


s: Your Garments quail and ripple in the Chill,


s: Your pagan Nose empurples with the Cold.


s: The How is swiftly mingling with the When,


s: The What describes its Orbit's round, and then


s: Of Why or Which nor Mite nor Mote delays


s: Where Arc on Arc the trainèd Planets swirl -


s: For him who walks the Gloaming with his Girl.


s: The Keeper of the Sky has hasped his Doors,


s: And drunk with Night's Elixir, prone he lies


s: In Warp of dreamless Sleep - and Woof of Snores.


s: When, all my intermittent Joyaunce through,


s: Each Thrill must be a Threnod, as I know


s: That They Who Kiss can teach me nothing New.


s: I swore, but Was I Smoking when I swore?


s: And sealed the holy Pledge - with One Puff More.


s: O Thou who sought our Fathers to enslave


s: And ev'n the Pipe to Walter Raleigh gave,


s: I love you still for your Redeeming Vice


s: And shower Tobacco Leaves upon your Grave!


s: Then let the balmed Tobacco be my Sheath,


s: Towards the Light, where in her opal Shrine


s: Smiles Hopefulness, the great Reward of Hope.


s: Let those who to this daedal Valley throng


s: Let them be glad with this consoling Thought:


s: At that poor House where once I rent my locks,


s: II - Such words as "tobacchanalian" (compounded from tobacco and


s: bacchanalian) Lewis Carrol claimed as his own under the title of


s: recitations and readings from his father's works.


s: Nay, they increase as the moon doth ever."


s: LXXXV - Anodyne; some translations have this Iodine.


s: resemble me, but when, misled by that appearance, I have thought


s: to appeal to something in common, and unburthen my inmost soul to


s: to a greater distance have the points of sympathy been withdrawn.


s: find within our own thoughts the chasm of an insufficient void,


s: born anew within another's; if we feel, we would that another's


s: nerves should vibrate to our own, that the beams of their eyes


s: should kindle at once and mix and melt into our own, that lips of


s: within us which, from the instant that we live, more and more


s: thirsts after its likeness. It is probably in correspondence with


s: are ineffectual and metaphorical. Most words are so--No help!] a


s: paradise, which pain, and sorrow, and evil dare not overleap. To


s: this we eagerly refer all sensations, thirsting that they should


s: and delicate peculiarities which we have delighted to cherish and


s: is the invisible and unattainable point to which Love tends; and


s: to attain which, it urges forth the powers of man to arrest the


s: faintest shadow of that, without the possession of which there


s: is no rest nor respite to the heart over which it rules. Hence in


s: singing to you alone. Sterne says that, if he were in a desert,


s: What are changes of empires, the wreck of dynasties, with the


s: miracle, we admire not, because it is so miraculous. It is well


s: that we are thus shielded by the familiarity of what is at once


s: so certain and so unfathomable, from an astonishment which would


s: otherwise absorb and overawe the functions of that which is its


s: and the rivers; the grass, and the flowers, and the variety of


s: the forms and masses of the leaves of the woods, and the colours


s: which attend the setting and the rising sun, and the hues of the


s: atmosphere, turbid or serene, these things not before existing,


s: The most refined abstractions of logic conduct to a view of life,


s: in us. It strips, as it were, the painted curtain from this scene


s: universe of external things is 'such stuff as dreams are made


s: of.' The shocking absurdities of the popular philosophy of mind


s: and matter, its fatal consequences in morals, and their violent


s: imagining to himself annihilation; existing but in the future and


s: It is absurd to enter into a long recapitulation of arguments


s: found in Sir William Drummond's Academical Questions.


s: process of reasoning, which does not conduct inevitably to the


s: What follows from the admission? It establishes no new truth, it


s: reformer in political and ethical questions to leave, a vacancy.


s: It reduces the mind to that freedom in which it would have acted,


s: Let us recollect our sensations as children. What a distinct and


s: are now no longer so. But that is not the point of comparison on


s: which I mean to insist. We less habitually distinguished all that


s: or as if the surrounding universe were absorbed into their being.


s: precede, or accompany, or follow an unusually intense and vivid


s: apprehension of life. As men grow up this power commonly decays,


s: and they become mechanical and habitual agents. Thus feelings and


s: The view of life presented by the most refined deductions of the


s: intellectual philosophy, is that of unity. Nothing exists but as


s: reasoning, the existence of distinct individual minds, similar to


s: them. It is difficult to find terms adequate to express so subtle


s: The relations of these remain unchanged; and such is the material


s: produced, or what agencies distinct from life have acted or act


s: has been,--Religion. Yet, that the basis of all things cannot be,


s: perceive. It is said also to be the cause. But cause is only a


s: word expressing a certain state of the human mind with regard to


s: the manner in which two thoughts are apprehended to be related to


s: popular philosophy employs itself upon this great question, they


s: need only impartially reflect upon the manner in which thoughts


s: It has been the persuasion of an immense majority of human beings


s: particle of these sustaining the smallest diminution. They have


s: clung to the idea that sensibility and thought, which they have


s: distinguished from the objects of it, under the several names


s: of spirit and matter, is, in its own nature, less susceptible of


s: division and decay, and that, when the body is resolved into its


s: elements, the principle which animated it will remain perpetual


s: watchfully establish a discrimination between words and thoughts.


s: light we derive from a sustained and comprehensive view of its


s: component parts, which may enable, us to assert, with certainty,


s: The examination of this subject requires that it should be stript


s: It has been asserted, indeed, that as goodness and justice are to


s: make every sensitive being who does not deserve punishment, happy


s: same time, that the animating power survives the body which it


s: has animated, by laws as independent of any supernatural agent as


s: By the word death, we express that condition in which natures


s: resembling ourselves apparently cease to be that which they were.


s: sensations and apprehensions, we no longer participate in them.


s: of inexhaustible melancholy, whose shadow eclipses the brightness


s: he cannot meet again. The organs of sense are destroyed, and the


s: heaps of putrid clay and crumbling bones hold together? When you


s: can discover where the fresh colours of the faded flower abide,


s: or the music of the broken lyre, seek life among the dead. Such


s: The natural philosopher, in addition to the sensations common


s: to all men inspired by the event of death, believes that he sees


s: with more certainty that it is attended with the annihilation of


s: sentiment and thought. He observes the mental powers increase and


s: drunkenness and disease will either temporarily or permanently


s: are convincing evidences that so soon as the organs of the body


s: are subjected to the laws of inanimate matter, sensation, and


s: perception, and apprehension, are at an end.  It is probable that


s: of which the rest of the universe is composed, and which ceases


s: to exist so soon as those parts change their position with regard


s: substance, which permeates, and is the cause of, the animation of


s: differ from all others. Each of these is subject to change and


s: to decay, and to conversion into other forms. Yet the difference


s: substances be an argument for the prolongation of the existence


s: of one and not the other, when the existence of both has arrived


s: at their apparent termination? To say that fire exists without


s: manifesting any of the properties of fire, such as light, heat,


s: etc., or that the principle of life exists without consciousness,


s: distortion of language, the affirmative of the dispute. To say


s: false, but which, were it true, annihilates all hope of existence


s: hopes and fears of men. Suppose, however, that the intellectual


s: period, beyond which we have no experience of its existence, such


s: Have we existed before birth? It is difficult to conceive the


s: is, the relations between certain elementary particles of matter


s: undergo a change, and submit to new combinations. For when we use


s: to allege the possibility of an opinion as a proof of its truth.


s: Does it see, hear, feel, before its combination with those organs


s: without those ideas which sensation alone can communicate? If we


s: have not existed before birth; if, at the period when the parts


s: of our nature on which thought and life depend, seem to be woven


s: together; if there are no reasons to suppose that we have existed


s: then there are no grounds for supposition that we shall continue


s: to exist after our existence has apparently ceased.  So far as


s: It is said that it, is possible that we should continue to exist


s: desire to be persuaded. This desire to be for ever as we are; the


s: The first law which it becomes a Reformer to propose and support,


s: It is sufficiently clear that revenge, retaliation, atonement,


s: Omitting these remoter considerations, let us inquire what, DEATH


s: to think and feel after the dissolution of the body, has been the


s: of what I may be permitted to term the modern Academy, by showing


s: causes and nature of sensation, renders probable the affirmative


s: of a proposition, the negative of which it is so difficult to


s: conceive, and the popular arguments against which, derived from


s: essence which is the medium and receptacle of objects.


s: The popular system of religion suggests the idea that the mind,


s: is a certain analogy, not wholly absurd, between the consequences


s: consequences which are conjectured to ensue from the discipline


s: and order of his internal thoughts, as affecting his condition in


s: together with the multitude of independent agencies which affect


s: the opinions, the conduct, and the happiness of individuals, and


s: produce determinations of the will, and modify the judgement, so


s: as to produce effects the most opposite in natures considerably


s: similar. These are those operations in the order of the whole of


s: nature, tending, we are prone to believe, to some definite mighty


s: To compel a person to know all that can be known by the dead


s: concerning that which the living fear, hope, or forget; to plunge


s: and evil with which Nature seems to have clothed every form of


s: individual existence, is to inflict on him the doom of death.


