Works

I fasted for some forty days on bread and buttermilk,
For passing round the bottle with girls in rags or silk,
In country shawl or Paris cloak, had put my wits astray,...

'Shall we carry now your bundle,
You old grey man?

Over hill and over meadow,
Lighter than an owlet's shadow,
We will whirl it through the air,
Through blue regions shrill and bare;
...

Put by the sun my joyful soul,
We are for darkness that is whole;

Put by the wine, now for long years
We must be thirsty with salt tears;

Put by the rose, bind thou instead...

Still thus, when twilight gleamed,
Far off his Castle seemed,
Traced on the sky;
And still, as fancy bore him.
To those dim towers before him,
He gazed, with wishful eye;...

Youth's gay springtime scarcely knowing
Went I forth the world to roam
And the dance of youth, the glowing,
Left I in my father's home,
Of my birthright, glad-believing,
Of my world-gear took I none,...

The shades of night were brooding
O'er the sea, the earth, the sky;
The passing winds were wailing
In a low, unearthly sigh;
The darkness gathered deeper,
For no starry light was shed,...

Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass
Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?
For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing....

An uphill path, sun-gleams between the showers,
Where every beam that broke the leaden sky
Lit other hills with fairer ways than ours;
Some clustered graves where half our memories lie;...

A Pilgrim, when the summer day
Had closed upon his weary way,
A lodging begged beneath a castle's roof;
But him the haughty Warder spurned;
And from the gate the Pilgrim turned,...

The historical incident related in this poem is recorded in Cheever's "JOURNAL OF THE PILGRIMS."


'T was early morn, the low night-wind
Had fled the sun's fierce ray,
And sluggishly the leaden waves...

In the hour of twilight shadows
The Pilgrim sire looked out;
He thought of the "bloudy Salvages"
That lurked all round about,
Of Wituwamet's pictured knife
And Pecksuot's whooping shout;...

But once I pass this way,
And then--no more.
But once--and then, the Silent Door
Swings on its hinges,--
Opens ... closes,--
And no more
I pass this way.
So while I may,...

Fame's pillar here, at last, we set,
Outduring marble, brass, or jet.
Charm'd and enchanted so
As to withstand the blow
Of o v e r t h r o w;...

Where towers are crushed, and unforbidden weeds
O'er mutilated arches shed their seeds;
And temples, doomed to milder change, unfold
A new magnificence that vies with old;...

"False," they said, "thy Pale-face lover, from the land of waking morn;
Rise and wed thy Redskin wooer, nobler warrior ne'er was born;
Cease thy watching, cease thy dreaming,
Show the white thine Indian scorn."...

When peevish flaws his soul have stirred
To fretful tears for crossed desires,
Obedient to his mother's word
My child to banishment retires.

As disappears the moon, when wind...

The pine-apples, in triple row,
Were basking hot, and all in blow;
A bee of most discerning taste
Perceived the fragrance as he pass'd,
On eager wing the spoiler came,...

Dearest, best and brightest,
Come away,
To the woods and to the fields!
Dearer than this fairest day
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow...

I

We work here together
In blast and breeze;
He fills the earth in,
I hold the trees.

He does not notice
That what I do
Keeps me from moving
And chills me through.
...

We sleep in the sleep of ages, the bleak, barbarian pines;
The grey moss drapes us like sages, and closer we lock our lines,
And deeper we clutch through the gelid gloom where never a sunbeam shines.
...