Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By WilliamYoung992 From “Wishmakers’ Town”
THE BELLS
A
All living things that be,
In nest or fold!—
All lives that solace take,
And dreamful ease, in tent, or wind-blown tree,
Or curtained couch, your wanderings forsake
In the dim realms of unreality!
Awake, for shame
Of languor’s soft delight!
Lo, once again earth’s heaving disk is rolled
In rosy flame,
And through the camps of night,
The flying Moon, beneath her splintered targe,
Sore-stricken by the feathered shafts of Dawn,
And harried by her hounds, like Actaeon, Kneels,
Stoops, and wheels
Adown the western marge!
Awake to toil!
In wood, and rock-ribbed hill,
And loamy mead,
What golden largess lies!
Awake to strife, and far-resounding deed,
In love’s sweet quest, or honor’s high emprise,
With trumpets blown, and clash of steed with steed!
Awake to care,
And triumph’s frequent foil!
But still pursue! O hand with strength to take—
O dauntless heart, to suffer, and to dare—
O swerveless will,
To bend, or else to break—
To life, to love, to conquest, and to spoil,
Awake! Awake!
M
For the old love and the new!
And the columbine,
With its cap and bells, for folly!
And the daffodil, for the hopes of youth! And the rue,
For melancholy!
But of all the blossoms that blow,
Fair gallants all, I charge you to win, if ye may,
This gentle guest,
Who dreams apart, in her wimple of purple and gray,
Like the blessed Virgin, with meek head bending low
Upon her breast.
Ye may buy as ye will; but the violet of the wood
Is the love of maidenhood;
And he that hath worn it but once, though but for an hour,—
He shall never again, though he wander by many a stream,
No, never again shall he meet with a flower that shall seem
So sweet and pure; and forever, in after years,
At the thought of its bloom, or the fragrance of its breath,
The past shall arise,
And his eyes shall be dim with tears,
And his soul shall be far in the gardens of Paradise,
Though he stand in the shambles of death.
R
’T is mine to cry—albeit, well I wis,
Ye may not heed. And ye, elect to bliss,
Must e’en be saved, whether I cry or no.
In either case. Forswear your wisdom’s pride,
And pray for faith—though some must be denied!
Nor yet by prayer, nor yet by faith alone,
Give to the poor!—of whom ye see in me
God’s almoner—and in your charity
Deign to forget not Peter and his pence.
P
Plot, and plunder, and disagree!
O but the game is a royal game!
O but your tourneys are fair to see!
Sore was labor from day to day;
Still we strove for our babes and wives—
Now, to the trumpet, we march away!
Nothing we know of the why or the where—
To swamp, or jungle, or wastes of snow—
Nothing we know, and little we care.
Of love and labor in Nature’s plan;
Give us to kill and ravish and rend,
Yea, since this is the end of man.
Leaders, out of the throng, shall press,—
Some to honor, and some to scorn:
We, that are little, shall yet be less.
Hard on our flanks shall the jackals cry;
And the dead shall be as the sands of the shore;
And daily the living shall pray to die.
Prince and Bishop will plunder still:
Lord and Lady must dance and wed.
Pity us, pray for us, ye that will!
He
T
Sip the sweets of thyme and clover,
Though the moon of May, as whitely,
Silver all the greensward over,
Yet, beneath the trysting tree,
That hath been which shall not be!
Drip the viols, ne’er so sweetly,
With the honey-dew of pleasure—
Trip the dancers, ne’er so featly,
Through the old remembered measure,
Yet, the lighted lanthorn round,
What is lost shall not be found!