Works

The harp of the minstrel has never a tone
As sad as the song in his bosom to-night,
For the magical touch of his fingers alone
Can not waken the echoes that breathe it aright;...

Hereafter! O we need not waste
Our smiles or tears, whatever befall:
No happiness but holds a taste
Of something sweeter, after all; -
No depth of agony but feels
Some fragment of abiding trust, -...

The Hired Man's supper, which he sat before,
In near reach of the wood-box, the stove-door
And one leaf of the kitchen-table, was
Somewhat belated, and in lifted pause
His dextrous knife was balancing a bit...

We must get home - for we have been away
So long it seems forever and a day!
And O so very homesick we have grown,
The laughter of the world is like a moan
In our tired hearing, and its songs as vain, -...

Owned a pair o' skates onc't. - Traded
Fer 'em, - stropped 'em on and waded
Up and down the crick, a-waitin'
Tel she'd freeze up fit fer skatin'.
Mildest winter I remember -...

The Hoosier Folk-Child - all unsung -
Unlettered all of mind and tongue;
Unmastered, unmolested - made
Most wholly frank and unafraid:
Untaught of any school - unvexed...

"The hoss he is a splendud beast;
He is man's friend, as heaven desined,
And, search the world from west to east,
No honester you'll ever find!

"Some calls the hoss 'a pore dumb brute,'...

No song is mine of Arab steed -
My courser is of nobler blood,
And cleaner limb and fleeter speed,
And greater strength and hardihood
Than ever cantered wild and free
Across the plains of Araby.
...

The Jaybird he's my favorite
Of all the birds they is!
I think he's quite a stylish sight
In that blue suit of his:
An' when he' lights an' shuts his wings,
His coat's a "cutaway" -...

[Restored Romaunt.]

It was a Jolly Miller lived on the River Dee;
He looked upon his piller, and there he found a flea:
"O Mr. Flea! you have bit' me,
And you shall shorely die!"...

Sometimes I keep
From going to sleep,
To hear the katydids "cheep-cheep!"
And think they say
Their prayers that way;
But katydids don't have to pray!

I listen when
They cheep again...

They rode right out of the morning sun -
A glimmering, glittering cavalcade
Of knights and ladies and every one
In princely sheen arrayed;
And the king of them all, O he rode ahead,...

"I deem that God is not disquieted" -
This in a mighty poet's rhymes I read;
And blazoned so forever doth abide
Within my soul the legend glorified.

Though awful tempests thunder overhead,...

Here's his ragged "roundabout";
Turn the pockets inside out:
See; his pen-knife, lost to use,
Rusted shut with apple-juice;
Here, with marbles, top and string,
Is his deadly "devil-sling,"...

He seemed so strange to me, every way -
In manner, and form, and size,
From the boy I knew but yesterday, -
I could hardly believe my eyes!

To hear his name called over there,...

O The Little Lady's dainty
As the picture in a book,
And her hands are creamy-whiter
Than the water-lilies look;
Her laugh's the undrown'd music
Of the maddest meadow-brook. -...

When I was a little boy, long ago,
And spoke of the theater as the "show,"
The first one that I went to see,
Mother's brother it was took me -
(My uncle, of course, though he seemed to be...

The little old poem that nobody reads
Blooms in a crowded space,
Like a ground-vine blossom, so low in the weeds
That nobody sees its face -
Unless, perchance, the reader's eye...