The Land we from our fathers had in trust,
And to our children will transmit, or die:
This is our maxim, this our piety;
And God and Nature say that it is just.
That which we 'would' perform in arms we must!
We read the dictate in the infant's eye;
In the wife's smile; and in the placid sky;
And, at our feet, amid the silent dust
Of them that were before us. Sing aloud
Old songs, the precious music of the heart!                        
Give, herds and flocks, your voices to the wind!
While we go forth, a self-devoted crowd,
With weapons grasped in fearless hands, to assert
Our virtue, and to vindicate mankind.

You are no longer young,
Nor are you very old.
There are homes where those belong.
You know you do not fit
When you observe the cold
Stares of those who sit

In bath-chairs or the park
(A stick, then, at their side)
Or find yourself in the dark
And see the lovers who,
In love and in their stride,
Don't even notice you.

This is a time to begin
Your life. It could be new.
The sheer not fitting in
With the old who envy you
And the young who want to win,
Not knowing false from true,

Means you have liberty
Denied to their extremes.
At last now you can be
What the old cannot recall
And the young long for in dreams,
Yet still include them all.

A weed-grown slope, whereon the rain
Has washed the brown rocks bare,
Leads tangled from a lonely lane
Down to a creek's broad stair
Of stone, that, through the solitude,
Winds onward to a quiet wood.

An intermittent roof of shade
The beech above it throws;
Along its steps a balustrade
Of beauty builds the rose;
In which, a stately lamp of green
At intervals the cedar's seen.

The water, carpeting each ledge
Of rock that runs across,
Glints 'twixt a flow'r-embroidered edge
Of ferns and grass and moss;
And in its deeps the wood and sky
Seem patterns of the softest dye.

Long corridors of pleasant dusk
Within the house of leaves
It reaches; where, on looms of musk,
The ceaseless locust weaves
A web of summer; and per...

Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devour'd what the earth gave me;
Long I roam'd the woods of the north long I watch'd Niagara pouring;
I travel'd the prairies over, and slept on their breast I cross'd the Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus;
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to sea;
I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm;
I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves;
I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling over;
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds;
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and powerful!)
Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellow'd after the lightning;
Noted the slender and ja...

    A guid New-year I wish thee, Maggie!
    Hae, there's a rip to thy auld baggie:
    Tho' thou's howe-backit, now, an' knaggie,
        I've seen the day
    Thou could hae gaen like onie staggie
        Out-owre the lay.

    Tho' now thou's dowie, stiff, an' crazy,
    An' thy auld hide as white's a daisy,
    I've seen thee dappl't, sleek, and glaizie,
        A bonny gray:
    He should been tight that daur't to raize thee,
        Ance in a day.

    Thou ance was i' the foremost rank,
    A filly, buirdly, steeve, an' swank,
    An set weel down a shapely shank,
        As e'er tread yird;
    An' could hae flown out-owre a stank,
        Like ony bird.

    It's now some nine-an'-twenty year,
    Sin' thou was my guid-fa...

I

He bends his travel-tarnished feet
To where she wastes in clay:
From day-dawn until eve he fares
Along the wintry way;
From day-dawn until eve repairs
Unto her mound to pray.

II

"Are these the gravestone shapes that meet
My forward-straining view?
Or forms that cross a window-blind
In circle, knot, and queue:
Gay forms, that cross and whirl and wind
To music throbbing through?" -

III

"The Keeper of the Field of Tombs
Dwells by its gateway-pier;
He celebrates with feast and dance
His daughter's twentieth year:
He celebrates with wine of France
The birthday of his dear." -

IV

"The gates are shut when evening glooms:
Lay down your wreath, sad wight;
To-morrow is a time more fit

Like a drift of faded blossoms
Caught in a slanting rain,
His fingers glimpsed down the strings of his harp
In a tremulous refrain:

Patter and tinkle, and drip and drip!
Ah! But the chords were rainy sweet!
And I closed my eyes and I bit my lip,
As he played there in the street.

Patter, and drip, and tinkle!
And there was the little bed
In the corner of the garret,
And the rafters overhead!

And there was the little window -
Tinkle, and drip, and drip!
The rain above, and a mother's love,
And God's companionship!

        When in the Scorpion circles low
            The sun with fainter, dreamier light,
        And at a far-off hint of snow
            The giddy swallows take to flight,
        And droning insects sadly know
            That cooler falls the autumn night;

        When airs breathe drowsily and sweet,
            Charming the woods to colors gay,
        And distant pastures send the bleat
            Of hungry lambs at break of day,
        Old Hermes' wings grow on my feet,
            And, good-by, home!    I'm called away!

        There on the hills should I behold,
            Sitting upon an old gray stone
        That humps its back up through the mold,
            And piping in a monotone,
        Pan, as he sat in days of old,
 ...

I

Now that the farewell tear is dried,
Heaven prosper thee, be hope thy guide
Hope be thy guide, adventurous Boy;
The wages of thy travel, joy!
Whether for London bound, to trill
Thy mountain notes with simple skill;
Or on thy head to poise a show
Of Images in seemly row;
The graceful form of milk-white Steed,
Or Bird that soared with Ganymede;
Or through our hamlets thou wilt bear
The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled;
And Shakespeare at his side, a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!
Hope be thy guide, adventurous Boy;
The wages of thy travel, joy!

