Works

Was the aim frustrated by force or guile,
When giants scooped from out the rocky ground,
Tier under tier, this semicirque profound?
(Giants the same who built in Erin's isle...

Malingering,
increase drift
of censure
infrared blotted one.


No noise, just
the splashing of the sea
endless, shrill
birds
gaping a way
into the night's chill.

July, 1862

Ye elms that wave on Malvern Hill
In prime of morn and May,
Recall ye how McClellan's men
Here stood at bay?
While deep within yon forest dim
Our rigid comrades lay--...

"My Polly is so very good,
Belinda never cries;
My Baby often goes to sleep,
See how she shuts her eyes.

"Dear Mrs. Lemon tell me when
Belinda goes to school;...

(FOR MR, G. F. WATTS'S PICTURE)

Mammon is this, of murder and of gold,
To-day, to-morrow, and ever from of old,
Th' Almighty God, and King of every land.
Man 'neath his foot, and woman 'neath his hand,...

In the old air
by his rocker,
a silent trapeze of thought
suspends an aging man.

Each movement as of the katydid
droning -
a monologue with the past;
a buzz escaping across...

In his own image the Creator made,
His own pure sunbeam quicken'd thee, O man!
Thou breathing dial! since thy day began
The present hour was ever mark'd with shade!

Want is a softer wax, that takes thereon,
This, that, and every base impression,

One day I sat me down to write,
And thought with might and main,
But neither subject fit, nor thoughts,
Came to my barren brain.

And then I laid my pen aside,
With sad, despairing mind,...

Nothing, methinks, is to be seen
On earth that does not overween.
Doth not the hawk, from high, survey
The fowls as destined for his prey?
And do not C'sars, and such things,...

1.

I am one of the wind's stories,
I am a fancy of the rain, -
A memory of the high noon's glories,
The hint the sunset had of pain.

2.

They dreamed me as they dreamed all other;...

'Tis not with glad fruition crown'd,
We always feel our greatest joy;
For pleasure often dwells around
The heart that hopes, and knows no cloy.

We wait, we watch, we think, we plan...

Free man, you'll love the ocean endlessly!
It is your mirror, you observe your soul
In how its billows endlessly unroll
Your spirit's bitter depths are there to see.
...

Tamed by Miltown, we lie on Mother's bed;
the rising sun in war paint dyes us red;
in broad daylight her gilded bed-posts shine,
abandoned, almost Dionysian....

Manasseh, lord of Judah, and the son
Of him who, favoured of Jehovah, saw
At midnight, when the skies were flushed with fire,
The splendid mystery of the shining air,...

The tough hand closes gently on the load;
Out of the mind, a voice
Calls 'Lift!' and the arms, remembering well their work,
Lengthen and pause for help.
Then a slow ripple flows from head to foot...

(To my Native Land.)


My native land, whose fertile ground
Neptune and Amphitrite bound, -
Britain, of trade the chosen mart,
The seat of industry and art, -
May never luxury or minister...

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:...

Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream,
An', taught by time, I tak' it so, exceptin' always Steam.
From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God,...

How do you survive
in the mangrove swamps -
amid the twitchings of fetid water
& water lice thick as baby tears?

How, with all the wallow of thick muck...