Works

A summer's morning that has but one voice;
Five hundred stocks, like golden lovers, lean
Their heads together, in their quiet way,
And but one bird sings, of a number seen.
...

When I sailed out of Baltimore
With twice a thousand head of sheep,
They would not eat, they would not drink,
But bleated o'er the deep.

Inside the pens we crawled each day,...

Thou shalt not laugh, thou shalt not romp,
Let's grimly kiss with bated breath;
As quietly and solemnly
As Life when it is kissing Death.
Now in the silence of the grave,...

Sweet Chance, that led my steps abroad,
Beyond the town, where wild flowers grow -
A rainbow and a cuckoo, Lord,
How rich and great the times are now!
Know, all ye sheep
And cows, that keep...

Good morning, Life, and all
Things glad and beautiful.
My pockets nothing hold,
But he that owns the gold,
The Sun, is my great friend,
His spending has no end.

Hail to the morning sky,...

The sky is clear,
The sun is bright;
The cows are red,
The sheep are white;
Trees in the meadows
Make happy shadows.

Birds in the hedge
Are perched and sing;
Swallows and larks...

Ah, sweet young blood, that makes the heart
So full of joy, and light,
That dying children dance with it
From early morn till night.

My dreams were blossoms, hers the fruit,...

A wondrous city, that had temples there
More rich than that one built by David's son,
Which called forth Ophir's gold, when Israel
Made Lebanon half naked for her sake....

My purse is yours, Sweet Heart, for I
Can count no coins with you close by;
I scorn like sailors them, when they
Have drawn on shore their deep-sea pay;
Only my thoughts I value now,...

When our two souls have left this mortal clay
And, seeking mine, you think that mine is lost -
Look for me first in that Elysian glade
Where Lesbia is, for whom the birds sing most.
...

I hear a merry noise indeed:
Is it the geese and ducks that take
Their first plunge in a quiet pond
That into scores of ripples break,
Or children make this merry sound?
...

Christmas has come, let's eat and drink,
This is no time to sit and think;
Farewell to study, books and pen,
And welcome to all kinds of men.
Let all men now get rid of care,...

I hear it said yon land is poor,
In spite of those rich cowslips there -
And all the singing larks it shoots
To heaven from the cowslips' roots.
But I, with eyes that beauty find,...

When primroses are out in Spring,
And small, blue violets come between;
When merry birds sing on boughs green,
And rills, as soon as born, must sing;

When butterflies will make side-leaps,...

I know not why I yearn for thee again,
To sail once more upon thy fickle flood;
I'll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,
Thy salt is lodged forever in my blood.
...

Thou art not always kind, O sleep:
What awful secrets them dost keep
In store, and ofttimes make us know;
What hero has not fallen low
In sleep before a monster grim,
And whined for mercy unto him;...

What exultations in my mind,
From the love-bite of this Easter wind!
My head thrown back, my face doth shine
Like yonder Sun's, but warmer mine.
A butterfly - from who knows where -...

We have no grass locked up in ice so fast
That cattle cut their faces and at last,
When it is reached, must lie them down and starve,
With bleeding mouths that freeze too hard to move....

Thou hadst no home, and thou couldst see
In every street the windows' light:
Dragging thy limbs about all night,
No window kept a light for thee.

However much thou wert distressed,...

The Lark that in heaven dim
Can match a rainy hour
With his own music's shower,
Can make me sing like him,
Heigh ho! The rain!

Sing, when a Nightingale
Pours forth her own sweet soul...