Works

Just a changing sea of colour
Surging up and flowing down;
And pagodas shining golden, night and noon;
And a sun-burst-tinted throng
Of young priests that move along...

The Radiant Rulers of Mystic Regions
Where souls of artists are fitted for birth
Gathered together their lovely legions
And fashioned a woman to shine on earth.
They bathed her in splendour,...

Hers was a lonely, shadowed lot;
Or so the unperceiving thought,
Who looked no deeper than her face,
Devoid of chiselled lines of grace -
No farther than her humble grate,...

I tread the paths of earlier times
Where all my steps were set to rhymes.

I gaze on scenes I used to see
When dreaming of a vague To be.

I walk in ways made bright of old...

One time in Arcadie's fair bowers
There met a bright immortal band,
To choose their emblems from the flowers
That made an Eden of that land.

Sweet Constancy, with eyes of hope,...

Twice have I seen God's full reflected grace.
Once when the wailing of a child at birth
Proclaimed another soul had come to earth,
That look shone on, and through the mother's face.
...

The time has come when men with hearts and brains
Must rise and take the misdirected reins
Of government; too long left in the hands
Of aliens and of lackeys. He who stands...

There is a haunting phantom called Regret,
A shadowy creature robed somewhat like Woe,
But fairer in the face, whom all men know
By her sad mien and eyes forever wet....

Regret with streaming eyes doth seem alway
A maiden widowed on her wedding day.

While dark Remorse, with eyes too sad for tears,
A crushed, desponding Magdalene appears.
...

He slept as weary toilers do,
She gazed up at the moon.
He stirred and said, "Wife, come to bed";
She answered, "Soon, full soon."
(Oh! that strange mystery of the dead moon's face.)
...

His art was loving; Eres set his sign
Upon that youthful forehead, and he drew
The hearts of women, as the sun draws dew.
Love feeds love's thirst as wine feeds love of wine;...

When in the early dawn I hear the thrushes,
And like a flood of waters o'er my heart
The memory of another summer rushes,
How can I rise up, and perform my part?
...

Over and over and over
These truths I will weave in song -
That God's great plan needs you and me,
That will is greater than destiny,
And that love moves the world along.
...

You have lived long and learned the secret of life, O Seer!
Tell me what are the best three things to seek -
The best three things for a man to seek on earth?
...

Build on resolve, and not upon regret,
The structure of thy future. Do not grope
Among the shadows of old sins, but let
Thine own soul's light shine on the path of hope...

The mighty conflict, which we call existence,
Doth wear upon the body and the soul,
Our vital forces wasted in resistance,
So much there is to conquer and control.
...

The mighty conflict, which we call existence,
Doth wear upon the body and the soul.
Our vital forces wasted in resistance,
So much there is to conquer and control.
...

I said this morning, as I leaned and threw
My shutters open to the Spring's surprise,
"Tell me, O Earth, how is it that in you
Year after year the same fresh feelings rise?...

Pausing a moment ere the day was done,
While yet the earth was scintillant with light,
I backward glanced. From valley, plain, and height,
At intervals, where my life-path had run,...

I look down the lengthening distance
Far back to youth's valley of hope.
How strange seemed the ways of existence,
How infinite life and its scope!

What dreams, what ambitions came thronging...