Works

Face in the tomb, that lies so still,
May I draw near,
And watch your sleep and love you,
Without word or tear.

You smile, your eyelids flicker;
Shall I tell
How the world goes that lost you?...

Sauntering the pavement, or riding the country by-road--lo! such faces!
Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality;
The spiritual, prescient face--the always welcome, common, benevolent face,...

People that I meet and pass
In the city's broken roar,
Faces that I lose so soon
And have never found before,

Do you know how much you tell
In the meeting of our eyes,...

A late snow beats
With cold white fists upon the tenements -
Hurriedly drawing blinds and shutters,
Like tall old slatterns
Pulling aprons about their heads.

Lights slanting out of Mott Street...

They lie, the men who tell us in a loud decisive tone
That want is here a stranger, and that misery's unknown;
For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet...

Dead! and all the haughty fate
Fair on throat and face of wax,
White, calm hands crossed still and lax,
Cold, impassionate!

Dead! and no word whispered low
At the dull ear now could wake...

Up into the Cherry Tree,
Who should climb but little me,
With both my Paws I hold on tight,
And look upon a pleasant sight.

There are the Gardens far away,
Where little Foreign Kittens play,...

So easy 'tis to make a rhyme,
That did the world but know it,
Your coachman might Parnassus climb,
Your butler be a poet.

Then, oh, how charming it would be
If, when in haste hysteric...

Facing west, from California's shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar,...

The factions of the great ones call,
To side with them, the commons all.

(BISMARCK AND NAPOLEON III.)

("Un jour, sentant un royal app'tit.")

[Bk. III. iii., Jersey, September, 1852.]


One fasting day, itched by his appetite,...

Factory windows are always broken.
Somebody's always throwing bricks,
Somebody's always heaving cinders,
Playing ugly Yahoo tricks.

Factory windows are always broken.
Other windows are let alone....

My love she sent a flower to me
Of tender hue and fragrance rare,
And with it came across the sea
A letter kind as she was fair;
But when her letter met mine eyes,...

I

THE RIVER

Still glides the stream, slow drops the boat
Under the rustling poplars' shade;
Silent the swans beside us float
None speaks, none heeds, ah, turn thy head.
...

Only two patient eyes to stare
Out of the canvas. All the rest--
The warm green gown, the small hands pressed
Light in the lap, the braided hair

That must have made the sweet low brow...

From the oped lattice glance once more abroad
While the ethereal moontide bathes with light
Hill, stream, and garden, and white-winding road.


All gracious myths born of the shadowy night...

(TO MRS. PERCY DEARMER)

A poet hungered, as well he might -
Not a morsel since yesternight!
And sad he grew - good reason why -
For the poet had nought wherewith to buy.
...

I.

The winds are whist; and, hid in mist,
The moon hangs o'er the wooded height;
The bushy bee, with unkempt head,
Hath made the sunflower's disk his bed,
And sleeps half-hid from sight....

I.

Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more! oh, weep no more!
Young buds sleep in the root's white core.
Dry your eyes! oh, dry your eyes!...

Here, where precipitate Spring with one light bound
Into hot Summer's lusty arms expires;
And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night,
Soft airs, that want the lute to play with them,...