Works

I.

Race of Abel, sleep and eat;
God smiles on you complacently.

Race of Cain, in mud and filth
You crawl and die in misery.

Abel's race, your sacrifice...

The "happy year" of 1914

An hour from dawn:
The snow sweeps on
As it swept with sleet last night:
The Earth around
Breathes never a sound,
Wrapped in its shroud of white.
...

I bought every kind of machine that's known -
Grinders, shellers, planters, mowers,
Mills and rakes and ploughs and threshers -
And all of them stood in the rain and sun,
Getting rusted, warped and battered,...

Speak, did the blood of Abel cry
To God for vengeance? Yes, say I,
Ev'n as the sprinkled blood called on
God for an expiation.

Abe Martin! - dad-burn his old picture!
P'tends he's a Brown County fixture -
A kind of a comical mixture
Of hoss-sense and no sense at all!
His mouth, like his pipe, 's allus goin',...

(April: 1905)



"And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times." - Isaiah xxxiii. 6.

I looked and thought, "All is too gray and cold
To wake my place-enthusiasms of old!"...

Dear Cloe, how blubber'd is that pretty Face?
Thy Cheek all on Fire, and Thy Hair all uncurl'd:
Pr'ythee quit this Caprice; and (as old Falstaf says)
Let Us e'en talk a little like Folks of This World.
...

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears.
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief...

I took it for a bird of prey that soared
High over ocean, battled mount, and plain;
'Twas but a bird-moth, which with limp horns gored
The invisibly obstructing window-pane!
...

"Abide with us!" Where could we go?
Thou art our strength, thou art our tower,
Our refuge from the ills below,
In darkness light, in weakness power.

"Abide with us!" We would prevail,...

At the grey dawn, amongst the felling leaves,
A little bird outside my window swung,
High on a topmost branch he trilled his song,
And 'Ireland! Ireland! Ireland!' ever sung.
...

A summer's morning that has but one voice;
Five hundred stocks, like golden lovers, lean
Their heads together, in their quiet way,
And but one bird sings, of a number seen.
...

'Croak, croak, croak,'
Thus the Raven spoke,
Perched on his crooked tree
As hoarse as hoarse could be.
Shun him and fear him,
Lest the Bridegroom hear him;
Scout him and rout him...

An old man who had charge of field,
With pride he saw two birds did build,
A broad capacious warm nest,
So full of young with speckled breast,

And when the old man there did pass,...

It's a year almost that I have not seen her:
Oh, last summer green things were greener,
Brambles fewer, the blue sky bluer.

It's surely summer, for there's a swallow:...

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell...

No gift I bring but worship, and the love
Which all must bear to lovely souls and pure,
Those lights, that, when all else is dark, endure;
Stars in the night, to lift our eyes above;
...

For ever wave, for ever float and shine
Before my yearning eyes, oh! dream of mine
Wherein I dreamed that time was like a vine,

A creeping rose, that clomb a height of dread...

Who is the shepherd sent to lead,
Through pastures green, the Master's sheep?
What guileless "Israelite indeed"
The folded flock may watch and keep?

He who with manliest spirit joins...

Here in this gold-green evening end,
While air is soft and sky is clear,
What tender message shall I send
To her I hold so dear?
What rose of song with breath like myrrh,...