We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire;
For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return
If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,
As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.

Lights of infinite pity star the grey dusk of our days:
Surely here is soul: with it we have eternal breath:
In the fire of love we live, or pass by many ways,
By unnumbered ways of dream to death.

My heart is sad,

My peace is o'er;
I find it never

And nevermore.

When gone is he,
The grave I see;
The world's wide all
Is turned to gall.

Alas, my head

Is well-nigh crazed;
My feeble mind

Is sore amazed.

My heart is sad,

My peace is o'er;
I find it never

And nevermore.

For him from the window

Alone I spy;
For him alone

From home go I.

His lofty step,

His noble form,
His mouth's sweet smile,

His glances warm,

His voice so fraught

With magic bliss,
His hand's soft pressure,

And, ah, his kiss!

My heart is sad,

My peace is o'er;
I find it never

And nevermore.
...

His day was the greatest the Northland has seen,
It one was with the midnight-sun's wonders serene:
The light wherein he sat was the light of God's true peace,
And that has never morning, nor night when it must cease.

In light of God's peace shone the history he gave,
The spirit's course on earth that shall conquer the grave.
Might of God's pure peace thus our fathers' mighty way
Before us for example and warning open lay.

In light of God's peace he beheld with watchful eye
The people at their work and the spirit's strivings high.
In light of God's pure peace he would have all learning glow,
And where his word is honored the "Folk-High-Schools" must grow.

In light of God's peace stood 'mid sorrow and care
For Denmark's folk his comfort, a cast...

    God bless you, dear Queen Bess!
    May nothing you dismay,
    But health and peace and happiness
    Be yours, this Christmas day.

    Here's fruit to feed our busy bee,
    And flowers for her nose.
    Here's music for her pianee,
    An afghan for her toes,

    A portrait of Joanna, see,
    By Raphael No. 2,
    Who laboured with great industry
    To make it fair and true.

    Accept a ribbon red, I beg,
    For Madam Purrer's tail,
    And ice cream made by lovely Peg,
    A Mont Blanc in a pail.

    Their dearest love my makers laid
    Within my breast of snow.
    Accept it, and the Alpine maid,
    From Laurie and from Jo.

All my past life is mine no more,
The flying hours are gone,
Like transitory dreams giv'n o'er,
Whose images are kept in store
By memory alone.

The time that is to come is not;
How can it then be mine?
The present moment's all my lot;
And that, as fast as it is got,
Phyllis, is only thine.

Then talk not of inconstancy,
False hearts, and broken vows;
If I, by miracle, can be
This live-long minute true to thee,
'Tis all that Heav'n allows.

    Suppose it is nothing but the hive:
    That there are drones and workers
    And queens, and nothing but storing honey -
    (Material things as well as culture and wisdom) -
    For the next generation, this generation never living,
    Except as it swarms in the sun-light of youth,
    Strengthening its wings on what has been gathered,
    And tasting, on the way to the hive
    From the clover field, the delicate spoil.
    Suppose all this, and suppose the truth:
    That the nature of man is greater
    Than nature's need in the hive;
    And you must bear the burden of life,
    As well as the urge from your spirit's excess -
    Well, I say to live it out like a god
    Sure of immortal life, though you are in doubt,
    Is the way to live it.

Out, traytor Absence, dar'st thou counsell me
From my deare captainesse to run away,
Because in braue array heere marcheth she,
That, to win mee, oft shewes a present pay?
Is faith so weake? or is such force in thee?
When sun is hid, can starres such beames display?
Cannot heau'ns food, once felt, keepe stomakes free
From base desire on earthly cates to pray?
Tush, Absence; while thy mistes eclipse that light,
My orphan sense flies to the inward sight,
Where memory sets forth the beames of loue;
That, where before hart lou'd and eyes did see,
In hart both sight and loue now coupled be:
Vnited pow'rs make each the stronger proue.

A ship with shields before the sun,
Six maidens round the mast,
A red-gold crown on every one,
A green gown on the last.

The fluttering green banners there
Are wrought with ladies' heads most fair,
And a portraiture of Guenevere
The middle of each sail doth bear.

A ship which sails before the wind,
And round the helm six knights,
Their heaumes are on, whereby, half blind,
They pass by many sights.

The tatter'd scarlet banners there,
Right soon will leave the spear-heads bare.
Those six knights sorrowfully bear,
In all their heaumes some yellow hair.

The point is turned; the twilight shadow fills
The wheeling stream, the soft receding shore,
And on our ears from deep among the hills
Breaks now the rapid's sudden quickening roar.
Ah yet the same, or have they changed their face,
The fair green fields, and can it still be seen,
The white log cottage near the mountain's base,
So bright and quiet, so home-like and serene?
Ah, well I question, for as five years go,
How many blessings fall, and how much woe.

Aye there they are, nor have they changed their cheer,
The fields, the hut, the leafy mountain brows;
Across the lonely dusk again I hear
The loitering bells, the lowing of the cows,
The bleat of many sheep, the stilly rush
Of the low whispering river, and through all,
Soft human tongues that break the...

Written In The Danville (KY.) Cemetery.


I.

Within thy hallowed precincts on this sweet autumnal day,
    We're wandering 'neath the cedar and the pine,
Where rests the sacred dust of loved ones passed away,
    And bleeding hearts a melancholy pleasure find.


