From the Heights
“COME to me for wisdom,' said the mountain;
In the valley and the plain
There is Knowledge dimmed with sorrow in the gain;
There is Effort, with its hope like a fountain;
There, the chained rebel, Passion;
Laboring Strength and fleeting Fashion;
There, Ambition's leaping flame,
And the iris-crown of Fame;
But those gains are dear forever
Won from loss and pain and fever.
Nature's gospel never changes:
Every sudden force deranges;
Blind endeavor is not wise:
Wisdom enters through the eyes;
And the seer is the knower,
Is the doer and the sower.
'Come to me for riches,' said the peak;
'I am leafless, cold and calm;
But the treasures of the lily and the palm—
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poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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The Loving Cup of the Papyrus
WISE men use days as husbandmen use bees,
And steal rich drops from every pregnant hour;
Others, like wasps on blossomed apple-trees,
Find gall, not honey, in the sweetest flower.
Congratulations for a scene like this!
The olden times are here—these shall be olden
When, years to come, remembering present bliss,
We sigh for past Papyrian dinners golden.
We thank the gods! we call them back to light—
Call back to hoary Egypt for Osiris,
Who first made wine, to join our board to-night,
And drain this loving cup with the Papyrus.
He comes! the Pharaoh's god! fling wide the door-
Welcome, Osiris! See—thine old prescription
Is honored here; and thou shalt drink once more
With men whose treasured ensign is Egyptian.
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Chunder Ali’s Wife
'I AM poor,' said Chunder Ali, while the Mandarin above him
Frowned in supercilious anger at the dog who dared to
speak; 'I am friendless and a Hindoo: such a one meets few to
love him Here in China, where the Hindoo finds the truth alone is
weak. I have naught to buy your justice; were I wise, I had not
striven. Speak your judgment; ' and he crossed his arras and bent
his quivering face. Heard he then the unjust sentence: all his goods and gold
were given To another, and he stood alone, a beggar in the place.
And the man who bought the judgment looked in triumph
and derision At the cheated Hindoo merchant, as he rubbed his hands
and smiled At the whispered gratulation of his friends, and at the
vision Of the more than queenly dower for Ahmeer, his only
child. Fair Ahmeer, who of God's creatures was the only one
who loved him, She, the diamond of his treasures, the one lamb within
his fold, She, whose voice, like her dead mother's, was the only
power that moved him,— She would praise the skill that gained her all this Hindoo's
silk and gold.
And the old man thanked Confucius, and the judge, and him who pleaded.
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The Dead Singer
'SHE is dead!' they say; 'she is robed for the grave; O there are lilies upon her breast;
Her mother has kissed her clay-cold lips, and folded her hands to rest;
Her blue eyes show through the waxen lids: they have hidden her hair's gold crown;
Her grave is dug, and its heap of earth is waiting to press her down.'
'She is dead!' they say to the people, her people, for whom she sung;
Whose hearts she touched with sorrow and love, like a harp with life-chords strung.
And the people hear—but behind their tear they smile as though they heard
Another voice, like a mystery, proclaim another word.
'She is not dead.' it says to their hearts; 'true Singers can never die;
Their life is a voice of higher things, unseen to the common eye;
The truths and the beauties are clear to them, God's right and the human wrong,
The heroes who die unknown, and the weak who are chained and scourged by the strong.'
And the people smile at the death-word, for the mystic voice is clear:
'THE SINGER WHO LIVED IS ALWAYS ALIVE: WE HEARKEN AND ALWAYS HEAR!'
And they raise her body with tender hands, and bear her down to the main,
They lay her in state on the mourning ship, like the lily-maid Elaine;
And they sail to her isle across the sea, where the people wait on the shore
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Star-Gazing
LET be what is: why should we strive and wrestle
With awkward skill against a subtle doubt?
Or pin a mystery 'neath our puny pestle,
And vainly try to bray its secret out?
What boots it me to gaze at other planets,
And speculate on sensate beings there?
It comforts not that, since the moon began its
Well-ordered course, it knew no breath of air.