s: Firstly, Persons of energetic character, in whom, as in men who


s: of suffering virtue, as the warning of a culprit. The multitude,


s: to be the authors of such flattering emotions, as they experience


s: they make no distinctive between the motives which incited the


s: case lose their sympathy, which it ought to be their chief object


s: strength in maintaining those sanctions by which the parts of the


s: possible, the ends for which it is instituted.


s: Secondly,--Persons of energetic character, in communities not


s: modelled with philosophical skill to turn all the energies which


s: conviction. But the coarseness of organization, peculiar to men


s: capable of committing acts wholly selfish, is usually found to


s: be associated with a proportionate insensibility to fear or pain.


s: crime. In cases of murder or mutilation, this feeling is almost


s: universal. In those, therefore, whom this exhibition does not


s: awaken to the sympathy which extenuates crime and discredits the


s: law which restrains it, it produces feelings more directly at war


s: with that of the death and torture of others. It is manifest that


s: feeling, engrafted upon superstition and confirmed by habit, at


s: last loses sight of the only object for which it may be supposed


s: to have been implanted, and becomes a passion and a duty to be


s: pursued and fulfilled, even to the destruction of those ends to


s: liability of irremediable actions is attached, according to the


s: an enemy, are the sources from which the enormous superstitions


s: implied in the words cited have arisen.]


s: Nothing is more clear than that the infliction of punishment in


s: general, in a degree which the reformation and the restraint of


s: those who transgress the laws does not render indispensable, and


s: Governments which derive their institutions from the existence of


s: The spectators who feel no abhorrence at a public execution, but


s: rather a self-applauding superiority, and a sense of gratified


s: It is an axiom in mental philosophy, that we can think of nothing


s: remember nothing, we can foresee nothing.  The most astonishing


s: combinations of poetry, the subtlest deductions of logic and


s: mathematics, are no other than combinations which the intellect


s: call a cause does to what we call effect, were never subjects of


s: sensation, and yet the laws of mind almost universally suggest,


s: according to the various disposition of each, a conjecture,


s: a persuasion, or a conviction of their existence. The reply is


s: simple; these thoughts are also to be included in the catalogue


s: of existence; they are modes in which thoughts are combined; the


s: Thoughts, or ideas, or notions, call them what you will, differ


s: from each other, not in kind, but in force. It has commonly been


s: supposed that those distinct thoughts which affect a number of


s: persons, at regular intervals, during the passage of a multitude


s: of other thoughts, which are called REAL or EXTERNAL OBJECTS,


s: are totally different in kind from those which affect only a few


s: persons, and which recur at irregular intervals, and are usually


s: life; and if nothing more were expressed by the distinction, the


s: philosopher might safely accommodate his language to that of the


s: vulgar. But they pretend to assert an essential difference, which


s: of their disagreement consists in the variety and irregularity of


s: altogether distinct. By considering all knowledge as bounded by


s: in this comprehensive and synthetical view, exclude the subtlest


s: analysis of its modifications and parts.


s: A scale might be formed, graduated according to the degrees


s: of a combined ratio of intensity, duration, connexion, periods of


s: nicely shadowed distinctions would be observed, from the faintest


s: We are intuitively conscious of our own existence, and of that


s: connexion in the train of our successive ideas, which we term our


s: possible ideas; the law, according to which these deductions are


s: drawn, is called analogy; and this is the foundation of all our


s: inferences, from one idea to another, inasmuch as they resemble


s: We see trees, houses, fields, living beings in our own shape, and


s: considered relatively to human identity, for the existence of the


s: We do not attend sufficiently to what passes within ourselves. We


s: assume entire opinions; and in the expression of those opinions,


s: entire phrases, when we would philosophize. Our whole style of


s: in sciences regarding external objects. As in these, let us also,


s: authorities upon which any assertions regarding it are supported.


s: Metaphysics may be defined as an inquiry concerning those things


s: belonging to, or connected with, the internal nature of man.


s: It is said that mind produces motion; and it might as well have


s: with difficulty visit the intricate and winding chambers which it


s: some haunted pile, and dares not look behind. The caverns of the


s: possible to be where we have been, vitally and indeed--if, at the


s: experience,--if the passage from sensation to reflection--from a


s: state of passive perception to voluntary contemplation, were not


s: Most of the errors of philosophers have arisen from considering


s: the human being in a point of view too detailed and circumscribed


s: ought to consider the mind of man and the universe as the great


s: whole on which to exercise our speculations. Here, above all,


s: verbal disputes ought to be laid aside, though this has long been


s: peculiar to their individual nature, a sufficiently general


s: it resembles, or differs from, that of others, I am by no means


s: I omit the general instances of delusion in fever or delirium, as


s: over. What is the connexion of sleeping and of waking?


s: intervals of two or more years, the same precise dream.  It was


s: not so much what is ordinarily called a dream; the single image,


s: unconnected with all other images, of a youth who was educated at


s: youth, without the three places where I dreamed of him presenting


s: connexion of which with the obscure parts of my own nature, I


s: have been irresistibly impressed. I have beheld a scene which has


s: has haunted my thoughts, at intervals, with the pertinacity of an


s: But the most remarkable event of this nature, which ever occurred


s: a friend, in the neighbourhood of that city, engaged in earnest


s: and interesting conversation. We suddenly turned the corner of a


s: in one among many plashy meadows, inclosed with stone walls; the


s: That great science which regards nature and the operations of


s: the human mind, is popularly divided into Morals and Metaphysics.


s: of distinct names to its ideas; the former regards simply the


s: all pleasure, since it cannot be equally felt by all sensitive


s: purpose, metaphysical science will be treated merely so far as a


s: source of negative truth; whilst morality will be considered as a


s: is incumbent on us to inquire, before we can arrive at any firm


s: conclusions as to the conduct which we ought to pursue in the


s: thoughts, from which these actions flow, are originally combined.


s: This object is not merely the quantity of happiness enjoyed by


s: individuals as sensitive beings, but the mode in which it should


s: be distributed among them as social beings. It is not enough, if


s: such a coincidence can be conceived as possible, that one person


s: or class of persons should enjoy the highest happiness, whilst


s: another is suffering a disproportionate degree of misery. It is


s: necessary that the happiness produced by the common efforts, and


s: preserved by the common care, should be distributed according to


s: the just claims of each individual; if not, although the quantity


s: The disposition in an individual to promote this object is called


s: Justice and benevolence result from the elementary laws of the


s: The regulation of this influence is the object of moral science.


s: instrumental to that purpose, is called virtue. And benevolence,


s: or the desire to be the author of good, united with justice, or


s: an apprehension of the manner in which that good is to be done,


s: But wherefore should a man be benevolent and just? The immediate


s: It is inquired, for what reason a human being should engage


s: in procuring the happiness, or refrain from producing the pain of


s: requires proof of that system of conduct being such as will most


s: be no obligation without an obliger. Virtue is a law, to which it


s: In fact, no person can be BOUND or OBLIGED, without some power


s: preceding to bind and oblige. If I observe a man bound hand and


s: It remains to be stated in what manner the sensations which


s: constitute the basis of virtue originate in the human mind; what


s: are the laws which it receives there; how far the principles of


s: mind allow it to be an attribute of a human being; and, lastly,


s: what is the probability of persuading mankind to adopt it as a


s: universal and systematic motive of conduct.


s: old, has a very imperfect consciousness of the existence of other


s: emotion, its nurse or its mother suffering acute pain, it is


s: attributable rather to ignorance than insensibility. So soon as


s: acquires an active power, the empire of these tendencies becomes


s: The inhabitant of a highly civilized community will more acutely


s: sympathize with the sufferings and enjoyments of others, than


s: the inhabitant of a society of a less degree of civilization. He


s: who shall have cultivated his intellectual powers by familiarity


s: with the highest specimens of poetry and philosophy, will usually


s: of manual labour. Every one has experience of the fact, that to


s: The mind thus acquires, by exercise, a habit, as it were, of


s: perceiving and abhorring evil, however remote from the immediate


s: objects, is that faculty of human nature on which every gradation


s: have blunted or rendered torpid; disinterested benevolence is the


s: or stability to the social state of man. Virtue is thus entirely


s: a refinement of civilized life; a creation of the human mind; or,


s: rules contained within itself, of the feelings suggested by the


s: relations established between man and man.


s: to Carthage, and Epicharis sustained the rack silently, in the


s: torments of which she knew that she would speedily perish, rather


s: received, does not enter into the account. Let it not be objected


s: The benevolent propensities are thus inherent in the human mind.


