"Harry, where have you been all morning?"
            "Down at the pool in the meadow-brook."
        "Fishing?" "Yes, but the trout were wary,
            Couldn't induce them to take a hook."
        "Why, look at your coat! You must have fallen,
            Your back's just covered with leaves and moss."
        How he laughs! Good-natured fellow!
            Fisherman's luck makes most men cross.

        "Nellie, the Wrights have called. Where were you?"
            "Under the tree, by the meadow-brook
        Reading, and oh, it was too lovely;
            I never saw such a charming book."
        The charming book must have pleased her, truly,
            There's a happy light in her bright young eyes
        And she hugs the cat with unusual fervor...

To each progressive soul there comes a day
    When all things that have pleased and satisfied
Grow flavourless, the springs of joy seem dried.
    No more the waters of youth's fountains play;
Yet out of reach, tiptoeing as they may,
    The more mature and higher pleasures hide.
Life, like a careless nurse, fails to provide
    New toys for those the soul has cast away.

Upon a strange land's border all alone,
    Awhile it stands dismayed and desolate.
Nude too, since its old garments are outgrown;
    Till clothed with strength befitting its estate,
It grasps at length those raptures that are known
    To souls who learn to labour, and to wait.

Scattering, like birds escaped the fowler's net,
Some seek with timely flight a foreign strand;
Most happy, re-assembled in a land
By dauntless Luther freed, could they forget
Their Country's woes. But scarcely have they met,
Partners in faith, and brothers in distress,
Free to pour forth their common thankfulness,
Ere hope declines: their union is beset
With speculative notions rashly sown,
Whence thickly-sprouting growth of poisonous weeds;
Their forms are broken staves; their passions, steeds
That master them. How enviably blest
Is he who can, by help of grace, enthrone
The peace of God within his single breast!

It was deadly cold in Danbury town
    One terrible night in mid November,
    A night that the Danbury folk remember
For the sleety wind that hammered them down,
That chilled their faces and chapped their skin,
    And froze their fingers and bit their feet,
And made them ice to the heart within,
    And spattered and scattered
    And shattered and battered
Their shivering bodies about the street;
And the fact is most of them didn't roam
In the face of the storm, but stayed at home;
While here and there a policeman, stamping
To keep himself warm or sedately tramping
Hither and thither, paced his beat;
Or peered where out of the blizzard's welter
Some wretched being had crept to shelter,
And now, drenched through by the sleet, a muddled
Blur of a ma...

Good-morning, Karlene. It's a very
Fine beautiful world we are in.
Well, you do look as ripe as a berry;
And, pardon me, such a real chin!

And may I--Ah, thank you; the pleasure
Is mine; just one kiss by your ear!--
May I introduce myself as your
Most dutiful godfather, dear?

I have fumed, like champagne that is fizzy,
To pay my respects at your door.
But the publishers keep one so busy.
Forgive my not calling before!

Karlene, you're a very small lady
To venture so far all alone;
Especially into so shady
A place as this planet has grown.

When I now, my dear, was at your age,
When nobody tried to be rich,
But lived on high thinking and porridge
(And didn't know t' other from which!),

...

(NOVEMBER 4, 1864)

Norröna-race's longing,
It was the sea's free wave,
And fight of heroes thronging,
And honor that it gave;
Their thoughts and deeds upspringing
From roots in Surtr's fire,
With branches topward swinging
To Yggdrasil aspire.

His course alone each guided,
Oft brother-harm was done;
Our vict'ries were divided,
The honor gained was one.
Each heard his call time-fated,
First Norway, Denmark, came,
The Swede the longest waited,
But greatest grew his fame.

In eastern, western regions
The Danish dragons shone,
To Norway's roving legions
Jerusalem was known.
From sparks the Swedish spirit
Struck forth in Poland's night,
Through Lützen must inherit
Full half the world its light.

Firs...

Among the holy Mountains high
Is his foundation fast,
There Seated in his Sanctuary,
His Temple there is plac't.
Sions fair Gates the Lord loves more
Then all the dwellings faire
Of Jacobs Land, though there be store,
And all within his care.
City of God, most glorious things
Of thee abroad are spoke;
I mention Egypt, where proud Kings
Did our forefathers yoke,
I mention Babel to my friends,
Philistia full of scorn,
And Tyre with Ethiops utmost ends,
Lo this man there was born:
But twise that praise shall in our ear
Be said of Sion last
This and this man was born in her,
High God shall fix her fast.
The Lord shall write it in a Scrowle
That ne're shall be out-worn
When he the Nations doth enrowle
That this man there was born....

Say thou not sadly, "never," and "no more,"
    But from thy lips banish those falsest words;
While life remains that which was thine before
Again may be thine; in Time's storehouse lie
    Days, hours, and moments, that have unknown hoards
Of joy, as well as sorrow: passing by,
Smiles, come with tears; therefore with hopeful eye
Look thou on dear things, though they turn away,
For thou and they, perchance, some future day
Shall meet again, and the gone bliss return;
For its departure then make thou no mourn,
But with stout heart bid what thou lov'st farewell;
That which the past hath given the future gives as well.

In a fair and sunny forest glade
    O'erarched with chesnuts old,
Through which the radiant sunbeams made
    A network of bright gold,
A girl smiled softly to herself,
    And dreamed the hours away;
Lulled by the sound of the murmuring brook
    With the summer winds at play.

Jewels gleamed not in the tresses fair
    That fell in shining showers,
Naught decked that brow of beauty rare
    But a wreath of forest flowers;
And the violet wore no deeper blue
    Than her own soft downcast eye,
Whilst her bright cheek with the rose's hue
    In loveliness well might vie.

But she was too fair to bloom unknown
    By forest or valley side,
And long ere two sunny years had flown,
    The girl was a wealthy bride -
Removed to so high...

