As when a tree's cut down, the secret root
    Lives under ground, and thence new branches shoot;
    So from old Shakspeare's honour'd dust, this day
    Springs up and buds a new reviving play:
    Shakspeare, who (taught by none) did first impart
    To Fletcher wit, to labouring Jonson art.
    He, monarch like, gave those, his subjects, law;
    And is that nature which they paint and draw.
    Fletcher reach'd that which on his heights did grow,
    While Jonson crept, and gather'd all below.
    This did his love, and this his mirth digest:
    One imitates him most, the other best.
    If they have since outwrit all other men,
    'Tis with the drops which fell from Shakspeare's pen.
    The storm, which vanish'd on the neighbouring shore,
    Was taugh...

FROM BUFFALO, UPON LAKE ERIE.


        nec venit ad duros musa vocata Getas.
        OVID. ex Ponto, lib. 1. ep. 5.


Thou oft hast told me of the happy hours
Enjoyed by thee in fair Italia's bowers,
Where, lingering yet, the ghost of ancient wit
Midst modern monks profanely dares to flit.
And pagan spirits, by the Pope unlaid,
Haunt every stream and sing through every shade.
There still the bard who (if his numbers be
His tongue's light echo) must have talked like thee,--
The courtly bard, from whom thy mind has caught
Those playful, sunshine holidays of thought,
In which the spirit baskingly reclines,
Bright without effort, resting while it shines,--
There still he roves, and laughing loves to see
How modern priests with an...

We are the Allies of God to-day,
And the width of the earth is our right of way.
Let no man question or ask us why,
As we speed to answer a wild world cry;
Let no man hinder or ask us where,
As out over water and land we fare;
For whether we hurry, or whether we wait,
We follow the finger of guiding fate.

We are the Allies.    We differ in faith,
But are one in our courage at thought of death.
Many and varied the tongues we speak,
But one and the same is the goal we seek.
And the goal we seek is not power or place,
But the peace of the world, and the good of the race.
And little matters the colour of skin,
When each heart under it beats to win.

We are the Allies; we fight or fly,
We wallow in trenches like pigs in a sty,
We dive under wat...

I am waiting in the desert, looking out towards the sunset,
And counting every moment till we meet.
I am waiting by the marshes and I tremble and I listen
Till the soft sands thrill beneath your coming feet.

Till I see you, tall and slender, standing clear against the skyline
A graceful shade across the lingering red,
While your hair the breezes ruffle, turns to silver in the twilight,
And makes a fair faint aureole round your head.

Far away towards the sunset I can see a narrow river,
That unwinds itself in red tranquillity;
I can hear its rippled meeting, and the gurgle of its greeting,
As it mingles with the loved and long sought sea.

In the purple sky above me showing dark against the starlight,
Long wavering flights of homeward birds fly low,
They...

A dream of mine flew over the mead
To the halls where my old Love reigns;
And it drew me on to follow its lead:
And I stood at her window-panes;

And I saw but a thing of flesh and bone
Speeding on to its cleft in the clay;
And my dream was scared, and expired on a moan,
And I whitely hastened away.

An uphill path, sun-gleams between the showers,
Where every beam that broke the leaden sky
Lit other hills with fairer ways than ours;
Some clustered graves where half our memories lie;
And one grim Shadow creeping ever nigh:
And this was Life.

Wherein we did another's burden seek,
The tired feet we helped upon the road,
The hand we gave the weary and the weak,
The miles we lightened one another's load,
When, faint to falling, onward yet we strode:
This too was Life.

Till, at the upland, as we turned to go
Amid fair meadows, dusky in the night,
The mists fell back upon the road below;
Broke on our tired eyes the western light;
The very graves were for a moment bright:
And this was Death.

We have cried in our despair
That men desert,
For some trivial affair
Or noisy, insolent, sport,
Beauty that we have won
From bitterest hours;
Yet we, had we walked within
Those topless towers
Where Helen walked with her boy,
Had given but as the rest
Of the men and women of Troy,
A word and a jest.

Genius of Raphael! if thy wings
Might bear thee to this glen,
With faithful memory left of things
To pencil dear and pen,
Thou would'st forego the neighbouring Rhine,
And all his majesty
A studious forehead to incline
O'er this poor family.

The Mother, her thou must have seen,
In spirit, ere she came
To dwell these rifted rocks between,
Or found on earth a name;
An image, too, of that sweet Boy,
Thy inspirations give
Of playfulness, and love, and joy,
Predestined here to live.

Downcast, or shooting glances far,
How beautiful his eyes,
That blend the nature of the star
With that of summer skies!
I speak as if of sense beguiled;
Uncounted months are gone,
Yet am I with the Jewish Child,
That exquisite Saint John.

I lift my spirit to your cloudy thrones,
    And feel it broaden to your vast expanse,
        Oh! mountains, so immeasurably old,
        Crowned with bald rocks and everlasting cold,
    That melts not underneath the sun's fierce glance,
Peak above peak, fixed, dazzling, ice and stones.

Down your steep sides quick torrents leap and roar,
    And disappear, in gloomy gorges sunk,
        Fringed with black pines on dizzy verges high--
        Poised, trembling to the thunder and the cry
    Of the lost waters, through each giant trunk,
And farthest twig and tassel evermore.

