FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION
Search the corpus.
Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
21 matching pages
Page 1 of 21898 · PDF PAGE 15
Amsterdam, December 23rd, 1897. LET me pass out beyond the city gate. All day I loitered in the little streets Of black worn houses tottering, like the fate That hangs above my head even now, and meets Prayer and defiance as not hearing it. They lean, these old black streets, a little sky Peeps through the gap, the rough stone path is lit Just for a little by the sun, and I Watched his red face pass over, fade away To other streets, and other passengers, Saw him take pleasure where the heathen pray, Saw him relieve the hunter of his furs, All t…
1898 · PDF PAGE 81
Fresh arméd foemen to destroy the king. And first, on black imperishable wing, That Nameless Thing. Darkness, a dragon, now devours The vision of those deadly powers, The legions of the lords of sin It is an hour till dawn begin. 71
1898 · PDF PAGE 100
And pass beyond their horror to attack Fresh foemen, light and truth to bring Through their untrodden fields of black, A victor king. I know all must be well, all must be free, I know God as I know a friend ; I conquer, and most silently Await the end. 90
1898 · PDF PAGE 108
…ht. Foul censers, altars desecrated, blight The corpse-lit river, whose dank vapours teem Heavy and horrible, a deadly steam Of murder’s black intolerable might. The stagnant pools rejoice ; the human feast Revels at height ; the sacrament is come ; God wakes no lightning in the broken East ; His awful thunders listen and are dumb ; Earth gapes not for that sin ; the skies renew At break of day their vestiture of blue. 98
1898 · PDF PAGE 22
…uments, etc. He gazes some minutes, sighs deeply, but at last speaks. Ph. The world moves not. I gaze upon the abyss, Look down into the black unfathomed vault Of Starland and behold—myself. The sea To give a sense of motion or of sound Washes the wall of this grey tower in vain ; 12
1898 · PDF PAGE 88
At eve to make demur That I be minister To Cynthia maidenly : All night I have watched her sail through a black and silver sky. Within my soul there fight Two full and urgent streams, Work’s woe and dream’s delight : Like snow and sun they smite, Days battle hard with dreams : On a world of misty beauty the Aurora clearly beams. So labour fought with pride, And love with idleness, My soul was torn and tried With the impassioned tide Of storm and deathly stress— I had never dreamed a lily should arise amid the press. Yet such a flower sprang her…
1898 · PDF PAGE 70
…te that else were treasure ? Who is Love ? a fury red with all men’s blood On his cruel altars shed, a deadly flood ? Or a veiléd vision black with shame and fear, Whose most loathliest attack at night is near, 60
1898 · PDF PAGE 37
AN ILL DREAM. IN the grim woods when all the bare black branches Creak out their curses like a gallows-tree, When the miasmal pestilence-light dances, A spectre-flame, through midnight’s infamy. My blood grows chill and stagnant with my shame. O Love, to speak thy name ! O Life ! O Heaven ! O dreams long dead ! Ye Spirits Rising unbidden from Hope’s cobwebbed door, Ye quick desires that every soul inherits, Leave me to weep, and torture me no more ! My face grows grey with sheer despair ; I shrink From dreams ; I dare not think. I had a poet’s …
1898 · PDF PAGE 83
…or one window its height rears up unbroken and blind. Here may a man gaze out to the night by the stars of it stricken, Out to the blind black air that the lightning divides and is dumb ; Here, and look back in the tower where pallid shades murmur and quicken, Low laughs leap in the silence, sink to a sigh ere there come, 73
1898 · PDF PAGE 110
…ous night A wild, strange light Flickers around the sacred head of man, And bids him scan The scroll of heaven, and see if there be not, Black with no blot Of cloud, but golden lettered on the blue That mothers dew, This message of good hope, good trust, good fate And good estate : Work on, hope ever, let your faith be built Of gold ungilt ; Your love exceed the starry vault for height, The heaven for might ; 100
1898 · PDF PAGE 6
…e thine, Higher and purer than stars shine, And thine the unexpressed delight To hold high commune with the wind That sings, in midnight black and blind, Strange chants, the murmurs of the mind, To grasp the hands of heaven and find the lords of light. Mine was the holy fire that drew Its perfect passion from the dew, And all the flowers that blushed and blew On sunny slopes by little brooks. Mine the desire that brushed aside The thorns, and would not be denied, And sought, more eager than a bride, The cold grey secrets wan and wide of sacred …
