Life

Isabelle has gold, and lands,
Fate gave her a fair lot;
Like the white lilies of the field
Her soft hands toil not.
I gaze upon her splendor
Without an envious sigh;
I have no wealth in lands and gold,
And yet sweet peace have I.

I know the blue sky smiles as bright
On the low field violet,
As on the proud crest of the pine
On loftiest mountain set.
I am content - God loveth all,
And if He tenderly
The sparrow guides, He knoweth best
The place where I should be.

Her violet velvet curtains trail
Down to the floor,
But brightly God's rich sunshine streams
Into my cottage door;
And not a picture on her walls,
Hath beauty unto me,
Like that which from my window frame
I daily lean to see.

She has known such ...

1.
Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.

2.
How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.

3.
As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,
Thou with sorrow art dismayed;
Even the sighs of grief
Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not hear.

4.
Let me set my mournful ditty
To a merry measure;
Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure;
Pity then will cut away
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

5...

What were this life without her?
Joy, whose young face is sweet
With dreams that flit about her,
And rapture wild of feet!

With hope, that knows no languor,
And love, that knows no sighs,
And mirth, like some rich anger,
High-sparkling in her eyes.

Come! bid adieu to Sorrow;
And arm in arm with Joy,
We 'll journey towards Tomorrow,
And let no Care decoy

Our souls from all clean Pleasures,
That take from Time's lean hand
The hour-glass he treasures,
And change to gold its sand.

Joy comes and goes: hope ebbs and flows,
Like the wave.
Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.
Love lends life a little grace,
A few sad smiles: and then.
Both are laid in one cold place,
In the grave.

Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die,
Like spring flowers.
Our vaunted life is one long funeral.
Men dig graves, with bitter tears,
For their dead hopes; and all,
Maz’d with doubts, and sick with fears,
Count the hours.

We count the hours: these dreams of ours,
False and hollow,
Shall we go hence and find they are not dead?
Joys we dimly apprehend,
Faces that smil’d and fled,
Hopes born here, and born to end,
Shall we follow?

You bid the minstrel strike the lute,
And wake once more a soothing tone
Alas! its strings, untuned, are mute,
Or only echo moan for moan.

The flowers around it twined are dead,
And those who wreathed them there, are flown;
The spring that gave them bloom is fled,
And winter's frost is o'er them thrown.

Poor lute! forgot 'mid strife and care,
I fain would try thy strings once more,
Perchance some lingering tone is there
Some cherished melody of yore.

If flowers that bloom no more are here,
Their odors still around us cling
And though the loved are lost-still dear,
Their memories may wake the string.

I strike but lo, the wonted thrill,
Of joy in sorrowing cadence dies:
Alas! the minstrel's hand is chill,
And the sad lute, ...

'Tis morning now, yet silently I stand,
Uplift the curtain with a weary hand,
Look out while darkness overspreads the way,
        And long for day.

Calm peace is frighted with my mood to-night,
Nor visits my dull chamber with her light,
To guide my senses into her sweet rest
        And leave me blest.

Long hours since the city rocked and sung
Itself to slumber: only the stars swung
Aloft their torches in the midnight skies
        With watchful eyes.

No sound awakes; I, even, breathe no sigh,
Nor hear a single footstep passing by;
Yet I am not alone, for now I feel
        A presence steal

Within my chamber walls; I turn to see
The sweetest guest that courts humanity;
With subtle, slow enchantment draws she near,
      ...

    We are happy all the time
    Even when we fight:
    Sweet briars of the stairways,
    Gay fairies of the grime;
    WE, WHO ARE PLAYING TO-NIGHT.

    "Our feet are in the gutters,
    Our eyes are sore with dust,
    But still our eyes are bright.
    The wide street roars and mutters -
    We know it works because it must -
    WE, WHO ARE PLAYING TO-NIGHT!

