Hence, too, when She hath pierced with pain The heart of man, and wrecked his years, The pity of the April rain, And late repentance of her tears. She is no better, worse, than we; We can but say she seems more great, That half her will, like ours, is free, And half of it is locked in Fate. Nor need we fear that we should err Beyond our scope in reasoning thus,- That there must be a God for Her, If that there be a God for us.
Sound is there none of wheel or wain, Husht stands the anvil, husht the forge, No shout is heard in rustic lane, No axe resounds in timbered gorge. No flail beats time on granary floor, The windmill's rushing wings are stayed, And children's glee rings out no more From hedgerow bank or primrose glade. The big-boned team that firm and slow Draw yoked, are free to couch or stray; The basking covey seem to know None will invade their peace to-day.
And speckless swains, and maidens neat, Through rustic porch, down cottage stair, Demurely up the village street Stream onward to the House of Prayer. They kneel as they were taught to kneel In childhood, and demand not why, But, as they chant or answer, feel A vague communion with the sky. VIII But when the impetuous mind is spurred To range through epochs great but gone, And, heedless of dogmatic word, With fearless ardour presses on, Confronting pulpit, sceptre, shrine, With point by Logic beaten out, And, questioning tenets deemed divine With human challenge, human doubt, Hoists Reason's sail, and for the haze Of ocean quits Tradition's shore, Awhile he comes, and kneels, and prays, Then comes and kneels, but prays no more; And only for the love he bears To those who love him, and who reared His frame to genuflexion, shares In ritual, vain, if still revered.
Beauty of vision, voice, and mind, Enthrall him so, that unto him All Creeds seem true, if he but find Siren, or saint, or seraphim. And thus once more he dwells apart, His inward self enswathed in mist, Blending with poet's pious heart The dreams of pagan Hedonist. IX If Beauty be the Spirit's quest, Its adoration, creed, and shrine, Wherein its restlessness finds rest, And earthly type of the Divine, Must there for such not somewhere be A blending of all beauteous things In some one form wherein we see The sum of our imaginings?
The smile on mountain's musing brow, Sunrise and sunset, moon and star, Wavelets around the cygnet's prow, Glamour anear and charm afar; The silence of the silvery pool, Autumn's reserve and Summer's fire, Slow vanishings of Winter's rule To free full voice of April's choir;- The worshippers of Beauty find In maiden form, and face, and tress; Faint intimations of her mind And undulating loveliness. X Bound, runnels, bound, bound on, and flow! Sing, merle and mavis, pair and sing!
Gone is the Winter, fled the snow, And all that lives is flushed with Spring. Harry the woods, young truant folk, For flowers to deck your cottage sills, And, underneath my orchard oak, Cluster, ye golden daffodils!
Unfettered by domestic vow, Cuckoo, proclaim your vagrant loves, And coo upon the self-same bough, Inseparable turtle-doves. Soar, laverock, soar on song to sky, And with the choir of Heaven rejoice! You cannot be more glad than I, Who feel Her gaze, and hear Her voice: Who see Her cheek more crimson glow, And through Her veins love's current stream, And feel a fear She doth but know Is kin to joy and dawning dream.
Bound, rivulets, bound, bound on, and flow! Gone from the world are want and woe, And I myself am one with Spring. XI They err who say that Love is blind, Or, if it be, 'tis but in part, And that, if for fair face it find No counterpart in mind and heart, It dwells on that which it beholds, Fair fleshly vision void of soul, Deeming, illusioned, this enfolds, Longing's fulfilment, end, and whole.
Were such my hapless carnal lot, I too might evanescent bliss Embrace, fierce-fancied, fast forgot, Then leave for some fresh loveliness. She looks as though She came to grace The earth, from world less soiled than this, Around her head and virgin face Halo of heavenly holiness. XII He who hath roamed through various lands, And, wheresoe'er his steps are set, The kindred meaning understands Of spire, and dome, and minaret; By Roman river, Stamboul's sea, In Peter's or Sophia's shrine, Acknowledges with reverent knee The presence of the One Divine; Who, to the land he loves so well Returning, towards the sunset hour Wends homeward, feels yet stronger spell In lichened roof and grey church-tower; Round whose foundations, side by side, Sleep hamlet wit and village sage, While loud the blackbird cheers his bride Deep in umbrageous Vicarage.
