With oaken staff and swinging lantern bright,
  He strolls at midnight when the world is still
Through dismal lanes and plazas plumed with light,
  Guarding the drowsy thousands in Seville.

Gazing upon his ever star-thronged sky,
  With careless step he...

A Free Paraphrase of the German
TO weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God’s meekest Angel gently comes:
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost again;
And yet in tenderest love our dear
And heavenly Father sends him here.

...

It came upon the midnight clear,
    That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth
    To touch their harps of gold:
“Peace to the earth, good-will to men
    From heaven’s all-gracious King!”
The world in solemn stillness lay...

   [In Ireland they have a pretty fancy that when a child smiles in its sleep it is “talking with angels.”]

        A BABY was sleeping;
        Its mother was weeping;
For her husband was far on the wild raging sea;
        And the tempest was swelling...

O The GALLANT fisher’s life,
  It is the best of any!
’T is full of pleasure, void of strife,
  And ’t is beloved by many;
      Other joys
      Are but toys;
      Only this
      Lawful is;
      For our skill
      ...

Love knoweth every form of air,
  And every shape of earth,
And comes, unbidden, everywhere,
  Like thought’s mysterious birth.
The moonlit sea and the sunset sky
  Are written with Love’s words,
And you hear his voice unceasingly,
  Like...

          “WHO would not go”
With buoyant steps, to gain that blessed portal,
  Which opens to the land we long to know?
Where shall be satisfied the soul’s immortal,
  Where we shall drop the wearying and the woe
          In resting so?

  HERE are old trees, tall oaks and gnarled pines,
That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground
Was never trenched by spade, and flowers spring up
Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet
To linger here, among the flitting birds,
And leaping...