Up to the sky the birdman flew
And looped some loops that were bold and new.
The people marvelled at nerve so great
And gasped or cheered as he tempted fate,
More daring each day than the day before,
Till the birdman fell and arose no more.

The bandit bragged of his daylight crimes
And said: "I'm the wonder of modern times."
Bolder and bolder his thefts became,
And the people shook when they heard his name.
He boasted: "I'm one that they'll never get."
But he jollied himself into Joliet.

Well, son, I suppose you would be admired
For the valorous habit that you've acquired
Of rushing at each little girl you meet
And hugging her tight in the public street.
But the day will come, I have not a doubt,
When you'll stagger home with an eye scratched ...

    A Grasshopper gay
    Sang the summer away,
    And found herself poor
    By the winter's first roar.
    Of meat or of bread,
    Not a morsel she had!
    So a begging she went,
    To her neighbour the ant,
        For the loan of some wheat,
        Which would serve her to eat,
    Till the season came round.
        'I will pay you,' she saith,
        'On an animal's faith,
    Double weight in the pound
    Ere the harvest be bound.'
        The ant is a friend
        (And here she might mend)
        Little given to lend.
    'How spent you the summer?'
        Quoth she, looking shame
        At the borrowing dame.
    'Night and day to each comer
        I sang, if you please.'
        'You sang! I'm at ease;...

What are the things that make life bright?
A star gleam in the night.
What hearts us for the coming fray?
The dawn tints of the day.
What helps to speed the weary mile?
A brother's friendly smile.
What turns o' gold the evening gray?
A flower beside the way.

"And there shall be no night there and they
need no candle, and neither light of the sun;
for the Lord God giveth them Light."


Your place is Heaven, a stormless nightless home?
Then we twain never more shall live together
Such days of gladdest thought as here, whilom,
We spent amid the change of earthly weather.

No white young day like hope smiles in yon east,
Or, westering, cleaves wild-omened scarlet glooms;
No frosty breezes wreathe your woods in mist;
No breaker o'er Heaven's glassy ocean booms.

No scents of delvéd dewy soil arise;
No storm-blue pall in state hangs hill or lea;
No nightly seas swirl in grey agonies;
Nor old Earth's sweet decays dye herb or tree.

Do wan gold tints shot on the midnight air
Herald the moon...

The wind comes whispering to me of the country green and cool--
Of redwing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy pool;
It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the hill,
And I hear the thrush's evening song and the robin's morning trill;
So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to know
Where the sassafras and snakeroot and checkerberries grow.

What has become of Ezra Marsh, who lived on Baker's hill?
And what's become of Noble Pratt, whose father kept the mill?
And what's become of Lizzie Crum and Anastasia Snell,
And of Roxie Root, who 'tended school in Boston for a spell?
They were the boys and they the girls who shared my youthful play--
They do not answer to my call! My playmates--where are they?

What has become of Levi and his little brother Joe,

Love, strong as Death, is dead.
Come, let us make his bed
Among the dying flowers:
A green turf at his head;
And a stone at his feet,
Whereon we may sit
In the quiet evening hours.

He was born in the Spring,
And died before the harvesting:
On the last warm summer day
He left us; he would not stay
For Autumn twilight cold and grey.
Sit we by his grave, and sing
He is gone away.

To few chords and sad and low
Sing we so:
Be our eyes fixed on the grass
Shadow-veiled as the years pass
While we think of all that was
In the long ago.

Place this bunch of mignonette
In her cold, dead hand;
When the golden sun is set,
Where the poplars stand,
Bury her from sun and day,
Lay my little love away
From my sight.

She was like a modest flower
Blown in sunny June,
Warm as sun at noon's high hour,
Chaster than the moon.
Ah, her day was brief and bright,
Earth has lost a star of light;
She is dead.

Softly breathe her name to me,--
Ah, I loved her so.
Gentle let your tribute be;
None may better know
Her true worth than I who weep
O'er her as she lies asleep--
Soft asleep.

Lay these lilies on her breast,
They are not more white
Than the soul of her, at rest
'Neath their petals bright.
Chant your aves soft and low,
Solemn be your tread an...

    My curse upon thy venom'd stang,
    That shoots my tortur'd gums alang;
    And thro' my lugs gies mony a twang,
        Wi' gnawing vengeance;
    Tearing my nerves wi' bitter pang,
        Like racking engines!

    When fevers burn, or ague freezes,
    Rheumatics gnaw, or cholic squeezes;
    Our neighbours' sympathy may ease us,
        Wi' pitying moan;
    But thee, thou hell o' a' diseases,
        Ay mocks our groan!

    Adown my beard the slavers trickle!
    I kick the wee stools o'er the mickle,
    As round the fire the giglets keckle,
        To see me loup;
    While, raving mad, I wish a heckle
        Were in their doup.

    O' a' the num'rous human dools,
    Ill har'sts, daft bargains, cutty-stools,
...

