Works

No girdle hath weaver or goldsmith wrought
So rich as the arms of my love can be;
No gems with a lovelier lustre fraught
Than her eyes, when they answer me liquidly.
Dear lady of love, be kind to me...

Ah, London! London! our delight,
Great flower that opens but at night,
Great City of the Midnight Sun,
Whose day begins when day is done.

Lamp after lamp against the sky...

It is the Police Commissioners,
All on a winter's day;
And they to prove the town water
Have set themselves away.

They went to the north, they went to the south,
And into the west went they,...

(Gratefully Dedicated to Mrs. Pankhurst)


She bore us in her dreaming womb,
And laughed into the face of Death;
She laughed, in her strange agony, -
To give her little baby breath.
...

The Raven croak'd as she sate at her meal,
And the Old Woman knew what he said,
And she grew pale at the Raven's tale,
And sicken'd and went to her bed.
...

Crowd about me, little children -
Come and cluster 'round my knee
While I tell a little story
That happened once with me.

My father he had gone away
A-sailing on the foam,...

"Abide with us!" Where could we go?
Thou art our strength, thou art our tower,
Our refuge from the ills below,
In darkness light, in weakness power.

"Abide with us!" We would prevail,...

At the grey dawn, amongst the felling leaves,
A little bird outside my window swung,
High on a topmost branch he trilled his song,
And 'Ireland! Ireland! Ireland!' ever sung.
...

(WRITTEN FOR A FRIEND'S BIRTHDAY.)

"The days of our life are threescore years and ten."


A birthday: - and a day that rose
With much of hope, with meaning rife -...

Who know thee, love: thy life be such
That, ere the year be o'er,
Each one who loves thee now so much,
Even God, may love thee more!

Well! I'm determin'd; that's enough: -
Gee, Bayard! move your poor old bones,
I'll take to-morrow, smooth or rough,
To go and court the Widow Jones.

Our master talks of stable-room,...

Behold! the Tabernacle of God's Will
This woman's form enshrineth. What is this,
More glorious than all our age-long bliss,
Which shines within the shadow of her sill?...

Born July 22, 1849; Died November 19, 1887.



One hesitates to lift the veil and throw the light upon a life so
hidden and a personality so withdrawn as that of Emma Lazarus; but...

(In Springfield, Illinois)



It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,...

O the precipice Titanic
Of the congregated Fall,
And the angle oceanic
Where the deepening thunders call -
And the Gorge so grim,
And the firmamental rim!
Multitudinously thronging...

Fly hence, pale care, no more remember
Past sorrows with the fled December,
But let each pleasant cheek appear
Smooth as the childhood of the year,
And sing a carol here....

One evening while reclining
In my easy-chair, repining
O'er the lack of true religion, and the dearth of common sense,
A solemn visaged lady,
Who was surely on the shady...

I

When moiling seems at cease
In the vague void of night-time,
And heaven's wide roomage stormless
Between the dusk and light-time,
And fear at last is formless,
We call the allurement Peace....

Oh, hadst thou fall'n, brave youth! on that proud day,[1]
When our victorious fleet o'er the red surge
Rolled in terrific glory, thou hadst fall'n
Most honoured; and Remembrance, while she thought...

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it is any more than he.
...