America will not turn back; She did not idly start, But weighed full carefully and well Her grave, important part. She chose the part of Freedom's friend, And will pursue it, to the end. ...
I know in part, but know not all, The part I know is known; What know I not I hope with Paul To know before the throne. Till then where knowledge fails I trust The truth God has revealed,...
Brightly dawns our wedding day; Joyous hour, we give thee greeting! Whither, whither art thou fleeting? Fickle moment, prithee stay! What though mortal joys be hollow? Pleasures come, if sorrows follow:...
"I will get a new string for my fiddle, And call to the neighbours to come, And partners shall dance down the middle Until the old pewter-wares hum: And we'll sip the mead, cyder, and rum!" ...
You have the grit and the guts, I know; You are ready to answer blow for blow You are virile, combative, stubborn, hard, But your honor ends with your own back-yard; Each man intent on his private goal,...
The locust gyres; the heat intensifies' The rain-crow croaks from hot-leafed tree to tree: The butterfly, a flame-fleck, aimlessly Droops down the air and knows not where it flies....
East and north a waste of waters, south and west Lonelier lands than dreams in sleep would feign to be, When the soul goes forth on travel, and is prest Round and compassed in with clouds that flash and flee...
Along these low pleached lanes, on such a day, So soft a day as this, through shade and sun, With glad grave eyes that scanned the glad wild way, And heart still hovering o'er a song begun,...
The sea is at ebb, and the sound of her utmost word Is soft as the least wave's lapse in a still small reach. From bay into bay, on quest of a goal deferred, From headland ever to headland and breach to breach...
Stately stand the sunflowers, glowing down the garden-side, Ranged in royal rank arow along the warm grey wall, Whence their deep disks burn at rich midnoon afire with pride,...
Here begins the sea that ends not till the world's end. Where we stand, Could we know the next high sea-mark set beyond these waves that gleam, We should know what never man hath known, nor eye of man hath scanned....
Rains have left the sea-banks ill to climb: Waveward sinks the loosening seaboard's floor: Half the sliding cliffs are mire and slime. Earth, a fruit rain-rotted to the core,...
The sea is awake, and the sound of the song of the joy of her waking is rolled From afar to the star that recedes, from anear to the wastes of the wild wide shore....
Spray of song that springs in April, light of love that laughs through May, Live and die and live for ever: nought of all thing far less fair Keeps a surer life than these that seem to pass like fire away....
Seaward goes the sun, and homeward by the down We, before the night upon his grave be sealed. Low behind us lies the bright steep murmuring town, High before us heaves the steep rough silent field....
Not "a youth with hoary head and haggard eye", But an old man with a smooth skin And black hair! I had the face of a boy as long as I lived, And for years a soul that was stiff and bent,...
"So back you have come from the town, Nan, dear! And have you seen him there, or near - That soldier of mine - Who long since promised to meet me here?" ...
No, not from tuning-forks of gold Take I my key for singing; From Upper Seats no order bold Can set my music ringing; But groans the slave through sense of wrong, And naught my voice can smother;...