Gay Summer sees the flowering
    Of buds that were the gift of Spring;
    And Winter counts the ripened sheaves
    That Autumn harvested. Who grieves
    When he at length has won the race,
    Or backward then his way would trace?

    Oh, honored Poet, Wit, and Sage,
    This birthday marks an open page,
    And here before its record's writ,
    These words we would inscribe on it.
    "Thou, upon whom thy years fourscore
    So lightly sit, thou hast a store
    Of memories such as they alone
    May have whose hearts all truth have known.
    Now may this year bring thee no less
    Than all the past of happiness!"

        (On his eightieth birthday.)

God, God!
With a child’s voice I cry,
Weak, sad, confidingly,
God, God!
Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up
Unto Thy love (as none of ours are), droop
As ours, o’er many a tear!
Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad,
Two little tears suffice to cover all:
Thou knowest, Thou, who art so prodigal
Of beauty, we are oft but stricken deer
Expiring in the woods, that care for none
Of those delightsome flowers they die upon.

O blissful Mouth which breathed the mournful breath
We name our souls, self-spoilt! by that strong passion
Which paled Thee once with sighs, by that strong death
Which made Thee once unbreathing, from the wrack
Themselves have called around them, call them back,
Back to Thee in continuous aspiration!
For here, O ...

This is the story a man told me
Of his life's one day of dreamery.

A woman came into his room
Between the dawn and the creeping day:
She was the years-wed wife from whom
He had parted, and who lived far away,
As if strangers they.

He wondered, and as she stood
She put on youth in her look and air,
And more was he wonderstruck as he viewed
Her form and flesh bloom yet more fair
While he watched her there;

Till she freshed to the pink and brown
That were hers on the night when first they met,
When she was the charm of the idle town
And he the pick of the club-fire set . . .
His eyes grew wet,

And he stretched his arms: "Stay rest! "
He cried. "Abide with me so, my own!"
But his arms closed in on his hard bare breast;
S...

There is in all the sons of men
A love that in the spirit dwells,
That panteth after things unseen,
And tidings of the future tells.

And God hath built his altar here
To keep this fire of faith alive,
And sent his priests in holy fear
To speak the truth--for truth to strive.

And hither come the pensive train
Of rich and poor, of young and old,
Of ardent youth untouched by pain,
Of thoughtful maids and manhood bold.

They seek a friend to speak the word
Already trembling on their tongue,
To touch with prophet's hand the chord
Which God in human hearts hath strung.

To speak the plain reproof of sin
That sounded in the soul before,
And bid you let the angels in
That knock at meek contrition's door.

A friend to lift...

I.

    Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
        And leave old Scotia's shore?
    Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
        Across th' Atlantic's roar?

II.

    O sweet grows the lime and the orange,
        And the apple on the pine;
    But a' the charms o' the Indies
        Can never equal thine.

III.

    I hae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary,
        I hae sworn by the Heavens to be true;
    And sae may the Heavens forget me
        When I forget my vow!

IV.

    O plight me your faith, my Mary,
        And plight me your lily white hand;
    O plight me your faith, my Mary,
        Before I leave Scotia's strand.

V.

    We hae plighted our troth, my Mary,
        In mut...

With grief and mourning I sit to spin;
My Love passed by, and he didn't come in;
He passes by me, both day and night,
And carries off my poor heart's delight.

There is a tavern in yonder town,
My Love goes there and he spends a crown;
He takes a strange girl upon his knee,
And never more gives a thought to me.

Says he, 'We'll wed without loss of time,
And sure our love's but a little crime;'
My apron-string now it's wearing short,
And my Love he seeks other girls to court.

O with him I'd go if I had my will,
I'd follow him barefoot o'er rock and hill;
I'd never once speak of all my grief
If he'd give me a smile for my heart's relief.

In our wee garden the rose unfolds,
With bachelor's-buttons and marigolds;
I'll tie no posies ...

Who looked for thee, thou little song of mine?
    This winter of a silent poet's heart
    Is suddenly sweet with thee, but what thou art,
Mid-winter flower, I would I could divine.

Art thou a last one, orphan of thy line?
    Did the dead summer's last warmth foster thee?
    Or is Spring folded up unguessed in me,
And stirring out of sight,--and thou the sign?

Where shall I look--backwards or to the morrow
    For others of thy fragrance, secret child?
            Who knows if last things or if first things claim thee?

--Whether thou be the last smile of my sorrow,
    Or else a joy too sweet, a joy too wild?
            How, my December violet, shall I name thee?

Thy song has taught my heart to feel
    Those soothing thoughts of heavenly love,
Which o'er the sainted spirits steal
    When listening to the spheres above!

When, tired of life and misery,
    I wish to sigh my latest breath,
Oh, Emma! I will fly to thee,
    And thou shalt sing me into death.

