Death

Ah, sweet young blood, that makes the heart
So full of joy, and light,
That dying children dance with it
From early morn till night.

My dreams were blossoms, hers the fruit,
She was my dearest care;
With gentle hand, and for it, I
Made playthings of her hair.

I made my fingers rings of gold,
And bangles for my wrist;
You should have felt the soft, warm thing
I made to glove my fist.

And she should have a crown, I swore,
With only gold enough
To keep together stones more rich
Than that fine metal stuff.

Her golden hair gave me more joy
Than Jason's heart could hold,
When all his men cried out, Ah, look!
He has the Fleece of Gold!

(March, 1862.)


Your honest heart of duty, Worden,
So helped you that in fame you dwell;
You bore the first iron battle's burden
Sealed as in a diving-bell.
Alcides, groping into haunted hell
To bring forth King Admetus' bride,
Braved naught more vaguely direful and untried.
What poet shall uplift his charm,
Bold Sailor, to your height of daring,
And interblend therewith the calm,
And build a goodly style upon your bearing.

Escaped the gale of outer ocean -
Cribbed in a craft which like a log
Was washed by every billow's motion -
By night you heard of Og
The huge; nor felt your courage clog
At tokens of his onset grim:
You marked the sunk ship's flag-staff slim,
Lit by her burning sister's heart;
You marked, and mused: "Day...

Two dark-brown eyes looked into mine
    Two eyes with restless quiver;
A gentle hand crept in my own
    Beside the gleaming river.

"Ah, sweet," I murmured, passing sad,
    You will forget me ever?"
The dear, brown eyes their answer gave;
    "I will forget you NEVER."

Up in the leaves above our heads
    The winds were softly dying;
Down in the river at our feet
    The lilies pale were lying.
The winds their mournful murmur sent:
    You will forget me ever?
The lilies raised their drooping heads:
    We will forget you never.

A spell hung o'er the numbered hours
    That chained each thought and feeling;
My heart was filled with idle dreams
    That sent my sense reeling.
Once more I murmured, "Well, I know
    Y...

There is but one stage more in life's long way,
O widowed women! Sadly upon your path
Hath evening, bringing change of scenes and friends,
Descended, since the morn of hope shone fair;
And lonely age is yours, whose tears have fallen
Upon a husband's grave, - with whom, long since,
Amid the quietude of village scenes,
We walked, and saw your little children grow
Like lovely plants beside you, or adorned
Your lowly garden-plot with summer flowers;
And heard the bells, upon the Sabbath morn,
Chime to the village church, when he you loved
Walked by your side to prayer. These images
Of days long passed, of love and village life,
You never can forget; and many a plant
Green growing at the windows of your home,
And one pale primrose, in small earthen vase,
And ...

Like the vulture
Who on heavy morning clouds
With gentle wing reposing
Looks for his prey,
Hover, my song!

For a God hath
Unto each prescribed
His destined path,
Which the happy one
Runs o'er swiftly
To his glad goal:
He whose heart cruel
Fate hath contracted,
Struggles but vainly
Against all the barriers
The brazen thread raises,
But which the harsh shears
Must one day sever.

Through gloomy thickets
Presseth the wild deer on,
And with the sparrows
Long have the wealthy
Settled themselves in the marsh.

Easy 'tis following the chariot
That by Fortune is driven,
Like the baggage that moves
Over well-mended highways
After the train of a prince.

But who stands there apart?
In ...

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

Noëra, when sad Fall
Has grayed the fallow;
Leaf-cramped the wood-brook's brawl
In pool and shallow;
When, by the woodside, tall
Stands sere the mallow.

Noëra, when gray gold
And golden gray
The crackling hollows fold
By every way,
Shall I thy face behold,
Dear bit of May?

When webs are cribs for dew,
And gossamers
Streak by you, silver-blue;
When silence stirs
One leaf, of rusty hue,
Among the burrs:

Noëra, through the wood,
Or through the grain,
Come, with the hoiden mood
Of wind and rain
Fresh in thy sunny blood,
Sweetheart, again.

Noëra, when the corn,
Reaped on the fields,
The asters' stars adorn;
And purple shields
Of ironweeds lie torn
Among the wealds:

N...

Calm resignation meets a happy end;
And Providence, long-trusted, brings a friend.
God's will be done, be patient and be good;
Elisha was, and ravens brought him food:
And so wast thou, my father,--fate's decree
Doom'd many evils should encompass thee;
And, like Elisha, though it met thee late,
Patience unwearied did not vainly wait.
Thou hast, my father, long been us'd to pine,
And patient borne thy pain; great pain was thine.
Thou hast submitted, ah, and thou hast known
The roughest storms that life has ever blown,
Yet met them like a lamb: thou wert resign'd,
And though thou pray'dst a better place to find,
'Twas nought presumptuous--meekly wouldst thou crave,
When pains rack'd sore, some easement in the grave;
To lay thy aching body down in peace,
Whe...

"Dulce et decorum est"



The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
    But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
    Of men-at-arms who come to pray.

The roses blossom white and red
    On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
    And martial music cleaves the sky.

Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
    They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying lead and crimson steel
    They plunged for Freedom and the Right.

May we, their grateful children, learn
    Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
Who went through fire and death to earn
    At last the accolade of God.

In shining rank on rank arrayed
    They march, the legions of the Lord;
H...

AN ANECDOTE OF HELICON.

Once the nine all weeping came
To the god of song
"Oh, papa!" they there exclaim
"Hear our tale of wrong!

