Mary, the day of love's pleasures has been,
And the day is o'erclouded and gone;
These eyes all their fulness of pleasure have seen,
What they never again shall look on.
The sun has oft risen and shrunk from the heaven,
And flowers with the night have been wet;
And many a smile on another's been given,
Since the first smile of Mary I met.

And eyes have been won with thy charms when thou smil'd,
As ripe blossoms tempting the bee;
And kisses the sweets of thy lips have defiled,
Since last they breath'd heaven on me.
Their honey's first tasting was lovely and pleasant,
But others have rifled the cell:
Love sickens to think of the past and the present,
Bidding all that was Mary--farewel!

The blushes of rose-blossoms shortly endure,
Though sweet is...

Shade of Caractacus, if spirits love
The cause they fought for in their earthly home
To see the Eagle ruffled by the Dove
May soothe thy memory of the chains of Rome.

These children claim thee for their sire; the breath
Of thy renown, from Cambrian mountains, fans
A flame within them that despises death
And glorifies the truant youth of Vannes.

With thy own scorn of tyrants they advance,
But truth divine has sanctified their rage,
A silver cross enchased with flowers of France
Their badge, attests the holy fight they wage.

The shrill defiance of the young crusade
Their veteran foes mock as an idle noise;
But unto Faith and Loyalty comes aid
From Heaven, gigantic force to beardless boys.

Plunging and labouring on in a tide of visions,
    Dolorous and dear,
Forward I pushed my way as amid waste waters
    Stretching around,
Through whose eddies there glimmered the customed landscape
    Yonder and near,

Blotted to feeble mist. And the coomb and the upland
    Foliage-crowned,
Ancient chalk-pit, milestone, rills in the grass-flat
    Stroked by the light,
Seemed but a ghost-like gauze, and no substantial
    Meadow or mound.

What were the infinite spectacles bulking foremost
    Under my sight,
Hindering me to discern my paced advancement
    Lengthening to miles;
What were the re-creations killing the daytime
    As by the night?

O they were speechful faces, gazing insistent,
    Some as with smiles,
Some ...

        'T will not be long before they hear
            The bullbat on the hill,
        And in the valley through the dusk
            The pastoral whippoorwill.
        A few more friendly suns will call
            The bluets through the loam
        And star the lanes with buttercups
                Away down home.

        "Knee-deep!" from reedy places
            Will sing the river frogs.
        The terrapins will sun themselves
            On all the jutting logs.
        The angler's cautious oar will leave
            A trail of drifting foam
        Along the shady currents
                Away down home.

        The mocking-bird will feel again
            The glory of his wings,
        And wanton through the balmy air

"Should one of us remember,
And one of us forget,
I wish I knew what each will do -
But who can tell as yet?"

"Should one of us remember,
And one of us forget,
I promise you what I will do -
And I'm content to wait for you,
And not be sure as yet."

To lift the sombre fringes of the Night,
To open lands long darkened to the Light,
To heal grim wounds, to give the blind new sight,
Right mightily wrought he.
        Forth to the fight he fared,
        High things and great he dared,
        He thought of all men but himself,
        Himself he never spared.
        He greatly loved--
        He greatly lived--
        And died right mightily.

Like Him he served, he walked life's troublous ways,
With heart undaunted, and with calm, high face,
And gemmed each day with deeds of sweetest grace;
Pull lovingly wrought he.
        Forth to the fight he fared,
        High things and great he dared,
        In His Master's might, to spread the Light,
        Right lovingly wrought he.
        ...

Sickness brought me this
Thought, in that scale of his:
Why should I be dismayed
Though flame had burned the whole
World, as it were a coal,
Now I have seen it weighed
Against a soul?

We speak of the world that passes away, -
The world of men who lived years ago,
And could not feel that their hearts' quick glow
Would fade to such ashen lore to-day.

We hear of death that is not our woe,
And see the shadow of funerals creeping
Over the sweet fresh roads by the reaping;
But do we weep till our loved ones go?

When one is lost who is greater than we,
And loved us so well that death should reprieve
Of all hearts this one to us; when we must leave
His grave, - the past will break like the sea!

Say, wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of bright and dark obscurity;
Where the path has lost its way,
Where the sun forgets the day,
Where there's nor light nor life to see,
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me?

Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
Where plains will rise like ocean's waves,
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And darkness darken into caves,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity
Where parents live and are forgot,
And sisters live and know us not?

Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be,
To live in death and be the same,
Without this life or home or name,
At once to be and not to...

I would I were an angel strong,
An angel of the sun, hasting along!

I would I were just come awake,
A child outbursting from night's dusky brake!

Or lark whose inward, upward fate
Mocks every wall that masks the heavenly gate!

Or hopeful cock whose clarion clear
Shrills ten times ere a film of dawn appear!

Or but a glowworm: even then
My light would come straight from the Light of Men!