s: We are impelled to seek the happiness of others. We experience


s: a satisfaction in being the authors of that happiness. Everything


s: led by our benevolent propensities to regard every human being


s: indifferently with whom we come in contact. They have preference


s: only with respect to those who offer themselves most obviously


s: to our notice. Human beings are indiscriminating and blind; they


s: will avoid inflicting pain, though that pain should be attended


s: with eventual benefit; they will seek to confer pleasure without


s: calculating the mischief that may result. They benefit one at the


s: There is a sentiment in the human mind that regulates benevolence


s: to distribute any means of pleasure which benevolence may suggest


s: beings; pleasure and pain affect them alike.


s: of religious error, which it seems useful to refute.


s: First, it is inquired, 'Wherefore should a man be benevolent and


s: just?' The answer has been given in the preceding chapter.


s: The writer of a philosophical treatise may, I imagine, at this


s: under the name of religions, have in various ages and countries


s: prevailed among mankind. Besides that if, as these reasoners have


s: the greatness of the personal calamity which the author willingly


s: My neighbour, presuming on his strength, may direct me to perform


s: My action, if modified by his menaces, can no degree participate


s: in virtue. He has afforded me no criterion as to what is right or


s: affixing any penalty to any particular action, but that is not


s: immoral because such penalty is affixed. Nothing is more evident


s: than that the epithet of virtue is inapplicable to the refraining


s: consequences attached to its performance.


s: Some usurper of supernatural energy might subdue the whole globe


s: to his power; he might possess new and unheard-of resources for


s: and protracted to an infinite duration. Still the 'will of the


s: lawgiver' would afford no surer criterion as to what actions were


s: The internal influence, derived from the constitution of the mind


s: To attain an apprehension of the importance of this distinction,


s: let us visit, in imagination, the proceedings of some metropolis.


s: of government and law are regularly employed in their offices and


s: are classed under the general appellation of marriage, education,


s: which we have been contemplating, has a peculiar frame of mind,


s: a vital influence on the happiness of others and his own, so much


s: Those little, nameless, unremembered acts


s: as well as those deadly outrages which are inflicted by a look,


s: a word--or less--the very refraining from some faint and most


s: been already said, derives its origin from without. These are the


s: appreciating the general effects of their peculiarities, and in


s: cultivating the habit of acquiring decisive knowledge respecting


s: the tendencies arising out of them in particular cases, that the


s: most important part of moral science consists. The deepest abyss


s: of these vast and multitudinous caverns, it is necessary that we


s: legislature created by the general representation of the past


s: feelings of mankind--imperfect as it is from a variety of causes,


s: his opinion, which he often hopes he has dispassionately secured


s: from all contagion of prejudice and vulgarity, would be found, on


s: from which he vehemently dissents. Internally all is conducted


s: otherwise; the efficiency, the essence, the vitality of actions,


s: derives its colour from what is no ways contributed to from any


s: cankered, or distorted, or inflated, yet retains those qualities


s: which essentially divide it from all others; so that hemlock


s: continues to be poison, and the violet does not cease to emit its


s: We consider our own nature too superficially. We look on all that


s: The period which intervened between the birth of Pericles and the


s: the subsequent destinies of civilized man, the most memorable in


s: the history of the world. What was the combination of moral and


s: political circumstances which produced so unparalleled a progress


s: retrograde,--are problems left to the wonder and conjecture of


s: posterity. The wrecks and fragments of those subtle and profound


s: such as we, in our presumption, assume to be the models of ideal


s: truth and beauty, and to which no artist of modern times can


s: which it is said to have produced, whether they be attributed to


s: our own times; and if, indeed, the melody of their compositions


s: have been something wonderful, and wholly beyond conception.


s: Their poetry seems to maintain a very high, though not so


s: fragments of the Greek lyric poets equivalent to the sublime and


s: chivalric sensibility of Petrarch.--But, as a poet. Homer must be


s: could tempt any one to embark in the misty ocean of his dark and


s: their poetry to that of any other period! So that had any other


s: In physical knowledge Aristotle and Theophrastus had already--no


s: doubt assisted by the labours of those of their predecessor whom


s: they criticize--made advances worthy of the maturity of science.


s: The astonishing invention of geometry, that series of discoveries


s: doctrines of those great men, in comparison with the timid maxims


s: Their political and religious institutions are more difficult to


s: bring into comparison with those of other times. A summary idea


s: may be formed of the worth of any political and religious system,


s: The modern nations of the civilized world owe the progress which


s: they have made--as well in those physical sciences in which they


s: the latter, it can scarcely be said that they have yet equalled


s: so to speak, the rivers flowing from those immortal fountains.


s: And though there seems to be a principle in the modern world,


s: which, should circumstances analogous to those which modelled


s: the intellectual resources of the age to which we refer, into so


s: harmonious a proportion, again arise, would arrest and perpetuate


s: lasting improvement of the condition of man--though justice and


s: and poets; it is the history of men, compared with the history of


s: dared to show them precisely as they were. Barthelemi cannot


s: be denied the praise of industry and system; but he never forgets


s: Greeks precisely as they were; they seem all written for children


s: the absolute and unconditional equality of all human beings, or


s: from the institutions of chivalry, or from a certain fundamental


s: difference of physical nature existing in the Celts, or from a


s: moral, political, and metaphysical science, and perhaps in every


s: The women, thus degraded, became such as it was expected they


s: extremely beautiful; at least there was no such disproportion in


s: the attractions of the external form between the female and male


s: sex among the Greeks, as exists among the modern Europeans. They


s: were certainly devoid of that moral and intellectual loveliness


s: with which the acquisition of knowledge and the cultivation of


s: sentiment animates, as with another life of overpowering grace,


s: the lineaments and the gestures of every form which they inhabit.


s: Let it not be imagined that because the Greeks were deprived of


s: resembles it; and instinctively fills up the interstices of the


s: imperfect image, in the same manner as the imagination moulds and


s: senses is no longer all that is sought in sexual connexion. It


s: soon becomes a very small part of that profound and complicated


s: nature receives from civilization, for man never ceases to be a


s: social being. The sexual impulse, which is only one, and often a


s: small part of those claims, serves, from its obvious and external


s: derives a strength not its own from the accessory circumstances


s: other causes. In the susceptibility of the external senses there


s: society of man present us with slow improvement in this respect.


s: The Roman women held a higher consideration in society, and were


s: esteemed almost as the equal partners with their husbands in the


s: The dialogue entitled The Banquet was selected by the translator


s: as the most beautiful and perfect among all the works of Plato.


s: of speculation, is, indeed, the greatest repository of important


s: truths of all the works of Plato. This, perhaps, is because it is


s: such rulers, and the laws by which such a selection is made, must


s: Plato is eminently the greatest among the Greek philosophers, and


s: proceeded those emanations of moral and metaphysical knowledge,


s: on which a long series and an incalculable variety of popular


s: a man. Lord Bacon is, perhaps, the only writer, who, in these


s: it is this faculty which raises him far above Aristotle, whose


s: genius, though vivid and various, is obscure in comparison with


s: The dialogue entitled the Banquet, is called [word in Greek], or


s: poet, on the occasion of his gaining the prize of tragedy at the


s: years after it had taken place, to a companion who was curious to


s: he is represented in this piece, as well as from a passage in the


s: According to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental


s: in Greek], or the principle of synthesis, and has for its objects


s: the similitudes of things.  Reason is to the imagination as the


s: instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow


s: Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be 'the expression


s: ever-changing melody. But there is a principle within the human


s: by an internal adjustment of the sounds or motions thus excited


s: to the impressions which excite them. It is as if the lyre could


s: accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them,


s: accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre. A child at play


s: by itself will express its delight by its voice and motions; and


s: awakened it; it will be the reflected image of that impression;


s: and as the lyre trembles and sounds after the wind has died away,


s: duration of the effect, to prolong also a consciousness of the


s: cause. In relation to the objects which delight a child, these


s: treasure of expressions; and language, gesture, and the imitative


s: harmony. The social sympathies, or those laws from which, as from


s: the moment that two human beings coexist; the future is contained


s: will of a social being is determined to action, inasmuch as he is


s: subject to the laws of that from which it proceeds. But let us


s: dismiss those more general considerations which might involve an


s: inquiry into the principles of society itself, and restrict our


s: view to the manner in which the imagination is expressed upon its


s: In the youth of the world, men dance and sing and imitate natural


s: rhythm or order. And, although all men observe a similar, they


s: observe not the same order, in the motions of the dance, in the


s: order or rhythm belonging to each of these classes of mimetic


s: representation, from which the hearer and the spectator receive


s: an intenser and purer pleasure than from any other: the sense


s: of an approximation to this order has been called taste by modern


s: express the influence of society or nature upon their own minds,


s: perpetuates their apprehension, until the words which represent


s: them as the storehouse of axioms common to all knowledge. In the


s: infancy of society every author is necessarily a poet, because


s: language itself is poetry; and to be a poet is to apprehend the


s: true and the beautiful, in a word, the good which exists in the


s: relation, subsisting, first between existence and perception, and


s: But poets, or those who imagine and express this indestructible


s: order, are not only the authors of language and of music, of the


s: dance, and architecture, and statuary, and painting; they are the


s: inventors of the arts of life, and the teachers, who draw into a


s: certain propinquity with the beautiful and the true, that partial


s: called religion. Hence all original religions are allegorical, or


s: the present, and his thoughts are the germs of the flower and the


s: in the eternal, the infinite, and the one; as far as relates to


s: Language, colour, form, and religious and civil habits of action,


s: actions and passions of our internal being, and is susceptible


s: of more various and delicate combinations, than colour, form, or


s: motion, and is more plastic and obedient to the control of that


s: faculty of which it is the creation. For language is arbitrarily


s: produced by the imagination and has relation to thoughts alone;


s: but all other materials, instruments and conditions of art, have


s: relations among each other, which limit and interpose between


s: and musicians, although the intrinsic powers of the great masters


s: two performers of equal skill will produce unequal effects from a


s: gross opinions of the vulgar usually conciliates, together with


s: that which belonged to them in their higher character of poets,


s: still narrower, and to determine the distinction between measured


s: verse is inadmissible in accurate philosophy.


