Pain can go guised as joy, dross pass for gold,Vulgarity can masquerade as wit,Or spite wear friendship’s garments; but I holdThat passionate feeling has no counterfeit.Chief jewel from Jove’s crown ’twas sent men, lentFor inspiration and for sacrament. Jove never could have made the UniverseHad he not glowed with passion’s sacred fire;Though man oft turns […]

I Who has not felt his heart leap up, and glowWhat time the Tulips first begin to blow,Has one sweet joy still left for him to know. It is like early love’s imagining,That fragile pleasure which the Tulips bring,When suddenly we see them, in the Spring. Not all the garden’s later royal train,Not great triumphant […]

God sent us here to make mistakes,To strive, to fail, to re-begin,To taste the tempting fruit of sin,And find what bitter food it makes, To miss the path, to go astray,To wander blindly in the night;But, searching, praying for the light,Until at last we find the way. And looking back along the past,We know we […]

They tell me new methods now govern the Muses,The modes of expression have changed with the times;That low is the rank of the poet who usesThe old-fashioned verse with intentional rhymes.And quite out of date, too, is rhythmical metre;The critics declare it an insult to art.But oh! the sweet swing of it, oh! the clear […]

The quality folk went riding by,All in a coach and four,And pretty Annette, in a calico gown(Bringing her marketing things from town),Stopped short with her Sunday store,And wondered if ever it should betideThat she in a long plumed hat would rideAway in a coach and four. A lord there was, oh a lonely soul,There in […]

Was, Is, and Yet-to-BeWere chatting over a cup of tea. In tarnished finery smelling of must,Was talked of people long turned to dust; Of titles and honours and high estate,All forgotten or out of date; Of wonderful feasts in the long ago,Of pride that perished with nothing to show. “I loathe the present,” said Was, […]

In Memory’s Mansion are wonderful rooms,And I wander about them at will;And I pause at the casements, where boxes of bloomsAre sending sweet scents o’er the sill.I lean from a window that looks on a lawn:From a turret that looks on the wave.But I draw down the shade, when I see on some glade,A stone […]

Each new invention doubles our worries an’ our troubles,These scientific fellows are spoilin’ of our land;With motor, wire, an’ cable, now’-days we’re scarcely ableTo walk or ride in peace o’ mind, an’ ’tisn’t safe to stand. It fairly makes me crazy to see how tarnal lazyThe risin’ generation grows–an’ science is to blame.With telephones for […]

How blind is he who prays that God will sendAll pain from earth. Pain has its use and place;Its ministry of holiness and grace.The darker tones upon the canvas blendWith light and colour; and their shadows lendThe painting half its dignity. EffaceThe sombre background, and you lose all traceOf that perfection which is true art’s […]

Why dost thou shrink from my approach, O Man?Why dost thou ever flee in fear, and clingTo my false rival, Life? I do but bringThee rest and calm. Then wherefore dost thou banAnd curse me? Since the forming of God’s planI have not hurt or harmed a mortal thing,I have bestowed sweet balm for every […]

There’s many a house of grandeur,With turret, tower and dome,That knows not peace or comfort,And does not prove a home.I do not ask for splendorTo crown my daily lot,But this I ask–a kitchenWhere the kettle’s always hot. If things are not all ship-shape,I do not fume or fret,A little clean disorderDoes not my nerves upset.But […]

God, what a joy it is to plant a tree,And from the sallow earth to watch it rise,Lifting its emerald branches to the skiesIn silent adoration; and to seeIts strength and glory waxing with each spring.Yes, ’tis a goodly, and a gladsome thingTo plant a tree. Nature has many marvels; but a treeSeems more than […]

Not only sun-kissed heights are fair. BelowThe cold, dark billows of the frowning deepDo lovely blossoms of the ocean sleep,Rocked gently by the waters to and fro.The coral beds with magic colours glow,And priceless pearl-encrusted molluscs heapThe glittering rocks where shining atoms leapLike living broken rainbows. Even soWe find the sea of sorrow. Black as […]

Let the wild red-rose bloom. Though not to theeSo delicately perfect as the whiteAnd unwed lily drooping in the light,Though she has known the kisses of the beeAnd tells her amorous tale to passers-byIn perfumed whispers and with untaught grace,Still let the red-rose bloom in her own place;She could not be the lily should she […]

How baseless is the mightiest earthly pride,The diamond is but charcoal purified,The lordliest pearl that decks a monarch’s breastIs but an insect’s sepulchre at best.

He said he loved me! Then he called my hairSilk threads wherewith sly Cupid strings his bow,My cheek a rose leaf fallen on new snow;And swore my round, full throat would bring despairTo Venus or to Psyche. Time and careWill fade these locks; the merry god, I trow,Uses no grizzled cords upon his bow.How will […]

To yearn for what we have not had, to sitWith hungry eyes glued on the Future’s gate,Why, that is heaven compared to having itWith all the power gone to appreciate. Better to wait and yearn, and still to wait,And die at last with unappeased desire,Than live to be the jest of such a fate,For that […]

In that great journey of the stars through spaceAbout the mighty, all-directing Sun,The pallid, faithful Moon has been the oneCompanion of the Earth. Her tender face,Pale with the swift, keen purpose of that raceWhich at Time’s natal hour was first begun,Shines ever on her lover as they runAnd lights his orbit with her silvery smile. […]

BOOK FIRST I. All valor died not on the plains of Troy.Awake, my Muse, awake! be thine the joyTo sing of deeds as dauntless and as braveAs e’er lent luster to a warrior’s grave.Sing of that noble soldier, nobler man,Dear to the heart of each American.Sound forth his praise from sea to listening sea–Greece her […]

A humble wild-rose, pink and slender,Was plucked and placed in a bright bouquet,Beside a Jacqueminot’s royal splendour,And both in my lady’s boudoir lay. Said the haughty bud, in a tone of scorning,“I wonder why you are called a rose?Your leaves will fade in a single morning;No blood of mine in your pale cheek glows. “Your […]