Though young no more, we still would dream
Of beauty's dear deluding wiles;
The leagues of life to graybeards seem
Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles.

Who knows a woman's wild caprice?
'It played with Goethe's silvered hair,
And many a Holy Father's "niece"
Has softly smoothed the papal chair.

When sixty bids us sigh in vain
To melt the heart of sweet sixteen,
We think upon those ladies twain
Who loved so well the tough old Dean.

We see the Patriarch's wintry face,
The maid of Egypt's dusky glow,
And dream that Youth and Age embrace,
As April violets fill with snow.

Tranced in her lord's Olympian smile
His lotus-loving Memphian lies, -
The musky daughter of the Nile,
With plaited hair and almond eyes.

Might...

Gay visions for thee 'neath hope's pencil have glowed,
Peace dwells in thy bosom, a guileless abode;
Thou hast seen the bright side of existence alone,
And believ'st every spirit as pure as thine own.
May'st thou never awake from these rapturous dreams,
To find that the world is not fair as it seems,
To feel that the few thou hast loved have deceived,
Have forsaken the heart that confided, believed,
And left it as leafless, as bloomless, and waste
As the rose-tree that's stript by the merciless blast.

When the warm sky of childhood was beaming for me,
My days were all joyous, my heart was all glee;
Affection's best ties round my bosom were spun;
No cloud dimmed the lustre of life's morning sun.
If I watched o'er my favorite rose-bud's decay,
And mourned that ...

I gave my first love laughter,
I gave my second tears,
I gave my third love silence
Through all the years.

My first love gave me singing,
My second eyes to see,
But oh, it was my third love
Who gave my soul to me.

        The thought of old, dear things is in thine eyes,
        O, month of memories!
        Musing on days thine heart hath sorrow of,
        Old joy, dead hope, dear love,

        I see thee stand where all thy sisters meet
        To cast down at thy feet
        The garnered largess of the fruitful year,
        And on thy cheek a tear.

        Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf
        To blind the eyes of grief;
        Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit
        That sorrow may be mute;

        A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep,
        Ere the gray dusk may creep
        Sober and sad along thy dusty ways,
        Like a lone nun, who prays;

        High and faint-heard thy passing migrant calls;<...

The sanctity that is about the dead
To make us love them more than late, when here,
Is not it well to find the living dear
With sanctity like this, ere they have fled?

The tender thoughts we nurture for a loss
Of mother, friend, or child, oh! it were wise
To spend this glory on the earnest eyes,
The longing heart, that feel life's present cross.

Give also mercy to the living here
Whose keen-strung souls will quiver at your touch;
The utmost reverence is not too much
For eyes that weep, although the lips may sneer.

Or whether sad or joyous be her hours,
Yet ever is she good and ever fair.
If she be glad, 'tis like a child's wild air,
Who claps her hands above a heap of flowers;
And if she's sad, it is no cloud that lowers,
Rather a saint's pale grace, whose golden hair
Gleams like a crown, whose eyes are like a prayer
From some quiet window under minster towers.

But ah, Beloved, how shall I be taught
To tell this truth in any rhymed line?
For words and woven phrases fall to naught,
Lost in the silence of one dream divine,
Wrapped in the beating wonder of this thought:
Even thou, who art so precious, thou art mine!

1.
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine? -

2.
See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

[From "Letters of Julius to Raphael," an unpublished Novel.]

Friend! the Great Ruler, easily content,
Needs not the laws it has laborious been
The task of small professors to invent;
A single wheel impels the whole machine
Matter and spirit; yea, that simple law,
Pervading nature, which our Newton saw.

This taught the spheres, slaves to one golden rein,
Their radiant labyrinths to weave around
Creation's mighty hearts: this made the chain,
Which into interwoven systems bound
All spirits streaming to the spiritual sun
As brooks that ever into ocean run!

Did not the same strong mainspring urge and guide
Our hearts to meet in love's eternal bond?
Linked to thine arm, O Raphael, by thy side
Might I aspire to reach to souls beyond
Our earth, ...

Whether I loved you who shall say?
Whether I drifted down your way
In the endless River of Chance and Change,
And you woke the strange
Unknown longings that have no names,
But burn us all in their hidden flames,
    Who shall say?

Life is a strange and a wayward thing:
We heard the bells of the Temples ring,
The married children, in passing, sing.
The month of marriage, the month of spring,
Was full of the breath of sunburnt flowers
That bloom in a fiercer light than ours,
And, under a sky more fiercely blue,
    I came to you!

You told me tales of your vivid life
Where death was cruel and danger rife -
Of deep dark forests, of poisoned trees,
Of pains and passions that scorch and freeze,
Of southern noontides and eastern nights,

Sweet life, if life were stronger,
Earth clear of years that wrong her,
Then two things might live longer,
Two sweeter things than they;
Delight, the rootless flower,
And love, the bloomless bower;
Delight that lives an hour,
And love that lives a day.

From evensong to daytime,
When April melts in Maytime,
Love lengthens out his playtime,
Love lessens breath by breath,
And kiss by kiss grows older
On listless throat or shoulder
Turned sideways now, turned colder
Than life that dreams of death.

This one thing once worth giving
Life gave, and seemed worth living;
Sin sweet beyond forgiving
And brief beyond regret:
To laugh and love together
And weave with foam and feather
And wind and words the tether
Our memories p...

