That you are fair or wise is vain, Or strong, or rich, or generous; You must add the untaught strain That sheds beauty on the rose. There’s a melody born of melody, Which melts the world into a sea. Toil could never compass it; Art its height could never hit; It came never out of […]

‘May be true what I had heard,– Earth’s a howling wilderness, Truculent with fraud and force,’ Said I, strolling through the pastures, And along the river-side. Caught among the blackberry vines, Feeding on the Ethiops sweet, Pleasant fancies overtook me. I said, ‘What influence me preferred, Elect, to dreams thus beautiful?’ The vines replied, ‘And […]

Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint, Possessed the land which rendered to their toil Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool and wood. Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm, Saying, ”Tis mine, my children’s and my name’s. How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees! How graceful climb those shadows on […]

As sunbeams stream through liberal space And nothing jostle or displace, So waved the pine-tree through my thought And fanned the dreams it never brought. ‘Whether is better, the gift or the donor? Come to me,’ Quoth the pine-tree, ‘I am the giver of honor. My garden is the cloven rock, And my manure the […]

1 When the pine tosses its cones To the song of its waterfall tones, Who speeds to the woodland walks? To birds and trees who talks? Caesar of his leafy Rome, There the poet is at home. He goes to the river-side,– Not hook nor line hath he; He stands in the meadows wide,– Nor […]

Thousand minstrels woke within me, ‘Our music’s in the hills;’– Gayest pictures rose to win me, Leopard-colored rills. ‘Up!–If thou knew’st who calls To twilight parks of beech and pine, High over the river intervals, Above the ploughman’s highest line, Over the owner’s farthest walls! Up! where the airy citadel O’erlooks the surging landscape’s swell! […]

INSCRIBED TO W.H. CHANNING Though loath to grieve The evil time’s sole patriot, I cannot leave My honied thought For the priest’s cant, Or statesman’s rant. If I refuse My study for their politique, Which at the best is trick, The angry Muse Puts confusion in my brain. But who is he that prates Of […]

Each the herald is who wrote His rank, and quartered his own coat. There is no king nor sovereign state That can fix a hero’s rate; Each to all is venerable, Cap-a-pie invulnerable, Until he write, where all eyes rest, Slave or master on his breast. I saw men go up and down, In the […]

I serve you not, if you I follow, Shadowlike, o’er hill and hollow; And bend my fancy to your leading, All too nimble for my treading. When the pilgrimage is done, And we’ve the landscape overrun, I am bitter, vacant, thwarted, And your heart is unsupported. Vainly valiant, you have missed The manhood that should […]

Long I followed happy guides, I could never reach their sides; Their step is forth, and, ere the day Breaks up their leaguer, and away. Keen my sense, my heart was young, Right good-will my sinews strung, But no speed of mine avails To hunt upon their shining trails. On and away, their hasting feet […]

The prosperous and beautiful To me seem not to wear The yoke of conscience masterful, Which galls me everywhere. I cannot shake off the god; On my neck he makes his seat; I look at my face in the glass,– My eyes his eyeballs meet. Enchanters! Enchantresses! Your gold makes you seem wise; The morning […]

Seek not the spirit, if it hide Inexorable to thy zeal: Trembler, do not whine and chide: Art thou not also real? Stoop not then to poor excuse; Turn on the accuser roundly; say, ‘Here am I, here will I abide Forever to myself soothfast; Go thou, sweet Heaven, or at thy pleasure stay!’ Already […]

Give all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good-fame, Plans, credit and the Muse,– Nothing refuse. ‘T is a brave master; Let it have scope: Follow it utterly, Hope beyond hope: High and more high It dives into noon, With wing unspent, Untold intent; But it is a god, Knows its own […]

Who gave thee, O Beauty, The keys of this breast,– Too credulous lover Of blest and unblest? Say, when in lapsed ages Thee knew I of old? Or what was the service For which I was sold? When first my eyes saw thee, I found me thy thrall, By magical drawings, Sweet tyrant of all! […]

O fair and stately maid, whose eyes Were kindled in the upper skies At the same torch that lighted mine; For so I must interpret still Thy sweet dominion o’er my will, A sympathy divine. Ah! let me blameless gaze upon Features that seem at heart my own; Nor fear those watchful sentinels, Who charm […]

The green grass is bowing, The morning wind is in it; ‘T is a tune worth thy knowing, Though it change every minute. ‘T is a tune of the Spring; Every year plays it over To the robin on the wing, And to the pausing lover. O’er ten thousand, thousand acres, Goes light the nimble […]

BY ELLEN LOUISA TUCKER Why lingerest thou, pale violet, to see the dying year; Are Autumn’s blasts fit music for thee, fragile one, to hear; Will thy clear blue eye, upward bent, still keep its chastened glow, Still tearless lift its slender form above the wintry snow? Why wilt thou live when none around reflects […]

Your picture smiles as first it smiled; The ring you gave is still the same; Your letter tells, O changing child! No tidings since it came. Give me an amulet That keeps intelligence with you,– Red when you love, and rosier red, And when you love not, pale and blue. Alas! that neither bonds nor […]

Thine eyes still shined for me, though far I lonely roved the land or sea: As I behold yon evening star, Which yet beholds not me. This morn I climbed the misty hill And roamed the pastures through; How danced thy form before my path Amidst the deep-eyed dew! When the redbird spread his sable […]

On a mound an Arab lay, And sung his sweet regrets And told his amulets: The summer bird His sorrow heard, And, when he heaved a sigh profound, The sympathetic swallow swept the ground. ‘If it be, as they said, she was not fair, Beauty’s not beautiful to me, But sceptred genius, aye inorbed, Culminating […]