I cannot love as I have lov'd before;
For I'm grown old and, with mine age, grown poor.
Love must be fed by wealth: this blood of mine
Must needs wax cold, if wanting bread and wine.

O golden day! O silver night!
    That brought my own true love at last,
Ah, wilt thou drop from out our sight,
    And drown within the past?

One wave, no more, in life's wide sea,
    One little nameless crest of foam,
The day that gave her all to me
    And brought us to our home.

Nay, rather as the morning grows
    In flush, and gleam, and kingly ray,
While up the heaven the sun-god goes,
    So shall ascend our day.

And when at last the long night nears,
    And love grows angel in the gloam,
Nay, sweetheart, what of fears and tears? -
    The stars shall see us home.

April 1, 1888

Lent gathers up her cloak of sombre shading
    In her reluctant hands.
Her beauty heightens, fairest in its fading,
    As pensively she stands
Awaiting Easter's benediction falling,
    Like silver stars at night,
Before she can obey the summons calling
    Her to her upward flight,
Awaiting Easter's wings that she must borrow
    Ere she can hope to fly -
Those glorious wings that we shall see to-morrow
    Against the far, blue sky.
Has not the purple of her vesture's lining
    Brought calm and rest to all?
Has her dark robe had naught of golden shining
    Been naught but pleasure's pall?
Who knows? Perhaps when to the world returning
    In youth's light joyousness,
We'll wear some rarer jewels we found burning
  ...

Land where the banners wave last in the sun,
Blazoned with star-clusters, many in one,
Floating o'er prairie and mountain and sea;
Hark! 't is the voice of thy children to thee!

Here at thine altar our vows we renew
Still in thy cause to be loyal and true, -
True to thy flag on the field and the wave,
Living to honor it, dying to save!

Mother of heroes! if perfidy's blight
Fall on a star in thy garland of light,
Sound but one bugle-blast! Lo! at the sign
Armies all panoplied wheel into line!

Hope of the world! thou'hast broken its chains, -
Wear thy bright arms while a tyrant remains,
Stand for the right till the nations shall own
Freedom their sovereign, with Law for her throne!

Freedom! sweet Freedom! our voices resound,
Queen by...

    There were a series
    of three animals
    - wise men I propose -
    interchangeably looking
    (throwing off their guises'
    as non-sentient brutes),
    scrounging the grass
    (eyes foddering me)
    chewing on looks,
    cud-like,
    -one a black
    goat shorn of
    his devil look
    and a burro,
    mood entranced, in
    armour of mangey velvet.

    II
    Swinging bells,
    making me believe
    the twilight caper
    that morning lay
    more in reindeer's
    breath than any
    solidarity with
    oat or hoove.

    III
    A strange lot,
    they'd ramrod their
    gaze with blare
    of lightning,
    peering into some
    primordial instinct
...

I have seen things that charmed the heart to rest:
Faint moonlight on the towers of ancient towns,
Flattering the soul to dream of old renowns;
The first clear silver on the mountain crest
Where the lone eagle by his chilly nest
Called the lone soul to brood serenely free;
Still pools of sunlight shimmering in the sea,
Calm after storm, wherein the storm seemed blest.

But here a peace deeper than peace is furled,
Enshrined and chaliced from the changeful hour;
The snow is still, yet lives in its own light.
Here is the peace which brooded day and night,
Before the heart of man with its wild power
Had ever spurned or trampled the great world.

With laughter always on the darkest day,
She danced before the very face of dread,
Starry companion of my mortal way,
Pre-destined merrily to be my mate,
With eyes as calm, she met the eyes of Fate:
"For this it was that you and I were wed -
What else?" she smiled and said.

Fair-weather wives are any man's to find,
The pretty sisters of the butterfly,
Gay when the sun is out, and skies are kind;
The daughters of the rainbow all may win -
Pity their lovers when the sun goes in!
Her smiles are brightest 'neath the stormiest sky -
Thrice blest and all unworthy I!

All things grew upwards, foul and fair:
The great trees fought and beat the air
With monstrous wings that would have flown;
But the old earth clung to her own,
Holding them back from heavenly wars,
Though every flower sprang at the stars.

But he broke free: while all things ceased,
Some hour increasing, he increased.
The town beneath him seemed a map,
Above the church he cocked his cap,
Above the cross his feather flew
Above the birds and still he grew.

The trees turned grass; the clouds were riven;
His feet were mountains lost in heaven;
Through strange new skies he rose alone,
The earth fell from him like a stone,
And his own limbs beneath him far
Seemed tapering down to touch a star.

He reared his head, shaggy and grim,
Star...

    Turn back, my Soul, no longer set
        Thy peace upon the years to come
    Turn back, the land of thy regret
        Holds nothing doubtful, nothing dumb.

    There are the voices, there the scenes
        That make thy life in living truth
    A tale of heroes and of queens,
        Fairer than all the hopes of youth.

The gods are there, they hide their lordly faces
From you that will not kneel -
Worship, and they reveal,
Call - and 'tis they!
They have not changed, nor moved from their high places,
The stars stream past their eyes like drifted spray;
Lovely to look on are they as bright gold,
They are wise with beauty, as a pool is wise.
Lonely with lilies; very sweet their eyes -
Bathed deep in sunshine are they, and very cold.

