Works

For the sake of guilty conscience, and the heart that ticks the time
Of the clockworks of my nature, I desire to say that I'm
A weak and sinful creature, as regards my daily walk...

Dead art thou? No more dead than was the maid
Over whose couch the saving God did stand--
"She is not dead but sleepeth," said,
And took her by the hand!

Thee knowledge never from Life's pathway wiled,...

Listen! if but women were
Half as kind as they are fair,
There would be an end to all
Miseries that do befall.

Cloud and wind would run together
In a dance of sunny weather,...

Do you remember when I stood on the steps
Of the Court House and talked free-silver,
And the single-tax of Henry George?
Then do you remember that, when the Peerless Leader...

Yeorge Vashington ban honest man.
Ven dis har country first began,
Yeorge ban a yen'ral, and yu bet
Dese English fallers know it yet.
Ven he ban small, his fader say,
"Ef yu skol breng in vood to-day,...

FEBRUARY 4TH, 1894.


"Gone to his exceeding great reward,"
The friend of rich and poor alike;
And there'll rest not beneath the sward
More shining mark that death could strike.
...

A stepmother drove me from home, embittering me.
A squaw-man, a flaneur and dilettante took my virtue.
For years I was his mistress - no one knew.
I learned from him the parasite cunning...

O purblind race of miserable men,
How many among us at this very hour
Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves,
By taking true for false, or false for true;
Here, through the feeble twilight of this world...

Just as the sun went bathing in a sea
Of liquid amber, flecked with caps of gold, I told
The sweet old story unto Geraldine, my Queen,
Who long hath made the whole of life for me.
...

My head is filled with olden rhymes beside this moaning sea,
But many and many a day has gone since I was dear to thee!
I know my passion fades away, and therefore oft regret...

Ah, Geraldine, lost Geraldine,
That night of love, when first we met,
You have forgotten, Geraldine -
I never dreamed you would forget.

Ah, Geraldine, sweet Geraldine,...

Geraldine, Geraldine,
Do you remember where
The willows used to screen
The water flowing fair?
The mill-stream's banks of green
Where first our love begun,
When you were seventeen,...

Stuck in a bottle on the window-sill,
In the cold gaslight burning gaily red
Against the luminous blue of London night,
These flowers are mine: while somewhere out of sight...

Fools we may have in plenty, and simpletons, too, by the dozen;
But for comedy these never make use of themselves.

Once for the sceptre of Germany, fought with Bavarian Louis
Frederick, of Hapsburg descent, both being called to the throne.
But the envious fortune of war delivered the Austrian...

Strive, O German, for Roman-like strength and for Grecian-like beauty!
Thou art successful in both; ne'er has the Gaul had success.

Skirting the swamp and the tangled scrub,
Tramping and turning amidst the trees,
Carrying nothing but blankets and grub,
Careless of pleasure and health and ease,
Hither and thither with never a goal,...

Thou hast produced mighty monarchs, of whom thou art not unworthy,
For the obedient alone make him who governs them great.
But, O Germany, try if thou for thy rulers canst make it...

Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts,
The ones known, and the ones unknown - the ones on the stars,
The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped,...

Underneath the maple-tree
Gertrude worked her filigree,
All the summer long;
To sweet airs her voice was wed,
As she plied her golden thread;
Echo stealing through the grove...