Works

My wife lost her health,
And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds.
Then that woman, whom the men
Styled Cleopatra, came along.
And we - we married ones...

In homely apparel one
Clothes farming songs Will Carleton,
But they have a manly ring
And we his praises hearty sing.

Will he ever be weary of wandering,
The flaming sun?
Ever weary of waning in lovelight,
The white still moon?
Will ever a shepherd come
With a crook of simple gold,
And lead all the little stars...

Our Mr. Jiggs was certainly an estimable youth,
A pillar of propriety, a champion of truth;
He had a good position in a warehouse in the town;
A staunch church-worker, he became a layman of renown.
...

There is something about
Death Like love itself!
If with some one with whom you have known passion
And the glow of youthful love,
You also, after years of life
Together, feel the sinking of the fire...

I.
From heavy dreams fair Helen rose,
And eyed the dawning red:
"Alas, my love, thou tarriest long!
O art thou false or dead?"

II.
With gallant Fred'rick's princely power...

WILLIAM.
When I meet Peggy in my morning walk,
She first salutes the morn, then stays to talk:
The biggest secret she will not refuse,
But freely tells me all the village-news;...

That love of letters which is as the light
Of deathless verse, intense, ineffable,
Hath made this scholar's nature like the white,
Pure Roman soul of whom the poets tell.
...

He came to the desert of London town
Gray miles long;
He wandered up and he wandered down,
Singing a quiet song.
He came to the desert of London town,
Mirk miles broad;...

Not squirrels in the park alone
His love and winter-kindness own.
When Literary Fledglings try
Their wings, in first attempt to fly,
They flutter down to Franklin Square,...

The years are many since his hand
Was laid upon my head,
Too weak and young to understand
The serious words he said.

Yet often now the good man's look
Before me seems to swim,...

Ah! know ye not in Israel
A prince is fallen to-day,
A just man, from the ills to come,
In mercy called away!

The Church is clothed in mourning,
Who shall supply her loss?...

Oh, well may Essex sit forlorn
Beside her sea-blown shore;
Her well beloved, her noblest born,
Is hers in life no more!

No lapse of years can render less
Her memory's sacred claim;...

To all in the village I seemed, no doubt,
To go this way and that way, aimlessly. .
But here by the river you can see at twilight
The soft - winged bats fly zig-zag here and there -...

Was it a dream?--that crowded concert-room
In Bath; that sea of ruffles and laced coats;
And William Herschel, in his powdered wig,
Waiting upon the platform, to conduct...

There by the window in the old house
Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley,
My days of labor closed, sitting out life's decline,
Day by day did I look in my memory,...

I'm sorry William Taft is out
Of Politics; without a doubt
Of all the Presidential crew
He was the easiest to do.

Once in a while a curious weed unknown to me,
Needing a name from my books;
Once in a while a letter from Yeomans.
Out of the mussel-shells gathered along the shore...

He sits before you silent as Buddha,
And then you say
This man is Rabelais.
And while you wonder what his stock is,
English or Irish, you behold his eyes
As big and brown as those desirable crockies...

The Protecting Tree
Of the men of the land of F'l!
What aileth thee,
And why is it that all
About thee grieves?

Alas, O Tree of the Leaves!
Here is thy rhyme:
Thy bloom is lightened;...