The world is full of orphans: firstly, those
        Who are so in the strict sense of the phrase
(But many a lonely tree the loftier grows
        Than others crowded in the forest's maze);
The next are such as are not doomed to lose
        Their tender parents in their budding days,
But merely their parental tenderness,
Which leaves them orphans of the heart no less.

The next are 'only children', as they are styled,
        Who grow up children only, since the old saw
Pronounces that an 'only' 's a spoilt child.
        But not to go too far, I hold it law
That where their education, harsh or mild,
        'Transgresses the great bounds of love or awe,
The sufferers, be't in heart or intellect,
Whate'er the cause are orphans in effect.

But to re...

No, this is January, dear,
    The almanac's untrue;
For roaring Boreas, 'tis clear,
In sleet and snow and atmosphere,
Will be the monarch of the year,
    And terror, too.

"Is it a blessing in disguise?"
    Of course, things always are;
But Arctic blasts with ardent skies
Somehow do not quite harmonize,
That try to cheat by weather-lies
    The calendar.

Old Janus must be double-faced;
    He promised long ago
The maple syrup not to taste,
Nor steal the roses from the waist
Of one, a damsel fair and chaste
    As April snow.

O winter of our discontent!
    Your reign was for a day;
Behold! a scene of wonderment,
A thousand tongues are eloquent,
For spring, in bud and bloom and scent,
    Is on the way.

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know
That things depart which never may return:
Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine
Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine
On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar:
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude:
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty, -
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,
Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.

O even-handed Nature! we confess
This life that men so honor, love, and bless
Has filled thine olden measure. Not the less.

We count the precious seasons that remain;
Strike not the level of the golden grain,
But heap it high with years, that earth may gain.

What heaven can lose, - for heaven is rich in song
Do not all poets, dying, still prolong
Their broken chants amid the seraph throng,

Where, blind no more, Ionia's bard is seen,
And England's heavenly minstrel sits between
The Mantuan and the wan-cheeked Florentine?

This was the first sweet singer in the cage
Of our close-woven life. A new-born age
Claims in his vesper song its heritage.

Spare us, oh spare us long our heart's desire!
Moloch, who calls our children through the ...

Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers
And golden-fruited orange bowers
To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours!
To her who, in our evil time,
Dragged into light the nation's crime
With strength beyond the strength of men,
And, mightier than their swords, her pen!
To her who world-wide entrance gave
To the log-cabin of the slave;
Made all his wrongs and sorrows known,
And all earth's languages his own,
North, South, and East and West, made all
The common air electrical,
Until the o'ercharged bolts of heaven
Blazed down, and every chain was riven!

Welcome from each and all to her
Whose Wooing of the Minister
Revealed the warm heart of the man
Beneath the creed-bound Puritan,
And taught the kinship of the love
Of man below and God abo...

Where's the Poet? show him! show him,
Muses nine! that I may know him.
'Tis the man who with a man
Is an equal, be he King,
Or poorest of the beggar-clan
Or any other wonderous thing
A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato;
'Tis the man who with a bird,
Wren or Eagle, finds his way to
All its instincts; he hath heard
The Lion's roaring, and can tell
What his horny throat expresseth,
And to him the Tiger's yell
Come articulate and presseth
Or his ear like mother-tongue.

    The simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough,
    Learning his tuneful trade from ev'ry bough;
    The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush,
    Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn bush:
    The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill,
    Or deep-ton'd plovers, gray, wild-whistling o'er the hill;
    Shall he, nurst in the peasant's lowly shed,
    To hardy independence bravely bred,
    By early poverty to hardship steel'd,
    And train'd to arms in stern misfortune's field,
    Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,
    The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?
    Or labour hard the panegyric close,
    With all the venal soul of dedicating prose?
    No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,
    And throws his hand uncouthly ...

Through learned and laborious years
They set themselves to find
Fresh terrors and undreamed-of fears
To heap upon mankind.

ALl that they drew from Heaven above
Or digged from earth beneath,
They laid into their treasure-trove
And arsenals of death:

While, for well-weighed advantage sake,
Ruler and ruled alike
Built up the faith they meant to break
When the fit hour should strike.

They traded with the careless earth,
And good return it gave:
They plotted by their neighbour's hearth
The means to make him slave.

When all was ready to their hand
They loosed their hidden sword,
And utterly laid waste a land
Their oath was pledged to guard.

Coldly they went about to raise
To life and make more dread
Abomina...

O wild and dark! a night hath found me now
Wherein I mingle with that element
Sent madly loose through the wide staring rent
In yon tormented branches! I will bow
A while unto the storm, and thenceforth grow
Into a mighty patience strongly bent
Before the unconquering Power which hither sent
These winds to fight their battles on my brow!--
Again the loud boughs thunder! and the din
Licks up my footfall from the hissing earth!
But I have found a mighty peace within,
And I have risen into a home of mirth!
Wildly I climb above the shaking spires,
Above the sobbing clouds, up through the steady fires!

Mary, you know I've no love nonsense,
And though I pen on such a day,
I don't mean flirting, on my conscience,
Or writing in the courting way.

