Works

1854

Oh for one hour of youthful joy!
Give back my twentieth spring!
I'd rather laugh, a bright-haired boy,
Than reign, a gray-beard king.

Off with the spoils of wrinkled age!...

The blackened walnut in its spicy hull
Rots where it fell;
And, in the orchard, where the trees stand full,
The pear's ripe bell
Drops; and the log-house in the bramble lane,
From whose low door...

One misty, moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather,
There I met an old man clothed all in leather, clothed all in leather,
With cap under his chin,
How do you do, how do you do, how do you do, again, again.

Do you know the Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea?
Have you met with that dreadful old man?
If you have n't been caught, you will be, you will be;
For catch you he must and he can.
...

OFT have I seen in wedlock with surprise,
That most forgot from which true bliss would rise
When marriage for a daughter is designed,
The parents solely riches seem to mind;...

Among our hills and valleys, I have known
Wise and grave men, who, while their diligent hands
Tended or gathered in the fruits of earth,
Were reverent learners in the solemn school...

I saw an aged man upon his bier,
His hair was thin and white, and on his brow
A record of the cares of many a year;
Cares that were ended and forgotten now.
And there was sadness round, and faces bowed,...

Youth has no fear of ill, by no cloudy days annoyed,
But the old man's all hath fled, and his hopes have met their doom:
The bud hath burst to flower, and the flower been long destroyed,...

("D'rision! que cet amour boiteux.")

[HERNANI, Act III.]


O mockery! that this halting love
That fills the heart so full of flame and transport,
Forgets the body while it fires the soul!...

Verses Occasioned by the Foregoing Epistle.


Sopitos suscita ignes.

VIRG.


From man's too curious and impatient sight,
The future, Heaven involves in thickest night....

Joe lives on the farm, and Sam lives in the city,
I haven't a daughter at all - more's the pity,
For girls, to my mind, are much nicer and neater;
Not such workers as boys, but cuter and sweeter....

An old man sat beneath a tree
Alone;
So still was he
That, if he had been carved in stone,
He could not be
More quiet or more cold:
He was an ancient man
More than
A thousand ages old.

(New Jersey, 1918)


Its quiet graves were made for peace till Gabriel blows his horn.
Those wise old elms could hear no cry
Of all that distant agony--...

Old and alone, sit we,
Caged, riddle-rid men;
Lost to Earth's "Listen!" and "See!"
Thought's "Wherefore?" and "When?"

Only far memories stray
Of a past once lovely, but now...

This is our lot if we live so long and labour unto the end,
Then we outlive the impatient years and the much too patient friend:...

I heard the old, old men say,
"Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away."
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn-trees
By the waters....

Old coach-road West by Nor'-ward,
Old mile-tree by the track:
A dead branch pointing forward,
And a dead branch pointing back.
And still in clear-cut romans
On his hard heart he tells...

'Twas to greet the new rector I called I here,
But in the arm-chair I see
My old friend, for long years installed here,
Who palely nods to me.

The new man explains what he's planning...

Friend of my early days, we meet once more!
Once more I stand thine aged boughs beneath,
And hear again the rustling music pour,
Along thy leaves, as whispering spirits breathe.
...

I sit beneath your leaves, old oak,
You mighty one of all the trees;
Within whose hollow trunk a man
Could stable his big horse with ease.

I see your knuckles hard and strong,...