When grace is given us ever to behold
A child some sweet months old,
Love, laying across our lips his finger, saith,
Smiling, with bated breath,
Hush! for the holiest thing that lives is here,
And heaven’s own heart how near!
How dare we, that may gaze not on the sun,
Gaze on this verier one?
Heart, hold thy peace; eyes, be cast down for shame;
Lips, breathe not yet its name.
In heaven they know what name to call it; we,
How should we know? For, see!
The adorable sweet living marvellous
Strange light that lightens us
Who gaze, desertless of such glorious grace,
Full in a babe’s warm face!
All roses that the morning rears are nought,
All stars not worth a thought,
Set this one star against them, or suppose
As rival this one rose.
What price ...

        It is a common fate - a woman's lot -
    To waste on one the riches of her soul,
        Who takes the wealth she gives him, but cannot
    Repay the interest, and much less the whole.

        As I look up into your eyes and wait
    For some response to my fond gaze and touch,
        It seems to me there is no sadder fate
    Than to be doomed to loving overmuch.

        Are you not kind? Ah, yes, so very kind -
    So thoughtful of my comfort, and so true.
        Yes, yes, dear heart; but I, not being blind,
    Know that I am not loved as I love you.

        One tenderer word, a little longer kiss,
    Will fill my soul with music and with song;
        And if you seem abstracted, or I miss
    The heart-tone from your voice, my worl...

Heart! my heart! what means this feeling?

What oppresseth thee so sore?
What strange life is o'er me stealing!

I acknowledge thee no more.
Fled is all that gave thee gladness,
Fled the cause of all thy sadness,

Fled thy peace, thine industry

Ah, why suffer it to be?

Say, do beauty's graces youthful,

Does this form so fair and bright,
Does this gaze, so kind, so truthful,

Chain thee with unceasing might?
Would I tear me from her boldly,
Courage take, and fly her coldly,

Back to her. I'm forthwith led

By the path I seek to tread.


By a thread I ne'er can sever,

For 'tis 'twined with magic skill,
Doth the cruel maid for ever

Hold me fast against my will.
While those m...

"Do their errands; enter into the sacrifice with them; be a link yourself in the divine chain, and feel the joy and life of it."
- ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY


What can I do for thee, Beloved,
Whose feet so little while ago
Trod the same way-side dust with mine,
And now up paths I do not know
Speed, without sound or sign?

What can I do? The perfect life
All fresh and fair and beautiful
Has opened its wide arms to thee;
Thy cup is over-brimmed and full;
Nothing remains for me.

I used to do so many things,--
Love thee and chide thee and caress;
Brush little straws from off thy way,
Tempering with my poor tenderness
The heat of thy short day.

Not much, but very sweet to give;
And it is grief of griefs to bear
That all these m...

Weary, oh, so weary
With it all!
Sunny days or dreary--
How they pall!
Why should we be heroes,
Launa Dee,
Striving to no winning?
Let the world be Zero's!
As in the beginning
Let it be!

What good comes of toiling,
When all's done?
Frail green sprays for spoiling
Of the sun;
Laurel leaf or myrtle,
Love or fame--
Ah, what odds what spray, sweet?
Time, that makes life fertile,
Makes its blooms decay, sweet,
As they came.

Lie here with me dreaming,
Cheek to cheek,
Lithe limbs twined and gleaming,
Brown and sleek;
Like two serpents coiling
In their lair.
Where's the good of wreathing
Sprays for Time's despoiling?
Let me feel your breathing
In my hair.

You and I together--
...

DRINK, oh youth, joy's purest ray
From thy loved one's eyes all day,

And her image paint at night!
Better rule no lover knows,
Yet true rapture greater grows,

When far sever'd from her sight.

Powers eternal, distance, time,
Like the might of stars sublime,

Gently rock the blood to rest,
O'er my senses softness steals,
Yet my bosom lighter feels,

And I daily am more blest.

Though I can forget her ne'er,
Yet my mind is free from care,

I can calmly live and move;
Unperceived infatuation
Longing turns to adoration,

Turns to reverence my love.

Ne'er can cloud, however light,
Float in ether's regions bright,

When drawn upwards by the sun,
As my heart in rapturous calm.
Free fro...

A Beautiful Little Girl.

Fair as some sea-child, in her coral bower,
    Decked with the rare, rich treasures of the deep;
Mild as the spirit of the dream whose power
    Bears back the infant's soul to heaven, in sleep
Brightens the hues of summer's first-born flower
    Pure as the tears repentant mourners weep
O'er deeds to which the siren, Sin, beguiled, -
Art thou, sweet, smiling, bright-eyed cherub child.

Thy presence is a spell of holiness,
    From which unhallowed thoughts shrink blushing back, -
Thy smile is a warm light that shines to bless,
    As beams the beacon o'er the wanderer's track, -
Thy voice is music, at whose sounds Distress
    Unbinds her writhing victim from the rack
Of misery, and charmed by what she hears,
Forgets her w...

I have been pondering what our teachers call
    The mystery of Pain; and lo! my thought
    After it's half-blind reaching out has caught
This truth and held it fast. We may not fall
    Beyond our mounting; stung by life's annoy,
    Deeper we feel the mystery of Joy.

Sometimes they steal across us like a breath
    Of Eastern perfume in a darkened room,
    These joys of ours; we grope on through the gloom
Seeking some common thing, and from its sheath
    Unloose, unknowing, some bewildering scent
    Of spice-thronged memories of the Orient.

Sometimes they dart across our turbid sky
    Like a quick flash after a heated day.
    A moment, where the sombrous shadows lay
We see a glory. Though it passed us by
    No earthly power can filch that ...