IN the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night! Ah me I how I remember the evening when it came! […]

THE DIVINE VOICE Go seek thine earth-born sisters,–thus the Voice That all obey,–the sad and silent three; These only, while the hosts of Heaven rejoice, Smile never; ask them what their sorrows be; And when the secret of their griefs they tell, Look on them with thy mild, half-human eyes; Say what thou wast on […]

AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE The first messages received through the submarine cable were sent by an electrical expert, a mysterious personage who signed himself De Sauty. Professor Blue-Nose PROFESSOR TELL me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal! Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you, Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, Holding talk with nations? Is there […]

THE YOUNG GIRL’S POEM KISS mine eyelids, beauteous Morn, Blushing into life new-born! Lend me violets for my hair, And thy russet robe to wear, And thy ring of rosiest hue Set in drops of diamond dew! Kiss my cheek, thou noontide ray, From my Love so far away Let thy splendor streaming down Turn […]

ANOTHER clouded night; the stars are hid, The orb that waits my search is hid with them. Patience! Why grudge an hour, a month, a year, To plant my ladder and to gain the round That leads my footsteps to the heaven of fame, Where waits the wreath my sleepless midnights won? Not the stained […]

THE YOUNG GIRL’S POEM WHATEVER I do, and whatever I say, Aunt Tabitha tells me that is n’t the way; When she was a girl (forty summers ago) Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so. Dear aunt! If I only would take her advice! But I like my own way, and I find it […]

THE snows that glittered on the disk of Mars Have melted, and the planet’s fiery orb Rolls in the crimson summer of its year; But what to me the summer or the snow Of worlds that throb with life in forms unknown, If life indeed be theirs; I heed not these. My heart is simply […]

BRIEF glimpses of the bright celestial spheres, False lights, false shadows, vague, uncertain gleams, Pale vaporous mists, wan streaks of lurid flame, The climbing of the upward-sailing cloud, The sinking of the downward-falling star,– All these are pictures of the changing moods Borne through the midnight stillness of my soul. Here am I, bound upon […]

ALONE! no climber of an Alpine cliff, No Arctic venturer on the waveless sea, Feels the dread stillness round him as it chills The heart of him who leaves the slumbering earth To watch the silent worlds that crowd the sky. Alone! And as the shepherd leaves his flock To feed upon the hillside, he […]

LET me retrace the record of the years That made me what I am. A man most wise, But overworn with toil and bent with age, Sought me to be his scholar,-me, run wild From books and teachers,-kindled in my soul The love of knowledge; led me to his tower, Showed me the wonders of […]

I AM not humble; I was shown my place, Clad in such robes as Nature had at hand; Took what she gave, not chose; I know no shame, No fear for being simply what I am. I am not proud, I hold my every breath At Nature’s mercy. I am as a babe Borne in […]

WHAT am I but the creature Thou hast made? What have I save the blessings Thou hast lent? What hope I but thy mercy and thy love? Who but myself shall cloud my soul with fear? Whose hand protect me from myself but thine? I claim the rights of weakness, I, the babe, Call on […]

I CLAIM the right of knowing whom I serve, Else is my service idle; He that asks My homage asks it from a reasoning soul. To crawl is not to worship; we have learned A drill of eyelids, bended neck and knee, Hanging our prayers on hinges, till we ape The flexures of the many-jointed […]

BUT what is this? The sacred beetle, bound upon the breast Of the blind heathen! Snatch the curious prize, Give it a place among thy treasured spoils, Fossil and relic,–corals, encrinites, The fly in amber and the fish in stone, The twisted circlet of Etruscan gold, Medal, intaglio, poniard, poison-ring,– Place for the Memphian beetle […]

THE time is racked with birth-pangs; every hour Brings forth some gasping truth, and truth newborn Looks a misshapen and untimely growth, The terror of the household and its shame, A monster coiling in its nurse’s lap That some would strangle, some would only starve; But still it breathes, and passed from hand to hand, […]

READER–gentle–if so be Such still live, and live for me, Will it please you to be told What my tenscore pages hold? Here are verses that in spite Of myself I needs must write, Like the wine that oozes first When the unsqueezed grapes have burst. Here are angry lines, “too hard!” Says the soldier, […]

THUS I lift the sash, so long Shut against the flight of song; All too late for vain excuse,– Lo, my captive rhymes are loose. Rhymes that, flitting through my brain, Beat against my window-pane, Some with gayly colored wings, Some, alas! with venomed stings. Shall they bask in sunny rays? Shall they feed on […]

AUTOCRAT-PROFESSOR-POET AT A BOOKSTORE Anno Domini 1972 A CRAZY bookcase, placed before A low-price dealer’s open door; Therein arrayed in broken rows A ragged crew of rhyme and prose, The homeless vagrants, waifs, and strays Whose low estate this line betrays (Set forth the lesser birds to lime) YOUR CHOICE AMONG THESE BOORS 1 DIME! […]

I cannot tell the story of Dorothy Q. more simply in prose than I have told it in verse, but I can add something to it. Dorothy was the daughter of Judge Edmund Quincy, and the niece of Josiah Quincy, junior, the young patriot and orator who died just before the American Revolution, of which […]

As through the forest, disarrayed By chill November, late I strayed, A lonely minstrel of the wood Was singing to the solitude I loved thy music, thus I said, When o’er thy perch the leaves were spread Sweet was thy song, but sweeter now Thy carol on the leafless bough. Sing, little bird! thy note […]