Works

Plain men have fitful moods and so have Kings,
For Kings are only men, and often made
Of clay as common as e'er stained a spade.
But when the great are moody, then, the strings...

Of their great names I may record but few;
He who beholds the Ocean white with sails
And copies each confuses all the view,
He paints too much - and fails.

His picture shows no high, emphatic light,...

On the night air there floating comes, hoarse, war-like, low and deep,
A sound as tho' the dreaming drums were talking in their sleep.

"Fall in! Fall in!" The stormers form, in silence, stern and grim,...

I see his Shape who should have led these ranks -
GARFIELD I see whose presence had evoked
The stormy rapture of a Nation's thanks -
His chariot stands unyoked!

Unyoked and empty, and the Charioteer...

Then sweeping down below Virginia's Capes,
From Chesapeake to where Savannah flows,
We find the settlers laughing 'mid their grapes
And ignorant of snows.

The fragrant uppowock, and golden corn...

An ancient Chronicle has told
That, in the famous days of old,
In Antioch under ground
The self-same lance was found -
Unbitten by corrosive rust -
The lance the Roman soldier thrust...

Turned back my gaze, on Spain's romantic shore
I see Gaul bending by the grave of Moore,
And later, when the page of Fame I scan
I see brave France at deadly Inkerman,
While on red Balaklava's field I hear...

Next came the closing scene: but shall I paint
The scarlet column, sullen, slow, and faint,
Which marched, with "colors cased" to yonder field,
Where Britain threw down corslet, sword and shield?
...

"He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord."

The night-wind comes in sudden squalls:
The ruddy fire-light starts and falls
Fantastically on the walls.
...

High-perch'd upon the rocky way,
Stands a Posada stern and grey;
Which from the valley, seems as if,
A condor there had paus'd to 'light
And rest upon that lonely cliff,
From some stupendous flight;...

A yeoman born, with patrimony small,
He held the world at large as his estate;
Found fit advices in the bugle's call
And took his part in iron-tongued debate
Where'er one sword another sword blade notched;...

My Lady's rest was calm and deep:
She had been gazing at the moon;
And thus it chanced she fell asleep
One balmy night in June.

Freebooter winds stole richest smells...

"In pace decus, in bello praesidium." - Tacitus.


I.

Your arms are stacked, your splendid colors furled,
Your drums are still, aside your trumpets laid,...

Whether in velvet white, slashed, and be-pearled,
And rich in knots of clustering gems a-glow:
Or, in his rusted armor, he unfurled
St. George's Cross by Oronoko's flow;...

The cock hath crow'd. I hear the doors unbarr'd;
Down to the moss-grown porch my way I take,
And hear, beside the well within the yard,
Full many an ancient, quacking, splashing drake,...

Over the farm is brooding silence now -
No reaper's song - no raven's clangor harsh -
No bleat of sheep - no distant low of cow -
No croak of frogs within the spreading marsh -...

That solitary cloud grows dark and wide,
While distant thunder rumbles in the air,
A fitful ripple breaks the river's tide -
The lazy cattle are no longer there,
But homeward come in long procession slow,...

Behind me purplish lines marked out the town,
Before me stretched the noble Roadstead's tide:
And there I saw the Evening sun go down
Casting a parting glory far and wide -...

Alas! he's cold!
Cold as the marble which his fingers wrought -
Cold, but not dead; for each embodied thought
Of his, which he from the Ideal brought
To live in stone,
Assures him immortality of fame....