A stranger came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the bridegroom fair.
He bore a green-white stick in his hand,
And, for all burden, care.
He asked with the eyes more than the lips
For a shelter for the night,
And he turned and looked at the road afar
Without a window light.

The bridegroom came forth into the porch
With, 'Let us look at the sky,
And question what of the night to be,
Stranger, you and I.'
The woodbine leaves littered the yard,
The woodbine berries were blue,
Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind;
'Stranger, I wish I knew.'

Within, the bride in the dusk alone
Bent over the open fire,
Her face rose-red with the glowing coal
And the thought of the heart's desire.

The bridegroom looked at the weary road,
Yet ...

A faint sea without wind or sun;
A sky like flameless vapour dun;
A valley like an unsealed grave
That no man cares to weep upon,
Bare, without boon to crave,
Or flower to save.

And on the lip’s edge of the down,
Here where the bent-grass burns to brown
In the dry sea-wind, and the heath
Crawls to the cliff-side and looks down,
I watch, and hear beneath
The low tide breathe.

Along the long lines of the cliff,
Down the flat sea-line without skiff
Or sail or back-blown fume for mark,
Through wind-worn heads of heath and stiff
Stems blossomless and stark
With dry sprays dark,

I send mine eyes out as for news
Of comfort that all these refuse,
Tidings of light or living air
From windward where the low clouds muse
And ...

"O Thou!" her words she thus without delay
Resuming, turn'd their point on me, to whom
They but with lateral edge seem'd harsh before,
"Say thou, who stand'st beyond the holy stream,
If this be true. A charge so grievous needs
Thine own avowal." On my faculty
Such strange amazement hung, the voice expir'd
Imperfect, ere its organs gave it birth.

A little space refraining, then she spake:
"What dost thou muse on? Answer me. The wave
On thy remembrances of evil yet
Hath done no injury." A mingled sense
Of fear and of confusion, from my lips
Did such a "Yea" produce, as needed help
Of vision to interpret. As when breaks
In act to be discharg'd, a cross-bow bent
Beyond its pitch, both nerve and bow o'erstretch'd,
The flagging weapon feebly hits the mark...

I.

When late I watched the arrows of the sleet
Against the windows of the Tavern beat,
    I heard a Rose that murmured from her Pot:
"Why trudge thy fellows yonder in the Street?

II.

"Before the phantom of False Morning dies,
Choked in the bitter Net that binds the skies,
    Their feet, bemired with Yesterday, set out
For the dark alleys where To-morrow lies.

III.

"Think you, when all their petals they have bruised,
And all the fragrances of Life confused,
    That Night with sweeter rest will comfort these
Than us, who still within the Garden mused?

IV.

"Think you the Gold they fight for all day long
Is worth the frugal Peace their clamours wrong?
    Their Titles, and the Name they toil to build---
W...

The sword was sheathed: in April's sun
Lay green the fields by Freedom won;
And severed sections, weary of debates,
Joined hands at last and were United States.

O City sitting by the Sea
How proud the day that dawned on thee,
When the new era, long desired, began,
And, in its need, the hour had found the man!

One thought the cannon salvos spoke,
The resonant bell-tower's vibrant stroke,
The voiceful streets, the plaudit-echoing halls,
And prayer and hymn borne heavenward from St. Paul's!

How felt the land in every part
The strong throb of a nation's heart,
As its great leader gave, with reverent awe,
His pledge to Union, Liberty, and Law.

That pledge the heavens above him heard,
That vow the sleep of centuries stirred;
In worl...

Ah, how the Human Mind wearies herself
With her own wand'rings, and, involved in gloom
Impenetrable, speculates amiss!
Measuring, in her folly, things divine
By human, laws inscrib'd on adamant
By laws of Man's device, and counsels fix'd
For ever, by the hours, that pass, and die.
How?--shall the face of Nature then be plow'd
Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last
On the great Parent fix a sterile curse?
Shall even she confess old age, and halt
And, palsy-smitten, shake her starry brows?
Shall foul Antiquity with rust and drought
And famine vex the radiant worlds above?
Shall Time's unsated maw crave and engulf
The very heav'ns that regulate his flight?
And was the Sire of all able to fence
His works, and to uphold the circling worlds,
But throu...

There is nothing that eases my heart so much
As the wind that blows from the purple hills;
'Tis a hand of balsam whose healing touch
Unburdens my bosom of ills.

There is nothing that causes my soul to rejoice
Like the sunset flaming without a flaw:
'Tis a burning bush whence God's own voice
Addresses my spirit with awe.

There is nothing that hallows my mind, meseems,
Like the night with its moon and its stars above;
'Tis a mystical lily whose golden gleams
Fulfill my being with love.

There is nothing, no, nothing, we see and feel,
That speaks to our souls some beautiful thought,
That was not created to help us, and heal
Our lives that are overwrought.

Bright star of beauty, on whose eyelids sit
A thousand nymph-like and enamoured graces,
The goddesses of memory and wit,
Which there in order take their several places;
    In whose dear bosom, sweet delicious love
Lays down his quiver which he once did bear,
Since he that blessèd paradise did prove,
And leaves his mother's lap to sport him there
    Let others strive to entertain with words
My soul is of a braver mettle made;
I hold that vile which vulgar wit affords;
In me's that faith which time cannot invade.
    Let what I praise be still made good by you;
    Be you most worthy whilst I am most true!