Works

Along the hard crust of deep snows,
To the secret, white house of yours,
So gentle and quiet ' we both
Are walking, in silence half-lost.
And sweeter than all songs, sung ever,...

Athwart a sky of brass long welts of gold;
A path of gold the wide Ohio lies;
Beneath the sunset, billowing manifold,
The dark-blue hilltops rise.

And westward dips the crescent of the moon...

When I was small, a woman died.
To-day her only boy
Went up from the Potomac,
His face all victory,

To look at her; how slowly
The seasons must have turned
Till bullets clipt an angle,...

Where the violet shadows brood
Under cottonwoods and beeches,
Through whose leaves the restless reaches
Of the river glance, I've stood,
While the red-bird and the thrush
Set to song the morning hush....

O who can witness with a careless eye
The countless lamps that light an evening sky,
And not be struck with wonder at the sight!
To think what mighty Power must there abound,...

When first we met she seemed so white
I feared her;
As one might near a spirit bright
I neared her;
An angel pure from heaven above
I dreamed her,
And far too good for human love
I deemed her....

Ah, I have changed, I do not know
Why lonely hours affect me so.
In days of yore, this were not wont,
No loneliness my soul could daunt.

For me too serious for my age,...

One dark, dark night--it was long ago,
The air was heavy and still and warm--
It fell to me and a man I know,
To see two girls to their father's farm.

There was little seeing, that I recall:...

He leant against a lamp-post, lost
In some mysterious reverie:
His head was bowed; his arms were crossed;
He yawned, and glanced evasively:
Uncrossed his arms, and slowly put...

[XXXVII., April 12, 1840.]


My love flowed e'er for things with wings.
When boy I sought for forest fowl,
And caged them in rude rushes' mesh,
And fed them with my breakfast roll;...

Oh, I des received a letter f'om de sweetest little gal;
Oh, my; oh, my.
She's my lovely little sweetheart an' her name is Sal:
Oh, my; oh, my.
She writes me dat she loves me an' she loves me true,...

Darling little woman, just a little line,
Just a little silver word
For that dear gold of thine,
Only a whisper you have so often heard:

Only such a whisper as hidden in a shell...

Phoebus make haste, the day's too long, begone,
The silent night's the fittest time for moan;
But stay this once, unto my suit give ear,
And tell my griefs in either Hemisphere:...

WRITTEN AT LONDON


By poets we are well assured
That love, alas! can ne'er be cured;
A complicated heap of ills,
Despising boluses and pills.
Ah! Chloe, this I find is true,...

As Cloe came into the Room t'other Day,
I peevish began; Where so long cou'd You stay?
In your Life-time You never regarded your Hour:
You promis'd at Two; and (pray look Child) 'tis Four....

From off a hill whose concave womb reworded
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale;...

When people tell me they have loved
But once in youth,
I wonder, are they always moved
To speak the truth?

Not that they wilfully deceive:
They fondly cherish...

Tangled in thought am I,
Stumble in speech do I?
Do I blunder and blush for the reason why?
Wander aloof do I,
Lean over gates and sigh,
Making friends with the bee and the butterfly?
...

When a lover hies abroad
Looking for his love,
Azrael smiling sheathes his sword,
Heaven smiles above.
Earth and sea
His servants be,
And to lesser compass round,
That his love be sooner found!

i.

It seems a year, and more, since last we met,
Since roseate spring repaid, in part, its debt
To thy bright eyes, and o'er the lowlands fair
Made daffodils so like thy golden hair...