Works

From my farm, from h'r farm
Furtively we came.
In either home a hearth was warm:
We nursed a hungrier flame.

Our feet were foul with mire,
Our faces blind with mist;...

Over the rim of the Moor,
And under the starry sky,
Two men came to my door
And rested them thereby.

Beneath the bough and the star,
In a whispering foreign tongue,
They talked of a land afar...

When with closed eyes in autumn's eves of gold
I breathe the burning odours of your breast,
Before my eyes the hills of happy rest
Bathed in the sun's monotonous fires, unfold.
...

You 'll be wonderin' whut 's de reason
I 's a grinnin' all de time,
An' I guess you t'ink my sperits
Mus' be feelin' mighty prime.
Well, I 'fess up, I is tickled
As a puppy at his paws....

("Moune, 'cureuil.")

[xx.]


Squirrel, mount yon oak so high,
To its twig that next the sky
Bends and trembles as a flower!
Strain, O stork, thy pinion well, -...

Roll on, O shining sun,
To the far seas!
Bring down, ye shades of eve,
The soft, salt breeze!
Shine out, O stars, and light
My darling's pathway bright,
As through the summer night...

Into life's ocean the youth with a thousand masts daringly launches;
Mute, in a boat saved from wreck, enters the gray-beard the port.

Live with a thrifty, not a needy fate;
Small shots paid often waste a vast estate.

The lords of life, the lords of life,--
I saw them pass
In their own guise,
Like and unlike,
Portly and grim,--
Use and Surprise,
Surface and Dream,
Succession swift and spectral Wrong,...

Three memories hold us ever
With longing and with pain;
Three memories Time has never
Been able to restrain;
That in each life remain
A part of heart and brain.
...

I stepped from plank to plank
So slow and cautiously;
The stars about my head I felt,
About my feet the sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch, --...

Experiment to me
Is every one I meet.
If it contain a kernel?
The figure of a nut

Presents upon a tree,
Equally plausibly;
But meat within is requisite,
To squirrels and to me.

Early within his workshop here,
On Sundays stands our master dear;
His dirty apron he puts away,
And wears a cleanly doublet to-day;
Lets wax'd thread, hammer, and pincers rest,...

A Young fig-tree its form lifts high

Within a beauteous garden;
And see, a goat is sitting by.

As if he were its warden.

But oh, Quirites, how one errs!
...

Our fellow-countrymen in chains!
Slaves, in a land of light and law!
Slaves, crouching on the very plains
Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war!
A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood,...

Tantane, tam patiens, nullo certamine tolli
Dona sines?
- Virg.



Why, weeps the muse for England? What appears
In England's case to move the muse to tears?...

Why, William, on that old gray stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

"Where are your books? that light bequeathed...

I

Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us . . .
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . .
Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . ....

Expression, throbbing utterance of the soul,
Born in some bard, when with the muses' fires
His feeling bursts unaw'd, above control,
And to the topmost height of heaven aspires,...

The playful smiles around the dimpled mouth,
That happy air of majesty and truth,
So would I draw: but, oh! 'tis vain to try,
My narrow genius does the power deny;
The equal lustre of the heavenly mind,...