Auld Lang Syne - Various

The human heart is cradle of deep love,
Which growing and expanding from its birth,
Ever finds space within that living cot;
Howeer remotely oer this beauteous earth
Its subtle influences may joy impart,
Whilst nestling in the human heart.

The human mind is cradle of high thought,
Ever aspiring to extend its sphere,
To penetrate those mysteries of life
Philosophy has faild to render clear.
Howeer expansive, thought will ever find
Its cradle in the human mind.

The human soul is cradle of deep faith,
Of aspirations, and of purpose strong,
To kindle into life the seeds of truth
Eradicate the germs of vice and wrong.
Howeer these seeds develop and increase,
Within mans soul theyll find their place.

Three living cradles in one living form,
Expanding ever from their early birth;
High thought and sweet affection in ye dwell,
And Faith which hallows all things on this earth.
Each human being in himself may find
Three living cradles soul, heart, mind.

O HAPPY bells that thrill the air
   Of tranquil English summer-eves,
   When stirless hang the aspen leaves,
And Silence listens everywhere.

And sinks and swells the tender chime,
   Sad, as regret for buried fears,
   Sweet, as repentant yearning tears
The fit voice of the holy time.

O wondrous voice!  O mystic sound!
   We listen, and our thoughts aspire
   Like spiritual flame, from fire
That idly smoulders on the ground.

Forgotten longings have new birth
   For better, purer, nobler life,
   Lifted above the noisy strife
That drowns the music of this earth.

And human sorrow seems to be
   A link unto diviner things,
   The budding of the spirits wings
That only thus can soar and see.

The twilight fades the sweet bells cease,
   The common worlds come back again,
   But for a little space, its pain
And weariness are steepd in peace.

I SEE myself reflected in thine eyes,
The dainty mirrors set in golden frame
Of eyelash, quiver with a sweet surprise,
   And most ingenuous shame.

Like Eve, who hid her from the dread command
Deep in the dewy blooms of paradise;
So thy shy soul, love calling, fears to stand
   Discoverd at thine eyes.

Or, like a tender little fawn, which lies
Asleep amid the fern, and waking, hears
Some careless footstep drawing near, and flies,
   Yet knows not what she fears.

So shrinks thy soul, but, dearest, shrink not so;
Look thou into mine eyes as I in thine,
So our reflected souls shall meet and grow,
   And each with each combine

In something nobler; as when one has laid
Opposite mirrors on a cottage wall;
And lo! the never-ending colonnade,
   The vast palatial hall.

So our twin souls, by one sweet suicide,
Shall fade into an essence more sublime;
Living through death, and dying glorified,
   Beyond the reach of time.

Shadow gives to sunshine brightness,
And it gives to joy its lightness;
Shadow gives to honour meekness,
And imparts its strength to weakness;
Shadow deepens human kindness,
Draws the veil from mental blindness;
Shadow sweetens loves own sweetness,
And gives to life its deep intenseness;
Shadow is earths sacredness,
And the heavens loveliness;
Shadow is days tenderness,
And the nights calm holiness;
Shadows deepest night of darkness
Will break in days eternal brightness.

In the band of noble workers,
   Seems no place for such as I
They have faith, where I have yearning,
   They can speak where I but sigh,
They can point the way distinctly
Where for me the shadows lie.

Lofty purpose, strong endeavour,
   These are not ordaind for me
Wayside flower might strive for ever,
   Never could it grow a tree
Yet a child may laugh to gather,
Or a sick man smile to see.

So I too in Gods creation
   Have my own peculiar part,
He must have some purpose surely
   For weak hand and timid heart,
Transient joys for my diffusing,
For my healing transient smart.

Just to fling a moments brightness
   Over dreary down-trod ways,
Just to fan a better impulse
   By a full and ready praise
Pitying where I may not succour,
Loving where I cannot raise.

In days not old a Demon lived,
And a terrible Fiend was he,
For he ground and he ground
   All London around,
A huge barrel-organ of hideous sound,
            Incessantly!
      From mornings light
      Till the deep midnight,
In all sorts of streets and all sorts of squares.
Up the cul-de-sacs down the thoroughfares,
Where Thames rolls his waters from Greenwich to Kew,
Not a lane could you find that he didnt go through.
You heard him at all times when most unaware,
In quiet back-parlours up five flights of stair;
When you ate, when you drank, when you read morning prayer,
Or sat dozing awhile in an easy armchair,
Or read a new novel or talkd to a friend,
Or endeavourd to settle accounts without end,
Or when grief (or champagne), caused an ache in your head,
Or you promised yourself to lie latish in bed,
      It was all the same
      That Demon came,
      Grind! grind!
      Peace there was none,
      Under the sun;
That odious organ never had done.
      Sick, sad, or sorry,
      No end to the worry.
      No sort of grief
      Brought the slightest relief;
You might send out to say you were dying or dead,
The organ ground on as if nothing were said!
      Grind! grind!
      Till you lost your mind.
No use to scold, or draw down the blind,
The fiend only ground more loud and more fast,
Till you had to give him a shilling at last.
So that having tormented you madly that day,
He would surely next morning come round the same way,
And grind and grind till in frenzy of pain,
You should bribe him once more just to come back again!

