Works

I still walk slowly on the river bank
Where I came singing,
And where I saw your boat pass up beyond the sun
Setting red in the river.
I want Autumn,
I want the leaves to begin falling at once,...

Out of the silences wake me a song,
Beautiful, sad, and soft, and low;
Let the loveliest music sound along,
And wing each note with a wail of woe:
Dim and drear
As hope's last tear;...

Wake up, sweet melody!
Now is the hour
When young and loving hearts
Feel most thy power,
One note of music, by moonlight's soft ray--
Oh, 'tis worth thousands heard coldly by day....

Long vast shapes... cooled and flushed through with darkness....
Lidless windows
Glazed with a flashy luster
From some little pert cafe chirping up like a sparrow.
And down among iron guts
Piled silver...

My parents thought that I would be
As great as Edison or greater:
For as a boy I made balloons
And wondrous kites and toys with clocks
And little engines with tracks to run on...

To The States, or any one of them, or any city of The States,
Resist much, obey little;
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved;...

I would like to lie in my bed
In a white shirt,
Wished the beard was gone,
The head combed.
The fingers were clean,
The nails also,
You, my tender woman,
Might provide peace.

The tread of arm'd mariners is in our streets to-day,
An Empire's pulse is beating in the march of this array.
From western woods, and Celtic hills, and homely Saxon shires,...

We will now sing in thoughtful strain
Of wars in Queen Victoria's reign.
The Russian bear did ages lurk,
All ready for to spring on Turk,
For Russian statesmen did divine...

We are they who come faster than fate: we are they who ride early or late:
We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the Sunset, beware!
Not on silk nor in samet we lie, not in curtained solemnity die...

Remember the glories of Brien the brave,
Tho' the days of the hero are o'er;
Tho' lost to Mononia and cold in the grave,[2]
He returns to Kinkora no more.[3]...

A monument to Washington?
A tablet graven with his name?--
Green be the mound it stands upon,
And everlasting as his fame!

His glory fills the land--the plain,...

And you're the poet of this concern?
I've seed your name in print
A dozen times, but I'll be dern
I'd 'a' never 'a' took the hint
O' the size you are - fer I'd pictured you
A kind of a tallish man -...

PROLOGUE

The Observatory


At noon, upon the mountain's purple height,
Above the pine-woods and the clouds it shone
No larger than the small white dome of shell...

I heard their young hearts crying
Loveward above the glancing oar
And heard the prairie grasses sighing:
No more, return no more!

O hearts, O sighing grasses,...

We are not always glad when we smile:
Though we wear a fair face and are gay,
And the world we deceive
May not ever believe
We could laugh in a happier way. -
Yet, down in the deeps of the soul,...

A simple child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage girl:
She was eight years old, she said;...

We cover thee, sweet face.
Not that we tire of thee,
But that thyself fatigue of us;
Remember, as thou flee,
We follow thee until
Thou notice us no more,
And then, reluctant, turn away...

The tale of the Count our glad song shall record

Who had in this castle his dwelling,
Where now ye are feasting the new-married lord,

His grandson of whom we are telling....

The five old bells
Are hurrying and eagerly calling,
Imploring, protesting
They know, but clamorously falling
Into gabbling incoherence, never resting,...