Whither the brave deed climbs for lightWe seem to do them wrong,Bringing our robin’s-leaf to deck their hearseWho in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse.Our trivial song to honor those who comeWith ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum.And shaped in squadron-strophes their desireLive battle-odes whose lines mere steel and fire:Yet sometimes feathered words are…
For letters, so it seems to me,Our careless quintessence should be,Our real nature’s truant playWhen Consciousness looks t’other way;Not dropp by drop, with watchful skill,Gathered in Art’s deliberate still,But life’s insensible completenessGot as the ripe grape gets its sweetness,As if it had a way to fuseThe golden sunlight into juice.Hopeless my mental pump I try,The…
Moonshine an’ snow on field an’ hill,All silence an’ all glisten.Zekle crep’ up quite unbeknownAn’ peeked in thru’ the winder,An’ there sot Huldy all alone,‘Ith no one nigh to hender.A fireplace filled the room’s one sideWith half a cord o’ wood in—There warn’t no stoves (tell comfort died)To bake ye to a puddin’.The wa’nut logs…
That first the woods and fields my youth enticed,And I was sure to find him there:The temple I forsook,And to the solitudeAllegiance paid; but Winter came and shookThe crown and purple from my wood;His snows, like desert sands, with scornful drift,Besieged the columned aisle and palace-gate;My Thebes, cut deep with many a solemn rift,But epitaphed…
A lily-bud not opened quite,That hourly grew more pure and white,By morning, and noontide, and evening nursed:In all of nature thou hadst thy share;Thou wast waited onBy the wind and sun;The rain and the dew for thee took care;It seemed thou never couldst be more fair.A lily thou wast when I saw thee first,A lily-bud;…
Which he may find who duly sifts.Sweets to the sweet,—behold the clue!Why not, then, new things to the gnu,And trews to Highland clansmen true?‘Twas thus your kindly thought decreedThese weeds to one who is indeed,And feels himself, a very weed,—A weed from which, when bruised and shent,Though some faint perfume may be rent,Yet oftener much…
Of bisons the far prairie shaking,The notes crowd heavily and fastAs surfs, one plunging while the lastDraws seaward from its foamy breaking.Or in low murmurs they began,Rising and rising momently,As o’er a harp AEolianA fitful breeze, until they ranUp to a sudden ecstasy.And then, like minute-drops of rainRinging in water silvery,They lingering dropped and dropped…
Whose slender hands were nothing worth,Whether to plow, to reap, or sow.Upon an empty tortoise-shellHe stretched some chords, and drewMusic that made men’s bosoms swellFearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew.Then King Admetus, one who hadPure taste by right divine,Decreed his singing not too badTo hear between the cups of wineAnd so, well-pleased with being…
The Magi mused, ‘more bright than morn?’And voices chanted clear and sweet,‘To-day the Prince of Peace is born!’‘What means that star,’ the Shepherds said,‘That brightens through the rocky glen?’And angels, answering overhead,Sang, ‘Peace on earth, good-will to men!’‘Tis eighteen hundred years and moreSince those sweet oracles were dumb;We wait for Him, like them of yore;Alas,…
Of some enchanted ocean,O’er the wide marsh doth glide,Spreading its ghost-like billowsSilently far and wide.A vague and starry magicMakes all things mysteries,And lures the earth’s dumb spiritUp to the longing skies:I seem to hear dim whispers,And tremulous replies.The fireflies o’er the meadowIn pulses come and go;The elm-trees’ heavy shadowWeighs on the grass below;And faintly from…