But I at least should have foreseen, When Monica to me had grown Familiar word, that names may mean More than by word and name is shown; That nought can keep two lives apart More than divorce 'twixt mind and mind, Even though heart be one with heart;- Alas! Yes, Love is blind. Must both then sorrow, while we live, Because, rejoicing, I forgot Something there was I could not give, Because, alas! I had it not. XV She comes from Vicarage Garden, see! Radiant as morning, lithe and tall, Fresh lilies in her hand, but She The loveliest lily of them all.
The thrushes in their fluting pause, The bees float humming round her head, Earth, air, and heaven shine out because They hear her voice, and feel her tread. Up in the fretted grey church-tower, That rustic gaze for miles can see, The belfry strikes the silvery hour, Announcing her propinquity. She takes the flowers I too have brought, Blending them deftly with her own, And ranges them, as quick as thought, Around the white-draped altar-throne.
How could she know my gaze was not On things unseen, but fixed on Her, That, as She prayed, I all forgot The worship in the worshipper? Love is yet blinder than I thought. XVI Who hath not seen a little cloud Up from the clear horizon steal, And, mounting lurid, mutter loud Premonitory thunder-peal? Husht grows the grove, the summer leaf Trembles and writhes, as if in pain, And then the sky, o'ercharged with grief, Bursts into drenching tears of rain.
I through the years had sought to hide My darkening doubts from simple sight. And what, methought, is Doubt at best? A sterile wind through seeded sedge Blowing for nought, an empty nest That lingers in a leafless hedge.
Pain, too, there is we should not share With others lest it mar their joy; There is a quiet bliss in prayer None but the heartless would destroy. But just as Love is quick divined From heightened glow or visage pale, The meditations of the Mind Disclose themselves through densest veil.
And 'tis the unloving and least wise Who through life's inmost precincts press, And with unsympathetic eyes Outrage our sacred loneliness. Then, when their sacrilegious gaze The mournful void hath half surmised, To some more tender soul they raise The veil of ignorance it prized. Peace at last! The far-off roar Of human passion dies away. The fluttering of the falling leaves Dimples the leaden pool awhile; So Age impassively receives Youth's tale of troubles with a smile.
Thus, as the seasons steal away, How much is schemed, how little done, What splendid plans at break of day!
What void regrets at set of sun! The world goes round, for you, for me, For him who sleeps, for him who strives, And the cold Fates indifferent see Crowning or failure of our lives. Then fall, ye leaves, fade, summer breeze! Grow, sedges, sere on every pool! Let each old glowing impulse freeze, Let each old generous project cool! It is not wisdom, wit, nor worth, Self-sacrifice nor friendship true, Makes venal devotees of earth Prostrate themselves and worship you. The consciousness of sovran powers, The stubborn purpose, steadfast will, Have ever, in this world of ours, Achieved success, achieve it still.
Farewell, ye woods! No more I sit; Great voices in the distance call. If this be peace, enough of it!
Fall, unseen foliage, fall! XIX Nay, but repress rebellious woe! In grief 'tis not that febrile fool, Passion, that can but overthrow, But Resignation, that should rule.
In patient sadness lurks a gift To purify the life it stings, And, as the days move onward, lift The lonely heart to loftier things; Bringing within one's ripening reach The sceptre of majestic Thought, Wherefrom one slowly learns to teach The Wisdom to oneself it taught.
And unto what can man aspire, On earth, more worth the striving for, Than to be Reason's loftier lyre, And reconciling monitor; To strike a more resounding string And deeper notes of joy and pain, Than such as but lamenting sing, Or warble but a sensuous strain: So, when my days are nearly sped, And my last harvest labours done, That I may have around my head The halo of a setting sun.
Yet even if be heard above Such selfish hope, presumptuous claim, Better one hour of perfect love Than an eternity of Fame! XX Where then for grief seek out the cure? What scenes will bid my smart to cease? High peaks should teach one to endure, And lakes secluded bring one peace.
Farewell awhile, then, village bells, Autumnal wood and harvest wain! My gates unopened drip with rain, The wolf-hound wends from floor to floor, And, listening for my voice in vain, Waileth along the corridor. Within the old accustomed place Where we so oft were wont to be, Kneeling She prays, while down her face The fruitless tears fall silently.
