Out of me unworthy and unknown
    The vibrations of deathless music;
    "With malice toward none, with charity for all.',
    Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions,
    And the beneficent face of a nation
    Shining with justice and truth.
    I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds,
    Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,
    Wedded to him, not through union, But through separation.
    Bloom forever, O Republic,
    From the dust of my bosom!

O that I were
Where breaks the pure cold light
On English hills,
And peewits rising cry,
And gray is all the sky.

Or at evening there
When the faint slow light stays,
And far below
Sleeps the last lingering sound,
And night leans all round.

O then, O there
'Tis English haunted ground.
The diligent stars
Creep out, watch, and smile;
The wise moon lingers awhile.

For surely there
Heroic shapes are moving,
Visible thoughts,
Passions, things divine,
Clear beneath clear star-shine.

O that I were
Again on English hills,
Seeing between
Laborious villages
Her cool dark loveliness.

They prize not most the opulence of June
Who from the year's beginning to its close
Dwell, where unfading verdure tireless grows,
And where sweet summer's harp is kept in tune.
We must have listened to the winter's rune,
And felt impatient longings for the rose,
Ere its full radiance on our vision glows,
Or with its fragrant soul, we can commune.

Not they most prize life's blessings, and delights,
Who walk in safe and sunny paths alway.
But those, who, groping in the darkness, borrow
Pale rays from hope, to lead them through the night,
And in the long, long watches wait for day.
He knows not joy who has not first known sorrow.

I.

    Thine am I, my faithful fair,
        Thine, my lovely Nancy;
    Ev'ry pulse along my veins,
        Ev'ry roving fancy.

II.

    To thy bosom lay my heart,
        There to throb and languish:
    Tho' despair had wrung its core,
        That would heal its anguish.

III.

    Take away those rosy lips,
        Rich with balmy treasure:
    Turn away thine eyes of love,
        Lest I die with pleasure.

IV.

    What is life when wanting love?
        Night without a morning:
    Love's the cloudless summer sun,
        Nature gay adorning.

Some starlit garden grey with dew,
Some chamber flushed with wine and fire,
What matters where, so I and you
Are worthy our desire?

Behind, a past that scolds and jeers
For ungirt loin and lamp unlit;
In front the unmanageable years,
The trap upon the pit;

Think on the shame of dreams for deeds,
The scandal of unnatural strife,
The slur upon immortal needs,
The treason done to life:

Arise! no more a living lie
And with me quicken and control
A memory that shall magnify
The universal Soul.

Marlboro' and Waterloo and Trafalgar,
Tuileries, Talavera, Valenciennes,
Were strange names all, and all familiar;

For down their streets I went, early and late
(Is there a street where I have never been
Of all those hundreds, narrow, skyless, straight?)--

Early and late, they were my woods and meadows;
The rain upon their dust my summer smell;
Their scant herb and brown sparrows and harsh shadows

Were all my spring. Was there another spring?
I knew their noisy desolation well,
Drinking it up as a child drinks everything,

Knowing no other world than brick and stone,
With one rich memory of the earth all bright.
Now all is fallen into oblivion--

All that I was, in years of school and play,
Things that I hated, things that were deli...

 AN OLD STORY.


I.
It was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.

II.
The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, “Good folk, mere noise repels
But give me your sun from yonder skies!”
They had answered, “And afterward, what else?”

III.
Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun
To give it my loving friends to keep.
Nought man could do, have I left undone:
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.

IV.
There’s nobody on the house-tops now
Just a palsied few at the windows set
For ...

I.

Nay but you, who do not love her,
Is she not pure gold, my mistress?
Holds earth aught, speak truth, above her?
Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,
And this last fairest tress of all,
So fair, see, ere I let it fall?

II.

Because, you spend your lives in praising;
To praise, you search the wide world over;
Then why not witness, calmly gazing,
If earth holds aught, speak truth, above her?
Above this tress, and this, I touch
But cannot praise, I love so much!

They hail me as one living,
But don't they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?

I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.

Not at a minute's warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time's enchantments
In hall and bower.

There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death . . .

- A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.

But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.

When passed my friend, my kinsfolk
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died ...

(See Note 7)

To the grave they bore him sleeping,
Him the aged, genial gardener;
Now the children gifts are heaping
From the flower-bed he made.

There the tree that he sat under,
And the garden gate is open,
While we cast a glance and wonder
Whether some one sits there still.

He is gone. A woman only
Wanders there with languid footsteps,
Clothed in black and now so lonely,
Where his laughter erst rang clear.

As a child when past it going,
Through the fence she looked with longing,
Now great tears so freely flowing
Are her thanks that she came in.

