Identity

Philosophers are lined with eyes within,
And, being so, the sage unmakes the man.
In love, he cannot therefore cease his trade;
Scarce the first blush has overspread his cheek,
He feels it, introverts his learned eye
To catch the unconscious heart in the very act.

His mother died,--the only friend he had,--
Some tears escaped, but his philosophy
Couched like a cat sat watching close behind
And throttled all his passion. Is't not like
That devil-spider that devours her mate
Scarce freed from her embraces?

'Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of wo,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth
Gave instant birth
To springs that ne'er did flow
That in the sun
Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose pale
Perfumed the gale,
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.

So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,...

Cards, and swords, and a lady's love,
That is a tale worth reading,
An insult veiled, a downcast glove,
And rapiers leap unheeding.
        And 'tis O! for the brawl,
        The thrust, the fall,
And the foe at your feet a-bleeding.

Tales of revel at wayside inns,
The goblets gaily filling,
Braggarts boasting a thousand sins,
Though none can boast a shilling.
        And 'tis O! for the wine,
        The frothing stein,
And the clamour of cups a-spilling.

Tales of maidens in rich brocade,
Powder and puff and patches,
Gallants lilting a serenade
Of old-time trolls and catches.
        And 'tis O! for the lips
        And the finger tips,
And the kiss that the boldest snatches.

Tales of buckle and big rosette,
The...

What I saw was just one eye
In the dawn as I was going:
A bird can carry all the sky
In that little button glowing.

Never in my life I went
So deep into the firmament.

He was standing on a tree,
All in blossom overflowing;
And he purposely looked hard at me,
At first, as if to question merrily:
'Where are you going?'
But next some far more serious thing to say:
I could not answer, could not look away.

Oh, that hard, round, and so distracting eye:
Little mirror of all sky! -
And then the after-song another tree
Held, and sent radiating back on me.

If no man had invented human word,
And a bird-song had been
The only way to utter what we mean,
What would we men have heard,
What understood, what seen,
Between t...

This girl gave her heart to me,
And this, and this.
This one looked at me as if she loved me,
And silently walked away.
This one I saw once and loved, and never saw her again.
Shall I count them for you upon my fingers?
Or like a priest solemnly sliding beads?
Or pretend they are roses, pale pink, yellow, and white,
And arrange them for you in a wide bowl
To be set in sunlight?
See how nicely it sounds as I count them for you
‘This girl gave her heart to me
And this, and this, . . . !
And nevertheless, my heart breaks when I think of them,
When I think their names,
And how, like leaves, they have changed and blown
And will lie, at last, forgotten,
Under the snow.

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

Kindly and warm and tender,
He nestled each childish palm
So close in his own that his touch was a prayer
And his speech a blessed psalm.

He has turned from the marvelous pages
Of many an alien tome -
Haply come down from Olivet,
Or out from the gates of Rome -

Set sail o'er the seas between him
And each little beckoning hand
That fluttered about in the meadows
And groves of his native land, -

Fluttered and flashed on his vision
As, in the glimmering light
Of the orchard-lands of childhood,
The blossoms of pink and white.

And there have been sobs in his bosom,
As out on the shores he stept,
And many a little welcomer
Has wondered why he wept. -

That was because, O children,
Ye might not always be
The ...

God and I in space alone
    And nobody else in view.
"And where are the people, O Lord," I said,
"The earth below, and the sky o'er head,
    And the dead whom once I knew?"

"That was a dream," God smiled and said -
    "A dream that seemed to be true.
There were no people, living or dead,
There was no earth, and no sky o'erhead;
    There was only Myself - in you."

"Why do I feel no fear," I asked,
    "Meeting You here this way?
For I have sinned I know full well?
And is there heaven, and is there hell,
    And is this the judgment day?"

"Say, those were but dreams," the Great God said,
    "Dreams, that have ceased to be.
There are no such things as fear or sin,
There is no you - you never have been -
    There is nothing a...

From the lyrical eclogue "One Day and Another"


Now rests the season in forgetfulness,
Careless in beauty of maturity;
The ripened roses round brown temples, she
Fulfills completion in a dreamy guess.
Now Time grants night the more and day the less:
The gray decides; and brown
Dim golds and drabs in dulling green express
Themselves and redden as the year goes down.
Sadder the fields where, thrusting hoary high
Their tasseled heads, the Lear-like corn-stocks die,
And, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie. -
Deepening with tenderness,
Sadder the blue of hills that lounge along
The lonesome west; sadder the song
Of the wild redbird in the leafage yellow. -
Deeper and dreamier, aye!
Than woods or waters, leans the languid sky
Above lone or...

