Already blushes on thy cheek The bosom thought which thou must speak; The bird, how far it haply roam By cloud or isle, is flying home; The maiden fears, and fearing runs Into the charmed snare she shuns; And every man, in love or pride, Of his fate is never wide. Will a woman’s fan […]

Once I wished I might rehearse Freedom’s paean in my verse, That the slave who caught the strain Should throb until he snapped his chain, But the Spirit said, ‘Not so; Speak it not, or speak it low; Name not lightly to be said, Gift too precious to be prayed, Passion not to be expressed […]

I Low and mournful be the strain, Haughty thought be far from me; Tones of penitence and pain, Meanings of the tropic sea; Low and tender in the cell Where a captive sits in chains. Crooning ditties treasured well From his Afric’s torrid plains. Sole estate his sire bequeathed,– Hapless sire to hapless son,– Was […]

Roving, roving, as it seems, Una lights my clouded dreams; Still for journeys she is dressed; We wander far by east and west. In the homestead, homely thought, At my work I ramble not; If from home chance draw me wide, Half-seen Una sits beside. In my house and garden-plot, Though beloved, I miss her […]

SICUT PATRIBUS, SIT DEUS NOBIS The rocky nook with hilltops three Looked eastward from the farms, And twice each day the flowing sea Took Boston in its arms; The men of yore were stout and poor, And sailed for bread to every shore. And where they went on trade intent They did what freemen can, […]

Every day brings a ship, Every ship brings a word; Well for those who have no fear. Looking seaward, well assured That the word the vessel brings Is the word they wish to hear.

They brought me rubies from the mine, And held them to the sun; I said, they are drops of frozen wine From Eden’s vats that run. I looked again,–I thought them hearts Of friends to friends unknown; Tides that should warm each neighboring life Are locked in sparkling stone. But fire to thaw that ruddy […]

I Of Merlin wise I learned a song,– Sing it low or sing it loud, It is mightier than the strong, And punishes the proud. I sing it to the surging crowd,– Good men it will calm and cheer, Bad men it will chain and cage– In the heart of the music peals a strain […]

(Musa loquitur.) I hung my verses in the wind, Time and tide their faults may find. All were winnowed through and through, Five lines lasted sound and true; Five were smelted in a pot Than the South more fierce and hot; These the siroc could not melt, Fire their fiercer flaming felt, And the meaning […]

I am the Muse who sung alway By Jove, at dawn of the first day. Star-crowned, sole-sitting, long I wrought To fire the stagnant earth with thought: On spawning slime my song prevails, Wolves shed their fangs, and dragons scales; Flushed in the sky the sweet May-morn, Earth smiled with flowers, and man was born. […]

She is gamesome and good, But of mutable mood,– No dreary repeater now and again, She will be all things to all men. She who is old, but nowise feeble, Pours her power into the people, Merry and manifold without bar, Makes and moulds them what they are, And what they call their city way […]

Winters know Easily to shed the snow, And the untaught Spring is wise In cowslips and anemonies. Nature, hating art and pains, Baulks and baffles plotting brains; Casualty and Surprise Are the apples of her eyes; But she dearly loves the poor, And, by marvel of her own, Strikes the loud pretender down. For Nature […]

The sun goes down, and with him takes The coarseness of my poor attire; The fair moon mounts, and aye the flame Of Gypsy beauty blazes higher. Pale Northern girls! you scorn our race; You captives of your air-tight halls, Wear out indoors your sickly days, But leave us the horizon walls. And if I […]

Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, […]

If I could put my woods in song And tell what’s there enjoyed, All men would to my gardens throng, And leave the cities void. In my plot no tulips blow,– Snow-loving pines and oaks instead; And rank the savage maples grow From Spring’s faint flush to Autumn red. My garden is a forest ledge […]

Day! hast thou two faces, Making one place two places? One, by humble farmer seen, Chill and wet, unlighted, mean, Useful only, triste and damp, Serving for a laborer’s lamp? Have the same mists another side, To be the appanage of pride, Gracing the rich man’s wood and lake, His park where amber mornings break, […]

One musician is sure, His wisdom will not fail, He has not tasted wine impure, Nor bent to passion frail. Age cannot cloud his memory, Nor grief untune his voice, Ranging down the ruled scale From tone of joy to inward wail, Tempering the pitch of all In his windy cave. He all the fables […]

Mine are the night and morning, The pits of air, the gulf of space, The sportive sun, the gibbous moon, The innumerable days. I hide in the solar glory, I am dumb in the pealing song, I rest on the pitch of the torrent, In slumber I am strong. No numbers have counted my tallies, […]

I heard or seemed to hear the chiding Sea Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come? Am I not always here, thy summer home? Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve? My breath thy healthful climate in the heats, My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath? Was ever building like […]

Thy summer voice, Musketaquit, Repeats the music of the rain; But sweeter rivers pulsing flit Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain. Thou in thy narrow banks art pent: The stream I love unbounded goes Through flood and sea and firmament; Through light, through life, it forward flows. I see the inundation sweet, I hear […]