Fairy-tales and thoughts high-soaring
Whispered to him 'neath the foliage.
She flits softly, gathering, storing
Them as solace for her woe.

***

F...

You say 'tis plain that poets feign,
    And from the truth depart;
They write with ease what fibs they please,
    With artifice, not art;
Dearer to you the simply true--
    The fact without the fancy--
Than this false play of colours gay,
    So very vague and chancy.
No doubt 'tis well the truth to tell
    In scientific coteries;
But I'll be bold to say she's cold,
    Excepting to her votaries.
The false disguise of tawdry lies
    May hide sweet Nature's face;
But in her form the blood runs warm,
    As in the human race;
And in the rose the dew-drop glows,
    And, o'er the seas serene,
The sunshine white still breaks in light
    Of yellow, blue, and green.
In thousand rays the fancy plays;
    The feelings rise and bubble;

I determined to find out whose it was -
The portrait he looked at so, and sighed;
Bitterly have I rued my meanness
    And wept for it since he died!

I searched his desk when he was away,
And there was the likeness - yes, my own!
Taken when I was the season's fairest,
    And time-lines all unknown.

I smiled at my image, and put it back,
And he went on cherishing it, until
I was chafed that he loved not the me then living,
    But that past woman still.

Well, such was my jealousy at last,
I destroyed that face of the former me;
Could you ever have dreamed the heart of woman
    Would work so foolishly!

I dream again I 'm in the lane
That leads me home through night and rain;
Again the fence I see and, dense,
The garden, wet and sweet of sense;
Then mother's window, with its starry line
Of light, o'ergrown with rose and trumpetvine.

What was 't I heard? Her voice? A bird?
Singing? Or was 't the rain that stirred
The dripping leaves and draining eaves
Of shed and barn, one scarce perceives
Past garden-beds where oldtime flowers hang wet
Pale phlox and candytuft and mignonette.

The hour is late. I can not wait.
Quick. Let me hurry to the gate!
Upon the roof the rain is proof
Against my horse's galloping hoof;
And if the old gate, with its weight and chain,
Should creak, she 'll think it just the wind and rain.

Along I 'll steal, with...

When April woke the drowsy flowers,
    And vagrant odours thronged the breeze,
And bluebirds wrangled in the bowers,
    And daisies flashed along the leas,
And faint arbutus strove among
    Dead winter's leaf-strewn wreck to rise,
And nature's sweetly jubilant song
    Went murmuring up the sunny skies,
Into this cheerful world you came,
And gained by right your vernal name.

I think the springs have changed of late,
    For "Arctics" are my daily wear,
The skies are turned to cold grey slate,
    And zephyrs are but draughts of air;
But you make up whate'er we lack,
    When we, too rarely, come together,
More potent than the almanac,
    You bring the ideal April weather;
When you are with us we defy
The blustering air, the lowering sk...

    My Father Christmas passed away
    When I was barely seven.
    At twenty-one, alack-a-day,
    I lost my hope of heaven.

    Yet not in either lies the curse:
    The hell of it's because
    I don't know which loss hurt the worse -
    My God or Santa Claus.

Tune - "Rothemurche's Rant."


I.

        Lassie wi' the lint-white locks,
            Bonnie lassie, artless lassie,
        Wilt thou wi' me tent the flocks?
            Wilt thou be my dearie, O?
    Now nature cleeds the flowery lea,
    And a' is young and sweet like thee;
    O wilt thou share its joy wi' me,
        And say thoul't be my dearie, O?

II.

    And when the welcome simmer shower
    Has cheer'd ilk drooping little flower,
    We'll to the breathing woodbine bower
        At sultry noon, my dearie, O.

III.

    When Cynthia lights wi' silver ray,
    The weary shearer's hameward way;
    Thro' yellow waving fields we'll stray,
        And talk o' love my dearie, O.

IV.

Darlings of June and brides of summer sun,
Chill pipes the stormy wind, the skies are drear;
Dull and despoiled the gardens every one:
What do you here?

We looked to see your gracious blooms arise
Mid soft and wooing airs in gardens green,
Where venturesome brown bees and butterflies
Should hail you queen.

Here is no bee nor glancing butterfly;
They fled on rapid wings before the snow:
Your sister lilies laid them down to die,
Long, long ago.

And here, amid the slowly dropping rain,
We keep our Easter feast, with hearts whose care
Mars the high cadence of each lofty strain,
Each thankful prayer.

But not a shadow dims your joyance sweet,
No baffled hope or memory darkly clad;
You lay your whiteness at the Lord's dear feet,

Prat he writes satires, but herein's the fault,
In no one satire there's a mite of salt.