The writhing lake Scuds to and fro to scape their stroke: The mountains veil their heads, and make Of cloud and mist a wintry cloak. Through where the arching pinewoods make Dusk cloisters down the mountain side, The loosened avalanches take Valeward their way, with death for guide, And toss their shaggy manes and fling To air their foam and tawny froth, From ledge and precipice bound and spring, With hungry roar and deepening wrath; Till, hamlet homes and orchards crushed, And, rage for further ravin stayed, They slumber, satiated, husht, Upon the ruins they have made.
I rise from larch-log hearth, and, lone, Gaze on the spears of serried rain, That faster, nigher, still are blown, Then stream adown the window pane. The cattle bells sound dull and hoarse, The boats rock idly by the shore; Only the swollen torrents course With faster feet and fuller roar. The reply- A far-off irresponsive smile. I ask the stars, when mortals sleep, The pensive moon, the lonely winds; But, haply if they know, they keep The secret of secluded minds.
Shall I in vain, then, strive to find, Straining towards merely fancied goal? Where in the lily lurks the mind, Where in the rose discern the soul? More mindless still, stream, pasture, lake, The mountains yet more heartless seem, And life's unceasing quest and ache Only a dream within a dream.
Sometimes he kneels; I cannot kneel, So suffer from a wider curse Than Eden's outcasts, for I feel An exile in the universe. The rudeness of his birth enures His limbs to every season's stings, And, never probing, so endures The sadness at the heart of things. When lauwine growls, and thunder swells, Their far-off clamour sounds to me But as the noise of clanging bells Above a silent sanctuary. It is their silence that appals, Their aspect motionless that awes, When searching spirit vainly calls On the effect to bare the Cause.
I get no answer, near or far; The mountains, though they soar so high, And scale the pathless ether, are No nearer unto God than I. There dwells nor mystery nor veil Round the clear peaks no foot hath trod; I, gazing on their frontage pale, See but the waning ghost of God. Is Faith then but a drug for sleep, And Hope a fondly soothing friend That bids us, when it sees us weep, Wait for the End that hath no end? If God existeth not, Why are you always seeking Him?
All through the day resounds the strife, Then doth at sunset hour subside: So the fierce passions of our life Slowly expire at eventide. By Nature we are ne'er misled; We see most truly when we dream. Follow the gleam! And, with a face as cerecloth white, And tears like those that by the bier Of loved one lost make dim the sight, She poured her sorrows in mine ear.
To your breast Fold me, O sleep! Her edicts are the rigid snow, The wayward winds, the swaying branch; She hath no pity to bestow, Her law the lawless avalanche. Though soon cascades will bound and sing, That now but drip with tears of ice, And upland meadows touched by Spring Blue gentian blend with edelweiss, Hence to the Land of youthful dreams, The Land that taught me all I know.
Farewell, lone mountain-peaks and streams; Yet take my thanks before I go. You gave me shelter when I fled, But sternly bade me stem my tears, Nor aimless roam with rustling tread 'Mong fallen leaves of fruitless years.
I trembled, when I saw it first, With joy, my boyish longings fed, The headspring of my constant thirst, The altar of my pilgrim tread. Now once again the magic word, So faintly borne to Northern home, Sounds like a silvery trumpet heard Beneath some universal dome. The forests soften to a smile, A smile the very mountains wear, Through mossy gorge and grassed defile Torrents race glad and debonair.
From casement, balcony and door, Hang golden gourds, droops tear-tipped vine, And sun-bronzed faces bask before Thin straw-swathed flasks of last year's wine. Unyoked, the patient sleek-skinned steers Take, like their lords, no heed of time. The maidens knit, and glance, and sing, With glowing gaze 'neath ebon tress, And, like to copse-buds sunned by Spring, Seem burgeoning into tenderness.
On waveless lake where willows weep, The Borromean Islands rest As motionless as babe asleep Upon a slumbering Mother's breast. O Land of sunshine, song, and Love! Whether thy children reap or sow, Of Love they chant on hills above, Of Love they sing in vale below. But what avail the love-linked hands, And love-lit eyes, to them that roam Passionless through impassioned lands, Since they have left their heart at home!
XXVII Among my dreams, now known as dreams In this my reawakened life, I thought that by historic streams, Apart from stress, aloof from strife, By rugged paths that twist and twine Through olive slope and chesnut wood Upward to mediaeval shrine, Or high conventual brotherhood, Along the mountain-curtained track Round peaceful lake where wintry bands Halt briefly but to bivouac Ere blustering on to Northern lands;- Through these, through all I first did see, With me to share my raptures none, That nuptialled Monica would be My novice and companion: That we should float from mere to mere, And sleep within some windless cove, With nightingales to lull the ear, From ilex wood and orange grove; Linger at hamlets lost to fame, That still wise-wandering feet beguile, To gaze on frescoed wall or frame Lit by Luini's gracious smile.
