Works

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O what is this you've done to me,
Or what have I done,
That bare should be our fair roof-tree,
And I all alone?
'Tis worse than widow I become
More than desolate,...

Much strange is true. And yet so much
Dan Time thereto of doubtful lays
He blurs them both beneath his touch:--

In this our tale his part he plays.
At Florence, so the legend tells,...

Man of virtue has need;-into life with boldness he plunges,
Entering with fortune more sure into the hazardous strife;
But to woman one virtue suffices; it is ever shining...

The husht September afternoon was sweet
With rich and peaceful light. I could not hear
On either side the sound of moving feet
Although the hidden road was very near....

(Written in the shadow of 1872.)


Twelve years ago, when I could face
High heaven's dome with different eyes
In days full-flowered with hours of grace,
And nights not sad with sighs...

Oh Sea, that with infinite sadness, and infinite yearning
Liftest thy crystal forehead toward the unpitying stars,--
Evermore ebbing and flowing, and evermore returning...

They sat with hearts untroubled,
The clear sky sparkled above,
And an ancient wisdom bubbled
From the lips of a youthful love.

They read in a coloured history
Of Egypt and of the Nile,...

The sword was sheathed: in April's sun
Lay green the fields by Freedom won;
And severed sections, weary of debates,
Joined hands at last and were United States.

O City sitting by the Sea...

There cam a man to oor toon-en',
And a waesome carl was he,
Snipie-nebbit, and crookit-mou'd,
And gleyt o' a blinterin ee.
Muckle he spied, and muckle he spak,
But the owercome o' his sang,...

"We think by feeling. What else is there to know." Theodore Roethke
...

Oh, glorious are the guarded heights
Where guardian souls abide,
Self-exiled from our gross delights,
Above, beyond, outside:
An ampler arc their spirit swings,
Commands a juster view,...

I am an outcast, sinful and vile I know,
But what are you, my lady, so fair, and proud, and high?
The fringe of your robe just touched me, me so low -
Your feet defiled, I saw the scorn in your eye,...

'Tis spent this burning day of June!
Soft darkness o'er its latest gleams is stealing;
The buzzing dor-hawk, round and round, is wheeling,
That solitary bird
Is all that can be heard...

Thus they, with freaks of proud delight,
Beguile the remnant of the night;
And many a snatch of jovial song
Regales them as they wind along;
While to the music, from on high,...

IF Wytheburn's modest House of prayer,
As lowly as the lowliest dwelling,
Had, with its belfry's humble stock,
A little pair that hang in air,
Been mistress also of a clock,...

Right gladly had the horses stirred,
When they the wished-for greeting heard,
The whip's loud notice from the door,
That they were free to move once more.
You think, those doings must have bred...

Where the lone creek, chafing nightly in the cold and sad moonshine,
Beats beneath the twisted fern-roots and the drenched and dripping vine;
Where the gum trees, ringed and ragged, from the mazy margins rise,...

I wait and watch: before my eyes
Methinks the night grows thin and gray;
I wait and watch the eastern skies
To see the golden spears uprise
Beneath the oriflamme of day!
...

Breathe from the gentle south, O Lord,
And cheer me from the north;
Blow on the treasures of thy word,
And call the spices forth!


I wish, thou know'st, to be resign'd,...

Frost in the air and music in the air,
And the singing is sweet in the street.
She wakes from a dream to a dream--O hark!
The singing so faint in the dark.

The musicians come and stand at the door,...