This April sun has wakened into cheer
    The wintry paths of thought, and tinged with gold
    These threadbare leaves of fancy brown and old.
This is for us the wakening of the year
    And May's sweet breath will draw the waiting soul
    To where in distance lies the longed-for goal.

The summer life will still all questioning,
    The leaves will whisper peace, and calm will be
    The wild, vast, blue, illimitable sea.
And we shall hush our murmurings, and bring
    To Nature, green below and blue above,
    A whole life's worshipping, a whole life's love.

We will not speak of sometime fretting fears,
    We will not think of aught that may arise
    In future hours to cloud our golden skies.
Some souls there are who love their woes and tears,

Inscribed to S.F.S.

And there I found him whom I went to find,
A man of noble make and head uplift,
Of equal carriage, Nature's bounteous gift;
For in no shelter had his generous mind
Grown flowers that need the winds, rough not unkind.
The joiner's bench taught him, with judgment swift,
Seen things to fashion, unseen things to sift;
From all his face a living soul outshined,
Telling of strength and inward quietude;
His great hand shook mine greatly, and his eyes
Looked straight in mine with spiritual replies:
I left him, rich with overflowing good.
Such joys within two hours of happy mood,
Met me beneath the everlasting skies.

    Grant me, indulgent Heav'n, that I may live
    To see the miscreants feel the pains they give,
    Deal Freedom's sacred treasures free as air,
    Till slave and despot be but things which were.

    I.

    A glory on the chamber wall!
    A glory in the brain!
    Triumphant floods of glory fall
    On heath, and wold, and plain.

    Earth lieth still in hopeless bliss;
    She has, and seeks no more;
    Forgets that days come after this,
    Forgets the days before.

    Each ripple waves a flickering fire
    Of gladness, as it runs;
    They laugh and flash, and leap and spire,
    And toss ten thousand suns.

    But hark! low, in the world within,
    One sad aeolian tone:
    "Ah! shall we ever, ever win
    A summer of our own?"


    II.

    A morn of winds and swaying trees--
    Earth's jubilance rushing out!
    The birds are fighting with the breeze;
    The waters heave about...

Muse, 'tis enough: at length thy labour ends,
And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends.
Let Crowds and Critics now my verse assail,
Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail:
This more than pays whole years of thankless pain;
Time, health, and fortune are not lost in vain.
Sheffield approves, consenting Phoebus bends,
And I and Malice from this hour are friends.

    I

    Heed me, feed me, I am hungry, I am red-tongued with desire;
    Boughs of balsam, slabs of cedar, gummy fagots of the pine,
    Heap them on me, let me hug them to my eager heart of fire,
    Roaring, soaring up to heaven as a symbol and a sign.
    Bring me knots of sunny maple, silver birch and tamarack;
    Leaping, sweeping, I will lap them with my ardent wings of flame;
    I will kindle them to glory, I will beat the darkness back;
    Streaming, gleaming, I will goad them to my glory and my fame.
    Bring me gnarly limbs of live-oak, aid me in my frenzied fight;
    Strips of iron-wood, scaly blue-gum, writhing redly in my hold;
    With my lunge of lurid lances, with my whips that flail the night,
    They will burgeon into beauty, they will foliate in g...

    They called me the weakling, the simpleton,
    For my brothers were strong and beautiful,
    While I, the last child of parents who had aged,
    Inherited only their residue of power.
    But they, my brothers, were eaten up
    In the fury of the flesh, which I had not,
    Made pulp in the activity of the senses, which I had not,
    Hardened by the growth of the lusts, which I had not,
    Though making names and riches for themselves.
    Then I, the weak one, the simpleton,
    Resting in a little corner of life,
    Saw a vision, and through me many saw the vision,
    Not knowing it was through me.
    Thus a tree sprang
    From me, a mustard seed.

    All day the guns belched fire and death
        And filled the hours with gloom;
    The fateful music smote the sky
        In tremulous bars of doom;
    But as the evening stars came forth
        A truce to death and strife,
    There rose from hearts of patriot love
        A tender song of life.

    A song of home and fireside
        Swelled on the evening air,
    And men forgot their battle line,
        Its carnage and dark care;
    The soldier dropp'd his rifle
        And joined the choral song,
    As high above the tide of war
        It swept and pulsed along.

    That night while sleeping where the stars
        Look down upon the Meuse,
    Where Teuton valor coped with Frank,
        Where rained most deadly de...

I.

So far as our story approaches the end,
Which do you pity the most of us three?
My friend, or the mistress of my friend
With her wanton eyes, or me?

II.

My friend was already too good to lose,
And seemed in the way of improvement yet,
When she crossed his path with her hunting-noose
And over him drew her net.

III.

When I saw him tangled in her toils,
A shame, said I, if she adds just him
To her nine-and-ninety other spoils,
The hundredth for a whim!

IV.

And before my friend be wholly hers,
How easy to prove to him, I said,
An eagle’s the game her pride prefers,
Though she snaps at a wren instead!

V.

So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take,
My hand sought hers as in earnest n...

