Works

They ain't no style about 'em,
And they're sorto' pale and faded,
Yit the doorway here, without 'em,
Would be lonesomer, and shaded
With a good 'eal blacker shudder
Than the morning-glories makes,...

All the world over, nursing their scars,
Sit the old fighting-men broke in the wars,
Sit the old fighting-men, surly and grim
Mocking the lilt of the conquerors' hymn.
...

The fire burns low
Where it has burned ages ago,
Sinks and sighs
As it has done to a hundred eyes
Staring, staring
At the last cold smokeless glow.

Here men sat...

I know not how it may be with others
Who sit amid relics of householdry
That date from the days of their mothers' mothers,
But well I know how it is with me
Continually.
...

Old Indiany, 'course we know
Is first, and best, and most, also,
Of all the States' whole forty-four: -
She's first in ever'thing, that's shore! -
And best in ever'way as yet...

Last night we were kept awake.
Could n't sleep for Old Jack Frost;
Wandering round like some old ghost.
Gave the door an awful shake;
Knocked against my bed's brass post.
Last night we were kept awake....

I.
The morn when first it thunders in March,
The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say.
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch
Of the villa-gate this warm March day,...

I have jest about decided
It 'ud keep a town-boy hoppin'
Fer to work all winter, choppin'
Fer a' old fire-place, like I did!
Lawz! them old times wuz contrairy! -
Blame backbone o' winter, 'peared-like,...

Ole Docteur Fiset of Saint Anicet,
Sapr' tonnerre! he was leev long tam!
I'm sure he's got ninety year or so,
Beat all on de Parish 'cept Pierre Courteau,
An' day affer day he work all de sam'.
...

Fountain, that sparklest through the shady place,
Making a soft, sad murmur o'er the stones
That strew thy lucid way! Oh, if some guest
Should haply wander near, with slow disease...

Like sea-washed sand upon the shore,
So fine and clean the tale,
So clear and bright I almost see,
The flashing of a sail.

The tang of salt is in its veins,
The freshness of the spray...

1.
The odour from the flower is gone
Which like thy kisses breathed on me;
The colour from the flower is flown
Which glowed of thee and only thee!

2.
A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form,...

Come gentle Air! th' AEolian shepherd said,
While Procris panted in the secret shade:
Come, gentle Air, the fairer Delia cries,
While at her feet her swain expiring lies....

Reader, I was born, and cried;
I crack'd, I smelt, and so I died.
Like Julius Caesar's was my death,
Who in the senate lost his breath.
Much alike entomb'd does lie
The noble Romulus and I:...

By the mossy brink,
With me the Prince shall sit and think;
Shall muse in visioned Regency,
Rapt in bright dreams of dawning Royalty.

Whence comes Solace? - Not from seeing
What is doing, suffering, being,
Not from noting Life's conditions,
Nor from heeding Time's monitions;
But in cleaving to the Dream,
And in gazing at the gleam...

("J'aime le carillon dans tes cit's antiques.")

[XVIII., August, 1837.]


Within thy cities of the olden time
Dearly I love to list the ringing chime,...

With their deep voice, monotonous and slow,
The cannon's thunders roll along the sea;
But 'tis in reverence, and to work no woe
Those sounds here reach the shore and onward flee...

I'm glad I am alive, to see and feel
The full deliciousness of this bright day,
That's like a heart with nothing to conceal;
The young leaves scarcely trembling; the blue-grey...

Flower of the mountain! by the wanderer's hand
Robbed of thy beauty's short-lived sunny day;
Didst thou but blow to gem the stranger's way,
And bloom, to wither in the stranger's land?...