Works

A common wayside flower it grew,
Unhandsome and unnoticed too,
Except in deprecation
That such an herb unreared by toil,
Prolific cumberer of the soil,
Defied extermination.
...

Oh, what a blessed interval
A rainy day may be!
No lightning flash nor tempest roar,
But one incessant, steady pour
Of dripping melody;
When from their sheltering retreat
Go not with voluntary feet...

When I was young, my heart elate
With ardent notions warm,
I thirsted to inaugurate
A spirit of reform;
The universe was all awry,
Philosophy despite,
And mundane things disjointed I...

In hours of meditation fraught
With mem'ries of departed days,
Comes oft a tender, loving thought
Of one who shared our youthful plays.

In gayest sports and pleasures rife...

Beside my window day and night,
Its tendrils reaching left and right,
A morning glory grew;
With blossoms covered, pink and white
And deep, delicious blue.

Its care became my daily thought,...

The days are long and lonely,
The weary eve comes on,
And the nights are filled with dreaming
Of one beloved and gone.

I reach out in the darkness
And clasp but empty air,...

While Phoebus lent his hottest rays
To signalize midsummer days,
I stood in that far-famed enclosure
By thousands visited,
Where, in the stillness of reposure,
Are grouped battalions dead.
...

O sunny Sangamon! thy name to me,
Soft-syllabled like some sweet melody,
Familiar is since adolescent years
As household phrases ringing in my ears;
Its measured cadence sounding to and fro...

I've a friend beyond the ocean
So regardful, so sincere,
And he sends me in a letter
Such a pretty souvenir.

It is crushed to death and withered,
Out of shape and very flat,...