The Colonel rode by his picket-line
In the pleasant morning sun,
That glanced from him far off to shine
On the crouching rebel picket’s gun.
From his command the captain strode
Out with a grave salute,
And talked with the colonel as he rode...
I.
she hung the cage at the window,
“If he goes by,” she said,
“He will hear my robin singing,
And when he lifts his head,
I shall be sitting here to sew,
And he will bow to me, I know.”
The robin sang a love-sweet song,
The...
If i lay waste and wither up with doubt
The blessed fields of heaven where once my faith
Possessed itself serenely safe from death;
If I deny the things past finding out;
Or if I orphan my own soul of One
That seemed a Father, and make void the place...
Before him weltered like a shoreless sea
The souls of them that had not sought to be,
With all their guilt upon them, and they cried,
They that had sinned from hate and lust and pride,
“Thou that didst make us what we might become,
Judge us!” The Judge of...
Within a poor man’s squalid home I stood:
The one bare chamber, where his work-worn wife
Above the stove and wash-tub passed her life,
Next the sty where they slept with all their brood.
But I saw not that sunless, breathless lair,
The chamber’s sagging...
We sailed and sailed upon the desert sea
Where for whole days we alone seemed to be.
At last we saw a dim, vague line arise
Between the empty billows and the skies,
That grew and grew until it wore the shape
Of cove and inlet, promontory and cape;
...
Yes, death is at the bottom of the cup,
And every one that lives must drink it up;
And yet between the sparkle at the top
And the black lees where lurks that bitter drop,
There swims enough good liquor, Heaven knows,
To ease our hearts of all their other...
Sometimes, when after spirited debate
Of letters or affairs, in thought I go
Smiling unto myself, and all aglow
With some immediate purpose, and elate
As if my little, trivial scheme were great,
And what I would so were already so:
Suddenly I think...
Innocent spirits, bright, immaculate ghosts!
Why throng your heavenly hosts,
As eager for their birth
In this sad home of death, this sorrow-haunted earth?
Beware! Beware! Content you where you are,
And shun this evil star,
Where we who are...
The colonel rode by his picket-line
In the pleasant morning sun,
That glanced from him far off to shine
On the crouching rebel picket’s gun.
From his command the captain strode
Out with a grave salute,
And talked with the colonel as he rode...
