Works

DEAR COUSIN JOHN:

I'm very glad you sent that money through,
By Cousin Seth, an' not by mail, as I requested you!
The fam'ly's just so much ahead: 'twere best it never came....

OCEAN GROVE, June 30, 18 - .

DEAR COUSIN JOHN:

We got here safe - my worthy wife and me -
And took a tent here in the woods contigious to the sea;...

ROCHESTER, January 4.

DEAR COUSIN JOHN:

We got here safe - my worthy wife an' me -
An' put up at James Sunnyhopes' - a pleasant place to be;...

DEAR COUSIN JOHN:

We got here safe - my worthy wife an' me,
An' then I looked the village through to see what I could see:
I rode upon the cur'us track with stations all up-stairs;...

"Why are those tears? Why droops your head?
Say is your swain or husband dead?"

The farmer's wife said: "You know well
The salt was spilt, - to me it fell;
And then to add loss unto loss,...

It's a mystery to see me - a man o' fifty-four,
Who's lived a cross old bachelor fer thirty year' and more -
A-lookin' glad and smilin'! And they's none o' you can say...

Look, the raft, a signal flying,
Thin--a shred;
None upon the lashed spars lying,
Quick or dead.

Cries the sea-fowl, hovering over,
"Crew, the crew?"
And the billow, reckless, rover,...

The farmers they now all make rich
Since Farrington went to Norwich,
And the system first there began
Of making cheese on factory plan;
He came from Herkimer county,
To Canada he was a bounty;...

I.

Mine eye is weary of the plains
Of verdure vast and wide
That stretch around me - lovely, calm,
From morn till even-tide;
And I recall with aching heart
My childhood's village home;...

Fashion on fashion on fashion,
(With only the truth growing old!)
And here's the new purple of passion,
(And love waiting out in the cold)
Who'll buy?

They are crying new lamps for Aladdin,...

Fast-anchor'd, eternal, O love! O woman I love!
O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you!
Then separate, as disembodied, or another born,...

'Tis morning now, yet silently I stand,
Uplift the curtain with a weary hand,
Look out while darkness overspreads the way,
And long for day.

Calm peace is frighted with my mood to-night,...

This is the end whereto men toiled
Before thy coachman guessed his fate,
How thou shouldst leave thy, 'scutcheoned gate
On that new wheel which is the oiled.

To see the England Shakespeare saw...

Poor Hal caught his death standing under a spout
Expecting till midnight when Nan would come out;
But fatal his patience, as cruel the dame,
And cursed was the weather that quench'd the man's flame....

O sweet illusions of Song,
That tempt me everywhere,
In the lonely fields, and the throng
Of the crowded thoroughfare!

I approach, and ye vanish away,
I grasp you, and ye are gone;...

A blue-eyed phantom far before
Is laughing, leaping toward the sun:
Like lead I chase it evermore,
I pant and run.

It breaks the sunlight bound on bound:
Goes singing as it leaps along...

Deep in the man sits fast his fate
To mould his fortunes, mean or great:
Unknown to Cromwell as to me
Was Cromwell's measure or degree;
Unknown to him as to his horse,...

'The sky is clouded, the rocks are bare,
The spray of the tempest is white in air;
The winds are out with the waves at play,
And I shall not tempt the sea to-day.

'The trail is narrow, the wood is dim,...

Oft, as I rest in quiet peace, am I
Thrust out at sudden doors, and madly driven
Through desert solitudes, and thunder-riven
Black passages which have not any sky:
The scourge is on me now, with all the cry...

Wise men tell me thou, O Fate,
Art invincible and great.

Well, I own thy prowess; still
Dare I flout thee with my will

Thou canst shatter in a span
All the earthly pride of man.
...