Works

How slight a thing may set one's fancy drifting
Upon the dead sea of the Past! - A view -
Sometimes an odor - or a rooster lifting
A far-off "Ooh! ooh-ooh!"

And suddenly we find ourselves astray...

Late in March, when the days are growing longer
And sight of early green
Tells of the coming spring and suns grow stronger,
Round the pale willow-catkins there are seen
The year's first honey-bees...

AHASUERAS

What were thy thoughts, sweet Esther? Something passed
Across thy face, that for a moment veiled
Thy soul from mine, and left me desolate.
Thy thoughts were not of me?

ESTHER...

At the shiver of morning, a little before the false dawn,
The moon was at the window-square,
Deedily brooding in deformed decay -
The curve hewn off her cheek as by an adze;...

I.


At anchor in that harbour of the island,
The Chinese gate,
We lay where, terraced under green-clad highland,
The sea-town sate.

Ships, steamers, sailors, many a flag and nation,...

The sun was setting in its wonted west,
When Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
Met Mahry Daubigny, the Village Rose,
Under the Wizard's Oak old trysting-place
Of those who loved in rosy Aquitaine.
...

It never came into my mind
Until I was ready to die
That Jenny had loved me to death, with malice of heart.
For I was seventy, she was thirty - five,
And I wore myself to a shadow trying to husband...

Oh! hide those tempting eyes, that faultless form,
Those looks with feeling and with nature warm;
The neck, the softly-swelling bosom hide,
Nor, wanton gales, blow the light vest aside;...

We are the smirched. Queen Honor is the spotless.
We slept thro' wars where Honor could not sleep.
We were faint-hearted. Honor was full-valiant.
We kept a silence Honor could not keep.
...

In bloom and bud the bees are busily
Storing against the winter their sweet hoard
That shall be rifled ere the autumn be
Past, or the winter comes with silver sword
To fright the bees, until the merry round...

[Dignities would be the better title, if the word were not so essentially unpoetical.]

When the column of light on the waters is glassed,
As blent in one glow seem the shine and the stream;...

(A Scholar is musing on his want of success.)


To strive - and fail. Yes, I did strive and fail;
I set mine eyes upon a certain night
To find a certain star - and could not hail...

(The Answer.)


As one who, journeying, checks the rein in haste
Because a chasm doth yawn across his way
Too wide for leaping, and too steeply faced
For climber to essay -
...

HONOR TO LABOR! - it giveth health;
Honor to labor! - it bringeth wealth;
Honor to labor! - our glorious land
Displayeth its triumphs on every hand.
It has smoothed the plains, laid the forests low,...

[Literally "Dignity of Women."]

Honor to woman! To her it is given
To garden the earth with the roses of heaven!
All blessed, she linketh the loves in their choir...

Give me honours! what are these,
But the pleasing hindrances?
Stiles, and stops, and stays that come
In the way 'twixt me and home;
Clear the walk, and then shall I
To my heaven less run than fly.

The moon is full this winter night;
The stars are clear, though few;
And every window glistens bright
With leaves of frozen dew.

The sweet moon through your lattice gleams,...

She mutters and stoops by the lone bayou
The little green leaves are hushed on the trees
An owl in an oak cries"Who-oh-who,"
And a fox barks back where the moon slants through...

[Scene: The big tent-stable of a travelling circus. On the ground near the entrance GENTLEMAN JOHN, stableman and general odd-job man, lies smoking beside MERRY ANDREW, the clown. GENTLEMAN JOHN is a little hunched man with a s...

As one who, long by wasting sickness worn,
Weary has watched the lingering night, and heard
Unmoved the carol of the matin bird
Salute his lonely porch; now first at morn...