May-day and Other Pieces

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Houghton, Mifflin, 1881 - 205 pages
 

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Page 111 - To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, hastily Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day Turned and departed silent. I, too late, Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
Page 75 - God said, I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more ; Up to my ear the morning brings The outrage of the poor. Think ye I made this ball A field of havoc and war, Where tyrants great and tyrants small Might harry the weak and poor ? My angel, — his name is Freedom, — Choose him to be your king ; He shall cut pathways east and west, And fend you with his wing.
Page 65 - IF the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanished gods to me appear; And one to me are shame and fame. They reckon ill who leave me out? When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
Page 164 - CHARACTER The sun set; but set not his hope: Stars rose; his faith was earlier up: Fixed on the enormous galaxy, Deeper and older seemed his eye: And matched his sufferance sublime The taciturnity of time. He spoke, and words more soft than rain Brought the Age of Gold again: His action won such reverence sweet, As hid all measure of the feat.
Page 20 - A subtle chain of countless rings The next unto the farthest brings ; The eye reads omens where it goes, And speaks all languages the rose ; And, striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form.
Page 73 - United States ! the ages plead, — Present and Past in under-song, — Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue. For sea and land don't understand, Nor skies without a frown See rights for which the one hand fights By the other cloven down.
Page 157 - EXPERIENCE THE lords of life, the lords of life, I saw them pass, In their own guise, Like and unlike, Portly and grim, Use and Surprise, Surface and Dream, Succession swift, and spectral Wrong, Temperament without a tongue, And the inventor of the game Omnipresent without name;— Some to see, some to be guessed, They marched from east to west: Little man, least of all, Among the legs of his guardians...
Page 138 - The black ducks mounting from the lake, The pigeon in the pines, The bittern's boom, a desert make Which no false art refines. Down in yon watery nook, Where bearded mists divide, The gray old gods whom Chaos knew, The sires of Nature, hide. Aloft, in secret veins of air, Blows the sweet breath of song, O, few to scale those uplands dare, Though they to all belong! See thou bring not to field or stone The fancies found in books; Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, To brave the landscape's looks.
Page 72 - O tenderly the haughty day Fills his blue urn with fire; One morn is in the mighty heaven, And one in our desire. The cannon booms from town to town, Our pulses beat not less, The joy-bells chime their tidings down, Which children's voices bless. For He that flung the broad blue fold O'er-mantling land and sea, One third part of the sky unrolled For the banner of the free. The men are ripe of Saxon kind To build an equal state, — To take the statute from...
Page 79 - To-day unbind the captive So only are ye unbound; Lift up a people from the dust, Trump of their rescue, sound! Pay ransom to the owner, And fill the bag to the brim. Who is the owner? The slave is owner, And ever was. Pay him.

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