To roll the rock you fought
takes your courage, Sisyphus!
No matter what effort from us,
Art is long, and Time is short.

Far from the grave of celebrity,
my heart, like a muffled drum,
taps out its funereal thrum
towards some lonely cemetery.

Many a long-buried gem
sleeps in shadowy oblivion
far from pickaxes and drills:

in profound solitude set,
many a flower, with regret,
its sweet perfume spills.

Why has Spring one syllable less
Than any its fellow season?
There may be some other reason,
And I'm merely making a guess;
But surely it hoards such wealth
Of happiness, hope and health,
Sunshine and musical sound,
It may spare a foot from its name
Yet all the same
Superabound.

Soft-named Summer,
Most welcome comer,
Brings almost everything
Over which we dream or sing
Or sigh;
But then Summer wends its way,
To-morrow, - to-day, -
Good-bye!

Autumn, - the slow name lingers,
While we likewise flag;
It silences many singers;
Its slow days drag,
Yet hasten at speed
To leave us in chilly need
For Winter to strip indeed.

In all-lack Winter,
Dull of sense and of sound,
We huddle and shiver
...

    I reached the highest place in Spoon River,
    But through what bitterness of spirit!
    The face of my father, sitting speechless,
    Child-like, watching his canaries,
    And looking at the court-house window
    Of the county judge's room,
    And his admonitions to me to seek
    My own in life, and punish Spoon River
    To avenge the wrong the people did him,
    Filled me with furious energy
    To seek for wealth and seek for power.
    But what did he do but send me along
    The path that leads to the grove of the Furies?
    I followed the path and I tell you this:
    On the way to the grove you'll pass the Fates,
    Shadow-eyed, bent over their weaving.
    Stop for a moment, and if you see
    The thread of revenge leap out of the s...

Sylph was it? or a Bird more bright
Than those of fabulous stock?
A second darted by; and lo!
Another of the flock,
Through sunshine flitting from the bough
To nestle in the rock.
Transient deception! a gay freak
Of April's mimicries!
Those brilliant strangers, hailed with joy
Among the budding trees,
Proved last year's leaves, pushed from the spray
To frolic on the breeze.

Maternal Flora! show thy face,
And let thy hand be seen,
Thy hand here sprinkling tiny flowers,
That, as they touch the green,
Take root (so seems it) and look up
In honour of their Queen.
Yet, sooth, those little starry specks,
That not in vain aspired
To be confounded with live growths,
Most dainty, most admired,
Were only blossoms dropt from twigs

Not into these dark cities,
These sordid marts and streets,
That the sun in his rising pities,
And the moon with sorrow greets,
Does she, with her dreams and flowers,
For whom our hearts are dumb,
Does she of the golden hours,
Earth's heaven-born Beauty, come.

Afar 'mid the hills she tarries,
Beyond the farthest streams,
In a world where music marries
With color that blooms and beams;
Where shadow and light are wedded,
Whose children people the Earth,
The fair, the fragrant-headed,
The pure, the wild of birth.

Where Morn with rosy kisses
Wakes ever the eyes of Day;
And, winds in her radiant tresses,
Haunts every wildwood way:
Where Eve, with her mouth's twin roses,
Her kisses sweet with balm,
The eyes of the glad Day c...

From my farm, from hèr farm
    Furtively we came.
In either home a hearth was warm:
    We nursed a hungrier flame.

Our feet were foul with mire,
    Our faces blind with mist;
But all the night was naked fire
    About us where we kiss'd.

To her farm, to my farm,
    Loathing we returned;
Pale beneath a gallow's arm
    The planet Saturn burned.

All day upon the garden bright
The sun shines strong,
But in my heart there is no light,
Or any song.

Voices of merry life go by,
Adown the street;
But I am weary of the cry
And drift of feet.

With all dear things that ought to please
The hours are blessed,
And yet my soul is ill at ease,
And cannot rest.

