Works

The Umbrageous Umbrella-maker,
whose Face nobody ever saw, because it was
always covered by his Umbrella.

Even this heavenly pair were unequally match'd when united:

Psyche grew older and wise, Amor remain'd still a child,

If goodness were always the comrade of beauty I would seek a wife to-morrow; but as divorce between these two is no new thing, and as there are so few lovely forms that enshrine lovely souls, thus uniting both one and the other...

Father of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou great First Cause, least understood:
Who all my sense confined...

The Angel of the night when night was gone
High upon Heaven's ramparts, cried, "The Dawn!"

And wheeling worlds grew radiant with the one
And undiminished glory of the sun.
...

Forth to his study the sculptor goes
In a mood of lofty mirth:
"Now shall the tongues of my carping foes
Confess what my art is worth!
In my brain last night the vision arose,...

I had been almost happy for an hour,
Lost to the world that knew me in the park
Among strange faces; while my little girl
Leaped with the squirrels, chirruped with the birds...

A bulrush stood on a river's rim,
And an oak that grew near by
Looked down with cold hauteur on him,
And addressed him this way: "Hi!"
The rush was a proud patrician, and
He retorted, "Don't you know,...

[Bk. III. vi., October, 1846.]


A lion camped beside a spring, where came the Bird
Of Jove to drink:
When, haply, sought two kings, without their courtier herd,
The moistened brink,...

Muse of my heart, lover of palaces,
When January comes with wind and sleet,
During the snowy eve's long weariness,
Will there be fire to warm thy violet feet?

Wilt thou reanimate thy marble shoulders...

Argument.
...

The dogs made way for him and snarled and ran;
And little children to their parents clung,
Big-eyed with fear, when, gruff of look and tongue,
Bent-backed he passed who had the village ban....

To work a wonder, God would have her shown
At once a bud and yet a rose full-blown.

My little love, my darling,
You were a doorway to me;
You let me out of the confines
Into this strange countrie,
Where people are crowded like thistles,
Yet are shapely and comely to see.
...

Who is that goddess to whom men should pray
But her from whom their hearts have turned away,
Out of whose virgin being they were born,
Whose mother nature they have named in scorn...

The rod was but a harmless wand,
While Moses held it in his hand;
But, soon as e'er he laid it down,
Twas a devouring serpent grown.
Our great magician, Hamet Sid,
Reverses what the prophet did:...

Orleans was hush'd in sleep. Stretch'd on her couch
The delegated Maiden lay: with toil
Exhausted and sore anguish, soon she closed
Her heavy eye-lids; not reposing then,
For busy Phantasy, in other scenes...

She spake, and lo! celestial radiance beam'd
Amid the air, such odors wafting now
As erst came blended with the evening gale,
From Eden's bowers of bliss. An angel form...

The Maiden, musing on the Warrior's words,
Turn'd from the Hall of Glory. Now they reach'd
A cavern, at whose mouth a Genius stood,
In front a beardless youth, whose smiling eye...

Oh Sea, that with infinite sadness, and infinite yearning
Liftest thy crystal forehead toward the unpitying stars,--
Evermore ebbing and flowing, and evermore returning...