    "Dirt is everlasting. -    We never, never fear it.
    Toil is never ceasing. -    We will play until we near it.
    Tears are never ending. -    When once real tears have come;

    "When we see our people as they are -
    Our fathers - broken, dumb -
    Our mothers - broken, dumb -
    The weariest of women and of men;
    Ah - then our eyes will lose their light...

Da poi che sotto 'l ciel cosa non vidi.


    When all beneath the ample cope of heaven
I saw, like clouds before the tempest driven,
In sad vicissitude's eternal round,
Awhile I stood in holy horror bound;
And thus at last with self-exploring mind,
Musing, I ask'd, "What basis I could find
To fix my trust?" An inward voice replied,
"Trust to the Almighty: He thy steps shall guide;
He never fails to hear the faithful prayer,
But worldly hope must end in dark despair."
Now, what I am, and what I was, I know;
I see the seasons in procession go
With still increasing speed; while things to come,
Unknown, unthought, amid the growing gloom
Of long futurity, perplex my soul,
While life is posting to its final goal.
Mine is the crime, who ought w...

One of a hundred little rills--
Born in the hills,
Nourished with dews by the earth, and with tears by the sky,
Sang--"Who so mighty as I?
The farther I flow
The bigger I grow.
I, who was born but a little rill,
Now turn the big wheel of the mill,
Though the surly slave would rather stand still.
Old, and weed-hung, and grim,
I am not afraid of him;
For when I come running and dance on his toes,
With a creak and a groan the monster goes.
And turns faster and faster,
As he learns who is master,
Round and round,
Till the corn is ground,
And the miller smiles as he stands on the bank,
And knows he has me to thank.
Then when he swings the fine sacks of flour,
I feel my power;
But when the children enjoy their food,
I know I'm not only ...

        When the first sere leaves of the year were falling,
    I heard, with a heart that was strangely thrilled,
        Out of the grave of a dead Past calling,
    A voice I fancied forever stilled.

        All through winter and spring and summer,
        Silence hung over that grave like a pall,
        But, borne on the breath of the last sad comer,
    I listen again to the old-time call.

        It is only a love of a by-gone season,
    A senseless folly that mocked at me
        A reckless passion that lacked all reason,
    So I killed it, and hid it where none could see.

        I smothered it first to stop its crying,
    Then stabbed it through with a good sharp blade,
        And cold and pallid I saw it lying,
    And deep - ah' ...

I put by the half-written poem,
While the pen, idly trailed in my hand,
Writes on, "Had I words to complete it,
Who'd read it, or who'd understand?"
But the little bare feet on the stairway,
And the faint, smothered laugh in the hall,
And the eerie-low lisp on the silence,
Cry up to me over it all.

So I gather it up - where was broken
The tear-faded thread of my theme,
Telling how, as one night I sat writing,
A fairy broke in on my dream,
A little inquisitive fairy -
My own little girl, with the gold
Of the sun in her hair, and the dewy
Blue eyes of the fairies of old.

'Twas the dear little girl that I scolded -
"For was it a moment like this,"
I said, "when she knew I was busy,
To come romping in for a kiss?
Come rowdying up fr...

No protesting, dearest!
Hardly kisses even!
Don’t we both know how it ends?
How the greenest leaf turns serest,
Bluest outbreak, blankest heaven,
Lovers, friends?

You would build a mansion,
I would weave a bower
Want the heart for enterprise.
Walls admit of no expansion:
Trellis-work may haply flower
Twice the size.

What makes glad Life’s Winter?
New buds, old blooms after.
Sad the sighing “How suspect
Reams would ere mid-Autumn splinter,
Rooftree scarce support a rafter,
Walls lie wrecked?”

You are young, my princess!
I am hardly older:
Yet, I steal a glance behind!
Dare I tell you what convinces
Timid me that you, if bolder,
Bold, are blind?

Where we plan our dwelling
Glooms a graveyard sur...

"In my father's house!" The words
Bring sweet cadence to my ears.
Wandering thoughts, like homing birds,
Fly all swiftly down the years,
To that wide casement, where I always see
Bright love-lamps leaning out to welcome me.