Strange spirit, leave me not too long,
Nor stint to give,
For if my soul have no sweet song,
It cannot live.

Let us quit the leafy arbor,
And the torrent murmuring by;
For the sun is in his harbor,
Weary of the open sky.

Evening now unbinds the fetters
Fashioned by the glowing light;
All that breathe are thankful debtors
To the harbinger of night.

Yet by some grave thoughts attended
Eve renews her calm career;
For the day that now is ended,
Is the longest of the year.

Dora! sport, as now thou sportest,
On this platform, light and free;
Take thy bliss, while longest, shortest,
Are indifferent to thee!

Who would check the happy feeling
That inspires the linnet's song?
Who would stop the swallow, wheeling
On her pinions swift and strong?

Yet at this impressive season,
Words which tenderness can speak
From the t...

(Nocturne)



I wayfared at the nadir of the sun
Where populations meet, though seen of none;
And millions seemed to sigh around
As though their haunts were nigh around,
And unknown throngs to cry around
Of things late done.

"O Seers, who well might high ensample show"
(Came throbbing past in plainsong small and slow),
"Leaders who lead us aimlessly,
Teachers who train us shamelessly,
Why let ye smoulder flamelessly
The truths ye trow?

"Ye scribes, that urge the old medicament,
Whose fusty vials have long dried impotent,
Why prop ye meretricious things,
Denounce the sane as vicious things,
And call outworn factitious things
Expedient?

"O Dynasties that sway and shake us so,
Why rank your magnanimities so low...

    Fools, which each man meets in his dish each day,
    Are yet the great regalios of a play;
    In which to poets you but just appear,
    To prize that highest, which cost them so dear:
    Fops in the town more easily will pass;
    One story makes a statutable ass:
    But such in plays must be much thicker sown,
    Like yolks of eggs, a dozen beat to one.
    Observing poets all their walks invade,
    As men watch woodcocks gliding through a glade:
    And when they have enough for comedy,
    They stow their several bodies in a pie:
    The poet's but the cook to fashion it,
    For, gallants, you yourselves have found the wit.
    To bid you welcome, would your bounty wrong;
    None welcome those who bring their cheer along.

Below the sunset's range of rose,
Below the heaven's deepening blue,
Down woodways where the balsam blows,
And milkweed tufts hang, gray with dew,
A Jersey heifer stops and lows -
The cows come home by one, by two.

There is no star yet: but the smell
Of hay and pennyroyal mix
With herb aromas of the dell,
Where the root-hidden cricket clicks:
Among the ironweeds a bell
Clangs near the rail-fenced clover-ricks.

She waits upon the slope beside
The windlassed well the plum trees shade,
The well curb that the goose-plums hide;
Her light hand on the bucket laid,
Unbonneted she waits, glad-eyed,
Her gown as simple as her braid.

She sees fawn-colored backs among
The sumacs now; a tossing horn
Its clashing bell of copper rung:

Tune - "There'll never be peace."


I.

    Now in her green mantle blythe nature arrays,
    And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes,
    While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw;
    But to me it's delightless - my Nannie's awa!

II.

    The snaw-drap and primrose our woodlands adorn,
    And violets bathe in the weet o' the morn;
    They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw,
    They mind me o' Nannie - and Nanny's awa!

III.

    Thou lav'rock that springs frae the dews of the lawn,
    The shepherd to warn o' the gray-breaking dawn,
    And thou mellow mavis that hails the night fa',
    Give over for pity - my Nannie's awa!

IV.

    Come autumn sae pensive, in yellow and gray...

    "Only a penny, Sir!"
        A child held to my view
    A bunch of "glory-roses," red
        As blood, and wet with dew.

    (O earnest little face,
        With living light in eye,
    Your roses are too fair for earth,
        And you seem of the sky!)


    "My beauties, Sir!" he said,
        "Only a penny, too!"
    His face shone in their ruddy glow
        A Rafael cherub true.

