https://sonett.fontane-place.de/ Sat, 27 Jun 2026 02:01:34 +0000 MyBB https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16715 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:34:24 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16715
COME, Sleep — Oblivion's sire! Come, blessed Sleep!
Thy shadowy sheltering wings above me spread.
Fold to thy balmy breast my weary head.
Shut close behind the gates of sense, and steep
All sad remembrance in thy Lethe deep.
But come not as thou comest to the bed
Of the tired laborer sleeping like the dead
In dull and dreamless trance. But let me keep
The visionary paths of fantasy
Down through the mystic mazes of a land
Transfigured by thy wonder-working spell.
So lead me, gentle Sleep, with guiding hand,
That when I wake from dreams, I still may be
Wooed back to tread thy fields of asphodel.]]>
COME, Sleep — Oblivion's sire! Come, blessed Sleep!
Thy shadowy sheltering wings above me spread.
Fold to thy balmy breast my weary head.
Shut close behind the gates of sense, and steep
All sad remembrance in thy Lethe deep.
But come not as thou comest to the bed
Of the tired laborer sleeping like the dead
In dull and dreamless trance. But let me keep
The visionary paths of fantasy
Down through the mystic mazes of a land
Transfigured by thy wonder-working spell.
So lead me, gentle Sleep, with guiding hand,
That when I wake from dreams, I still may be
Wooed back to tread thy fields of asphodel.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16714 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:32:43 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16714
SING, poets, as ye list, of fields, of flowers,
Of changing seasons with their brilliant round
Of keen delights, or themes still more profound —
Where soul through sense transmutes this world of ours.
There is a life intense beyond your powers
Of utterance, which the ear alone has found
In the aerial fields of rhythmic sound —
The inviolate pathways and air-woven bowers
Built by entwining melodies and chords.
Ah, could I find some correspondent sign
Matching such wondrous art with fitting words!
But vain the task. Within his hallowed shrine
Apollo veils his face. No muse records
In human speech such mysteries divine.


2.

YET words though weak are all that poets own
Wherewith their muse translates that kindred muse
Of Harmony, whose subtle forms and hues
Float in the unlanguaged poesy of Tone.
And so no true-souled artist stands alone;
But all are brothers, though one hand may use
A magic wand the others must refuse,
And painters need no sculptor's Parian stone.
If Art is long, yet is her province wide.
While all for truth and beauty live and dare,
One sacred temple covers all her sons.
Music and Poesy stand side by side.
Through every member one blood-current runs:
One aim, one work, one destiny they share.]]>
SING, poets, as ye list, of fields, of flowers,
Of changing seasons with their brilliant round
Of keen delights, or themes still more profound —
Where soul through sense transmutes this world of ours.
There is a life intense beyond your powers
Of utterance, which the ear alone has found
In the aerial fields of rhythmic sound —
The inviolate pathways and air-woven bowers
Built by entwining melodies and chords.
Ah, could I find some correspondent sign
Matching such wondrous art with fitting words!
But vain the task. Within his hallowed shrine
Apollo veils his face. No muse records
In human speech such mysteries divine.


2.

