Works

Where is that country? The unresting mind
Like a lapwing nears and leaves it and returns.
I know those unknown hill-springs where they rise,
I know the answer of the elms to the wind...

I've had a naughty day to-day.
I scrunched a biscuit in my hair,
And dipped my feeder in the milk,
And spread my rusk upon a chair.

When mother put me in my bath,
I tossed the water all about,...

There was a strife 'twixt man and maid,
Oh, that was at the birth of time!
But what befell 'twixt man and maid,
Oh, that's beyond the grip of rhyme.
'Twas "Sweet, I must not bide with you,"...

The nearest dream recedes, unrealized.
The heaven we chase
Like the June bee
Before the school-boy
Invites the race;
Stoops to an easy clover --
Dips -- evades -- teases -- deploys;...

I know not in Whose hands are laid
To empty upon earth
From unsuspected ambuscade
The very Urns of Mirth;

Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
And cheer our solemn round,...

In summer, on the headlands,
The Baltic Sea along,
Sits Neckan with his harp of gold,
And sings his plaintive song.

Green rolls beneath the headlands,
Green rolls the Baltic Sea....

For my part, I spied red berries
on a currant bush
lush in August;
the canopy of leaves
a nesting place for hornets
clocking one hundred
in & out of their ice-castle hive....

'Twas not rare versatility,
Nor gift of poesy or art,
Nor piquant, sparkling jeux d'esprit
Which at the call of fancy come,
That touched the universal heart,
And won the world's encomium.
...

There is a field, through which I often pass,
Thick overspread with moss and silky grass,
Adjoining close to Kilwick's echoing wood,
Where oft the bitch-fox hides her hapless brood,...

The house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go.

The barn opposed across the way,...

I know the need of the world,
Though it would not have me know.
It would hide its sorrow deep,
Where only God may go.
Yet its secret it can not keep;
It tells it awake, or asleep,...

The need to love that all the stars obey
Entered my heart and banished all beside.
Bare were the gardens where I used to stray;
Faded the flowers that one time satisfied.
...

Paupertas onus visa est grave.


Cold blows the wind, and while the tear
Bursts trembling from my swollen eyes,
The rain's big drop, quick meets it there,
And on my naked bosom flies!...

Forced from home and all its pleasures,
Afric's coast I left forlorn;
To increase a stranger's treasures,
O'er the raging billows borne.
Men from England bought and sold me,...

Lo, what are these, the gyres of sun and world,
Fulfilled with daylight by each toiling sun -
Lo, what are these but webs of radiance spun
Beneath the roof of Night, and torn or furled...

Far down the reach a creeping mist
Hung dim along the mountain side;
On shadowed water, sleek and whist,
I let the lazy shallop glide.

The ripple scarcely cut the green...

I made you many and many a song,
Yet never one told all you are,
It was as though a net of words
Were flung to catch a star;

It was as though I curved my hand
And dipped sea-water eagerly,...

I cast the Net of Memory,
Man's torment and delight,
Over the level Sands of Youth
That lay serenely bright,
Their tranquil gold at times submerged
In the Spring Tides of Love's Delight.
...

This, then, is the grave of my son,
Whose heart she won! And nettles grow
Upon his mound; and she lives just below.

How he upbraided me, and left,
And our lives were cleft, because I said...

By homestead, hut, and shearing-shed,
By railroad, coach, and track,
By lonely graves of our brave dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
To where 'neath glorious the clustered stars
The dreamy plains expand,...