Author: WesternMan

I had a dream, which was not all a dream. 
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars 
Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth 
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; 
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day, 
And men forgot their passions in the dread 
Of this their desolation; and all hearts 
Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light: 
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones, 
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts, 
The habitations of all things which dwell, 
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum’d, 
And men were gather’d round their blazing homes 
To look once more into each other’s face; 
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye 
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: 
A fearful hope was all the world contain’d; 
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour 
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks 
Extinguish’d with a crash—and all was black. 
The brows of men by the despairing light 
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits 
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down 
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest 
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil’d; 
And others hurried to and fro, and fed 
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look’d up 
With mad disquietude on the dull sky, 
The pall of a past world; and then again 
With curses cast them down upon the dust, 
And gnash’d their teeth and howl’d: the wild birds shriek’d 
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, 
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes 
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl’d 
And twin’d themselves among the multitude, 
Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food. 
And War, which for a moment was no more, 
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought 
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart 
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; 
All earth was but one thought—and that was death 
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang 
Of famine fed upon all entrails—men 
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; 
The meagre by the meagre were devour’d, 
Even dogs assail’d their masters, all save one, 
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept 
The birds and beasts and famish’d men at bay, 
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead 
Lur’d their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, 
But with a piteous and perpetual moan, 
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand 
Which answer’d not with a caress—he died. 
The crowd was famish’d by degrees; but two 
Of an enormous city did survive, 
And they were enemies: they met beside 
The dying embers of an altar-place 
Where had been heap’d a mass of holy things 
For an unholy usage; they rak’d up, 
And shivering scrap’d with their cold skeleton hands 
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath 
Blew for a little life, and made a flame 
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up 
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld 
Each other’s aspects—saw, and shriek’d, and died— 
Even of their mutual hideousness they died, 
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow 
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, 
The populous and the powerful was a lump, 
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless— 
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay. 
The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still, 
And nothing stirr’d within their silent depths; 
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, 
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp’d 
They slept on the abyss without a surge— 
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, 
The moon, their mistress, had expir’d before; 
The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air, 
And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need 
Of aid from them—She was the Universe.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean,—roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin,—his control
Stops with the shore;—upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,—thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth:—there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee and arbiter of war,—
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada’s pride or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee;
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou;
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves’ play,
Time writes no wrinkles on thine azure brow;
Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed,—in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime,
The image of Eternity,—the throne
Of the Invisible! even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers,—they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror, ’t was a pleasing fear;
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane,—as I do here.

When I heard the learn’d astronomer, 
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, 
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, 
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, 
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, 
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, 
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, 
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

If you think you are beaten, you are; 
If you think you dare not, you don’t. 
If you’d like to win, but you think you can’t, 
It is almost a cinch you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose, you’ve lost; 
For out in this world we find
Success begins with a person’s will
It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you’re outclassed, you are; 
You’ve got to think high to rise. 
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win the prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go 
To the stronger or faster man; 
But sooner or later the person who wins 
Is the one who thinks he can!

Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
– “Shakespeare” (Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford)

Where the city’s ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-long day,
Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching–I pause aside with them.

By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging,
A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife;
Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone–by foot and knee,
With measur’d tread, he turns rapidly–As he presses with light but firm hand,
Forth issue, then, in copious golden jets,
Sparkles from the wheel.

The scene, and all its belongings–how they seize and affect me!
The sad, sharp-chinn’d old man, with worn clothes, and broad shoulder-band of leather; 
Myself, effusing and fluid–a phantom curiously floating–now here absorb’d and arrested;

The group, (an unminded point, set in a vast surrounding;)
The attentive, quiet children–the loud, proud, restive base of the streets;
The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone–the light-press’d blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.
A Dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A Horse misus’d upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fiber from the Brain does tear.

He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar.
The Beggar’s Dog and Widow’s Cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.
The Gnat that sings his Summer song
Poison gets from Slander’s tongue.
The poison of the Snake and Newt
Is the sweat of Envy’s Foot.

A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for Joy and Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro’ the World we safely go.

Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night.