s: Sounds as well as thoughts have relation both between each other


s: An observation of the regular mode of the recurrence of harmony


s: in the language of poetical minds, together with its relation to


s: composition as includes much action: but every great poet must


s: inevitably innovate upon the example of his predecessors in the


s: exact structure of his peculiar versification. The distinction


s: to conceive. He rejected the measure of the epic, dramatic, and


s: lyrical forms, because he sought to kindle a harmony in thoughts


s: varied pauses of his style. Cicero sought to imitate the cadence


s: of his periods, but with little success. Lord Bacon was a poet.


s: of his philosophy satisfies the intellect; it is a strain which


s: distends, and then bursts the circumference of the reader's mind,


s: nor even as their words unveil the permanent analogy of things


s: by images which participate in the life of truth; but as their


s: periods are harmonious and rhythmical, and contain in themselves


s: A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth.


s: There is this difference between a story and a poem, that a story


s: nature, as existing in the mind of the Creator, which is itself


s: the moths of just history; they eat out the poetry of it. A story


s: thought. And thus all the great historians, Herodotus, Plutarch,


s: its highest degree, they made copious and ample amends for their


s: subjection, by filling all the interstices of their subjects with


s: Poetry is ever accompanied with pleasure: all spirits on which it


s: of his peers: it must be impanelled by Time from the selectest of


s: musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not


s: system which is the column upon which all succeeding civilization


s: human character; nor can we doubt that those who read his verses


s: persevering devotion to an object, were unveiled to the depths in


s: or less specious, has deified its peculiar errors; Revenge is the


s: which cover without concealing the eternal proportions of their


s: beauty. An epic or dramatic personage is understood to wear them


s: concealed by its accidental vesture, but that the spirit of its


s: form shall communicate itself to the very disguise, and indicate


s: have chosen to exhibit the beauty of their conceptions in its


s: naked truth and splendour; and it is doubtful whether the alloy


s: of costume, habit, &c., be not necessary to temper this planetary


s: The whole objection, however, of the immorality of poetry rests


s: and subjugate one another. But poetry acts in another and diviner


s: contemplated them as memorials of that gentle and exalted content


s: pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great


s: strengthens the faculty which is the organ of the moral nature


s: of man, in the same manner as exercise strengthens a limb. A poet


s: moral aim, and the effect of their poetry is diminished in exact


s: Homer and the cyclic poets were followed at a certain interval


s: by the dramatic and lyrical poets of Athens, who flourished


s: contemporaneously with all that is most perfect in the kindred


s: that will less repugnant to the dictates of the beautiful and the


s: which has rendered this epoch memorable above all others, and the


s: those few great specimens of the Athenian drama which have been


s: preserved to us, it is indisputable that the art itself never was


s: as at Athens. For the Athenians employed language, action, music,


s: of the poet's conception are employed at once. We have tragedy


s: without religion and solemnity. Religious institution has indeed


s: been usually banished from the stage. Our system of divesting the


s: and unchanging expression, is favourable only to a partial and


s: inharmonious effect; it is fit for nothing but a monologue, where


s: mimicry. The modern practice of blending comedy with tragedy,


s: though liable to great abuse in point of practice, is undoubtedly


s: as in KING LEAR, universal, ideal, and sublime. It is perhaps the


s: latter, should be considered as restoring the equilibrium. KING


s: LEAR, if it can sustain this comparison, may be judged to be the


s: most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the world;


s: in spite of the narrow conditions to which the poet was subjected


s: neglected by Shakespeare; such as the establishing a relation


s: more important, and more is lost than gained by the substitution


s: of the rigidly-defined and ever-repeated idealisms of a distorted


s: But I digress.--The connexion of scenic exhibitions with the


s: been imputed to the drama as an effect, begins when the poetry


s: The drama at Athens, or wheresoever else it may have approached


s: as mirrors in which the spectator beholds himself, under a thin


s: disguise of circumstance, stript of all but that ideal perfection


s: this high exercise of them into the tumult of familiar life: even


s: longer cherish it as the creation of their choice. In a drama of


s: the highest order there is little food for censure or hatred; it


s: teaches rather self-knowledge and self-respect. Neither the eye


s: nor the mind can see itself, unless reflected upon that which it


s: But in periods of the decay of social life, the drama sympathizes


s: the great masterpieces of antiquity, divested of all harmonious


s: accompaniment of the kindred arts; and often the very form


s: CATO is a specimen of the one; and would it were not superfluous


s: to cite examples of the other! To such purposes poetry cannot be


s: drama is the reign of Charles II, when all forms in which poetry


s: to be expressed upon them. Comedy loses its ideal universality:


s: forth new food, which it devours in secret.


s: The drama being that form under which a greater number of modes


s: renewed, if men should arise capable of bringing back the drama


s: to its principles. And this is true with respect to poetry in its


s: of sweetness; whilst the poetry of the preceding age was as a


s: meadow-gale of June, which mingles the fragrance all the flowers


s: of the field, and adds a quickening and harmonizing spirit of its


s: correlative with that softness in statuary, music and the kindred


s: be imputed. An equal sensibility to the influence of the senses


s: and the affections is to be found in the writings of Homer and


s: to pleasure; and, therefore, it is corruption. It begins at the


s: survives. At the approach of such a period, poetry ever addresses


s: are capable of receiving: it is ever still the light of life; the


s: than the remnant of their tribe. But corruption must utterly have


s: at once of its own and of social renovation.  And let us not


s: circumscribe the effects of the bucolic and erotic poetry within


s: the limits of the sensibility of those to whom it was addressed.


s: finely organized, or born in a happier age, may recognize them as


s: of the selectest forms of manners and of nature, and to have


s: their own condition, whilst it should bear a general one to the


s: universal constitution of the world. But we judge from partial


s: evidence, and we judge perhaps partially Ennius, Varro, Pacuvius,


s: highest, and Virgil in a very high sense, a creator. The chosen


s: Ovid, and generally the other great writers of the Virgilian age,


s: Rome, seemed to follow, rather than accompany, the perfection of


s: political and domestic society. The true poetry of Rome lived in


s: its institutions; for whatever of beautiful, true, and majestic,


s: conceived; which, copied into the imaginations of men, become as


s: systems: except that we protest, on the ground of the principles


s: already established, that no portion of it can be attributed to


s: It is probable that the poetry of Moses, Job, David, Solomon, and


s: At a certain period after the prevalence of a system of opinions


s: founded upon those promulgated by him, the three forms into which


s: apotheosis, and became the object of the worship of the civilized


s: Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,


s: And night's black agents to their preys do rouze.


s: But mark how beautiful an order has sprung from the dust and


s: victory, and blended themselves in a new fabric of manners and


s: slaves of the will of others: lust, fear, avarice, cruelty, and


s: fraud, characterized a race amongst whom no one was to be found


s: capable of CREATING in form, language, or institution. The moral


s: anomalies of such a state of society are not justly to be charged


s: it most expeditiously. It is unfortunate for those who cannot


s: It was not until the eleventh century that the effects of the


s: poetry of the Christian and chivalric systems began to manifest


s: themselves.  The principle of equality had been discovered and


s: applied by Plato in his Republic, as the theoretical rule of the


s: mode in which the materials of pleasure and of power, produced by


s: to be determined only by the sensibility of each, or the utility


s: to result to all. Plato, following the doctrines of Timaeus and


s: poetry and wisdom of antiquity. The incorporation of the Celtic


s: nations with the exhausted population of the south, impressed


s: upon it the figure of the poetry existing in their mythology and


s: institutions. The result was a sum of the action and reaction of


s: The abolition of personal slavery is the basis of the highest


s: became a religion, the idols of whose worship were ever present.


