There is ever a song somewhere, my dear;There is ever a something sings alway:There’s the song of the lark when the skies are clear,And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray.The sunshine showers across the grain,And the bluebird trills in the orchard tree;And in and out, when the eaves dip rain,The swallows […]

If from your own the dimpled hands had slipped,And ne’er would nestle in your palm again;If the white feet into the grave had tripped–“ When Bessie died–We braided the brown hair, and tiedIt just as her own little handsHad fastened back the silken strandsA thousand times– the crimson bitOf ribbon woven into itThat she had […]

The afternoon of summer foldsIts warm arms round the marigolds, And with its gleaming fingers, petsThe watered pinks and violets That from the casement vases spill,Over the cottage window-sill, Their fragrance down the garden walksWhere droop the dry-mouthed hollyhocks. How vividly the sunshine scrawlsThe grape-vine shadows on the walls! How like a truant swings the […]

“O I am weary!” she sighed, as her billowyHair she unloosed in a torrent of goldThat rippled and fell o’er a figure as willowy,Graceful and fair as a goddess of old:Over her jewels she flung herself drearily,Crumpled the laces that snowed on her breast,Crushed with her fingers the lily that wearilyClung in her hair like […]

The ripest peach is highest on the tree–And so her love, beyond the reach of me,Is dearest in my sight. Sweet breezes bowHer heart down to me where I worship now! She looms aloft where every eye may seeThe ripest peach is highest on the tree.Such fruitage as her love I know, alas!I may not […]

I cannot say, and I will not sayThat he is dead–. He is just away! With a cheery smile, and a wave of the handHe has wandered into an unknown land, And left us dreaming how very fairIt needs must be, since he lingers there. And you– O you, who the wildest yearnFor the old-time […]

A troth, and a grief, and a blessing,Disguised them and came this way–,And one was a promise, and one was a doubt,And one was a rainy day. And they met betimes with this maiden,And the promise it spake and lied,And the doubt it gibbered and hugged itself,And the rainy day– she died.

There! Little girl; don’t cry!They have broken your doll, I know;And your tea-set blue,And your play-house too,Are things of the long ago;But childish troubles will soon pass by–.There! Little girl; don’t cry! There! Little girl; don’t cry!They have broken your slate, I know;And the glad, wild waysOf your school-girl daysAre things of the long ago;But […]

A thing ‘at’s ’bout as tryin’ as a healthy man kin meetIs some poor feller’s funeral a-joggin’ ‘long the street:The slow hearse and the hosses– slow enough, to say at least,Fer to even tax the patience of gentleman deceased!The low scrunch of the gravel– and the slow grind of the wheels–,The slow, slow go of […]

This Pan is but an idle god, I guess,Since all the fair midsummer of my dreamsHe loiters listlessly by woody streams,Soaking the lush glooms up with laziness;Or drowsing while the maiden-winds caressHim prankishly, and powder him with gleamsOf sifted sunshine. And he ever seemsDrugged with a joy unutterable– unlessHis low pipes whistle hints of it […]

The frightened herds of clouds across the skyTrample the sunshine down, and chase the dayInto the dusky forest-lands of grayAnd sombre twilight. Far and faint, and high,The wild goose trails his harrow, with a crySad as the wail of some poor castawayWho sees a vessel drifting far astrayOf his last hope, and lays him down […]

1Would that the winds might only blowAs they blew in the golden long ago–!Laden with odors of Orient islesWhere ever and ever the sunshine smiles,And the bright sands blend with the shady trees,And the lotus blooms in the midst of these. 2Warm winds won from the midland valesTo where the tress of the Siren trailsO’er […]

Most tangible of all the gods that be,O Santa Claus– our own since Infancy!As first we scampered to thee– now, as then,Take us as children to thy heart again. Be wholly good to us, just as of old:As a pleased father, let thine arms infoldUs, homed within the haven of thy love,And all the cheer […]

The midnight is not more bewilderingTo her drowsed eyes, than to her ears, the soundOf dim, sweet singing voices, interwoundWith purl of flute and subtle twang of string,Strained through the lattice, where the roses clingAnd, with their fragrance, waft the notes aroundHer haunted senses. Thirsting beyond boundOf her slow-yielding dreams, the lilt and swingOf the […]

Back from a two-years’ sentence!And though it had been ten,You think, I were scarred no deeperIn the eyes of my fellow-men.“My fellow-men–?” Sounds like a satire,You think– and I so allow,Here in my home since childhood,Yet more than a stranger now! Pardon–! Not wholly a stranger–,For I have a wife and child:That woman has wept […]

It is my dream to have you here with me,Out of the heated city’s dust and din–Here where the colts have room to gambol in,And kine to graze, in clover to the knee.I want to see your wan face happilyLit with the wholesome smiles that have not beenIn use since the old games you used […]

I hold your trembling hand to-night– and yetI may not know what wealth of bliss is mine,My heart is such a curious designOf trust and jealousy! Your eyes are wet–So must I think they jewel some regret–,And lo, the loving arms that round me twineCling only as the tendrils of a vineWhose fruit has long […]

Thou drowsy god, whose blurred eyes, half awinkMuse on me–, drifting out upon thy dreams,I lave my soul as in enchanted streamsWhere revelling satyrs pipe along the brink,And tipsy with the melody they drink,Uplift their dangling hooves, and down the beamsOf sunshine dance like motes. Thy languor seemsAn ocean-depth of love wherein I sinkLike some […]

At Rest– August 8, 1885 Sir Launcelot rode overthwart and endlong in a wide forest, and held no path but as wild adventure led him… And he returned and came again to his horse, and took off his saddle and his bridle, and let him pasture; and unlaced his helm, and ungirdled his sword, and […]

Thousands of thousands of hushed years ago,Out on the edge of Chaos, all aloneI stood on peaks of vapor, high upthrownAbove a sea that knew nor ebb nor flow,Nor any motion won of winds that blow,Nor any sound of watery wail or moan,Nor lisp of wave, nor wandering undertoneOf any tide lost in the night […]