Identity

The world grows green on a thousand hills -
    By a thousand willows the bees are humming,
And a million birds by a million rills,
    Sing of the golden season coming.
But, gazing out on the sun-kist lea,
    And hearing a thrush and a blue-bird singing,
I feel that the summer is all for me,
    And all for me are the joys it is bringing.

All for me the bumble-bee
    Drones his song in the perfect weather;
And, just on purpose to sing to me,
    Thrush and blue-bird came North together.
Just for me, in red and white,
    Bloom and blossom the fields of clover;
And all for me and my delight
    The wild Wind follows and plays the lover.

The mighty sun, with a scorching kiss
    (I have read, and heard, and do not doubt it)
Has burned up...

    When Fort Sumter fell and the war came
    I cried out in bitterness of soul:
    "O glorious republic now no more!"
    When they buried my soldier son
    To the call of trumpets and the sound of drums
    My heart broke beneath the weight
    Of eighty years, and I cried:
    "Oh, son who died in a cause unjust!
    In the strife of Freedom slain!"
    And I crept here under the grass.
    And now from the battlements of time, behold:
    Thrice thirty million souls being bound together
    In the love of larger truth,
    Rapt in the expectation of the birth
    Of a new Beauty,
    Sprung from Brotherhood and Wisdom.
    I with eyes of spirit see the Transfiguration
    Before you see it.
    But ye infinite brood of golden eagles nesting ev...

Over vale and torrent far
Rolls along the sun's bright car.
Ah! he wakens in his course

Mine, as thy deep-seated smart

In the heart.
Ev'ry morning with new force.

Scarce avails night aught to me;
E'en the visions that I see
Come but in a mournful guise;

And I feel this silent smart

In my heart
With creative pow'r arise.

During many a beauteous year
I have seen ships 'neath me steer,
As they seek the shelt'ring bay;

But, alas, each lasting smart

In my heart
Floats not with the stream away.

I must wear a gala dress,
Long stored up within my press,
For to-day to feasts is given;

None know with what bitter smart

Is my heart
Fearfully and madly riven.

Sec...

I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday, -
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember,
The ...

I will sing a song,
    Said the owl.
You sing a song, sing-song
    Ugly fowl!
What will you sing about,
Night in and day out?

All about the night,
    When the gray
With her cloak smothers bright,
    Hard, sharp day.
Oh, the moon! the cool dew!
And the shadows!--tu-whoo!

I will sing a song,
    Said the nightingale.
Sing a song, long, long,
    Little Neverfail!
What will you sing about,
Day in or day out?

All about the light
    Gone away,
Down, away, and out of sight:
    Wake up, day!
For the master is not dead,
Only gone to bed.

I will sing a song,
    Said the lark.
Sing, sing, Throat-strong,
    Little Kill-the-dark!
What will you sing about,
Day in and night out?...

November's sky is chill and drear,
November's leaf is red and sear:
Late, gazing down the steepy linn
That hems our little garden in,
Low in its dark and narrow glen
You scarce the rivulet might ken,
So thick the tangled greenwood grew,
So feeble thrilled the streamlet through:
Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen
Through bush and briar, no longer green,
An angry brook, it sweeps the glade,
Brawls over rock and wild cascade,
And foaming brown, with doubled speed,
Hurries its waters to the Tweed.

No longer Autumn's glowing red
Upon our forest hills is shed;
No more, beneath the evening beam,
Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam:
Away hath passed the heather-bell
That bloomed so rich on Needpath Fell;
Sallow his brow, and russet b...

1.
'Do you not hear the Aziola cry?
Methinks she must be nigh,'
Said Mary, as we sate
In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought;
And I, who thought
This Aziola was some tedious woman,
Asked, 'Who is Aziola?' How elate
I felt to know that it was nothing human,
No mockery of myself to fear or hate:
And Mary saw my soul,
And laughed, and said, 'Disquiet yourself not;
'Tis nothing but a little downy owl.'

