The sense of the world is short,– Long and various the report,– To love and be beloved; Men and gods have not outlearned it; And, how oft soe’er they’ve turned it, Not to be improved.

Venus, when her son was lost, Cried him up and down the coast, In hamlets, palaces and parks, And told the truant by his marks,– Golden curls, and quiver and bow. This befell how long ago! Time and tide are strangely changed, Men and manners much deranged: None will now find Cupid latent By this […]

Man was made of social earth, Child and brother from his birth, Tethered by a liquid cord Of blood through veins of kindred poured. Next his heart the fireside band Of mother, father, sister, stand; Names from awful childhood heard Throbs of a wild religion stirred;– Virtue, to love, to hate them, vice; Till dangerous […]

But God said, ‘I will have a purer gift; There is smoke in the flame; New flowerets bring, new prayers uplift, And love without a name. Fond children, ye desire To please each other well; Another round, a higher, Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair, And selfish preference forbear; And in right deserving, And […]

Think me not unkind and rude That I walk alone in grove and glen; I go to the god of the wood To fetch his word to men. Tax not my sloth that I Fold my arms beside the brook; Each cloud that floated in the sky Writes a letter in my book. Chide me […]

Thy trivial harp will never please Or fill my craving ear; Its chords should ring as blows the breeze, Free, peremptory, clear. No jingling serenader’s art, Nor tinkle of piano strings, Can make the wild blood start In its mystic springs. The kingly bard Must smite the chords rudely and hard, As with hammer or […]

The rhyme of the poet Modulates the king’s affairs; Balance-loving Nature Made all things in pairs. To every foot its antipode; Each color with its counter glowed; To every tone beat answering tones, Higher or graver; Flavor gladly blends with flavor; Leaf answers leaf upon the bough; And match the paired cotyledons. Hands to hands, […]

Bring me wine, but wine which never grew In the belly of the grape, Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through, Under the Andes to the Cape, Suffer no savor of the earth to scape. Let its grapes the morn salute From a nocturnal root, Which feels the acrid juice Of Styx and Erebus; […]

What care I, so they stand the same,– Things of the heavenly mind,– How long the power to give them name Tarries yet behind? Thus far to-day your favors reach, O fair, appeasing presences! Ye taught my lips a single speech, And a thousand silences. Space grants beyond his fated road No inch to the […]

There is no architect Can build as the Muse can; She is skilful to select Materials for her plan; Slow and warily to choose Rafters of immortal pine, Or cedar incorruptible, Worthy her design, She threads dark Alpine forests Or valleys by the sea, In many lands, with painful steps, Ere she can find a […]

Trees in groves, Kine in droves, In ocean sport the scaly herds, Wedge-like cleave the air the birds, To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks, Browse the mountain sheep in flocks, Men consort in camp and town, But the poet dwells alone. God, who gave to him the lyre, Of all mortals the desire, For all […]

From fall to spring, the russet acorn, Fruit beloved of maid and boy, Lent itself beneath the forest, To be the children’s toy. Pluck it now! In vain,–thou canst not; Its root has pierced yon shady mound; Toy no longer–it has duties; It is anchored in the ground. Year by year the rose-lipped maiden, Playfellow […]

By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave One scent to hyson and to wall-flower, One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls, One aspect to the desert and the lake. It was her stern necessity: all things Are of one pattern made; bird, beast and flower, Song, picture, form, space, thought and character Deceive us, seeming […]

Give me truths; For I am weary of the surfaces, And die of inanition. If I knew Only the herbs and simples of the wood, Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain and agrimony, Blue-vetch and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras, Milkweeds and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sundew, And rare and virtuous roots, which in these woods Draw untold […]

When I was born, From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice, Saying, ‘This be thy portion, child; this chalice, Less than a lily’s, thou shalt daily draw From my great arteries,–nor less, nor more.’ All substances the cunning chemist Time Melts down into that liquor of my life,– Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, […]

Because I was content with these poor fields, Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams, And found a home in haunts which others scorned, The partial wood-gods overpaid my love, And granted me the freedom of their state, And in their secret senate have prevailed With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our life, Made […]

The South-wind brings Life, sunshine and desire, And on every mount and meadow Breathes aromatic fire; But over the dead he has no power, The lost, the lost, he cannot restore; And, looking over the hills, I mourn The darling who shall not return. I see my empty house, I see my trees repair their […]

Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring, With sudden passion languishing, Teaching Barren moors to smile, Painting pictures mile on mile, Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths, Whence a smokeless incense breathes. The air is full of whistlings bland; What was that I heard Out of the hazy land? Harp of the wind, or song of […]

A JOURNAL DEDICATED TO MY FELLOW TRAVELLERS IN AUGUST, 1858 Wise and polite,–and if I drew Their several portraits, you would own Chaucer had no such worthy crew, Nor Boccace in Decameron. We crossed Champlain to Keeseville with our friends, Thence, in strong country carts, rode up the forks Of the Ausable stream, intent to […]

If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanished gods to me appear; And one to me are shame and […]