Furl that Banner, for 'tis weary; Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary; Furl it, fold it, it is best; For there's not a man to wave it, And there's not a sword to save it,...
Two little children played among the flowers, Their mothers were of kin, tho' far apart; The children's ages were the very same E'en to an hour -- and Ethel was her name,...
How swift they go, Life's many years, With their winds of woe And their storms of tears, And their darkest of nights whose shadowy slopes Are lit with the flashes of starriest hopes,...
The shades of night were brooding O'er the sea, the earth, the sky; The passing winds were wailing In a low, unearthly sigh; The darkness gathered deeper, For no starry light was shed,...
The Poet is the loneliest man that lives; Ah me! God makes him so -- The sea hath its ebb and flow, He sings his songs -- but yet he only gives In the waves of the words of his art...
Not as of one whom multitudes admire, I believe they call him great; They throng to hear him with a strange desire; They, silent, come and wait, And wonder when he opens wide the gate...
My brow is bent beneath a heavy rod! My face is wan and white with many woes! But I will lift my poor chained hands to God, And for my children pray, and for my foes....
Some reckon their age by years, Some measure their life by art; But some tell their days by the flow of their tears, And their lives by the moans of their heart.
Nature is but the outward vestibule Which God has placed before an unseen shrine, The Visible is but a fair, bright vale That winds around the great Invisible; The Finite -- it is nothing but a smile...
Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright, Flashed the sword of Lee! Far in the front of the deadly fight, High o'er the brave in the cause of Right, Its stainless sheen, like a beacon light,...
Just when the gentle hand of spring Came fringing the trees with bud and leaf, And when the blades the warm suns bring Were given glad promise of golden sheaf; Just when the birds began to sing...