Nor strive to shrink or swell mine own desert,
Nor beautify nor hide. For this I know,
That even as I am, thou also art.
Thou past heroic forms unmoved shalt go,
To pause and bide with me, to whisper low:
‘Not I alone am weak, not I apart
Must suffer, struggle, conquer day by day.
Here is my very cross by strangers borne,
Here is my bosom-sin wherefrom I pray
Hourly deliverance–this my rose, my thorn.
This woman my soul’s need can understand,
Stretching o’er silent gulfs her sister hand.’
Glad, friendly festal faces everywhere.She, rapt from all in this unearthly hour,With cloudlike, cast-back veil and faint-flushed cheek,In bridal beauty moves as in a tranceAlone with him, and fears to breathe, to speak,Lest the rare, subtle spell dissolve perchance.But he upon that floral head looks down,Noting the misty eyes, the grave sweet brow–Doubts if her…
Neither dreading and fearing the morrow,Nor vainly bemoaning the past!Shall we give them our envy or pity?Shall we shun or yearn after such rest,So calm near the turbulent city,With their heart stilled at length in their breast?They all sleep with their heads lying westward,Where all suns and all days have gone down.Do they long for…
Palace and Pyramid; the brimming tideOf lavish Nile washed all his land with gold.Armies of slaves toiled ant-wise at his feet,World-circling traffic roared through mart and street,His priests were gods, his spice-balmed kings enshrined,Set death at naught in rock-ribbed charnels deep.Seek Pharaoh’s race to-day and ye shall findRust and the moth, silence and dusty sleep.‘O…
With uttered praise & love, & oft repeatHis all-familiar words with whispered awe.The honored habit of his daily law,Not for his sake, but theirs whose feeble feetNeed still that guiding lamp, whose faith, less sweet,Misses that tempered patience without flaw,So do we gather round thy vacant chair,In thine own elm-roofed, amber-rivered town,Master & Father! For…
What maketh ye so dear to all?Nor bud, nor flower, nor fruit have ye,So tiny, it can only be‘Mongst fairies ye are counted tall.No beauty is in this,— ah, yea,E’en as I gaze on you to-day,Your hue and fragrance bear me backInto the green, wide fields of old,With clear, blue air, and manifoldBright buds and…
From gray-blue east sheer to the yellow west-No film of mist the utmost slopes to shroud.The earth lies grace, by quiet airs caressed,And shepherdeth her shadows, but each stream,Free to the sky, is by that glow possessed,And traileth with the splendors of a dreamAthwart the dusky land. Uplift thine eyes!Unbroken by a vapor or a…
