Works

"When will the grave fling her cold arms around me,
And earth on her dark bosom pillow my head?
Sorrow and trouble and anguish, have found me,
Oh that I slumbered in peace with the dead!
...

Words from the mirror softly pass
To the curtains with a sigh:
"Why should I trouble again to glass
These smileless things hard by,
Since she I pleasured once, alas,
Is now no longer nigh!"
...

Ah, what hast thou done with that Lover of mine?
The Lover who only cared for thee?
Mine for a handful of nights, and thine
For the Nights that Are and the Days to Be,...

If I can bear your love like a lamp before me,
When I go down the long steep Road of Darkness,
I shall not fear the everlasting shadows,
Nor cry in terror.

If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,...

The lamp shone golden where she slept,
Shining against deep-folded shadows.
There was no stir but her slow breathing
Save when a long sigh crept
Between her lips.
...

When a man's faith is frozen up, as dead;
Then is the lamp and oil extinguished.

Like some gaunt ghost the tempest wails
Outside my door; its icy nails
Beat on the pane: and Night and Storm
Around the house, with furious flails
Of wind, from which the slant sleet hails,...

Whenever on the windowpane
I hear the fingers of the rain,
And in the old trees, near the door,
The wind that whispers more and more,
Bright in the light made by the lamp
I make myself a hunter's camp....

When the light of day declineth,
And a swift angel through the sky
Kindleth God's tapers clear,
With ashen staff the lamplighter
Passeth along the darkling streets
To light our earthly lamps;
...

Laugh your best, O blazoned forests,
Me ye shall not shift or shame
With your beauty: here among you
Man hath set his spear of flame.

Lamp to lamp we send the signal,...

When Julius Fabricius, Sub-Prefect of the Weald,
In the days of Diocletian owned our Lower River-field,
He called to him Hobdenius-a Briton of the Clay,
Saying: "What about that River-piece for layin' in to hay?"...

There was a landau deep and wide,
Cushioned for Sleep's own self to sit on,
The glory of the country-side
From Tanner's End to Marlow Ditton.
John of the broad and brandied cheek...

Between the little Here and larger Yonder,
There is a realm (or so one day I read)
Where faithful spirits love-enchained may wander,
Till some remembering soul from earth has fled....

The lonely sunsets flare forlorn
Down valleys dreadly desolate;
The lordly mountains soar in scorn
As still as death, as stern as fate.

The lonely sunsets flame and die;...

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
...

THE RHYME OF SIR CHRISTOPHER

It was Sir Christopher Gardiner,
Knight of the Holy Sepulchre,
From Merry England over the sea,
Who stepped upon this continent
As if his august presence lent...

I.

Through the streets of Marblehead
Fast the red-winged terror sped;

Blasting, withering, on it came,
With its hundred tongues of flame,

Where St. Michael's on its way...

Have ever you heard of the Land of Beyond,
That dreams at the gates of the day?
Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies,
And ever so far away;
Alluring it calls: O ye the yoke galls,...

I.

There was once a little boy
So my father told me who
Never cared for any toy,
But just sweet things, as boys do,
Cakes and comfits, cream and ice,
All the things that boys think nice,...

I set out for the Land of Content,
By the gay crowded pleasure-highway,
With laughter, and jesting, I went
With the mirth-loving throng for a day;
Then I knew I had wandered astray,...