There may be men and women up in Venus,
Where science finds both summer-green and snow
But are we happier asking, '' Have they seen us?
And, like us earth-men, do they yearn to know?
On greater globes than ours men may be greater.
For all things here in fair proportion run;
But will it make our poor cup any sweeter
To think a nobler Shakespeare thrills the sun?
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The Press Evangel
GOD'S order, 'Light!' when all was void and dark
Brought mornless noon, a flame without a spark.
A gift unearned, that none may hold or hide,
An outer glory, not an inner guide;
But flamed no star in heaven to light the soul
And lead the wayward thought toward Freedom's goal.
O Wasted ages! Whither have ye led
The breeding masses for their daily bread?
Engendered serfs, across a world of gloom,
The wavelike generations reach the tomb.
Masters and lords, they feared a lord's decree,
Nor freedom knew nor truth to make them free.
But hark! A sound has reached the servile herd!
Strong brows are raised to catch the passing word;
From mouth to mouth a common whisper flies;
A wild fire message burns on lips and eyes;
Far-off and near the kindred tidings throng—
How hopes come true, how heroes challenge wrong;
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The Priceless Thing
THOSE are vulgar things we pay for, be they stones for crowns of kings;
While the precious and the peerless are unpriced symbolic things.
Common debts are scored and canceled, weighed and measured out for gold;
But the debts from men to ages, their account is never told.
Always see, the noblest nations keep their highest prize unknown;
Clueronea's deathless lion frowned above unlettered stone.
Ah, the Greeks knew! Come their victors honored from the sacred games,
Under arches red with roses, flushed to hear their shouted names;
See their native cities take them, breach the wall to make a gate!
What supreme reward is theirs who bring such honors to their state?
In the forum stand they proudly, take their prizes from the priest:
Little wreaths of pine and parsley on their naked temples pressed!
We in later days are lower? When a manful stroke is made,
We must raise a purse to pay it—making manliness a trade,
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The Trial of the Gods
NEVER nobler was the Senate,
Never grander the debate:
Rome's old gods are on their trial
By the judges of the state!
Torn by warring creeds, the Fathers
Urge to-day the question home—
'Whether Jupiter or Jesus
Shall be God henceforth in Rome?'
Lo, the scene! In Jove's own temple,
As of old, the Fathers meet;
Through the porch, to hear the speeches,
Press the people from the street.
Pontiffs, rich with purple vesture,
Pass from senate chair to chair;
Learned augurs, still as statues—
Voiceless statues, too—are there;
Vestal virgins, white with terror,
Mutely asking—what has come?
What new light shall turn to darkness
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Released—January, 1878
On the 5th of January,!878, three of the Irish political prisoners, who had been confined since!866, were set at liberty. The released men were received by their fellow-countrymen in London. 'They are well,' said the report, ' but they look prematurely old.'
THEY are free at last! They can face the sun;
Their hearts now throb with the world's pulsation;
Their prisons are open—their night is done;
'Tis England's mercy and reparation!
The years of their doom have slowly sped—
Their limbs are withered—their ties are riven;
Their children are scattered, their friends are dead—
But the prisons are open—the 'crime' forgiven.
God! what a threshold they stand upon:
The world has passed on while they were buried;
In the glare of the sun they walk alone
On the grass-grown track where the crowd has hurried.
Haggard and broken and seared with pain,
They seek the remembered friends and places:
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Bone and Sinew and Brain
YE white-maned waves of the Western Sea,
That ride and roll to the strand,
Ye strong-winged birds, never forced a-lee
By the gales that sweep toward land,
Ye are symbols of death, and of hope that saves,
As ye swoop in your strength and grace,
As ye roll to the land like the billowed graves
Of a past and puerile race.
Cry, 'Presto, change!' and the lout is lord,
With his vulgar blood turned blue;
Go dub your knight with a slap of a sword,
As the kings in Europe do;
Go grade the lines of your social mode
As you grade the palace wall,—
The people forever to bear the load,
And the gilded vanes o'er all.
But the human blocks will not lie as still
As the dull foundation stones,
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