Behold far down the mountain herdsman's ranche,
    The rough road winding past his lonely door,
        And in his ears, by day and night, the sound
        Of mad waves plunging d...

Let's live in haste; use pleasures while we may;
Could life return, 'twould never lose a day.

I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose
And too low for Heaven!
Hush! I talk my dream aloud,
I build it bright to see,
I build it on the moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with thee.

Cloud-walls of the morning's grey,
Faced with amber column,
Crowned with crimson cupola
From a sunset solemn!
May mists, for the casements, fetch,
Pale and glimmering;
With a sunbeam hid in each,
And a smell of spring.

Build the entrance high and proud,
Darkening and then brightening,
If a riven thunder-cloud,
Veined by the lightning.
Use one with an iris-stain,
For the door within;
Turning to a sound like rain,
As I enter in.

Build a spacious hall thereby:
Boldly, never fe...

Lord, who hast suffer’d all for me,
My peace and pardon to procure,
The lighter cross I bear for thee,
Help me with patience to endure.


The storm of loud repining hush,
I would in humble silence mourn;
Why should the unburnt though burning bush,
Be angry as the crackling thorn?


Man should not faint at thy rebuke,
Like Joshua falling on his face,[1]
When the curst thing that Achan took
Brought Israel into just disgrace.


Perhaps some golden wedge suppress’d,
Some secret sin offends my God;
Perhaps that Babylonish vest,
Self-righteousness, provokes the rod.


Ah! were I buffeted all day,
Mock’d, crown’d with thorns, and spit upon;
I yet should have no right to say,
My great distress is mine a...

I

Ah, yes, 't is sweet still to remember,
Though 'twere less painful to forget;
For while my heart glows like an ember,
Mine eyes with sorrow's drops are wet,
And, oh, my heart is aching yet.
It is a law of mortal pain
That old wounds, long accounted well,
Beneath the memory's potent spell,
Will wake to life and bleed again.

So 't is with me; it might be better
If I should turn no look behind,--
If I could curb my heart, and fetter
From reminiscent gaze my mind,
Or let my soul go blind--go blind!
But would I do it if I could?
Nay! ease at such a price were spurned;
For, since my love was once returned,
All that I suffer seemeth good.

I know, I know it is the fashion,
When love has left some heart distressed,
To weight...

I pray! My little body and whole span
Of years is Thine, my Owner and my Man.
For Thou hast made me, unto Thee I owe
This dim, distressed half-soul that hurts me so,
Compact of every crime, but, none the less,
Broken by knowledge of its naughtiness.
Put me not from Thy Life, ’tis all I know.
If Thou forsake me, whither shall I go?

Thine is the Voice with which my Day begins:
Thy Foot my refuge, even in my sins.
Thine Honour hurls me forth to testify
Against the Unclean and Wicked passing by.
(But when Thou callest they are of Thy Friends,
Who readier than I to make amends?)
I was Thy Deputy with high and low,
If Thou dismiss me, whither shall I go?

I have been driven forth on gross offence
That took no reckoning of my penitence,
And, in m...

Thank God for pleasant weather!
    Chant it, merry rills!
And clap your hands together,
    Ye exulting hills!
Thank Him, teeming valley!
    Thank Him, fruitful plain!
For the golden sunshine,
    And the silver rain.

Thank God, of good the giver!
    Shout it, sportive breeze!
Respond, oh, tuneful river!
    To the nodding tees.
Thank Him, bud and birdling!
    As ye grow and sing!
Mingle in thanksgiving
    Every living thing!

Thank God, with cheerful spirit,
    In a glow of love,
For what we here inherit,
    And our hopes above!--
Universal Nature
    Revels in her birth,
When God, in pleasant weather,
    Smiles upon the earth!

Where I am, thou ask’st, and where I wended
When my fleeting shadow pass’d from thee?
Am I not concluded now, and ended?
Have not life and love been granted me?

Ask, where now those nightingales are singing,
Who, of late, on the soft nights of May,
Set thine ears with soul-fraught music ringing
Only, while their love liv’d, lasted they.

Find I him, from whom I had to sever?
Doubt it not, we met, and we are one.
There, where what is join’d, is join’d for ever,
There, where tears are never more to run.

There thou too shalt live with us together,
When thou too hast borne the love we bore:
There, from sin deliver’d, dwells my Father,
Track’d by Murder’s bloody sword no more.

There he feels, it was no dream deceiving
Lur’d him starwards...

(Bar Harbor)

From this fair home behold on either side
The restful mountains or the restless sea
So the warm sheltering walls of life divide
Time and its tides from still eternity.

Look on the waves: their stormy voices teach
That not on earth may toil and struggle cease.
Look on the mountains: better far than speech
Their silent promise of eternal peace.

Earth raised up her head
From the darkness dread and drear,
Her light fled,
Stony, dread,
And her locks covered with grey despair.

"Prisoned on watery shore,
Starry jealousy does keep my den
Cold and hoar;
Weeping o'er,
I hear the father of the ancient men.

"Selfish father of men!
Cruel, jealous, selfish fear!
Can delight,
Chained in night,
The virgins of youth and morning bear?

"Does spring hide its joy,
When buds and blossoms grow?
Does the sower
Sow by night,
Or the plowman in darkness plough?

"Break this heavy chain,
That does freeze my bones around!
Selfish, vain,
Eternal bane,
That free love with bondage bound."