Works

'T is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembers
All the achings and the quakings of "the times that tried men's souls";
When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell the Rebel story,...

This cap, that so stately appears,
With ribbon-bound tassel on high,
Which seems by the crest that it rears
Ambitious of brushing the sky:
This cap to my cousin I owe,
She gave it, and gave me beside,...

Once on a time a lady quarrelled
With the witty Douglass Jerrold,
Because that he had been so bold,
To hint that she was growing old.

She said her hair was dark 'till one day...

Theodore Roosevelt

"The interpreter then called for a man-servant of his, one Great-Heart." - Bunyan's' Pilgrim's Progess.

Concerning brave Captains
Our age hath made known
For all men to honour,...

Great men have been among us; hands that penned
And tongues that uttered wisdom, better none:
The later Sidney, Marvel, Harrington,
Young Vane, and others who called Milton friend....

Come to these peaceful seats, and think no more
Of cold, of midnight watchings, or the roar
Of Ocean, tossing on his restless bed!
Come to these peaceful seats, ye who have bled...

Written for the Alumni of Albion College, Michigan; and sung at their last re-union, June, 1881.


The gliding years have rolled along,
And once again we come,
With greeting hand and choral song,...

A youth unto herself Grief took,
Whom everything of joy forsook,
And men passed with denying head,
Saying: "'T were better he were dead."

Grief took him, and with master-touch...

Grief, thou hast lost an ever-ready friend
Now that the cottage Spinning-wheel is mute;
And Care, a comforter that best could suit
Her froward mood, and softliest reprehend;...

Ye who have come o'er the sea
to behold this grey minster of lands,
Whose floor is the tomb of time past,
and whose walls by the toil of dead hands
Show pictures amidst of the ruin...

So, then! Wilt use me as a garment? Well,
'Tis man's high impudence to think he may;

But I, who am as old as heav'n and hell,
I am not lightly to be east away.
...

High up in the sky there, now, you know,
In this May twilight, our cottage is asleep,
Tenantless, and no creature there to go
Near it but Mrs. Fry's fat cows, and sheep...

Hack and Hew were the sons of God
In the earlier earth than now;
One at his right hand, one at his left,
To obey as he taught them how.

And Hack was blind and Hew was dumb,...

When down the Hartz the echoes swarm
He rides beneath the sounding storm
With mad "halloo!" and wild alarm
Of hound and horn - a wonder,
With his hunter black as night,
Ban-dogs fleet and fast as light,...

Tune - "Robin Adair."


I.

Had I a cave on some wild, distant shore,
Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar;
There would I weep my woes,
There seek my lost repose,...

Had I the choice to tally greatest bards,
To limn their portraits, stately, beautiful, and emulate at will,
Homer with all his wars and warriors, Hector, Achilles, Ajax,...

Tune - "Had I the wyte she bade me."


I.

Had I the wyte, had I the wyte,
Had I the wyte she bade me;
She watch'd me by the hie-gate side.
And up the loan she shaw'd me;...

Had I wist, when life was like a warm wind playing
Light and loud through sundawn and the dew's bright trust,
How the time should come for hearts to sigh in saying
'Had I wist' -
...

Who knows the heart of the Christian? How does he reason?
What are his measures and balances? Which is his season
For laughter, forbearance or bloodshed, and what devils move him...

Had we not met, the brooding woe
And all the griefs that greater grow,
Might not have been, and happy-wise
Our lives have laughed with lullabies
And quaffed such joys as few may know.
...