2.
Sad Aziola! many an eventide
Thy music I had heard
By wood and stream, meadow and mountain-side,
And fields and marshes wide, -
Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird,
The soul ever stirred;
Unlike and far sweeter than them all.
Sad Aziola! from that moment I
Loved thee and thy sad cry.

Whither, mad maiden, wilt thou roam?
Far safer 'twere to stay at home;
Where thou mayst sit, and piping, please
The poor and private cottages.
Since cotes and hamlets best agree
With this thy meaner minstrelsy.
There with the reed thou mayst express
The shepherd's fleecy happiness;
And with thy Eclogues intermix:
Some smooth and harmless Bucolics.
There, on a hillock, thou mayst sing
Unto a handsome shepherdling;
Or to a girl, that keeps the neat,
With breath more sweet than violet.
There, there, perhaps such lines as these
May take the simple villages;
But for the court, the country wit
Is despicable unto it.
Stay then at home, and do not go
Or fly abroad to seek for woe;
Contempts in courts and cities dwell
No critic haunts the poor ...

With lyre Orphean, see a Bard explore
    The central caverns of the mornless Night,
    Where never Muse perform'd harmonious rite
    Till now! - and lo! upon the sparry floor,
Advance, to welcome him, each Sister Power,
    Petra, stern Queen, Fossilia, cold and bright,
    And call their Gnomes, to marshal in his sight
    The gelid incrust, and the veined ore,
And flashing gem. - Then, while his songs pourtray
    The mystic virtues gold and gems acquire,
    With every charm that mineral scenes display,
Th' imperial Sisters praise the daring Lyre,
    And grateful hail its new and powerful lay,
    That seats them high amid the Muses' Choir.

1: Petra, and Fossilia, are Personifications of the first and last division of the Fossil Kingdom. The Author of this ...

    When under the icy eaves
        The swallow heralds the sun,
    And the dove for its lost mate grieves
        And the young lambs play and run;
    When the sea is a plane of glass,
        And the blustering winds are still,
    And the strength of the thin snows pass
        In mists o'er the tawny hill -
    The spirit of life awakes
    In the fresh flags by the lakes.

    When the sick man seeks the air,
        And the graves of the dead grow green,
    Where the children play unaware
        Of the faces no longer seen;
    When all we have felt or can feel,
        And all we are or have been,
    And all the heart can hide or reveal,
        Knocks gently, and enters in: -
    The spirit of life awakes,
    In the fresh fla...

Haunted? Ay, in a social way
By a body of ghosts in dread array;
But no conventional spectres they
Appalling, grim, and tricky:
I quail at mine as I'd never quail
At a fine traditional spectre pale,
With a turnip head and a ghostly wail,
And a splash of blood on the dickey!

Mine are horrible, social ghosts,
Speeches and women and guests and hosts,
Weddings and morning calls and toasts,
In every bad variety:
Ghosts who hover about the grave
Of all that's manly, free, and brave:
You'll find their names on the architrave
Of that charnel-house, Society.

Black Monday black as its school-room ink
With its dismal boys that snivel and think
Of its nauseous messes to eat and drink,
And its frozen tank to wash in.
That was the first that ...

Once more on the beach with the shifting clouds o'er me
    (Like the friends of a day),
And the sea all unchanged, like a true friend before me,
    How the years flow away,
    How the summers go by.

The shifting clouds o'er me, the shifting sands under;
    Why need it seem strange,
Why need I feel bitter, and why should I wonder
    That hearts, too, should change
    As the summers go by.

Down here is the path where we wandered together,
    'Neath the midsummer moon.
Her love was sweet as the sweet summer weather,
    And left us as soon,
    And the summers go by.

The bathers laugh loud in the surf over yonder.
    If one should dive deep,
And rise not -no more need he suffer or ponder
    O'er losses, or weep,
    But s...

