Works

Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine,
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.
...

Why did you go away without one word,
Wave of the hand, or token of good-bye,
Nor leave some message for me with flower or bird,
Some sign to find you by;

Some stray of blossom on the winter road,...

O daughter of our Southern sun,
Sweet sister of each flower,
Dost dream in terraced Avalon
A shadow-haunted hour?
Or stand with Guinevere upon
Some ivied Camelot tower?
...

From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you:
You are to die Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,
I am exact and merciless, but I love you There is no escape for you.
...

When, with all the loved around thee,
Still thy heart says, "I am lonely,"
It is well; the truth hath found thee:
Rest is with the Father only.

Within this false world we may count ourselves blest,
If we have but one friend who is faithful and true;
And so in your friendship contented I'll rest,
And believe I have found that one blessing in you.

You make our faults too gross, and thence maintain
Our darker future. May your fears be vain!
At times the small black fly upon the pane
May seem the black ox of the distant plain.

"To one who teaches me
The sweetness and the beauty
Of doing faithfully
And cheerfully my duty."

Inmate of a mountain-dwelling,
Thou hast clomb aloft, and gazed
From the watch-towers of Helvellyn;
Awed, delighted, and amazed!

Potent was the spell that bound thee
Not unwilling to obey;...

Put off the vestal Veil, nor, oh!
Let weeping angels View it;
Your cheeks belie its virgin snow.
And blush repenting through it.

Put off the fatal zone you wear;
The shining pearls around it...

Across what calm of tropic seas,
'Neath alien clusters of the nights,
Looked, in the past, such eyes as these?
Long-quenched, relumed, ancestral lights!

The generations fostered them;...

To Oratists, to male or female,
Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, and the divine power to use words.
Are you full-lung'd and limber-lipp'd from long trial? from vigorous practice? from physique?...

A fellow says: "I own no school or college;
No master lives whom I acknowledge;
And pray don't entertain the thought
That from the dead I e'er learnt aught."
This, if I rightly understand,...

Lily of Streams lay by my side last night
And to my prayers gave answers of delight;
Day came before our fairy-tale was finished,
Because the tale was long, not short the night.
...

'Tired with all these, for restful death I cry.'
- SHAKESPEARE: Sonnet 66



Weary of erring in this desert Life,
Weary of hoping hopes for ever vain,...

Here's to Lady Nicotine!
Saint and Sorceress and Queen!
Saint, whose purple halo rings
Lift our eyes from earthly things;
Witch, whose wand of scented briar
Transmutes dead weeds to fragrant fire;...

Died of a cat, May, 1878.



I.

Trillets of humor, - shrewdest whistle-wit, -
Contralto cadences of grave desire
Such as from off the passionate Indian pyre...

WRITTEN BY REQUEST, FOR A GOLDEN WEDDING


Full fifty years together -
Father and mother dear -
Through pleasant summer weather,
Or wintry tempests drear, -
Thro' sunshine and thro' shadow,...

Here's to our Readers, Health! good Looks!
And Joy ad infinitum
And may they live to read our Books
As long as we may write 'em.