"Young ink-lickers swarm about
Our dear Helicon;
There they fight, manoeuvre, shout,
Even to thy throne.

"On their steeds they galop hard
To the spring to drink,
Each one calls himself a bard
Minstrels only think!

"There they how the thing to name!
Would our persons treat
This, without a blush of shame,
We can ne'er repeat;

"One, in front of all, then cries,
'I the army lead!'
Both his fists he wildly plies,
Like a bear indeed!

"Others wakes he in a trice
With his whistlings rude;
But none follow, though he twice
Has those sounds renewed.

"He'll r...

"That is a quiet place -
That house in the trees with the shady lawn."
" - If, child, you knew what there goes on
You would not call it a quiet place.
Why, a phantom abides there, the last of its race,
And a brain spins there till dawn."

"But I see nobody there, -
Nobody moves about the green,
Or wanders the heavy trees between."
" - Ah, that's because you do not bear
The visioning powers of souls who dare
To pierce the material screen.

"Morning, noon, and night,
Mid those funereal shades that seem
The uncanny scenery of a dream,
Figures dance to a mind with sight,
And music and laughter like floods of light
Make all the precincts gleam.

"It is a poet's bower,
Through which there pass, in fleet arrays,
Long teams of all th...

Cometh the night. The wind falls low,
The trees swing slowly to and fro:
Around the church the headstones grey
Cluster, like children strayed away
But found again, and folded so.

No chiding look doth she bestow:
If she is glad, they cannot know;
If ill or well they spend their day,
Cometh the night.

Singing or sad, intent they go;
They do not see the shadows grow;
"There yet is time," they lightly say,
"Before our work aside we lay";
Their task is but half-done, and lo!
Cometh the night.

    I'd rather sit here, Mr. Sheriff - up near to the end of the car;
    We won't do so much advertising if we stay in the seat where we are.
    That sweet little dude saw the bracelets that you on my wrists have bestowed,
    And tells the new passengers promptly you're "taking me over the road."
    I've had a well-patronized trial - the neighbors all know of my fall;
    But when I get out among strangers I'm sensitive-like, after all.

    For I was a lad of good prospects, some three or four summers ago -
    There wasn't any boy in our township who made a more promising show!
    I learned all of Solomon's proverbs, and took in their goodness and worth,
    Till I felt like a virtue-hooped barrel, chock-full of the salt of the earth.
    And this precious picnic of sorrow woul...

Now when I sleep the thrush breaks through my dreams
With sharp reminders of the coming day:
After his call, one minute I remain
Unwaked, and on the darkness which is Me
There springs the image of a daffodil,
Growing upon a grassy bank alone,
And seeming with great joy his bell to fill
With drops of golden dew, which on the lawn
He shakes again, where they lie bright and chill.

His head is drooped; the shrouded winds that sing
Bend him which way they will: never on earth
Was there before so beautiful a ghost.
Alas! he had a less than flower-birth,
And like a ghost indeed must shortly glide
From all but the sad cells of memory,
Where he will linger, an imprisoned beam,
Or fallen shadow of the golden world,
Long after this and many another dream.

Last Post sounded
Across the mead
To where he loitered
With absent heed.
Five years before
In the evening there
Had flown that call
To him and his Dear.
"You'll never come back;
Good-bye!" she had said;
"Here I'll be living,
And my Love dead!"

Those closing minims
Had been as shafts darting
Through him and her pressed
In that last parting;
They thrilled him not now,
In the selfsame place
With the selfsame sun
On his war-seamed face.
"Lurks a god's laughter
In this?" he said,
"That I am the living
And she the dead!"

Sirs, when you pity us, I say
You waste your pity.    Let it stay,
Well corked and stored upon your shelves,
Until you need it for yourselves.

We do appreciate God's thought
In forming you, before He brought
Us into life.    His art was crude,
But oh! so virile in its rude,

Large, elemental strength; and then
He learned His trade in making men,
Learned how to mix and mould the clay
And fashion in a finer way.

How fine that skilful way can be
You need but lift your eyes to see;
And we are glad God placed you there
To lift your eyes and find us fair.

Apprentice labour though you were,
He made you great enough to stir
The best and deepest depths of us,
And we are glad He made you thus.

Aye! we are glad of many thi...

Low belts of rushes ragged with the blast;
Lagoons of marish reddening with the west;
And o'er the marsh the water-fowl's unrest
While daylight dwindles and the dusk falls fast.
Set in sad walls, all mossy with the past,
An old stone gateway with a crumbling crest;
A garden where death drowses manifest;
And in gaunt yews the shadowy house at last.
Here, like some unseen spirit, silence talks
With echo and the wind in each gray room
Where melancholy slumbers with the rain:
Or, like some gentle ghost, the moonlight walks
In the dim garden, which her smile makes bloom
With all the old-time loveliness again.

With the fall of the leaf comes the wolf, wolf, wolf,
The old red wolf at my door.
And my hateful yellow dwarf, with his hideous crooked laugh,
Cries "Wolf, wolf, wolf!" at my door.

With the still of the frost comes the wolf, wolf, wolf,
The gaunt red wolf at my door.
He's as tall as a Great Dane, with his grizzly russet mane;
And he haunts the silent woods at my door.

The scarlet maple leaves and the sweet ripe nuts,
May strew the forest glade at my door,
But my cringing cunning dwarf, with his slavered kacking laugh,
Cries "Wolf, wolf, wolf!" at my door.

The violets may come, the pale wind-flowers blow,
And tremble by the stream at my door;
But my dwarf will never cease, until his last release,
From his "Wolf, wolf, wolf!" at the door.