Poetry

"Onaway! Awake, beloved!"

"“When thou art not pleased, beloved, Then my heart is sad and darkened, As the shining river darkens When the clouds drop shadows on it!When thou smilest, my beloved, Then my troubled heart is brightened, As in sunshine gleam the ripples That the cold wind makes in rivers.”"

"From the water-fall he named her, Minnehaha, Laughing Water."

"'Twas no bird he saw before him, 'Twas a beautiful young woman, With the arrow in her bosom!"

"And the smoke rose slowly, slowly, Through the tranquil air of morning, First a single line of darkness, Then a denser, bluer vapor, Then a snow-white cloud unfolding, Like the tree-tops of the forest, Ever rising, rising, rising, Till it touched the top of heaven, Till it broke against the heaven, And rolled outward all around it."

"I am weary of your quarrels, Weary of your wars and bloodshed, Weary of your prayers for vengeance, Of your wranglings and dissensions; All your strength is in your union, All your danger is in discord; Therefore be at peace henceforward, And as brothers live together."

"Oh the long and dreary Winter! Oh the cold and cruel Winter!"

"By the shore of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, At the doorway of his wigwam, In the pleasant Summer morning, Hiawatha stood and waited."

"This Indian —if I may so call it—is founded on a tradition prevalent among the North American Indians, of a personage of miraculous birth, who was sent among them to clear their rivers, forests, and fishing-grounds, and to teach them the arts of peace. He was known among different tribes by the several names of Michabou, Chiabo, Manabozo, Tarenyawagon, and Hiawatha. ... The scene of the poem is among the Ojibways on the southern shore of Lake Superior, in the region between the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sable."

"Whence this song of Pocahontas, With its flavor of tobacco, And the stincweed Old Mundungus, With the ocho of the Breakdown, With its smack of Bourbonwhiskey, With the twangle of the Banjo, Of the Banjo—the Goatskinner, And the Fiddle—the Catgutto..."

"On the Mountains of the Prairie, On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry, Gitche Manito, the mighty, He the Master of Life, descending, On the red crags of the quarry Stood erect, and called the nations, Called the tribes of men together."

"And erect upon the mountains, Gitche Manito, the mighty, Smoked the calumet, the Peace-Pipe, As a signal to the nations."

"Lonely in the sky was Wabun; Though the birds sang gayly to him, Though the wild-flowers of the meadow Filled the air with odors for him; Though the forests and the rivers Sang and shouted at his coming, Still his heart was sad within him, For he was alone in heaven."

"The two poems of Venus and Adonis and of Tarquin and Lucrece appear to us like a couple of ice-houses. They are about as hard, as glittering, and as cold. The author seems all the time to be thinking of his verses, and not of his subject,—not of what his characters would feel, but of what he shall say; and as it must happen in all such cases, he always puts into their mouths those things which they would be the last to think of, and which it shows the greatest ingenuity in him to find out. The whole is laboured, up-hill work. The poet is perpetually singling out the difficulties of the art to make an exhibition of his strength and skill in wrestling with them. He is making perpetual trials of them as if his mastery over them were doubted. The images, which are often striking, are generally applied to things which they are the least like: so that they do not blend with the poem, but seem stuck upon it, like splendid patchwork, or remain quite distinct from it, like detached substances, painted and varnished over. A beautiful thought is sure to be lost in an endless commentary upon it. The speakers are like persons who have both leisure and inclination to make riddles on their own situation, and to twist and turn every object or incident into acrostics and anagrams. Everything is spun out into allegory; and a digression is always preferred to the main story. Sentiment is built up upon plays of words; the hero or heroine feels, not from the impulse of passion, but from the force of dialectics. There is besides, a strange attempt to substitute the language of painting for that of poetry, to make us see their feelings in the faces of the persons; and again, consistently with this, in the description of the picture in Tarquin and Lucrece, those circumstances are chiefly insisted on, which it would be impossible to convey except by words. The invocation to Opportunity in the Tarquin and Lucrece is full of thoughts and images, but at the same time it is overloaded by them."

"Why should the private pleasure of some one Become the public plague of many moe? Let sin, alone committed, light alone Upon his head that hath transgressèd so; Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe; For one’s offence why should so many fall, To plague a private sin in general?"

"Should you ask me, whence these stories? Whence these legends and traditions, With the odors of the forest, With the dew and damp of meadows, With the curling smoke of wigwams, With the rushing of great rivers, With their frequent repetitions, And their wild reverberations, As of thunder in the mountains?"

"I should answer, I should tell you, "From the forests and the prairies, From the great lakes of the Northland, From the land of the Ojibways, From the land of the Dacotahs, From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands, Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, Feeds among the reeds and rushes. I repeat them as I heard them From the lips of Nawadaha, The musician, the sweet singer.""

