Works

I heard such a curious story
Of Santa Claus: once, so they say,
He set out to see what people were kind,
Before he took presents their way.
'This year I will give but to givers,...

Oh! hush little baby, thy Papa's at sea,
The big billows rock him as Mama rocks thee.
He hastes to his dear ones o'er breakers of foam.
Then hush little darling till Papa comes home....

We plucked a red rose, you and I,
All in the summer weather;
Sweet its perfume and rare its bloom,
Enjoyed by us together.
The rose is dead, the summer fled,
And bleak winds are complaining;...

Across the miles that stretch between,
Through days of gloom or glad sunlight,
There shines a face I have not seen
Which yet doth make my world more bright.

He may be near, he may be far,...

Across the miles that stretch between,
Through days of gloom or glad sunlight,
There shines a face I have not seen
Which yet doth make my world more bright.

He may be near, he may be far,...

I was a little lad, and the older boys called to me from the pier:
They called to me: 'Be a sport: be a sport! Leap in and swim!'
I leaped in and swam, though I had never been taught a stroke....

Oh, a great world, a fair world, a true world I find it;
A sun that never forgets to rise,
On the darkest night, a star in the skies,
And a God of love behind it.
...

Always at sea I think about the dead.
On barques invisible they seem to sail
The self-same course; and from the decks cry 'Hail'!
Then I recall old words that they have said,...

Do you think, dear, as you say
Such a light good-bye to-day,
That this parting time may be
Mayhaps less to you, than me?

What a wonder of surprise
Looks out from your sunny eyes....

A lovely little keeper of the home,
Absorbed in menu books, yet erudite
When I need counsel; quick at repartee
And slow to anger. Modest as a flower,
Yet scintillant and radiant as a star....

Like the tenth wave, that offers to the shore
Accumulated opulence and force,
So does my heart, which thought it loved of yore,
Carry increasing passion down the course
Of time to proffer thee....

(Intended for recitation at club dinners.)


To-night when I came from the club at eleven,
Under the gaslight I saw a face -
A woman's face! and I swear to heaven...

How cold the old porch seems. A dreary chill
Creeps upward from the river at twilight,
And yet, I like to linger here at night,
And dream the summer tarries with us still.
...

Let the old snow be covered with the new:
The trampled snow, so soiled, and stained, and sodden.
Let it be hidden wholly from our view
By pure white flakes, all trackless and untrodden....

If all the end of this continuous striving
Were simply to attain,
How poor would seem the planning and contriving
The endless urging and the hurried driving
Of body, heart and brain!
...

PART I

She was a light and wanton maid:
Not one whom fickle Love betrayed,
For indolence was her undoer.
Fair, frivolous, and very poor,
She scorned the thought of toil, in youth,...

As when the old moon lighted by the tender
And radiant crescent of the new is seen,
And for a moment's space suggests the splendor
Of what in its full prime it once has been,...

Two roadways lead from this land to That, and one is the road of Prayer;
And one is the road of Old-time Songs, and every note is a stair.

A shabby old man with a music machine on the sordid city street;...

Of all the waltzes the great Strauss wrote,
Mad with melody, rhythm - rife
From the very first to the final note.
Give me his "Artist's Life!"

It stirs my blood to my finger-ends,...

Of all the waltzes the great Strauss wrote,
Mad with melody, rhythm - rife
From the very first to the final note,
Give me his "Artist's Life!"

It stirs my blood to my finger ends,...