Works

Be you near, or be you far,
Let my blessing, like a star,
Shine upon you everywhere!
And in each lone evening hour,
When the twilight folds the flower,
I will fold thy name in prayer.
...

Before an Altar



I wish I were the little key
That locks Love's Captive in,
And lets Him out to go and free
A sinful heart from sin.

I wish I were the little bell...

They ask me to sing them a Christmas song
That with musical mirth shall ring;
How know I that the world's great throng
Will care for the words I sing?

Let the young and the gay chant the Christmas lay,...

Crushed with a burden of woe,
Wrecked in the tempest of sin:
Death came, and two lips murmured low,
"Ah! once I was white as the snow,
In the happy and pure long ago;...

Star! Star, why dost thou shine
Each night upon my brow?
Why dost thou make me dream the dreams
That I am dreaming now?

Star! Star, thy home is high --
I am of humble birth;...

I saw his face to-day; he looks a chief
Who fears not human rage, nor human guile;
Upon his cheeks the twilight of a grief,
But in that grief the starlight of a smile....

I nearly died, I almost touched the door
That swings between forever and no more;
I think I heard the awful hinges grate,
Hour after hour, while I did weary wait
Death's coming; but alas! 'twas all in vain:...

"A land without ruins is a land without memories --
a land without memories is a land without history.
A land that wears a laurel crown may be fair to see;...

The brook that down the valley
So musically drips,
Flowed never half so brightly
As the light laugh from her lips.

Her face was like the lily,
Her heart was like the rose,...

He walked alone beside the lonely sea,
The slanting sunbeams fell upon his face,
His shadow fluttered on the pure white sands
Like the weary wing of a soundless prayer.
And He was, oh! so beautiful and fair!...

One bright memory shines like a star
In the sky of my spirit forever;
And over my pathway it flashes afar
A radiance that perishes never.

One bright memory -- only one;...

His face was sad; some shadow must have hung
Above his soul; its folds, now falling dark,
Now almost bright; but dark or not so dark,
Like cloud upon a mount, 'twas always there --...

Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?
Why ask when the night only knoweth?
The night -- and the angel of sleep!
But ever since then a music deep,
Like a stream thro' a shadow-land, floweth...

"O Songs!" I said:
"Stop sounding in my soul
Just for a little while and let me sleep,
Resting my head on the breast
Of Silence;" but the rhythmic roll
Of a thousand songs swept on and on,...

Those hearts of ours -- how strange! how strange!
How they yearn to ramble and love to range
Down through the vales of the years long gone,
Up through the future that fast rolls on.
...

Pure faced page! waiting so long
To welcome my muse and me;
Fold to thy breast, like a mother, the song
That floats from my spirit to thee.

And song! sound soft as the streamlet sings,...

The summer rose the sun has flushed
With crimson glory may be sweet;
'Tis sweeter when its leaves are crushed
Beneath the wind's and tempest's feet.

The rose that waves upon its tree,...

Silently -- shadowly -- some lives go,
And the sound of their voices is all unheard;
Or, if heard at all, 'tis as faint as the flow
Of beautiful waves which no storm hath stirred.
Deep lives these...

Into a temple vast and dim,
Solemn and vast and dim,
Just when the last sweet Vesper Hymn
Was floating far away,
With eyes that tabernacled tears --
Her heart the home of tears --...

Dreary! weary!
Weary! dreary!
Sighs my soul this lonely night.
Farewell gladness!
Welcome sadness!
Vanished are my visions bright.

Stars are shining!
Winds are pining!...