I

Who was it held that Love was soothing or sweet?
Mine is a painful fire, at its whitest heat.

Who said that Beauty was ever a gentle joy?
Thine is a sword that flashes but to destroy.

Though mine eyes rose up from thy Beauty's banquet, calm and refreshed,
My lips, that were granted naught, can find no rest.

My soul was linked with thine, through speech and silent hours,
As the sound of two soft flutes combined, or the scent of sister flowers.

But the body, that wretched slave of the Sultan, Mind,
Who follows his master ever, but far behind,

Nothing was granted him, and every rebellious cell
Rises up with angry protest, "It is not well!

Night is falling; thou hast departed; I am alone;
And the Last Sweetness of Love thou hast n...

Nature, erewhile so marvelously lovely, is bereft
    Of her supernal charm;
And with the few dead garlands of departed splendor left,
    Like crape upon her arm,
    In boreal hints, and sudden gusts
    That fan the glowing ember,
    By multitude of ways fulfills
    The promise of November.

Upon the path where Beauty, sylvan priestess, sped away,
    Lies the rich afterglow
Of Indian Summer, bringing round the happy holiday
    That antedates the snow:
    The glad Thanksgiving time, the cheer,
    The festival commotion
    That stirs fraternal feeling from
    The mountains to the ocean.

O Hospitality! unclose thy bounty-laden hand
    In generous dealing, where
Is gathered in reunion each long-severed household band,
    And ...

Soft as a cloud is yon blue Ridge, the Mere
Seems firm as solid crystal, breathless, clear,
And motionless; and, to the gazer's eye,
Deeper than ocean, in the immensity
Of its vague mountains and unreal sky!
But, from the process in that still retreat,
Turn to minuter changes at our feet;
Observe how dewy Twilight has withdrawn
The crowd of daisies from the shaven lawn,
And has restored to view its tender green,
That, while the sun rode high, was lost beneath their dazzling sheen.

An emblem this of what the sober Hour
Can do for minds disposed to feel its power!
Thus oft, when we in vain have wished away
The petty pleasures of the garish day,
Meek eve shuts up the whole usurping host
(Unbashful dwarfs each glittering at his post)
And leaves the dise...

Oh! wind that whistles o’er thorns and thistles,
Of this fruitful earth like a goblin elf;
Why should he labour to help his neighbour
Who feels too reckless to help himself?
The wail of the breeze in the bending trees
Is something between a laugh and a groan;
And the hollow roar of the surf on the shore
Is a dull, discordant monotone;
I wish I could guess what sense they express,
There’s a meaning, doubtless, in every sound,
Yet no one can tell, and it may be as well,
Whom would it profit? The world goes round!

On this earth so rough we know quite enough,
And, I sometimes fancy, a little too much;
The sage may be wiser than clown or than kaiser,
Is he more to be envied for being such?
Neither more nor less, in his idleness
The sage is doom’d to vexa...

Illustration Of A Picture

They bid me strike the idle strings,
As if my summer days
Had shaken sunbeams from their wings
To warm my autumn lays;
They bring to me their painted urn,
As if it were not time
To lift my gauntlet and to spurn
The lists of boyish rhyme;
And were it not that I have still
Some weakness in my heart
That clings around my stronger will
And pleads for gentler art,
Perchance I had not turned away
The thoughts grown tame with toil,
To cheat this lone and pallid ray,
That wastes the midnight oil.

Alas! with every year I feel
Some roses leave my brow;
Too young for wisdom's tardy seal,
Too old for garlands now.
Yet, while the dewy breath of spring
Steals o'er the tingling air,
And spreads and fans...

Are you sleeping? have you forgotten? do not sleep, my sister dear!
How can you sleep? the morning brings the day I hate and fear;
The cock has crow’d already once, he crows before his time;
Awake! the creeping glimmer steals, the hills are white with rime.

II.
Ah, clasp me in your arms, sister, ah, fold me to your breast!
Ah, let me weep my fill once more, and cry myself to rest!
To rest? to rest and wake no more were better rest for me,
Than to waken every morning to that face I loathe to see:

III.
I envied your sweet slumber, all night so calm you lay,
The night was calm, the morn is calm, and like another day;
But I could wish yon moaning sea would rise and burst the shore,
And such a whirlwind blow these woods, as never blew before.

IV.
For, ...

I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.
I said, ‘O Soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well.’

A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish’d brass
I chose. The ranged ramparts bright
From level meadow-bases of deep grass
Suddenly scaled the light.

Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf
The rock rose clear, or winding stair.
My soul would live alone unto herself
In her high palace there.

And ‘while the world runs round and round,’ I said,
‘Reign thou apart, a quiet king,
Still as, while Saturn whirls, his steadfast shade
Sleeps on his luminous ring.’

To which my soul made answer readily:
‘Trust me, in bliss I shall abide
In this great mansion, that is built for me,
So royal...

What a charm ther is abaat owt new; whether it's a new year or a new waist-coit. Aw sometimes try to fancy what sooart ov a world ther'd be if ther wor nowt new.

Solomon sed ther wor nowt new under th' sun; an' he owt to know if onybody did. Maybe he wor reight if we luk at it i' some ways, but aw think it's possible to see it in another leet. If ther wor nowt new, ther'd be nowt to hooap for - nowt to live for but to dee; an' we should lang for that time to come just for th' sake ov a change. Ha anxiously a little child looks forrard to th' time when he's to have a new toy, an' ha he prizes it at furst when he's getten it: but in a while he throws it o' one side an' cries fur summat new. Ha he langs to be as big as his brother, soa's he can have a new bat an' ball; an' his brother langs for th' time when he can leeave schooil ...

