Such a hubbub in the nests,Such a bustle and squeak!Nestlings, guiltless of a feather,Learning just to speak,Ask–“And how about the fashions?”From a cavernous beak. Perched on bushes, perched on hedges,Perched on firm hahas,Perched on anything that holds them,Gay papas and grave mammasTeach the knowledge-thirsty nestlings:Hear the gay papas. Robin says: “A scarlet waistcoatWill be all […]

“If you’ll busk you as a brideAnd make ready,It’s I will wed you with a ring,O fair lady.” “Shall I busk me as a bride,I so bonny,For you to wed me with a ring,O boy Johnny?” “When you’ve busked you as a brideAnd made ready,Who else is there to marry you,O fair lady?” “I will […]

All things that passAre woman’s looking-glass;They show her how her bloom must fade,And she herself be laidWith withered roses in the shade;With withered roses and the fallen peach,Unlovely, out of reachOf summer joy that was. All things that passAre woman’s tiring-glass;The faded lavender is sweet,Sweet the dead violetCulled and laid by and cared for yet;The […]

A million buds are born that never blow,That sweet with promise lift a pretty headTo blush and wither on a barren bedAnd leave no fruit to show. Sweet, unfulfilled. Yet have I understoodOne joy, by their fragility made plain:Nothing was ever beautiful in vain,Or all in vain was good.

To think that this meaningless thing was ever a roseScentless, colorless, this!Will it ever be thus (who knows?)Thus with our bliss,If we wait till the close? Though we care not to wait for the end, there comes the endSooner, later, at last,Which nothing can mar, nothing mend:An end locked fast,Bent we cannot re-bend.

(1674.) I have desired, and I have been desired;But now the days are over of desire,Now dust and dying embers mock my fire;Where is the hire for which my life was hired?Oh vanity of vanities, desire! Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure,Longing and love, a disenkindled fire,And memory a bottomless gulf of mire,And […]

Does that lamp still burn in my Father’s house,Which he kindled the night I went away?I turned once beneath the cedar boughs,And marked it gleam with a golden ray;Did he think to light me home some day? Hungry here with the crunching swine,Hungry harvest have I to reap;In a dream I count my Father’s kine,I […]

Weary and weak,–accept my weariness;Weary and weak and downcast in my soul,With hope growing less and less,And with the goalDistant and dim,–accept my sore distress.I thought to reach the goal so long ago,At outset of the race I dreamed of rest,Not knowing what now I knowOf breathless haste,Of long-drawn straining effort across the waste. One […]

“Who’ll serve the King?” What little urchin is there neverHath had that early scarlet fever,Of martial trappings caught?Trappings well call’d–because they trapAnd catch full many a country chapTo go where fields are fought! What little urchin with a ragHath never made a little flag(Our plate will show the manner),And wooed each tiny neighbor still,Tommy or […]

Life flows down to death; we cannot bind That current that it should not flee: Life flows down to death, as rivers find The inevitable sea. Men work and think, but women feel; And so (for I’m a woman, I) And so I should be glad to die And cease from impotence of zeal, And […]

–Proverbs xxiv. 11, 12. 1. I have done I know not what,–what have I done? My brother’s blood, my brother’s soul, doth cry: And I find no defence, find no reply, No courage more to run this race I run Not knowing what I have done, have left undone; Ah me, these awful unknown hours […]

1. The irresponsive silence of the land, The irresponsive sounding of the sea, Speak both one message of one sense to me:– Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band Of inner solitude; we bind not thee; But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free? What heart […]

…”Una selva oscura.”–Dante. Awake or sleeping (for I know not which) I was or was not mazed within a wood Where every mother-bird brought up her brood Safe in some leafy niche Of oak or ash, of cypress or of beech, Of silvery aspen trembling delicately, Of plane or warmer-tinted sycamore, Of elm that dies […]

1. Before the mountains were brought forth, before Earth and the world were made, then God was God: And God will still be God, when flames shall roar Round earth and heaven dissolving at His nod: And this God is our God, even while His rod Of righteous wrath falls on us smiting sore: And […]

Wearied of sinning, wearied of repentance, Wearied of self, I turn, my God, to Thee; To Thee, my Judge, on Whose all-righteous sentence Hangs mine eternity: I turn to Thee, I plead Thyself with Thee,– Be pitiful to me. Wearied I loathe myself, I loathe my sinning, My stains, my festering sores, my misery: Thou […]

Lord, I am waiting, weeping, watching for Thee: My youth and hope lie by me buried and dead, My wandering love hath not where to lay its head Except Thou say “Come to Me.” My noon is ended, abolished from life and light, My noon is ended, ended and done away, My sun went down […]

When will the day bring its pleasure? When will the night bring its rest? Reaper and gleaner and thresher Peer toward the east and the west:– The Sower He knoweth, and He knoweth best. Meteors flash forth and expire, Northern lights kindle and pale; These are the days of desire, Of eyes looking upward that […]

Shall Christ hang on the Cross, and we not look? Heaven, earth, and hell stood gazing at the first, While Christ for long-cursed man was counted cursed; Christ, God and Man, Whom God the Father strook And shamed and sifted and one while forsook:– Cry shame upon our bodies we have nursed In sweets, our […]

Is this the Face that thrills with awe Seraphs who veil their face above? Is this the Face without a flaw, The Face that is the Face of Love? Yea, this defaced, a lifeless clod, Hath all creation’s love sufficed, Hath satisfied the love of God, This Face the Face of Jesus Christ.

Dear Lord, let me recount to Thee Some of the great things thou hast done For me, even me Thy little one. It was not I that cared for Thee,– But Thou didst set Thy heart upon Me, even me Thy little one. And therefore was it sweet to Thee To leave Thy Majesty and […]