Works

Dead leaves are deep in all our forest walks;
Their brightest tints not all extinguished yet,
Shine redly glimmering through the dewy wet;
And whereso'er thy musing foot is set,...

Into the west the day goes down,
Smiling and fading into the night,
Is it a cross, or is it a crown
I have worn through all these hours of light!

Bending over my milk-white curds,...

Inscribed to OUR FATHER AND MOTHER, and read on that Anniversary,
FEBRUARY 15TH, 1876.


A half a century of time,
The mingled pain and bliss
That make the history of life...

Sundown--and silence--and deep peace,--
Night's benediction and release;--
The tints of day die out and cease.

This morn I heard the Sabbath bells
Across the breezy upland swells;--...

Oh Sea, that with infinite sadness, and infinite yearning
Liftest thy crystal forehead toward the unpitying stars,--
Evermore ebbing and flowing, and evermore returning...

Above the roofs and chimney-tops,
And through the slow November rain,
A light from some far attic pane,
Shines twinkling through the water-drops.

Some lonely watcher waits and weeps,...

In the sleep-haunted gloom
Born of the slumbrous twilight in these shades,
These vast and venerable collonades,
I welcome thee, dear June!

And while with head reclined,...

Through many-winding valleys far inland,
A maze among the convoluted hills,
Of rocks up-piled, and pines on either hand,
And meadows ribbanded with silver rills,
Faint, mingled-up, composite sweetnesses...

I.


One looks into the sun lawn, and the steep
Curved slopes of hills, set sharp against the sky,
With tufted woods encinctured, waving high
O'er vales below, where broken shadows sleep....

In your beautiful book, dear Mary,
With pages so white and fair,
I pause ere I trace the first sentence,
And thoughtfully breathe a prayer:--

That in the dew of the morning,...

The moon went under a ragged cloud,
The owl cried out of the ruined wall,
Slow and solemn, distinct and loud,
His melancholy call:
Tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo!
Like a creature in a shroud.
...

(In an Album.)


In the spring-time, out of the dew,
From my garden, sweet friend, I gather,
A garland of verses, or rather
A poem of blossoms for you.
...

Stay yet awhile, oh flowers!--oh wandering grasses,
And creeping ferns, and climbing, clinging vines;--
Bend down and cover with lush odorous masses
My darling's couch, where he in sleep reclines.
...