Long the road,
Till Love came down it!
Dark the life,
Till Love did crown it!
Dark the life,
And long the road,
Till Love came
To share the load!
For the touch
Of Love transfigures
All the road
And all its rigours.
Life and Death,
Love's touch transfigures.
Life and Death
And all that lies
In between,
Love sanctifies.
Once the heavenly spark is lighted,
Once in love two hearts united,
Nevermore
Shall aught that was be
As before.

Mr. FISHER AMES BUELL, died at Hartford, May 19th, 1861, aged 25, and Mr. HENRY R. BUELL, on his voyage to Europe, June 20th, 1862, aged 30, the only children of Mr. ROBERT and Mrs. LAURA BUELL.


Both gone. Both smitten in their manly prime,
    Yet the fair transcript of their virtues here,
And treasured memories of their boyhood's time
    Allay the anguish of affection's tear.

One hath his rest amid the sacred shade
    Whose turf reveals the mourner's frequent tread,
And one beneath the unfathomed deep is laid
    To slumber till the sea restores her dead.

The childless parents weep their broken trust,
    Hope's fountain failing at its cherish'd springs,
And widow'd sorrow shrouds herself in dust,
    While one lone flowret to her bosom clings.<...

It is told, in Buddhi-theosophic Schools
There are rules
By observing which when mundane matter irks,
Or the world has gone amiss, you
Can incontinently issue
From the circumscribing tissue
Of your Works.

That the body and the gentleman inside
Can divide,
And the latter, if acquainted with the plan,
Can alleviate the tension
By remaining 'in suspension'
As a kind of fourth dimension
Bogie man.

And to such as mourn an Indian Solar Crime
At its prime,
'Twere a stratagem so luminously fit,
That tho' doctrinaires deny it,
And Academicians guy it,
I, for one, would like to try it
For a bit.

Just to leave one's earthly tenement asleep
In a heap,
And detachedly to watch it as it lies,
With an epidermis pickled...

What does one gain by living? What by dying
Is lost worth having? What the daily things
Lived through together make them worth the while
For their sakes or for life's? Where's the denying
Of souls through separation? There's your smile!
And your hands' touch! And the long day that brings
Half uttered nothings of delight! But then
Now that I see you not, and shall again
Touch you no more - memory can possess
Your soul's essential self, and none the less
You live with me. I therefore write to you
This letter just as if you were away
Upon a journey, or a holiday;
And so I'll put down everything that's new
In this secluded village, since you left. ...
Now let me think! Well, then, as I remember,
After ten days the lilacs burst in bloom.
We had spring all at o...

I lived on dread; to those who know
The stimulus there is
In danger, other impetus
Is numb and vital-less.

As 't were a spur upon the soul,
A fear will urge it where
To go without the spectre's aid
Were challenging despair.

In weary circles a sick fish hovers
In a pond surrounded by grass.
A tree leans against the sky - burned and bent.
Yes... the family sits at a large table,
Where they peck with their forks from the plates.
Gradually they become sleepy, heavy and silent.
The sun licks the ground with its hot, poisonous,
Voracious mouth, like a dog - a filthy enemy.
Bums suddenly collapse without a trace.
A coachman looks with concern at a nag
Which, torn open, cries in the gutter.
Three children stand around in silence.

A child,
Curious and innocent,
Slips from his Nurse, and rejoicing
Loses himself in the Fair.

Thro' the jostle and din
Wandering, he revels,
Dreaming, desiring, possessing;
Till, of a sudden
Tired and afraid, he beholds
The sordid assemblage
Just as it is; and he runs
With a sob to his Nurse
(Lighting at last on him),
And in her motherly bosom
Cries him to sleep.

Thus thro' the World,
Seeing and feeling and knowing,
Goes Man:    till at last,
Tired of experience, he turns
To the friendly and comforting breast
Of the old nurse, Death.

1876

What can I say? What Arguments can prove
My Truth? What Colors can describe my Love?
If it's Excess and Fury be not known,
In what Thy Celia has already done?

Thy Infant Flames, whilst yet they were conceal'd
In tim'rous Doubts, with Pity I beheld;
With easie Smiles dispell'd the silent Fear,
That durst not tell Me, what I dy'd to hear:
In vain I strove to check my growing Flame,
Or shelter Passion under Friendship's Name:
You saw my Heart, how it my Tongue bely'd;
And when You press'd, how faintly I deny'd
E'er Guardian Thought could bring it's scatter'd Aid;
E'er Reason could support the doubting Maid;
My Soul surpriz'd, and from her self disjoin'd,
Left all Reserve, and all the Sex behind:
From your Command her Motions She receiv'd;
And not for M...

In the fair days when God
By man as godlike trod,
And each alike was Greek, alike was free,
God’s lightning spared, they said,
Alone the happier head
Whose laurels screened it; fruitless grace for thee,
To whom the high gods gave of right
Their thunders and their laurels and their light.

Sunbeams and bays before
Our master’s servants wore,
For these Apollo left in all men’s lands;
But far from these ere now
And watched with jealous brow
Lay the blind lightnings shut between God’s hands,
And only loosed on slaves and kings
The terror of the tempest of their wings.

Born in those younger years
That shone with storms of spears
And shook in the wind blown from a dead world’s pyre,
When by her back-blown hair
Napoleon caught the fair<...

        All day he drowses by the sail
        With dreams of her, and all night long
        The broken waters are at song
        Of how she lingers, wild and pale,
        When all the temple lights are dumb,
        And weaves her spells to make him come.

