Works

God, what a glory, is this consciousness,
Of life on life, that comes to those who seek!
Nor would I, if I might, to others speak,
The fulness of that knowledge. It can bless,...

"Fall in, that awkward squad, and strike no more
"Attractive attitudes! Dress by the right!
"The luminous rich colours that you wore
"Have changed to hueless khaki in the night....

I.

This is the place where visions come to dance,
Dreams of the trees and flowers, glimmeringly;
Where the white moon and the pale stars can see,
Sitting with Legend and with dim Romance....

Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.

(Macmillan's Magazine, Jan. 1866.)


Consider
The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief: -
We are as they;
Like them we fade away,
As doth a leaf.

Consider...

Heavy, O Lord, on my thy judgements lie;
Accursed I am while God rejects my cry.
O'erwhelm'd in darkness and despair I groan,
And every place is hell, for God is gone....

Look at that tract of land there - five good acres
Held out of use these thirty years and more.
They keep a cow there. See! the cow's there now.
She can't eat up the grass, there is so much....

Flowers preach to us if we will hear: -
The rose saith in the dewy morn:
I am most fair;
Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn.
The poppy saith amid the corn:
Let but my scarlet head appear...

Lord, according to thy words,
I have considered thy birds;
And I find their life good,
And better the better understood:
Sowing neither corn nor wheat
They have all that they can eat;...

Should painter attach to a fair human head
The thick, turgid neck of a stallion,
Or depict a spruce lass with the tail of a bass,
I am sure you would guy the rapscallion.
...

O but there is wisdom
In what the sages said;
But stretch that body for a while
And lay down that head
Till I have told the sages
Where man is comforted.

How could passion run so deep...

Mist clogs the sunshine.
Smoky dwarf houses
Hem me round everywhere;
A vague dejection
Weighs down my soul.
Yet, while I languish,
Everywhere countless
Prospects unroll themselves,...

All are not taken; there are left behind
Living Belov'ds, tender looks to bring
And make the daylight still a happy thing,
And tender voices, to make soft the wind:
But if it were not so, if I could find...

'Tis not when we look on the dreamless dead,
And feel that the spirit forever has fled;
'Tis not when we're called to the voiceless tomb
By the loved who were culled in their brightest bloom;...

To the Editor of the Knickerbocker.
...

Most unpleasantly adjacent to the haunts of lower orders
Stood a 'terrace' in the city when the current year began,
And a notice indicated there were vacancies for boarders...

Beyond the orchard, in the lane,
The crested red-bird sings again -
O bird, whose song says, Have no care.
Should I not care when CONSTANCE there, -
My CONSTANCE, with the bashful gaze,...

I cannot change as others do,
Though you unjustly scorn;
Since that poor swain that sighs for you
For you alone was born.
No, Phillis, no; your heart to move
A surer way I'll try;...

I first saw Phebe when the show'rs
Had just made brighter all the flow'rs;
Yet she was fair
As any there,
And so I loved her hours and hours.

Then I met Helen, and her ways...

"You gave me the key of your heart, my love;
Then why do you make me knock?"
"Oh, that was yesterday, Saints above!
And last night, I changed the lock!"