Works

Lords, knights, and squires, the numerous band
That wear the fair Miss Mary's fetters,
Were summoned by her high command
To show their passions by their letters.

My pen amongst the rest I took,...

Small service is true service while it lasts:
Of humblest Friends, bright Creature! scorn not one:
The Daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dew-drop from the Sun.

Sweet Mary, though nor sighs nor pains
Impassion'd courtship prove,
My simple song the truth ne'er feigns
To win thee to my love:
I ask thee from thy bustling life,
Where nought can pleasing prove,...

Beautiful cloud! with folds so soft and fair,
Swimming in the pure quiet air!
Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below
Thy shadow o'er the vale moves slow;...

Lady, wouldst thou heiress be
To Winters cold and cruel part?
When he sets the rivers free,
Thou dost still lock up thy heart; -
Thou that shouldst outlast the snow,
But in the whiteness of thy brow?...

Be composed, be at ease with me, I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature;
Not till the sun excludes you, do I exclude you;...

You that would break with the Past,
Why with so rude a gesture take your leave?
None hinders, go your way; but wherefore cast
Contempt and boorish scorn
Upon the womb from which even you were born?...

In a perfumed land caressed by the sun
I found, beneath the trees' crimson canopy,
palms from which languor pours on one's
eyes, the veiled charms of a Creole lady.

...

Song hath a catalogue of lovely things
Thy kind hath oft defiled, whose spite misleads
The world too often! where the poet reads,
As in a fable, of old envyings,...

I come to visit thee agen,
My little flowerless cyclamen;
To touch the hand, almost to press,
That cheer'd thee in thy loneliness.
What could thy careful guardian find
Of thee in form, of me in mind,...

A'a awm feeared tha's come too sooin,
Little daisy!
Pray, whativer wor ta doin?
Are ta crazy?
Winter winds are blowin' yet, -
Tha'll be starved, mi little pet.
...

What! only to stay
For a single day?
Thou beautiful, bright hued on
Just to open thine eyes
To the blue of the skies
And the light of the glorious sun,
Then, to fade away
In the same rich ray,...

It is as if a silver chord
Were suddenly grown mute,
And life's song with its rhythm warred
Against a silver lute.

It is as if a silence fell
Where bides the garnered sheaf,...

And is it true indeed, and must you go,
Set out alone across that moorland track,
No love avail, though we have loved you so,
No voice have any power to call you back?...

Old tree thou art wither'd--I pass'd thee last year,
And the blackbird snug hid in thy branches did sing,
Thy shadow stretch'd dark o'er the grass sprouting near,...

The Autumn promised, and he keeps
His word unto the meadow-rose.
The pure, bright lightnings herald Spring,
Serene and glad the fresh earth shows.
The rain has quenched her children's thirst,...

The nightingale has a lyre of gold,
The lark's is a clarion-call,
And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute,
But I love him best of all.

For his song is all of the joy of life,...

To a violet that faded on my coat at Natchez, Miss. March 8th, 1902.


Alas! thou lovely floweret wee,
Fate blew a blighting breath
Upon the delicate form of thee, -
Thou'st met untimely death!...

Our hands have met, but not our hearts;
Our hands will never meet again.
Friends, if we have ever been,
Friends we cannot now remain:
I only know I loved you once,
I only know I loved in vain;...

(J. M. D.)


I thank Thee Father that I feel Thee near,
That it is hand of Thine that s raised to smite,
Oh, make Thy loving kindness to appear,
Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right!
...