Works

I

In youth I have known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held, as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit...

(See Note 40)

I passed by the house one summer day,
Morning sunshine upon it lay;
Toward the windows that blood-red burned
Flaming my soul was turned, was turned.
There spring had found me...

I pray thee by the soul of her that bore thee,
By thine own sister's spirit I implore thee,
Deal gently with the leaves that lie before thee!

For Iris had no mother to infold her,...

I rose from dreamless hours and sought the morn
That beat upon my window: from the sill
I watched sweet lands, where Autumn light newborn
Swayed through the trees and lingered on the hill....

I said and sang her excellence:
They called it laud undue.
(Have your way, my heart, O!)
Yet what was homage far above
The plain deserts of my olden Love
Proved verity of my new.
...

I say, "I'll seek her side
Ere hindrance interposes;"
But eve in midnight closes,
And here I still abide.

When darkness wears I see
Her sad eyes in a vision;
They ask, "What indecision...

Is Heaven a physician?
They say that He can heal;
But medicine posthumous
Is unavailable.


Is Heaven an exchequer?
They speak of what we owe;
But that negotiation
I 'm not a party to.

I.

I wouldn't mind the weather much--I'd sizzle and I'd stew,
And do the very best I could the heat to struggle through,
If I could find some way, you know, the feller to eschew,...

Is it not sweet to think, hereafter,
When the Spirit leaves this sphere.
Love, with deathless wing, shall waft her
To those she long hath mourned for here?

Hearts from which 'twas death to sever....

Tune - "For a' that, and a' that."


I.

Is there, for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!...

I stood tip-toe upon a little hill,
The air was cooling, and so very still,
That the sweet buds which with a modest pride
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,...

Fu' de peace o' my eachin' heels, set down;
Don' fiddle dat chune no mo'.
Don' you see how dat melody stuhs me up
An' baigs me to tek to de flo'?
You knows I 's a Christian, good an' strong;...

The skies have sunk, and hid the upper snow
(Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie),
The rainy clouds are filing fast below,
And wet will be the path, and wet shall we....

I think just how my shape will rise
When I shall be forgiven,
Till hair and eyes and timid head
Are out of sight, in heaven.

I think just how my lips will weigh
With shapeless, quivering prayer...

I thought, my Heart, that you had healed
Of those sore smartings of the past,
And that the summers had oversealed
All mark of them at last.
But closely scanning in the night...

It is no Spirit who from heaven hath flown,
And is descending on his embassy;
Nor Traveller gone from earth the heavens to espy!
'Tis Hesperus, there he stands with glittering crown,...

We will be what we could be. Do not say,
"It might have been, had not or that, or this."
No fate can keep us from the chosen way;
He only might, who IS.

We will do what we could do. Do not dream...

We will be what we could be. Do not say,
"It might have been, had not or that, or this."
No fate can keep us from the chosen way;
He only might, who is.

We will do what we could do. Do not dream...

It'S All I Have To Bring To-Day,
This, and my heart beside,
This, and my heart, and all the fields,
And all the meadows wide.
Be sure you count, should I forget, --
Some one the sum could tell, --...

I have known the most dear that is granted us here,
More supreme than the gods know above,
Like a star I was hurled through the sweet of the world,
And the height and the light of it, Love....