YET words though weak are all that poets own
Wherewith their muse translates that kindred muse
Of Harmony, whose subtle forms and hues
Float in the unlanguaged poesy of Tone.
And so no true-souled artist stands alone;
But all are brothers, though one hand may use
A magic wand the others must refuse,
And painters need no sculptor's Parian stone.
If Art is long, yet is her province wide.
While all for truth and beauty live and dare,
One sacred temple covers all her sons.
Music and Poesy stand side by side.
Through every member one blood-current runs:
One aim, one work, one destiny they share.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16713 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:31:56 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16713
YE idle hours of summer, not in vain,
To one by Nature's beauty fed, ye pass —
Though sending through the mental camera glass
No philosophic lesson to the brain,
But only pictures fair of shaded lane,
Of dappled cows knee-deep in meadow grass;
Bright hill-tops with their sloping forest mass,
Or barn-roofs glimmering gray across the plain.
Earth, air, and water, and the sacred skies
Have something still to tell, not less, I ween,
Than famous books the learned sages prize,
Weighted with thought abstract and logic keen,
Where Concord pores with metaphysic eyes
O'er vasty deeps of the unknown and unseen.]]>
YE idle hours of summer, not in vain,
To one by Nature's beauty fed, ye pass —
Though sending through the mental camera glass
No philosophic lesson to the brain,
But only pictures fair of shaded lane,
Of dappled cows knee-deep in meadow grass;
Bright hill-tops with their sloping forest mass,
Or barn-roofs glimmering gray across the plain.
Earth, air, and water, and the sacred skies
Have something still to tell, not less, I ween,
Than famous books the learned sages prize,
Weighted with thought abstract and logic keen,
Where Concord pores with metaphysic eyes
O'er vasty deeps of the unknown and unseen.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16712 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:31:20 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16712
FAR Off among the fields and meadow rills
The August noon bends o'er a world of green.
In the blue sky the white clouds pause, and lean
To paint broad shadows on the wooded hills
And upland farms. A brooding silence fills
The languid hours. No living forms are seen
Save birds and insects. Here and there, between
The broad boughs and the grass, the locust trills
Unseen his long-drawn, slumberous monotone.
The sparrow and the lonely phœbe-bird,
Now near, now far, across the fields are heard;
And close beside me here that Spanish drone,
The dancing grasshopper, whom no trouble frets,
In the hot sunshine snaps his castanets.]]>
FAR Off among the fields and meadow rills
The August noon bends o'er a world of green.
In the blue sky the white clouds pause, and lean
To paint broad shadows on the wooded hills
And upland farms. A brooding silence fills
The languid hours. No living forms are seen
Save birds and insects. Here and there, between
The broad boughs and the grass, the locust trills
Unseen his long-drawn, slumberous monotone.
The sparrow and the lonely phœbe-bird,
Now near, now far, across the fields are heard;
And close beside me here that Spanish drone,
The dancing grasshopper, whom no trouble frets,
In the hot sunshine snaps his castanets.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16711 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:29:47 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16711
IN the old void of unrecorded time,
In long, slow æons of the voiceless past,
A seed from out the weltering fire-mist cast
Took root — a struggling plant that from its prime
Through rudiments uncouth, through rock and slime,
Grew, changing form and issue — and clinging fast,
Stretched its aspiring tendrils — till at last
Shaped like a spirit it began to climb
Beyond its rugged stem with leaf and bud
Still burgeoning to greet the sunlit air
That clothed its regal top with love and power,
And compassed it as with a heavenly flood —
Until it burst in bloom beyond compare,
The world's consummate, peerless human flower.

.
2.

SHALL that bright flower the countless ages toiled
And travailed to bring forth — shall that rare rose,
Whose bloom and fragrance earth and heaven unclose
Their treasuries to enrich, by death be foiled?
Its matchless splendor trampled down and spoiled?
Shall that Celestial Love — who watched its throes
Through centuries of long struggles and of woes,
And freed it from the old Serpent round it coiled;
Who tended it, and reared its glorious head
Above the brambles and the poisonous marsh,
And shielded it when zones were cased in ice —
Leave it to perish when the summons harsh
Of death is rung, — or, ere its leaves are shed,
Transplant it to his realm of Paradise?]]>
IN the old void of unrecorded time,
In long, slow æons of the voiceless past,
A seed from out the weltering fire-mist cast
Took root — a struggling plant that from its prime
Through rudiments uncouth, through rock and slime,
Grew, changing form and issue — and clinging fast,
Stretched its aspiring tendrils — till at last
Shaped like a spirit it began to climb
Beyond its rugged stem with leaf and bud
Still burgeoning to greet the sunlit air
That clothed its regal top with love and power,
And compassed it as with a heavenly flood —
Until it burst in bloom beyond compare,
The world's consummate, peerless human flower.

.
2.

SHALL that bright flower the countless ages toiled
And travailed to bring forth — shall that rare rose,
Whose bloom and fragrance earth and heaven unclose
Their treasuries to enrich, by death be foiled?
Its matchless splendor trampled down and spoiled?
Shall that Celestial Love — who watched its throes
Through centuries of long struggles and of woes,
And freed it from the old Serpent round it coiled;
Who tended it, and reared its glorious head
Above the brambles and the poisonous marsh,
And shielded it when zones were cased in ice —
Leave it to perish when the summons harsh
Of death is rung, — or, ere its leaves are shed,
Transplant it to his realm of Paradise?]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16710 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:28:12 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16710 (ON HIS HOMEWARD VOYAGE)

1.

BACK from old England, in whose courts he stood
Foremost to knit by act and word the band
Between the daughter and the mother-land
In all by either prized of truth and good,
We welcome to a fellowship renewed
His country's friend and ours. The master-hand
That held the pen and lyre could still command
Affairs of state, controlling league and feud.
So, helped, not hindered, may his later strains
Flow deeper, richer, though by sorrow toned;
And life by losses grow as once by gains;
And age hold fast the best that youth has owned.
But ah, hurt not with touch too heavy, Time,
The light-winged wisdom of his gayer rhyme.


