Family

Across the street, an humble woman lives;
To her 'tis little fortune ever gives;
Denied the wines of life, it puzzles me
To know how she can laugh so cheerily.
This morn I listened to her softly sing,
And, marvelling what this effect could bring
I looked: 'twas but the presence of a child
Who passed her gate, and looking in, had smiled.
But self-encrusted, I had failed to see
The child had also looked and laughed to me.
My lowly neighbour thought the smile God-sent,
And singing, through the toilsome hours she went.
O! weary singer, I have learned the wrong
Of taking gifts, and giving naught of song;
I thought my blessings scant, my mercies few,
Till I contrasted them with yours, and you;
To-day I counted much, yet wished it more -
While but a child's brig...

"Can anything avail
Beldame, for my hid grief? -
Listen: I'll tell the tale,
It may bring faint relief! -

"I came where I was not known,
In hope to flee my sin;
And walking forth alone
A young man said, 'Good e'en.'

"In gentle voice and true
He asked to marry me;
'You only - only you
Fulfil my dream!' said he.

"We married o' Monday morn,
In the month of hay and flowers;
My cares were nigh forsworn,
And perfect love was ours.

"But ere the days are long
Untimely fruit will show;
My Love keeps up his song,
Undreaming it is so.

"And I awake in the night,
And think of months gone by,
And of that cause of flight
Hidden from my Love's eye.

"Discovery borders near,
And then! . . . But som...

The days are cold, the nights are long,
The north-wind sings a doleful song;
Then hush again upon my breast;
All merry things are now at rest,
Save thee, my pretty Love!

The kitten sleeps upon the hearth,
The crickets long have ceased their mirth;
There's nothing stirring in the house
Save one 'wee', hungry, nibbling mouse,
Then why so busy thou?

Nay! start not at that sparkling light;
'Tis but the moon that shines so bright
On the window pane bedropped with rain:
Then, little Darling! sleep again,
And wake when it is day.

    Are you my songs, importunate of praise?
    Be still, remember for your comforting
    That sweeter birds have had less leave to sing
    Before men piped them from their lonely ways.

    Greener leaves than yours are lost in every spring
    Rubies far redder thrust their eager rays
    Into the blindfold dark for many days
    Before men chose them for a finger-ring.

    Sing as you dare, not as men choose, receive not
    The passing fashion's prize, for dole or due -
    Men's summer-sweet unrecognition - grieve not:
    Oh, stoop not to them!    Better far that you
    Should go unsung than sing as you believe not,
    Should go uncrowned than to yourselves untrue.

My mother dandled me and sang,
'How young it is, how young!'
And made a golden cradle
That on a willow swung.

'He went away,' my mother sang,
'When I was brought to bed,'
And all the while her needle pulled
The gold and silver thread.

She pulled the thread and bit the thread
And made a golden gown,
And wept because she had dreamt that I
Was born to wear a crown.

'When she was got,' my mother sang,
I heard a sea-mew cry,
And saw a flake of the yellow foam
That dropped upon my thigh.'

How therefore could she help but braid
The gold into my hair,
And dream that I should carry
The golden top of care?

(Mary Maud.)


O friends, I cannot comfort, but will share with you your grieving,
    In the valley of the shadow where you sit in helpless tears;
Greater is the parting anguish, than the joy of first receiving
    The sweet gift that was your treasure through five happy, golden years

When I laid within your arms the dear babe that God had given,
    There was hidden in the future all the tears that you must weep,
Ah! the little ones so tangled in our heart-strings, they are riven
    In the parting, are but treasures lent not given us to keep

There's silence in the places her voice filled with happy laughter,
    Stillness waiting for the echo of the patter of her feet,
You are gazing on her picture, and your heart is longing after
    The tender touch of ...

Here is the place; right over the hill
Runs the path I took;
You can see the gap in the old wall still,
And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.

There is the house, with the gate red-barred,
And the poplars tall;
And the barn’s brown length, and the cattle-yard,
And the white horns tossing above the wall.

