Works

For thirty years secluded from mankind,
Here Marten linger'd. Often have these walls
Echoed his footsteps, as with even tread
He paced around his prison: not to him
Did Nature's fair varieties exist;...

As through the forest, disarrayed
By chill November, late I strayed,
A lonely minstrel of the wood
Was singing to the solitude
I loved thy music, thus I said,
When o'er thy perch the leaves were spread...

In the year that's come and gone, love, his flying feather
Stooping slowly, gave us heart, and bade us walk together.
In the year that's coming on, though many a troth be broken,...

In those good days when we were young and wise,
You spake to music, you with the thoughtful eyes,
And God looked down from heaven, pleased to hear
A young man's song arise so firm and clear....

Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace
Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair,
That brow untouched by one faint line of care,
To mar its openness, we seem to trace...

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...

I saw thy form in youthful prime,
Nor thought that pale decay
Would steal before the steps of Time,
And waste its bloom away, Mary!

Yet still thy features wore that light,...

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,...

I thought, before my sunlit twentieth year,
That I knew Love, and Death that goes with it;
And my young broken heart in little songs,
Dew-like, I poured, and waited for my end...

I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
As you and I once heard their monotone.
...

There! my pipe is out. Let me light it again and consider. I have no illusions about myself. I am not fool enough to think I am a poet, but I have a knack of rhyme and I love to make verses. Mine is a tootling, tin-whistle musi...

Ay s'pose yu tenk life ban hard game.
Ay guess yu lak to qvit, perhaps.
Ay hear yu say, "It ban a shame
To see so many lucky chaps."
Yu say, "Dese guys ban mostly yaps:
Ay vish ay had some money, tu,...

I vex me not with brooding on the years
That were ere I drew breath: why should I then
Distrust the darkness that may fall again
When life is done? Perchance in other spheres--...

'Neath skies that winter never knew
The air was full of light and balm,
And warm and soft the Gulf wind blew
Through orange bloom and groves of palm.

A stranger from the frozen North,...

It was long I lay
Awake that night
Wishing that night
Would name the hour
And tell me whether
To call it day
(Though not yet light)
And give up sleep.
The snow fell deep...

I worked no wile to meet you,
My sight was set elsewhere,
I sheered about to shun you,
And lent your life no care.
I was unprimed to greet you
At such a date and place,
Constraint alone had won you...

I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes;
I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,...

How pleasing simplest recollections seem!
Now summer comes, it warms me to look back
On the sweet happiness of youth's wild track,
Varied and fleeting as a summer dream:...

Whisperings, heard by wakeful maids,
To whom the night-stars guide us;
Stolen walks thro' moonlight shades,
With those we love beside us,
Hearts beating,
At meeting;
Tears starting,...

All the selfish joys of earth,
I am getting through.
That which used to lure and lead
Now I pass and give no heed;
Only one thing seems of worth -
Just you.

Not for me the lonely height,...