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The sunshine of thine eyes,
(O still, celestial beam!)
Whatever it touches it fills
With the life of its lambent gleam.

The sunshine of thine eyes,
O let it fall on me!...

The sunshine of thine eyes,
(Oh still, celestial beam!)
Whatever it touches it fills
With the life of its lambent gleam.

The sunshine of thine eyes,
Oh let it fall on me!...

A penciled shade the sky doth sweep,
And transient glooms creep in to sleep
Amid the orchard;
Fantastic breezes pull the trees
Hither and yon, to vagaries
Of aspect tortured.
...

"How shall we honor the man who creates?"
Asked the Bedouin chief, the poet Antar; -
"Who unto the truth flings open our gates,
Or fashions new thoughts from the light of a star;...

I warn, like the one drop of rain
On your face, ere the storm;
Or tremble in whispered refrain
With your blood, beating warm.
I am the presence that ever
Baffles your touch's endeavor, -...

Seaward, at morn, my doves flew free;
At eve they circled back to me.
The first was Faith; the second, Hope;
The third - the whitest - Charity.

Above the plunging surge's play...

At night, with shaded eyes, the summer moon
In tender meditation downward glances
At the dark earth, far-set in dim expanses,
And, welcomer than blazoned gold of noon,...

When, looking deeply in thy face,
I catch the undergleam of grace
That grows beneath the outward glance,
Long looking, lost as in a trance
Of long desires that fleet and meet...

I.

Lips that are met in love's
Devotion sweet,
While parting lovers passionately greet,
And earth through heaven's arc more swiftly moves -
Oh, will they be less dear
Within a year?
...

(TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES)


Strange spell of youth for age, and age for youth,
Affinity between two forms of truth! -
As if the dawn and sunset watched each other,...