2.

O SHIP that bears him to his native shore,
Beneath whose keel the seething ocean heaves,
Bring safe our poet with his garnered sheaves
Of Life's ripe autumn poesy and lore!
Though round the old homestead where we met of yore
In the unsaddened days the southwind grieves
Through his green elms, and all their summer leaves
Seem whispering of the scenes that come no more,
Yet may the years that brought him honors due
Where Europe's best and wisest learned his worth,
Yield hope and strength to reach horizons new
In the broad Western land that gave him birth;
Nor bar his vision to a sunlit view
Beyond the enshrouding mysteries of earth.]]> (ON HIS HOMEWARD VOYAGE)

1.

BACK from old England, in whose courts he stood
Foremost to knit by act and word the band
Between the daughter and the mother-land
In all by either prized of truth and good,
We welcome to a fellowship renewed
His country's friend and ours. The master-hand
That held the pen and lyre could still command
Affairs of state, controlling league and feud.
So, helped, not hindered, may his later strains
Flow deeper, richer, though by sorrow toned;
And life by losses grow as once by gains;
And age hold fast the best that youth has owned.
But ah, hurt not with touch too heavy, Time,
The light-winged wisdom of his gayer rhyme.


2.

O SHIP that bears him to his native shore,
Beneath whose keel the seething ocean heaves,
Bring safe our poet with his garnered sheaves
Of Life's ripe autumn poesy and lore!
Though round the old homestead where we met of yore
In the unsaddened days the southwind grieves
Through his green elms, and all their summer leaves
Seem whispering of the scenes that come no more,
Yet may the years that brought him honors due
Where Europe's best and wisest learned his worth,
Yield hope and strength to reach horizons new
In the broad Western land that gave him birth;
Nor bar his vision to a sunlit view
Beyond the enshrouding mysteries of earth.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16709 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:27:24 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16709
FOR Peace, and all that follows in her path —
Nor slighting honor and his country's fame,
He stood unmoved, and dared to face the blame
Of party-spirit and its turbid wrath.
He saw in vision the dread aftermath,
Should war once kindle its world-circling flame
Through Asian tribes that bear the British name.
Time few such crises for a people hath,
And few such leaders. Calmly he pursued
A course at which the feebler spirits sneered,
The bolder fumed with clamor loud and rude.
And while the world still doubted, hoped, and feared,
This chief a bloodless victory hath won —
Britannia's wisest, best, and bravest son.]]>
FOR Peace, and all that follows in her path —
Nor slighting honor and his country's fame,
He stood unmoved, and dared to face the blame
Of party-spirit and its turbid wrath.
He saw in vision the dread aftermath,
Should war once kindle its world-circling flame
Through Asian tribes that bear the British name.
Time few such crises for a people hath,
And few such leaders. Calmly he pursued
A course at which the feebler spirits sneered,
The bolder fumed with clamor loud and rude.
And while the world still doubted, hoped, and feared,
This chief a bloodless victory hath won —
Britannia's wisest, best, and bravest son.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16708 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:26:22 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16708
STILL shines our August day, as calm, as bright
As when, long years ago, we sailied away
Down the blue Narrows and the widening bay
Into the wrinkling ocean's flashing light;
And the whole universe of sound and sight
Repeats the radiance of that festal day.
But for the inward eye no power can stay
The fleeting splendor of our youth's delight.
Still shines our August day, — but not for me
The old enchantment, — when, by care and sorrow
Untried, the hopeful heart was ever free
To greet the morn as herald of like morrow.
Yet shine, fair day! And let my soul from thee
Hope, faith, and strength for life's dim future borrow.]]>
STILL shines our August day, as calm, as bright
As when, long years ago, we sailied away
Down the blue Narrows and the widening bay
Into the wrinkling ocean's flashing light;
And the whole universe of sound and sight
Repeats the radiance of that festal day.
But for the inward eye no power can stay
The fleeting splendor of our youth's delight.
Still shines our August day, — but not for me
The old enchantment, — when, by care and sorrow
Untried, the hopeful heart was ever free
To greet the morn as herald of like morrow.
Yet shine, fair day! And let my soul from thee
Hope, faith, and strength for life's dim future borrow.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16707 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:22:46 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16707
His brows were circled by a wreath of bays,
The symbol of the bard's well-earned renown —
Upon his head more regal than the crown
Of kings. For he by his immortal lays
Is King among the poets of these days.
And far and wide where'er our mother-tongue
Is known, his wingèd lines are read and sung
In crowded cities and in green by-ways.
What could his country give that he had not?
Fame, wealth, love's best companionship he had.
And, blown across the seas, no lonely spot
Of our far West but felt the effluence glad
Borne to our hearts as from ethereal fire
In the rich music of his English lyre.


