Dora
It was, I well remember, the merry springtime when
Young Dora in the eventide came singing up the glen,
And the song came up the glen, till one oft-repeated part
In a subtle stream of melody ran glowing through my heart.
A fond desire, long cherished, till then I might control,
Till then—but oh! That witching strain swift drew it from my soul;
Swift drew it from my soul, and she did not say me nay,
And the world of love was all the world to us that happy day.
I’m happy now in thinking how happy I was then,
When towards the glowing west my love went homeward down the glen;
Went homeward down the glen, while my comfort surer grew,
Till methought the old-faced hills at looked as they were happy too.
All happy, for that Dora and I so happy were!
All happy, for that human love had breathed its spirit there!
Had breathed its spirit there, and had made them conscious grow
Of the part they bore in that sweet time, that happy long ago.
poem by Charles Harpur
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Absence
NIGHTLY I watch the moon with silvery sheen
Flaking the city house-tops, till I feel
Thy memory, Rosa, like a presence, steal
Down in her light: for ever in her mien
Thy soul’s similitude my soul hath seen!
And as she seemeth now a guardian seal
On Heaven’s far bliss, upon my future weal
Even such thy truth is—radiantly serene!
But long my fancy may not entertain
These bright resemblances—for, lo, a cloud
Blots her away, and in my breast the pain
Of absent love, recurring, pines aloud!
When shall I look in thy sweet eyes again,—
Rosa, when cheer thee with like sadness bowed?
Wherever in some wildwood bower
There blooms a honey-yielding flower,
There too dwells a bird to sup
Out of its delicious cup,
And sing betimes, lest it should be
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poem by Charles Harpur
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Memory's Genesis
HOW few through Memory’s dreamy scope,
However resolute of hope,
Can view the backward scene where first
Their youth rejoiced—for ever crost—
And not bewail as Adam erst
The Eden they have lost!
Nor feel, alas! with it compared,
The Present but a lengthening wild
Whereon young Passion never fared,
Young Beauty never smiled!
Yet ’tis a melancholy pleasure
To sit by moon-struck Memory’s side,
And hear her wild lyre oft remeasure
The story of our youthful pride!
Hours recalling, ah! how rife
With emotions lavished wide
Through the Garden of our Life
Ere all its spring-time roses died,
And (like day’s splendours when the sun
Remits in his decline from weaving
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poem by Charles Harpur
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A Coast View
High ’mid the shelves of a grey cliff, that yet
Riseth in Babylonian mass above,
In a benched cleft, as in the mouldered chair
Of grey-beard Time himself, I sit alone,
And gaze with a keen wondering happiness
Out o’er the sea. Unto the circling bend
That verges Heaven, a vast luminous plain
It stretches, changeful as a lover’s dream—
Into great spaces mapped by light and shade
In constant interchange—either ‘neath clouds
The billows darken, or they shimmer bright
In sunny scopes of measureless expanse.
’Tis Ocean dreamless of a stormy hour,
Calm, or but gently heaving;—yet, O God!
What a blind fate-like mightiness lies coiled
In slumber, under that wide-shining face!
While o’er the watery gleam—there where its edge
Banks the dim vacancy, the topmost sails
Of some tall ship, whose hull is yet unseen,
Hang as if clinging to a cloud that still
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poem by Charles Harpur
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The Battle of Life
Never give up, though life be a battle
Wherein true men may fail, and true causes be sold;
Yet, on the whole, however may rattle
The thunders of chance, scaring cowards like cattle—
Clear victory’s always the bride of the bold.
Armed in your right-though friendship deny you,
And love fall away when the storm’s at the worst,
Count not your loss, Was destined to try you—
Bear the brunt like a man, and your deeds shall ally you
To natures more noble and true than the first.
Rail not at Fate: if rightly you scan her,
There’s none loves more strongly the heart that endures:
On, in the hero’s calm resolute manner,
Still bear aloft your hope’s long-trusted banner,
And the day, if you do but live through it, is yours.
Be this your faith; and if killing strokes clatter
On your harness where true men before you have died,
Fight on, let your life-blood be poured out like water—
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poem by Charles Harpur
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Song
THE world's heart is kindless and grey and unholy,
As the head of the wandering Jew,
And can never be won from the cause of its folly
Till man to Humanity’s true;
There’s a path to redemption—but that we shall miss
While we seek in the old warring manner;
Till we re ready to fight a new battle for this—
The motto inscribed on our banner,—
To principles let us by loyal alway,
And true to all good in man’s story;
Not to that mockery, royal display,
Nor that Juggernaut, national glory!
And though ever someone, to be doughty and noted,
Like Nimrod, should aim at a throne,
It were easy to leave him a wight unpromoted,
To brood o’er his project alone!
Or to meet him at once with a withering hiss,
For we love not ambition’s old manner,
We are fired for a new race of glory with this—
The motto inscribed on our banner—
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poem by Charles Harpur
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The Home of Peace
Trust and treachery, wisdom, folly,
Madness, mirth and melancholy,
Love and hatred, thrift and pillage,
All are housed in every village.
And in such a world’s mixed being,
Where may peace, from ruin fleeing,
Find fit shelter and inherit
All the calm of her own merit?
In a bark of gentle motion
Sailing on the summer ocean?
There worst war the tempest wages,
And the hungry whirlpool rages.
In some lonely new-world bower
Hidden like a forest flower?
There, too, there, to fray the stranger
Stalks the wild-eyed savage, danger!
In some Alpine cot, by fountains
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poem by Charles Harpur
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The Voice of the Swamp Oak
Who hath lain him underneath
A lone oak by a lonely stream;
He hath heard an utterance breathe
Sadder than all else may seen.
Up in its dusk boughs out-tressing,
Like the hair of a giant’s head,
Mournful things beyond our guessing
Day and night are uttered.
Even when the waveless air
May only stir the lightest leaf,
A lowly voice keeps moaning there
Wordless oracles of grief.
But when nightly blasts are roaming,
Lowly is that voice no more;
From the streaming branches coming
Elfin shrieks are heard to pour.
While between the blast on-passing,
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poem by Charles Harpur
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Wellington
Great captain if you will! great Duke! great Slave!
Great minion of the crown! - but a great man
He was not! He? the iron instrument
Of mere authority! the atheist
Of a conventional and most earthy duty!
To whom the powers that be were simply not
Of God-but in His stead! Shall we belie
All righteous instinct and profane all truth,
By calling great a man without a soul?
One who, apart from the despotic wills
Of crowned oppressors, knew no right, no wrong.
No faith, no country, and no brotherhood?
If such a man were great, may God most High
Spare henceforth to our universal race
All greatness, seeing it may sometimes be
A rigid, kindiess battlement of Power
Self throned and sanctioned only by the sword.
And if' as Englishmen are proud to boast,
He was their greatest countryman-alas!
For England's national sterility!
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poem by Charles Harpur
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A Dream of the Orient
With a resplendent Eastern bride,
Like a houri at my side,
And music round us swelling,
’Mid odours of so rare a steam
That like a breath of love they seem,
Dwell I through a radiant dream
In an orient dwelling.
Near a fair fountain flashing high
In the pleasure court we lie,
Each on a gorgeous pillow;
The columned water mounting breaks
In outward curves and falling flakes,
Till the whole a picture makes
Of a crystal willow.
Wide round us galleried walls extend,
Pierced with arcs and aisles that bend
On wreathen pillars slender;
While hung in every vista—lo!
Such clouds of blazoned banners glow
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poem by Charles Harpur
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