[1]

Once in his bed deep mused the hare,
(What else but muse could he do there?)
And soon by gloom was much afflicted; -
To gloom the creature's much addicted.
'Alas! these constitutions nervous,'
He cried, 'how wretchedly they serve us!
We timid people, by their action,
Can't eat nor sleep with satisfaction;
We can't enjoy a pleasure single,
But with some misery it must mingle.
Myself, for one, am forced by cursed fear
To sleep with open eye as well as ear.
"Correct yourself," says some adviser.
Grows fear, by such advice, the wiser?
Indeed, I well enough descry
That men have fear, as well as I.'
With such revolving thoughts our hare
Kept watch in soul-consuming care.
A passing shade, or leaflet's quiver
Would give his blo...

Friend of my early days, we meet once more!
Once more I stand thine aged boughs beneath,
And hear again the rustling music pour,
Along thy leaves, as whispering spirits breathe.

Full many a day of sunshine and of storm,
Since last we parted, both have surely known;
Thy leaves are thinned, decrepit is thy form,
And all my cherished visions, they are flown!

How beautiful, how brief, those sunny hours
Departed now, when life was in its spring
When Fancy knew no scene undecked with flowers,
And Expectation flew on Fancy's wing!

Here, on the bank, beside this whispering stream,
Which still runs by as gayly as of yore,
Marking its eddies, I was wont to dream
Of things away, on some far fairy shore.

Then every whirling leaf and bubbling ball,<...

Creep into thy narrow bed,
Creep, and let no more be said!
Vain thy onset! all stands fast.
Thou thyself must break at last.

Let the long contention cease!
Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
Let them have it how they will!
Thou art tired: best be still.

They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee?
Better men fared thus before thee;
Fired their ringing shot and passed,
Hotly charged, and sank at last.

Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
Let the victors, when they come,
When the forts of folly fall,
Find thy body by the wall!

Seeress of the misty Norland,
Daughter of the Vikings bold,
Welcome to the sunny Vineland,
Which thy fathers sought of old!

Soft as flow of Siija's waters,
When the moon of summer shines,
Strong as Winter from his mountains
Roaring through the sleeted pines.

Heart and ear, we long have listened
To thy saga, rune, and song;
As a household joy and presence
We have known and loved thee long.

By the mansion's marble mantel,
Round the log-walled cabin's hearth,
Thy sweet thoughts and northern fancies
Meet and mingle with our mirth.

And o'er weary spirits keeping
Sorrow's night-watch, long and chill,
Shine they like thy sun of summer
Over midnight vale and hill.

We alone to thee are strangers,
Thou our friend an...

It was a 'moral' end for which they fought;
Else how, when mighty Thrones were put to shame,
Could they, poor Shepherds, have preserved an aim,
A resolution, or enlivening thought?
Nor hath that moral good been 'vainly' sought;
For in their magnanimity and fame
Powers have they left, an impulse, and a claim
Which neither can be overturned nor bought.
Sleep, Warriors, sleep! among your hills repose!
We know that ye, beneath the stern control
Of awful prudence, keep the unvanquished soul:
And when, impatient of her guilt and woes,
Europe breaks forth; then, Shepherds! shall ye rise
For perfect triumph o'er your Enemies.

This is the song of the parson's son, as he squats in his shack alone,
On the wild, weird nights when the Northern Lights shoot up from the frozen zone,
And it's sixty below, and couched in the snow the hungry huskies moan.

"I'm one of the Arctic brotherhood, I'm an old-time pioneer.
I came with the first - O God! how I've cursed this Yukon - but still I'm here.
I've sweated athirst in its summer heat, I've frozen and starved in its cold;
I've followed my dreams by its thousand streams, I've toiled and moiled for its gold.

"Look at my eyes - been snow-blind twice; look where my foot's half gone;
And that gruesome scar on my left cheek where the frost-fiend bit to the bone.
Each one a brand of this devil's land, where I've played and I've lost the game,
A broken wreck wit...

From low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;
A musical but melancholy chime,
Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,
Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.
Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.

Like mighty footlights burned the red
At bases of the trees, --
The far theatricals of day
Exhibiting to these.

'T was universe that did applaud
While, chiefest of the crowd,
Enabled by his royal dress,
Myself distinguished God.

    First the teacher called the roll,
        Clos't to the beginnin',
    "Addeliney Bowersox!"
        Set the school a-grinnin'.
    Wintertime, and stingin'-cold
        When the session took up -
    Cold as we all looked at her,
        Though she couldn't look up!

    Total stranger to us, too -
        Country-folks ain't allus
    Nigh so shameful unpolite
        As some people call us! -
    But the honest facts is, then,
        Addeliney Bower-
    Sox's feelin's was so hurt
        She cried half an hour!

    My dest was acrost from her 'n:
        Set and watched her tryin'
    To p'tend she didn't keer,
        And a kind o' dryin'
    Up her tears with smiles - -tel I
        Th...

    O thou, whom poesy abhors,
    Whom prose has turned out of doors,
    Heard'st thou that groan? proceed no further;
    'Twas laurell'd Martial roaring murther!