Look westward o’er the steaming rain-washed slopes,Now satisfied with sunshine, and beholdThose lustrous clouds, as glorious as our hopes,Softened with feathery fleece of downy gold,In all fantastic, huddled shapes uprolled,Floating like dreams, and melting silently,In the blue upper regions of pure sky. The eye is filled with beauty, and the heartRejoiced with sense of life […]

Thin summer rain on grass and bush and hedge,Reddening the road and deepening the greenOn wide, blurred lawn, and in close-tangled sedge;Veiling in gray the landscape stretched betweenThese low broad meadows and the pale hills seenBut dimly on the far horizon’s edge. In these transparent-clouded, gentle skies,Wherethrough the moist beams of the soft June sunMight […]

All stupor of surprise hath passed away;She sees, with clearer vision than before,A world far off of light and laughter gay,Herself alone and lonely evermore.Folk come and go, and reach her in no wise,Mere flitting phantoms to her heavy eyes. All outward things, that once seemed part of her,Fall from her, like the leaves in […]

Yea, she hath looked Truth grimly face to face,And drained unto the lees the proffered cup.This silence is not patience, nor the graceOf recognition, meekly offered up,But mere acceptance fraught with keenest pain,Seeing that all her struggles must be vain. Her future clear and terrible outlies,–This burden to be borne through all her days,This crown […]

There is a hungry longing in the soul,A craving sense of emptiness and pain,She may not satisfy nor yet control,For all the teeming world looks void and vain.No compensation in eternal spheres,She knows the loneliness of all her years. There is no comfort looking forth nor back,The present gives the lie to all her past.Will […]

When the stunned soul can first lift tired eyesOn her changed world of ruin, waste and wrack,Ah, what a pang of aching sharp surpriseBrings all sweet memories of the lost past back,With wild self-pitying grief of one betrayed,Duped in a land of dreams where Truth is dead! Are these the heavens that she deemed were […]

Serene was morning with clear, winnowed air,But threatening soon the low, blue mass of cloudRose in the west, with mutterings faint and rareAt first, but waxing frequent and more loud.Thick sultry mists the distant hill-tops shroud;The sunshine dies; athwart black skies of leadFlash noiselessly thin threads of lightning red. Breathless the earth seems waiting some […]

She feels outwearied, as though o’er her headA storm of mighty billows broke and passed.Whose hand upheld her? Who her footsteps ledTo this green haven of sweet rest at last?What strength was hers, unreckoned and unknown?What love sustained when she was most alone? Unutterably pathetic her desire,To reach, with groping arms outstretched in prayer,Something to […]

‘T is not alone that black and yawning voidThat makes her heart ache with this hungry pain,But the glad sense of life hath been destroyed,The lost delight may never come again.Yet myriad serious blessings with grave graceArise on every side to fill their place. For much abides in her so lonely life,–The dear companionship of […]

Her languid pulses thrill with sudden hope,That will not be forgot nor cast aside,And life in statelier vistas seems to ope,Illimitably lofty, long, and wide.What doth she know? She is subdued and mild,Quiet and docile “as a weaned child.” If grief came in such unimagined wise,How may joy dawn? In what undreamed-of hour,May the light […]

The passion of despair is quelled at last;The cruel sense of undeserved wrong,The wild self-pity, these are also past;She knows not what may come, but she is strong;She feels she hath not aught to lose nor gain,Her patience is the essence of all pain. As one who sits beside a lapsing stream,She sees the flow […]

It comes not in such wise as she had deemed,Else might she still have clung to her despair.More tender, grateful than she could have dreamed,Fond hands passed pitying over brows and hair,And gentle words borne softly through the air,Calming her weary sense and wildered mind,By welcome, dear communion with her kind. Ah! she forswore all […]

In rich Virginian woods,The scarlet creeper reddens over graves,Among the solemn trees enlooped with vines;Heroic spirits haunt the solitudes,–The noble souls of half a million braves,Amid the murmurous pines. Ah! who is left behind,Earnest and eloquent, sincere and strong,To consecrate their memories with wordsNot all unmeet? with fitting dirge and songTo chant a requiem purer […]

How long, and yet how long,Our leaders will we hail from over seas,Master and kings from feudal monarchies,And mock their ancient songWith echoes weak of foreign melodies? That distant isle mist-wreathed,Mantled in unimaginable green,Too long hath been our mistress and our queen.Our fathers have bequeathedToo deep a love for her, our hearts within. She made […]

The calm outgoing of a long, rich day,Checkered with storm and sunshine, gloom and light,Now passing in pure, cloudless skies away,Withdrawing into silence of blank night.Thick shadows settle on the landscape bright,Like the weird cloud of death that falls apaceOn the still features of the passive face. Soothing and gentle as a mother’s kiss,The touch […]

How strange, in some brief interval of rest,Backward to look on her far-stretching past.To see how much is conquered and repressed,How much is gained in victory at last!The shadow is not lifted,–but her faith,Strong from life’s miracles, now turns toward death. Though much be dark where once rare splendor shone,Yet the new light has touched […]

Yet life is not a vision nor a prayer,But stubborn work; she may not shun her task.After the first compassion, none will spareHer portion and her work achieved, to ask.She pleads for respite,–she will come ere longWhen, resting by the roadside, she is strong. Nay, for the hurrying throng of passers-byWill crush her with their […]

I give God thanks that I, a lean old man,Wrinkled, infirm, and crippled with keen painsBy austere penance and continuous toil,Now rest in spirit, and possess “the peaceWhich passeth understanding.” Th’ end draws nigh,Though the beginning is yesterday,And a broad lifetime spreads ‘twixt this and that–A favored life, though outwardly the buttOf ignominy, malice, and […]

The little and the great are joined in oneBy God’s great force. The wondrous golden sunIs linked unto the glow-worm’s tiny spark;The eagle soars to heaven in his flight;And in those realms of space, all bathed in light,Soar none except the eagle and the lark.

To my mother. May, 1870. The Landgrave Hermann held a gatheringOf minstrels, minnesingers, troubadours,At Wartburg in his palace, and the knight,Sir Tannhauser of France, the greatest bard,Inspired with heavenly visions, and endowedWith apprehension and rare utteranceOf noble music, fared in thoughtful wiseAcross the Horsel meadows. Full of light,And large repose, the peaceful valley lay,In the […]