Here is a tale for gossips and chaste people: There lived a woman once, a straight-laced lady, Whose only love was slander. Nothing shady Escaped her vulture eye. Like some prim steeple...
Here where a tree and its wild liana, Leaning over the streamlet, grow, Once a nymph, like the moon'd Diana, Sat in the ages long ago. Sat with a mortal. with whom she had mated,...
He thinks her little feet should pass Where dandelions star thickly grass; Her hands should lift in sunlit air Sea-wind should tangle up her hair. Green leaves, he says, have never heard...
Vigil strange I kept on the field one night: When you, my son and my comrade, dropt at my side that day, One look I but gave, which your dear eyes return'd, with a look I shall never forget;...
Grandly thou fillest the world's eye to-day, My proud Virginia! When the gage was thrown - The deadly gage of battle - thou, alone, Strong in thy self-control, didst stoop to lay...
The noble Sire, fallen on evil days, I saw, with hand uplifted, menacing, brandishing, (Memories of old in abeyance, love and faith in abeyance,) The insane knife toward the Mother of All. ...
I care not that one listen if he lives For aught but life's romance, nor puts above All life's necessities the need to love, Nor counts his greatest wealth what Beauty gives....
Virgin of Bethlehem! spouse of the Holy One! Star of the pilgrim on life's stormy sea! Humbler thy lot was than this world's most lowly one, List to the prayers that we offer to thee! ...
Now and again All my body springs alive, And the life that is polarised in my eyes, That quivers between my eyes and mouth, Flies like a wild thing across my body,...
Her breast is cold; her hands how faint and wan! And the deep wonder of her starry eyes Seemingly lost in cloudless Paradise, And all earth's sorrow out of memory gone....
She was so good, and he was so bad A very pretty time they had! A pretty time, and it lasted long: Which of the two was more in the wrong? He befouled in the slough of sin;...
Though a wise man all pressures can sustain, His virtue still is sensible of pain: Large shoulders though he has, and well can bear, He feels when packs do pinch him, and the where.
The wintry sun was pale On hill and hedge; The wind smote with its flail The seeded sedge; High up above the world, New taught to fly, The withered leaves were hurled About the sky;...