There are the beehives ranged in the sun;
And down by the brink
Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o’errun,
Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.

A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,
Heavy and slow;
And the same rose blooms, and the same sun glows,
And the same brook sings of a year ago.

There’s the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze;
And the June sun warm
Tangles his wings of fire in the trees,
Setting, as t...

And passing here through evening dew,
He hastened happy to her door,
But found the old folk only two
With no more footsteps on the floor
To walk again below the skies
Where beaten paths do fall and rise.

For she wer gone from earthly eyes
To be a-kept in darksome sleep
Until the good again do rise
A joy to souls they left to weep.
The rose were dust that bound her brow;
The moth did eat her Sunday cape;
Her frock were out of fashion now;
Her shoes were dried up out of shape.

Ye mountains, on whose torrent-furrowed slopes,
And bare and silent brows uplift to heaven,
I envied oft the soul which fills your wastes
Of pure and stern sublime, and still expanse
Unbroken by the petty incidents
Of noisy life:    Oh hear me once again!

Winds, upon whose racked eddies, far aloft,
Above the murmur of the uneasy world,
My thoughts in exultation held their way:
Whose tremulous whispers through the rustling glade
Were once to me unearthly tones of love,
Joy without object, wordless music, stealing
Through all my soul, until my pulse beat fast
With aimless hope, and unexpressed desire--
Thou sea, who wast to me a prophet deep
Through all thy restless waves, and wasting shores,
Of silent labour, and eternal change;
First teacher of the ...

    High on the hill, with moss o'ergrown,
    A hermit chapel stood;
    It spoke the tale of seasons gone,
    And half-revealed its ivied stone.
    Amid the beechen wood.

    Here often, when the mountain trees
    A leafy murmur made,
    Now still, now swaying to the breeze,
    (Sounds that the musing fancy please),
    The widowed mourner strayed.

    And many a morn she climbed the steep,
    From whence she might behold,
    Where, 'neath the clouds, in shining sweep,
    And mingling with the mighty deep,
    The sea-broad Severn rolled.

    Her little boy beside her played,
    With sea-shells in his hand;
    And sometimes, 'mid the bents delayed,
    And sometimes running onward, said,
    Oh, where is Holy Land!<...

1.
She was an aged woman; and the years
Which she had numbered on her toilsome way
Had bowed her natural powers to decay.
She was an aged woman; yet the ray
Which faintly glimmered through her starting tears,
Pressed into light by silent misery,
Hath soul's imperishable energy.
She was a cripple, and incapable
To add one mite to gold-fed luxury:
And therefore did her spirit dimly feel
That poverty, the crime of tainting stain,
Would merge her in its depths, never to rise again.

2.
One only son's love had supported her.
She long had struggled with infirmity,
Lingering to human life-scenes; for to die,
When fate has spared to rend some mental tie,
Would many wish, and surely fewer dare.
But, when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced the child

Thirty years have come and gone,
Melting away like Southern Snows,
Since, in the light of a summer's night,
I went to the garden to seek my Rose.

Mine! Do you hear it, silver moon,
Flooding my heart with your mellow shine?
Mine! Be witness, ye distant stars,
Looking on me with eyes divine!

Tell me, tell me, wandering winds,
Whisper it, if you may not speak--
Did you ever, in all your round,
Fan a lovelier brow or cheek?

Long I nursed in my heart the love,
Love which felt, but dared not tell,
Till, I scarcely know how or when--
It found wild words,- and all was well!

I can hear her sweet voice even now--
It makes my pulses leap and thrill--
"I owe you more than I well can pay;
You may take me, Robert, if you will!"

Old homes among the hills! I love their gardens;
Their old rock fences, that our day inherits;
Their doors, round which the great trees stand like wardens;
Their paths, down which the shadows march like spirits;
Broad doors and paths that reach bird-haunted gardens.