s: It was as if the statues of Apollo and the Muses had been endowed


s: and heavenly, and a paradise was created as out of the wrecks of


s: Eden. And as this creation itself is poetry, so its creators were


s: how the gentleness and the elevation of mind connected with these


s: judgement of the vulgar, and the order of the great acts of the


s: of our own age, have celebrated the dominion of love, planting


s: as it were trophies in the human mind of that sublimest victory


s: over sensuality and force. The true relation borne to each other


s: by the sexes into which human kind is distributed, has become


s: less misunderstood; and if the error which confounded diversity


s: with inequality of the powers of the two sexes has been partially


s: owe this great benefit to the worship of which chivalry was the


s: The poetry of Dante may be considered as the bridge thrown over


s: system, of which by a strange and natural antithesis, it has been


s: mistake to suppose that he could ever have been intended for the


s: anguish on an enemy, these things are evil; and, although venial


s: in a slave are not to be forgiven in a tyrant; although redeemed


s: by much that ennobles his defeat in one subdued, are marked by


s: all that dishonours his conquest in the victor. Milton's Devil as


s: nature as colours upon a single pallet, and arranged them in the


s: composition of his great picture according to the laws of epic


s: those which have arisen and decayed upon the earth, commentators


s: Homer was the first and Dante the second epic poet: that is,


s: the second poet, the series of whose creations bore a defined and


s: developing itself in correspondence with their development. For


s: Lucretius had limed the wings of his swift spirit in the dregs of


s: a single condition of epic truth. Milton was the third epic poet.


s: Aeneid, still less can it be conceded to the Orlando Furioso, the


s: Dante and Milton were both deeply penetrated with the ancient


s: religion of the civilized world; and its spirit exists in their


s: poetry probably in the same proportion as its forms survived in


s: the unreformed worship of modern Europe. The one preceded and the


s: was the first religious reformer, and Luther surpassed him rather


s: shone forth from republican Italy, as from a heaven, into the


s: darkness of the benighted world. His very words are instinct with


s: inmost naked beauty of the meaning never exposed. A great poem


s: is a fountain for ever overflowing with the waters of wisdom and


s: delight; and after one person and one age has exhausted all its


s: divine effluence which their peculiar relations enable them to


s: The age immediately succeeding to that of Dante, Petrarch, and


s: Boccaccio, was characterized by a revival of painting, sculpture,


s: superstructure of English literature is based upon the materials


s: But let us not be betrayed from a defence into a critical history


s: former sense, whatever strengthens and purifies the affections,


s: Undoubtedly the promoters of utility, in this limited sense, have


s: poets, and copy the sketches of their creations into the book of


s: common life. They make space, and give time. Their exertions are


s: limits due to the superior ones. But whilst the sceptic destroys


s: gross superstitions, let him spare to deface, as some of the


s: French writers have defaced, the eternal truths charactered upon


s: the imaginations of men. Whilst the mechanist abridges, and the


s: political economist combines labour, let them beware that their


s: modern England, to exasperate at once the extremes of luxury and


s: want. They have exemplified the saying, 'To him that hath, more


s: have become poorer; and the vessel of the state is driven between


s: effects which must ever flow from an unmitigated exercise of the


s: It is difficult to define pleasure in its highest sense; the


s: definition involving a number of apparent paradoxes. For, from an


s: which is inseparable from the sweetest melody. The pleasure that


s: is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself. And


s: The production and assurance of pleasure in this highest sense


s: is true utility. Those who produce and preserve this pleasure are


s: poet. The others, even Voltaire, were mere reasoners.] and their


s: monuments of ancient sculpture had been handed down to us; and if


s: the intervention of these excitements, have been awakened to the


s: We have more moral, political and historical wisdom, than we know


s: in morals, government, and political economy, or at least, what


s: is wiser and better than what men now practise and endure. But we


s: eaten more than we can digest. The cultivation of those sciences


s: which have enlarged the limits of the empire of man over the


s: is to be attributed the abuse of all invention for abridging and


s: The functions of the poetical faculty are two-fold; by one it


s: creates new materials of knowledge and power and pleasure; by the


s: them according to a certain rhythm and order which may be called


s: Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once the centre and


s: that from which all spring, and that which adorns all; and that


s: which, if blighted, denies the fruit and the seed, and withholds


s: from the barren world the nourishment and the succession of the


s: corruption. What were virtue, love, patriotism, friendship--what


s: calculation dare not ever soar?  Poetry is not like reasoning, a


s: power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A


s: whether it is not an error to assert that the finest passages of


s: poetry are produced by labour and study. The toil and the delay


s: recommended by critics, can be justly interpreted to mean no more


s: limitedness of the poetical faculty itself; for Milton conceived


s: the Orlando Furioso. Compositions so produced are to poetry what


s: a child in the mother's womb; and the very mind which directs the


s: origin, the gradations, or the media of the process.


s: regarding our own mind alone, and always arising unforeseen


s: and departing unbidden, but elevating and delightful beyond all


s: of its object. It is as it were the interpenetration of a diviner


s: The enthusiasm of virtue, love, patriotism, and friendship,


s: is essentially linked with such emotions; and whilst they last,


s: self appears as what it is, an atom to a universe. Poets are not


s: only subject to these experiences as spirits of the most refined


s: organization, but they can colour all that they combine with the


s: evanescent hues of this ethereal world; a word, a trait in the


s: representation of a scene or a passion, will touch the enchanted


s: chord, and reanimate, in those who have ever experienced these


s: emotions, the sleeping, the cold, the buried image of the past.


s: Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful in


s: no portal of expression from the caverns of the spirit which they


s: eternity and change; it subdues to union under its light yoke,


s: all irreconcilable things. It transmutes all that it touches, and


s: by wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it


s: breathes: its secret alchemy turns to potable gold the poisonous


s: waters which flow from death through life; it strips the veil of


s: familiarity from the world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping


s: beauty, which is the spirit of its forms.


s: All things exist as they are perceived; at least in relation to


s: impressions. And whether it spreads its own figured curtain,


s: or withdraws life's dark veil from before the scene of things, it


s: inhabitants of a world to which the familiar world is a chaos.


s: It reproduces the common universe of which we are portions and


s: minds by the recurrence of impressions blunted by reiteration.


s: It justifies the bold and true words of Tasso: Non merita nome di


s: institutor of human life be comparable to that of a poet.  That


s: he is the wisest, the happiest, and the best, inasmuch as he is


s: a poet, is equally incontrovertible: the greatest poets have been


s: fortunate of men: and the exceptions, as they regard those who


s: possessed the poetic faculty in a high yet inferior degree, will


s: 'there sitting where we dare not soar', are reprehensible. Let


s: us assume that Homer was a drunkard, that Virgil was a flatterer,


s: to cite living poets, but posterity has done ample justice to the


s: the contemporary calumnies against poetry and poets; consider how


s: motives, and judge not, lest ye be judged.


s: these are the necessary conditions of all mental causation, when


s: mental effects are experienced unsusceptible of being referred to


s: correlative with its own nature and its effects upon other minds.


s: without being durable, a poet becomes a man, and is abandoned to


s: the sudden reflux of the influences under which others habitually


s: himself obnoxious to calumny, when he neglects to observe the


s: circumstances under which these objects of universal pursuit and


s: flight have disguised themselves in one another's garments.


s: But there is nothing necessarily evil in this error, and thus


s: to be stunned, by the Theseids of the hoarse Codri of the day.


s: The first part of these remarks has related to poetry in its


s: The second part will have for its object an application of these


s: principles to the present state of the cultivation of poetry, and


s: as surpass beyond comparison any who have appeared since the last


s: correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are


s: the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet


s: their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the


s: most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled


s: comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves


s: it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the


s: gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words


s: to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is


s: I inscribe this book by his own gracious permission


s: I was not altogether surprised, however, for her letters to me


s: had long ago shed a golden light upon her peculiar character. She


s: I never knew but two other people who displayed gratitude as a


s: passion--indulged in it, I might say, as a luxury--and they were


s: both poets. I can give no higher praise to the "irritable genus."


s: perfectly marvellous way Dr. Drummond's Habitant poems. It was in


s: stage to congratulate her, I was quite affected by the warm and


s: affectionate greeting that I got from her. With moist eyes she


s: told her friends that she owed her literary success mainly to me.


s: And now what does the reader suppose that I had done to win all


s: written in 1889, and which she had read so assiduously that she


s: might be said to know it by heart: she seemed to remember every


s: Now that I shall never see her face again it is with real emotion


s: called "Songs of the Great Dominion," selected and edited by the


s: poet, William Douw Lighthall. Maccoll knew the deep interest I


s: have always taken in matters relating to Greater Britain, and


s: especially in everything relating to Canada. Even at that time


s: I ventured to prophesy that the great romance of the twentieth


s: century would be the growth of the mighty world-power of Canada,


s: just as the great romance of the nineteenth century had been the


s: inauguration of the nascent power that sprang up among Britain's


s: antipodes. He told me that a leading article for the journal upon


s: a long article, which could have been ten times as long, upon a


s: subject so suggestive as that of Canadian poetry.


