To my friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson. He who could beard the lion in his lair,To bind him for a girl, and tame the boar,And drive these beasts before his chariot,Might wed Alcestis. For her low brows’ sake,Her hairs’ soft undulations of warm gold,Her eyes clear color and pure virgin mouth,Though many would draw bow or […]

On a background of pale goldI would trace with quaint design,Penciled fine,Brilliant-colored, Moorish scenes,Mosques and crescents, pages, queens,Line on line,That the prose-world of to-dayMight the gorgeous Past’s arrayOnce behold. On the magic painted shieldRich Granada’s Vega greenShould be seen;Crystal fountains, coolness flinging,Hanging gardens’ skyward springingEmerald sheen;Ruddy when the daylight falls,Crowned Alhambra’s beetling wallsStand revealed; Balconies […]

The grass of fifty Aprils hath waved greenAbove the spent heart, the Olympian head,The hands crost idly, the shut eyes unseen,Unseeing, the locked lips whose song hath fled;Yet mystic-lived, like some rich, tropic flower,His fame puts forth fresh blossoms hour by hour;Wide spread the laden branches dropping dewOn the low, laureled brow misunderstood,That bent not, […]

(After Robert Schumann). I. Evening. Rest, beauty, stillness: not a waif of a cloudFrom gray-blue east sheer to the yellow west–No film of mist the utmost slopes to shroud. The earth lies grace, by quiet airs caressed,And shepherdeth her shadows, but each stream,Free to the sky, is by that glow possessed,And traileth with the splendors […]

Small, shapeless drifts of cloudSail slowly northward in the soft-hued sky,With blur half-tints and rolling summits bright,By the late sun caressed; slight hazes shroudAll things afar; shineth each leaf anighWith its own warmth and light. O’erblown by Southland airs,The summer landscape basks in utter peace:In lazy streams the lazy clouds are seen;Low hills, broad meadows, […]

Down the goldenest of streams,Tide of dreams,The fair cradled man-child drifts;Sways with cadenced motion slow,To and fro,As the mother-foot poised lightly, falls and lifts. He, the firstling,–he, the lightOf her sight,–He, the breathing pledge of love,‘Neath the holy passion lies,Of her eyes,–Smiles to feel the warm, life-giving ray above. She believes that in his vision,Skies […]

We sat at twilight nigh the sea,The fog hung gray and weird.Through the thick film uncannilyThe broken moon appeared. We heard the billows crack and plunge,We saw nor waves nor ships.Earth sucked the vapors like a sponge,The salt spray wet our lips. Closer the woof of white mist drew,Before, behind, beside.How could that phantom moon […]

“I would not have,” he said,“Tears, nor the black pall, nor the wormy grave,Grief’s hideous panoply I would not haveRound me when I am dead. “Music and flowers and light,And choric dances to guitar and flute,Be these around me when my lips are mute,Mine eyes are sealed from sight. “So let me lie one day,One […]

March 13, 1881. As one who feels the breathless nightmare gripHis heart-strings, and through visioned horrors fares,Now on a thin-ledged chasm’s rock-crumbling lip,Now on a tottering pinnacle that dareThe front of heaven, while always unawaresWeird monsters start above, around, beneath,Each glaring from some uglier mask of death, So the White Czar imperial progress madeThrough terror-haunted […]

Uplift the ponderous, golden mask of death,And let the sun shine on him as it didHow many thousand years agone! BeneathThis worm-defying, uncorrupted lid,Behold the young, heroic face, round-eyed,Of one who in his full-flowered manhood died;Of nobler frame than creatures of to-day,Swathed in fine linen cerecloths fold on fold,With carven weapons wrought of bronze and […]

What art thou doing here, O Imagination? Goaway I entreat thee by the gods, as thou didstcome, for I want thee not. But thou art comeaccording to thy old fashion. I am not angrywith thee–only go away.–Marcus Antoninus Lilac hazes veil the skies.Languid sighsBreathes the mild, caressing air.Pink as coral’s branching sprays,Orchard waysWith the blossomed […]

Frosty lies the winter-landscape,In the twilight golden-green.Down the Park’s deserted alleys,Naked elms stand stark and lean. Dumb the murmur of the fountain,Birds have flown from lawn and hill.But while yonder star’s ascendant,Love triumphal reigneth still. See the keen flame throb and tremble,Brightening in the darkening night,Breathing like a thing of passion,In the sky’s smooth chrysolite. […]

“Oh brew me a potion strong and good!One golden drop in his wineShall charm his sense and fire his blood,And bend his will to mine.” Poor child of passion! ask of meElixir of death or sleep,Or Lethe’s stream; but love is free,And woman must wait and weep.

Light silken curtain, colorless and soft,Dreamlike before me floating! what abidesBehind thy pearly veil’sOpaque, mysterious woof? Where sleek red kine, and dappled, crunch day-longThick, luscious blades and purple clover-heads,Nigh me I still can markCool fields of beaded grass. No more; for on the rim of the globed worldI seem to stand and stare at nothingness.But […]

Look! the round-cheeked moon floats high,In the glowing August sky,Quenching all her neighbor stars,Save the steady flame of Mars.White as silver shines the sea,Far-off sails like phantoms be,Gliding o’er that lake of light,Vanishing in nether night.Heavy hangs the tasseled corn,Sighing for the cordial morn;But the marshy-meadows bare,Love this spectral-lighted air,Drink the dews and lift their […]

Ten o’clock: the broken moonHangs not yet a half hour high,Yellow as a shield of brass,In the dewy air of June,Poised between the vaulted skyAnd the ocean’s liquid glass. Earth lies in the shadow still;Low black bushes, trees, and lawnNight’s ambrosial dews absorb;Through the foliage creeps a thrill,Whispering of yon spectral dawnAnd the hidden climbing […]

I. Over the lamp-lit street,Trodden by hurrying feet,Where mostly pulse and beatLife’s throbbing veins,See where the April star,Blue-bright as sapphires are,Hangs in deep heavens far,Waxes and wanes. Strangely alive it seems,Darting keen, dazzling gleams,Veiling anon its beams,Large, clear, and pure.In the broad western skyNo orb may shine anigh,No lesser radiancyMay there endure. Spring airs are […]

Night, and beneath star-blazoned summer skiesBehold the Spirit of the musky South,A creole with still-burning, languid eyes,Voluptuous limbs and incense-breathing mouth:Swathed in spun gauze is she,From fibres of her own anana tree. Within these sumptuous woods she lies at ease,By rich night-breezes, dewy cool, caressed:‘Twixt cypresses and slim palmetto trees,Like to the golden oriole’s hanging […]

Air and sky are swathed in goldFold on fold,Light glows through the trees like wine.Earth, sun-quickened, swoons for bliss‘Neath his kiss,Breathless in a trance divine. Nature pauses from her task,Just to baskIn these lull’d transfigured hours.The green leaf nor stays nor goes,But it growsRoyaler than mid-June’s flowers. Such impassioned silence fillsAll the hillsBurning with unflickering […]

Not a stain,In the sun-brimmed sapphire cup that is the sky–Not a ripple on the black translucent laneOf the palace-walled lagoon.Not a cryAs the gondoliers with velvet oar glide by,Through the golden afternoon. From this heightWhere the carved, age-yellowed balcony o’erjutsYonder liquid, marble pavement, see the lightShimmer soft beneath the bridge,That abutsOn a labyrinth of […]