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It sometimes happens that the soul stands firm.
Although death’s cruel wind blows everywhere,
The soul's frail blossom is too proud to tremble:
Even the tiniest petal will not stir....

(As sung by the camp fire.)


No doubt the saying's all abroad,
And rattling through the land.
We hear it at the mangle, too,
With 'What are you going to stand?'...

I've got an arrow here;
Loving the hand that sent it,
I the dart revere.

Fell, they will say, in 'skirmish'!
Vanquished, my soul will know,
By but a simple arrow
Sped by an archer's bow.

I was not he the man
Who used to pilgrim to your gate,
At whose smart step you grew elate,
And rosed, as maidens can,
For a brief span.

It was not I who sang...

I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret
Yon slowly-sinking star, immortal Sire
(So might he seem) of all the glittering quire!
Blue ether still surrounds him, yet, and yet;...

I went to heaven, --
'T was a small town,
Lit with a ruby,
Lathed with down.
Stiller than the fields
At the full dew,
Beautiful as pictures
No man drew.
People like the moth,...

I went to thank her,
But she slept;
Her bed a funnelled stone,
With nosegays at the head and foot,
That travellers had thrown,

Who went to thank her;
But she slept....

I am pale with sick desire,
For my heart is far away
From this world's fitful fire
And this world's waning day;
In a dream it overleaps
A world of tedious ills
To where the sunshine sleeps...

"I wish I had a quiet tomb,
Beside a little rill;
Where birds, and bees, and butterflies,
Would sing upon the hill."

I wrung my hands under my dark veil. . .
"Why are you pale, what makes you reckless?"
-- Because I have made my loved one drunk
with an astringent sadness.

I'll never forget. He went out, reeling;...

Twain? Oh, yes, I've heard Mark Twain
Heard him down to Pleasant Plain;
Funny? Yes, I guess so. Folks
Seemed to laugh loud at his jokes,
Laughed to beat the band; but I
Couldn't rightly make out why....

What is meant by active service
'Ere where sin is leakin' loose,
'N' the oldest 'and's as nervis
As a dog-bedevilled goose,
Has bin writ be every poet
What can rhyme it worth a dam,...

The wondrous shepherd James Hogg
Was happy with his good sheep dog,
Meditating o'er his sweet lays
While his fleecy flocks did graze.

His education it came late
After he reached to man's estate,...

There would be a knock at the door
And I would arise at midnight and go to the shop,
Where belated travelers would hear me hammering
Sepulchral boards and tacking satin....

My valiant fight! For I call it valiant,
With my father's beliefs from old Virginia:
Hating slavery, but no less war.
I, full of spirit, audacity, courage
Thrown into life here in Spoon River,...

Heal us, Emmanuel, here we are,
Waiting to feel thy touch:
Deep-wounded souls to thee repair,
And, Saviour, we are such.


Our faith is feeble, we confess,
We faintly trust thy word;...

I see the Four-fold Man, The Humanity in deadly sleep
And its fallen Emanation, the Spectre and its cruel Shadow.
I see the Past, Present and Future existing all at once...

The Saviour, what a noble flame
Was kindled in his breast,
When hasting to Jerusalem,
He march'd before the rest.


Good-will to men and zeal for God
His every thought engross;...

"Art Thou He that should come?"

Jesus, the Lamb of God, gone forth to heal and bless.
Calm lie the desert pools in a fair wilderness;
Wind-shaken moves the reed, so moves His voice the soul,...

Madam! you ask what marks for beauty pass:
Require them rather from your looking-glass!