s: As it was this article of mine which drew this noble woman to me,


s: is allied to a question that is very great, the adequacy or


s: inadequacy of English poetry--British, American, and Colonial--to


s: the thesis that if the English language should not in the near


s: future contain the finest body of poetry in the world, the time


s: associations, she is not so rich as are certain other European


s: poem. To wander alone, through scenes that Homer knew, or through


s: kind of poetic material as some parts of the European Continent,


s: what shall be said of the new English worlds--Canada, the United


s: States, the Australias, the South African Settlements, etc.?"


s: Histories they have, these new countries--in the development of


s: "Part and parcel of the very life of man is the sentiment about


s: William Morris, it is stronger than in the most conservative poet


s: delightful features of the European raree-show--have not realised


s: voyage to the other side of the world, when he led his little


s: convict-laden fleet to Botany Bay--a bay as unknown almost as any


s: a thousand years' time, no doubt, these things may be as ripe for


s: like this a good many changes may occur before an epic poet shall


s: Mr. Lighthall, 'more loftily epic than the retirement of Pius


s: AEneas from Ilion.' Perhaps so, but at present the dreamy spirit


s: The article went on to remark that until the Spirit of Antiquity


s: Canadian Pacific Railway of seeing the great virgin forests and


s: which brought me such reward, I quoted "In the Shadows." The poem


s: Naturally I turned to his introductory remarks to see who Pauline


s: loyalty during two centuries not only Canada, but the entire


s: British Empire owes a debt that can never be repaid.


s: After the appearance of my article I got a beautiful letter from


s: Pauline Johnson, and I found that I had been fortunate enough to


s: West. Since 1889 I have been following her career with a glow of


s: admiration and sympathy. I have been delighted to find that this


s: witness her poem "The Art of Alma-Tadema". Her native power of


s: satire is shown in the lines written after Dreyfus was exiled,


s: nation. I must think that she will hold a memorable place among


s: poets in virtue of her descent and also in virtue of the work she


s: funeral the most impressive and picturesque one of any poet that


s: Chief of the Six Nations Indians, and his wife, Emily S. Howells,


s: England, but the land of her adoption was Canada.


s: Chief Johnson was of the renowned Mohawk tribe, and of the "Blood


s: Brant, Ontario, and on which the tribes still live.


s: It was upon this Reserve, on her father's estate, "Chiefswood,"


s: little childish jingles about her pet dogs and cats. She was also


s: Her education was neither extensive nor elaborate, and embraced


s: acquired a wide general knowledge, having been, through childhood


s: The first periodicals to accept her poems and place them before


s: the public were "Gems of Poetry," a small magazine published in


s: Toronto, conceived the idea of having an evening of Canadian


s: literature, at which all available Canadian authors should be


s: The following morning the entire press of Toronto asked why this


s: young writer was not on the platform as a professional reader;


s: insisted so strongly that the public should hear more of her,


s: that Mr. Frank Yeigh arranged for her to give an entire evening


s: in Association Hall within two weeks from the date of her first


s: appearance. It was for this first recital that she wrote the poem


s: On this eventful occasion, owing to the natural nervousness which


s: member, and forgot her lines. With true Indian impassiveness,


s: The immediate success of this entertainment caused Mr. Yeigh to


s: accomplished, and she spent the season of 1894 in London, and had


s: received and asked to give recitals in the drawing-rooms of many


s: diplomats, critics and members of the nobility.


s: Upon her return to Canada she made her first trip to the Pacific


s: appeared as a public entertainer at every city and town between


s: In 1903 the George Morang Publishing Company, of Toronto, brought


s: About this time she visited Newfoundland, taking with her letters


s: In 1906 she returned to England, and made her first appearance in


s: Among these is a number of beautiful Indian legends which she has


s: During the sixteen years Miss Johnson was travelling she had many


s: Battleford trail before the railroad went through, and across the


s: After an illness of two years' duration Miss Johnson died in


s: physician that her illness would prove fatal.


s: Have massed their armies, and on battle bent


s: But though I fight alone, and fall, and die,


s: It is eminently fitting that this daughter of Nature should have


s: lovers of Canadian poetry who will regard it as one of the most


s: (The following poems are from the author's first book, "The White


s: Of him whose name breathes bravery and life


s: And courage to the tribe that calls him chief.


s: Is land, and lake, and sky--and soul to me.


s: Ah! but they hated him, those Huron braves,


s: Him who had flung their warriors into graves,


s: Him who had crushed them underneath his heel,


s: Whose arm was iron, and whose heart was steel


s: Of my great Mohawk, white star of his life.


s: Ah! but they hated him, and councilled long


s: With subtle witchcraft how to work him wrong;


s: How to avenge their dead, and strike him where


s: His pride was highest, and his fame most fair.


s: Their hearts grew weak as women at his name:


s: They dared no war-path since my Mohawk came


s: To pierce their craven bodies; but their dead


s: Must be avenged. Avenged? They dared not walk


s: They dared not face his fearless scalping knife;


s: So--Niyoh!--then they thought of me, his wife.


s: With evil Huron speech: "Would I consent


s: To take of wealth? be queen of all their tribe?


s: Have wampum ermine?" Back I flung the bribe


s: Into their teeth, and said, "While I have life


s: Know this--Ojistoh is the Mohawk's wife."


s: Wah! how we struggled! But their arms were strong.


s: They flung me on their pony's back, with thong


s: Round ankle, wrist, and shoulder. Then upleapt


s: "Thus, fair Ojistoh, we avenge our dead."


s: And we two rode, rode as a sea wind-chased,


s: I, bound with buckskin to his hated waist,


s: He, sneering, laughing, jeering, while he lashed


s: The horse to foam, as on and on we dashed.


s: Plunging through creek and river, bush and trail,


s: On, on we galloped like a northern gale.


s: We saw, and nearer, nearer still we came.


s: I, bound behind him in the captive's place,


s: Scarcely could see the outline of his face.


s: I smiled, and laid my cheek against his back:


s: "Loose thou my hands," I said. "This pace let slack.


s: I like thee well, and wish to clasp thee close;


s: I like the courage of thine eye and brow;


s: He cut the cords; we ceased our maddened haste


s: My hand crept up the buckskin of his belt;


s: His knife hilt in my burning palm I felt;


s: One hand caressed his cheek, the other drew


s: The weapon softly--"I love you, love you,"


s: And--buried in his back his scalping knife.


s: Ha! how I rode, rode as a sea wind-chased,


s: Mad with sudden freedom, mad with haste,


s: That horse to foam, as on and on I dashed.


s: Plunging thro' creek and river, bush and trail,


s: And then my distant Mohawk's fires aflame


s: My hands all wet, stained with a life's red dye,


s: But pure my soul, pure as those stars on high--


s: "My Mohawk's pure white star, Ojistoh, still am I."


s: Captive! Is there a hell to him like this?


s: A taunt more galling than the Huron's hiss?


s: He--proud and scornful, he--who laughed at law,


s: He--the bloodthirsty, he--the Mohawk chief,


s: He--who despises pain and sneers at grief,


s: Here in the hated Huron's vicious clutch,


s: Captive! But _never_ conquered; Mohawk brave


s: Least, to the puny tribe his soul abhors,


s: The tribe whose wigwams sprinkle Simcoe's shores.


s: With scowling brow he stands and courage high,


s: His captors, as they council o'er his fate,


s: Walk o'er the bed of fire that waits thee now--


s: Walk with uncovered feet upon the coals,


s: Until thou reach the ghostly Land of Souls,


s: And, with thy Mohawk death-song please our ear?


s: Or wilt thou with the women rest thee here?"


s: His eyes flash like an eagle's, and his hands


s: Clench at the insult. Like a god he stands.


s: "Prepare the fire!" he scornfully demands.


s: He knoweth not that this same jeering band


s: Will bite the dust--will lick the Mohawk's hand;


s: Will kneel and cower at the Mohawk's feet;


s: Will shrink when Mohawk war drums wildly beat.


s: His death will be avenged with hideous hate


s: His vile detested captors, that now flaunt


s: Their war clubs in his face with sneer and taunt,


s: Not thinking, soon that reeking, red, and raw,


s: Their scalps will deck the belts of Iroquois.


s: The path of coals outstretches, white with heat,


s: A forest fir's length--ready for his feet.


s: The burning mass, and sings his wild war song;


s: Sings, as he sang when once he used to roam


s: Throughout the forests of his southern home,


s: Where, down the Genesee, the water roars,


s: Where gentle Mohawk purls between its shores,


s: Songs, that of exploit and of prowess tell;


s: Up the long trail of fire he boasting goes,


s: His flesh is scorched, his muscles burn and shrink,


s: But still he dances to death's awful brink.


s: The eagle plume that crests his haughty head


s: Will _never_ droop until his heart be dead.


s: Slower and slower yet his footstep swings,


s: Wilder and wilder still his death-song rings,


s: Fiercer and fiercer thro' the forest bounds


s: His voice that leaps to Happier Hunting Grounds.


s: He bends to death--but _never_ to disgrace.


s: Thus they taunted her, declaring, "He remembers naught of thee:


s: Likely some white maid he wooeth, far beyond the inland sea."


