The Frog

Contemptuous of his home beyond
The village and the village pond,
A large-souled Frog who spurned each byeway,
Hopped along the imperial highway.

Nor grunting pig nor barking dog
Could disconcert so great a frog.
The morning dew was lingering yet
His sides to cool, his tongue to wet;
The night dew when the night should come
A travelled frog would send him home.

Not so, alas! the wayside grass
Sees him no more: - not so, alas!

A broadwheeled waggon unawares
Ran him down, his joys, his cares.
From dying choke one feeble croak
The Frog's perpetual silence broke:
"Ye buoyant Frogs, ye great and small,
Even I am mortal after all.
My road to Fame turns out a wry way:
I perish on this hideous highway,-
Oh for my old familiar byeway!"

The choking Frog sobbed and was gone:
The waggoner strode whistling on.

Unconscious of the carnage done,
Whistling that waggoner strode on,
Whistling (it may have happened so)
"A Froggy would a-wooing go:"
A hypothetic frog trolled he
Obtuse to a reality.

O rich and poor, O great and small,
Such oversights beset us all:
The mangled frog abides incog,
The uninteresting actual frog;
The hypothetic frog alone
Is the one frog we dwell upon.

---

Strange Voices

Strange voices sing among the planets which
  Move on for ever; in the old sea's foam
  There is a prophecy; in Heaven's blue dome
Great beacon fires are lighted; black as pitch
Is night, and yet star jewels make it rich;
  And if the moon lights up her cloudy home
  The darkness flees, and forth strange gleamings roam
Lighting up hill and vale and mound and ditch,
Earth is full of all questions that all ask;
  And she alone of heavy silence full
Answereth not: what is it severeth
Us from the spirits that we would be with?
  Or is it that our fleshly ear is dull,
And our own shadow hides light with a mask?

---

What are Heavy?

What are heavy? sea-sand and sorrow:
What are brief? today and tomorrow:
What are frail? Spring blossoms and youth:
What are deep ? the ocean and truth.

---

De Profundis


Oh why is heaven built so far,
   Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
   That hangs afloat.

I would not care to reach the moon,
   One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
   Beyond my range.

I never watch the scatter'd fire
   Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
   And all in vain:

For I am bound with fleshly bands,
   Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
   And catch at hope.


[The title, "Out of the depths," is from the first verse of Psalm 130.}