Works

A Child-World, yet a wondrous world no less,
To those who knew its boundless happiness.
A simple old frame house - eight rooms in all -
Set just one side the center of a small...

I

"Dying of hunger and sorrow:
I die for my youth I fear!"
Murmured the midnight-haunting
Voice of the stricken Year.

There like a child it perished
In the stormy thoroughfare:...

Your hands, my dear, adorable,
Your lips of tenderness
Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well,
Three years, or a bit less.
It wasn't a success.

Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road,...

You'd think a lion or a snake
Were quite enough one's nerves to shake;
But in this classic beast we find
A lion and a snake combined,
And, just as if that weren't enough,...

That morning when I trod the town
The twitching chimes of long renown
Played out to me
The sweet Sicilian sailors' tune,
And I knew not if late or soon
My day would be:
...

"Awake! I'm off to cities far away,"
I said; and rose, on peradventures bent.
The chimes played "Life's a Bumper!" on that day
To the measure of my walking as I went:...

A little black thing in the snow,
Crying "weep! weep!" in notes of woe!
"Where are thy father and mother? Say!"
"They are both gone up to the church to pray.

"Because I was happy upon the heath,...

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry "Weep! weep! weep! weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.
...

A little black thing among the snow:
Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!
Where are thy father & mother? say?
They are both gone up to the church to pray.

Because I was happy upon the heath....

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep,
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.
...

When hawthorn buds are creaming white,
And the red foolscap all stuck with may,
Then lasses walk with eyes alight,
And it's chimney-sweepers' dancing day.

For the chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham town,...

CHIL-DREN, be-hold the Chim-pan-zee:
He sits on the an-ces-tral tree
From which we sprang in ag-es gone.
I'm glad we sprang: had we held on,
We might, for aught that I can say,...

Good-Morning, Mr. What-d'ye-call! Well! here's another pretty job!
Lord help my Lady! - what a smash! - if you had only heard her sob!
It was all through Mr. Lambert: but for certain he was winey,...

"How, how," he said. "Friend Chang," I said,
"San Francisco sleeps as the dead -
Ended license, lust and play:
Why do you iron the night away?
Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound,...

I

He makes a roadway of the crumbling fence,
Or on the fallen tree, - brown as a leaf
Fall stripes with russet, - gambols down the dense
Green twilight of the woods. We see not whence...

The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story's finished, what's the news?...

I saw in dream the spirits unbegot,
Veiled, floating phantoms, lost in twilight space;
For one the hour had struck, he paused; the place
Rang with an awful Voice:
"Soul, choose thy lot!...

Fair as a wreath of fresh spring flowers, a band of maidens lay
On the velvet sward - enjoying the golden summer day;
And many a ringing silv'ry laugh on the calm air clearly fell,...

To the Judge of Right and Wrong
With Whom fulfillment lies
Our purpose and our power belong,
Our faith and sacrifice.

Let Freedom's land rejoice!
Our ancient bonds are riven;...

He often would ask us
That, when he died,
After playing so many
To their last rest,
If out of us any
Should here abide,
And it would not task us,
We would with our lutes
Play over him...