"Are women fair?" Ay, wondrous fair to see, too.
"Are women sweet?" Yea, passing sweet they be, too.
Most fair and sweet to them that only love them;
Chaste and discreet to all save them that prove them.

"Are women wise?" Not wise, but they be witty;
"Are women witty?" Yea, the more the pity;
They are so witty, and in wit so wily,
Though ye be ne'er so wise, they will beguile ye.

"Are women fools?" Not fools, but fondlings many;
"Can women fond be faithful unto any?"
When snow-white swans do turn to colour sable,
Then women fond will be both firm and stable.

"Are women saints?" No saints, nor yet no devils;
"Are women good?" Not good, but needful evils.
So Angel-like, that devils I do not doubt them,
So needful evils that few can live without them...

DEAR COUSIN JOHN:

    I'm very glad you sent that money through,
    By Cousin Seth, an' not by mail, as I requested you!
    The fam'ly's just so much ahead: 'twere best it never came.
    If Jeroboam Jones had twined his fingers 'round the same.
    For that young man has principles fit only to abhor,
    And isn't the kind of relative that I was lookin' for!

    My sakes! Millennium's nowhere near, when men so false can be
    As to equivocate themselves into my family tree;
    An' on its honest branches graft the shoots of their design,
    An' make me think they're good because they're relatives of mine;
    While under those fraternal smiles a robber's frown is hid;
    But that's the inappropriate thing that Jeroboam did!

    When Cousin Seth the ta...

White-haired and hoary-bearded, who art thou
That speedest on, albeit bent with age,
Even as a youth that followeth after dreams?
Whence are thy feet, and whither trends thy way?

Stayed not his hurried steps, but as he passed
His low, hoarse answer fell upon the wind:
"Go thou and question yonder mountain-peaks;
Go thou and ask the hoary-heaving main;
Nay, if thou wilt, the great, globed, silent stars
That sail innumerable the shoreless sea,
And let the eldest answer if he may.
Lo the unnumbered myriad, myriad worlds
Rolling around innumerable suns,
Through all the boundless, bottomless abyss,
Are but as grains of sand upwhirled and flung
By roaring winds and scattered on the sea.
I have beheld them and my hand hath sown.

"Far-twinkling faint ...

So highest poets, painters, owe to Thee
Their being and disciples; none were there,
Hadst Thou not been; Thou art the centre where
The Truth did find an infinite form; and she
Left not the earth again, but made it be
One of her robing rooms, where she doth wear
All forms of revelation. Artists bear
Tapers in acolyte humility.
O Poet! Painter! soul of all! thy art
Went forth in making artists. Pictures? No;
But painters, who in love should ever show
To earnest men glad secrets from God's heart.
So, in the desert, grass and wild flowers start,
When through the sand the living waters go.

Thy sooty godhead I desire
Still to be ready with thy fire;
That should my book despised be,
Acceptance it might find of thee.

In quella parte dov' Amor mi sprona.

HE FINDS HER IMAGE EVERYWHERE.


    When Love, fond Love, commands the strain,
The coyest muse must sure obey;
Love bids my wounded breast complain,
And whispers the melodious lay:
Yet when such griefs restrain the muse's wing,
How shall she dare to soar, or how attempt to sing?

Oh! could my heart express its woe,
How poor, how wretched should I seem!
But as the plaintive accents flow,
Soft comfort spreads her golden gleam;
And each gay scene, that Nature holds to view,
Bids Laura's absent charms to memory bloom anew.

Though Fate's severe decrees remove
Her gladsome beauties from my sight,
Yet, urged by pity, friendly Love
Bids fond reflection yield delight;
If lavish spring wit...

The grasses green of sweet content
That spring, no matter high or low,
Where’er a living thing can grow,
On chilly hills and rocky rent,
And by the lowly streamlet’s side
Oh! why did e’er I turn from these?
The lordly, tall, umbrageous trees,
That stand in high aspiring pride,
With massive bulk on high sustain
A world of boughs with leaf and fruits,
And drive their wide-extending roots
Deep down into the subject plain.
Oh, what with these had I to do?
That germs of things above their kind
May live, pent up and close confined
In humbler forms, it may be true;
Yet great is that which gives our lot;
High laws and powers our will transcend,
And not for this, till time do end,
Shall any be what he is not.
Each in its place, as each was sent,

In the South lies a lonesome, hungry Land;
He huddles his rags with a cripple's hand;
He mutters, prone on the barren sand,
What time his heart is breaking.

He lifts his bare head from the ground;
He listens through the gloom around:
The winds have brought him a strange sound
Of distant merrymaking.

Comes now the Peace so long delayed?
Is it the cheerful voice of Aid?
Begins the time his heart has prayed,
When men may reap and sow?

Ah, God! Back to the cold earth's breast!
The sages chuckle o'er their jest;
Must they, to give a people rest,
Their dainty wit forego?

The tyrants sit in a stately hall;
They jibe at a wretched people's fall;
The tyrants forget how fresh is the pall
Over their dead and ours.

Look ho...

Much strange is true. And yet so much
Dan Time thereto of doubtful lays
He blurs them both beneath his touch:--

In this our tale his part he plays.
At Florence, so the legend tells,
There stood a church that men would praise

(Even where Art the most excels)
For works of price; but chief for one
They called the "Virgin with the Bells."

Gracious she was, and featly done,
With crown of gold about the hair,
And robe of blue with stars thereon,

And sceptre in her hand did bear;
And o'er her, in an almond tree,
Three little golden bells there were,

Writ with Faith, Hope, and Charity.
None knew from whence she came of old,
Nor whose the sculptor's name should be

Of great or small. But this they told:--
That once from...