Works

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...

Had we not met, the brooding woe
And all the griefs that greater grow,
Might not have been, and happy-wise
Our lives have laughed with lullabies
And quaffed such joys as few may know.
...

If Love were king,
That sacred Love which knows not selfish pleasure,
But for its children spends its fondest treasure,
Sad hearts would sing,
And all the hosts of misery and wrong...

If we but knew the weary way,
The poisoned paths of hostile hate,
The roughened roads of fiercest fate,
Through which our brother's journey lay,
Would we condemn, as now we do,...

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;...

There is no soul of anguish or repining,
That doubts and trembles in the shades of gloom,
But love can lead where softest suns are shining
And fill his days with beauty and its bloom.
Live life with love!...

Lo, all the age is rank with wrong!
The nations kneel to monstrous might,
And horrid cries that haunt the night,
Have hushed the notes of happy song;
Mankind the deepest truth has missed,...

Love, thou gayest fancy-weaver,
Heart-betrayer, soul-deceiver,
Come with all thy clinging kisses;
Bringing all thy beaming blisses;
It may serve the cynic's parts,
If he curse and if he scout thee,...

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,...

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,...

Quaff the glass, the wine is red,
And the rose of youth is glowing,
While the toils of life are fled
And the snows of age are going;
Quaff it with a hearty will,
Quaff it deep and quaff forever;...

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...

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!
...

A song for the willow, the wild weeping willow,
That murmurs a dirge to the rapturous days,
And moans when the kiss of the breeze laden billow
Entangles and dangles among the sad sprays!...

God bless the brawny arms of toil,
The noble hearts and royal hands,
That plow the plain and seed the soil,
And grow the grains of laughing lands!
King in the blessed vales of life...

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.

When Christmas comes, what pleasures spring
From drooping hearts on happy wing,
Like joyous birds that soaring rise
From hidden coverts to the skies.
And echo in the chimes that ring!
...

When fortunes frown, the woes, bedight
With brooding shadows, bring the night,
While dismal sorrows darkness dole,
And disappointments rise and roll
Above the longings for the light.
...

When thou art near, with gladdest grace
My heart is held in fond embrace,
For laughing lips with raptures bless
The toils and tears of my distress,
And woes within me have no place.
...