Though Beauty hasn't formed your feature,
It saves you p'rhaps from being vain,
And many a poor unhappy creature
May wish that she was half as plain.

Your virtues would not rise an inch,
Although your shape was two foot taller,
And wisely you let others pinch
Great waists and feet to make them smaller.

You never try to spare your hands
From getting red by household duty,
But doing all that it commands,
Their coarseness is a moral beauty.

Let Susan flourish her fair arms,
And at your old legs sneer and scoff,
But let her laugh, for you have charms
That nobody knows nothing of.

If Nature do deny
Colours, let Art supply.

A True Story

Oh! what's the matter? what's the matter?
What is't that ails young Harry Gill?
That evermore his teeth they chatter,
Chatter, chatter, chatter still!
Of waistcoats Harry has no lack,
Good duffle grey, and flannel fine;
He has a blanket on his back,
And coats enough to smother nine.

In March, December, and in July,
'Tis all the same with Harry Gill;
The neighbours tell, and tell you truly,
His teeth they chatter, chatter still.
At night, at morning, and at noon,
'Tis all the same with Harry Gill;
Beneath the sun, beneath the moon,
His teeth they chatter, chatter still!

Young Harry was a lusty drover,
And who so stout of limb as he?
His cheeks were red as ruddy clover;
His voice was like the voice of three.

Oh, ye Dead! oh, ye Dead![1] whom we know by the light you give
From your cold gleaming eyes, tho' you move like men who live,
    Why leave you thus your graves,
    In far off fields and waves,
Where the worm and the sea-bird only know your bed,
    To haunt this spot where all
    Those eyes that wept your fall,
And the hearts that wailed you, like your own, lie dead?

It is true, it is true, we are shadows cold and wan;
And the fair and the brave whom we loved on earth are gone;
    But still thus even in death,
    So sweet the living breath
Of the fields and the flowers in our youth we wander'd o'er,
    That ere, condemned, we go
    To freeze mid Hecla's snow,
We would taste it awhile, and think we live once more!

Since, for thy full deserts, with all the rest
Of these chaste spirits that are here possest
Of life eternal, time has made thee one
For growth in this my rich plantation,
Live here; but know 'twas virtue, and not chance,
That gave thee this so high inheritance.
Keep it for ever, grounded with the good,
Who hold fast here an endless livelihood.

        Summer is over, and the leaves are falling,
            Gold, fire-enamelled in the glowing sun;
        The sobbing pinetop, the cicada calling
            Chime men to vesper-musing, day is done.

        The fresh, green sod, in dead, dry leaves is hidden;
            They rustle very sadly in the breeze;
        Some breathing from the past comes, all unbidden,
            And in my heart stir withered memories.

        Day fades away; the stars show in the azure,
            Bright with the glow of eyes that know not tears,
        Unchanged, unchangeable, like God's good pleasure,
            They smile and reck not of the weary years.

        Men tell us that the stars it knows are leaving
            Our onward rolling globe, and in their pla...

"Hign bliss is only for a higher state,"
But, surely, if severe afflictions borne
With patience merit the reward of peace,
Peace ye deserve; and may the solid good,
Sought by a wise though late exchange, and here
With bounteous hand beneath a cottage-roof
To you accorded, never be withdrawn,
Nor for the world's best promises renounced.
Most soothing was it for a welcome Friend,
Fresh from the crowded city, to behold
That lonely union, privacy so deep,
Such calm employments, such entire content.
So when the rain is over, the storm laid,
A pair of herons oft-times have I seen,
Upon a rocky islet, side by side,
Drying their feathers in the sun, at ease;
And so, when night with grateful gloom had fallen,
Two glow-worms in such nearness that they shared,
...

Così potess' io ben chiuder in versi.

HE COMPLAINS THAT TO HIM ALONE IS FAITH HURTFUL.


    Could I, in melting verse, my thoughts but throw,
As in my heart their living load I bear,
No soul so cruel in the world was e'er
That would not at the tale with pity glow.
But ye, blest eyes, which dealt me the sore blow,
'Gainst which nor helm nor shield avail'd to spare
Within, without, behold me poor and bare,
Though never in laments is breathed my woe.
But since on me your bright glance ever shines,
E'en as a sunbeam through transparent glass,
Suffice then the desire without the lines.
Faith Peter bless'd and Mary, but, alas!
It proves an enemy to me alone,
Whose spirit save by you to none is known.

MACGREGOR.

    In its color, shade and shine,
    'T was a summer warm as wine,
    With an effervescent flavoring of flowered bough and vine,
    And a fragrance and a taste
    Of ripe roses gone to waste,
    And a dreamy sense of sun- and moon- and star-light interlaced.

    'Twas a summer such as broods
    O'er enchanted solitudes,
    Where the hand of Fancy leads us through voluptuary moods,
    And with lavish love out-pours
    All the wealth of out-of-doors,
    And woos our feet o'er velvet paths and honeysuckle floors.

    'Twas a summertime long dead, -
    And its roses, white and red,
    And its reeds and water-lilies down along the river-bed, -
    O they all are ghostly things -
    For the ripple never sings,
    And the rocking lily ...