My soul is like the oar that momently Dies in a desperate stress beneath the wave, Then glitters out again and sweeps the sea: Each second I’m new-born from some new grave

Through all that year-scarred agony of height,Unblest of bough or bloom, to where expandsHis wandy circlet with his bladed bandsDividing every wind, or loud or light,To termless hymns of love and old despite,Yon tall palmetto in the twilight stands,Bare Dante of these purgatorial sandsThat glimmer marginal to the monstrous night.Comes him a Southwind from the […]

Young palmer sun, that to these shining sandsPourest thy pilgrim’s tale, discoursing stillThy silver passages of sacred lands,With news of Sepulchre and Dolorous Hill, Canst thou be he that, yester-sunset warm,Purple with Paynim rage and wrack desire,Dashed ravening out of a dusty lair of Storm,Harried the west, and set the world on fire? Hast thou […]

Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands,And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea,How long they kiss in sight of all the lands.Ah! longer, longer, we. Now in the sea’s red vintage melts the sun,As Egypt’s pearl dissolved in rosy wine,And Cleopatra night drinks all. ‘Tis done,Love, lay thine hand in mine. Come […]

[1] Trim set in ancient sward, his manful boleUpbore his frontage largely toward the sky.We could not dream but that he had a soul:What virtue breathed from out his bravery! We gazed o’erhead: far down our deepening eyesRained glamours from his green midsummer mass.The worth and sum of all his centuriesSuffused his mighty shadow on […]

Fine-tissued as her finger-tips, and whiteAs all her thoughts; in shape like shields of prize,As if before young Violet’s dreaming eyesStill blazed the two great Theban bucklers brightThat swayed the random of that furious fightWhere Palamon and Arcite made assizeFor Emily; fresh, crisp as her replies,That, not with sting, but pith, do oft inviteMore trial […]

[1] If spicy-fringed pinks that blush and paleWith passions of perfume, — if violets blueThat hint of heaven with odor more than hue, —If perfect roses, each a holy GrailWherefrom the blood of beauty doth exhaleGrave raptures round, — if leaves of green as newAs those fresh chaplets wove in dawn and dewBy Emily when […]

From cold Norse caves or buccaneer Southern seasOft come repenting tempests here to die;Bewailing old-time wrecks and robberies,They shrive to priestly pines with many a sigh,Breathe salutary balms through lank-lock’d hairOf sick men’s heads, and soon — this world outworn —Sink into saintly heavens of stirless air,Clean from confessional. One died, this morn,And willed the […]

[1] Into the woods my Master went,Clean forspent, forspent.Into the woods my Master came,Forspent with love and shame.But the olives they were not blind to Him,The little gray leaves were kind to Him:The thorn-tree had a mind to HimWhen into the woods He came. Out of the woods my Master went,And He was well content.Out […]

My crippled sense fares bow’d alongHis uncompanioned way,And wronged by death pays life with wrongAnd I wake by night and dream by day. And the Morning seems but fatigued NightThat hath wept his visage pale,And the healthy mark ‘twixt dark and lightIn sickly sameness out doth fail. And the woods stare strange, and the wind […]

Land of the willful gospel, thou worst and thou best;Tall Adam of lands, new-made of the dust of the West;Thou wroughtest alone in the Garden of God, unblestTill He fashioned lithe Freedom to lie for thine Eve on thy breast —Till out of thy heart’s dear neighborhood, out of thy side,He fashioned an intimate Sweet […]

Written for the “Martha Washington Court Journal”. Down cold snow-stretches of our bitter time,When windy shams and the rain-mocking sleetOf Trade have cased us in such icy rimeThat hearts are scarcely hot enough to beat,Thy fame, O Lady of the lofty eyes,Doth fall along the age, like as a laneOf Spring, in whose most generous […]

Presenting a portrait-bust of the author. Since you, rare friend! have tied my living tongueWith thanks more large than man e’er said or sung,So let the dumbness of this image beMy eloquence, and still interpret me. ___Baltimore, 1880.

Read on the Fourth Commemoration Day, February, 1880. How tall among her sisters, and how fair, —How grave beyond her youth, yet debonairAs dawn, ‘mid wrinkled Matres of old landsOur youngest Alma Mater modest stands!In four brief cycles round the punctual sunHas she, old Learning’s latest daughter, wonThis grace, this stature, and this fruitful fame.Howbeit […]

I asked my heart to saySome word whose worth my love’s devoir might payUpon my Lady’s natal day. Then said my heart to me:`Learn from the rhyme that now shall come to theeWhat fits thy Love most lovingly.’ This gift that learning shows;For, as a rhyme unto its rhyme-twin goes,I send a rose unto a […]

The storm hath blown thee a lover, sweet,And laid him kneeling at thy feet.But, — guerdon rich for favor rare!The wind hath all thy holy hairTo kiss and to sing through and to flareLike torch-flames in the passionate air,About thee, O Miranda. Eyes in a blaze, eyes in a daze,Bold with love, cold with amaze,Chaste-thrilling […]

[1]Died of a cat, May, 1878. I. Trillets of humor, — shrewdest whistle-wit, —Contralto cadences of grave desireSuch as from off the passionate Indian pyreDrift down through sandal-odored flames that splitAbout the slim young widow who doth sitAnd sing above, — midnights of tone entire, —Tissues of moonlight shot with songs of fire; —Bright drops […]

[1] Oft as I hear thee, wrapt in heavenly art,The massive message of Beethoven tellWith thy ten fingers to the people’s heartAs if ten tongues told news of heaven and hell, —Gazing on thee, I mark that not alone,Ah, not alone, thou sittest: there, by thee,Beethoven’s self, dear living lord of tone,Doth stand and smile […]

Als du im Saal mit deiner himmlischen KunstBeethoven zeigst, und seinem Willen nachMit den zehn Fingern fuehrst der Leute Gunst,Zehn Zungen sagen was der Meister sprach.Schauend dich an, ich seh’, dass nicht alleinDu sitzest: jetzt herab die Toene ziehnBeethovens Geist: er steht bei dir, ganz rein:Fuer dich mit Vaters Stolz sein’ Augen gluehn:Er sagt, “Ich […]

In o’er-strict calyx lingering,Lay music’s bud too long unblown,Till thou, Beethoven, breathed the spring:Then bloomed the perfect rose of tone. O Psalmist of the weak, the strong,O Troubadour of love and strife,Co-Litanist of right and wrong,Sole Hymner of the whole of life, I know not how, I care not why, —Thy music sets my world […]