s: Till the dusk of Indian summer crept athwart the western skies;


s: But a deeper dusk was burning in her dark and dreaming eyes,


s: Till the autumn came and vanished, till the season of the rains,


s: Saying, "O! my Yakonwita call me, call me, be my guide


s: To the lodge beyond the prairie--for I vowed ere winter died


s: "Yakonwita, Yakonwita!" Oh, the dreariness that strains


s: But the Silent Spirit hushed him, lulled him as he cried anew,


s: "Save me, save me! O! beloved, I am Pale but I am true.


s: Leagues afar, across the prairie, she had risen from her bed,


s: They were coming across the prairie, they were


s: For the eyes of those desperate riders had sighted


s: Sighted him off to Eastward, where the Cree


s: Where the cotton woods fringed the river, miles and


s: Mistake him? Never! Mistake him? the famous


s: That terror to all the settlers, that desperate Cattle


s: That monstrous, fearless Indian, who lorded it over


s: Who thieved and raided, and scouted, who rode like


s: But they've tracked him across the prairie; they've


s: For those desperate English settlers have sighted


s: Up they wheeled to the tepees, all their British


s: Bent on bullets and bloodshed, bent on bringing


s: But they searched in vain for the Cattle Thief: that


s: And they cursed like a troop of demons--for the


s: "The sneaking Indian coward," they hissed; "he


s: He'll come in the night for cattle, but he's scared


s: "Never!" and up from the cotton woods rang the


s: And right out into the open stepped, unarmed, the


s: Was that the game they had coveted? Scarce fifty


s: Over that fleshless, hungry frame, starved to the


s: Over that wrinkled, tawny skin, unfed by the


s: Over those hungry, hollow eyes that glared for the


s: He turned, like a hunted lion: "I know not fear,"


s: And the words outleapt from his shrunken lips in


s: "I'll fight you, white-skins, one by one, till I


s: But the threat was scarcely uttered, ere a dozen


s: Whizzed through the air about him like a shower


s: And the gaunt old Indian Cattle Thief dropped


s: And that band of cursing settlers gave one


s: And rushed like a pack of demons on the body that


s: "Cut the fiend up into inches, throw his carcass


s: Let the wolves eat the cursed Indian, he'd have


s: A dozen hands responded, a dozen knives gleamed


s: But the first stroke was arrested by a woman's


s: And out into the open, with a courage past


s: She dashed, and spread her blanket o'er the corpse


s: And the words outleapt from her shrunken lips in


s: "If you mean to touch that body, you must cut


s: And that band of cursing settlers dropped


s: For they knew that an Indian woman roused, was


s: And then she raved in a frenzy that they scarcely


s: Raved of the wrongs she had suffered since her


s: "Stand back, stand back, you white-skins, touch


s: You have stolen my father's spirit, but his body I


s: You have killed him, but you shall not dare to


s: You have cursed, and called him a Cattle Thief,


s: Robbed him and robbed my people--look there, at


s: Starved with a hollow hunger, we owe to you and


s: What have you left to us of land, what have you


s: What have you brought but evil, and curses since


s: How have you paid us for our game? how paid us


s: By a _book_, to save our souls from the sins _you_


s: Go back with your new religion, we never have


s: Your robbing an Indian's _body_, and mocking his


s: Go back with your new religion, and find--if find


s: The _honest_ man you have ever made from out a


s: You say your cattle are not ours, your meat is not


s: When _you_ pay for the land you live in, _we'll_ pay


s: Give back our land and our country, give back our


s: Give back the furs and the forests that were ours


s: Give back the peace and the plenty. Then come


s: And blame, if you dare, the hunger that _drove_ him to


s: My forest brave, my Red-skin love, farewell;


s: What mighty ills befall our little band,


s: Or what you'll suffer from the white man's hand?


s: Here is your knife! I thought 'twas sheathed for aye.


s: The plains are bare, it seeks a nobler game:


s: 'Twill drink the life-blood of a soldier host.


s: Go; rise and strike, no matter what the cost.


s: Nor raise Thy hand against this stripling pack


s: Of white-faced warriors, marching West to quell


s: They all are young and beautiful and good;


s: Curse to the war that drinks their harmless blood.


s: Curse to the fate that brought them from the East


s: To be our chiefs--to make our nation least


s: That breathes the air of this vast continent.


s: Still their new rule and council is well meant.


s: They but forget we Indians owned the land


s: Was our sole kingdom and our right alone.


s: They never think how they would feel to-day,


s: If some great nation came from far away,


s: Wresting their country from their hapless braves,


s: Giving what they gave us--but wars and graves.


s: Then go and strike for liberty and life,


s: And bring back honour to your Indian wife.


s: Your wife? Ah, what of that, who cares for me?


s: What white-robed priest prays for your safety here,


s: That swells the ranks that Canada sends out?


s: Who prays for vict'ry for the Indian scout?


s: Who prays for our poor nation lying low?


s: None--therefore take your tomahawk and go.


s: My heart may break and burn into its core,


s: That grieves the loss of husband and of son;


s: Think of the mothers o'er the inland seas;


s: Think of the pale-faced maiden on her knees;


s: One pleads her God to guard some sweet-faced child


s: That marches on toward the North-West wild.


s: The other prays to shield her love from harm,


s: To strengthen his young, proud uplifted arm.


s: Ah, how her white face quivers thus to think,


s: _Your_ tomahawk his life's best blood will drink.


s: She never thinks of my wild aching breast,


s: Nor prays for your dark face and eagle crest


s: My heart the target if my warrior falls.


s: Go forth, and win the glories of the war.


s: Go forth, nor bend to greed of white men's hands,


s: By right, by birth we Indians own these lands,


s: Though starved, crushed, plundered, lies our nation low...


s: Perhaps the white man's God has willed it so.


s: There's a spirit on the river, there's a ghost upon the shore,


s: You can hear the ringing war-cry of a long-forgotten brave


s: Echo through the midnight forest, echo o'er the midnight wave,


s: And you hear a voice responding, but in soft and tender song;


s: It is Dawendine's spirit singing, singing all night long;


s: And she hears her mother saying, "Take thy belt of wampum white;


s: Go unto yon evil savage while he glories on the height;


s: "Lest thy kinsmen all may perish, all thy brothers and thy sire


s: Fall before his mighty hatred as the forest falls to fire;


s: And the girl arises softly, softly slips toward the shore;


s: Loves she well the murdered brother, loves his hated foeman more,


s: Answers he, "O Dawendine! I will let thy kinsmen be,


s: I accept thy belt of wampum; but my hate demands for me


s: "Dawendine, for thy singing, for thy suing, war shall cease;


s: "Dawendine, Child of Dawning, hateful are thy kin to me;


s: And her kinsmen still are waiting her returning from the night,


s: Waiting, waiting for her coming with her belt of wampum white;


s: There's a spirit on the river, there's a ghost upon the shore,


s: And they sing of love and loving through the starlight evermore,


s: And the trapper tilted back his chair and filled his pipe anew.


s: "I ain't thought of it neither fer this many 'n many a day,


s: Although it used to haunt me in the years that's slid away,


s: The years I spent a-trappin' for the good old Hudson's Bay.


s: "Wild? You bet, 'twas wild then, an' few an' far between


s: "No. Them old Indyans ain't so bad, not if you treat 'em square.


s: Why, I lived in amongst 'em all the winters I was there,


s: An' I never lost a copper, an' I never lost a hair.


s: "But I'd have lost my life the time that you've heard tell about;


s: If that there Indyan 'Wolverine' jest hadn't helped me out.


s: "'Twas freshet time, 'way back, as long as sixty-six or eight,


s: An' I was comin' to the Post that year a kind of late,


s: For beaver had been plentiful, and trappin' had been great.


s: "One day I had been settin' traps along a bit of wood,


s: An' night was catchin' up to me jest faster 'an it should,


s: When all at once I heard a sound that curdled up my blood.


s: "It was the howl of famished wolves--I didn't stop to think


s: But jest lit out across for home as quick as you could wink,


s: But when I reached the river's edge I brought up at the brink.


s: "That mornin' I had crossed the stream straight on a sheet of ice


s: "No way ahead, no path aback, trapped like a rat ashore,


s: With naught but death to follow, and with naught but death afore;


s: "I leapt on that there horse, an' then jest like a coward fled,


s: An' left that Indyan standin' there alone, as good as dead,


s: With the wolves a-howlin' at his back, the swollen stream ahead.


s: "I don't know how them Indyans dodge from death the way they do,


s: You won't believe it, sir, but what I'm tellin' you is true,


s: But that there chap was 'round next day as sound as me or you.


s: "He came to get his horse, but not a cent he'd take from me.


s: "It happened that same autumn, when some Whites was comin' in,


s: I heard the old Red River carts a-kickin' up a din,


s: So I went over to their camp to see an English skin.


s: A-brandishing their tomahawks an' painted up for war.


