Works

Child of Light, the bright, the bird-like! wilt thou float and float to me,
Facing winds and sleets and waters, flying glimpses of the sea?
Down amongst the hills of tempest, where the elves of tumult roam...

"O Life, O Beyond,
Thou art strange, thou art sweet!"
--Mrs. Browning.


Dread phantom, with pale finger on thy lips,
Who dost unclose the awful doors for each,...

[To E. C.]


Oh, drop your eyelids down, my lady;
Oh, drop your eyelids down.
'Twere well to keep your bright eyes shady
For pity of the town!
But should there any glances be,...

In Memory of Mrs. Thellusson.


Forth of our ways and woes,
Forth of the winds and snows,
A white soul soaring goes,
Winged like a dove:
So sweet, so pure, so clear,...

Dry the tears for holy Eva,
With the blessed angels leave her;
Of the form so soft and fair
Give to earth the tender care.

For the golden locks of Eva
Let the sunny south-land give her...

"God bless the darling Eva!" was my prayer.
A pure, unconscious depth of earnestness
Was in her eyes, so indescribable
You might as well the color of the air
Seek to daguerreotype, or to impress...

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,...

Read here:
This is the story of Evarra, man,
Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea.
Because the city gave him of her gold,
Because the caravans brought turquoises,...

I

Why do I love you, who have never given
My heart encouragement or any cause?
Is it because, as earth is held of heaven,
Your soul holds mine by some mysterious laws?...

'While I sit at the door
Sick to gaze within
Mine eye weepeth sore
For sorrow and sin:
As a tree my sin stands
To darken all lands;
Death is the fruit it bore.
...

Oh! weep for the hour,
When to Eveleen's bower
The Lord of the Valley with false vows came;
The moon hid her light
From the heavens that night.
And wept behind her clouds o'er the maiden's shame.
...

I can see the towers
In mind quite clear
Not many hours'
Faring from here;
But how up and go,
And briskly bear
Thither, and know
That are not there?

Though the birds sing small,...

I.

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;...

Even as a dragon's eye that feels the stress
Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp
Suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp,
So burns yon Taper 'mid a black recess
Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless:...

Now the light o' the west is a-turn'd to gloom,
An' the men be at hwome vrom ground;
An' the bells be a-zend'n all down the Coombe
From tower, their mwoansome sound.
An' the wind is still,...

When twilight darkens, and one by one,
The sweet birds to their nests have gone;
When to green banks the glow-worms bring
Pale lamps to brighten evening;
Then stirs in his thick sleep the owl...

The moon begins her stately ride
Across the summer sky;
The happy wavelets lash the shore,--
The tide is rising high.

Beneath some friendly blade of grass
The lazy beetle cowers;...

'Tis evening; the black snail has got on his track,
And gone to its nest is the wren,
And the packman snail, too, with his home on his back,
Clings to the bowed bents like a wen.
...

Houses stand stiffly next to their fences.
Let your eyes, last sparrows, flutter.
Bluebottles alight on your face.
Don't you, Kuno, feel the eternal mills -
The unfeeling one bores holes in your head....

From upland slopes I see the cows file by,
Lowing, great-chested, down the homeward trail,
By dusking fields and meadows shining pale
With moon-tipped dandelions. Flickering high,...