I Where the wings of a sunny Dome expand I saw a Banner in gladsome air– Starry, like Berenice’s Hair– Afloat in broadened bravery there; With undulating long-drawn flow, As tolled Brazilian billows go Voluminously o’er the Line. The Land reposed in peace below; The children in their glee Were folded to the exulting heart […]

Youth is the time when hearts are large, And stirring wars Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn To the blade it draws. If woman incite, and duty show (Though made the mask of Cain), Or whether it be Truth’s sacred cause, Who can aloof remain That shares youth’s ardor, uncooled by the snow […]

An idealized Portrait, by E. Vedder, in the Spring Exhibition of the National Academy, 1865 The sufferance of her race is shown, And retrospect of life, Which now too late deliverance dawns upon; Yet is she not at strife. Her children’s children they shall know The good withheld from her; And so her reverie takes […]

Happy are they and charmed in life Who through long wars arrive unscarred At peace. To such the wreath be given, If they unfalteringly have striven– In honor, as in limb, unmarred. Let cheerful praise be rife, And let them live their years at ease, Musing on brothers who victorious died– Loved mates whose memory […]

The grass shall never forget this grave. When homeward footing it in the sun After the weary ride by rail, The stripling soldiers passed her door, Wounded perchance, or wan and pale, She left her household work undone– Duly the wayside table spread, With evergreens shaded, to regale Each travel-spent and grateful one. So warm […]

They take no shame for dark defeat While prizing yet each victory won, Who fight for the Right through all retreat, Nor pause until their work is done. The Cape-of-Storms is proof to every throe; Vainly against that foreland beat Wild winds aloft and wilder waves below: The black cliffs gleam through rents in sleet […]

When, after storms that woodlands rue, To valleys comes atoning dawn, The robins blithe their orchard-sports renew; And meadow-larks, no more withdrawn Caroling fly in the languid blue; The while, from many a hid recess, Alert to partake the blessedness, The pouring mites their airy dance pursue. So, after ocean’s ghastly gales, When laughing light […]

KILLED IN THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA Beauty and youth, with manners sweet, and friends– Gold, yet a mind not unenriched had he Whom here low violets veil from eyes. But all these gifts transcended be: His happier fortune in this mound you see.

On one of the Battle-fields of the Wilderness Silence and solitude may hint (Whose home is in yon piney wood) What I, though tableted, could never tell– The din which here befell, And striving of the multitude. The iron cones and spheres of death Set round me in their rust, These, too, if just, Shall […]

How often in the years that close, When truce had stilled the sieging gun, The soldiers, mounting on their works, With mutual curious glance have run From face to face along the fronting show, And kinsman spied, or friend–even in a foe. What thoughts conflicting then were shared, While sacred tenderness perforce Welled from the […]

Sailors there are of the gentlest breed, Yet strong, like every goodly thing; The discipline of arms refines, And the wave gives tempering. The damasked blade its beam can fling; It lends the last grave grace: The hawk, the hound, and sworded nobleman In Titian’s picture for a king, Are of hunter or warrior race. […]

Ha, ha, gods and kings; fill high, one and all; Drink, drink! shout and drink! mad respond to the call! Fill fast, and fill full; ‘gainst the goblet ne’er sin; Quaff there, at high tide, to the uttermost rim:– Flood-tide, and soul-tide to the brim! Who with wine in him fears? who thinks of his […]

We fish, we fish, we merrily swim, We care not for friend nor for foe. Our fins are stout, Our tails are out, As through the seas we go. Fish, Fish, we are fish with red gills; Naught disturbs us, our blood is at zero: We are buoyant because of our bags, Being many, each […]

We drop our dead in the sea, The bottomless, bottomless sea; Each bubble a hollow sigh, As it sinks forever and aye. We drop our dead in the sea,– The dead reek not of aught; We drop our dead in the sea,– The sea ne’er gives it a thought. Sink, sink, oh corpse, still sink, […]

Far off in the sea is Marlena, A land of shades and streams, A land of many delights, Dark and bold, thy shores, Marlena; But green, and timorous, thy soft knolls, Crouching behind the woodlands. All shady thy hills; all gleaming thy springs, Like eyes in the earth looking at you. How charming thy haunts, […]

Care is all stuff:– Puff! Puff! To puff is enough:– Puff! Puff More musky than snuff, And warm is a puff:– Puff! Puff Here we sit mid our puffs, Like old lords in their ruffs, Snug as bears in their muffs:– Puff! Puff Then puff, puff, puff, For care is all stuff, Puffed off in […]

We rovers bold, To the land of Gold, Over the bowling billows are gliding: Eager to toil, For the golden spoil, And every hardship biding. See! See! Before our prows’ resistless dashes The gold-fish fly in golden flashes! ‘Neath a sun of gold, We rovers bold, On the golden land are gaining; And every night, […]

Departed the pride, and the glory of Mardi: The vaunt of her isles sleeps deep in the sea, That rolls o’er his corse with a hush, His warriors bend over their spears, His sisters gaze upward and mourn. Weep, weep, for Adondo is dead! The sun has gone down in a shower; Buried in clouds […]

If Luther’s day expand to Darwin’s year, Shall that exclude the hope–foreclose the fear? Unmoved by all the claims our times avow, The ancient Sphinx still keeps the porch of shade; And comes Despair, whom not her calm may cow, And coldly on that adamantine brow Scrawls undeterred his bitter pasquinade. But Faith (who from […]

Hail! voyagers, hail! Whence e’er ye come, where’er ye rove, No calmer strand, No sweeter land, Will e’er ye view, than the Land of Love! Hail! voyagers, hail! To these, our shores, soft gales invite: The palm plumes wave, The billows lave, And hither point fix’d stars of light! Hail! voyagers, hail! Think not our […]