“Rain and rain! and rain and rain!”Yesterday we mutteredGrimly as the grim refrainThat the thunders uttered:All the heavens under cloud–All the sunshine sleeping;All the grasses limply bowedWith their weight of weeping. Sigh and sigh! and sigh and sigh!Never end of sighing;Rain and rain for our reply–Hopes half-drowned and dying;Peering through the window-pane,Naught but endless raining–Endless […]

We got up a Christmas-doin’sLast Christmas Eve–Kindo’ dimonstration‘At I railly believeGive more satisfaction–Take it up and down–Than ary intertainmentEver come to town! Railly was a theater—That’s what it was,–But, bein’ in the church, you know,We had a “Santy Clause”—So ‘s to git the old folksTo patternize, you see,And back the institootion upKindo’ morally. Schoolteacher writ […]

By her white bed I muse a little space:She fell asleep–not very long ago,–And yet the grass was here and not the snow–The leaf, the bud, the blossom, and–her face!–Midsummer’s heaven above us, and the graceOf Lovers own day, from dawn to afterglow;The fireflies’ glimmering, and the sweet and lowPlaint of the whip-poor-wills, and every […]

I. Tugg Martin’s tough.–No doubt o’ that!And down there atThe town he come from word’s bin sentAdvisin’ this-here Settle-mentTo kindo’ humor Tugg, and notTo git him hot–Jest pass his imperfections by,And he’s as good as pie! II. They claim he’s wanted back there.–YitThe officers they mostly quitInsistin’ whenThey notice Tugg’s so back’ard, andSorto’ gives ’em […]

They called him Mr. What’s-his-name:From where he was, or why he came,Or when, or what he found to do,Nobody in the city knew. He lived, it seemed, shut up aloneIn a low hovel of his own;There cooked his meals and made his bed,Careless of all his neighbors said. His neighbors, too, said many thingsExpressive of […]

The winds have talked with him confidingly;The trees have whispered to him; and the nightHath held him gently as a mother might,And taught him all sad tones of melody:The mountains have bowed to him; and the sea,In clamorous waves, and murmurs exquisite,Hath told him all her sorrow and delight–Her legends fair–her darkest mystery.His verse blooms […]

Wunst I looked our pepper-box lidAn’ cut little pie-dough biscuits, I did,And cooked ’em on our stove one dayWhen our hired girl she said I may. Honey’s the goodest thing–Oo-ooh!And blackberry-pies is goodest, too!But wite hot biscuits, ist soakin’-wetWiv tree-mullasus, is goodest yet! Miss Maimie she’s my Ma’s friend,–an’She’s purtiest girl in all the lan’!–An’ […]

The stars are failing, and the skyIs like a field of faded flowers;The winds on weary wings go by;The moon hides, and the temptest lowers;And still through every clime and ageI wander on a pilgrimageThat all men know an idle quest,For that the goal I seek is–REST! I hear the voice of summer streams,And, following, […]

Such a dear little street it is, nestled awayFrom the noise of the city and heat of the day,In cool shady coverts of whispering trees,With their leaves lifted up to shake hands with the breezeWhich in all its wide wanderings never may meetWith a resting-place fairer than Lockerbie street! There is such a relief, from […]

Where are they– the Afterwhiles–Luring us the lengthening milesOf our lives? Where is the dawnWith the dew across the lawnStroked with eager feet the farWay the hills and valleys are?Were the sun that smites the frownOf the eastward-gazer down?Where the rifted wreaths of mistO’er us, tinged with amethyst,Round the mountain’s steep defiles?Where are the afterwhiles? […]

The Beautiful City! ForeverIts rapturous praises resound;We fain would behold it– but neverA glimpse of its dory is found:We slacken our lips at the tenderWhite breasts of our mothers to hearOf its marvellous beauty and splendor–;We see– but the gleam of a tear! Yet never the story may tire us–First graven in symbols of stone–Rewritten […]

Bud, come here to your uncle a spell,And I’ll tell you something you mustn’t tell–For it’s a secret and shore-‘nuf true,And maybe I oughtn’t to tell it to you–!But out in the garden, under the shadeOf the apple-trees, where we romped and playedTill the moon was up, and you thought I’d goneFast asleep–, That was […]

I had fed the fire and stirred it, till the sparkles in delightSnapped their saucy little fingers at the chill December night;And in dressing-gown and slippers, I had tilted back “my throne–“The old split-bottomed rocker– and was musing all alone. I could hear the hungry Winter prowling round the outer door,And the tread of muffled […]

Years did I vainly seek the good Lord’s grace–,Prayed, fasted, and did penance dire and dread;Did kneel, with bleeding knees and rainy face,And mouth the dust, with ashes on my head;Yea, still with knotted scourge the flesh I flayed,Rent fresh the wounds, and moaned and shrieked insanely;And froth oozed with the pleadings that I made,And […]

O The South Wind and the Sun!How each loved the other oneFull of fancy— full folly–Full of jollity and fun!How they romped and ran about,Like two boys when school is out,With glowing face, and lisping lip,Low laugh, and lifted shout! And the South Wind– he was dressedWith a ribbon round his breastThat floated, flapped and […]

I put by the half-written poem,While the pen, idly trailed in my hand,Writes on–, “Had I words to complete it,Who’d read it, or who’d understand?”But the little bare feet on the stairway,And the faint, smothered laugh in the hall,And the eerie-low lisp on the silence,Cry up to me over it all. So I gather it […]

If I knew what poets know,Would I write a rhymeOf the buds that never blowIn the summer-time ?Would I sing of golden seedsSpringing up in ironweeds?And of raindrops turned to snow,If I knew what poets know? Did I know what poets do,Would I sing a songSadder than the pigeon’s cooWhen the days are long?Where I […]

I caught, for a second, across the crowd–Just for a second, and barely that–A face, pox-pitted and evil-browed,Hid in the shade of a slouch-rim’d hat–With small gray eyes, of a look as keenAs the long, sharp nose that grew between. And I said: ‘Tis a sketch of Nature’s own,Drawn i’ the dark o’ the moon, […]

Like a drift of faded blossomsCaught in a slanting rain,His fingers glimpsed down the strings of his harpIn a tremulous refrain: Patter and tinkle, and drip and drip!Ah! But the chords were rainy sweet!And I closed my eyes and I bit my lip,As he played there in the street. Patter, and drip, and tinkle!And there […]

The landscape, like the awed face of a child,Grew curiously blurred; a hush of deathFell on the fields, and in the darkened wildThe zephyr held its breath. No wavering glamour-work of light and shadeDappled the shivering surface of the brook;The frightened ripples in their ambuscadeOf willows thrilled and shook. The sullen day grew darker, and […]