Works

August 29, 1859

I remember - why, yes! God bless me! and was it so long ago?
I fear I'm growing forgetful, as old folks do, you know;
It must have been in 'forty - I would say 'thirty-nine -...

Ah why deceive ourselves! by no mere fit
Of sudden passion roused shall men attain
True freedom where for ages they have lain
Bound in a dark abominable pit,
With life's best sinews more and more unknit....

"A Temple to Friendship;" said Laura, enchanted,
"I'll build in this garden,--the thought is divine!"
Her temple was built and she now only wanted
An image of Friendship to place on the shrine....

Bill, look here! Here's the Times. You see this picture,
Read if you like a little later. You never
Heard how I came to Fairbanks, chanced to stay.
It's eight years now. You see in nineteen eleven...

My crippled sense fares bow'd along
His uncompanioned way,
And wronged by death pays life with wrong
And I wake by night and dream by day.

And the Morning seems but fatigued Night...

At Fontainebleau, I saw a little bed
Fashioned of polished wood, with gold ornate,
Ambition, hope, and sorrow, ay, and hate
Once battled there, above a childish head,...

Here, where, of havoc tired and rash undoing,
Man left this Structure to become Time's prey
A soothing spirit follows in the way
That Nature takes, her counter-work pursuing....

The veil hath lifted and hath fallen; and him
Who next it stood before us, first so long,
We see not; but between the cherubim
The light burns clearer: come--a thankful song!
...

Lord, Thou hast given me a cell
Wherein to dwell;
An little house, whose humble roof
Is weather-proof;
Under the spars of which I lie
Both soft and dry;
Where Thou my chamber for to ward...

My head is at your feet,
Two Cytherean doves,
The same, O cruel sweet,
As were the Queen of Love's;
They brush my dreaming brows
With silver fluttering beat,
Here in your golden house,...

Silently -- shadowly -- some lives go,
And the sound of their voices is all unheard;
Or, if heard at all, 'tis as faint as the flow
Of beautiful waves which no storm hath stirred.
Deep lives these...

INSCRIBED TO MY FRIEND E. C.


If God compel thee to this destiny,
To die alone, with none beside thy bed
To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said
And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee,...

I am happier for the Spring;
For my heart is like a bird
That has many songs to sing,
But whose voice is never heard
Till the happy year is caroling
To the daisies on the sward.
...

She might, so noble from head
To great shapely knees,
The long flowing line,
Have walked to the altar
Through the holy images
At Pallas Athene's side,
Or been fit spoil for a centaur...

I heard an Eagle crying all alone
Above the vineyards through the summer night,
Among the skeletons of robber towers:
Because the ancient eyrie of his race
Was trenched and walled by busy-handed men;...

A throe upon the features
A hurry in the breath,
An ecstasy of parting
Denominated "Death," --

An anguish at the mention,
Which, when to patience grown,
I 've known permission given...

At last I got a letter from the dead,
And out of it there fell a little flower, -
The violet of an unforgotten hour.

The bars are thick with drops that show
As they gather themselves from the fog
Like silver buttons ranged in a row,
And as evenly spaced as if measured, although
They fall at the feeblest jog.
...

A friend for you and a friend for me,
A friend to understand;
To cheer the way and help the day
With heart as well as hand:
With heart as well as hand, my dear,
And share the things we 've planned...

The Pilgrimage To Kevlaar.

I.

At the window stood the mother,
In bed the sick son lay;
'Will you not get up, William,
And see them marching away?'

'I am so ill, O mother,...