WHO PRESENTED ME WITH A SILVER LOVING CUP ON THE TWENTY-NINTH OF AUGUST, M DCCC LXXXIX “WHO gave this cup?” The secret thou wouldst steal Its brimming flood forbids it to reveal: No mortal’s eye shall read it till he first Cool the red throat of thirst. If on the golden floor one draught remain, […]

THOU shouldst have sung the swan-song for the choir That filled our groves with music till the day Lit the last hilltop with its reddening fire, And evening listened for thy lingering lay. But thou hast found thy voice in realms afar Where strains celestial blend their notes with thine; Some cloudless sphere beneath a […]

How beauteous is the bond In the manifold array Of its promises to pay, While the eight per cent it gives And the rate at which one lives Correspond! But at last the bough is bare Where the coupons one by one Through their ripening days have run, And the bond, a beggar now, Seeks […]

IF all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]

LADY, life’s sweetest lesson wouldst thou learn, Come thou with me to Love’s enchanted bower High overhead the trellised roses burn; Beneath thy feet behold the feathery fern,– A leaf without a flower. What though the rose leaves fall? They still are sweet, And have been lovely in their beauteous prime, While the bare frond […]

I LIKE YOU Met I LOVE You, face to face; The path was narrow, and they could not pass. I LIKE YOU smiled; I LOVE YOU cried, Alas! And so they halted for a little space. “Turn thou and go before,” I LOVE YOU said, “Down the green pathway, bright with many a flower; Deep […]

FROM this fair home behold on either side The restful mountains or the restless sea So the warm sheltering walls of life divide Time and its tides from still eternity. Look on the waves: their stormy voices teach That not on earth may toil and struggle cease. Look on the mountains: better far than speech […]

Too young for love? Ah, say not so! Tell reddening rose-buds not to blow Wait not for spring to pass away,– Love’s summer months begin with May! Too young for love? Ah, say not so! Too young? Too young? Ah, no! no! no! Too young for love? Ah, say not so, To practise all love […]

LOOK out! Look out, boys! Clear the track! The witches are here! They’ve all come back! They hanged them high,–No use! No use! What cares a witch for a hangman’s noose? They buried them deep, but they wouldn’t lie still, For cats and witches are hard to kill; They swore they shouldn’t and wouldn’t die,– […]

THE glory has passed from the goldenrod’s plume, The purple-hued asters still linger in bloom The birch is bright yellow, the sumachs are red, The maples like torches aflame overhead. But what if the joy of the summer is past, And winter’s wild herald is blowing his blast? For me dull November is sweeter than […]

WHILE in my simple gospel creed That “God is Love” so plain I read, Shall dreams of heathen birth affright My pathway through the coming night? Ah, Lord of life, though spectres pale Fill with their threats the shadowy vale, With Thee my faltering steps to aid, How can I dare to be afraid? Shall […]

You know “The Teacups,” that congenial set Which round the Teapot you have often met; The grave DICTATOR, him you knew of old,– Knew as the shepherd of another fold Grayer he looks, less youthful, but the same As when you called him by a different name. Near him the MISTRESS, whose experienced skill Has […]

VEX not the Muse with idle prayers,– She will not hear thy call; She steals upon thee unawares, Or seeks thee not at all. Soft as the moonbeams when they sought Endymion’s fragrant bower, She parts the whispering leaves of thought To show her full-blown flower. For thee her wooing hour has passed, The singing […]

THE Banker’s dinner is the stateliest feast The town has heard of for a year, at least; The sparry lustres shed their broadest blaze, Damask and silver catch and spread the rays; The florist’s triumphs crown the daintier spoil Won from the sea, the forest, or the soil; The steaming hot-house yields its largest pines, […]

WHAT ailed young Lucius? Art had vainly tried To guess his ill, and found herself defied. The Augur plied his legendary skill; Useless; the fair young Roman languished still. His chariot took him every cloudless day Along the Pincian Hill or Appian Way; They rubbed his wasted limbs with sulphurous oil, Oozed from the far-off […]

WHO of all statesmen is his country’s pride, Her councils’ prompter and her leaders’ guide? He speaks; the nation holds its breath to hear; He nods, and shakes the sunset hemisphere. Born where the primal fount of Nature springs By the rude cradles of her throneless kings, In his proud eye her royal signet flames, […]

How sweet the sacred legend–if unblamed In my slight verse such holy things are named– Of Mary’s secret hours of hidden joy, Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy! Ave, Maria! Pardon, if I wrong Those heavenly words that shame my earthly song! The choral host had closed the Angel’s strain Sung to the listening […]

Is man’s the only throbbing heart that hides The silent spring that feeds its whispering tides? Speak from thy caverns, mystery-breeding Earth, Tell the half-hinted story of thy birth, And calm the noisy champions who have thrown The book of types against the book of stone! Have ye not secrets, ye refulgent spheres, No sleepless […]

Written after a general pruning of the trees around Harvard College. A little poem, on a similar occasion, may be found in the works of Swift, from which, perhaps, the idea was borrowed; although I was as much surprised as amused to meet with it some time after writing the following lines. IT was not […]

FROM THE “COLLEGIAN,” 1830, ILLUSTRATED ANNUALS, ETC. Nescit vox missa reverti.–Horat. Ars Poetica. Ab lis qua non adjuvant quam mollissime oportet pedem referre.– Quintillian, L. VI. C. 4. These verses have always been printed in my collected poems, and as the best of them may bear a single reading, I allow them to appear, but […]