Works

Wake, Israel, wake! Recall to-day
The glorious Maccabean rage,
The sire heroic, hoary-gray,
His five-fold lion-lineage:
The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God,
The Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod.*...

With brooding mien and sultry eyes,
Outside the gates of Paradise
Eve sat, and fed the faggot flame
That lit the path whence Adam came.
(Strange are the workings of a woman's mind.)
...

He sat by the dusty way-side,
With weary, hopeless mien,
On his furrowed brow the traces
Of care and want were seen;
With outstretched hand and with bowed-down head
He asked the passers-by for bread....

No brigadier throughout the year
So civic as the jay.
A neighbor and a warrior too,
With shrill felicity

Pursuing winds that censure us
A February day,
The brother of the universe...

Bound and bordered in leaf-green,
Edged with trellised buds and flowers
And glad Summer-gold, with clean
White and purple morning-glories
Such as suit the songs and stories
Of this book of ours,...

You who to the rounded prime
Of a life of toil and stress,
Still have kept the morning-time
Of glad youth in heart and spirit,
So your laugh, as children hear it,
Seems their own, no less, -...

Why I tie about thy wrist,
Julia, this silken twist;
For what other reason 'tis
But to show thee how, in part,
Thou my pretty captive art?
But thy bond slave is my heart:...

The simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough,
Learning his tuneful trade from ev'ry bough;
The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush,
Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn bush:...

On his text, MALACHI, iv. 2 - "And ye shall go forth, and grow up as CALVES of the stall."


Right, Sir! your text I'll prove it true,
Though Heretics may laugh;
For instance; there's yoursel' just now,...

White as Zenobia's teeth, the which the girls
Of Rome did wear for their most precious pearls.

I.

In midmost Ind, beside Hydaspes cool,
There stood, or hover'd, tremulous in the air,
A faery city 'neath the potent rule
Of Emperor Elfinan; fam'd ev'rywhere...

Of the childhood of our Saviour
Tells one simple verse alone;
Yet from that his whole behavior
When he was a child, is known.

He was subject to his mother,
So the holy Scriptures say;...

Take note, passers-by, of the sharp erosions
Eaten in my head-stone by the wind and rain -
Almost as if an intangible Nemesis or hatred
Were marking scores against me,...

I would not always reason. The straight path
Wearies us with its never-varying lines,
And we grow melancholy. I would make
Reason my guide, but she should sometimes sit...

TWO lawyers to their cause so well adhered,
A country justice quite confused appeared,
By them the facts were rendered so obscure
With which the truth remained he was not sure....

(To myself.)


NOSCE TEIPSUM: look and spy,
Have you a friend so fond as I?
Have you a fault, to mankind known,
Not hidden unto eyes your own?
When airy castles you importune,...

The clover was in blossom, an' the year was at the June,
When Flap-jack Billy hit the town, likewise O'Flynn's saloon.
The frost was on the fodder an' the wind was growin' keen,...

Let us mix a cup of Joy
That the wretched may employ,
Whom the Fates have made their toy.

Who have given brain and heart
To the thankless world of Art,
And from Fame have won no part.
...

Night bent o'er the mountains
With aspect serene;
The deep waters slept
'Neath the moon's pallid sheen,
And the stars in their courses
Moved noiseless on high,
As a soul, when it cleaveth...

With a whirl of thought oppress'd,
I sunk from reverie to rest.
An horrid vision seized my head;
I saw the graves give up their dead!
Jove, arm'd with terrors, bursts the skies,...