2.

HOW grand he would have stood, had he declined
The needless coronet he donned, as though
Its gilt could heighten his proud aureole's glow.
But downward he has stepped, a seat to find —
Not with the lords of that imperial kind
Whose simple manhood, fed by love and truth,
Found far from monarchs' courts perennial youth
In the ideal gardens of the mind; —
But in a throng of blank nobilities
In outward fellowship of lip and eye —
Of empty forms and hollow courtesies;
Thou art become as one of us — they cry.
Another shape than thine must now be worn.
Son of the morning — how thy beams are shorn!]]>
His brows were circled by a wreath of bays,
The symbol of the bard's well-earned renown —
Upon his head more regal than the crown
Of kings. For he by his immortal lays
Is King among the poets of these days.
And far and wide where'er our mother-tongue
Is known, his wingèd lines are read and sung
In crowded cities and in green by-ways.
What could his country give that he had not?
Fame, wealth, love's best companionship he had.
And, blown across the seas, no lonely spot
Of our far West but felt the effluence glad
Borne to our hearts as from ethereal fire
In the rich music of his English lyre.


2.

HOW grand he would have stood, had he declined
The needless coronet he donned, as though
Its gilt could heighten his proud aureole's glow.
But downward he has stepped, a seat to find —
Not with the lords of that imperial kind
Whose simple manhood, fed by love and truth,
Found far from monarchs' courts perennial youth
In the ideal gardens of the mind; —
But in a throng of blank nobilities
In outward fellowship of lip and eye —
Of empty forms and hollow courtesies;
Thou art become as one of us — they cry.
Another shape than thine must now be worn.
Son of the morning — how thy beams are shorn!]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16706 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:22:02 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16706
OF love that was, of friendship in the days
Of youth long gone, yet oft remembered still,
And seen like distant landscapes from a hill,
Clothed in a garment of aërial haze,
What need to sing? Yet real is each phase
Of life; and Time, that brings all good and ill
Of this our mortal lot, can never spill
One drop of that full cup he fills and weighs.
Ah, faces veiled that start from out the past!
Ah, spectral images once swift and warm!
Ye are but hidden by perspectives vast.
To-day o'ermasters all. And yet each form
Of life and thought, forgotten or aloof,
Is woven through the soul's strange warp and woof.]]>
OF love that was, of friendship in the days
Of youth long gone, yet oft remembered still,
And seen like distant landscapes from a hill,
Clothed in a garment of aërial haze,
What need to sing? Yet real is each phase
Of life; and Time, that brings all good and ill
Of this our mortal lot, can never spill
One drop of that full cup he fills and weighs.
Ah, faces veiled that start from out the past!
Ah, spectral images once swift and warm!
Ye are but hidden by perspectives vast.
To-day o'ermasters all. And yet each form
Of life and thought, forgotten or aloof,
Is woven through the soul's strange warp and woof.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16705 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:21:21 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16705
BLACK in the midnight lies the City vast.
Its dim horizon from my window high
I see shut in beneath a misty sky
Red with the light a million lamp-fires cast
Up from the humming streets. And now at last
With lessening roar the weary wheels go by.
At last in sleep all discords swoon and die.
Now wakes the solemn visionary Past,
Peopled with spirits of the mighty dead
Whose names are London's glory and her shame —
Seers, poets, heroes, martyrs — deathless lives
Long blazoned in the chronicles of fame.
The inglorious Present veils its dwarfish head.
England's ideal life alone survives!]]>
BLACK in the midnight lies the City vast.
Its dim horizon from my window high
I see shut in beneath a misty sky
Red with the light a million lamp-fires cast
Up from the humming streets. And now at last
With lessening roar the weary wheels go by.
At last in sleep all discords swoon and die.
Now wakes the solemn visionary Past,
Peopled with spirits of the mighty dead
Whose names are London's glory and her shame —
Seers, poets, heroes, martyrs — deathless lives
Long blazoned in the chronicles of fame.
The inglorious Present veils its dwarfish head.
England's ideal life alone survives!]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16704 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:20:37 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16704
THE day so long remembered comes again.
The years have vanished. On the vessel's deck
We stand and wave adieux, until a speck
Our bark appears to friends whose eyes would fain
Follow our voyage o'er the unknown main.
Shadows of sails and masts and rigging fleck
The sunlit ship. The captain's call and beck
