For three whole days across the sky, In sullen packs that loomed and broke, With flying fringes dim as smoke, The columns of the rain went by; At every hour the wind awoke;...
Behold the blossom-bosomed Day again, With all the star-white Hours in her train, Laughs out of pearl-lights through a golden ray, That, leaning on the woodland wildness, blends...
My books are on their shelves again And clouds lie low with mist and rain. Afar the Arno murmurs low The tale of fields of melting snow. List to the bells of times agone...
I saw his face to-day; he looks a chief Who fears not human rage, nor human guile; Upon his cheeks the twilight of a grief, But in that grief the starlight of a smile....
I nearly died, I almost touched the door That swings between forever and no more; I think I heard the awful hinges grate, Hour after hour, while I did weary wait Death's coming; but alas! 'twas all in vain:...
Was there a wind? Tap... tap... Night pads upon the snow with moccasined feet... and it is still... so still... an eagle's feather might fall like a stone. Could there have been a storm......
The vast and solemn company of clouds Around the Sun's death, lit, incarnadined, Cool into ashy wan; as Night enshrouds The level pasture, creeping up behind...
Night creeps into the cellars, musty and dull. Tuxedos totter through the rubble of the street. Faces are moldy and worn out. The blue morning burns coolly in the city....
Silence now reigns in the corridors wide, The stately rooms of that mansion of pride; The music is hushed, the revellers gone, The glitt'ring ball-room deserted and lone, -...
Night closed around the conqueror's way, And lightnings showed the distant hill, Where those who lost that dreadful day, Stood few and faint, but fearless still. The soldier's hope, the patriot's zeal,...