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The little loves and sorrows are my song:
The leafy lanes and birthsteads of my sires,
Where memory broods by winter's evening fires
O'er oft-told joys, and ghosts of ancient wrong;...

When in the Scorpion circles low
The sun with fainter, dreamier light,
And at a far-off hint of snow
The giddy swallows take to flight,
And droning insects sadly know
That cooler falls the autumn night;...

When first I stood before you,
Isabel,
I stood there to adore you,
In your spell;
For all that grace composes,
And all that beauty knows is
Your face above the roses,
Isabel.
...

If I have had some merry times
In roaming up and down the earth,
Have made some happy-hearted rhymes
And had my brimming share of mirth,
And if this song should live in fame...

God willed, who never needed speech,
"Let all things be:"
And, lo, the starry firmament
And land and sea
And his first thought of life that lives
In you and me.

His circle of eternity...

To you, dear mother heart, whose hair is gray
Above this page to-day,
Whose face, though lined with many a smile and care,
Grows year by year more fair,

Be tenderest tribute set in perfect rhyme,...

Oh, I can jest with Margaret
And laugh a gay good-night,
But when I take my Helen's hand
I dare not clasp it tight.

I dare not hold her dear white hand
More than a quivering space,...

(Died October 8, 1904)



For him, who in a hundred battles stood
Scorning the cannon's mouth,
Grimy with flame and red with foeman's blood,
For thy sweet sake, O South;
...

Her brown hair knew no royal crest,
No gems nor jeweled charms,
No roses her bright cheek caressed,
No lilies kissed her arms.
In simple, modest womanhood
Clad, as was meet, in white,...

Green moss will creep
Along the shady graves where we shall sleep.

Each year will bring
Another brood of birds to nest and sing.

At dawn will go
New ploughmen to the fields we used to know....

The thought of old, dear things is in thine eyes,
O, month of memories!
Musing on days thine heart hath sorrow of,
Old joy, dead hope, dear love,

I see thee stand where all thy sisters meet...

A horror of great darkness over them,
No cloud of fire to guide and cover them,
Beasts for the shambles, tremulous with dread,
They crouch on alien soil among their dead.
...

Love, should I set my heart upon a crown,
Squander my years, and gain it,
What recompense of pleasure could I own?
For youth's red drops would stain it.

Much have I thought on what our lives may mean,...

Give over now; forbear. The moonlight steeps
In silver silence towered castle-keeps
And cottage crofts, where apples bend the bough.
Peace guards us round, and many a tired heart sleeps....

A century of silent suns
Have set since he was laid on sleep,
And now they bear with booming guns
And streaming banners o'er the deep
A withered skin and clammy hair
Upon a frame of human bones:...

Oh, I am weary, weary, weary
Of Pan and oaten quills
And little songs that, from the dictionary,
Learn lore of streams and hills,
Of studied laughter, mocking what is merry,
And calculated thrills!...

We sang old love-songs on the way
In sad and merry snatches,
Your fingers o'er the strings astray
Strumming the random catches.

And ever, as the skiff plied on
Among the trailing willows,...

I have not been among the woods,
Nor seen the milk-weeds burst their hoods,

The downy thistle-seeds take wing,
Nor the squirrel at his garnering.

And yet I know that, up to God,...

The home of love is her blue eyes,
Wherein all joy, all beauty lies,
More sweet than hopes of paradise,
She being young.

Speak of her with a miser's praise;
She craves no golden speech; her ways...

I would that love were subject unto law!
Upon his person I should lay distraint
And force him thus to answer my complaint,
Which I, in well-considered counts, should draw....