    "Yestreen their hoods were close
        About their faces tight,
    But ere the sun was up, I saw
        That God had come last night.

    "O Sir, to see them then!
        The bush was all aflame! -
    O yes, they're glory-roses, Sir,
        That is their holy name.


    "Only a penny, Sir!" -
      ...

It was a little budding rose,
Round like a fairy globe,
And shyly did its leaves unclose
Hid in their mossy robe,
But sweet was the slight and spicy smell
It breathed from its heart invisible.

The rose is blasted, withered, blighted,
Its root has felt a worm,
And like a heart beloved and slighted,
Failed, faded, shrunk its form.
Bud of beauty, bonnie flower,
I stole thee from thy natal bower.

I was the worm that withered thee,
Thy tears of dew all fell for me;
Leaf and stalk and rose are gone,
Exile earth they died upon.
Yes, that last breath of balmy scent
With alien breezes sadly blent!

Supper removed, the mother sits,
And tells her tales by starts and fits.
Not willing to lose time or toil,
She knits or sews, and talks the while
Something, that may be warnings found
To the young listeners gaping round--
Of boys who in her early day
Strolled to the meadow-lake to play,
Where willows, oer the bank inclined
Sheltered the water from the wind,
And left it scarcely crizzled oer--
When one sank in, to rise no more!
And how, upon a market-night,
When not a star bestowed its light,
A farmer's shepherd, oer his glass,
Forgot that he had woods to pass:
And having sold his master's sheep,
Was overta'en by darkness deep.
How, coming with his startled horse,
To where two roads a hollow cross;
Where, lone guide when a stranger strays,

I met at eve the Prince of Sleep,
His was a still and lovely face,
He wandered through a valley steep
    Lovely in a lonely place.

His garb was grey of lavender,
About his brows a poppy-wreath
Burned like dim coals, and everywhere
    The air was sweeter for his breath.

His twilight feet no sandals wore,
His eyes shone faint in their own flame,
Fair moths that gloomed his steps before
    Seemed letters of his lovely name.

His house is in the mountain ways,
A phantom house of misty walls,
Whose golden flocks at evening graze,
    And witch the moon with muffled calls.

Upwelling from his shadowy springs
Sweet waters shake a trembling sound,
There flit the hoot-owl's silent wings,
    There hath his web the silkworm wound....

When a man gits on his uppers in a hard-pan sort of town,
An' he ain't got nothin' comin', an' he can't afford ter eat,
An' he's in a fix fer lodgin', an' he wanders up an' down,
An' you'd fancy he'd been boozin', he's so locoed 'bout the feet;
When he's feelin' sneakin' sorry, an' his belt is hangin' slack,
An' his face is peaked an' grey-like, an' his heart gits down an' whines,
Then he's apt ter git a-thinkin' an' a-wishin' he was back
In the little ol' log cabin in the shadder of the pines.

When he's on the blazin' desert, an' his canteen's sprung a leak,
An' he's all alone an' crazy, an' he's crawlin' like a snail,
An' his tongue's so black an' swollen that it hurts him fer to speak,
An' he gouges down fer water, an' the raven's on his trail;
When he's done with care a...

Life of my life, take not so soon thy flight,
But stay the time till we have bade good-night.
Thou hast both wind and tide with thee; thy way
As soon dispatch'd is by the night as day.
Let us not then so rudely henceforth go
Till we have wept, kiss'd, sigh'd, shook hands, or so.
There's pain in parting, and a kind of hell
When once true lovers take their last farewell.
What? shall we two our endless leaves take here
Without a sad look, or a solemn tear?
He knows not love that hath not this truth proved,
Love is most loth to leave the thing beloved.
Pay we our vows and go; yet when we part,
Then, even then, I will bequeath my heart
Into thy loving hands; for I'll keep none
To warm my breast, when thou, my pulse, art gone,
No, here I'll last, and walk, a harmles...