Works

There was a man who watched the river flow
Past the huge town, one gray November day.
Round him in narrow high-piled streets at play
The boys made merry as they saw him go,...

Once to the song and chariot-fight,
Where all the tribes of Greece unite
On Corinth's isthmus joyously,
The god-loved Ibycus drew nigh.
On him Apollo had bestowed
The gift of song and strains inspired;...

The rich, red blood
Doth stain the fair, green grass, and daisies white
In generous flood ...
This sun-drowsed day for me is darkest night.
O! wreck of splintered wood and twisted wire,...

Crazed through much child-bearing
The moon is staggering in the sky;
Moon-struck by the despairing
Glances of her wandering eye
We grope, and grope in vain,
For children born of her pain....

Come in, old Ghost of all that used to be!
You find me old,
And love grown cold,
And fortune fled to younger company:
Departed, as the glory of the day,...

When the world was first created
By th' all-wise Eternal One,
Asked he none for help or counsel,--
Simply spake, and it was done!

Made it for his own good pleasure,
Shaped it on his own design,...

He who commends the vanquished, speaks the power
And glorifies the worthy conqueror.

Whoever was begotten by pure love,
And came desired and welcome into life,
Is of immaculate conception. He
Whose heart is full of tenderness and truth,
Who loves mankind more than he loves himself,...

In politics if thou would'st mix,
And mean thy fortunes be;
Bear this in mind, be deaf and blind;
Let great folks hear and see.

Our thoughts are molding unmade spheres,
And, like a blessing or a curse,
They thunder down the formless years,
And ring throughout the universe.

We build our futures, by the shape...

O cheerly, cheerly by the road
And merrily down the billet;
And where the acre-field is sowed
With bristle-bearded millet.

Then o'er a pebbled path that goes,
Through vista and through dingle,...

Calling, the heron flies athwart the blue
That sleeps above it; reach on rocky reach
Of water sings by sycamore and beech,
In whose warm shade bloom lilies not a few.
It is a page whereon the sun and dew...

It covered all
The cold east wall,
Its green, thin gold, purple, brown,
And flame running up and down;
Lifting its quiet bosom to every wind that crept
Up the high wall and in its darkness slept....

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,...

The Crescent-moon, the Star of Love,
Glories of evening, as ye there are seen
With but a span of sky between
Speak one of you, my doubts remove,
Which is the attendant Page and which the Queen?

Soon as the spring its earliest visit pays,
And buds with March and April's lengthen'd days
Of mingled suns and shades, and snow, and rain,
Forcing the crackling frost to melt again;...

Polly's the mate of the Nancy Lee,
And Tom is the skipper bold,
They sail together
In rough wind and weather,
And they are the crew, all told.

In their taut and trim little boat they ride...

Here is a tale for those who sing with reason:
There was a cricket, troubadouring fellow,
Who chirped his lay, or zoomed it like a 'cello,
Day in, day out, no matter what the season....

I.

First of the insect choir, in the spring
We hear his faint voice fluttering in the grass,
Beneath some blossom's rosy covering
Or frond of fern upon a wildwood pass.
...

O the gayest of musicians! O the gladdest thing on earth,
With its piping and its chirping, is the cricket on the hearth!
There is magic in the music that he flings us with such zest:...