Poems
Through evening shades I haste away
To close the labours of the day.
The door of death I open found,
And the worm weaving in the ground:
Thou’rt my mother, from the womb,
Wife, sister, daughter, to the tomb;
Weaving to dreams the sexual strife,
And weeping over the web of life.
Night and Day
Silent, silent Night,
Quench the holy light
Of thy torches bright;
For, possessed of Day,
Thousand spirits stray
That sweet joys betray.
Why should joys be sweet
Used with deceit,
Nor with sorrows meet?
But an honest joy
Doth itself destroy
For a harlot coy.
Auguries of Innocence
To see the world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower;
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
A Robin Redbreast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage;
A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell through all its regions.
A dog starved at his master’s gate
Predicts the ruin of the state;
A game-cock clipped and armed for fight
Doth the rising sun affright;
A horse misused upon the road
Calls to Heaven for human blood.
Every wolf’s and lion’s howl
Raises from hell a human soul;
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain doth tear;
A skylark wounded on the wing
Doth make a cherub cease to sing.
He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be beloved by men;
He who the ox to wrath has moved
Shall never be by woman loved;
He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the Polar Bar.
The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider’s enmity;
He who torments the chafer’s sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.
The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief;
The wild deer wandering here and there
Keep the human soul from care;
The lamb misused breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher’s knife.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgment draweth nigh;
The beggar’s dog and widow’s cat,
Feed them and thou shalt grow fat.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven’s shore.
The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won’t believe;
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever’s fright.
The gnat that sings his summer’s song
Poison gets from Slander’s tongue;
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of Envy’s foot;
The poison of the honey-bee
Is the artist’s jealousy;
The strongest poison ever known
Came from Cæsar’s laurel-crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armourer’s iron brace;
The soldier armed with sword and gun
Palsied strikes the summer’s sun.
When gold and gems adorn the plough,
To peaceful arts shall Envy bow.
The beggar’s rags fluttering in air
Do to rags the heavens tear;
The prince’s robes and beggar’s rags
Are toadstools on the miser’s bags.
One mite wrung from the labourer’s hands
Shall buy and sell the miser’s lands,
Or, if protected from on high,
Shall that whole nation sell and buy;
The poor man’s farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric’s shore.
The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation’s fate;
The harlot’s cry from street to street
Shall weave Old England’s winding sheet;
The winner’s shout, the loser’s curse,
Shall dance before dead England’s hearse.
He who mocks the infant’s faith
Shall be mocked in age and death;
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne’er get out;
He who respects the infant’s faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The babe is more than swaddling-bands
Throughout all these human lands;
Tools were made, and born were hands,
Every farmer understands.
The questioner who sits so sly
Shall never know how to reply;
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out;
A riddle, or the cricket’s cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.
The child’s toys and the old man’s reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.
The emmet’s inch and eagle’s mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne’er believe, do what you please;
If the sun and moon should doubt,
They’d immediately go out.
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born;
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight;
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine;
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And, when this we rightly know,
Safely through the world we go.
We are led to believe a lie
When we see _with_ not _through_ the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night
When the soul slept in beams of light.
God appears and God is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But doth a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
The Two Songs
I heard an angel singing
When the day was springing:
“Mercy, pity, and peace,
Are the world’s release”.
Thus he sang all day
Over the new-mown hay,
Till the sun went down,
And haycocks looked brown.
I heard a devil curse
Over the heath and the furze:
“Mercy could be no more
If there were nobody poor,
And pity no more could be
If all were happy as ye:
And mutual fear brings peace
Misery’s increase
Are mercy, pity, peace.”
At his curse the sun went down,
And the heavens gave a frown.
The Throne of Mammon
I rose up at the dawn of day.
“Get thee away! get thee away!
Pray’st thou for riches? Away! away!
This is the throne of Mammon grey.”
I said, “This sure is very odd,
I took it to be the throne of God.
Everything else besides I have,
It’s only riches I can crave.
“I have mental joys and mental health,
Mental friends and mental wealth.
I’ve a wife that I love and that loves me,
I’ve all but riches bodily.
“I am in God’s presence night and day,
He never turns His face away.
The Accuser of Sins by my side does stand,
And he holds my money-bags in his hand.
“For my worldly things God makes him pay,
And he’d pay for more if to him I would pray.
And you may do the worst you can do;
Be assured, Mr. Devil, I won’t pray to you.
“Then if for riches I must not pray,
God knows, I little of prayers need say.
So, as a church is known by its steeple,
If I pray, it must be for other people.
“He says, if I don’t worship him for a god,
I shall eat coarser food and go worse shod;
But as I don’t value such things as these,
You must do, Mr. Devil, just as God please.”
The World
Since all the riches of all this world
May be gifts from the devil and earthly kings,
I should suspect that I worshipped the devil
If I thanked God for worldly things.
The countless gold of a merry heart,
The rubies and pearls of a loving eye,
The idle man never can bring to the mart,
Nor the cunning hoard up in his treasury.
Smile and Frown
There is a smile of Love,
And there is a smile of Deceit,
And there is a smile of smiles
In which these two smiles meet.
And there is a frown of Hate,
And there is a frown of Disdain,
And there is a frown of frowns
Which you strive to forget in vain;
For it sticks in the heart’s deep core,
And it sticks in the deep backbone.
And no smile ever was smiled
But only one smile alone,—
And betwixt the cradle and grave
It only once smiled can be;
And when it once is smiled,
There’s an end to all misery.
My Spectre
My Spectre before me night and day
Like a wild beast guards my way.
My Emanation far within
Weeps incessantly for my sin.
A fathomless and boundless deep;
There we wonder, there we weep.
On the hungry craving wind
My Spectre follows thee behind.
He scents thy footsteps in the snow,
Wheresoever thou dost go,
Through the wintry hail and rain.
When wilt thou return again?
Dost thou not in pride and scorn
Fill with tempests all my morn,
And with jealousies and fears,
Fill my pleasant nights with tears?
Seven of my sweet loves thy knife
Has bereaved of their life.
Their marble tombs I build with fears,
And with cold and shadowy tears.
Seven more loves weep night and day
Round the tombs where my loves lay,