Works

I.

The slanted storm tossed at their feet
The frost-nipped Autumn leaves;
The park's high pines were caked with sleet
And ice-spears armed the eaves.
They strolled adown the pillared pines...

No'ra, when sad Fall
Has grayed the fallow;
Leaf-cramped the wood-brook's brawl
In pool and shallow;
When, by the woodside, tall
Stands sere the mallow.

No'ra, when gray gold...

Don't know what to do to-day.
Got so many things to do
I can't do them. Want to play,
But my toys are all too new
I don't like to play with them:
Blocks and paints and dogs and guns;...

I

The shivering wind sits in the oaks, whose limbs,
Twisted and tortured, nevermore are still;
Grief and decay sit with it; they, whose chill
Autumnal touch makes hectic-red the rims...

Unto the soul's companionship
Of things that only seem to be,
Earth points with magic fingertip
And bids thee see
How Fancy keeps thee company.

For oft at dawn hast not beheld...

Far off a wind blew, and I heard
Wild echoes of the woods reply -
The herald of some royal word,
With bannered trumpet, blown on high,
Meseemed then passed me by:
...

Red-Faced as old carousal, and with eyes
A hard, hot blue; her hair a frowsy flame,
Bold, dowdy-bosomed, from her widow-frame
She leans, her mouth all insult and all lies....

An Ode to be read on the laying of the foundation stone of the new Oglethorpe University, January, 1915, at Atlanta, Georgia

I.

As when with oldtime passion for this Land...

Clove-spicy pinks and phlox that fill the sense
With drowsy indolence;
And in the evening skies
Interior splendor, pregnant with surprise,
As if in some new wise
The full moon soon would rise.
...

Old homes among the hills! I love their gardens;
Their old rock fences, that our day inherits;
Their doors, round which the great trees stand like wardens;
Their paths, down which the shadows march like spirits;...

Last night we were kept awake.
Could n't sleep for Old Jack Frost;
Wandering round like some old ghost.
Gave the door an awful shake;
Knocked against my bed's brass post.
Last night we were kept awake....

Old Man Rain at the windowpane
Knocks and fumbles and knocks again:
His long-nailed fingers slip and strain:
Old Man Rain at the windowpane
Knocks all night but knocks in vain.
Old Man Rain.
...

There is nothing at all to do to-day.
I can't go out and run and play;
For it's raining and snowing and sleeting, too;
And Old Man Winter he is to blame.
And I just sit here and think it a shame....

Bald, with old eyes a blood-shot blue, he comes
Into the Boar's-Head Inn: the hot sweat streaks
His fulvous face, and all his raiment reeks
Of all the stews and all the Eastcheap slums....

Old Sis Snow, with hair ablow,
Down the road now see her go!
Her old gown pulled back and pinned
Round her legs by Wild-boy Wind
Ough n't he to just be skinned?
Hear her shriek, now high, now low,...

I.

Once I found an ant-lion's hole
And an ant-lion in it: nippers
Like a pair of rusty clippers.
And I saw a red ant roll
In its pit, and, quick as Ned,
This old ant-lion fanged its head,...

From the idyll "Wild Thorn and Lily"

O Maytime woods! O Maytime lanes and hours!
And stars, that knew how often there at night
Beside the path, where woodbine odors blew...

Sad o'er the hills the poppy sunset died.
Slow as a fungus breaking through the crusts
Of forest leaves, the waning half-moon thrusts,
Through gray-brown clouds, one milky silver side;...

1

To-morrow and to-morrow
Is but to-day:
The world wags but to borrow
Time that grows gray: -
Grammercy! time's but sorrow
And - well away!


2
...

I Thought of the road through the glen,
With its hawk's nest high in the pine;
With its rock, where the fox had his den,
'Mid tangles of sumach and vine,
Where she swore to be mine.
...