Th' swallows are buildin ther nests, Jenny,
Th' springtime has come with its flowers;
Th' fields in ther greenest are drest, Jenny,
An th' songsters mak music ith' bowers.
Daisies an buttercups smile, Jenny,
Laughingly th' brook flows along; -
An awm havin a smook set oth' stile, Jenny,
But this bacca's uncommonly strong.

Aw wonder if thy heart like mine, Jenny,
Finds its love-burden hard to be borne;
Do thi een wi' breet tears ov joy shine, Jenny,
As they glistened an shone yestermorn?
Ther's noa treasure wi' thee can compare, Jenny,
Aw'd net change thi for wealth or estate; -
But aw'll goa nah some braikfast to share, Jenny,
For aw can't live baght summat to ait.

Like a nightingale if aw could sing, Jenny,
Aw'd pearch near thy winder at neet...

I.

When from the tower, like some sweet flower,
The bell drops petals of the hour,
That says the world is homing,
My heart puts off its garb of care
And clothes itself in gold and vair,
And hurries forth to meet her there
Within the purple gloaming.

It's Oh! how slow the hours go,
How dull the moments move!
Till soft and clear the bells I hear,
That say, like music, in my ear,
"Go meet the one you love."

II.
When curved and white, a bugle bright,
The moon blows glamour through the night,
That sets the world a-dreaming,
My heart, where gladness late was guest,
Puts off its joy, as to my breast
At parting her dear form is pressed,
Within the moon's faint gleaming.

It's Oh! how fast the hours passed!
They were...

        One time in Arcadie's fair bowers
    There met a bright immortal band,
        To choose their emblems from the flowers
    That made an Eden of that land.

        Sweet Constancy, with eyes of hope,
    Strayed down the garden path alone
        And gathered sprays of heliotrope,
    To place in clusters at her zone.

        True Friendship plucked the ivy green,
    Forever fresh, forever fair.
        Inconstancy with flippant mien
    The fading primrose chose to wear.

        One moment Love the rose paused by;
    But Beauty picked it for her hair.
        Love paced the garden with a sigh
    He found no fitting emblem there.

        Then suddenly he saw a flame,
    A conflagration turned to bloom;
        It ...

I have remembered beauty in the night,
Against black silences I waked to see
A shower of sunlight over Italy
And green Ravello dreaming on her height;
I have remembered music in the dark,
The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,
And running water singing on the rocks
When once in English woods I heard a lark.

But all remembered beauty is no more
Than a vague prelude to the thought of you,
You are the rarest soul I ever knew,
Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;
My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,
And when I think of you, I am at rest.

The blue night, like an angel, came into the room,--
Came through the open window from the silent sky
Down trellised stairs of moonlight into the dear room
As if a whisper breathed of some divine one nigh.
The nightingales, like brooks of song in Paradise,
Gurgled their serene rapture to the silent sky--
Like springs of laughter bubbling up in Paradise,
The serene nightingales along the riverside
Purled low in every tree their star-cool melodies
Of joy--in every tree along the riverside.

Did the vain garments melt in music from your side?
Did you rise from them as a lily flowers i' the air?
--But you were there before me like the Night's own bride--
I dared not call you mine. So still and tall you were,
I never dreamed that you were mine--I never dreamed
I lo...

        One sits in soft light, where the hearth is warm,
            A halo, like an angel's, on her hair.
        She clasps a sleeping infant in her arm.
            A holy presence hovers round her there,
            And she, for all her mother-pains more fair,
        Is happy, seeing that all sweet thoughts that stir
        The hearts of men bear worship unto her.

        Another wanders where the cold wind blows,
            Wet-haired, with eyes that sting one like a knife.
        Homeless forever, at her bosom close
            She holds the purchase of her love and life,
            Of motherhood, unglorified as wife;
        And bitterer than the world's relentless scorn
        The knowing her child were happier never born.

        Whence are t...

From fall to spring, the russet acorn,
Fruit beloved of maid and boy,
Lent itself beneath the forest,
To be the children's toy.

Pluck it now! In vain,--thou canst not;
Its root has pierced yon shady mound;
Toy no longer--it has duties;
It is anchored in the ground.

Year by year the rose-lipped maiden,
Playfellow of young and old,
Was frolic sunshine, dear to all men,
More dear to one than mines of gold.

Whither went the lovely hoyden?
Disappeared in blessed wife;
Servant to a wooden cradle,
Living in a baby's life.

Still thou playest;--short vacation
Fate grants each to stand aside;
Now must thou be man and artist,--
'T is the turning of the tide.

Love is a circle, and an endless sphere;
From good to good, revolving here and there.

I

Beneath the vine-clad eaves,
Whose shadows fall before
Thy lowly cottage door
Under the lilac’s tremulous leaves,
Within thy snowy claspeèd hand
The purple flowers it bore.
Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,
Like queenly nymphs from Fairy-land,
Enchantress of the flowery wand,
Most beauteous Isadore!