"His beard, all silver white, Wagg'd up and down."

"Poor, deluded Shawondasee! ’Twas no woman that you gazed at, ’Twas no maiden that you sighed for, ’Twas the prairie dandelion That through all the dreamy Summer You had gazed at with such longing, You had sighed for with such passion, And had puffed away forever, Blown into the air with sighing. Ah! deluded Shawondasee!"

"By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. Dark behind it rose the forest, Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, Rose the firs with cones upon them; Bright before it beat the water, Beat the clear and sunny water, Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water."

"No man inveigh against the wither’d flower, But chide rough winter that the flower hath kill’d."

"Thus the wedding banquet ended, And the wedding guests departed, Leaving Hiawatha happy With the night and Minnehaha."

"And that deep torture may be called a hell, When more is felt than one hath power to tell."

"Cloud-kissing Ilion."

"Buried was the bloody hatchet, Buried was the dreadful war-club, Buried were all warlike weapons, And the war-cry was forgotten."

"Time’s glory is to calm contending kings, To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light, To stamp the seal of time in aged things, To wake the morn and sentinel the night, To wrong the wronger till he render right, To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours, And smear with dust their glittering golden towers;To fill with worm-holes stately monuments, To feed oblivion with decay of things, To blot old books and alter their contents, To pluck the quills from ancient ravens’ wings, To dry the old oak’s sap and cherish springs, To spoil antiquities of hammer’d steel, And turn the giddy round of Fortune’s wheel;To show the beldam daughters of her daughter, To make the child a man, the man a child, To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter, To tame the unicorn and lion wild, To mock the subtle, in themselves beguil’d, To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops, And waste huge stones with little water-drops."

"Sometime her grief is dumb and hath no words; Sometime ’tis mad and too much talk affords."

"And my true eyes have never practis’d how To cloak offences with a cunning brow."

"Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud? Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows’ nests? Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud? Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts? Or kings be breakers of their own behests? But no perfection is so absolute, That some impurity doth not pollute."

"O Opportunity! thy guilt is great, ’Tis thou that execut’st the traitor’s treason; Thou sett’st the wolf where he the lamb may get; Whoever plots the sin, thou point’st the season; ’Tis thou that spurn’st at right, at law, at reason; And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him, Sits Sin to seize the souls that wander by him.Thou mak’st the vestal violate her oath; Thou blow’st the fire when temperance is thaw’d; Thou smother’st honesty, thou murder’st troth; Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd! Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud: Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief, Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief!Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame, Thy private feasting to a public fast, Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name, Thy sugar’d tongue to bitter wormwood taste: Thy violent vanities can never last. How comes it, then, vile Opportunity, Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?When wilt thou be the humble suppliant’s friend, And bring him where his suit may be obtain’d? When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end? Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chain’d? Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain’d? The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee; But they ne’er meet with Opportunity.The patient dies while the physician sleeps; The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds; Justice is feasting while the widow weeps; Advice is sporting while infection breeds: Thou grant’st no time for charitable deeds: Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder’s rages, Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee, A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid: They buy thy help; but Sin ne’er gives a fee, He gratis comes; and thou art well appaid As well to hear as grant what he hath said."

"Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth."

"What win I if I gain the thing I seek? A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy. Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week? Or sells eternity to get a toy?"

"Into the chamber wickedly he stalks And gazeth on her yet unstainèd bed."

"The aim of all is but to nurse the life With honour, wealth, and ease, in waning age; And in this aim there is such thwarting strife, That one for all, or all for one we gage; As life for honour in fell battles’ rage; Honour for wealth; and oft that wealth doth cost The death of all, and all together lost."

"Let fair humanity abhor the deed That spots and stains love's modest snow-white weed."

"Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under, Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss; Who, therefore angry, seems to part in sunder, Swelling on either side to want his bliss; Between whose hills her head entombed is; Where like a virtuous monument she lies, To be admired of lewd unhallowed eyes."

"Beauty itself doth of itself persuade The eyes of men without an orator."

"What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours, being part in all I have devoted yours."

"Pure Chastity is rifled of her store, And Lust, the thief, far poorer than before."

"Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain, And the nice conduct of a clouded cane."

"Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."

"The meeting points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head, forever, and forever! Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies."

"Boast not my fall (he cried), insulting foe! Thou by some other shalt be laid as low; Nor think to die dejects my lofty mind; All that I dread is leaving you behind! Rather than so, ah let me still survive, And burn in Cupid's flames — but burn alive."

"Not louder shrieks to pitying heav'n are cast, When husbands, or when lapdogs, breathe their last."

"The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine."

"Let spades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were."

"Coffee, which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes."

"At every word a reputation dies."

"But when mischief mortals bend their will, How soon they find fit instruments of ill!"

"Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike."