Works

The skies are blue above my head,
The prairie green below,
And flickering o'er the tufted grass
The shifting shadows go,
Vague-sailing, where the feathery clouds
Fleck white the tranquil skies,...

(To Edgar Lee Masters, with great respect.)



Here upon the prairie
Is our ancestral hall.
Agate is the dome,
Cornelian the wall.
Ghouls are in the cellar,
But fays upon the stairs....

The prairie-grass dividing its special odor breathing,
I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,...

The shades of evening closed around
The boundless prairies of the west,
As, grouped in sadness on the ground,
A band of pilgrims leaned to rest:
Upon the tangled weeds were laid...

The Noon-Sun prayed a prairie rose
To blanch for him her blossom's hue,
But to the Plain all love she owes;
Beneath that mother's grass she grew.

And sheltered by her verdant blades,...

These are the gardens of the Desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name,
The Prairies. I behold them for the first,...

A newer garden of creation, no primal solitude,
Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms,
With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one,...

'What of vile dust?' the preacher said.
Methought the whole world woke,
The dead stone lived beneath my foot,
And my whole body spoke.

'You, that play tyrant to the dust,...

My brother kneels, so saith Kabir,
To stone and brass in heathen wise,
But in my brother's voice I hear
My own unanswered agonies.
His God is as his fates assign,
His prayer is all the world's, and mine.

My answered prayer came up to me,
And in the silence thus spake he:
"O you who prayed for me to come,
Your greeting is but cold and dumb."

My heart made answer: "You are fair,...

On the isle of Penikese,
Ringed about by sapphire seas,
Fanned by breezes salt and cool,
Stood the Master with his school.
Over sails that not in vain
Wooed the west-wind's steady strain,...

I am alone - oh be thou near to me,
Great God! from whom the meanest are not far.
Not in presumption of the daring spirit,
Striving to find the secrets of itself,
Make I my weeping prayer; in the deep want...

"The proper way for a man to pray,"
Said Deacon Lemuel Keyes,
"And the only proper attitude
Is down upon his knees."

"No, I should say the way to pray,"
Said Rev. Doctor Wise,...

From the wheel and the drift of Things
Deliver us, Good Lord,
And we will face the wrath of Kings,
The faggot and the sword!

Lay not thy Works before our eyes
Nor vex us with thy Wars,...

1

Father of Light! great God of Heaven!
Hear'st thou the accents of despair?
Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven?
Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?


2
...

Lord, I am weak and worthless, better fit
To grovel in the dust, a worm of earth,
Than wear Thy holy image, which I do
But daily with defilement desecrate.
Long-suffering God! in mercy infinite!...

Not done, but near its ending,
Is the work that our eyes desired;
Not yet fulfilled, but near the goal,
Is the hope that our worn hearts fired.
And on the Alban Mountains,...

My brow is bent beneath a heavy rod!
My face is wan and white with many woes!
But I will lift my poor chained hands to God,
And for my children pray, and for my foes....

Lord of all strength, behold, I am but frail!
Lord of all harvest, few the grapes and pale
Allotted for my wine-press! Thou, Lord,
Who boldest in thy gift the tempered sword....

Along the aisle where prayer was made,
A woman, all in black arrayed,
Close-veiled, between the kneeling host,
With gliding motion of a ghost,
Passed to the desk, and laid thereon...