        The wide sea traversed, he will stand
        With straining eyes, until the shoal
        Green water from the prow shall roll
        Upon the yellow strip of sand--
        Searching some fern-hid tangled way
        Into the forest old and grey.

        Then he will leap upon the shore,
        And cast one look up at the sun,
        Over his loosened locks will run
        The dawn breeze, and a bird will pour
        Its rapture out to make life seem
        Too sweet to le...

(For a friend who mourns its passing.)

He took the earth as earth had been his throne;
And beauty as the red rose for his eye;
"Give me the moon," he said, "for mine alone;
Or I will reach and pluck it from the sky!"

And thou, Life, dost mourn him, for the day
Has darkened since the gallant youngling went;
And smaller seems thy dwelling-place of clay
Since he has left that valley tenement.

But oh, perchance, beyond some utmost gate.
While at the gate thy stranger feet do stand.
He shall approach thee, beautiful, elate.
Crowned with his moon, the red rose in his hand!

Say that the men of the old black tower,
Though they but feed as the goatherd feeds,
Their money spent, their wine gone sour,
Lack nothing that a soldier needs,
That all are oath-bound men:
Those banners come not in.

i(There in the tomb stand the dead upright,)
i(But winds come up from the shore:)
i(They shake when the winds roar,)
i(Old bones upon the mountain shake.)

Those banners come to bribe or threaten,
Or whisper that a man's a fool
Who, when his own right king's forgotten,
Cares what king sets up his rule.
If he died long ago
Why do yopu dread us so?

i(There in the tomb drops the faint moonlight,)
i(But wind comes up from the shore:)
i(They shake when the winds roar,)
i(Old bones upon the mountain shake.)

The...

How ill doth he deserve a lover's name,
Whose pale weak flame
Cannot retain
His heat, in spite of absence or disdain;
But doth at once, like paper set on fire,
Burn and expire;
True love can never change his seat,
Nor did her ever love, that could retreat.

That noble flame which my breast keeps alive
Shall still survive
When my soul's fled;
Nor shall my love die when my body's dead,
That shall wait on me to the lower shade,
And never fade;
My very ashes in their urn
Shall, like a hallow'd lamp, forever burn.

Once upon a hushed red morning
In the wondrous years of old,
When the sun rose like a Rajah
Clad in robes of gleaming gold,

And upon his land of India
Poured the largess of his heart,
By the Ganges stood a Brahmin,
Far from all his kind, apart.

Darkly on that royal dawning
Gazed the Brahmin, sore distraught,
And his body lean was shaken
With the passion of his thought.

"Many years with hands uplifted
Till they withered in the air,
I have prayed," he cried, "to Brahma,
But He heedeth not my prayer.

"I have prayed and I have fasted,
Waiting ever for a sign,
While the world went reeling past me,
With its women and its wine.

"Burning suns by day have scorched me,
Freezing stars with icy spears
They have p...

If we dream that desire of the distance above us
Should be fettered by fear of the shadows that seem,
If we wake, to be nought, but to hate or to love us
If we dream,
Night sinks on the soul, and the stars as they gleam
Speak menace or mourning, with tongues to reprove us
That we deemed of them better than terror may deem.
But if hope may not lure us, if fear may not move us,
Thought lightens the darkness wherein the supreme
Pure presence of death shall assure us, and prove us
If we dream.

"What do I catch upon the night-wind, husband? -
What is it sounds in this house so eerily?
It seems to be a woman's voice: each little while I hear it,
And it much troubles me!"

"'Tis but the eaves dripping down upon the plinth-slopes:
Letting fancies worry thee! sure 'tis a foolish thing,
When we were on'y coupled half-an-hour before the noontide,
And now it's but evening."

"Yet seems it still a woman's voice outside the castle, husband,
And 'tis cold to-night, and rain beats, and this is a lonely place.
Didst thou fathom much of womankind in travel or adventure
Ere ever thou sawest my face?"

"It may be a tree, bride, that rubs his arms acrosswise,
If it is not the eaves-drip upon the lower slopes,
Or the river at the bend, where it whirls about the ...

(JUNE 13, 1899.)


    So still you sleep upon your bed,
    So motionless and slender,
    It cannot be that you are dead,
    My maiden gay and tender!

    You were no creature pale and meek
    That death should hasten after,
    The dimples played within your cheek,
    Your lips were made for laughter.

    To you the great world was a place
    That care might never stay in,
    A playground built by God's good grace
    For glad young folks to play in.

    You made your footpath by life's flowers,
    O happy, care-free maiden!
    The sky was full of shine and showers,
    The wind was perfume laden.

    Your dimpled hands are folded now
    Upon your snowy bosom,
    The dark hair nestles on your brow -<...

When Ruth was left half desolate,
Her Father took another Mate;
And Ruth, not seven years old,
A slighted child, at her own will
Went wandering over dale and hill,
In thoughtless freedom, bold.

And she had made a pipe of straw,
And music from that pipe could draw
Like sounds of winds and floods;
Had built a bower upon the green,
As if she from her birth had been
An infant of the woods.

Beneath her father's roof, alone
She seemed to live; her thoughts her own;
Herself her own delight;
Pleased with herself, nor sad, nor gay;
And, passing thus the live-long day,
She grew to woman's height.

There came a Youth from Georgia's shore
A military casque he wore,
With splendid feathers drest;
He brought them from the Cherokees;<...