Hurry the cheery sailors as they strain
The windy sheets; while we in careless mood
Gaze on the silver clouds and azure sea,
Filled with old ocean's novel solitude,
And dream of that new life of Italy,
The golden fleece for which we sailed away,
Whose splendor freshens this memorial day.]]>
THE day so long remembered comes again.
The years have vanished. On the vessel's deck
We stand and wave adieux, until a speck
Our bark appears to friends whose eyes would fain
Follow our voyage o'er the unknown main.
Shadows of sails and masts and rigging fleck
The sunlit ship. The captain's call and beck
Hurry the cheery sailors as they strain
The windy sheets; while we in careless mood
Gaze on the silver clouds and azure sea,
Filled with old ocean's novel solitude,
And dream of that new life of Italy,
The golden fleece for which we sailed away,
Whose splendor freshens this memorial day.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16703 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:19:49 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16703
WARM, generous and young in heart and brain,
A wise, ripe scholar of the antique mould,
Had he but chosen he might have enrolled
His name among philosophers who gain
Renown, and lead an academic train.
But unambitious in a humbler fold —
Humbler yet wider — he the current told
Of others' thoughts and works in graceful strain.
So from his watch-tower calm the public mind
He charmed and wisely led. Still young in age,
And still in fireside talk the cordial friend,
He read between the lines upon life's page
The deeper meaning those alone can find
Whose souls toward truth and not its semblance, tend.]]>
WARM, generous and young in heart and brain,
A wise, ripe scholar of the antique mould,
Had he but chosen he might have enrolled
His name among philosophers who gain
Renown, and lead an academic train.
But unambitious in a humbler fold —
Humbler yet wider — he the current told
Of others' thoughts and works in graceful strain.
So from his watch-tower calm the public mind
He charmed and wisely led. Still young in age,
And still in fireside talk the cordial friend,
He read between the lines upon life's page
The deeper meaning those alone can find
Whose souls toward truth and not its semblance, tend.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16702 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:19:08 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16702
THE summer comes again, yet nothing brings
Of him but memories of that clear-lit eye,
That voice, that presence that can never die.
Fame o'er his dust no public trumpet rings.
No bard beside his grave his genius sings.
Yet he was one of that brave company,
The apostles of the race — the champion high
Of faith by reason guarded from the slings
Of dull sectarians and of atheist foes.
In him the scholar, teacher, prophet, wit
And genial friend were blended in one strain.
From his electric intellect arose
Auroral lights in which the past was lit,
And Æschylus and Shakspeare lived again.]]>
THE summer comes again, yet nothing brings
Of him but memories of that clear-lit eye,
That voice, that presence that can never die.
Fame o'er his dust no public trumpet rings.
No bard beside his grave his genius sings.
Yet he was one of that brave company,
The apostles of the race — the champion high
Of faith by reason guarded from the slings
Of dull sectarians and of atheist foes.
In him the scholar, teacher, prophet, wit
And genial friend were blended in one strain.
From his electric intellect arose
Auroral lights in which the past was lit,
And Æschylus and Shakspeare lived again.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16701 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:18:24 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16701
CAN one so strong in hope, so rich in bloom
That promised fruit of nobler worth than all
He yet had given, drop thus with sudden fall?
The busy brain no more its work resume?
Can death for life so versatile find room?
Still must we fancy thou canst hear our call
Across the sea — with no dividing wall
More dense than space to interpose its doom.
Ah then — farewell, young-hearted genial friend!
Farewell, true poet, who didst grow and build
From thought to thought still upward and still new.
Farewell, unsullied toiler in a guild
Where some defile their hands, and where so few
With aims as pure strive faithful to the end.]]>
CAN one so strong in hope, so rich in bloom
That promised fruit of nobler worth than all
He yet had given, drop thus with sudden fall?
The busy brain no more its work resume?
Can death for life so versatile find room?
Still must we fancy thou canst hear our call
Across the sea — with no dividing wall
More dense than space to interpose its doom.
Ah then — farewell, young-hearted genial friend!
Farewell, true poet, who didst grow and build
From thought to thought still upward and still new.
Farewell, unsullied toiler in a guild
Where some defile their hands, and where so few
With aims as pure strive faithful to the end.]]>