May-Day eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 72 pages of information about May-Day.
Related Topics

May-Day eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 72 pages of information about May-Day.
From centred and from errant sphere. 
The quaking earth did quake in rhyme,
Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime. 
In dens of passion, and pits of woe,
He saw strong Eros struggling through,
To sun the dark and solve the curse,
And beam to the bounds of the universe. 
While thus to love he gave his days
In loyal worship, scorning praise,
How spread their lures for him in vain
Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain! 
He thought it happier to be dead,
To die for Beauty, than live for bread.

MANNERS.

Grace, Beauty, and Caprice
Build this golden portal;
Graceful women, chosen men,
Dazzle every mortal. 
Their sweet and lofty countenance
His enchanted food;
He need not go to them, their forms
Beset his solitude. 
He looketh seldom in their face,
His eyes explore the ground,—­
The green grass is a looking-glass
Whereon their traits are found. 
Little and less he says to them,
So dances his heart in his breast;
Their tranquil mien bereaveth him
Of wit, of words, of rest. 
Too weak to win, too fond to shun
The tyrants of his doom,
The much deceived Endymion
Slips behind a tomb.

ART.

Give to barrows, trays, and pans
Grace and glimmer of romance;
Bring the moonlight into noon
Hid in gleaming piles of stone;
On the city’s paved street
Plant gardens lined with lilacs sweet;
Let spouting fountains cool the air,
Singing in the sun-baked square;
Let statue, picture, park, and hall,
Ballad, flag, and festival,
The past restore, the day adorn,
And make to-morrow a new morn. 
So shall the drudge in dusty frock
Spy behind the city clock
Retinues of airy kings,
Skirts of angels, starry wings,
His fathers shining in bright fables,
His children fed at heavenly tables. 
’T is the privilege of Art
Thus to play its cheerful part,
Man on earth to acclimate,
And bend the exile to his fate,
And, moulded of one element
With the days and firmament,
Teach him on these as stairs to climb,
And live on even terms with Time;
Whilst upper life the slender rill
Of human sense doth overfill.

SPIRITUAL LAWS.

The living Heaven thy prayers respect,
House at once and architect,
Quarrying man’s rejected hours,
Builds therewith eternal towers;
Sole and self-commanded works,
Fears not undermining days,
Grows by decays,
And, by the famous might that lurks
In reaction and recoil,
Makes flame to freeze and ice to boil;
Forging, through swart arms of Offence,
The silver seat of Innocence.

UNITY.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
May-Day from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.