Works

If wealth is gone then something is gone!

Quick, make up thy mind,

And fresh wealth find.
If honour is gone then much is gone!

Seek glory to find,
...

If we but knew the weary way,
The poisoned paths of hostile hate,
The roughened roads of fiercest fate,
Through which our brother's journey lay,
Would we condemn, as now we do,...

Life would be an easy matter
If we didn't have to eat.
If we never had to utter,
"Won't you pass the bread and butter,
Likewise push along that platter
Full of meat?"
Yes, if food were obsolete...

If we don't or if we do.
What's the odds to me and you?
Fame is e'er a heartless jade,
And her slaves are poorly paid;
Weary hearts and soul's distress
Are the prices of success;...

Now what were the words of Jesus,
And what would He pause and say,
If we were to meet in home or street
The Lord of the world to-day?
Oh, I think He would pause and say,
'Go on with your chosen labour;...

If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,...

Air - "The blue-eyed lass."


I.

I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen,
A gate, I fear, I'll dearlie rue;
I gat my death frae twa sweet een,
Twa lovely een o' bonnie blue....

I gave my heart to a woman -
I gave it her, branch and root.
She bruised, she wrung, she tortured,
She cast it under foot.

Under her feet she cast it,
She trampled it where it fell,...

I have a king who does not speak;
So, wondering, thro' the hours meek
I trudge the day away,--
Half glad when it is night and sleep,
If, haply, thro' a dream to peep
In parlors shut by day.
...

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air -
I have a rendezvous with Death...

I

I have lived with shades so long,
And talked to them so oft,
Since forth from cot and croft
I went mankind among,
That sometimes they
In their dim style
Will pause awhile...

I have not forgotten our little white retreat
Where we were neighbors to the town of busy streets;
Our plaster Venus and Pomona barely could
Conceal their nakedness within our meagre wood....

I heard a voice upon the window beat
And then grow dim, grow still.
Opening I saw the snowy sill
Marked with the robin's feet.
Chill was the air and chill
The thoughts that in my bosom beat.
...

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions;
(What indeed have I in common with them? - Or what with the destruction of them?)...

I crave, dear Lord,
No boundless hoard
Of gold and gear,
Nor jewels fine,
Nor lands, nor kine,
Nor treasure-heaps of anything.
Let but a little hut be mine
Where at the hearthstone I may hear...

I know a place where summer strives
With such a practised frost,
She each year leads her daisies back,
Recording briefly, "Lost."

But when the south wind stirs the pools...

I know not in what place again I'll meet
The face I love - but there is not a street
In the wide world where you can wander, sweet,
Without my finding you, with those great eyes;...

I know what beauty is, for thou
Hast set the world within my heart;
Of me thou madest it a part;
I never loved it more than now.

I know the Sabbath afternoons;
The light asleep upon the graves:...

I lived on dread; to those who know
The stimulus there is
In danger, other impetus
Is numb and vital-less.

As 't were a spur upon the soul,
A fear will urge it where...

I'll not confer with Sorrow
Till to-morrow;
But Joy shall have her way
This very day.

Ho, eglantine and cresses
For her tresses!--
Let Care, the beggar, wait
Outside the gate.
...