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I push on through the shaggy wood,
I round the hill: 't is here it stood;
And there, beyond the crumbled walls,
The shining Concord slowly crawls,

Yet seems to make a passing stay,...

[PLYMOUTH PLANTATION: 1622]


The strong and the tender,
The young and the old,
Unto Death we must render; -
Our silver, our gold.

To break their long sleeping
No voice may avail:...

A budding mouth and warm blue eyes;
A laughing face; and laughing hair, -
So ruddy was its rise
From off that forehead fair;

Frank fervor in whate'er she said,
And a shy grace when she was still;...

A budding mouth and warm blue eyes;
A laughing face; - and laughing hair,
So ruddy does it rise
From off that forehead fair;

Frank fervor in whate'er she said,
And a shy grace when she was still;...

I

Victors, living, with laureled brow,
And you that sleep beneath the sward!
Your song was poured from cannon throats:
It rang in deep-tongued bugle-notes:
Your triumph came; you won your crown,...

I

Ah, who shall sound the hero's funeral march?
And what shall be the music of his dirge?
No single voice may chant the Nation's grief,
No formal strain can give its woe relief....

A youth unto herself Grief took,
Whom everything of joy forsook,
And men passed with denying head,
Saying: "'T were better he were dead."

Grief took him, and with master-touch...

Her moods are like the fountain's, changing ever,
That spouts aloft a sudden, watery dome,
Only to fall again in shattering foam,
Just where the wedded jets themselves dissever,...

Helen, in her silent room,
Weaves upon the upright loom;
Weaves a mantle rich and dark,
Purpled over, deep. But mark
How she scatters o'er the wool
Woven shapes, till it is full...

Helen, in her silent room,
Weaves upon the upright loom,
Weaves a mantle rich and dark,
Purpled over-deep. But mark
How she scatters o'er the wool
Woven shapes, till it is full...

And did you think my heart
Could keep its love unchanging,
Fresh as the buds that start
In spring, nor know estranging?
Listen! The buds depart:
I loved you once, but now -...

My love for thee is like a winged seed
Blown from the heart of thy rare beauty's flower,
And deftly guided by some breezy power
To fall and rest, where I should never heed,...

When the leaves, by thousands thinned,
A thousand times have whirled in the wind,
And the moon, with hollow cheek,
Staring from her hollow height,
Consolation seems to seek...

Here stands the great tree still, with broad bent head;
Its wide arms grown aweary, yet outspread
With their old blessing. But wan memory weaves
Strange garlands, now, amongst the darkening leaves....

Here stands the great tree still, with broad, bent head,
And wide arms grown aweary, yet outspread
With their old blessing. But wan memory weaves
Strange garlands now amongst the darkening leaves....

Lo, all about the lofty blue are blown
Light vapors white, like thistle-down,
That from their softened silver heaps opaque
Scatter delicate flake by flake,
Upon the wide loom of the heavens weaving...

[CHANCELLORSVILLE, MAY, 1863]

I

The sun had set;
The leaves with dew were wet:
Down fell a bloody dusk
On the woods, that second of May,
Where Stonewall's corps, like a beast of prey,...

A thousand times I would have hoped,
A thousand times protested;
But still, as through the night I groped,
My torch from me was wrested,
and wrested.

How often with a succoring cup...

Dear face - bright, glinting hair;
Dear life, whose heart is mine -
The thought of you is prayer,
The love of you divine.

In starlight, or in rain;
In the sunset's shrouded glow;...

"There, on the left!" said the colonel: the battle had shuddered and faded away,
Wraith of a fiery enchantment that left only ashes and blood-sprinkled clay -...