Sweet it was, how sweet to go
To the worn, familiar door.
No need to stand a while, and wait,
Outside the well-remembered gate;
No need to knock;
The easy lock
Turned almost of itself, and so
My spirit was "at home" once more.
And then, within, how good to find
The same cool atmosphere of peace,
Where I, a tired child, might cease
To grieve, or dread,
Or toil for bread.
I could forget
The dreary fret.
The strivings after hopes too high,
I let them every one go by.
The ills of life, the blows unkind,<...

Low laughed the Columbine,
Trembled her petals fine
    As the breeze blew;
In her dove-heart there stirred
Murmurs the dull bee heard,
And Love, Life's wild white bird,
    Straightway she knew.

Resting her lilac cheek
Gently, in aspect meek,
    On the gray stone,
The morning-glory, free,
Welcomed the yellow bee,

Heard the near-rolling sea
    Murmur and moan.

Calm lay the tawny sand
Stretching a long wet hand
    To the far wave.
Swift to her warm waiting breast
Longing to be possessed
Leaps 'neath his billowy crest
    Her Lover brave.

I walk down the Valley of Silence --
Down the dim, voiceless valley -- alone!
And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me, save God's and my own;
And the hush of my heart is as holy
As hovers where angels have flown!

Long ago was I weary of voices
Whose music my heart could not win;
Long ago was I weary of noises
That fretted my soul with their din;
Long ago was I weary of places
Where I met but the human -- and sin.

I walked in the world with the worldly;
I craved what the world never gave;
And I said:    "In the world each Ideal,
That shines like a star on life's wave,
Is wrecked on the shores of the Real,
And sleeps like a dream in a grave."

And still did I pine for the Perfect,
And still found the False with the True;

There never breathed a man who, when his life
Was closing, might not of that life relate
Toils long and hard. The warrior will report
Of wounds, and bright swords flashing in the field,
And blast of trumpets. He who hath been doomed
To bow his forehead in the courts of kings,
Will tell of fraud and never-ceasing hate,
Envy and heart-inquietude, derived
From intricate cabals of treacherous friends.
I, who on shipboard lived from earliest youth,
Could represent the countenance horrible
Of the vexed waters, and the indignant rage
Of Auster and Bootes. Fifty years
Over the well-steered galleys did I rule:
From huge Pelorus to the Atlantic pillars,
Rises no mountain to mine eyes unknown;
And the broad gulfs I traversed oft and oft:
Of every cloud which in the ...

The big teetotum twirls,
And epochs wax and wane
As chance subsides or swirls;
But of the loss and gain
The sum is always plain.
Read on the mighty pall,
The weed of funeral
That covers praise and blame,
The -isms and the -anities,
Magnificence and shame:-
'O Vanity of Vanities!'

The Fates are subtile girls!
They give us chaff for grain.
And Time, the Thunderer, hurls,
Like bolted death, disdain
At all that heart and brain
Conceive, or great or small,
Upon this earthly ball.
Would you be knight and dame?
Or woo the sweet humanities?
Or illustrate a name?
O Vanity of Vanities!

We sound the sea for pearls,
Or drown them in a drain;
We flute it with the merles,
Or tug and sweat and strain;
We grovel, o...

In through the open window
    To the chamber where I lay,
There came the beat of merry feet,
    From the dancers over the way.
And back on the wings of the music
    That rose on the midnight air,
My rare youth came and spoke my name,
    And lo!    I was young and fair.

Once more in the glitter of gaslight
    I stood in my life's glad prime:
And heart and feet in a rhythm sweet
    Were keeping the music's time.
Like a leaf in the breeze of summer
    I drifted down the hall,
On an arm that is cold with death and mould,
    And is hidden under the pall.

Once more at a low voice's whisper
    (A voice that is long since stilled)
I felt the flush of a rising blush,
    And my pulses leaped and thrilled.
Once more in a sea of f...