Works

I am all alone in the house to-night;
They would not have gone away
Had they known of the terrible, bloodless fight
I have held with my heart to-day.
With the old sweet love and the old fierce pain...

Always at sea I think about the dead.
On barques invisible they seem to sail
The self-same course; and from the decks cry 'Hail'!
Then I recall old words that they have said,...

He said he loved me! Then he called my hair
Silk threads wherewith sly Cupid strings his bow,
My cheek a rose leaf fallen on new snow;
And swore my round, full throat would bring despair...

Do you think, dear, as you say
Such a light good-bye to-day,
That this parting time may be
Mayhaps less to you, than me?

What a wonder of surprise
Looks out from your sunny eyes....

A lovely little keeper of the home,
Absorbed in menu books, yet erudite
When I need counsel; quick at repartee
And slow to anger. Modest as a flower,
Yet scintillant and radiant as a star....

Like the tenth wave, that offers to the shore
Accumulated opulence and force,
So does my heart, which thought it loved of yore,
Carry increasing passion down the course
Of time to proffer thee....

(Intended for recitation at club dinners.)


To-night when I came from the club at eleven,
Under the gaslight I saw a face -
A woman's face! and I swear to heaven...

How cold the old porch seems. A dreary chill
Creeps upward from the river at twilight,
And yet, I like to linger here at night,
And dream the summer tarries with us still.
...

Let the old snow be covered with the new:
The trampled snow, so soiled, and stained, and sodden.
Let it be hidden wholly from our view
By pure white flakes, all trackless and untrodden....

A yacht from its harbor ropes pulled free,
And leaped like a steed o'er the race track blue,
Then up behind her, the dust of the sea,
A gray fog drifted, and hid her from view.

Sit still, I say, and dispense with heroics!
I hurt your wrists? Well, you have hurt me.
It is time you found out that all men are not stoics,
Nor toys to be used as your mood may be....

If all the end of this continuous striving
Were simply to attain,
How poor would seem the planning and contriving
The endless urging and the hurried driving
Of body, heart and brain!
...

Quite carelessly I turned the newsy sheet;
A song I sang, full many a year ago,
Smiled up at me, as in a busy street
One meets an old-time friend he used to know.
...

I am the refuge of all the oppressed,
I am the boast of the free,
I am the harbour where ships may rest
Safely 'twixt sea and sea.
I hold up a torch to a darkened world,
I lighten the path with its ray....

Oh! we love all the French, and we speak in French
As along through France we go.
But the moments to us that are keen and sweet
Are the ones when our khaki boys we meet,...

America will not turn back;
She did not idly start,
But weighed full carefully and well
Her grave, important part.
She chose the part of Freedom's friend,
And will pursue it, to the end.
...

I heard a strain of music in the street -
A wandering waif of sound. And then straightway
A nameless desolation filled the day.
The great green earth that had been fair and sweet,...

Above her veil a shrouded Moorish maid
Showed melting eyes, as limpid as a lake;
A brow untouched by care; a band of jetty hair,
And nothing more. The all-concealing haik...

I am stirred by the dream of an afternoon
Of a perfect day - though it was not June;
The lilt of winds, and the droning tune
That a busy city was humming.

And a bronze-brown head, and lips like wine...

If all the year was summer time,
And all the aim of life
Was just to lilt on like a rhyme,
Then I would be your wife.

If all the days were August days,
And crowned with golden weather,...