Works

Heaven and the sea attend the dying day,
And in their sadness overflow and blend--
Faint gold, and windy blue, and green and gray:
Far out amid them my pale soul I send.
...

At Noey's house - when they arrived with him -
How snug seemed everything, and neat and trim:
The little picket-fence, and little gate -
It's little pulley, and its little weight, -...

I

Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!

II
...

Crowds! Crowds! Crowds!
Suddenly here as if come from the clouds
That faded away as they came;
Mad acres of people aflame
With thirst for a morsel of land;
Wild hunters of fortune, whose game...

The blackbird sang, the skies were clear and clean
We bowled along a road that curved a spine
Superbly sinuous and serpentine
Thro' silent symphonies of summer green....

I

From Wynyard's Gap the livelong day,
The livelong day,
We beat afoot the northward way
We had travelled times before.
The sun-blaze burning on our backs,...

Of all the trees that grow so fair,
Old England to adorn,
Greater are none beneath the Sun,
Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.
Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs,
(All of a Midsummer morn!)...

Three sang of love together: one with lips
Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger-tips;
And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow...

Of all our pains, since man was curst,
I mean of body, not the mental,
To name the worst, among the worst,
The dental sure is transcendental;
Some bit of masticating bone,...

(Read Before A Meeting Of The Danville Scribbler Club.)


Dear friends, to-night the inspiration of my theme
Is not the baseless fabric of a weird, fantastic dream--...

THE BRICKLAYER:

I tell this tale, which is strictly true,
Just by way of convincing you
How very little, since things were made,
Things have altered in building trade.
...

Five little Girls, sitting on a form,
Five little Girls, with lessons to learn,
Five little Girls, who, I'm afraid,
Won't know them a bit when they have to be said.

For little eyes are given to look...

Bowdoin Street, Boston, 1877.

The end has come, as come it must
To all things; in these sweet June days
The teacher and the scholar trust
Their parting feet to separate ways.
...

'Farewell and adieu' was the burden prevailing
Long since in the chant of a home-faring crew;
And the heart in us echoes, with laughing or wailing,
Farewell and adieu.
...

When the dim, tall sails of the ships were in motion,
Ghostly, and slow, and silent-shod,
We gazed where the dusk fled over the ocean,
A great gray hush, like the shadow of God.
...

O we go down to sea in ships -
But Hope remains behind,
And Love, with laughter on his lips,
And Peace, of passive mind;
While out across the deeps of night,
With lifted sails of prayer,...

Three are emerald pools in the sea,
And wing-like flashes of light;
The sea is bound with the heavens
In a large delight.

Night comes out of the east
And rushes down on the sun;...

In the pull of the wind I stand, lonely,
On the deck of a ship, rising, falling,
Wild night around me, wild water under me,
Whipped by the storm, screaming and calling.
...

As a brave man faces the foe,
Alone against hundreds, and sees Death grin in his teeth,
But, shutting his lips, fights on to the end
Without speech, without hope, without flinching,--...

Bold words affirmed, in days when faith was strong
And doubts and scruples seldom teased the brain,
That no adventurer's bark had power to gain
These shores if he approached them bent on wrong;...