And if along thy lip and cheek
    That smile of heavenly softness play,
Which,--ah! forgive a mind that's weak,--
    So oft has stolen my mind away.

Thou'lt seem an angel of the sky,
    That comes to charm me into bliss:
I'll gaze and die--Who would not die,
    If death were half so sweet as this?

Who weeps for strangers? Many wept
For George and Sarah Green;
Wept for that pair's unhappy fate,
Whose grave may here be seen.

By night, upon these stormy fells,
Did wife and husband roam;
Six little ones at home had left,
And could not find that home.

For 'any' dwelling-place of man
As vainly did they seek.
He perish'd; and a voice was heard
The widow's lonely shriek.

Not many steps, and she was left
A body without life
A few short steps were the chain that bound
The husband to the wife.

Now do those sternly-featured hills
Look gently on this grave;
And quiet now are the depths of air,
As a sea without a wave.

But deeper lies the heart of peace
In quiet more profound;
The heart of quietness is here<...

        I.

O Life! O Death! O God!
Have I not striven?
Have I not known thee, God,
As thy stars know Heaven?
Have I not held thee true,
True as thy deepest,
Sweet and immaculate blue,
Of nights that feel thy dew?
Have I not known thee true,
O God that keepest?


        II.

O God, my father, God!
Didst give me fire
To rise above the clod,
And soar, aspire!
What tho' I strive and strive,
And all my life says live,
The sneerful scorn of men
But beats it down again;
And, O! sun-centered high,
O God! grand poet!
Beneath thy tender sky
Each day new Keatses die,
And thou dost know it!


        III.

They know thee beautiful!
They know thee bitter!
And all their e...

O bella bionda,
Sei come l'onda!


Of cool sweet dew and radiance mild
The moon a web of silence weaves
In the still garden where a child
Gathers the simple salad leaves.

A moondew stars her hanging hair
And moonlight kisses her young brow
And, gathering, she sings an air:
Fair as the wave is, fair, art thou!

Be mine, I pray, a waxen ear
To shield me from her childish croon
And mine a shielded heart for her
Who gathers simples of the moon.

Change is the order of the universe.
Worlds wax and wane; suns die and stars are born.
Two atoms of cosmic dust unite, cohere
And lo the building of a world begun.
On all things high or low, or great or small
Earth, ocean, mountain, mammoth, midge and man,
On mind and matter lo perpetual change
God's fiat stamped! The very bones of man
Change as he grows from infancy to age.
His loves, his hates, his tastes, his fancies, change.
His blood and brawn demand a change of food;
His mind as well: the sweetest harp of heaven
Were hateful if it played the selfsame tune
Forever, and the fairest flower that gems
The garden, if it bloomed throughout the year,
Would blush unsought. The most delicious fruits
Pall on our palate if we taste too oft,
And Hyblan honey tur...

Hush! She is dead! Tread gently as the light
Foots dim the weary room. Thou shalt behold.
Look: - In death's ermine pomp of awful white,
Pale passion of pulseless slumber virgin cold:
Bold, beautiful youth proud as heroic Might -
Death! and how death hath made it vastly old.

Old earth she is now: energy of birth
Glad wings hath fledged and tried them suddenly;
The eyes that held have freed their narrow mirth;
Their sparks of spirit, which made this to be,
Shine fixed in rarer jewels not of earth,
Far Fairylands beyond some silent sea.

A sod is this whence what were once those eyes
Will grow blue wild-flowers in what happy air;
Some weed with flossy blossoms will surprise,
Haply, what summer with her affluent hair;
Blush roses bask those cheeks; and...

When a man is in love
how can he use old words?
Should a woman
desiring her lover
lie down with
grammarians and linguists?

I said nothing
to the woman I loved
but gathered
love's adjectives into a suitcase
and fled from all languages.

    Did he forget? ... I do not remember,
    All I had of him once I still have to-day;
    He was lovely to me as the word "amber,"
    As the taste of honey and as the smell of hay.

    What if he forget if I remember?
    What more of love have you than I to say?
    I have and hold him still in the word "amber,"
    Taste of honey brings him, he comes back with the hay.

    My dear cockadoodle, my jewel, my joy,
    My darling, my honey, my pretty sweet boy;
    Before I do rock thee with soft lullaby,
    Give me thy dear lips to be kiss'd, kiss'd, kiss'd.

I am not poor, but I am proud,
Of one inalienable right,
Above the envy of the crowd,--
Thought's holy light.

Better it is than gems or gold,
And oh! it cannot die,
But thought will glow when the sun grows cold,
And mix with Deity.

BOSTON, 1823.

On this wondrous sea,
Sailing silently,
Ho! pilot, ho!
Knowest thou the shore
Where no breakers roar,
Where the storm is o'er?

In the silent west
Many sails at rest,
Their anchors fast;
Thither I pilot thee, --
Land, ho! Eternity!
Ashore at last!