"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;...
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. ...
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...
In the eclipses of your soul, and when you cry "O God! give more of rest and less of night," My words may rest you; and mayhap a light Shall flash from them bright o'er thy spirit's sky;...
Only a few more years! Weary years! Only a few more tears! Bitter tears! And then -- and then -- like other men, I cease to wander, cease to weep, Dim shadows o'er my way shall creep;...
We laugh when our souls are the saddest, We shroud all our griefs in a smile; Our voices may warble their gladdest, And our souls mourn in anguish the while.
One idle day -- A mile or so of sunlit waves off shore -- In a breezeless bay, We listless lay -- Our boat a "dream of rest" on the still sea -- And -- we were four.
Far from "where the roses rest", Round the altar and the aisle, Which I loved, of all, the best -- I have come to rest awhile By the ever-restless sea -- Will its waves give rest to me? ...
Strange Sea! why is it that you never rest? And tell me why you never go to sleep? Thou art like one so sad and sin-oppressed -- (And the waves are the tears you weep) --...
A river went singing adown to the sea, A-singing -- low -- singing -- And the dim rippling river said softly to me, "I'm bringing, a-bringing -- While floating along -- A beautiful song...
Two little children played among the flowers, Their mothers were of kin, tho' far apart; The children's ages were the very same E'en to an hour -- and Ethel was her name,...
Some reckon their age by years, Some measure their life by art; But some tell their days by the flow of their tears, And their lives by the moans of their heart.
Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright, Flashed the sword of Lee! Far in the front of the deadly fight, High o'er the brave in the cause of Right, Its stainless sheen, like a beacon light,...