Time and Space decreed his lot,
But little Man was quick to note:
When Time and Space said Man might not,
Bravely he answered, "Nay! I mote."

I looked on old New England.
Time and Space stood fast.
Men built altars to Distance
At every mile they passed.

Yet sleek with oil, a Force was hid
Making mock of all they did,
Ready at the appointed hour
To yield up to Prometheus
The secular and well-drilled Power
The Gods secreted thus.

And over high Wantastiquet
Emulous my lightnings ran,
Unregarded but afret,
To fall in with my plan.

I beheld two ministries,
One of air and one of earth,
At a thought I married these,
And my New Age came to birth!

For rarely my purpose errs
Though oft it seems to pause,

Great-hearted child, thy very being The Son,
    Who know'st the hearts of all us prodigals;--
For who is prodigal but he who has gone
    Far from the true to heart it with the false?--
    Who, who but thou, that, from the animals',
        Know'st all the hearts, up to the Father's own,
        Can tell what it would be to be alone!

Alone! No father!--At the very thought
    Thou, the eternal light, wast once aghast;
A death in death for thee it almost wrought!
    But thou didst haste, about to breathe thy last,
    And call'dst out Father ere thy spirit passed,
        Exhausted in fulfilling not any vow,
        But doing his will who greater is than thou.

That we might know him, thou didst come and live;
    That we might find him, ...

A joy from my soul's departed,
A bliss from my heart is flown,
As weary, weary-hearted,
I wander alone - alone!
The night wind sadly sigheth
A withering, wild refrain,
And my heart within me dieth
For the light in the window pane.

The stars overhead are shining,
As brightly as e'er they shone,
As heartless - sad - repining,
I wander alone - alone!
A sudden flash comes streaming,
And flickers adown the lane,
But no more for me is gleaming
The light in the window pane.

The voices that pass are cheerful,
Men laugh as the night winds moan;
They cannot tell how fearful
'Tis to wander alone - alone!
For them, with each night's returning,
Life singeth its tenderest strain,
Where the beacon of love is burning -
The light ...

Erano i capei d' oro all' aura sparsi.

HE PAINTS THE BEAUTIES OF LAURA, PROTESTING HIS UNALTERABLE LOVE.


    Loose to the breeze her golden tresses flow'd
Wildly in thousand mazy ringlets blown,
And from her eyes unconquer'd glances shone,
Those glances now so sparingly bestow'd.
And true or false, meseem'd some signs she show'd
As o'er her cheek soft pity's hue was thrown;
I, whose whole breast with love's soft food was sown,
What wonder if at once my bosom glow'd?
Graceful she moved, with more than mortal mien,
In form an angel: and her accents won
Upon the ear with more than human sound.
A spirit heavenly pure, a living sun,
Was what I saw; and if no more 'twere seen,
T' unbend the bow will never heal the wound.

ANON., OX., 17...

        I have not been among the woods,
        Nor seen the milk-weeds burst their hoods,

        The downy thistle-seeds take wing,
        Nor the squirrel at his garnering.

        And yet I know that, up to God,
        The mute month holds her goldenrod,

        That clump and copse, o'errun with vines,
        Twinkle with clustered muscadines,

        And in deserted churchyard places
        Dwarf apples smile with sunburnt faces.

        I know how, ere her green is shed,
        The dogwood pranks herself with red;

        How the pale dawn, chilled through and through,
        Comes drenched and draggled with her dew;

        How all day long the sunlight seems
        As if it lit a land of dreams,

...

Now, dear, it isn't the bold things,
Great deeds of valour and might,
That count the most in the summing up of life at the end of the day.
But it is the doing of old things,
Small acts that are just and right;
And doing them over and over again, no matter what others say;
In smiling at fate, when you want to cry, and in keeping at work when you want to play -
Dear, those are the things that count.

And, dear, it isn't the new ways
Where the wonder-seekers crowd
That lead us into the land of content, or help us to find our own.
But it is keeping to true ways,
Though the music is not so loud,
And there may be many a shadowed spot where we journey along alone;
In flinging a prayer at the face of fear, and in changing into a song a groan -
Dear, these are the thin...

Lord, I am like to mistletoe,
Which has no root, and cannot grow
Or prosper but by that same tree
It clings about; so I by Thee.
What need I then to fear at all,
So long as I about Thee crawl?
But if that tree should fall and die,
Tumble shall heav'n, and down will I.

When in the dance of the Nymphs, in the moonlight so holy assembled,

Mingle the Graces, down from Olympus in secret descending,
Here doth the minstrel hide, and list to their numbers enthralling,

Here doth he watch their silent dances' mysterious measure.
All that is glorious in Heaven, and all that the earth in her beauty

Ever hath brought into life, the dreamer awake sees before him;
All he repeats to the Muses, and lest the gods should be anger'd,

How to tell of secrets discreetly, the Muses instruct him.

THE BURGHERS.

Thus did the prudent son escape from the hot conversation,
But the father continued precisely as he had begun it
What is not in a man can never come out of him, surely!
Never, I fear, shall I see fulfill'd my dearest of wishes,
That my son should be unlike his father, but better.
What would be the fate of a house or a town, if its inmates
Did not all take pride in preserving, renewing, improving,
As we are taught by the age, and by the wisdom of strangers?
Man is not born to spring out of the ground, just like a mere mushroom,
And to rot away soon in the very place that produced him!
Leaving behind him no trace of what he has done in his lifetime.
One can judge by the look of a house of the taste of its master,
As on ent'ring a town, one can judge the aut...

