Works

Always suddenly they are gone -
The friends we trusted and held secure -
Suddenly we are gazing on,
Not a smiling face, but the marble-pure
Dead mask of a face that nevermore...

Where do you go when you go to sleep,
Little Boy! Little Boy! where?
'Way - 'way in where's Little Bo-Peep,
And Little Boy Blue, and the Cows and Sheep
A-wandering 'way in there; - in there -...

The ticking - ticking - ticking of the clock!
That vexed me so last night! "For though Time keeps
Such drowsy watch," I moaned, "he never sleeps,
But only nods above the world to mock...

Wait for the morning! Ah! We wait indeed
For daylight, we who toss about through stress
Of vacant-armed desires and emptiness
Of all the warm, warm touches that we need,...

I.

Time of crisp and tawny leaves,
And of tarnished harvest sheaves,
And of dusty grasses - weeds -
Thistles, with their tufted seeds
Voyaging the Autumn breeze
Like as fairy argosies:...

"tired out!" Yet face and brow
Do not look aweary now,
And the eyelids lie like two
Pure, white rose-leaves washed with dew.
Was her life so hard a task? -
Strange that we forget to ask...

The smiling face of a happy boy
With its enchanted key
Is now unlocking in memory
My store of heartiest joy.

And my lost life again to-day,
In pleasant colors all aglow,...

INSCRIBED IN "TALES OF THE OCEAN"

This first book that I ever knew
Was read aloud to me by you -
Friend of my boyhood, therefore take
It back from me, for old times' sake -...

Get gone, thou most uncomfortable ghost!
Thou really dost annoy me with thy thin
Impalpable transparency of grin;
And the vague, shadowy shape of thee almost
Hath vext me beyond boundary and coast...

When the lids of dusk are falling
O'er the dreamy eyes of day,
And the whippoorwills are calling,
And the lesson laid away, -
May Mem'ry soft and tender
As the prelude of the night,...

To hear her sing - to hear her sing -
It is to hear the birds of Spring
In dewy groves on blooming sprays
Pour out their blithest roundelays.

It is to hear the robin trill...

Coming, clean from the Maryland-end
Of this great National Road of ours,
Through your vast West; with the time to spend,
Stopping for days in the main towns, where
Every citizen seemed a friend,...

A passel o' the boys last night -
An' me amongst 'em - kindo got
To talkin' Temper'nce left an' right,
An' workin' up "blue-ribbon," hot;
An' while we was a-countin' jes'
How many bed gone into hit...

Dimple-cheeked and rosy-lipped,
With his cap-rim backward tipped,
Still in fancy I can see
Little Tommy smile on me -
Little Tommy Smith.

Little unsung Tommy Smith -...

Tom Van Arden, my old friend,
Our warm fellowship is one
Far too old to comprehend
Where its bond was first begun:
Mirage-like before my gaze
Gleams a land of other days,...

In fancy, always, at thy desk, thrown wide,
Thy most betreasured books ranged neighborly -
The rarest rhymes of every land and sea
And curious tongue - thine old face glorified, -...

Fer forty year and better you have been a friend to me,
Through days of sore afflictions and dire adversity,
You allus had a kind word of counsul to impart,...

Sweet Singer that I loe the maist
O' ony, sin' wi' eager haste
I smacket bairn-lips ower the taste
O' hinnied sang,
I hail thee, though a blessed ghaist
In Heaven lang!
...

Most tangible of all the gods that be,
O Santa Claus - our own since Infancy!
As first we scampered to thee - now, as then,
Take us as children to thy heart again.

Be wholly good to us, just as of old:...

The deadnin' and the thicket's jes' a b'ilin' full o' June,
From the rattle o' the cricket, to the yaller-hammer's tune;
And the catbird in the bottom and the sap-suck on the snag,...