Works

i.

Dearest and best of maidens, whom the Fates
have dower'd with beauty, whom the glory-gates
Have shown so splendid in my waking sight,
Is't well, thou syren! thus to haunt the night...

A Mother's Name.


I.

I love the sound! The sweetest under Heaven,
That name of mother, - and the proudest, too.
As babes we breathe it, and with seven times seven...

The lightning is the shorthand of the storm
That tells of chaos; and I read the same
As one may read the writing of a name, -
As one in Hell may see the sudden form
Of God's fore-finger pointed as in blame....