Temptations hurt not, though they have access:
Satan o'ercomes none, but by willingness.

    '"Healfast, healfast, ye hero wounds;
    O knight, be quickly strong!
    Beloved strife
    For fame and life,
    Oh, tarry not too long!"'

Quel sempre acerbo ed onorato giorno.

HE RECALLS HER AS HE SAW HER WHEN IN TEARS.


    That ever-painful, ever-honour'd day
So left her living image on my heart
Beyond or lover's wit or poet's art,
That oft to it will doting memory stray.
A gentle pity softening her bright mien,
Her sorrow there so sweet and sad was heard,
Doubt in the gazer's bosom almost stirr'd
Goddess or mortal, which made heaven serene.
Fine gold her hair, her face as sunlit snow,
Her brows and lashes jet, twin stars her eyne,
Whence the young archer oft took fatal aim;
Each loving lip--whence, utterance sweet and low
Her pent grief found--a rose which rare pearls line,
Her tears of crystal and her sighs of flame.

MACGREGOR.


    That ever-hon...

1.
Arethusa arose
From her couch of snows
In the Acroceraunian mountains, -
From cloud and from crag,
With many a jag,
Shepherding her bright fountains.
She leapt down the rocks,
With her rainbow locks
Streaming among the streams; -
Her steps paved with green
The downward ravine
Which slopes to the western gleams;
And gliding and springing
She went, ever singing,
In murmurs as soft as sleep;
The Earth seemed to love her,
And Heaven smiled above her,
As she lingered towards the deep.

2.
Then Alpheus bold,
On his glacier cold,
With his trident the mountains strook;
And opened a chasm
In the rocks - with the spasm
All Erymanthus shook.
And the black south wind
It unsealed behind
The urns of the sil...

Three women stood by the river's flood
In the gas-lamp's murky light,
A devil watched them on the left,
And an angel on the right.

The clouds of lead flowed overhead;
The leaden stream below;
They marvelled much, that outcast three,
Why Fate should use them so.

Said one: "I have a mother dear,
Who lieth ill abed,
And by my sin the wage I win
From which she hath her bread."

Said one: "I am an outcast's child,
And such I came on earth.
If me ye blame, for this my shame,
Whom blame ye for my birth?"

The third she sank a sin-blotched face,
And prayed that she might rest,
In the weary flow of the stream below,
As on her mother's breast.

Now past there came a godly man,
Of goodly stock and blood,
And as he ...

    Christmas-Days are still in store:--
        Will they change--steal faded hither?
    Or come fresh as heretofore,
        Summering all our winter weather?

    Surely they will keep their bloom
        All the countless pacing ages:
    In the country whence they come
        Children only are the sages!

    Hither, every hour and year,
        Children come to cure our oldness--
    Oft, alas, to gather sear
        Unbelief, and earthy boldness!

    Men they grow and women cold,
        Selfish, passionate, and plaining!
    Ever faster they grow old:--
        On the world, ah, eld is gaining!

    Child, whose childhood ne'er departs!
        Jesus, with the perfect father!
    Drive the age from parents' hearts;

Ah, God! were I away, away,
By woodland-belted hills!
There might be more in Thy bright day
Than my poor spirit thrills.

The elder coppice, banks of blooms,
The spice-wood brush, the field
Of tumbled clover, and perfumes
Hot, weedy pastures yield.

The old rail-fence whose angles hold
Bright briar and sassafras,
Sweet priceless wild flowers blue and gold
Starred through the moss and grass.

The ragged path that winds unto
Lone cow-behaunted nooks,
Through brambles to the shade and dew
Of rocks and woody brooks.

To see the minnows turn and gleam
White sparkling bellies, all
Shoot in gray schools adown the stream
Let but a dead leaf fall.

The buoyant pleasure and delight
Of floating feathered seeds.
Capri...

When Cupid held an auction sale,
I hastened to his mart,
For I had heard that he would sell
The blue-eyed Dora’s heart.

I brought a wealth of truest love,
The most that I could proffer,
Because, forsooth, of stocks or bonds
I had not one to offer.

When Cupid offered Dora’s heart,
I bid my whole heart’s love,
A love that reached from sea to sea
And to the sky above;

And When Sir Cupid called for more,
I bid my hands and life,
That should be hers for servitude
If she became my wife.

Then “Going! going!” Cupid cried;
The silence was intense
Until old Goldbags said, “I bid
My stocks and four per cents!”

Then Cupid cried, “Fair Dora’s heart,
That ne’er was sold before!
Does anybody raise the bid?
Will...

Warriors true, 'tis no false glory
    For which now you peril life, -
For no worthless aim unholy,
    Do ye plunge into the strife;
No unstable, fleeting vision
    Bright before your gaze hath shone,
No day dream of wild ambition,
    Now your footsteps urges on:

But a cause both great and glorious,
    Worthy of a Christian's might,
One which yet shall be victorious, -
    'Tis the cause of God and right:
Men! by aim more pure and holy
    Say, could soldiers be enticed?
Strike for truth and conscience solely,
    Strike for Pius and for Christ.

Even like the brave Crusaders -
    Heroes true and tried of old,
You would check the rash invaders
    Of all that we sacred hold.
And though hosts your steps beleaguer,
    Fu...