I am a dead seed, dark and slow:
Father of larks and children, make me grow.

I saw fond lovers in that glow
    That oft-times fades away too soon:
I saw and said, 'Their joy I know -
    I, too, have had my honeymoon.'

A young expectant mother's gaze
    Held earth and heaven within its scope:
My thoughts went back to holy days -
    I said, 'I, too, have known that hope.'

I saw a stricken mother swayed
    By sorrow's storm, like wind-blown grass:
I said, 'I, too, dismayed
    Have seen the little white hearse pass.'

I saw a matron rich with years
    Walk radiantly beside her mate:
I blessed them, and said through my tears,
    'I, too, have known that high estate.'

I saw a woman swathed in black
    So blind with grief she could not see:
I said, 'Not far need I look back -
    I, too, have kno...

He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain:
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had thence retir'd; and, with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore,
Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore.

But he, who found not whom his soul desir'd,
Whose virtue charm'd him as her beauty fir'd,
Stood in the gates, and ask'd what way she bent
Her parting steps; if to the fane she went,
Where late the mourning matrons made resort,
Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court.
"Not to the court" replied th' attendant train,<...

How dazzling the sunbeams awoke on the spray,
When Australia first rose in the distance away,
As welcome to us on the deck of the bark,
As the dove to the vision of those in the ark!
What fairylike fancies appear’d to the view
As nearer and nearer the haven we drew!
What castles were built and rebuilt in the brain,
To totter and crumble to nothing again!

We had roam’d o’er the ocean had travers’d a path,
Where the tempest surrounded and shriek’d in its wrath:
Alike we had roll’d in the hurricane’s breath,
And slumber’d on waters as silent as death:
We had watch’d the Day breaking each morn on the main,
And had seen it sink down in the billows again;
For week after week, till dishearten’d we thought
An age would elapse ere we enter’d the port.

How o...

A thousand knights have rein’d their steeds
To watch this line of sand-hills run,
Along the never silent Strait,
To Calais glittering in the sun:

To look toward Ardres’ Golden Field
Across this wide aërial plain,
Which glows as if the Middle Age
Were gorgeous upon earth again.

Oh, that to share this famous scene
I saw, upon the open sand,
Thy lovely presence at my side,
Thy shawl, thy look, thy smile, thy hand!

How exquisite thy voice would come,
My darling, on this lonely air!
How sweetly would the fresh sea-breeze
Shake loose some lock of soft brown hair!

But now my glance but once hath roved
O’er Calais and its famous plain;
To England’s cliffs my gaze is turn’d,
O’er the blue Strait mine eyes I strain.

Thou...

As one, who, journeying westward with the sun,
Beholds at length from the up-towering hills,
Far-off, a land unspeakable beauty fills,
Circean peaks and vales of Avalon:
And, sinking weary, watches, one by one,
The big seas beat between; and knows it skills
No more to try; that now, as Heaven wills,
This is the helpless end, that all is done:
So 'tis with him, whom long a vision led
In quest of Beauty; and who finds at last
She lies beyond his effort; all the waves
Of all the world between them: while the dead,
The myriad dead, who people all the past
With failure, hail him from forgotten graves.

The mighty ocean rolls and raves,
To part us with its angry waves;
But arch on arch from shore to shore,
In a vast fabric reaching o’er,

With careful labours daily wrought
By steady hope and tender thought,
The wide and weltering waste above,
Our hearts have bridged it with their love.

There fond anticipations fly
To rear the growing structure high;
Dear memories upon either side
Combine to make it large and wide.

There, happy fancies day by day,
New courses sedulously lay;
There soft solicitudes, sweet fears,
And doubts accumulate, and tears.

While the pure purpose of the soul,
To form of many parts a whole,
To make them strong and hold them true,
From end to end, is carried through.

Then when the waters war b...

Over and over and over
    These truths I will weave in song -
That God's great plan needs you and me,
That will is greater than destiny,
    And that love moves the world along.

However mankind may doubt it,
    It shall listen and hear my creed -
That God may ever be found within,
That the worship of self is the only sin,
    And the only devil is greed.

Over and over and over
    These truths I will say and sing,
That love is mightier far than hate,
That a man's own thought is a man's own fate,
    And that life is a goodly thing.

As a quiet little seedling
Lay within its darksome bed,
To itself it fell a-talking,
And this is what it said:

"I am not so very robust,
But I 'll do the best I can;"
And the seedling from that moment
Its work of life began.

So it pushed a little leaflet
Up into the light of day,
To examine the surroundings
And show the rest the way.

The leaflet liked the prospect,
So it called its brother, Stem;
Then two other leaflets heard it,
And quickly followed them.

To be sure, the haste and hurry
Made the seedling sweat and pant;
But almost before it knew it
It found itself a plant.

The sunshine poured upon it,
And the clouds they gave a shower;
And the little plant kept growing
Till it found itself a flo...