"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 ...

Clear from the deep sky pours the moon
Her silver on the heavy dark;
The small stars blink.

Against the moon the maple bough
Flutters distinct her leafy spears;
All sound falls weak....

Weak the train's whistle, the dog's bark,
Slow steps; and rustling into her nest
At last, the thrush.

All's still; only earth turns and breathes.
Then that amazing trembling note
Cleaves the deep wave

Of silence. Shivers even that silvery one;
Sigh all the trees, even the cedar dark
----O joy, and I.

The sun is gone down
    And the moon's in the sky
But the sun will come up
    And the moon be laid by.

The flower is asleep.
    But it is not dead,
When the morning shines
    It will lift its head.

When winter comes
    It will die! No, no,
It will only hide
    From the frost and snow.

Sure is the summer,
    Sure is the sun;
The night and the winter
    Away they run.

    The English soil! - 'tis hallowed ground:
        Its restless children roam
    The world, but they have never found
        So dear a land as home;
    Their passion for its hills and downs
        Nor space nor time can spoil;
    A golden mist of memory crowns
        The good old English soil.

    The English race! - its pluck and pith,
        Its power to stay and win, -
    Wise Alfred's, dauntless Harold's kith,
        And Coeur de Lion's kin!
    Sir Philip Sidney, Hampden, Noll,
        Who sat in kingly place!
    Wolfe, Nelson, Wellington and all
        The good old English race!

    The English speech! - the copious tongue,
        Terse, vivid, plastic, fit,
    Which Chaucer, Spenser loved and sung,
        Whic...

Ah! changed and cold, how changed and very cold,
    With stiffened smiling lips and cold calm eyes:
    Changed, yet the same; much knowing, little wise;
This was the promise of the days of old!
Grown hard and stubborn in the ancient mould,
    Grown rigid in the sham of lifelong lies:
    We hoped for better things as years would rise,
But it is over as a tale once told.
All fallen the blossom that no fruitage bore,
    All lost the present and the future time,
All lost, all lost, the lapse that went before:
So lost till death shut-to the opened door,
    So lost from chime to everlasting chime,
So cold and lost for ever evermore.

Jes' a little bit o' feller - I remember still, -
Ust to almost cry far Christmas, like a youngster will.
Fourth o' July's nothin' to it! - New-Year's ain't a smell:
Easter-Sunday - Circus-day - jes' all dead in the shell!
Lordy, though! at night, you know, to set around and hear
The old folks work the story off about the sledge and deer,
And "Santy" skootin' round the roof, all wrapped in fur and fuzz -
Long afore
            I knowed who
                            "Santy-Claus" wuz!

Ust to wait, and set up late, a week er two ahead:
Couldn't hardly keep awake, ner wouldn't go to bed:
Kittle stewin' on the fire, and Mother settin' here
Darnin' socks, and rockin' in the skreeky rockin'-cheer;
Pap gap', and wunder where it wuz the money went,
And quar'...

Though the bold wings of Poesy affect
The clouds, and wheel around the mountain tops
Rejoicing, from her loftiest height she drops
Well pleased to skim the plain with wild flowers deckt
Or muse in solemn grove whose shades protect
The lingering dew there steals along, or stops
Watching the least small bird that round her hops,
Or creeping worm, with sensitive respect.
Her functions are they therefore less divine,
Her thoughts less deep, or void of grave intent
Her simplest fancies? Should that fear be thine,
Aspiring Votary, ere thy hand present
One offering, kneel before her modest shrine,
With brow in penitential sorrow bent!

        I said this morning, as I leaned and threw
    My shutters open to the Spring's surprise,
        "Tell me, O Earth, how is it that in you
    Year after year the same fresh feelings rise?
        How do you keep your young exultant glee?
        No more those sweet emotions come to me.

        "I note through all your fissures how the tide
    Of healthful life goes leaping as of old;
        Your royal dawns retain their pomp and pride;
    Your sunsets lose no atom of their gold.
        How can this wonder be?" My soul's fine ear
        Leaned, listening, till a small voice answered near:

        "My days lapse never over into night;
    My nights encroach not on the rights of dawn.
        I rush not breathless after some delight;
    I wa...

Oh fair Milly Brandon, a young maid, a fair maid!
All her curls are yellow and her eyes are blue,
And her cheeks were rosy red till a secret care made
Hollow whiteness of their brightness as a care will do.

Still she tends her flowers, but not as in the old days,
Still she sings her songs, but not the songs of old:
If now it be high Summer her days seem brief and cold days,
If now it be high Summer her nights are long and cold.

If you have a secret keep it, pure maid Milly;
Life is filled with troubles and the world with scorn;
And pity without love is at best times hard and chilly,
Chilling sore and stinging sore a heart forlorn.

Walter Brandon, do you guess Milly Brandon's secret?
Many things you know, but not everything,
With your locks like raven's...

The wonderful workings of the world: wonderful,
wonderful: I'm surprised half the time:
ground up fine, I puff if a pebble stirs:

I'm nervous: my moarality's intricate: if
a squash blossom dies, I feel withered as a stained
zucchini and blame my nature: and
when grassblades flop to the little red-ant
queens burring around trying to get aloft, I blame
my not keeping the grass short, stubble

firm: well, I learn a lot of useless stuff, meant
to be ignored: like when the sun sinking in the
west glares a plane invisible, I think how much

revelation concealment necessitates: and then I
think of the oecean, multiple to a blinding
oneness and realize that only total expression
expressed hiding: I'll have to say everything
to take on the roundness and...

I. - Red.

Would that my songs might be
What roses make by day and night -
Distillments of my clod of misery
Into delight.

