Works

I.

Threefold is the march of time
While the future slow advances,
Like a dart the present glances,
Silent stands the past sublime.

No impatience e'er can speed him...

God is a zealous pruner,
For He knows--
Who, falsely tender, spares the knife
But spoils the rose.

ONCE more permit me, nuns, and this the last;
I can't resist, whatever may have passed,
But must relate, what often I've been told;
Your tales of convent pranks are seldom cold;...

Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,
The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,
And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,
With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,...

When I was just a Kitten small,
They gave to me a Rubber Ball
To roll upon the floor.
One day I tapped it with my paw
And pierced the rubber with my claw;
Now it will roll no more.

Not they who know the awful gibbet's anguish,
Not they who, while sad years go by them, in
The sunless cells of lonely prisons languish,
Do suffer fullest penalty for sin.
...

Not they who know the awful gibbet's anguish,
Not they who, while sad years go by them, in
The sunless cells of lonely prisons languish,
Do suffer fullest penalty for sin.
...

I have fetched the tears up out of the little wells,
Scooped them up with small, iron words,
Dripping over the runnels.

The harsh, cold wind of my words drove on, and still...

The gods of Asaheim, incensed with Loke,
A whirlwind yoked with thunder-footed steeds,
And, carried thus, boomed o'er the booming seas,
Far as the teeming wastes of Jotunheim,...

I am now, what joy to hear it!

Of the old magician rid;
And henceforth shall ev'ry spirit

Do whate'er by me is bid;

I have watch'd with rigour

All he used to do,
...

The life of man to represent,
And turn it all to ridicule,
Wit did a puppet-show invent,
Where the chief actor is a fool.

The gods of old were logs of wood,
And worship was to puppets paid;...

Thou'rt welcome in my box to peep!
Life's puppet-show, the world in little,
Thou'lt see depicted to a tittle,
But pray at some small distance keep!
'Tis by the torch of love alone,...

The Puppy cannot mew or talk,
He has a funny kind of walk,
His tail is difficult to wag
And that's what makes him walk zigzag.

He is the Kitten of a Dog,
From morn till night he's all agog--...

They shall see Him in the crimson flush
Of morning's early light,
In the drapery of sunset,
Around the couch of night.


When the clouds drop down their fatness,
In late and early rain,...

(Note: That is, without the mark of union with Sweden.)
(See Note 66)

I
Tri-colored flag, and pure,
Thou art our hard-fought cause secure;
Thor's hammer-mark of might...

Softly the sunbeams gleamed athwart the Temple proud and high -
Built up by Israel's wisest to the Lord of earth and sky -
Lighting its gorgeous fretted roof, and every sacred fold...

Their only thought religion,
What Christmas joys had they,
The stern, staunch Pilgrim Fathers who
Knew naught of holiday?--

A log-church in the clearing
'Mid solitudes of snow,...

Far in the purple valleys of illusion
I see her waiting, like the soul of music,
With deep eyes, lovelier than cerulean pansies,
Shadow and fire, yet merciless as poison;...

Over and over the task was set,
Over and over I slighted the work,
But ever and alway I knew that yet
I must face and finish the toil I shirk.

Over and over the whip of pain...

Daphne is running, running through the grass,
The long stalks whip her ankles as she goes.
I saw the nymph, the god, I saw them pass
And how a mounting flush of tender rose...