Works

Dear songs of my country! How sweetly thy measures
Come stealthily stealing o'er mountain and wave,
To sweeten the riches of liberty's treasures
And thrill with their numbers the hearts of the brave!...

If we don't or if we do.
What's the odds to me and you?
Fame is e'er a heartless jade,
And her slaves are poorly paid;
Weary hearts and soul's distress
Are the prices of success;...

Make the most of this life; where the shadow reposes
The beams of the summer shall gather in glee,
And the snow on the graves of the lilies and roses
But cradles the blooms that shall whiten the lea;...

'Twas in the summer's sweet perfume,
When roses bloomed and holly, O,
That in the brightness of her bloom,
I first did meet my Mollie, O.

Although she said for lives to love...

O, gentle shade of quiet woods,
Where nature dwells in leafy halls,
I love the sacred voice that falls
In music o'er thy solitudes!
Within thine arms the weary heart
Is hidden from the toils of men,...

Oklahoma! Oklahoma!
Land, O, land of the Fair God,
Land where ancient, savage races
Through barbarian ages trod!
Through thy story fancy traces
Facts above what fictions say,...

Here, through the ages old, the desert slept
In solitudes unbroken, save when passed
The bison herds, and savage hunters swept
In thund'ring chaos down the valleys vast;...

O sacred souls that grandly sing
The secret songs of human hearts,
Where your wild music madly starts,
The sorrows into raptures spring!
Within the warbles of your chimes...

O weak and weary world
Forever struggling on,
When will thy toils in comfort be impearled,
When will thy sorrows and thy cares be gone?
When shall the races, all ambition dead,...

Sing me a song, O, Wind,
Of musical cadence sweet,
Which in the wood around
Shall often and oft repeat;
Soft as an angel's song
That never can give annoy,
Which in the balmy notes...

Our souls are the deserts of sorrow,
Our hearts are the ashes of hope,
And madly from gladness we borrow
The brightness where sadness may grope;
My raptures in wretchedness vanish,...

Sing not of beauty's grace to me;
Its very name a story tells
Of doubly dark inconstancy,
Love falser than a hundred hells.

Its face is often but a screen
To hide a devil's heart of guile,...

Sweet eyes of blue! The stars by night,
That swoon the world with laughing light,
And touch the hills with tender glow
While all the vales are kissed below,
Beside you would no more be bright.
...

Sweet fairies from the isles of song,
Bewitching choirs from music land,
The pleasures of your wondrous band
Once wooed me from the ways of wrong;
Once won my heart with fond caress...

Like a thousan' birds o' brightness from the isles o' summer seas,
Rickollections, full o' gladness, come with songs and lullabies,
An' I listen to the carols that with gentle voices roll,...

A tender song in shadows grew,
And humble hearts were homes it knew.

But through its wondrous music stole
The longings of the human soul;

The hopes of hosts unsatisfied...

Since Adam's first sin in the garden of song,
Where the hopes of the race were empearled,
Whenever a mortal does anything wrong,
It is only the way of the world!
...

Our dearest joys forever flow
From fountains of the Long Ago,
That from the heights of pleasures past
Flood all the present valleys vast,
And with eternal glees provide
The future's endless ocean tide....

Within this false world we may count ourselves blest,
If we have but one friend who is faithful and true;
And so in your friendship contented I'll rest,
And believe I have found that one blessing in you.

Glad winters on the olden farm!
How raptures from those early times
Commingle into fairy chimes
Which gently banish cries of harm!
My fainting soul finds rest the whiles
Within the arms of memory,...