Men! whose boast it is that ye

That dreamed some exiled artist from his painBack to his Athens and the Muse’s clime,So these world-orphaned waifs of Want and Crime,Purged by Art’s absolution from the stainOf the polluting city-flood, regainIdeal grace secure from taint of time.An Attic frieze you give, a pictured song;For as with words the poet paints, for youThe happy pencil…

But thou, O Memory, pourestNo magical dropp in mine eye,Nor the gleam of the secret restorestThat hath faded from earth and sky:A Presence autumnal and soberInvests every rock and tree,And the aureole of OctoberLights the maples, but darkens me.Pine in the distance,Patient through sun or rain,Meeting with graceful persistence,With yielding but rooted resistance,The northwind’s wrench…

I had not a friend nor a toy,But I had Aladdin’s lamp;When I could not sleep for the cold,I had fire enough in my brain,And builded, with roofs of gold,My beautiful castles in Spain!Since then I have toiled day and night,I have money and power good store,But I’d give all my lamps of silver brightFor…

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…

‘twuz the day our new nation gut kin’ o’ stillborn,So ‘twuz my pleasant dooty t’ acknowledge the corn,An’ I see clearly then, ef I didn’t before,Thet the _augur_ in inauguration means _bore_.I needn’t tell _you_ thet my messige wuz writtenTo diffuse correc’ notions in France an’ Gret Britten,An’ agin to impress on the poppylar mindThe…

Shaped out of snow and breathed with eastern wind;Or if, o’er-confident, she trust the date,And, with her handful of anemones,Herself as shivery, steal into the sun,The season need but turn his hour-glass round,And Winter suddenly, like crazy Lear,Reels back, and brings the dead May in his arms,Her budding breasts and wan dislustred frontWith frosty streaks…

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;…

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,…

Her glorious fancies come from far,Beneath the silver evening-star,And yet her heart is ever near.Great feelings has she of her own,Which lesser souls may never know;God giveth them to her alone,And sweet they are as any toneWherewith the wind may choose to blow.Yet in herself she dwelleth not,Although no home were half so fair;No simplest…

And patient Time, while Nature slept,The slender tracing turned to stone.’T was the first autograph: and ours?Prithee, how much of prose or song,In league with the creative powers,Shall ’scape Oblivion’s broom so long.

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…

The same whose vigor westward thrills,Bursting Nevada’s silver chains,Poured here upon the April grass,Freckled with red the herbage new;On reeled the battle’s trampling mass,Back to the ash the bluebird flew.Poured here in vain;-that sturdy bloodWas meant to make the earth more green,But in a higher, gentler moodThan broke this April noon serene;Two graves are here:…