Works

We gentler grow by sorrow; not the breast
That never crouches in the nights of tears,
That never bends beneath the loads of years,
Has sympathies that are the kindliest....

Crowds! Crowds! Crowds!
Suddenly here as if come from the clouds
That faded away as they came;
Mad acres of people aflame
With thirst for a morsel of land;
Wild hunters of fortune, whose game...

Away, away, from the sultry ways
Where the pleasures fall and fade,
To the bannered corn and the meadowed bloom
And the forest's cooling shade!

Afar, afar, from the rooms of care...

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!...

He sleeps at last! The vales of rest
Are waiting for the war-worn breast,
And glorious angels fondly spread
The sweetest roses for his bed.
While countless millions call him blest.
...

A something, not of earth or sky,
Beside me walks the ways I go,
And I--I never truly know,
If I am it or it is I.

It soothes me with its tender speech,
It guides me with its gentle hand,...

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,...

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...

They will find in this life who are grieved with its gladness
No songs for the heart and no hopes for the soul,
But will faint in the glooms where the dirges of sadness
In tremulous murmurs of wretchedness roll;...

A singer sang in sorrow long
And breathed his life into his song.

Unknown, unheard, the song went wide,
Until the singer, starving, died.

Now in their hearts the nations write...

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,...

Somehow, someway, I can not see the light;
The giant hills of doubting reach the skies,
Abiding shadows bring eternal night,
And on my ways no suns of morning rise;
Dark mysteries across the years of might...

Alone, alone, in the twilight gray,
In the shadows so dark and dim,
I watch through all of the weary hours,
And I wait with my heart for him;
For him who'll come, when he comes at all,...

Spring, among her sylvan shades,
And the gladness of her glades,
Once in dreamy hours was straying,
Where sweet Music with her throngs
Of glad melodies and songs
In the happy vales was playing.
...

God bless the man who gave us rest
And him who taught us play,
For kindness reigned within his breast
To all our sorrow slay;
The weary heart, the fainting limb,
The soul that droops in woe,...

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...