Works

I look about me, and behold
How all is changed: The sound and sane,
The kind, the true, the hale and old,
That once made strong the features plain
Of life, are cast in other mold,...

EXPLANATORY
...

Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy
The sons of God fought in that great emprise?
Why dost thou walk our common earth again?
Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,...

Brother that ploughs the furrow I late ploughed,
God give thee grace, and fruitful harvesting,
Tis fair sweet earth, be it under sun or cloud,
And all about it ever the birds sing.
...

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine...

Who gives him the Bath?
"I," said the wet,
Rank-Jungle-sweat,
"I'll give him the Bath!"

Who'll sing the psalms?
"We," said the Palms.
"Ere the hot wind becalms,
"We'll sing the psalms."...

Comrade, yet a little further I would go before the night
Closes round and chills in darkness all the glorious sunset light -
Yet a little, by the cliff there, till the stately home I see...

I thought my heart was death chilled,
I thought its fires were cold;
But the new love, the new love,
It warmeth like the old.

I thought its rooms were shadowed
With the gloom of endless night;...

I.

With the light just quenched in their eyes
They lie in their graves 'neath the skies,
And the fresh clod rests
Heavy upon their breasts.
The white rose dies...

As one who lays aside a task, where one has ruled alone,
I lay aside the crown of hell, and give to you my throne;
As one who feels his race is run, whose day is of the past,...

Day, you have bruised and beaten me,
As rain beats down the bright, proud sea,
Beaten my body, bruised my soul,
Left me nothing lovely or whole,

Yet I have wrested a gift from you,...

When, as the garish day is done,
Heaven burns with the descended sun,
'Tis passing sweet to mark,
Amid that flush of crimson light,
The new moon's modest bow grow bright,
As earth and sky grow dark....

Hard by an ancient mansion stood an oak;
For centuries, 'twas said, it had been there:
The old towers crumbled 'neath decay's slow stroke,
While, hall by hall, upgrew a palace fair;...

I wonder what your thought will be
And what you'll say and do, sir,
When you come home again and see
What Daddy's got for you, sir.

I wonder if you'll like it, boy,
Or turn away disgusted...

The sin was mine; I did not understand.
So now is music prisoned in her cave,
Save where some ebbing desultory wave
Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand.
And in the withered hollow of this land...

Whut dat you whisperin' keepin' f'om me?
Don't shut me out 'cause I 's ol' an' can't see.
Somep'n's gone wrong dat 's a-causin' you dread,--
Don't be afeared to tell--Whut! mastah dead?
...

Under the bare brown rafters,
In his garret bed he lay,
And dreamed of the bright hereafters.
And the merry morns of May.

The snow-flakes slowly sifted
In through each cranny and seam,...

(For My Mother)



The halls that were loud with the merry tread of young and careless feet
Are still with a stillness that is too drear to seem like holiday,...

Lo, here is God, and there is God!
Believe it not, O Man;
In such vain sort to this and that
The ancient heathen ran:
Though old Religion shake her head,
And say in bitter grief,...

In the cedar shadow sleeping,
Where cool grass and fragrant glooms
Oft at noon have lur'd me, creeping
From your darken'd palace rooms:
I, who in your train at morning...