II

And when I bade the dream
Upon thy spirit flee,
Thy violet eyes to me
Upturned, did overflowing seem
With the deep, untold delight
Of Love’s serenity;
Thy classic brow, like lilies white
And pale as the Imperial Night
Upon her throne, with stars bedight,
Enthralled my soul to thee!

III

Ah! ever I behold
Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,
Blue as the languid skies
Hung with the sunset...

She sits beside the tinted tide,
That’s reddened by the tortured sand;
And through the East, to ocean wide,
A vessel sails from sight of land.

But she will wait and watch in vain,
For it is said in Cupid’s lore,
“That he who loved will love again,
And sweethearts wait on every shore.”

I

A subtle chain of countless rings
The next unto the farthest brings;
The eye reads omens where it goes,
And speaks all languages the rose;
And, striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form.

II

The rounded world is fair to see,
Nine times folded in mystery:
Though baffled seers cannot impart
The secret of its laboring heart,
Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast,
And all is clear from east to west.
Spirit that lurks each form within
Beckons to spirit of its kin;
Self-kindled every atom glows
And hints the future which it owes.

Spring's face is wreathed in smiles. She had been driven
    Hither and thither at the surly will
    Of treacherous winds till her sweet heart was chill.
Into her grasp the sceptre has been given
    And now she touches with a proud young hand
    The earth, and turns to blossoms all the land.

We catch the smile, the joyousness, the pride,
    And share them with her. Surely winter gloom
    Is for the old, and frost is for the tomb.
Youth must have pleasure, and the tremulous tide
    Of sun-kissed waves, and all the golden fire
    Of Summer's noontide splendor of desire.

I have forgotten, - for the breath of buds
    Is on my temples, if in former days
    I have known sorrow; I remember praise,
And calm content, and joy's great ocean-floods,
 ...

Where art thou, beloved To-morrow?
When young and old, and strong and weak,
Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow,
Thy sweet smiles we ever seek, -
In thy place - ah! well-a-day!
We find the thing we fled - To-day.

As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,
And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
So I turn the leaves of fancy till, in shadowy design,
I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.

The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise,
As I turn it low to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes,
And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke
Its fate with my tobacco and to vanish with the smoke.

'Tis a fragrant retrospection - for the loving thoughts that start
Into being are like perfume from the blossom of the heart;
And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine -
When my truant fancy wanders with that old sweetheart of mine.

Though I hear, beneath my study, like a fluttering of wings,
The voices o...

They know not my heart, who believe there can be
One stain of this earth in its feelings for thee;
Who think, while I see thee in beauty's young hour,
As pure as the morning's first dew on the flower,
I could harm what I love,--as the sun's wanton ray
But smiles on the dew-drop to waste it away.

No--beaming with light as those young features are,
There's a light round thy heart which is lovelier far:
It is not that cheek--'tis the soul dawning clear
Thro' its innocent blush makes thy beauty so dear:
As the sky we look up to, tho' glorious and fair,
Is looked up to the more, because Heaven lies there!

1.

Those flaxen locks, those eyes of blue
Bright as thy mother's in their hue;
Those rosy lips, whose dimples play
And smile to steal the heart away,
Recall a scene of former joy,
And touch thy father's heart, my Boy!


2.

And thou canst lisp a father's name -
Ah, William, were thine own the same, -
No self-reproach - but, let me cease -
My care for thee shall purchase peace;
Thy mother's shade shall smile in joy,
And pardon all the past, my Boy!


3.

Her lowly grave the turf has prest,
And thou hast known a stranger's breast;
Derision sneers upon thy birth,
And yields thee scarce a name on earth;
Yet shall not these one hope destroy, -
A Father's heart is thine, my Boy!


4.

W...

Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,
From passionate pain to deadlier delight,
I am too young to live without desire,
Too young art thou to waste this summer night
Asking those idle questions which of old
Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told.

For, sweet, to feel is better than to know,
And wisdom is a childless heritage,
One pulse of passion youth's first fiery glow,
Are worth the hoarded proverbs of the sage:
Vex not thy soul with dead philosophy,
Have we not lips to kiss with, hearts to love and eyes to see!

Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale,
Like water bubbling from a silver jar,
So soft she sings the envious moon is pale,
That high in heaven she is hung so far
She cannot hear that love-enraptured tune,
Mark how ...

Distance no grace can lend you, but for me
Distance yet magnifies your mystery.
With you, and soon content, I ask how should
In your two eyes be hid my heaven of good?
How should your own mere voice the strange words speak
That tease me with the sense of what's to seek
In all the world beside? How your brown hair,
That simply and neglectfully you wear,
Bind my wild thoughts in its abundant snare?
With you, I wonder how you're stranger than
Another woman to another man;
But parted--and you're as a ship unknown
That to poor castaways at dawn is shown
As strange as dawn, so strange they fear a trick
Of eyes long-vexed and hope with falseness sick.
Parted, and like the riddle of a dream,
Dark with rich promise, does your beauty seem.
I wonder at your patience...