1898 · PDF PAGE 52
…ays at my back To whisper wickedness, o’erheard of none, And stealthily to follow on my track, And cloke my lifted eyes with suffocating black. Vainly I turn to seek him, for my eyes Are dimmed with saltness never born of brine ; Vainly I fight the air, he sneers, and lies, And laughs at all this agony of mine, And chills my heart, and desecrates the shrine Where Love his holy incense used to burn, And mocks those thoughts, those songs, those looks divine 42
1898 · PDF PAGE 40
Which dips, one wide black shaft, most horrible, Down to the nether Hell. Yet there seems time. God’s grief has not forgotten His mighty arm, and with His pitying breath A strong wind woke me ere my boat grew rotten With venom of the stream, that quivereth Now as He blew upon it—fish and bird Live at that silent word ! And I arose to seek the oars of Lying Wherewith I had embarked—the wind had torn Their wood to splinters—“ Jesus ! I am dying ! Send me Thy cross to fashion some unborn Oarage of Truth to quit this stream of Death ! ” O vain, O w…
1898 · PDF PAGE 62
…the past. Only the hope that God may reunite Our ways diverging, and make one again The deathless love that burns a beacon bright On the black deeps, the irremeable main, That men must launch on, the exalted plain Of Life. We sever, and our tears are few, Knowing perchance beyond the moment’s pain 52
1898 · PDF PAGE 23
I contemplate myself in that dim sphere Whose hollow centre I am standing at With burning eyes intent to penetrate The black circumference, and find out God— And only see myself. The walls of Space Mock me with silence. What is Life ? The stars Are silent. O ye matchless ministers That daily pass in your appointed ways To reach—we know not what ! How meaningless Your bright assemblage and your steady task Of doubtful motion. And the soul of man Grapples in death-pangs with your mystery, And fails to wrestle down the hard embrace That grips the …
1898 · PDF PAGE 60
…Dove flies away, the fountains are repressed, The grass is withered, and the angry sky Rages more fierce that day, and from the crest Of black foul mountains comes a bitter cry : “ He that returneth now shall in destruction die.” So I press on. Fresh strength from day to day Girds up my loins and beckons me on high, 50
1898 · PDF PAGE 61
So I depart upon the desert way, So I strive ever toward the copper sky, With lips burnt black and blind in either eye. I move for ever to my mystic goal Where I may drain a fountain never dry, And of Life’s guerdon gather in the whole, And on celestial manna satisfy my soul. Each night new failure and each day fresh strength, A sense of something nearer day by day ; Though the ill road’s intolerable length, League upon league, fling back the torrid ray Of the fierce sunlight night can scarce allay With the incessant beating of cool wings, And …
1898 · PDF PAGE 24
…ght be so, Since here is nothing for the soul to love Or cling to beyond self. My chamberlain Once showed me a pet slave, dwarf, savage, black, A vile, lewd creature, who would cast a staff Far wheeling through the air, and suddenly Break its swift course, and curving rapidly Come hard upon himself who threw. Even so These vile deformities—our souls—cast forth Missiles of thought, and seek to reach some end With swift imagining—and end in self. What sage called God the image of man’s self He sees cast dimly on a bank of cloud, Thrice his own si…
1898 · PDF PAGE 80
… stands amid the storm, a mighty rock, His long hair blows about, the demons mock His entry to their kingdom, and despair. Groans in the blackness, infamous and bare, And hateful shapes and eyes surround his head— O for the magic of those mightier dead To scatter them, and utterly destroy Their likeness, and to penetrate the joy Of yonder places past the realm of fear ! O that some mighty seer Came to avenge, that might deliver him From this grim fight, whose horrid ranks are dim With mist of spuméd blood, whose long chill hour Beats out each s…
1898 · PDF PAGE 43
…icate quill to light upon— Yes, when the sky from stainless ebony Merges in azure, like as if the light Of stars had melted into all the black To gladden it, O then the solemn hush Of morning shall behold the silent grave, And wait a moment in rich worshipping Of Love, creator of the world’s delight, Till the full chorus of the spirits of fire, Whose mighty shoulders and wide-flashing wings Bear the proud sun from his luxurious bed Of rosy fleeces in the West low lying Into the staircase of the jealous day, Burst on the silence of the world bey…