Works

I.


There was a maiden in a land
Was buried with all honor fine,
For they said she had dared her pulsing life
To save a silent, holy shrine.

The cannon rode by the church's door,...

I dreamed within a dream the sun was gold;
And as I walked beneath this golden sun,
The world was like a mighty play-room old,
Made for our pleasure since it was begun.
...

Here is a world of changing glow,
Where moods roll swiftly far and wide;
Waves sadder than a funeral's pride,
Or bluer than the harebell's blow!

The sunlight makes the black hulls cast...

We are moving on in silence,
Save for rattling iron and steel,
And a skirmish echoing round us,
Showering faintly, peal on peal.

Like a lion roars the North wind
As a-horse we sternly clank,...

My graveyard holds no once-loved human forms,
Grown hideous and forgotten, left alone,
But every agony my heart has known, -
The new-born trusts that died, the drift of storms.
...

All to herself a woman never sings
A happy song. Oh no! but it is so
As when the thrush has closed down his wings
Within the wood, and hears his hidden woe
From his own bill fill aisles of leaves, and go...

Gray towers make me think of thee,
Thou girl of olden minstrelsy,
Young as the sunlight of to-day,
Silent as tasselled boughs in May!

A wind-flower in a world of harm,...

O soul of life, 't is thee we long to hear,
Thine eyes we seek for, and thy touch we dream;
Lost from our days, thou art a spirit near, -
Life needs thine eloquence, and ways supreme....

The sanctity that is about the dead
To make us love them more than late, when here,
Is not it well to find the living dear
With sanctity like this, ere they have fled?
...

Turn thy face to me, my love,
I come from out the morning;
Give thy hand to me, my love,
I'm dewy from the dawning.

Touch my lips with thine, my love,
I've tasted air at daybreak;...

So ancient to myself I seem,
I might have crossed grave Styx's stream
A year ago; -
My word, 'tis so; -
And now be wandering with my sires
In that rare world we wonder o'er,...

The thanking heart can only silence keep;
The breaking heart can only die alone:
Our happy love above abysses deep
Of unguessed power hovers, and is gone!

Come, take my hand, O friend I take for life!...

We speak of the world that passes away, -
The world of men who lived years ago,
And could not feel that their hearts' quick glow
Would fade to such ashen lore to-day.
...

An angel spoke with me, and lo, he hoarded
My falling tears to cheer a flower's face!
For, so it seems, in all the heavenly space
A wasted grief was never yet recorded....

[Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1864.]


Where spells were wrought he sat alone,
The wizard touching minds of men
Through far-swung avenues of power,
And proudly held the magic pen.
...

Lullaby on the wing
Of my song, O my own!
Soft airs of evening
Join my song's murmuring tone.

Lullaby, O my love!
Close your eyes, lake-like clear;
Lullaby, while above...

Pray, have you heard the news?
Sturdy in lungs and thews,
There's a fine baby!
Ring bells of crystal lip,
Wave boughs with blossoming tip;
Think what he may be!

Love cannot love enough,...

Eileen of four,
Eileen of smiles;
Eileen of five,
Eileen of tears;
Eileen of ten, of fifteen years,
Eileen of youth
And woman's wiles;
Eileen of twenty,
In love's land,...

Say not, sad bell, another hour hath come,
Bare for the record of a world of crime;
Toll, rather, friend, the end of hideous Time,
Wherein we bloom, live, die, yet have no home!
...

We all have hearts that shake alike
Beneath the arias of Fate's hand;
Although the cynics sneering stand,
These too the deathless powers strike.

A trembling lover's infinite trust,...