Already in the dew-wrapped vineyards dry
Dense weights of heat press down. The large bright drops
Shrink in the leaves. From dark acacia tops
The nuthatch flings his short reiterate cry;
And ever as the sun mounts hot and high
Thin voices crowd the grass. In soft long strokes
The wind goes murmuring through the mountain oaks.
Faint wefts creep out along the blue and die.
I hear far in among the motionless trees -
Shadows that sleep upon the shaven sod -
The thud of dropping apples. Reach on reach
Stretch plots of perfumed orchard, where the bees
Murmur among the full-fringed golden-rod,
Or cling half-drunken to the rotting peach.

Timid and smiling, beautiful and shy,
She drops her head at every passer bye.
Afraid of praise she hurries down the streets
And turns away from every smile she meets.
The forward clown has many things to say
And holds her by the gown to make her stay,
The picture of good health she goes along,
Hale as the morn and happy as her song.
Yet there is one who never feels a fear
To whisper pleasing fancies in her ear;
Yet een from him she shuns a rude embrace,
And stooping holds her hands before her face,--
She even shuns and fears the bolder wind,
And holds her shawl, and often looks behind.

A child came singing through the dusty town
A song so sweet that all men stayed to hear,
Forgetting for a space their ancient fear
Of evil days and death and fortune’s frown.

She sang of Winter dead and Spring new-born
In the green fields beyond the far hills’ bound;
And how this fair Spring, coming blossom-crowned,
Would cross the city’s threshold on the morn.

And each caged bird in every house anigh,
Even as she sang, caught up the glad refrain
Of Love and Hope and fair days come again,
Till all who heard forgot they had to die.

And all the ghosts of buried woes were laid
That heard the song of this sweet sorceress;
The Past grew to a dream of old distress,
And merry were the hearts of man and maid.

So, at the first faint blush of ten...

Just at the corner of the wall
    We met yes, he and I -
Who had not faced in camp or hall
    Since we bade home good-bye,
And what once happened came back all -
    Out of those years gone by.

And that strange woman whom we knew
    And loved long dead and gone,
Whose poor half-perished residue,
    Tombless and trod, lay yon!
But at this moment to our view
    Rose like a phantom wan.

And in his fixed face I could see,
    Lit by a lurid shine,
The drama re-enact which she
    Had dyed incarnadine
For us, and more. And doubtless he
    Beheld it too in mine.

A start, as at one slightly known,
    And with an indifferent air
We passed, without a sign being shown
    That, as it real were,
A memory-acted scene ...

The Harp in lowliness obeyed;
And first we sang of the greenwood shade
And a solitary Maid;
Beginning, where the song must end,
With her, and with her sylvan Friend;
The Friend who stood before her sight,
Her only unextinguished light;
Her last companion in a dearth
Of love, upon a hopeless earth.
For She it was this Maid, who wrought
Meekly, with foreboding thought,
In vermeil colours and in gold
An unblest work; which, standing by,
Her Father did with joy behold,
Exulting in its imagery;
A Banner, fashioned to fulfil
Too perfectly his headstrong will:
For on this Banner had her hand
Embroidered (such her Sire's command)
The sacred Cross; and figured there
The five dear wounds our Lord did bear;
Full soon to be uplifted high,
And...

Many we are, and yet but few possess
Those fields of everlasting happiness.

Calm is the fragrant air, and loth to lose
Day's grateful warmth, tho' moist with falling dews.
Look for the stars, you'll say that there are none;
Look up a second time, and, one by one,
You mark them twinkling out with silvery light,
And wonder how they could elude the sight!
The birds, of late so noisy in their bowers,
Warbled a while with faint and fainter powers,
But now are silent as the dim-seen flowers:
Nor does the village Church-clock's iron tone
The time's and season's influence disown;
Nine beats distinctly to each other bound
In drowsy sequence, how unlike the sound
That, in rough winter, oft inflicts a fear
On fireside listeners, doubting what they hear!
The shepherd, bent on rising with the sun,
Had closed his door before the day was done,
...

Spring.

Another four I've left yet to bring on,
Of four times four the last Quarternion
The Winter, Summer, Autumn & the Spring,
In season all these Seasons I shall bring:
Sweet Spring like man in his Minority,
At present claim'd, and had priority.
With smiling face and garments somewhat green,
She trim'd her locks, which late had frosted been,
Nor hot nor cold, she spake, but with a breath,
Fit to revive, the nummed earth from death.
Three months (quoth she) are 'lotted to my share
March, April, May of all the rest most fair.
Tenth of the first, Sol into Aries enters,
And bids defiance to all tedious winters,
Crosseth the Line, and equals night and day,
(Stil adds to th' last til after pleasant May)
And now makes glad the darkned nothern...

In the early summer morning
    I stand and watch them come,
The children to the school-house;
    They chatter and laugh and hum.

The little boys with satchels
    Slung round them, and the girls
Each with hers swinging in her hand;
    I love their sunny curls.

I love to see them playing,
    Romping and shouting with glee,
The boys and girls together,
    Simple, fearless, free.

I love to see them marching
    In squads, in file, in line,
Advancing and retreating,
    Tramping, keeping time.

Sometimes a little lad
    With a bright brave face I'll see,
And a wistful yearning wonder
    Comes stealing over me.

For once I too had a darling;
    I dreamed what he should do,
And surely he'd have had, I...