Know ye, my friends, who this Fiend may be?
Here is the key to the mystery
It is Tubal Cain! who the Bible says
Invented organs in very old days,
And for that dread crime, so atrocious and black,
Was sentenced thenceforth to bear one on his back,
A heavier fate (as was justly his due),
Than befell his Papa when poor Abel he slew:
For Cain, killing one man, was let off quite cheap
Tubal murdered us all at least murderd our sleep.

Great brown eyes,
Thick plumes of hair,
Old corduroys
The worse for wear.
A buttond jacket,
And peeping out
An apes grave poll,
Or a guinea-pigs snout.
A sun-kissd face
And a dimpled mouth,
With the white flashing teeth,
And soft smile of the south.
A young back bent,
Not with age or care,
But the load of poor music
Tis fated to bear.
But a common-place picture
To common-place eyes,
Yet full of a charm
Which the thinker will prize.
They were stern, cold rulers,
Those Romans of old,
Scorning art and letters
For conquest and gold;
Yet leavening mankind,
In mind and tongue,
With the laws that they made
And the songs that they sung.
Sitting, rose-crownd,
With pleasure-choked breath,
As the nude young limbs crimsond,
Then stiffend in death.
Piling up monuments
Greater than praise,
Thoughts and deeds that shall live
To the latest of days.
Adding province to province,
And sea to sea,
Till the idol fell down
And the world rose up free.

And this is the outcome,
This vagabond child
With that statue-like face
And eyes soft and mild;
This creature so humble,
So gay, yet so meek,
Whose sole strength is only
The strength of the weak.
Of those long cruel ages
Of lust and of guile,
Nought left us to-day
But an innocent smile.
For the labourd appeal
Of the orators art,
A few foolish accents
That reach to the heart.
For those stern legions speeding
Oer sea and oer land,
But a pitiful glance
And a suppliant hand.
I could moralize still
But the organ begins,
And the tired ape swings downward,
And capers and grins,
And away flies romance.
And yet, time after time,
As I dwell on days spent
In a sunnier clime,
Of blue lakes deep set
In the olive-clad mountains,
Of gleaming white palaces
Girt with cool fountains,
Of minsters where every
Carved stone is a treasure,
Of sweet music hovering
Twixt pain and twixt pleasure;
Of chambers enrichd
On all sides, overhead,
With the deathless creations
Of hands that are dead;
Of still cloisters holy,
And twilight arcade,
Where the lovers still saunter
Thro chequers of shade;
Of tomb and of temple,
Arena and column,
Mid to-days garish splendours,
Sombre and solemn;
Of the marvellous town
With the salt-flowing street,
Where colour burns deepest,
And music most sweet;
Of her the great mother,
Who centuries sate
Neath a black shadow blotting
The days she was great;
Who was plunged in such shame
She, our source and our home
That a foul spectre only
Was left us of Rome;
She who, seeming to sleep
Through all ages to be,
Was the priests, is mankinds,
Was a slave, and is free!

I turn with grave thought
To this child of the ages,
And to all that is writ
In Times hidden pages.
Shall young Howards or Guelphs,
In the days that shall come,
Wander forth, seeking bread,
Far from England and home?

Shall they sail to new continents,
English no more,
Or turn strange reverse
To the old classic shore?
Shall fair locks and blue eyes,
And the rose on the cheek,
Find a language of pity
The tongue cannot speak
Not English, but angels?
Shall this tale be told
Of Romans to be
As of Romans of old?
Shall they too have monkeys
And music?  Will any
Try their luck with an engine
Or toy spinning-jenny?

Shall we too be led
By that mirage of Art
Which saps the true strength
Of the national heart?
The sensuous glamour,
The dreamland of grace,
Which rot the strong manhood
They fail to replace;
Which at once are the glory,
The ruin, the shame,
Of the beautiful lands
And ripe souls whence they came?

