How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

What I have missed with what attained,Little room do I find for pride.I am awareHow many days have been idly spent;How like an arrow the good intentHas fallen short or been turned aside.But who shall dareTo measure loss and gain in this wise?Defeat may be victory in disguise;The lowest ebb is the turn of the…

Whatever road man chooses, FateStill holds him subject to her breath.Spun of all silks, our days and nightsHave sorrows woven with delights;And of this intermingled shadeOur various destiny appears,Even as one sees the course of yearsOf summers and of winters made.Sometimes the soft, deceitful hoursLet us enjoy the halcyon wave;Sometimes impending peril lowersBeyond the seaman’s…

Wake the better soul, that slumbered,To a holy, calm delight;Ere the evening lamps are lighted,And, like phantoms grim and tall,Shadows from the fitful firelightDance upon the parlor wall;Then the forms of the departedEnter at the open door;The beloved, the true-hearted,Come to visit me once more;He, the young and strong, who cherishedNoble longings for the strife,By…

I turn and set my back against the wall,And look thee in the face, triumphant Death,I call for aid, and no one answereth;I am alone with thee, who conquerest all;Yet me thy threatening form doth not appall,For thou art but a phantom and a wraith.Wounded and weak, sword broken at the hilt,With armor shattered, and…

All is so quiet; the troubled breast,The wounded spirit, the heart oppressed,Here may find the repose it craves.See, how the ivy climbs and expandsOver this humble hermitage,And seems to caress with its little handsThe rough, gray stones, as a child that standsCaressing the wrinkled cheeks of age!You cross the threshold; and dim and smallIs the…

From the harbor of Mazatlan?To them it is nothing moreThan the sound of surf on the shore,–Nothing more to master or man.But to me, a dreamer of dreams,To whom what is and what seemsAre often one and the same,–The Bells of San Blas to meHave a strange, wild melody,And are something more than a name.For…

All things are passing;God never changeth;Patient enduranceAttaineth to all things;Who God possessethIn nothing is wanting;Alone God sufficeth.

And, where the maple’s leaf was brown,With soft and silent lapse came down,The glory, that the wood receives,At sunset, in its golden leaves.Far upward in the mellow lightRose the blue hills. One cloud of white,Around a far uplifted cone,In the warm blush of evening shone;An image of the silver lakes,By which the Indian’s soul awakes.But…

When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,Stars, that in earth’s firmament do shine.Stars they are, wherein we read our history,As astrologers and seers of eld;Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,Like the burning stars, which they beheld.Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,God hath written in those stars above;But not less in the bright…

Half willing, half reluctant to be led,And leave his broken playthings on the floor,Still gazing at them through the open door,Nor wholly reassured and comfortedBy promises of others in their stead,Which though more splendid, may not please him more;So Nature deals with us, and takes awayOur playthings one by one, and by the handLeads us…

I said in my heart, with horse and man,I will swim across this shallow flood.Under the feet of Argamack,Like new moons were the shoes he bare,Silken trappings hung on his back,In a talisman on his neck, a prayer.My warriors, thought I, are following me;But when I looked behind, alas!Not one of all the band could…

And the Sea said, ‘Lo, I breathe! but my breathTo some will be life, to others death!’As to Prometheus, bringing easeIn pain, come the Oceanides,So to the City, hot with the flameOf the pitiless sun, the east wind came.It came from the heaving breast of the deep,Silent as dreams are, and sudden as sleep.Life-giving, death-giving,…