Works

O Sub! you certainly have been,
A little raking, roguish creature,
And in that face may still be seen,
Each laughing loves bewitching feature!

For thou hast stolen many a heart--...

'In harmony with Nature'? Restless fool,
Who with such heat dost preach what were to thee,
When true, the last impossibility;
To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool:...

Sweet gem of infant fairy-flowers!
Thy smiles on life' unclosing hours,
Like sunbeams lost in summer showers,
They wake my fears;
When reason knows its sweets and sours,
They'll change to tears.
...

This is to-day, a golden summer's day
And yet--and yet
My vengeful soul will not forget
The past, forever now forgot, you say.

From that half height where I had sadly climbed,
I stretched my hand,...

I Love to hear thine earnest voice,
Wherever thou art hid,
Thou testy little dogmatist,
Thou pretty Katydid
Thou mindest me of gentlefolks, -
Old gentlefolks are they, -...

"Kill not--for Pity's sake--and lest ye slay
The meanest thing upon its upward way."
Five Rules of Buddha.


I watch you through the garden walks,
I watch you float between...

Shy one, Shy one,
Shy one of my heart,
She moves in the firelight
pensively apart.
She carries in the dishes,
And lays them in a row.
To an isle in the water
With her would I go....

My Anna, summer laughs in mirth,
And we will of the party be,
And leave the crickets in the hearth
For green fields' merry minstrelsy.

I see thee now with little hand...

1.

Oh, Anne, your offences to me have been grievous:
I thought from my wrath no atonement could save you;
But Woman is made to command and deceive us -
I look'd in your face, and I almost forgave you....

Let mirth and joy a season reign
And sorrow flee away
Sadness were perfect sin it is
My Anne's natal day

And now a birthday rhyme for her
This sister of my own...

When the lids of dusk are falling
O'er the dreamy eyes of day,
And the whippoorwills are calling,
And the lesson laid away, -
May Mem'ry soft and tender
As the prelude of the night,...

Sister, sweet sister, years have passed away,
Since first, 'mid warm hearts, sunny, frank and true,
I commenced rhyming on thy natal day,
On the green sod where Erin's shamrock grew.
...

1.

Young Oak! when I planted thee deep in the ground,
I hoped that thy days would be longer than mine;
That thy dark-waving branches would flourish around,
And ivy thy trunk with its mantle entwine....

Welcome, my old friend,
Welcome to a foreign fireside,
While the sullen gales of autumn
Shake the windows.

The ungrateful world
Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,...

Was it for nothing in the years gone by,
O my love, O my friend,
You thrilled me with your noble words of faith? -
Hope beyond life, and love, love beyond death!
Yet now I shudder, and yet you did not die,...

Old Mate! In the gusty old weather,
When our hopes and our troubles were new,
In the years spent in wearing out leather,
I found you unselfish and true,
I have gathered these verses together...

Immota manet; multosque nepotes,
Multa vir'm volvens durando s'cula, vincit. VIRG.

Round thee, alas, no shadows move!
From thee no sacred murmurs breathe!
Yet within thee, thyself a grove,...

Now from the dust of half-forgotten things,
You rise to haunt me at the year's Spring- cleaning,
And bring to memory dim imaginings
Of mystic meaning.

No old-time potter handled you, I ween,...

Ah, child, thou art but half thy darling mother's;
Hers couldst thou wholly be,
My light in thee would outglow all in others;
She would relive to me.
But niggard Nature's trick of birth...

I list your prattle, baby boy,
And hear your pattering feet
With feelings more of pain than joy
And thoughts of bitter-sweet.

While touching your soft hands in play
Such passionate longings rise...