I see them gray among their ancient acres,
Severe of front, their gables lichen-sprinkled, -
Like gentle-hearted, solitary Quakers,
Grave and religious, with kind faces wrinkled, -
Serene among their memory-hallowed acres.

Their gardens, banked with roses and with lilies -
Those sweet aristocrats of all the flowers -
Where Springtime mints her gold in daffodillies,
And Autumn coins her marigolds in showers,
And all the hours are toilless as the lilies.

I love their orchards where the g...

            Sweetheart Spring

    Our Sweetheart, Spring, came softly,
    Her gliding hands were fire,
    Her lilac breath upon our cheeks
    Consumed us with desire.

    By her our God began to build,
    Began to sow and till.
    He laid foundations in our loves
    For every good and ill.
    We asked Him not for blessing,
    We asked Him not for pain -
    Still, to the just and unjust
    He sent His fire and rain.


            Sweetheart Summer

    We prayed not, yet she came to us,
    The silken, shining one,
    On Jacob's noble ladder
    Descended from the sun.
    She reached our town of Every Day,
    Our dry and dusty sod -
    We prayed not, yet she brought to us
    The misty wine of Go...

I and my Soul are alone to-day,
    All in the shining weather;
We were sick of the world, and put it away,
    So we could rejoice together.

Our host, the Sun, in the blue, blue sky
    Is mixing a rare, sweet wine,
In the burnished gold of this cup on high,
    For me, and this Soul of mine.

We find it a safe and royal drink,
    And a cure for every pain;
It helps us to love, and helps us to think,
    And strengthens body and brain.

And sitting here, with my Soul alone,
    Where the yellow sun-rays fall,
Of all the friends I have ever known
    I find it the BEST of all.

We rarely meet when the world is near,
    For the World hath a pleasing art
And brings me so much that is bright and dear
    That my Soul it keepe...

O Study! while thy lovers raise
Thy name with all the pow'r of praise,
Frown not, thou nymph with piercing mind!
If in this bosom thou should'st find
That all thy deep, thy brilliant, lore,
Which charm'd it once, now charms no more:
Frown not, if, on thy classic line,
One strange, uncall'd-for, tear should shine;
Frown not, if, when a smile should start,
A sigh should heave an aching heart:
If Mem'ry, roving far away,
Should an unmeaning homage pay,
Should ask thee for thy golden fruit,
And, when thou deign'st to hear her suit,
Should turn her from the proffer'd food,
To tread the shades of Solitude:
Frown not, if, in the humble line,
Ungrac'd by any thought of thine,
Should but that gentle name appear,
Fond cause of ev'ry joy and fear;
I l...

My song is of that city which
Has men too poor and men too rich;
Where some are sick, too richly fed,
While others take the sparrows' bread:
Where some have beds to warm their bones,
While others sleep on hard, cold stones
That suck away their bodies' heat.
Where men are drunk in every street;
Men full of poison, like those flies
That still attack the horses' eyes.
Where some men freeze for want of cloth,
While others show their jewels' worth
And dress in satin, fur or silk;
Where fine rich ladies wash in milk,
While starving mothers have no food
To make them fit in flesh and blood;
So that their watery breasts can give
Their babies milk and make them live.
Where one man does the work of four,
And dies worn out before his hour;
While some s...

Since first I met thee, Dear, and long before
    I knew myself beloved, save by the sense
    All women have, a shadowy confidence
Half-fear, that feels its bliss nor asks for more,
    I have learned new desires, known Love's distress
    Sounded the deepest depths of loneliness.

I was a child at heart, and lived alone,
    Dreaming my dreams, as children may, at whiles,
    Between their hours of play, and Earth's broad smiles
Allured my heart, and ocean's marvellous tone
    Woke no strange echoes, and the woods' complain
    Made chants sonorous, stirred no thoughts of pain.

And if, sometimes, dear Nature spoke to me
    In tones mysterious, I had learned so much
    Dwelling beside her daily, that her touch
Made me discerning. Though I migh...