Works

Pacing slowly down the road
Black horses go, with load on load
Of Dublin people dead, and they
Will be covered up in clay.

Ere their friends go home, each man
Will shake his head, and drain a can...

Towery city and branchy between towers;
Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarm'd, lark-charm'd, rook- racked, river-rounded;
The dapple-eared lily below thee; that country and town did...

(November, 1861.)


In time and measure perfect moves
All Art whose aim is sure;
Evolving ryhme and stars divine
Have rules, and they endure.

Nor less the Fleet that warred for Right,...

The Text is another of the lively battle-pieces from the Percy Folio, put into modern spelling, and no other version is known or needed. The battle of Durham, which the minstrel says (27.1, 64.2) was fought on a morning of May,...

(See Note 28)

My boyish heart in thee confided,
For to the great by thee 't was guided.
As man, my waiting is for thee, -
The Northern cause with thee, with thee!
...

They sing their dearest songs -
He, she, all of them - yea,
Treble and tenor and bass,
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face . . .
Ah, no; the years O!...

Sweet evening comes, friend of the criminal,
Like an accomplice with a light footfall;
The sky shuts on itself as though a tomb,
And man turns beast within his restless room.
...

Dusk wraps the village in its dim caress;
Each chimney's vapour, like a thin grey rod,
Mounting aloft through miles of quietness,
Pillars the skies of God.
...

The frightened herds of clouds across the sky
Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day
Into the dusky forest-lands of gray
And sombre twilight. Far and faint, and high,...

Corn-colored clouds upon a sky of gold,
And 'mid their sheaves, - where, like a daisy-bloom
Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom,
The star of twilight glows, - as Ruth, 'tis told,...

Corn-Colored clouds upon a sky of gold,
And 'mid their sheaves, where, like a daisy bloom
Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom,
The star of twilight flames, as Ruth, 't is told,...

The moon is like a scimitar,
A little silver scimitar,
A-drifting down the sky.
And near beside it is a star,
A timid twinkling golden star,
That watches like an eye....

Evening, and all the birds
In a chorus of shimmering sound
Are easing their hearts of joy
For miles around.

The air is blue and sweet,
The few first stars are white,
Oh let me like the birds...

Three miles of trees it is: and I
Came through the woods that waited, dumb,
For the cool summer dusk to come;
And lingered there to watch the sky
Up which the gradual splendor clomb.
...

A half-hour more and you will lean
To gather me close in the old sweet way
But oh, to the woman over the sea
Who will come at the close of day?

A half-hour more and I will hear...

I heard them in their sadness say,
"The earth rebukes the thought of God:
We are but embers wrapt in clay
A little nobler than the sod."

But I have touched the lips of clay--...

When the white flame in us is gone,
And we that lost the world's delight
Stiffen in darkness, left alone
To crumble in our separate night;

When your swift hair is quiet in death,...

When I went to look at what had long been hidden,
A jewel laid long ago in a secret place,
I trembled, for I thought to see its dark deep fire,
But only a pinch of dust blew up in my face.
...

If, as they say, some dust thrown in my eyes
Will keep my talk from getting overwise,
I'm not the one for putting off the proof.
Let it be overwhelming, off a roof
And round a corner, blizzard snow for dust,...

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.