Works

They walked the valley of the dead;
Lit by a weird half light;
No sound they made, no word they said;
And they were pale with fright.
Then suddenly from unseen places came...

They rode through the bannered city -
The King and the Commoner,
And the hopes of the world were with them,
And the heart of the world was astir.
For the moss-grown walls seemed falling...

For the courage which comes when we call,
While troubles like hailstones fall;
For the help that is somehow nigh,
In the deepest night when we cry;
For the path that is certainly shown...

Of a thousand things that the Year snowed under -
The busy Old Year who has gone away -
How many will rise in the Spring, I wonder,
Brought to life by the sun of May?...

Of a thousand things that the Year snowed under -
The busy Old Year who has gone away -
How many will rise in the Spring, I wonder,
Brought to life by the sun of May?...

The uses of sorrow I comprehend
Better and better at each year's end.

Deeper and deeper I seem to see
Why and wherefore it has to be.

Only after the dark, wet days...

Oh! the maidens of France are certainly fine,
And I think every fellow will state
That the 'what-you-may-call-it' coiffured way
They put up their hair is great!...

A vision beauteous as the morn,
With heavenly eyes and tresses streaming,
Slow glided o'er a field late shorn
Where walked a poet idly dreaming.
He saw her, and joy lit his face,...

A vision beauteous as the morn,
With heavenly eyes and tresses streaming,
Slow glided o'er a field late shorn
Where walked a poet idly dreaming.
He saw her, and joy lit his face,...

When I was very young I used to feel the dark despairs of youth;
Out of my little griefs I would invent great tragedies and woes;
Not only for myself, but for all those I held most dear...

In the dull, dim dawn of day I heard
The twitter and thrill of a brown-backed bird,
As he sat and sang in the leafless tree,
A herald of beautiful days to be.

But the minor running under the strain...

Man has explored all countries and all lands,
And made his own the secrets of each clime.
Now, ere the world has fully reached its prime,
The oval earth lies compassed with steel bands;...

As we journey along, with a laugh and a song,
We see, on youth's flower-decked slope,
Like a beacon of light, shining fair on the sight,
The beautiful Station of Hope.
...

I had been almost happy for an hour,
Lost to the world that knew me in the park
Among strange faces; while my little girl
Leaped with the squirrels, chirruped with the birds...

Like some school master, kind in being stern,
Who hears the children crying o'er their slates
And calling, "Help me master!" yet helps not,
Since in his silence and refusal lies...

However skilled and strong art thou, my foe,
However fierce is thy relentless hate
Though firm thy hand, and strong thy aim, and straight
Thy poisoned arrow leaves the bended bow,...

The mighty forces of mysterious space
Are one by one subdued by lordly man.
The awful lightning that for eons ran
Their devastating and untrammeled race,
Now bear his messages from place to place...

I value more than I despise
My tendency to sin,
Because it helps me sympathise
With all my tempted kin.

He who has nothing in his soul
That links him to the sod,...

What a terrible night! Does the Night, I wonder -
The Night, with her black veil down to her feet
Like an ordained nun, know what lies under
That awful, motionless, snow-white sheet?...

Now ought we to laugh or to weep -
Was it comical, or was it grave?
When we who had waded breast deep
In passion's most turbulent wave
Met out on an isle in Time's ocean,...