Oh, my England! oh, Mother
Of Freemen! oh, sweet,
Sad toiler majestic,
With labour-worn feet!
Brave worker, girt round,
Inexpugnable, free,
With tumultuous sound
And salt spume of the sea,
Fenced off from the clamour
Of alien mankind
By the surf on the rock,
And the shriek of the wind,
Tho the hot Gaul shall envy,
The cold German flout thee,
Thy far children scorn thee,
Still thou shalt be great,
Still march on uncaring,
Thy perils unsharing,
Alone, and yet daring
Thy infinite fate.
Yet ever remembering
The precepts of gold
That were written in part
For the great ones of old
Let other hands fashion
The marvels of art;
To thee fate has given
A loftier part,
To rule the wide peoples,
To bind them to thee.
By the sole bond of loving,
That bindeth the free,
To hold thy own place,
Neither lawless nor slave;
Not driven by the despot,
Nor trickd by the knave.

But these thoughts are too solemn.
So play, my child, play,
Never heeding the connoisseur
Over the way,
The last dances of course;
Then with scant pause between,
Home, sweet Home, the Old Hundredth,
And God Save the Queen.
See the poor children swarm
From dark court and dull street,
As the gay music quickens
The lightsome young feet.

See them now whirl away,
Now insidiously come,
With a coy grace which conquers
The squalor of home.
See the pallid cheeks flushing
With innocent pleasure
At the hurry and haste
Of the quick-footed measure.
See the dull eyes now bright,
And now happily dim,
For some soft-dying cadence
Of love-song or hymn.
Dear souls, little joy
Of their young lives have they,
So thro hymn-tune and song-tune
Play on, my child, play.

For though dull pedants chatter
Of musical taste,
Talk of hindered researches
And hours run to waste;
Though they tell us of thoughts
To ennoble mankind,
Which your poor measures chase
From the labouring mind;
While your music rejoices
One joyless young heart,
Perish bookworms and books,
Perish learning and art
Of my vagabond fancies
Ill even take my fill.
Qualche cosa, signor?
Yes, my child, that I will.

Think when you blame the present age, my friends,
This age has one redeeming point it mends.
With many monstrous ills were forced to cope;
But we have life and movement, we have hope.
Oh! this is much!  Thrice pitiable they
Whose lot is cast in ages of decay,
Who watch a waning light, an ebbing tide,
Decline of energy and fall of pride,
Old glories disappearing unreplaced,
Receding culture and encroaching waste,
Art grown pedantic, manners waxing coarse,
The good thing still succeeded by the worse.
We see not what those latest Romans saw,
When oer Italian cities, Latin law,
Greek beauty, swept the barbarizing tide,
And all fair things in slow succession died.
Tis much that such defeat and blank despair,
Whateer our trials, tis not ours to bear,
Much that the mass of foul abuse grows less,
Much that the injured have sometimes redress,
Wealth grows less haughty, misery less resigned,
That policy grows just, religion kind,
That all worst things towards some better tend,
And long endurance nears at last its end;
The ponderous cloud grows thin and pierced with bright,
And its wild edge is fused in blinding light.
   Yet disappointment still with hope appears,
And with desires that strengthen, strengthen fears,
Tis the swift-sailing ship that dreads the rocks,
The active foot must ware of stumbling-blocks.
Alas! along the way towards social good,
How many stones of dire offence lie strewd.
Whence frequent failure, many shrewd mishaps
And dismal pause or helpless backward lapse.
Such was the hard reverse that Milton mournd,
An old man, when he saw the King returned
With right divine, and that fantastic train
Of banished fopperies come back again.
Thus France, too wildly clutching happiness.
Stumbled perplexed, and paid in long distress,
In carnage, where the bloody conduit runs,
And one whole generation of her sons
Devoted to the Power of Fratricide
For one great year, one eager onward stride.
   From all these stumbling-blocks that strew the way
What wisest cautions may ensure us, say.
Cling to the present good with steadfast grip,
And for no fancied better let it slip,
Whether thy fancy in the future live
Or yearn to make the buried past revive.
The past is dead,  let the dead have his dues,
Remembrance of historian and of Muse;
But try no lawless magic on the urn,
It shocks to see the brightest past return.
Some good things linger when their date is fled,
These honour as you do the hoary head,
And treat them tenderly for what they were,
But dream not to detain them always there.
The living good the present moments bring
To this devote thyself and chiefly cling;
And for the novel schemes that round thee rise,
Watch them with hopeful and indulgent eyes,
Treat them as children, love them, mark their ways,
And blame their faults and dole out cautious praise,
And give them space, yet limit them with rule,
And hold them down and keep them long at school:
Yet know in these is life most fresh and strong,
And that to these at last shall all belong.
   Be proved and present good thy safe-guard still,
And thy one quarrel be with present ill.
Learn by degrees a steady onward stride
With sleepless circumspection for thy guide.
And since so thick the stumbling-blocks are placed,
You are not safe but in renouncing haste;
Permit not so your zeal to be repressed,
But make the loss up by renouncing rest.