A dull uncertain brain, But gifted yet to know That God has cherubim who go Singing an immortal strain, Immortal here below. I know the mighty bards, I listen when they sing, And now I know...
High was her heart, and yet was well inclined, Her manners made of bounty well refined; Far capitals and marble courts, her eye still seemed to see, Minstrels and kings and high-born dames, and of the best that be.
Dear brother, would you know the life, Please God, that I would lead? On the first wheels that quit this weary town Over yon western bridges I would ride And with a cheerful benison forsake...
I, Alphonso, live and learn, Seeing Nature go astern. Things deteriorate in kind; Lemons run to leaves and rind; Meagre crop of figs and limes; Shorter days and harder times....
Why fear to die And let thy body lie Under the flowers of June, Thy body food For the ground-worms' brood And thy grave smiled on by the visiting moon.
And when I am entombed in my place, Be it remembered of a single man, He never, though he dearly loved his race, For fear of human eyes swerved from his plan.
The April winds are magical And thrill our tuneful frames; The garden walks are passional To bachelors and dames. The hedge is gemmed with diamonds, The air with Cupids full,...
Give to barrows, trays and pans Grace and glimmer of romance; Bring the moonlight into noon Hid in gleaming piles of stone; On the city's paved street Plant gardens lined with lilacs sweet;...
Each the herald is who wrote His rank, and quartered his own coat. There is no king nor sovereign state That can fix a hero's rate; Each to all is venerable, Cap-a-pie invulnerable,...
Bring me wine, but wine which never grew In the belly of the grape, Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through, Under the Andes to the Cape, Suffer no savor of the earth to scape. ...
Was never form and never face So sweet to SEYD as only grace Which did not slumber like a stone, But hovered gleaming and was gone. Beauty chased he everywhere, In flame, in storm, in clouds of air....
Be of good cheer, brave spirit; steadfastly Serve that low whisper thou hast served; for know, God hath a select family of sons Now scattered wide thro' earth, and each alone,...
'May be true what I had heard,-- Earth's a howling wilderness, Truculent with fraud and force,' Said I, strolling through the pastures, And along the river-side. Caught among the blackberry vines,...
Darlings of children and of bard, Perfect kinds by vice unmarred, All of worth and beauty set Gems in Nature's cabinet; These the fables she esteems Reality most like to dreams....
Give me truths; For I am weary of the surfaces, And die of inanition. If I knew Only the herbs and simples of the wood, Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain and agrimony,...
The rocky nook with hilltops three Looked eastward from the farms, And twice each day the flowing sea Took Boston in its arms; The men of yore were stout and poor, And sailed for bread to every shore....