A silken curtain veils the skies, And half conceals from pensive eyes The bronzing tokens of the fall; A calmness broods upon the hills, And summer’s parting dream distils A charm of silence over all. The stacks of corn, in brown array, Stand waiting through the tranquil day, Like tattered wigwams on the plain; The […]

Now in the oak the sap of life is welling, Tho’ to the bough the rusty leafage clings; Now on the elm the misty buds are swelling; Every little pine-wood grows alive with wings; Blue-jays are fluttering, yodeling and crying, Meadow-larks sailing low above the faded grass, Red-birds whistling clear, silent robins flying,– Who has […]

There are songs for the morning and songs for the night, For sunrise and sunset, the stars and the moon; But who will give praise to the fulness of light, And sing us a song of the glory of noon? Oh, the high noon, the clear noon, The noon with golden crest; When the blue […]

Long, long, long the trail Through the brooding forest-gloom, Down the shadowy, lonely vale Into silence, like a room Where the light of life has fled, And the jealous curtains close Round the passionless repose Of the silent dead. Plod, plod, plod away, Step by step in mouldering moss; Thick branches bar the day Over […]

O wonderful! How liquid clear The molten gold of that ethereal tone, Floating and falling through the wood alone, A hermit-hymn poured out for God to hear! O holy, holy, holy! Hyaline, Long light, low light, glory of eventide! Love far away, far up,–up,–love divine! Little love, too, for ever, ever near, Warm love, earth […]

The tide flows in to the harbour,– The bold tide, the gold tide, the flood o’ the sunlit sea,– And the little ships riding at anchor, Are swinging and slanting their prows to the ocean, panting To lift their wings to the wide wild air, And venture a voyage they know not where,– To fly […]

O Mother mountains! billowing far to the snow-lands, Robed in aerial amethyst, silver, and blue, Why do ye look so proudly down on the lowlands? What have their groves and gardens to do with you? Theirs is the languorous charm of the orange and myrtle, Theirs are the fruitage and fragrance of Eden of old,– […]

The heavenly hills of Holland,– How wondrously they rise Above the smooth green pastures Into the azure skies! With blue and purple hollows, With peaks of dazzling snow, Along the far horizon The clouds are marching slow. No mortal foot has trodden The summits of that range, Nor walked those mystic valleys Whose colours ever […]

DAYBREAK What makes the lingering Night so cling to thee? Thou vast, profound, primeval hiding-place Of ancient secrets,–gray and ghostly gulf Cleft in the green of this high forest land, And crowded in the dark with giant forms! Art thou a grave, a prison, or a shrine? A stillness deeper than the dearth of sound […]

I Thou who hast made thy dwelling fair With flowers below, above with starry lights And set thine altars everywhere,– On mountain heights, In woodlands dim with many a dream, In valleys bright with springs, And on the curving capes of every stream: Thou who hast taken to thyself the wings Of morning, to abide […]

IN HOLLAND The laggard winter ebbed so slow With freezing rain and melting snow, It seemed as if the earth would stay Forever where the tide was low, In sodden green and watery gray. But now from depths beyond our sight, The tide is turning in the night, And floods of colour long concealed Come […]

A LEGEND ON A NEW SAYING OF JESUS In the rubbish heaps of the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus, near the River Nile, a party of English explorers, in the winter of 1897, discovered a fragment of a papyrus book, written in the second or third century, and hitherto unknown. This single leaf contained parts of […]

A DRAMATIC LYRIC Come, give me back my life again, you heavy-handed Death! Uncrook your fingers from my throat, and let me draw my breath. You do me wrong to take me now–too soon for me to die– Ah, loose me from this clutching pain, and hear the reason why. I know I’ve had my […]

It pleased the Lord of Angels (praise His name!) To hear, one day, report from those who came With pitying sorrow, or exultant joy, To tell of earthly tasks in His employ. For some were grieved because they saw how slow The stream of heavenly love on earth must flow; And some were glad because […]

I LEGEND Long ago Apollo called to Aristaeus, youngest of the shepherds, Saying, “I will make you keeper of my bees.” Golden were the hives and golden was the honey; golden, too, the music Where the honey-makers hummed among the trees. Happy Aristaeus loitered in the garden, wandered in the orchard, Careless and contented, indolent […]

In robes of Tyrian blue the King was drest, A jewelled collar shone upon his breast, A giant ruby glittered in his crown: Lord of rich lands and many a splendid town, In him the glories of an ancient line Of sober kings, who ruled by right divine, Were centred; and to him with loyal […]

A tale that the poet Rueckert told To German children, in days of old; Disguised in a random, rollicking rhyme Like a merry mummer of ancient time, And sent, in its English dress, to please The little folk of the Christmas trees. A little fir grew in the midst of the wood Contented and happy, […]

A SEAMAN’S TALE OF THE SEA We men hat go down for a livin’ in ships to the sea,– We love it a different way from you poets that ‘bide on the land. We are fond of it, sure! But, you take it as comin’ from me, There’s a fear and a hate in our […]

I “How can I tell,” Sir Edmund said, “Who has the right or the wrong o’ this thing? Cromwell stands for the people’s cause, Charles is crowned by the ancient laws; English meadows are sopping red, Englishmen striking each other dead,– Times are black as a raven’s wing. Out of the ruck and the murk […]

Honour the brave who sleep Where the lost “Titanic” lies, The men who knew what a man must do When he looks Death in the eyes. “Women and children first,”– Ah, strong and tender cry! The sons whom women had borne and nursed, Remembered,–and dared to die. The boats crept off in the dark: The […]