Whe-ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh! We are the brothers of ghouls, and who In the name of the Crooked Saints are you? We are the washers of shrouds wherein The lovers of beauty who sainted sin Sleep till the Judgment Day begin. When the moon is drifting overhead, We wash the linen of the dead, […]

O Moon, Mr. Moon, When you comin’ down? Down on the hilltop, Down in the glen, Out in the clearin’, To play with little men? Moon, Mr. Moon, When you comin’ down? O Mr. Moon, Hurry up your stumps! Don’t you hear Bullfrog Callin’ to his wife, And old black Cricket A-wheezin’ at his fife? […]

That painter has not with a careless smutch Accomplished his despair?–one touch revealing All he had put of life, thought, vigor, feeling, Into the canvas that without that touch Showed of his love and labor just so much Raw pigment, scarce a scrap of soul concealing! What poet has not found his spirit kneeling A […]

Hem and Haw were the sons of sin, Created to shally and shirk; Hem lay ’round and Haw looked on While God did all the work. Hem was a fogy, and Haw was a prig, For both had the dull, dull mind; And whenever they found a thing to do, They yammered and went it […]

Thought is a garden wide and old For airy creatures to explore, Where grow the great fantastic flowers With truth for honey at the core. There like a wild marauding bee Made desperate by hungry fears, From gorgeous If to dark Perhaps I blunder down the dusk of years.

There is no escape by the river, There is no flight left by the fen; We are compassed about by the shiver Of the night of their marching men. Give a cheer! For our hearts shall not give way. Here’s to a dark to-morrow, And here’s to a brave to-day! The tale of their hosts […]

Off with the fetters That chafe and restrain! Off with the chain! Here Art and Letters, Music and wine, And Myrtle and Wanda, The winsome witches, Blithely combine. Here are true riches, Here is Golconda, Here are the Indies, Here we are free– Free as the wind is, Free, as the sea. Free! Houp-la! What […]

Now the joys of the road are chiefly these: A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees; A vagrant’s morning wide and blue, In early fall when the wind walks, too; A shadowy highway cool and brown, Alluring up and enticing down From rippled water to dappled swamp, From purple glory to scarlet pomp; The outward […]

Do you know what it is to be vagrant born? A waif is only a waif. And so, For another idle hour I sit, In large content while the fire burns low. I gossip here to my crony heart Of the day just over, and count it one Of the royal elemental days, Though its […]

The fervid breath of our flushed Southern May Is sweet upon the city’s throat and lips, As a lover’s whose tired arm slips Listlessly over the shoulder of a queen. Far away The river melts in the unseen. Oh, beautiful Girl-City, how she dips Her feet in the stream With a touch that is half […]

Make me over, mother April, When the sap begins to stir! When thy flowery hand delivers All the mountain-prisoned rivers, And thy great heart beats and quivers, To revive the days that were, Make me over, mother April, When the sap begins to stir! Take my dust and all my dreaming, Count my heart-beats one […]

I will go out to grass with that old King, For I am weary of clothes and cooks. I long to lie along the banks of brooks, And watch the boughs above me sway and swing. Come, I will pluck off custom’s livery, Nor longer be a lackey to old Time. Time shall serve me, […]

Snowdrift of the mountains, Spindrift of the sea, We who down the border Rove from gloom to glee,– Snowdrift of the mountains, Spindrift of the sea, There be no such gypsies Over earth as we. Snowdrift of the mountains, Spindrift of the sea, Let us part the treasure Of the world in three. Snowdrift of […]

Down the world with Marna! That’s the life for me! Wandering with the wandering wind, Vagabond and unconfined! Roving with the roving rain Its unboundaried domain! Kith and kin of wander-kind, Children of the sea! Petrels of the sea-drift! Swallows of the lea! Arabs of the whole wide girth Of the wind-encircled earth! In all […]

I. Floating! Floating–and all the stillness waits And listens at the ivory gates, Full of a dim uncertain presage Of some strange, undelivered message. There is no sound save from the bush The alto of the shy wood-thrush, And ever and anon the dip Of a lazy oar. The rhythmic drowsiness keeps time To hazy […]

The swarthy bee is a buccaneer, A burly velveted rover, Who loves the booming wind in his ear As he sails the seas of clover. A waif of the goblin pirate crew, With not a soul to deplore him, He steers for the open verge of blue With the filmy world before him. His flimsy […]

“Lose and love” is love’s first art; So it was with thee and me, For I first beheld thy heart On the night I last saw thee. Pine-woods and mysteries! Sea-sands and sorrows! Hearts fluttered by a breeze That bodes dark morrows, morrows,– Bodes dark morrows! Moonlight in sweet overflow Poured upon the earth and […]

Hills where once my love and I Let the hours go laughing by! All your woods and dales are sad,– You have lost your Oread. Falling leaves! Silent woodlands! Half your loveliness is fled. Golden-rod, wither now! Winter winds, come hither now! All the summer joy is dead. There’s a sense of something gone In […]

In her body’s perfect sweet Suppleness and languor meet,– Arms that move like lapsing billows, Breasts that Love would make his pillows, Eyes where vision melts in bliss, Lips that ripen to a kiss.

“A barbered woman’s man,”–yes, so He seemed to me a twelvemonth since; And so he may be–let it go– Admit his flaws–we need not wince To find our noblest not all great. What of it? He is still the prince, And we the pages of his state. The world applauds his words; his fame Is […]