1.
The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might,
The breath of the moist earth is light,
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,
The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.

2.
I see the Deep's untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone, -
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

3.
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace wit...

Our altar is the dewy sod
Our temple yon blue throne of God:
No priestly rite our souls to bind
We bow before the Almighty Mind.

Oh, Thou whose realm is wide as air
Thou wilt not spurn the Gipsies' prayer:
Though banned and barred by all beside,
Be Thou the Outcast's guard and guide.

Poor fragments of a Nation wrecked
Its story whelmed in Time's neglect
We drift unheeded on the wave,
If God refuse the lost to save.

Yet though we name no Fatherland
And though we clasp no kindred hand
Though houseless, homeless wanderers we
Oh give us Hope, and Heaven with Thee!

Ye shadowy forms, again ye're drawing near,

So wont of yore to meet my troubled gaze!
Were it in vain to seek to keep you here?

Loves still my heart that dream of olden days?
Oh, come then! and in pristine force appear,

Parting the vapor mist that round me plays!
My bosom finds its youthful strength again,
Feeling the magic breeze that marks your train.

Ye bring the forms of happy days of yore,

And many a shadow loved attends you too;
Like some old lay, whose dream was well nigh o'er,

First-love appears again, and friendship true;
Upon life's labyrinthine path once more

Is heard the sigh, and grief revives anew;
The friends are told, who, in their hour of pride,
Deceived by fortune, vanish'd from my side.

No long...

"Bring out your dead!" The midnight street
Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call;
Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet,
Glanced through the dark the coarse white sheet,
Her coffin and her pall.
"What, only one!" the brutal hack-man said,
As, with an oath, he spurned away the dead.

How sunk the inmost hearts of all,
As rolled that dead-cart slowly by,
With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall!
The dying turned him to the wall,
To hear it and to die!
Onward it rolled; while oft its driver stayed,
And hoarsely clamored, "Ho! bring out your dead."

It paused beside the burial-place;
"Toss in your load!" and it was done.
With quick hand and averted face,
Hastily to the grave's embrace
They cast them, one by one,
Stranger and friend, the evi...

Saith the Lord, "Vengeance is mine;
    I will repay," saith the Lord;
Ours be the anger divine,
    Lit by the flash of His word.

How shall His vengeance be done?
    How, when His purpose is clear?
Must He come down from His throne?
    Hath He no instruments here?

Sleep not in imbecile trust,
    Waiting for God to begin,
While, growing strong in the dust,
    Rests the bruised serpent of sin.

Right and Wrong, - both cannot live
    Death-grappled.    Which shall we see?
Strike! only Justice can give
    Safety to all that shall be.

Shame! to stand paltering thus,
    Tricked by the balancing odds;
Strike! God is waiting for us!
    Strike! for the vengeance is God's.

In the old days (a custom laid aside
With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent
Their wisest men to make the public laws.
And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound
Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas,
Waved over by the woods of Rippowams,
And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths,
Stamford sent up to the councils of the State
Wisdom and grace in Abraham Davenport.

'T was on a May-day of the far old year
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell
Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring,
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
A horror of great darkness, like the night
In day of which the Norland sagas tell,

The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky
Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim
Was fringed with a d...

The Earth moans in her sleep
Like an old mother
Whose sons have gone to the war,
Who weeps silently in her heart
Till dreams comfort her.

The Earth tosses
As if she would shake off humanity,
A burden too heavy to be borne,
And free of the pest of intolerable men,
Spin with woods and waters
Joyously in the clear heavens
In the beautiful cool rains,
Bearing gladly the dumb animals,
And sleep when the time comes
Glistening in the remains of sunlight
With marmoreal innocency.

Be comforted, old mother,
Whose sons have gone to the war;
And be assured, O Earth,
Of your burden of passionate men,
For without them who would dream the dreams
That encompass you with glory,
Who would gather your youth
And store it in the jar o...

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
            Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
            Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
            Excelsior!

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said:
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!
And loud that clarion voice replied,
            Excelsior!

"Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy wear...

I saw two sowers in Life's field at morn,
To whom came one in angel guise and said,
"Is it for labour that a man is born?
Lo: I am Ease. Come ye and eat my bread!"
Then gladly one forsook his task undone
And with the Tempter went his slothful way,
The other toiled until the setting sun
With stealing shadows blurred the dusty day.

Ere harvest time, upon earth's peaceful breast
Each laid him down among the unreaping dead.
"Labour hath other recompense than rest,
Else were the toiler like the fool," I said;
"God meteth him not less, but rather more
Because he sowed and others reaped his store."

An excellent peasant,
Of character pleasant,
Once lived in a hut with his wife.
He was cheerful and docile,
But such an old fossil
You wouldn't meet twice in your life.
His notions were all without reason or rhyme,
Such dullness in any one else were a crime,
But the folly pig-headed
To which he was wedded
Was so deep imbedded,
it touched the sublime!

He frequently stated
Such quite antiquated
And singular doctrines as these:
"Do good unto others!
All men are your brothers!"
(Of course he forgot the Chinese!)
He said that all men were made equal and free,
(That's true if they're born on our side of the sea!)
That truth should be spoken,
And pledges unbroken:
(Now where, by that token,
would most of us be?)<...