II.

In memory's faithful mirror here once more we trace
    Familiar forms of those in life we knew,
And see again the shadowy outlines of some face
    That, living, beamed with kindness--ever true.


III.

Old age, and manhood's prime, and helpless infancy
    Have dotted o'er with many an emerald mound,
And marked each stone with mournful tracery
    Which stands within this consecrated ground.


IV.

And there the marble shaft its s...

SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH

I shiver, Spirit fierce and bold,
At thought of what I now behold:
As vapours breathed from dungeons cold,
Strike pleasure dead,
So sadness comes from out the mould
Where Burns is laid.

And have I then thy bones so near,
And thou forbidden to appear?
As if it were thyself that's here
I shrink with pain;
And both my wishes and my fear
Alike are vain.

Off weight, nor press on weight! away
Dark thoughts! they came, but not to stay;
With chastened feelings would I pay
The tribute due
To him, and aught that hides his clay
From mortal view.

Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth
He sang, his genius "glinted" forth,
Rose like a star that touching earth,
For so it seems,
Doth glori...

With arms and legs at work and gentle stroke
That urges switching tail nor mends his pace,
On an old ribbed and weather beaten horse,
The farmer goes jogtrotting to the fair.
Both keep their pace that nothing can provoke
Followed by brindled dog that snuffs the ground
With urging bark and hurries at his heels.
His hat slouched down, and great coat buttoned close
Bellied like hooped keg, and chuffy face
Red as the morning sun, he takes his round
And talks of stock: and when his jobs are done
And Dobbin's hay is eaten from the rack,
He drinks success to corn in language hoarse,
And claps old Dobbin's hide, and potters back.

Chameleons feed on light and air:
Poets' food is love and fame:
If in this wide world of care
Poets could but find the same
With as little toil as they,
Would they ever change their hue
As the light chameleons do,
Suiting it to every ray
Twenty times a day?

Poets are on this cold earth,
As chameleons might be,
Hidden from their early birth
in a cave beneath the sea;
Where light is, chameleons change:
Where love is not, poets do:
Fame is love disguised: if few
Find either, never think it strange
That poets range.

Yet dare not stain with wealth or power
A poet's free and heavenly mind:
If bright chameleons should devour
Any food but beams and wind,
They would grow as earthly soon
As their brother lizards are.
C...

To some the heavenly Father good
Has given raiment rich and fine,
And tables spread with dainty food,
And jewels rare that brightly shine.

To some He's given gold that buys
Immunity from petty care,
Freedom and leisure and the prize
Of pleasing books and pictures fair.

To some He's given wide domains
And high estate and tranquil ease,
And homes where all refinement reigns
And everything combines to please.

To some He's given minds to know
The what and how, the where and when;
To some, a genius that can throw
A light upon the hearts of men.

To some He's given fortunes free
From sorrows and replete with joys;
To some, a thousand friends; to me
He's given my two little boys.

        [From a MS. in the old Royal Library, in the British Museum, the exact reference to which is mislaid. It is written, if I recollect rightly, in a hand of the time of Henry VIII, in an older manuscript.]

    We make no spare
    Of John Hunkes' mare;
    And now I
    Think she will die;
    He thought it good
    To put her in the wood,
    To seek where she might ly dry;
    If the mare should chance to fale,
    Then the crownes would for her sale.

Not for the thought that burns on keen and clear,
    Heat that the heat has turned from red to white,
    The passion of the lone remembering night
One with the patience day must see and hear -
Not for the shafts the lying foemen fear,
    Shot from the soul's intense self-centring light -
    But for the heart of love divine and bright,
We praise you, worker, thinker, poet, seer!
Man of the People, - faithful in all parts,
    The veins' last drop, the brain's last flickering dole,
    You on whose forehead beams the aureole
That hope and "certain hope" alone imparts -
    Us have you given your perfect heart and soul;
Wherefore receive as yours our souls and hearts!

'Since Sinus crossed the Milky Way, sixty thousand years have gone.' - GARRETT P. SERVISS.

Since Sirius crossed the Milky Way
    Full sixty thousand years have gone,
Yet hour by hour, and day by day,
    This tireless star speeds on and on.

Methinks he must be moved to mirth
    By that droll tale of Genesis,
Which says creation had its birth
    For such a puny world as this.

To hear how One who fashioned all
    Those Solar Systems, tier on tiers,
Expressed in little Adam's fall
    The purpose of a million spheres.

And, witness of the endless plan,
    To splendid wrath he must be wrought
By pigmy creeds presumptuous man
    Sends forth as God's primeval thought.

Perchance from half a hundred stars
    He hears as ma...

I hold it the duty of one who is gifted,
    And specially dowered in all men's sight,
To know no rest till his life is lifted
    Fully up to his great gifts' height.

He must mold the man into rare completeness,
    For gems are set only in gold refined.
He must fashion his thoughts into perfect sweetness,
    And cast out folly and pride from his mind.

For he who drinks from a god's gold fountain
    Of art or music or rhythmic song
Must sift from his soul the chaff of malice,
    And weed from his heart the roots of wrong.

Great gifts should be worn, like a crown befitting!
    And not like gems in a beggar's hands.
And the toil must be constant and unremitting
    Which lifts up the king to the crown's demands.