By the side of a silvery streamlet, That flowed through meadows green, Lay a youth on the verge of manhood And a boy of fair sixteen; And the elder spake of the future, That bright before them lay,...
Low lies the mere beneath the moorside, still And glad of silence: down the wood sweeps clear To the utmost verge where fed with many a rill Low lies the mere. ...
When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm Across green fields and yellow hills of hay The little twittering birds laugh in his way And poise triumphant on his shining arm....
What lively lad most pleasured me Of all that with me lay? I answer that I gave my soul And loved in misery, But had great pleasure with a lad That I loved bodily. ...
At Bethlehem upon the hill, The day was done, the night was nigh, The dusk was deep and had its will, The stars were very small and still, Like unblown tapers, faint and high. ...
Above the bones St. Ursula owns, And those of the virgins she chaperons; Above the boats, And the bridge that floats, And the Rhine and the steamers' smoky throats;...
In verse by your command I write. Shortly you'll bid me ride astride, and fight: These talents better with our sex agree Than lofty flights of dangerous poetry....
My noble, lovely, little Peggy, Let this my First Epistle beg ye, At dawn of morn, and close of even, To lift your heart and hands to Heaven. In double duty say your prayer:...
Back to the breast of thy mother, Child of the earth! E'en her caress can not smother What thou hast done. Follow the trail of the westering sun Over the earth. Thy light and his were as one--...
Next, then, the peacock, gilt With all its feathers. Look, what gorgeous dyes Flow in the eyes! And how deep, lustrous greens are splashed and spilt Along the back, that like a sea-wave's crest...
They laughed at me as "Prof. Moon," As a boy in Spoon River, born with the thirst Of knowing about the stars. They jeered when I spoke of the lunar mountains, And the thrilling heat and cold,...
Shrieks out of smoke, a flame of dung-straw fire That is not quenched but hath for only fruit What writhes and dies not in its rotten root: Two things made flesh, the visible desire...
Deluded mortals, whom the great Choose for companions t'te-'-t'te; Who at their dinners, en famille, Get leave to sit whene'er you will; Then boasting tell us where you dined,...
De win' is hollahin' "Daih you" to de shuttahs an' de fiah, De snow's a-sayin' "Got you" to de groun', Fu' de wintah weathah 's come widout a-askin' ouah desiah, An' he 's laughin' in his sleeve at whut he foun';...
A little grey curl from my father's head I find unburned on the hearth, And give it a place in my diary here, With a feeling half sadness, half mirth. For the long white locks are our special pride,...
With hearts responsive And enfranchised eyes, We thank Thee, Lord,-- For all things beautiful, and good, and true; For things that seemed not good yet turned to good;...
I saw a certain sailorman who sat beside the sea, And in the manner of his tribe he yawned this yarn to me: "'Twere back in eighteen-fifty-three, or mebbe fifty-four,...