Works

L'eternite est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement dans le silence des tombeaux:
"Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!"--JACQUES BRIDAINE.
...

The little cottage stood alone, the pride
Of solitude surrounded every side.
Bean fields in blossom almost reached the wall;
A garden with its hawthorn hedge was all
The space between.--Green light did pass...

The frogs still cry, "Knee-deep! knee-deep!"
Among its starlit pools,
When dark the woodland lies asleep,
And dusk its water cools:
The fireflies round its bank of ferns
Hang will-o'-wisps for lamps,...

Here's the old cruiser, 'Twenty-nine,
Forty times she 's crossed the line;
Same old masts and sails and crew,
Tight and tough and as good as new.

Into the harbor she bravely steers...

I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;
And he was seated, by the highway side,
On a low structure of rude masonry
Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
Who lead their horses down the steep rough road...

The old days - the far days -
The overdear and fair! -
The old days - the lost days -
How lovely they were!
The old days of Morning,
With the dew-drench on the flowers
And apple-buds and blossoms...

Come, let's climb into our attic,
In our house that's old and gray!
Life, you're old and I'm rheumatic,
And it's close of day.

Lay aside your rags and tatters,
Shirt and shoes so soiled with clay!...

In an old world garden dreaming,
Where the flowers had human names,
Methought, in fantastic seeming,
They disported as squires and dames.

Of old in Rosamond's Bower,...

O! well I mind the olden time,
The sweet, sweet olden time;
When I did long for eve all day,
And watch'd upon the new-mown grass
The shadows slowly eastward pass,
And o'er the meadows glide away,...

"It fell on a day, that he went out to his father to the reapers.
And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad,
Carry him to his mother. And, he sat on her knees till noon,...

"These were never your true love's eyes.
Why do you feign that you love them?
You that broke from their constancies,
And the wide calm brows above them!

This was never your true love's speech....

Dormered and verandaed, cool,
Locust-girdled, on the hill;
Stained with weather-wear, and dull-
Streak'd with lichens; every sill
Thresholding the beautiful;

I can see it standing there,...

How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood
That now but in mem'ry I sadly review;
The old meeting-house at the edge of the wildwood,
The rail fence, and horses all tethered thereto;...

Have ye heard of Fort Donelson's desperate fight,
Where the giant Northwest bared his arm for the right,
Where thousands so bravely went down in the slaughter,
And the blood of the West ran as freely as water;...

My old flame, my wife!
Remember our lists of birds?
One morning last summer, I drove
by our house in Maine. It was still
on top of its hill,

Now a red ear of Indian maize...

"If I could whisper you all I know,"
Said the Old Fool in the Wood,
"You'd never say that green leaves grow.
You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood
The Master must be in today,
To think such thoughts,'...

W'en daih 's chillun in de house,
Dey keep on a-gittin' tall;
But de folks don' seem to see
Dat dey 's growin' up at all,
'Twell dey fin' out some fine day
Dat de gals has 'menced to grow,...

Spurge and sea-pink, hyssop blue,
Dragonhead of purple hue;
Catnip, frosted green and gray,
With blue butterflies a-sway,
These may point you out the way.

These and Summer's acolytes,...

I.

I stood in an ancient garden
With high red walls around;
Over them grey and green lichens
In shadowy arabesque wound.

The topmost climbing blossoms
On fields kine-haunted looked out;...

I.

There was moonlight in the garden and the chirr and chirp of crickets;
There was scent of pink and peony and deep syringa thickets,
When adown the pathway whitely, where the firefly glimmered brightly,...