What art thou--friend or foe? Stand! stand! My heart is true as steel, Steady still in woe and weal, Strong to bear, though quick to feel-- Take my hand!
The Grey-beard Winter sat alone and still, Locking his treasures in the flinty earth; And like a miser comfortless and chill, Frown'd upon pleasure and rejected mirth; ...
Winds are sighing round the drooping eaves; Sadly float the midnight hours away; Dun and grey athwart the ivy-leaves, Fall the first pale chilly tints of day, Ah me! the weary, weary tints of day. ...
The lights have faded from the little casement, As though her closing eyes had brought on night; And now she dreams--Ah! dreams supremely bright, While silence reigns around from roof to basement....
From what rock-hollow'd cavern deep in ocean, Where jagged columns break the billow's beat, Whirl'd upward by some wild mid-world commotion, Has this rose-tinted shell steer'd to my feet? ...
The day fades fast; And backward ebbs the tide of light From the far hills in billows bright, Scattering foam, as they sweep past, O'er the low clouds that bank the sky, And barrier day off solemnly....
Peace! Let me go, or ere it be too late; Dip not your arrows in the honey-mead; Paint not the wound through which my heart doth bleed; Leave me unmock'd, unpitied to my fate-- Peace! Let me go. ...
Time sets his footprints on our little Earth, And, walk he ne'er so softly, some sweet thing Falls 'neath each foot-fall, crush'd amid its mirth, Tracking the course of Life's short wandering,...
It was too sweet--such dreams do ever fade When Sorrow shakes the sleeper from his rest-- Life still to me hath been a masquerade, Woe in Mirth's wildest, gayest mantle drest,...
Turn thine eyes from me, Angel of Heaven-- Read not my soul, Angel of Heaven-- Sorrow is steeping my pale cheeks with weeping, Evermore keeping her wand on my heart,...
My little bark glides steadily along, Still and unshaken as a summer dream; And never falls the oar into the stream, For 'tis but morning, and the current strong; So let the ripples bear me as they will;...
The night is dark, and evermore The thick drops patter on the pane The wind is weary of the rain, And round the thatches moaneth sore; Dark is the night, and cold the air;...
Autumn went faintly flying o'er the land, Trailing her golden hair along the West, Weeping to find her waving fields despoil'd, Her yellow leaves all floating on the wind:...
Life's chalice is empty--pour in! pour in! What?--Pour in Strength! Strength for the struggle through good and ill; Through good--that the soul may be upright still, Unspoil'd by riches, unswerving in will,...
Hot blows the wild simoom across the waste, The desert waste, amid the dreary sand, With fiery breath swift burning up the land, O'er the scared pilgrim, speeding on in haste,...
About the land I wander, all forlorn, About the land, with sorrow-quench'd eyes; Seeking my love among the silent woods; Seeking her by the fountains and the streams;...