Works

There was once a little comet who lived near the Milky Way!
She loved to wander out at night and jump about and play.
The mother of the comet was a very good old star -...

Leaden skies and a lonesome shadow
Where summer has passed with her gorgeous train;
Snow on the mountain, and frost on the meadow -
A white face pressed to the window pane;...

I have been across the bridges of the years.
Wet with tears
Were the ties on which I trod, going back
Down the track
To the valley where I left, 'neath skies of Truth,
My lost youth.
...

I have been across the bridges of the years.
Wet with tears
Were the ties on which I trod, going back
Down the track
To the valley where I left, 'neath skies of Truth,
My lost youth.
...

The glitter of wheels far down the street
(Ah me, and alack a day.)
And I heard the thud of his horse's feet
Beating a roundelay.
And I felt a little song coming, coming...

Beside a crib that holds a baby's stocking,
A tattered picture book, a broken toy,
A sleeping mother dreams that she is rocking
Her fair-haired cherub boy.
...

Along the narrow Moorish street
A blue-eyed soldier strode.
(Ah, well-a-day)
Veiled from her lashes to her feet
She stepped from her abode,
(Ah, lack-a-day).
...

PART I

She was a light and wanton maid:
Not one whom fickle Love betrayed,
For indolence was her undoer.
Fair, frivolous, and very poor,
She scorned the thought of toil, in youth,...

However the battle is ended,
Though proudly the victor comes
With fluttering flags and prancing nags
And echoing roll of drums,
Still truth proclaims this motto
In letters of living light, -...

Ho! sportsman Time, whose chargers fleet
The moments, madly driven,
Beat in the dust beneath their feet
Sweet hopes that years have given;
Turn, turn aside those reckless steeds,...

I opened a long closed drawer to-day,
And among the souvenirs stored away
Were the faded leaves of an old bouquet.

Those faded leaves were as white as snow,...

For 'Mabel Brown' I never cared
(My rightful name by birth),
But when the name of Smith I shared,
I seemed to own the earth,
(I wrote it without 'y' or 'e' -
Plain 'Mrs. Jack Smith' suited me.)
...

How young I am! Ah! heaven, this curse of youth
Doth mock me from my mirror with great eyes,
And pulsing veins repeat the unwelcome truth,
That I must live, though hope within me dies.
...

As when the old moon lighted by the tender
And radiant crescent of the new is seen,
And for a moment's space suggests the splendor
Of what in its full prime it once has been,...

Two roadways lead from this land to That, and one is the road of Prayer;
And one is the road of Old-time Songs, and every note is a stair.

A shabby old man with a music machine on the sordid city street;...

O well have we done the old tasks! in the old, old ways of earth.
We have kept the house in order, we have given the children birth;
And our sons went out with their fathers, and left us alone at the hearth!
...

Good-bye - yes, I am going.
Sudden? Well, you are right;
But a startling truth came home to me
With sudden force last night.
What is it? Shall I tell you?
Nay, that is why I go....

What is the end of each man's toil,
Brother, O Brother?
A handful of dust in a bit of soil -
His name forgotten as centuries roll,
Though blazoned to-day on Glory's scroll;...

I strolled last eve across the lonely down;
One solitary picture struck my eye:
A distant ploughboy stood against the sky -
How far he seemed above the noisy town!

Upon the bosom of a cloud the sod...

Oh! I know a certain woman who is reckoned with the good,
But she fills me with more terror than a raging lion could.
The little chills run up and down my spine whene'er we meet,...