Works

Tune - "Gilderoy."


I.

From thee, Eliza, I must go,
And from my native shore;
The cruel Fates between us throw
A boundless ocean's roar:
But boundless oceans roaring wide...

Elizabeth, it surely is most fit
[Logic and common usage so commanding]
In thy own book that first thy name be writ,
Zeno and other sages notwithstanding;
And I have other reasons for so doing...

May 1, 1891.

I.

Elizabeth! Elizabeth!
The first May-morning whispereth
Thy gentle name in every breeze
That lispeth through the young-leaved trees,
New raimented in white and green...

Dust of my dust,
And dust with my dust,
O, child who died as you entered the world,
Dead with my death!
Not knowing
Breath, though you tried so hard,
With a heart that beat when you lived with me,...

(Aetat Six)


Now every night we light the grate
And I sit up till really late;
My Father sits upon the right,
My Mother on the left, and I
Between them on an ancient chair,...

Through many a fragrant cedar grove
A darkened water moans;
And there pale Memory stood with Love
Amongst the moss-green stones.

The shimmering sunlight fell and kissed...

Fair Ellen Irwin, when she sate
Upon the braes of Kirtle,
Was lovely as a Grecian maid
Adorned with wreaths of myrtle;
Young Adam Bruce beside her lay,
And there did they beguile the day...

MACPHAIRSON CLONGLOCKETTY ANGUS McCLAN
Was the son of an elderly labouring man;
You've guessed him a Scotchman, shrewd reader, at sight,
And p'r'aps altogether, shrewd reader, you're right.
...

A quiet song for Ellen
The patient Ellen Ray,
A dreamer in the nightfall,
A watcher in the day.
The wedded of the sailor
Who keeps so far away:
A shadow on his forehead
For patient Ellen Ray....

Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer! play
No trick of priestcraft here!
Back, puny lordling! darest thou lay
A hand on Elliott's bier?
Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust,
Beneath his feet he trod.
...

I looked like Abraham Lincoln.
I was one of you, Spoon River, in all fellowship,
But standing for the rights of property and for order.
A regular church attendant,...

And wherefore have they come, this warlike band,
That o'er the ocean many a weary day
Have tossed; and now beside Suakim's Bay,
With faces stern and resolute, do stand,...

Awf'lest boy in this-here town
Er anywheres is Elmer Brown!
He'll mock you - yes, an' strangers, too,
An' make a face an' yell at you, -
"Here's the way you look!"
...

What but the love of God could have softened
And made forgiving the people of Spoon River
Toward me who wronged the bed of Thomas Merritt
And murdered him beside?
Oh, loving hearts that took me in again...

[Original]

'Aprende las cosas elementarias!
'Para aquellos a quienes les ha llegado la hora nunca es demasadio tarde!
Aprende el abecedario. No bastar',
'pero apr'ndolo! 'No dejes que te desanimen!...

In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-pensive contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing melancholy reigns;
What means this tumult in a vestal's veins?...

Eloise! Eloise!
It is morn on the seas,
And the waters are curling and flashing;
And our rock-sheltered seat,
Where the waves ever beat
With a cadenced and rhythmical dashing,
Is here - just here,...

The eve was a burning copper,
The night was a boundless black
Where wells of the lightning crumbled
And boiled with blazing rack,
When I came to the coal-black castle
With the wild rain on my back....

I was a peasant girl from Germany,
Blue-eyed, rosy, happy and strong.
And the first place I worked was at Thomas Greene's.
On a summer's day when she was away
He stole into the kitchen and took me...

Little elfin maid,
Old, though scarce two years,
With your big dark hazel eyes
Tenderer than tears,

And your rosebud mouth
Lisping jocund things,
Breaking brooding silence with...