Works

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,...

The eyrie clung to the shattered cliff
That the glacier's torrent thundered under;
And the unfledged eaglet's lifted eye
Looked out on the world of peak and sky
In silent wonder.
...

[John P. Altgeld. Born Dec. 30, 1847; died March 12, 1902]


Sleep softly * * * eagle forgotten * * * under the stone.
Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own.
...

Well sang the Bard who called the grave, in strains
Thoughtful and sad, the "narrow house." No style
Of fond sepulchral flattery can beguile
Grief of her sting; nor cheat, where he detains...

There's music wafting on the air,
The evening winds are sighing
Among the trees and yonder stream
Is mournfully replying,
Lamenting loud the sunny light
That in the west is dying.
...

Once in the olden times the elephant and the rhinoceros disputed as to which was the more important, and which should, therefore, have empire over the other animals. They decided to settle the point by battle in an enclosed fie...

Wreathe in a garland the corn's golden ear!
With it, the Cyane [31] blue intertwine
Rapture must render each glance bright and clear,
For the great queen is approaching her shrine,...

The Elysian fields
gained commensurate with ability
quiet and shimmering in the sun;
varied realms
inverted islands
the angry blessed
ones - thrice born with
the option to survive...

Though the whole heaven be one-eyed with the moon,
Though the dead landscape seem a thing possessed,
Yet I go singing through that land oppressed
As one that singeth through the flowers of June.
...

Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro,
And what should they know of England who only England know?,
The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,...

[1]

To Madame Harvey.[2]

Sound reason and a tender heart
With thee are friends that never part.
A hundred traits might swell the roll; -
Suffice to name thy nobleness of soul;...

Upon a Sabbath-day it fell;
Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell
That call'd the folk to evening prayer;
The city streets were clean and fair
From wholesome drench of April rains;...

"Farewell, deep Valley, with thy one rude House,
And its small lot of life-supporting fields,
And guardian rocks! Farewell, attractive seat!
To the still influx of the morning light...

'Twas summer, and the sun had mounted high:
Southward the landscape indistinctly glared
Through a pale steam; but all the northern downs,
In clearest air ascending, showed far off...

Here closed the Tenant of that lonely vale
His mournful narrative commenced in pain,
In pain commenced, and ended without peace:
Yet tempered, not unfrequently, with strains...

Ye that have faced the billows and the spray
Of good St. Botolph's island-studded bay,
As from the gliding bark your eye has scanned
The beaconed rocks, the wave-girt hills of sand,...

Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland?
The grey-blue eyes so strangely grey and blue,
The fighting loving eyes,
The eyes that tell no lies -
Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland?
...

She said, and for her lost Galanthis sighs;
When the fair consort of her son replies:
'Since you a servant's ravish'd form bemoan,
And kindly sigh for sorrows not your own,...

She said, and for her lost Calanthis sighs,
When the fair Consort of her son replies.
"Since you a servant's ravish'd form bemoan,
And kindly sigh for sorrows not your own;...

Collated with Stella's copy. - Forster.

Midas, we are in story told,[2]
Turn'd every thing he touch'd to gold:
He chipp'd his bread; the pieces round
Glitter'd like spangles on the ground:...