(April, 1866.) Hard pressed by numbers in his strait, Rebellion’s soldier-chief no more contends– Feels that the hour is come of Fate, Lays down one sword, and widened warfare ends. The captain who fierce armies led Becomes a quiet seminary’s head– Poor as his privates, earns his bread. In studious cares and aims engrossed, Strives […]

In the south of Europe, nigh a once frescoed capital, now with dank mould cankering its bloom, central in a plain, stands what, at distance, seems the black mossed stump of some immeasurable pine, fallen, in forgotten days, with Anak and the Titan. As all along where the pine tree falls, its dissolution leaves a […]

In the year 1799, Captain Amasa Delano, of Duxbury, in Massachusetts, commanding a large sealer and general trader, lay at anchor with a valuable cargo, in the harbor of St. Maria–a small, desert, uninhabited island toward the southern extremity of the long coast of Chili. There he had touched for water. On the second day, […]

SKETCH FIRST. THE ISLES AT LARGE. –“That may not be, said then the ferryman, Least we unweeting hap to be fordonne; For those same islands seeming now and than, Are not firme land, nor any certein wonne, But stragling plots which to and fro do ronne In the wide waters; therefore are they hight The […]

With banners furled and clarions mute, An army passes in the night; And beaming spears and helms salute The dark with bright. In silence deep the legions stream, With open ranks, in order true; Over boundless plains they stream and gleam– No chief in view! Afar, in twinkling distance lost, (So legends tell) he lonely […]

In shards the sylvan vases lie, Their links of dance undone, And brambles wither by thy brim, Choked fountain of the sun! The spider in the laurel spins, The weed exiles the flower: And, flung to kiln, Apollo’s bust Makes lime for Mammon’s tower.

Persian, you rise Aflame from climes of sacrifice Where adulators sue, And prostrate man, with brow abased, Adheres to rites whose tenor traced All worship hitherto. Arch type of sway, Meetly your over-ruling ray You fling from Asia’s plain, Whence flashed the javelins abroad Of many a wild incursive horde Led by some shepherd Cain. […]

To have known him, to have loved him After loneness long; And then to be estranged in life, And neither in the wrong; And now for death to set his seal– Ease me, a little ease, my song! By wintry hills his hermit-mound The sheeted snow-drifts drape, And houseless there the snow-bird flits Beneath the […]

Though fast youth’s glorious fable flies, View not the world with worldling’s eyes; Nor turn with weather of the time. Foreclose the coming of surprise: Stand where Posterity shall stand; Stand where the Ancients stood before, And, dipping in lone founts thy hand, Drink of the never-varying lore: Wise once, and wise thence evermore.

In placid hours well-pleased we dream Of many a brave unbodied scheme. But form to lend, pulsed life create, What unlike things must meet and mate: A flame to melt–a wind to freeze; Sad patience–joyous energies; Humility–yet pride and scorn; Instinct and study; love and hate; Audacity–reverence. These must mate, And fuse with Jacob’s mystic […]

In bed I muse on Tenier’s boors, Embrowned and beery losels all; A wakeful brain Elaborates pain: Within low doors the slugs of boors Laze and yawn and doze again. In dreams they doze, the drowsy boors, Their hazy hovel warm and small: Thought’s ampler bound But chill is found: Within low doors the basking […]

“Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him.” Shall hearts that beat no base retreat In youth’s magnanimous years– Ignoble hold it, if discreet When interest tames to fears; Shall spirits that worship light Perfidious deem its sacred glow, Recant, and trudge where worldlings go, Conform and own them right? Shall Time with […]

Wandering late by morning seas When my heart with pain was low– Hate the censor pelted me– Deject I saw my shadow go. In elf-caprice of bitter tone I too would pelt the pelted one: At my shadow I cast a stone. When lo, upon that sun-lit ground I saw the quivering phantom take The […]

He toned the sprightly beam of morning With twilight meek of tender eve, Brightness interfused with softness, Light and shade did weave: And gave to candor equal place With mystery starred in open skies; And, floating all in sweetness, made Her fathomless mild eyes.

I After long wars when comes release Not olive wands proclaiming peace Can import dearer share Than stems of Herba Santa hazed In autumn’s Indian air. Of moods they breathe that care disarm, They pledge us lenitive and calm. II Shall code or creed a lure afford To win all selves to Love’s accord? When […]

While faith forecasts millennial years Spite Europe’s embattled lines, Back to the Past one glance be cast– The Age of the Antonines! O summit of fate, O zenith of time When a pagan gentleman reigned, And the olive was nailed to the inn of the world Nor the peace of the just was feigned. A […]

Aloof they crown the foreland lone, From aloft they loftier rise– Fair columns, in the aureole rolled From sunned Greek seas and skies. They wax, sublimed to fancy’s view, A god-like group against the blue. Over much like gods! Serene they saw The wolf-waves board the deck, And headlong hull of Falconer, And many a […]

The Parthenon uplifted on its rock first challenging the view on the approach to Athens. Abrupt the supernatural Cross, Vivid in startled air, Smote the Emperor Constantine And turned his soul’s allegiance there. With other power appealing down, Trophy of Adam’s best! If cynic minds you scarce convert, You try them, shake them, or molest. […]

1860-1 The Ancient of Days forever is young, Forever the scheme of Nature thrives; I know a wind in purpose strong– It spins against the way it drives. What if the gulfs their slimed foundations bare? So deep must the stones be hurled Whereon the throes of ages rear The final empire and the happier […]

1859 Hanging from the beam, Slowly swaying (such the law), Gaunt the shadow on your green, Shenandoah! The cut is on the crown (Lo, John Brown), And the stabs shall heal no more. Hidden in the cap Is the anguish none can draw; So your future veils its face, Shenandoah! But the streaming beard is […]