II

But thou, perhaps, (alert as free
Though serving sage philosophy)
Wilt ramble over hill ...

    If you rattle along like your mistress's tongue,
        Your speed will outrival the dart:
    But, a fly for your load, you'll break down on the road
        If your stuff has the rot, like her heart.

Silence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou
Three brethren named, the guardians gloomy-winged
Of one abyss, where life, and truth, and joy
Are swallowed up - yet spare me, Spirit, pity me,
Until the sounds I hear become my soul,
And it has left these faint and weary limbs,
To track along the lapses of the air
This wandering melody until it rests
Among lone mountains in some...

Mi darlin' Muse, aw coax and pet her,
To pleeas yo, for aw like nowt better;
An' if aw find aw connot get her
To lend her aid,
Into foorced measure then aw set her,
The stupid jade!

An' if mi lines dooant run as spreetly,
Nor beam wi gems o' wit soa breetly,
Place all the blame, - yo'll place it reightly,
Upon her back;
To win her smile aw follow neetly,
Along her track.

Maybe shoo thinks to stop mi folly,
An let me taste o' melancholy;
But just to spite her awl be jolly,
An say mi say;
Awl fire away another volley
Tho' shoo says "Nay."

We've had some happy times together,
For monny years we've stretched our tether,
An as aw dunnot care a feather
For fowk 'at grummel,
We'll have another try. Aye! whether
We ...

The world is resting without sound or motion,
Behind the apple tree the sun goes down
Painting with fire the spires and the windows
In the elm-shaded town.

Beyond the calm Connecticut the hills lie
Silvered with haze as fruits still fresh with bloom,
The swallows weave in flight across the zenith
On an aerial loom.

Into the garden peace comes back with twilight,
Peace that since noon had left the purple phlox,
The heavy-headed asters, the late roses
And swaying hollyhocks.

For at high-noon I heard from this same garden
The far-off murmur as when many come;
Up from the village surged the blind and beating
Red music of a drum;

And the hysterical sharp fife that shattered
The brittle autumn air,
While they came, the young men mar...

Mine are the night and morning,
The pits of air, the gulf of space,
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
The innumerable days.

I hide in the solar glory,
I am dumb in the pealing song,
I rest on the pitch of the torrent,
In slumber I am strong.

No numbers have counted my tallies,
No tribes my house can fill,
I sit by the shining Fount of Life
And pour the deluge still;

And ever by delicate powers
Gathering along the centuries
From race on race the rarest flowers,
My wreath shall nothing miss.

And many a thousand summers
My gardens ripened well,
And light from meliorating stars
With firmer glory fell.

I wrote the past in characters
Of rock and fire the scroll,
The building in the coral sea,
The pla...

    I vaguely wondered what you were about,
    But never wrote when you had gone away;
    Assumed you better, quenched the uneasy doubt
    You might need faces, or have things to say.
    Did I think of you last evening?    Dead you lay.
        O bitter words of conscience
        I hold the simple message,
    And fierce with grief the awakened heart cries out:
        "It shall not be to-day;

    It is still yesterday; there is time yet!"
    Sorrow would strive backward to wrench the sun,
    But the sun moves.    Our onward course is set,
    The wake streams out, the engine pulses run
    Droning, a lonelier voyage is begun.
        It is all too late for turning,
        You are past all mortal signal,
    There will be time for nothing but reg...

It will not be these beauties of vignettes,
Poor products of a worthless century,
Feet in half-boots, fingers in castanets,
Who satisfy the yearning heart in me.

That poet of chlorosis, Gavarni,
Can keep his twittering troupe of sickly queens,
Since these pale roses do not let me see
My red ideal, the tlower of my dreams.

I need a heart abyssal in its depth,
A soul confirmed in crime, Lady Macbeth,
Aeschylus' dream, storm-born out of the south,

Or you, great Night of Michelangelo's,
Who calmly twist in an exotic pose
Those charms he fashioned for a Titan's mouth.

    Often Aner Clute at the gate
    Refused me the parting kiss,
    Saying we should be engaged before that;
    And just with a distant clasp of the hand
    She bade me good-night, as I brought her home
    From the skating rink or the revival.
    No sooner did my departing footsteps die away
    Than Lucius Atherton,
    (So I learned when Aner went to Peoria)
    Stole in at her window, or took her riding
    Behind his spanking team of bays
    Into the country.
    The shock of it made me settle down
    And I put all the money I got from my father's estate
    Into the canning factory, to get the job
    Of head accountant, and lost it all.
    And then I knew I was one of Life's fools,
    Whom only death would treat as the equal
    Of ot...

Still flowed the music, flowed the wine.
    The youth in silence went;
Through naked streets, in cold moonshine,
    His homeward way he bent,
Where, on the city's seaward line,
    His lattice seaward leant.

He knew not why he left the throng,
    But that he could not rest;
That something pained him in the song,
    And mocked him in the jest;
And a cold moon-glitter lay along
    One lovely lady's breast.

He sat him down with solemn book
    His sadness to beguile;
A skull from off its bracket-nook
    Threw him a lipless smile;
But its awful, laughter-mocking look,
    Was a passing moonbeam's wile.

An hour he sat, and read in vain,
    Nought but mirrors were his eyes;
For to and fro through his helpless brain,
...