Works

We two, how long we were fool'd!
Now transmuted, we swiftly escape, as Nature escapes;
We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return;
We become plants, leaves, foliage, roots, bark;...

What an insignificant trifle may sometimes transform the whole man!

Full of melancholy thought, I walked one day along the highroad.
...

Six hundred miles north of Cape Flattery,
On sea there seemed a floating battery,
And stream of blood did dye the water,
Sailors wondered what was the matter.

But they soon saw a great sword fish...

Wintertime, er Summertime,
Of late years I notice I'm,
Kindo'-like, more subjec' to
What the weather is. Now, you
Folks 'at lives in town, I s'pose,
Thinks its bully when it snows;...

When I was young my teachers were the old.
I gave up fire for form till I was cold.
I suffered like a metal being cast.
I went to school to age to learn the past.
...

What have I done for you,
England, my England?
What is there I would not do,
England, my own?
With your glorious eyes austere,
As the Lord were walking near,
Whispering terrible things and dear...

What have we all forgotten, at the break of the seventh year?
With a nation born to the ages and a Bad Time borne on its bier!
Public robbing, and lying that death cannot erase,...

I have come with my verses - I think I may claim
It is not the first time I have tried on the same.
They were puckered in rhyme, they were wrinkled in wit;
But your hearts were so large that they made them a fit....

What is flirtation? Really,
How can I tell you that?
But when she smiles I see its wiles,
And when he lifts his hat.

'Tis walking in the moonlight,
'Tis buttoning on a glove,...

Our window's not much, though it fronts on the street;
There's a fly in the pane that gets nothin' to eat;
But it's curious how people think it's a treat
For me to look out of the window!
...

There wasn't two purtier farms in the state
Than the couple of which I'm about to relate; -
Jinin' each other - belongin' to Brown,
And jest at the edge of a flourishin' town....

The bairns i' their beds, worn oot wi' nae wark,
Are sleepin, nor ever an eelid winkin;
The auld fowk lie still wi' their een starin stark,
An' the mirk pang-fou o' the things they are thinkin.
...

HE.

What the bee is to the floweret,
When he looks for honey-dew,
Thro' the leaves that close embower it,
That, my love, I'll be to you.

SHE.

What the bank, with verdure glowing,...

She came through shade and shine,
By scarlet trumpetvine
And fragrant buttonbush,
That heaped the wayside hush
And oh!
The orange-red of the butterfly weed,
And pink of the milkweed's plume,...

The moon is but a candle-glow
That flickers thro' the gloom:
The starry space, a castle hall:
And Earth, the children's room,
Where all night long the old trees stand
To watch the streams asleep:...

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)

The moon's a gong, hung in the wild,
Whose song the fays hold dear.
Of course you do not hear it, child.
It takes a FAIRY ear.
...

O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind,
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist
And the black elm tops 'mong the freezing stars,
To thee the spring will be a harvest-time....

What weeping face is that looking from the window?
Why does it stream those sorrowful tears?
Is it for some burial place, vast and dry?
Is it to wet the soil of graves?

Across the sea, along the shore,
In numbers more and ever more,
From lonely hut and busy town,
The valley through, the mountain down,
What was it ye went out to see,
Ye silly folk of Galilee?...

On Jordan's banks gathered an eager crowd,
The Royal city poured its dwellers out;
The vintage was untouched in Ephraim;
No fisher's boat from Magdala put out.

Up from Engedi's fountain, down the slope...