Works

I nothing did all yesterday
But listen to the singing rain
On roof and weeping window-pane,
And, 'whiles I'd watch the flying spray
And smoking breakers in the bay:
Nothing but this did I all day -...

If you, that have grown old, were the first dead,
Neither catalpa tree nor scented lime
Should hear my living feet, nor would I tread
Where we wrought that shall break the teeth of Time....

Comrade, yet a little further I would go before the night
Closes round and chills in darkness all the glorious sunset light -
Yet a little, by the cliff there, till the stately home I see...

Then, fare thee well, my own dear love,
This world has now for us
No greater grief, no pain above
The pain of parting thus,
Dear love!
The pain of parting thus.
...

Then first from Love, in Nature's bowers,
Did Painting learn her fairy skill,
And cull the hues of loveliest flowers,
To picture woman lovelier still.
For vain was every radiant hue,...

Incumbent seemingly
On the jagged points of peaks
That end the visible west,
The rounded moon yet floods
The valleys hitherward
With fall of torrential light,
Ere from the overmost...

The night is freezing fast,
To-morrow comes December;
And winterfalls of old
Are with me from the past;
And chiefly I remember
How Dick would hate the cold.

Fall, winter, fall; for he,...

I swear by the holy Virgin,
I swear by her Son divine,
I swear by the throne of the Mighty,
I swear by the hope that is mine;
I swear by the youth and innocence,
By the beauty that has been,...

(See Note 8)

... Oceanward I am ever yearning,
Where far it rolls in its calm and grandeur,
The weight of mountain-like fogbanks bearing,
Forever wandering and returning....

O moon, O lamp of hill and secret dale!
Thou whom our fathers, ages out of mind,
Worshipped in thy blue heaven, whilst behind
Thy stars streamed after thee a glittering trail,
...

Here on this jutting headland, where the trees
Spread a dusk carpet for the sun to cast
And count his golden guineas on, we'll stay;
For hence is the best prospect of the Falls,...

Taddeo Gaddi built me. I am old,
Five centuries old. I plant my foot of stone
Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own
Was planted on the dragon. Fold by fold
Beneath me as it struggles. I behold...

Now shift the blanket pad before your saddle back you fling,
And draw your cinch up tighter till the sweat drops from the ring:
We've a dozen miles to cover ere we reach the next divide....

In an old world garden dreaming,
Where the flowers had human names,
Methought, in fantastic seeming,
They disported as squires and dames.

Of old in Rosamond's Bower,...

Dormered and verandaed, cool,
Locust-girdled, on the hill;
Stained with weather-wear, and dull-
Streak'd with lichens; every sill
Thresholding the beautiful;

I can see it standing there,...

How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood
That now but in mem'ry I sadly review;
The old meeting-house at the edge of the wildwood,
The rail fence, and horses all tethered thereto;...

Have ye heard of Fort Donelson's desperate fight,
Where the giant Northwest bared his arm for the right,
Where thousands so bravely went down in the slaughter,
And the blood of the West ran as freely as water;...

My old flame, my wife!
Remember our lists of birds?
One morning last summer, I drove
by our house in Maine. It was still
on top of its hill,

Now a red ear of Indian maize...

"If I could whisper you all I know,"
Said the Old Fool in the Wood,
"You'd never say that green leaves grow.
You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood
The Master must be in today,
To think such thoughts,'...

W'en daih 's chillun in de house,
Dey keep on a-gittin' tall;
But de folks don' seem to see
Dat dey 's growin' up at all,
'Twell dey fin' out some fine day
Dat de gals has 'menced to grow,...