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This poem was first published under the name of "One of the Living Poets of Great Britain." I have thought it best to revise and publish it in my own name, and as it is the last written by me, and the last I may ever live to wr...

I stand beneath the tree, whose branches shade
Thy western window, Chapel of St. John!
And hear its leaves repeat their benison
On him, whose hand if thy stones memorial laid;...

I

Dizzily round
On the elf-hills white in the yellow moonlight
To a sweet, unholy, ravishing sound
Of wizard voices from underground,
Their mazy dance the Elle-maids wound
On St. John's Eve....

TO charms and philters, secret spells and prayers,
How many round attribute all their cares!
In these howe'er I never can believe,
And laugh at follies that so much deceive....

Mortally wounded at Chancellorsville
May, 1863

The Man who fiercest charged in fight,
Whose sword and prayer were long--
Stonewall!
Even him who stoutly stood for Wrong,...

(Ascribed to a Virginian.)


One man we claim of wrought renown
Which not the North shall care to slur;
A Modern lived who sleeps in death,
Calm as the marble Ancients are:...

A simple, sodded mound of earth,
Without a line above it;
With only daily votive flowers
To prove that any love it:
The token flag that silently
Each breeze's visit numbers,...

He loved the Plant with a keen delight,
A passionate fervour, strange to see,
Tended it ardently, day and night,
Yet never a flower lit up the tree.

The leaves were succulent, thick, and green,...

"And when the Summer Heat is great,
And every hour intense,
The Moghra, with its subtle flowers,
Intoxicates the sense."

The Coco palms stood tall and slim, against the golden-glow,...

Well: Death is a huge omnivorous Toad
Grim squatting on a twilight road.
He catcheth all that Circumstance
Hath tossed to him.
He curseth all who upward glance
As lost to him.
...

Surprised by joy, impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport, Oh! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?...

Surprised by joy, impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport, Oh! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?...

Sword of Jehovah, swing
O'er the world's ravening,
Wide on the tempest's wing,
Swing far! Swing free!
Where the mailed hand is set,
Braced to the bayonet,
Bloody and warm and wet,...

He never drew a sword to fight a dozen foes alone,
Nor gave a life to save a life no better than his own.
He lived because he had been born, the hero of my song,...

There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes. John 6:9.


He must have been a thoughtful youth,
His name the record has not given,
But if his heart imbibed the truth,...

That kind heart you were jealous of, my nurse
Who sleeps her sleep beneath the humble turf,
I'd like to give her flowers, wouldn't you?
The dead, the poor dead, have their sorrows too,...

One moonlit night a ship drove in,
A ghost ship from the west,
Drifting with bare mast and lone tiller,
Like a mermaid drest
In long green weed and barnacles:
She beached and came to rest.
...

(From a picture by Botticelli, of the Madonna and Child with Angels,--in the Borghese Gallery)


Ineffable angel, with the jasmine wreathed,
Wherefrom the sweetness over brow and lips,...

One moment bid the horses wait,
Since tiffin is not laid till three,
Below the upward path and straight
You climbed a year ago with me.
Love came upon us suddenly
And loosed, an idle hour to kill,...

When spring-time flushes the desert grass,
Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.
Lean are the camels but fat the frails,
Light are the purses but heavy the bales,...