Violet! sweet violet! Thine eyes are full of tears; Are they wet Even yet With the thought of other years? Or with gladness are they full, For the night so beautiful, And longing for those far-off spheres? Loved one of my youth thou wast, Of my merry youth, And I see, Tearfully, All the fair […]

Thou look’dst on me all yesternight, Thine eyes were blue, thy hair was bright As when we murmured our troth-plight Beneath the thick stars, Rosaline! Thy hair was braided on thy head, As on the day we two were wed, Mine eyes scarce knew if thou wert dead, But my shrunk heart knew, Rosaline! The […]

Ay, pale and silent maiden, Cold as thou liest there, Thine was the sunniest nature That ever drew the air; The wildest and most wayward, And yet so gently kind, Thou seemedst but to body A breath of summer wind. Into the eternal shadow That girds our life around, Into the infinite silence Wherewith Death’s […]

Worn and footsore was the Prophet, When he gained the holy hill; ‘God has left the earth,’ he murmured, ‘Here his presence lingers still. ‘God of all the olden prophets, Wilt thou speak with men no more? Have I not as truly served thee As thy chosen ones of yore? ‘Hear me, guider of my […]

O moonlight deep and tender, A year and more agone, Your mist of golden splendor Round my betrothal shone! O elm-leaves dark and dewy, The very same ye seem, The low wind trembles through ye, Ye murmur in my dream! O river, dim with distance, Flow thus forever by, A part of my existence Within […]

I TO A.C.L. Through suffering and sorrow thou hast passed To show us what a woman true may be: They have not taken sympathy from thee, Nor made thee any other than thou wast, Save as some tree, which, in a sudden blast, Sheddeth those blossoms, that are weakly grown, Upon the air, but keepeth […]

PART FIRST I Fair as a summer dream was Margaret, Such dream as in a poet’s soul might start, Musing of old loves while the moon doth set: Her hair was not more sunny than her heart, Though like a natural golden coronet It circled her dear head with careless art, Mocking the sunshine, that […]

It is a mere wild rosebud, Quite sallow now, and dry, Yet there’s something wondrous in it, Some gleams of days gone by, Dear sights and sounds that are to me The very moons of memory, And stir my heart’s blood far below Its short-lived waves of joy and woe. Lips must fade and roses […]

He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough Pressed round to hear the praise of one Whose heart was made of manly, simple stuff, As homespun as their own. And, when he read, they forward leaned, Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears, His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned From humble smiles and tears. Slowly […]

God sends his teachers unto every age, To every clime, and every race of men, With revelations fitted to their growth And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth Into the selfish rule of one sole race: Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed The life of man, and given it to […]

I Whether the idle prisoner through his grate Watches the waving of the grass-tuft small, Which, having colonized its rift i’ th’ wall, Accepts God’s dole of good or evil fate, And from the sky’s just helmet draws its lot Daily of shower or sunshine, cold or hot;– Whether the closer captive of a creed, […]

We see but half the causes of our deeds, Seeking them wholly in the outer life, And heedless of the encircling spirit-world, Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us All germs of pure and world-wide purposes. From one stage of our being to the next We pass unconscious o’er a slender bridge, The […]

[Greek: algeina men moi kaalegein estin tade, algos de sigan.] AESCHYLUS, Prom. Vinct. 197, 198. For the leading incidents in this tale I am indebted to the very valuable Algic Researches of Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq. J.R.L. The old Chief, feeling now wellnigh his end, Called his two eldest children to his side, And gave […]

Men! whose boast it is that ye Come of fathers brave and free, If there breathe on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave? If ye do not feel the chain, When it works a brother’s pain, Are ye not base slaves indeed, Slaves unworthy to be freed? Women! who shall one day […]

The tower of old Saint Nicholas soared upward to the skies, Like some huge piece of Nature’s make, the growth of centuries; You could not deem its crowding spires a work of human art, They seemed to struggle lightward from a sturdy living heart. Not Nature’s self more freely speaks in crystal or in oak, […]

I saw a Sower walking slow Across the earth, from east to west; His hair was white as mountain snow, His head drooped forward on his breast. With shrivelled hands he flung his seed, Nor ever turned to look behind; Of sight or sound he took no heed; It seemed, he was both deaf and […]

Sisters two, all praise to you, With your faces pinched and blue; To the poor man you’ve been true From of old: You can speak the keenest word, You are sure of being heard, From the point you’re never stirred, Hunger and Cold! Let sleek statesmen temporize; Palsied are their shifts and lies When they […]

What boot your houses and your lands? In spite of close-drawn deed and fence, Like water, twixt your cheated hands, They slip into the graveyard’s sands, And mock your ownership’s pretence. How shall you speak to urge your right, Choked with that soil for which you lust? The bit of clay, for whose delight You […]

Far up on Katahdin thou towerest, Purple-blue with the distance and vast; Like a cloud o’er the lowlands thou lowerest, That hangs poised on a lull in the blast, To its fall leaning awful. In the storm, like a prophet o’er-maddened, Thou singest and tossest thy branches; Thy heart with the terror is gladdened, Thou […]

O wandering dim on the extremest edge Of God’s bright providence, whose spirits sigh Drearily in you, like the winter sedge That shivers o’er the dead pool stiff and dry, A thin, sad voice, when the bold wind roars by From the clear North of Duty,– Still by cracked arch and broken shaft I trace […]