Three secrets that never were said:
The stir of the sap in the spring,
The desire of a man to a maid,
The urge of a poet to sing.

O Printerman of sallow face,
And look of absent guile,
Is it the 'copy' on your 'case'
That causes you to smile?
Or is it some old treasure scrap
You call from Memory's file?

"I fain would guess its mystery -
For often I can trace
A fellow dreamer's history
Whene'er it haunts the face;
Your fancy's running riot
In a retrospective race!

"Ah, Printerman, you're straying
Afar from 'stick' and type -
Your heart has 'gone a-maying,'
And you taste old kisses, ripe
Again on lips that pucker
At your old asthmatic pipe!

"You are dreaming of old pleasures
That have faded from your view;
And the music-burdened measures
Of the laughs you listen to
Are now but angel-echoes -
O, have I spoken true?"

The ancient...

On the lone waters' shore
    Wander I yet;
Brooding those moments o'er
    I should forget.
'Till the broad foaming surge
    Warns me to fly,
While despair's whispers urge
    To stay and die.
When the night's solemn watch
    Falls on the seas,
'Tis thy voice that I catch
    In the low breeze;
When the moon sheds her light
    On things below,
Beams not her ray so bright,
    Like thy young brow?
Spirit immortal! say,
    When wilt thou come,
To marshal me the way
    To my long home?

    Right here at home, boys, in old Hoosierdom,
    Where strangers allus joke us when they come,
    And brag o' their old States and interprize -
    Yit settle here; and 'fore they realize,
    They're "hoosier" as the rest of us, and live
    Right here at home, boys, with their past fergive!

    Right here at home, boys, is the place, I guess,
    Fer me and you and plain old happiness:
    We hear the World's lots grander - likely so, -
    We'll take the World's word fer it and not go. -
    We know its ways aint our ways - so we'll stay
    Right here at home, boys, where we know the way.

    Right here at home, boys, where a well-to-do
    Man's plenty rich enough - and knows it, too,
    And's got a' extry dollar, any t...

He hurried away, young heart of joy, under our Devon sky!
And I watched him go, my beautiful boy, and a weary woman was I.
For my hair is grey, and his was gold; he'd the best of his life to live;
And I'd loved him so, and I'm old, I'm old; and he's all I had to give.

Ah yes, he was proud and swift and gay, but oh how my eyes were dim!
With the sun in his heart he went away, but he took the sun with him.
For look! How the leaves are falling now, and the winter won't be long. . . .
Oh boy, my boy with the sunny brow, and the lips of love and of song!

How we used to sit at the day's sweet end, we two by the firelight's gleam,
And we'd drift to the Valley of Let's Pretend, on the beautiful river of Dream.
Oh dear little heart! All wealth untold would I gladly, gladly pay
Coul...

There's a feast undated yet:
    Both our true lives hold it fast,-
The first day we ever met.
    What a great day came and passed!
    -Unknown then, but known at last.

And we met: You knew not me,
    Mistress of your joys and fears;
Held my hands that held the key
    Of the treasure of your years,
    Of the fountain of your tears.

For you knew not it was I,
    And I knew not it was you.
We have learnt, as days went by.
    But a flower struck root and grew
    Underground, and no one knew.

Days of days! Unmarked it rose,
    In whose hours we were to meet;
And forgotten passed. Who knows,
    Was earth cold or sunny, Sweet,
    At the coming of your feet?

One mere day, we thought; the measure
    Of such ...

These are the gardens of the Desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name,
The Prairies. I behold them for the first,
And my heart swells, while the dilated sight
Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch
In airy undulations, far away,
As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,
Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,
And motionless for ever. Motionless?
No, they are all unchained again. The clouds
Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath,
The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;
Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase
The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South!
Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,
And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,
Flaps his broad wings,...

Such a starved bank of moss
Till, that May-morn,
Blue ran the flash across:
Violets were born!

Sky, what a scowl of cloud
Till, near and far,
Ray on ray split the shroud:
Splendid, a star!

World, how it walled about
Life with disgrace,
Till God's own smile came out:
That was thy face!

I like to think this friendship that we hold
As youth's high gift in our two hands to-day
Still shall we find as bright, untarnished gold
What time the fleeting years have left us grey.
I like to think we two shall watch the May
Dance down her happy hills and Autumn fold
The world in flame and beauty, we grown old
Staunch comrades on an undivided way.

I like to think of Winter nights made bright
By book and hearth-flame when we two shall smile
At memories of to-day--we two content
To count our vanished dawns by candle-light
Seeing we hold in our old hands the while
The gift of gold youth left us as she went.