Works

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;...

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...

Out of the shadows of sadness,
Into the sunshine of gladness,
Into the light of the blest;
Out of a land very dreary,
Out of a world very weary,
Into the rapture of rest.
...

I love my mother, the wildwood,
I sleep upon her breast;
A day or two of childhood,
And then I sink to rest.

I had once a lovely sister --
She was cradled by my side;...

Waileth a woman, "O my God!"
A breaking heart in a broken breath,
A hopeless cry o'er her heart-hope's death!
Can words catch the chords of the winds that wail,
When love's last lily lies dead in the vale!...

Ah! days so dark with death's eclipse!
Woe are we! woe are we!
And the nights are ages long!
From breaking hearts, thro' pallid lips
O my God! woe are we!
Trembleth the mourner's song;...

The moan of a wintry soul
Melted into a summer song,
And the words, like the wavelet's roll,
Moved murmuringly along.

And the song flowed far and away,
Like the voice of a half-sleeping rill --...

Over the silent sea of sleep,
Far away! far away!
Over a strange and starlit deep
Where the beautiful shadows sway;
Dim in the dark,
Glideth a bark,
Where never the waves of a tempest roll --...

Thou art sleeping, brother, sleeping
In thy lonely battle grave;
Shadows o'er the past are creeping,
Death, the reaper, still is reaping,
Years have swept, and years are sweeping...

The death of men is not the death
Of rights that urged them to the fray;
For men may yield
On battle-field
A noble life with stainless shield,
And swords may rust
Above their dust,...

Gather the sacred dust
Of the warriors tried and true,
Who bore the flag of a Nation's trust
And fell in a cause, though lost, still just,
And died for me and you.

Gather them one and all,...

Betimes, I seem to see in dreams
What when awake I may not see;
Can night be God's more than the day?
Do stars, not suns, best light his way?
Who knoweth? Blended lights and shades...

Only a Dream!
It floated thro'
The sky of a lonely sleep
As floats a gleam
Athwart the Blue
Of a golden clouded Deep.

Only a Dream!
I calmly slept.
Meseems I called a name;...

Lost! Lost! Lost!
The cry went up from a sea --
The waves were wild with an awful wrath,
Not a light shone down on the lone ship's path;
The clouds hung low:
Lost! Lost! Lost!...

To-day a bird on wings as white as foam
That crests the blue-gray wave,
With the vesper light upon its breast, flew home
Seaward. The God who gave
To the birds the virgin-wings of snow...

'Twas the dusky Hallowe'en --
Hour of fairy and of wraith,
When in many a dim-lit green,
'Neath the stars' prophetic sheen,
As the olden legend saith,
All the future may be seen,...

They come to ev'ry life -- sad, sunless days,
With not a light all o'er their clouded skies;
And thro' the dark we grope along our ways
With hearts fear-filled, and lips low-breathing sighs.
...

Brief while they last,
Long when they are gone;
They catch from the past
A light to still live on.

Brief! yet I ween
A day may be an age,
The poet's pen may screen...

Some day in Spring,
When earth is fair and glad,
And sweet birds sing,
And fewest hearts are sad --
Shall I die then?
Ah! me, no matter when;
I know it will be sweet
To leave the homes of men...