Courage, my Soul, now learn to wield The weight of thine immortal shield. Close on thy head thy helmet bright. Balance thy sword against the fight. See where an army, strong as fair, With silken banners spreads the air. Now, if thou be’st that thing divine, In this day’s combat let it shine: And show that Nature wants an art To conquer one resolvèd heart.
PLEASURE Welcome the creation’s guest, Lord of earth, and heaven’s heir. Lay aside that warlike crest,
The wind rests its cheek upon the ground and feels the cool damp And lifts its head with twigs and small dead blades of grass Pressed into it as you might at the beach rise up and brush away The sand. The day is cool and says, “I’m just staying overnight.” The world is filled with music, and in between the music, silence And varying the silence all sorts of sounds, natural and man made: There goes a plane, some cars, geese that honk and, not here, but Not so far away, a scream so rending that to hear it is to be
Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, Man, brute, reptile, fly,—alien of end and of aim, Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,— Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!
These of living emanate a formidable light, Which is equal to death, and when used Gives increase eternally. What fortifies in separate thought Is not drawn by wind or by man defiled. So whispers the parable of doubleness. As it is necessary not to submit To power which weakens the hidden forms;
(excerpt) "Throughout these infinite orbs of mingling light, Of which yon earth is one, is wide diffus'd A Spirit of activity and life, That knows no term, cessation, or decay;
Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids Those tears to issue which swell my eyelids; I must not laugh, nor weep sins and be wise; Can railing, then, cure these worn maladies? Is not our mistress, fair Religion, As worthy of all our souls' devotion As virtue was in the first blinded age? Are not heaven's joys as valiant to assuage Lusts, as earth's honour was to them? Alas, As we do them in means, shall they surpass Us in the end? and shall thy father's spirit Meet blind philosophers in heaven, whose merit Of strict life may be imputed faith, and hear Thee, whom he taught so easy ways and near To follow, damn'd? Oh, if thou dar'st, fear this;
High in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate, And Emont's murmur mingled with the Song.— The words of ancient time I thus translate, A festal strain that hath been silent long:—
"From town to town, from tower to tower, The red rose is a gladsome flower. Her thirty years of winter past,
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