Now, but companioned by my pain, Among each well-remembered scene I can but let my Fancy feign The happiness that might have been; Imagine that I hear her voice, Imagine that I feel her hand, And I, enamoured guide, rejoice To see her swift to understand. Imagination might As lief with rustic Virgil roam, Reverent, or, welcomed guest, alight At Pliny's philosophic home; Hear one majestically trace Rome's world-wide sway from wattled wall, And read upon the other's face The omens of an Empire's fall.
I gaze up to her lofty height, And feel how far we dwell apart: O if I could, this night, this night, Fold her full radiance to my heart!
But She in Heaven, and I on earth, Still journey on, but each alone; She, maiden Queen of sacred birth, Who with no consort shares her throne. XXIX What if She ever thought She saw The self within myself prefer Communion with the silent awe Of far-off mountains more than Her; That Nature hath the mobile grace To make life with our moods agree, And so had grown the Loved One's face, Since it nor checked nor chided me; Or from the tasks that irk and tire I sought for comfort from the Muse, Because it grants the mind's desire All that familiar things refuse.
How vain such thought! The face, the form, Of mountain summits but express, Clouded or clear, in sun or storm, Feebly Her spirit's loftiness. O come and test with lake, with stream, With mountain, which the stronger be, Thou, my divinest dearest dream, My Muse, and more than Muse, to me! The stars, disdainful of my thought, Majestic march toward their goal, And to my nightly watch have brought No explanation to my soul.
The truth I seek I cannot find, In air or sky, on land or sea; If the hills have their secret mind, They will not yield it up to me: Like one who lost mid lonely hills Still seeks but cannot find his way, Since guide is none save winding rills, That seem themselves, too, gone astray.
And so from rise to set of sun, At glimmering dawn, in twilight haze, I but behold the face of One Who veils her face, and weeps, and prays. What know I that She doth not know? O weary wanderer! Best forego This questioning of wind and wave. For you the sunshine and the snow, The womb, the cradle, and the grave. XXXI How blest, when organ concords swell, And anthems are intoned, are they Who neither reason nor rebel, But meekly bow their heads and pray.
Of all the intercessors born By man's celestial fancy, none Hath helped the sorrowing, the forlorn, Lowly and lone, as She hath done. The maiden faithful to Her shrine Bids demons of temptation flee, And mothers fruitful as the vine Retain their vestal purity.
Too trustful love, by lust betrayed, And by cold worldlings unforgiven, Unto Her having wept and prayed, Faces its fate, consoled and shriven. The restless, fiercely probing mind No honey gleans, though still it stings. What comfort doth the spirit find In Reason's endless reasonings?
We are so proud to name her as the inaugural Austin Youth Poet Laureate. BENEFITS Serve as a representative for youth voice and poetry in Austin Be celebrated with a celebration in the fall and participate in other readings and performances across the city Be published in the National Youth Poet Laureate anthology Be eligible to compete in the regional and national Youth Poet Laureate competitions and all national Youth Poet Laureate programming with other youth across the country Have the opportunity to publish a chapbook through local press Host Publications.
Anyone age years old living in Austin, TX. As long as your address says you live in Austin, you are eligible to apply. Right now this program is only open to students living within Austin city limits. We hope to expand to surrounding counties in the future. How much experience do I need in order to apply? Austin's descendants recall how he typically composed his poetry "on the fly" and rarely edited the verses after they had been written.
Howard Austin was not affiliated with literary circles nor did he ever pursue to have any of his works published and sold. His poetry was simply a natural expression of who and where he was. He was also a local public figure throughout his adult life by virtue of his work as teacher, banker, accountant, and Chief Clerk of the Sangamon County Clerk's office.
Howard B. Austin, always recognized with a cigar in his mouth, succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 75 in the family home in Springfield, IL on April 1, , with his family in attendance. Toggle navigation Howard Austin - Bio. Welcome Ms. Jackson Bio 'Giving Thanks' by Ms. It looks like your browser does not have JavaScript enabled. Please turn on JavaScript and try again.
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