My native isle! my native isle!
For ever round thy sunny steep
The low waves curl, with sparkling foam,
And solemn murmurs deep;
While o'er the surging waters blue
The ceaseless breezes throng,
And in the grand old woods awake
An everlasting song.

The sordid strife and petty cares
That crowd the city's street,
The rush, the race, the storm of Life,
Upon thee never meet;
But quiet and contented hearts
Their daily tasks fulfil,
And meet with simple hope and trust
The coming good or ill.

The spireless church stands, plain and brown,
The winding road beside;
The green graves rise in silence near,
With moss-grown tablets wide;
And early on the Sabbath morn,
Along the flowery sod,
Unfettered souls, with humble prayer,
G...

Let us off and search, and find a place
Where yours and mine can be natural lives,
Where no one comes who dissects and dives
And proclaims that ours is a curious case,
That its touch of romance can scarcely grace.

You would think it strange at first, but then
Everything has been strange in its time.
When some one said on a day of the prime
He would bow to no brazen god again
He doubtless dazed the mass of men.

None will recognize us as a pair whose claims
To righteous judgment we care not making;
Who have doubted if breath be worth the taking,
And have no respect for the current fames
Whence the savour has flown while abide the names.

We have found us already shunned, disdained,
And for re-acceptance have not once striven;
Whatever offen...

Who do you think stands watching
    The snow-tops shining rosy
In heaven, now that the darkness
    Takes all but the tallest posy?

Who then sees the two-winged
    Boat down there, all alone
And asleep on the snow's last shadow,
    Like a moth on a stone?

The olive-leaves, light as gad-flies,
    Have all gone dark, gone black.
And now in the dark my soul to you
    Turns back.

To you, my little darling,
    To you, out of Italy.
For what is loveliness, my love,
    Save you have it with me!

So, there's an oxen wagon
    Comes darkly into sight:
A man with a lantern, swinging
    A little light.

What does he see, my darling
    Here by the darkened lake?
Here, in the sloping shadow
    The mou...

‘Call down the hawk from the air;
Let him be hooded or caged
Till the yellow eye has grown mild,
For larder and spit are bare,
The old cook enraged,
The scullion gone wild.’

‘I will not be clapped in a hood,
Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist,
Now I have learnt to be proud
Hovering over the wood
In the broken mist
Or tumbling cloud.’

‘What tumbling cloud did you cleave,
Yellow-eyed hawk of the mind,
Last evening? that I, who had sat
Dumbfounded before a knave,
Should give to my friend
A pretence of wit.’

Night 'neath the northern skies, lone, black, and grim:
Naught but the starlight lies 'twixt heaven, and him.

Of man no need has he, of God, no prayer;
He and his Deity are brothers there.

Above his bivouac the firs fling down
Through branches gaunt and black, their needles brown.

Afar some mountain streams, rockbound and fleet,
Sing themselves through his dreams in cadence sweet,

The pine trees whispering, the heron's cry,
The plover's passing wing, his lullaby.

And blinking overhead the white stars keep
Watch o'er his hemlock bed - his sinless sleep.

"Tha wodn't goa an leave me, Jim,
All lonely by mysel?
My een at th' varry thowts grow dim -
Aw connot say farewell.

Tha vow'd tha couldn't live unless
Tha saw me every day,
An' said tha knew noa happiness
When aw wor foorced away.

An th' tales tha towld, I know full weel,
Wor true as gospel then;
What is it, lad, 'at ma's thee feel
Soa strange - unlike thisen?

Ther's raam enuff, aw think tha'll find,
I'th taan whear tha wor born,
To mak a livin, if tha'll mind
To ha' faith i' to-morn.

Aw've mony a time goan to mi wark
Throo claads o' rain and sleet;
All's seem'd soa dull, soa drear, an' dark,
It ommust mud be neet.

But then, when braikfast time's come raand,
Aw've seen th' sun's cheerin ray,
An' th' ...