Works

O soul on God's high seas! the way is strange and long,
Yet fling your pennons out, and spread your canvas strong;
For though to mortal eyes so small a craft you seem,...

Friend, mark these muscles; mine's a frame
Born, grown, and fitted for the toil.
My father, tiller of the soil,
Bequeathed them to me with my name.

Fear work? Nay, many times and oft...

He was not especially handsome, he was not especially smart,
A great big lumbering fellow with a soft and tender heart.
His eyes were gray and honest, his smile a friendly one,...

When Mary found fault with me that day the trouble was well begun.
No man likes being found fault with, no man really thinks it fun
To have a wisp of a woman, in a most obnoxious way,...

The throng about her did not know,
Her nearest friend could not surmise
Whence came the brightness and the glow,
The wondrous radiance of her eyes.

One said, half enviously: "Your face...

He frowned and shook his snowy head.
"Those clanging bells! they deafen quite
With their unmeaning song," he said.
"I'm weary of it all to-night -
The gladness, sadness. I'm so old...

Sweet and shrill the crickets hiding in the grasses brown and lean
Pipe their gladness - sweeter, shriller - one would think the world was green.
O the haze is on the hilltops, and the haze is on the lake!...

The Wise Men came to the inn that night,
"Now open to us," they cried,
"We have journeyed far that we might kneel
To One who doth here abide."

The door was opened with eager haste....

Art going to do a kindly deed?
'Tis never too soon to begin;
Make haste, make haste, for the moments speed,
The world, my dear one, has pressing need
Of your tender thought and kindly deed....

I asked Aunt Persis yester-eve, as twilight fell,
If she had things of value hidden safe away -
Treasures that were her very own? And did she love
To bring them forth, and feast her eyes upon their worth,...

We steal the brawn, we steal the brain;
The man beneath us in the fight
Soon learns how helpless and how vain
To plead for justice or for right.
We steal the youth, we steal the health,...

The harvest moon in yellow haze
Is steeping all the sea and land,
Is kindling paths and shining ways
Around the hills, across the sand.

And there are only thou and I -...

Fate says, and flaunts her stores of gold,
"I'll loan you happiness untold.
What is it you desire of me?"
A perfect hour in which to be
In love with life, and glad, and good,...

With an angel flower-laden, every day a dimpled maiden
Sails away from off my bosom on a radiant sea of bliss;
I can see her drifting, drifting, hear the snowy wings uplifting...

McLeod of Dare called his son to him.
McLeod of Dare looked stern and grim,

For he was sending on mission grave
His son, and though he knew him brave

The old man trembled lest he should make...

You lifted eyes pain-filled to me,
Sad, questioning eyes that did demand
Why I should thrust back, childishly,
The friendship warm you offered me -
Ah, sweet, to-day you understand!
...

A woman with a heart of gold
I heard her called before I knew
How noble was that heart and true,
How full of tenderness untold.

Her sympathies both broad and sure,
Her one desire to do the right -...

A red rose in my lady's hair,
A white rose in her fingers,
A wild bird singing low, somewhere,
A song that pulses, lingers.
The sound of dancing and of mirth,
The fiddle's merry chiming,...

Two men were born the self-same hour:
The one was heir to untold wealth,
To pride of birth and love of power;
The other's heritage was health.

A sturdy frame, an honest heart,...

"O last days of the year!" she whispered low,
"You fly too swiftly past. Ah, you might stay
A while, a little while. Do you not know
What tender things you bear with you away?
...