s: "But when their plucky Englishmen had put a bit of lead


s: Because he'd found the packages an' came _to give them back_.'


s: It was only some old Injun dog that lay there stark an' stiff.'


s: "I said, 'You are the meanest dogs that ever yet I seen,'


s: Then I rolled the body over as it lay out on the green;


s: I peered into the face--My God! 'twas poor old Wolverine."


s: Thieves and villains, you shameless things!


s: Blow from the mountains, blow from the west.


s: Or down where the prairie grasses sweep!


s: They seethe, and boil, and bound, and splash.


s: The reckless waves you must plunge into.


s: Night 'neath the northern skies, lone, black, and grim:


s: Naught but the starlight lies 'twixt heaven, and him.


s: Of man no need has he, of God, no prayer;


s: Through branches gaunt and black, their needles brown.


s: Afar some mountain streams, rockbound and fleet,


s: Sing themselves through his dreams in cadence sweet,


s: The pine trees whispering, the heron's cry,


s: And blinking overhead the white stars keep


s: Watch o'er his hemlock bed--his sinless sleep.


s: Whose rustling sheath enswathes the corn


s: Twixt stalks and stubble, sacked and torn


s: Across the street, an humble woman lives;


s: This morn I listened to her softly sing,


s: And, marvelling what this effect could bring


s: I looked: 'twas but the presence of a child


s: Who passed her gate, and looking in, had smiled.


s: The child had also looked and laughed to me.


s: My lowly neighbour thought the smile God-sent,


s: And singing, through the toilsome hours she went.


s: O! weary singer, I have learned the wrong


s: Of taking gifts, and giving naught of song;


s: I thought my blessings scant, my mercies few,


s: Till I contrasted them with yours, and you;


s: To-day I counted much, yet wished it more--


s: While but a child's bright smile was all your store,


s: If I had thought of all the stormy days,


s: That fill some lives that tread less favoured ways,


s: How little sunshine through their shadows gleamed,


s: My own dull life had much the brighter seemed;


s: If I had thought of all the eyes that weep


s: Through desolation, and still smiling keep,


s: That see so little pleasure, so much woe,


s: If I had thought how leaden was the weight


s: Of that great cross my next door neighbour bears,


s: My thanks had been more frequent in my prayers;


s: If I had watched the woman o'er the way,


s: Workworn and old, who labours day by day,


s: Who has no rest, no joy to call her own,


s: My tasks, my heart, had much the lighter grown.


s: Lent gathers up her cloak of sombre shading


s: Her beauty heightens, fairest in its fading,


s: Awaiting Easter's wings that she must borrow


s: Those glorious wings that we shall see to-morrow


s: Has not the purple of her vesture's lining


s: Has her dark robe had naught of golden shining


s: Who knows? Perhaps when to the world returning


s: So hand in hand with fitful March she lingers


s: Of lifting with her pure and holy fingers


s: Sweet, rosy April--laughing, sighing, waiting


s: And she and Lent can kiss between the grating


s: Too brief the bliss--the parting comes with sorrow.


s: We'll watch your fading wings outlined to-morrow


s: Some waves that curl and cream along the margin of the strand;


s: Old Erie rocks and ripples to a fresh sou'-western breeze.


s: At scurrying up with ragged edge, then laughing blow away,


s: To whistling summer winds we lift a single daring sail.


s: Bestowed on Erie with her waves that foam and fall and lift,


s: With flying clouds and tossing gulls that weave and interlace.


s: Where tinted leaves, blue waters and fair sky


s: Environ all; and far above some birds are flying by


s: To seek their evening haven in the breast


s: And calm embrace of silence, while they sing


s: For busy chirping voice and tired wing--


s: And in the hush of sleeping trees their sleeping cradles swing.


s: In forest arms the night will soonest creep,


s: Where Nature's children curl themselves to sleep,


s: And all is still at last, save where alone


s: A band of black, belated crows arrive from lands unknown.


s: Strange sojourn has been theirs since waking day,


s: Strange sights and cities in their wanderings blend


s: With fields of yellow maize, and leagues away


s: With rivers where their sweeping waters wend


s: Past velvet banks to rocky shores, in canyons bold to end.


s: O'er what vast lakes that stretch superbly dead,


s: Till lashed to life by storm-clouds, have they flown?


s: In what wild lands, in laggard flight have led


s: 'Till now with twilight come their cries in lonely monotone?


s: The flapping of their pinions in the air


s: Dies in the hush of distance, while they light


s: Within the fir tops, weirdly black and bare,


s: That stand with giant strength and peerless height,


s: To shelter fairy, bird and beast throughout the closing night.


s: Strange black and princely pirates of the skies,


s: Would that your wind-tossed travels I could know!


s: Would that my soul could see, and, seeing, rise


s: Of Nature's pulse would constitute a wider life below!


s: Could I but live just here in Freedom's arms,


s: A kingly life without a sovereign's care!


s: Vain dreams! Day hides with closing wings her charms,


s: And all is cradled in repose, save where


s: Yon band of black, belated crows still frets the evening air.


s: Idles the night wind through the dreaming firs,


s: And through the far, cool distance, zephyr fanned.


s: The troubled night-bird, calling plaintively,


s: The cedars, chanting vespers to the sea,


s: That comes in wash of waves along the strand,


s: The while the moon slips into shadow-land.


s: But I have touched your soul in shadow-land.


s: A thin wet sky, that yellows at the rim,


s: And meets with sun-lost lip the marsh's brim.


s: The pools low lying, dank with moss and mould,


s: Glint through their mildews like large cups of gold.


s: Among the wild rice in the still lagoon,


s: In monotone the lizard shrills his tune.


s: The wild goose, homing, seeks a sheltering,


s: Where rushes grow, and oozing lichens cling.


s: Late cranes with heavy wing, and lazy flight,


s: Sail up the silence with the nearing night.


s: And like a spirit, swathed in some soft veil,


s: Steals twilight and its shadows o'er the swale.


s: Hushed lie the sedges, and the vapours creep,


s: Thick, grey and humid, while the marshes sleep.


s: Of underbush has cleft its course in twain,


s: The long, grey rails stretch in a broken line


s: Their ragged length of rough, split forest pine,


s: And in their zigzag tottering have reeled


s: In drunken efforts to enclose the field,


s: Which carries on its breast, September born,


s: A patch of rustling, yellow, Indian corn.


s: Beyond its shrivelled tassels, perched upon


s: The topmost rail, sits Joe, the settler's son,


s: Now dozing in the warmth of Nature's wine,


s: His face the sun has tampered with, and wrought,


s: By heated kisses, mischief, and has brought


s: Some vagrant freckles, while from here and there


s: Escape the old straw hat the sun looks through,


s: And blinks to meet his Irish eyes of blue.


s: His grey checked shirt unbuttoned at his chest,


s: Both hardy hands within their usual nest--


s: His breeches pockets--so, he waits to rest


s: His little fingers, somewhat tired and worn,


s: That all day long were husking Indian corn.


s: His drowsy lids snap at some trivial sound,


s: With lazy yawns he slips towards the ground,


s: Then with an idle whistle lifts his load


s: And shambles home along the country road


s: That stretches on, fringed out with stumps and weeds,


s: Where forests wait with giant trunk and bough


s: The axe of pioneer, the settler's plough.


s: To float upon the sapphire floor, a dream


s: Upon the brink, its green reflection greets,


s: And kisses soft the shadow that it meets


s: The brownish hills with needles green and gold,


s: The beauty, strength, and power of the land


s: O! pathless life of mine whose deep ideal


s: From out the west, where darkling storm-clouds float,


s: The 'waking wind pipes soft its rising note.


s: From out the west, o'erhung with fringes grey,


s: The wind preludes with sighs its roundelay,


s: Then blowing, singing, piping, laughing loud,


s: It scurries on before the grey storm-cloud;


s: It whips and whirls among the maples, till


s: With boughs upbent, and green of leaves blown wide,


s: With showers laden, and with fragrance rare;


s: Of great cool drops that fall with sudden splash;


s: Then over field and hollow, grass and grain,


s: The loud, crisp whiteness of the nearing rain.


s: Lichens of green and grey on every side;


s: And green and grey the rocks beneath our feet;


s: Above our heads the canvas stretching wide;


s: And over all, enchantment rare and sweet.


s: That kisses her to passionless soft dreams.


s: O! joy of living we have found thee here,


s: And life lacks nothing, so complete it seems.


s: The velvet air, stirred by some elfin wings,


s: Comes swinging up the waters and then stills


s: Its voice so low that floating by it sings


s: Like distant harps among the distant hills.


s: Fir-crowned and grim; and further in the view


s: Some shadows seeming swung 'twixt cloud and sky,


s: Are countless shores, a symphony of blue.


s: Some northern sorceress, when day is done,


s: Hovers where cliffs uplift their gaunt grey steeps,


s: The scent of burning leaves, the camp-fire's blaze,


s: The great logs cracking in the brilliant flame,


s: The groups grotesque, on which the firelight plays,