A weight of awe, not easy to be borne, Fell suddenly upon my Spirit cast From the dread bosom of the unknown past, When first I saw that family forlorn. Speak Thou, whose massy strength and stature scorn...
A hermit (or if 'chance you hold That title now too trite and old), A man, once young, who lived retired As hermit could have well desired, His hours of study closed at last,...
So soft Time's plumage in life's budding spring, We rarely note the flutter of his wing. The untutored heart, from pain and sadness free, Beats high with hope and joy and ecstasy;...
Hail, orient Conqueror of gloomy Night! Thou that canst shed the bliss of gratitude On hearts howe'er insensible or rude; Whether thy punctual visitations smite...
She is too kind, I think, for mortal things, Too gentle for the gusty ways of earth; God gave to her a shy and silver mirth, And made her soul as clear And softly singing as an orchard spring's...
How sweet the sacred legend - if unblamed In my slight verse such holy things are named - Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy, Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy! Ave, Maria! Pardon, if I wrong...
Lord! Oh, hold in Thy hand my child, Guard by the river its playing! Send Thou Thy Spirit as comrade mild, Lest it be lost in its straying! Deep is the water and false the ground....
I know a mountain thrilling to the stars, Peerless and pure, and pinnacled with snow; Glimpsing the golden dawn o'er coral bars, Flaunting the vanisht sunset's garnet glow;...
A mouse once from an owl's beak fell; I'd not have pick'd it up, I wis; A Brahmin did it: very well; Each country has its prejudice. The mouse, indeed, was sadly bruised....
The Muse said, Let us sing a little song Wherein no hint of wrong, No echo of the great world need, or pain, Shall mar the strain. Lock fast the swinging portal of thy heart; Keep sympathy apart....
Where the pines with the eagles are nestled in rifts, And the torrent leaps down to the surges, I have followed her, clambering over the clifts, By the chasms and moon-haunted verges....
Why should I say I see the things I see not? Why be and be not? Show love for that I love not, and fear for what I fear not? And dance about to music that I hear not?...
I know that all beneath the moon decays, And what by mortals in this world is brought, In time's great periods shall return to nought. I know that all the muses' heavenly rays,...
O learned man who never learned to learn, Save to deduce, by timid steps and small, From towering smoke that fire can never burn And from tall tales that men were never tall....
Jim Bowker, he said, ef he'd had a fair show, And a big enough town for his talents to grow, And the least bit assistance in hoein' his row, Jim Bowker, he said,...
Beneath her window in the fragrant night I half forget how truant years have flown Since I looked up to see her chamber-light, Or catch, perchance, her slender shadow thrown...
A little time agone, a few brief years, And there was peace within our beauteous borders; Peace, and a prosperous people, and no fears Of war and its disorders....