Soul, could'st thou bare thy breast
As yon red rose, and dare the day,
All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest?
Say yea - say yea!

Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye;
The wind is up; so; drift away.
That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly,
I strive, I pray.


II. - White.

Soul, get thee to the heart
Of yonder tuberose: hide thee there -
There breathe the meditations of thine art
Suffused with prayer.

Of spirit grave yet light,
How fervent fragrances uprise
Pure-born from these most rich and yet most white
Virginities!

Mulched with unsavory death,
Grow, S...

Yes! even I was in Arcadia born,
    And, in mine infant ears,
A vow of rapture was by Nature sworn;
Yes! even I was in Arcadia born,
    And yet my short spring gave me only tears!

Once blooms, and only once, life's youthful May;
    For me its bloom hath gone.
The silent God O brethren, weep to-day
The silent God hath quenched my torch's ray,
    And the vain dream hath flown.

Upon thy darksome bridge, Eternity,
    I stand e'en now, dread thought!
Take, then, these joy-credentials back from me!
Unopened I return them now to thee,
    Of happiness, alas, know naught!

Before Thy throne my mournful cries I vent,
    Thou Judge, concealed from view!
To yonder star a joyous saying went
With judgment's scales to rule us thou art sent,<...

I'm gatherin' flowers by the wayside to lay on the grave of Bill;
I've sneaked away from the billet, 'cause Jim wouldn't understand;
'E'd call me a silly fat'ead, and larf till it made 'im ill,
To see me 'ere in the cornfield, wiv a big bookay in me 'and.

For Jim and me we are rough uns, but Bill was one o' the best;
We 'listed and learned together to larf at the wust wot comes;
Then Bill copped a packet proper, and took 'is departure West,
So sudden 'e 'adn't a minit to say good-bye to 'is chums.

And they took me to where 'e was planted, a sort of a measly mound,
And, thinks I, 'ow Bill would be tickled, bein' so soft and queer,
If I gathered a bunch o' them wild-flowers, and sort of arranged them round
Like a kind of a bloody headpiece . . . and that's the reason I'm 'er...

1 Lest you should think that verse shall die,
Which sounds the silver Thames along,
Taught, on the wings of truth to fly
Above the reach of vulgar song;

2 Though daring Milton sits sublime,
In Spenser, native Muses play;
Nor yet shall Waller yield to time,
Nor pensive Cowley's moral lay.

3 Sages and chiefs long since had birth
Ere Caesar was, or Newton named;
These raised new empires o'er the earth,
And those, new heavens and systems framed.

4 Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride!
They had no poet, and they died.
In vain they schemed, in vain they bled!
They had no poet, and are dead.

La bella donna che cotanto amavi.

TO HIS BROTHER GERARDO, ON THE DEATH OF A LADY TO WHOM HE WAS ATTACHED.


    The beauteous lady thou didst love so well
Too soon hath from our regions wing'd her flight,
To find, I ween, a home 'mid realms of light;
So much in virtue did she here excel
Thy heart's twin key of joy and woe can dwell
No more with her--then re-assume thy might,
Pursue her by the path most swift and right,
Nor let aught earthly stay thee by its spell.
Thus from thy heaviest burthen being freed,
Each other thou canst easier dispel,
And an unfreighted pilgrim seek thy sky;
Too well, thou seest, how much the soul hath need,
(Ere yet it tempt the shadowy vale) to quell
Each earthly hope, since all that lives must die.

WOLL...

Before

Twas not while England's sword unsheathed
Put half a world to flight,
Nor while their new-built cities breathed
Secure behind her might;
Not while she poured from Pole to Line
Treasure and ships and men
These worshipers at Freedoms shrine
They did not quit her then!

Not till their foes were driven forth
By England o'er the main
Not till the Frenchman from the North
Had gone with shattered Spain;
Not till the clean-swept oceans showed
No hostile flag unrolled,
Did they remember that they owed
To Freedom, and were bold!


After


Thesnow lies thick on Valley Forge,
The ice on the Delaware,
But the poor dead soldiers of King George
They neither know nor care.

Not though the earliest primro...

This was her home; one mossy gable thrust
Above the cedars and the locust trees:
This was her home, whose beauty now is dust,
A lonely memory for melodies
The wild birds sing, the wild birds and the bees.

Here every evening is a prayer: no boast
Or ruin of sunset makes the wan world wroth;
Here, through the twilight, like a pale flower's ghost,
A drowsy flutter, flies the tiger-moth;
And dusk spreads darkness like a dewy cloth.

In vagabond velvet, on the placid day,
A stain of crimson, lolls the butterfly;
The south wind sows with ripple and with ray
The pleasant waters; and the gentle sky
Looks on the homestead like a quiet eye.

Their melancholy quaver, lone and low,
When day is done, the gray tree-toads repeat:
The whippoorwills, far i...

Tyrant of all our loves and friendships here,
Behold thy beauteous victim! - Ah! tis thine
To rend fond hearts, and start the tend'rest tear
Where joy should long in cloudless radiance shine.

Alas! the mourning Muse in vain would paint,
Blest shade! how purely pass'd thy life away,
Or, with the meekness of a favour'd saint,
How rose thy spirit to the realms of day.

'Twas thine to fill each part that gladdens life,
Such as approving angels smile upon; -
The faultless daughter, parent, friend, and wife, -
Virtues short-lived! they set just as they shone.

Thus, in the bosom of some winding grove,
Where oft the pensive melodist retires,
From his sweet instrument, the note of love,
Charms the rapt ear, but, as it charms, expires.

Farewell, p...