(After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted negro regiment, the 54th Massachusetts.)
Nay, move not! Sit just as you are, Under the carved wings of the chair. The hearth-glow sifting through your hair Turns every dim pearl to a star Dawn-drowned in floods of brightening air. ...
Streets of the roaring town, Hush for him, hush, be still! He comes, who was stricken down Doing the word of our will. Hush! Let him have his state, Give him his soldier's crown....
Leave the early bells at chime, Leave the kindled hearth to blaze, Leave the trellised panes where children linger out the waking-time, Leave the forms of sons and fathers trudging through the misty ways,...
The opal heart of afternoon Was clouding on to throbs of storm, Ashen within the ardent west The lips of thunder muttered harm, And as a bubble like to break Hung heaven's trembling amethyst,...
Through his might men work their wills. They have boweled out the hills For food to keep him toiling in the cages they have wrought; And they fling him, hour by hour, Limbs of men to give him power;...
This, then, is she, My mother as she looked at seventeen, When she first met my father. Young incredibly, Younger than spring, without the faintest trace Of disappointment, weariness, or tean...
I sat beside the glassy evening sea, One foot upon the thin horn of my lyre, And all its strings of laughter and desire Crushed in the rank wet grasses heedlessly;...
All day he drowses by the sail With dreams of her, and all night long The broken waters are at song Of how she lingers, wild and pale, When all the temple lights are dumb,...
Thank God my brain is not inclined to cut Such capers every day! I 'm just about Mellow, but then--There goes the tent-flap shut. Rain 's in the wind. I thought so: every snout...
Between the rice swamps and the fields of tea I met a sacred elephant, snow-white. Upon his back a huge pagoda towered Full of brass gods and food of sacrifice. Upon his forehead sat a golden throne,...
Before the coming of the dark, he dreamed An old-world faded story: of a knight, Much like in need to him, who was no knight! And of a road, much like the road his soul...
Two hours, two hours: God give me strength for it! He who has given so much strength to me And nothing to my child, must give to-day What more I need to try and save my child...