All you that are enamored of my nameAnd least intent on what most I require,Beware; for my design and your desire,Deplorably, are not as yet the same.Beware, I say, the failure and the shameOf losing that for which you now aspireSo blindly, and of hazarding entireThe gift that I was bringing when I came. Give […]

When the brethren heard of us, they came to meet usas far as Appii Forum, and The Three Taverns.(Acts 28:15) Herodion, Apelles, Amplias,And Andronicus? Is it you I see —At last? And is it you now that are gazingAs if in doubt of me? Was I not sayingThat I should come to Rome? I did […]

A vanished house that for an hour I knewBy some forgotten chance when I was youngHad once a glimmering window overhungWith honeysuckle wet with evening dew.Along the path tall dusky dahlias grew,And shadowy hydrangeas reached and swungFerociously; and over me, amongThe moths and mysteries, a blurred bat flew. Somewhere within there were dim presencesOf days […]

Two men came out of Shannon’s having knownThe faces of each other for as longAs they had listened there to an old song,Sung thinly in a wastrel monotoneBy some unhappy night-bird, who had flownToo many times and with a wing too strongTo save himself, and so done heavy wrongTo more frail elements than his alone. […]

“Whether all towns and all who live in them —So long as they be somewhere in this worldThat we in our complacency call ours —Are more or less the same, I leave to you.I should say less. Whether or not, meanwhile,We’ve all two legs — and as for that, we haven’t —There were three kinds […]

“Do I hear them? Yes, I hear the children singing — and what of it?Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that?If I were not their father and if you were not their mother,We might believe they made a noise. . . . What are you — driving at!” […]

Old Archibald, in his eternal chair,Where trespassers, whatever their degree,Were soon frowned out again, was looking offAcross the clover when he said to me: “My green hill yonder, where the sun goes downWithout a scratch, was once inhabitedBy trees that injured him — an evil trashThat made a cage, and held him while he bled. […]

“We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit,From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet.You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes, —Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet. “You may swear that we are solid, […]

Since you remember Nimmo, and arriveAt such a false and florid and far drawnConfusion of odd nonsense, I conniveNo longer, though I may have led you on. So much is told and heard and told again,So many with his legend are engrossed,That I, more sorry now than I was then,May live on to be sorry […]

As often as he let himself be seenWe pitied him, or scorned him, or deploredThe inscrutable profusion of the LordWho shaped as one of us a thing so mean —Who made him human when he might have beenA rat, and so been wholly in accordWith any other creature we abhorredAs always useless and not always […]

Note. — Rahel Robert and Varnhagen von Ense were married, after many protestations on her part, in 1814. The marriage — so far as he was concerned, at any rate — appears to have been satisfactory. Now you have read them all; or if not all,As many as in all conscience I should fancyTo be […]

Although I saw before me there the faceOf one whom I had honored among menThe least, and on regarding him againWould not have had him in another place,He fitted with an unfamiliar graceThe coffin where I could not see him thenAs I had seen him and appraised him whenI deemed him unessential to the race. […]

The day was here when it was his to knowHow fared the barriers he had built betweenHis triumph and his enemies unseen,For them to undermine and overthrow;And it was his no longer to foregoThe sight of them, insidious and serene,Where they were delving always and had beenLeft always to be vicious and to grow. And […]

Ten years together without yet a cloud,They seek each other’s eyes at intervalsOf gratefulness to firelight and four wallsFor love’s obliteration of the crowd.Serenely and perennially endowedAnd bowered as few may be, their joy recallsNo snake, no sword; and over them there fallsThe blessing of what neither says aloud. Wiser for silence, they were not […]

“No, Mary, there was nothing — not a word.Nothing, and always nothing. Go againYourself, and he may listen — or at leastLook up at you, and let you see his eyes.I might as well have been the sound of rain,A wind among the cedars, or a bird;Or nothing. Mary, make him look at you;And even […]

You that in vain would front the coming orderWith eyes that meet forlornly what they must,And only with a furtive recognitionSee dust where there is dust, —Be sure you like it always in your faces,Obscuring your best graces,Blinding your speech and sight,Before you seek again your dusty placesWhere the old wrong seems right. Longer ago […]

“Why am I not myself these many days,You ask? And have you nothing more to ask?I do you wrong? I do not hear your praiseTo God for giving you me to share your task? “Jealous — of Her? Because her cheeks are pink,And she has eyes? No, not if she had seven.If you should only […]

(Alcaics) Confused, he found her lavishing feminineGold upon clay, and found her inscrutable;And yet she smiled. Why, then, should horrorsBe as they were, without end, her playthings? And why were dead years hungrily telling herLies of the dead, who told them again to her?If now she knew, there might be kindnessClamoring yet where a faith […]

He took a frayed hat from his head,And “Peace on Earth” was what he said.“A morsel out of what you’re worth,And there we have it: Peace on Earth.Not much, although a little moreThan what there was on earth before.I’m as you see, I’m Ichabod, —But never mind the ways I’ve trod;I’m sober now, so help […]