# May-day and other pieces/Elements

ELEMENTS.
EXPERIENCE.
THE lords of life, the lords of life,— I saw them pass, In their own guise, Like and unlike, Portly and grim,— Use and Surprise, Surface and Dream, Succession swift and spectral Wrong, Temperament without a tongue, And the inventor of the game Omnipresent without name;— Some to see, some to be guessed, They marched from east to west: ​Little man, least of all, Among the legs of his guardians tall, Walked about with puzzled look. Him by the hand dear Nature took, Dearest Nature, strong and kind, Whispered, 'Darling, never mind! To-morrow they will wear another face, The founder thou; these are thy race!'
COMPENSATION.
I.
THE wings of Time are black and white, Pied with morning and with night. Mountain tall and ocean deep Trembling balance duly keep. In changing moon and tidal wave Glows the feud of Want and Have. Gauge of more and less through space, Electric star or pencil plays, The lonely Earth amid the balls That hurry through the eternal halls, A makeweight flying to the void, Supplemental asteroid, ​Or compensatory spark, Shoots across the neutral Dark.
II.
Man 's the elm, and Wealth the vine; Stanch and strong the tendrils twine: Though the frail ringlets thee deceive, None from its stock that vine can reave. Fear not, then, thou child infirm, There 's no god dare wrong a worm; Laurel crowns cleave to deserts, And power to him who power exerts. Hast not thy share? On winged feet, Lo! it rushes thee to meet; And all that Nature made thy own, Floating in air or pent in stone, Will rive the hills and swim the sea, And, like thy shadow, follow thee.
POLITICS.
GOLD and iron are good To buy iron and gold; All earth's fleece and food For their like are sold. Hinted Merlin wise, Proved Napoleon great, Nor kind nor coinage buys Aught above its rate. Fear, Craft, and Avarice Cannot rear a State. Out of dust to build What is more than dust,— Walls Amphion piled ​Phœbus stablish must. When the Muses nine With the Virtues meet, Find to their design An Atlantic seat, By green orchard boughs Fended from the heat, Where the statesman ploughs Furrow for the wheat,— When the Church is social worth, When the state-house is the hearth, Then the perfect State is come, The republican at home.
HEROISM.
RUBY wine is drunk by knaves, Sugar spends to fatten slaves, Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons; Thunder-clouds are Jove's festoons, Drooping oft in wreaths of dread, Lightning-knotted round his head; The hero is not fed on sweets, Daily his own heart he eats; Chambers of the great are jails, And head-winds right for royal sails.
CHARACTER.
THE sun set, but set not his hope: Stars rose; his faith was earlier up: Fixed on the enormous galaxy, Deeper and older seemed his eye; And matched his sufferance sublime The taciturnity of time. He spoke, and words more soft than rain Brought the Age of Gold again: His action won such reverence sweet As hid all measure of the feat.
CULTURE.
CAN rules or tutors educate The semigod whom we await? He must be musical, Tremulous, impressional, Alive to gentle influence Of landscape and of sky, And tender to the spirit-touch Of man's or maiden's eye: But, to his native centre fast, Shall into Future fuse the Past, And the world's flowing fates in his own mould recast.
FRIENDSHIP.
A RUDDY drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs, The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays. I fancied he was fled,— And, after many a year, Glowed unexhausted kindliness, Like daily sunrise there. My careful heart was free again, O friend, my bosom said, Through thee alone the sky is arched, Through thee the rose is red; All things through thee take nobler form, And look beyond the earth, ​The mill-round of our fate appears A sun-path in thy worth. Me too thy nobleness has taught To master my despair; The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair.
BEAUTY.
WAS never form and never face So sweet to Seyd as only grace Which did not slumber like a stone, But hovered gleaming and was gone. Beauty chased he everywhere, In flame, in storm, in clouds of air. He smote the lake to feed his eye With the beryl beam of the broken wave; He flung in pebbles well to hear The mementos music which they gave. Oft pealed for him a lofty tone From nodding pole and belting zone. He heard a voice none else could hear 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.
SPACE is ample, east and west, But two cannot go abreast, Cannot travel in it two: Yonder masterful cuckoo Crowds every egg out of the nest, Quick or dead, except its own; A spell is laid on sod and stone, Night and Day were tampered with, Every quality and pith Surcharged and sultry with a power That works its will on age and hour.
WORSHIP.
THIS is he, who, felled by foes, Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows: He to captivity was sold, But him no prison-bars would hold: Though they sealed him in a rock, Mountain chains he can unlock: Thrown to lions for their meat, The crouching lion kissed his feet: Bound to the stake, no flames appalled, But arched o'er him an honoring vault. This is he men miscall Fate, Threading dark ways, arriving late, But ever coming in time to crown The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down. ​He is the oldest, and best known, More near than aught thou call'st thy own, Yet, greeted in another's eyes, Disconcerts with glad surprise. This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers, Floods with blessings unawares. Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line Severing rightly his from thine, Which is human, which divine.