Anne Reeve Aldrich

  • Thank God that shall judge my soul, not man!
        I marvel when they say,
        “Think of that awful Day
    No pitying fellow-sinner’s eyes shall scan
        With tolerance thy soul,
        But His who knows the whole,
    The God whom all men own is wholly just...

  • I Shall go out when the light comes in—
      There lie my cast-off form and face;
    I shall pass Dawn on her way to earth,
      As I seek for a path through space.

    I shall go out when the light comes in;
      Would I might take one ray with me!
    It is...

  • I Made the cross myself whose weight
      Was later laid on me.
    This thought is torture as I toil
      Up life’s steep Calvary.

    To think mine own hands drove the nails!
      I sang a merry song,
    And chose the heaviest wood I had
      To build it firm...

  • Green blood fresh pulsing through the trees,
      Blacks buds, that sun and shower distend;
    All other things begin anew,
      But I must end.

    Warm sunlight on faint-colored sward,
      Warm fragrance in the breezes’ breath;
    For other things art heat and...

  • How can it be that I forget
      The way he phrased my doom,
    When I recall the arabesques
      That carpeted the room?

    How can it be that I forget
      His look and mien that hour,
    When I recall I wore a rose,
      And still can smell the flower?...

  • I Ask not how thy suffering came,
    Or if by sin, or if by shame,
    Or if by Fate’s capricious rulings:
      To my large pity all’s the same.

    Come close and lean against a heart
    Eaten by pain and stung by smart;
    It is enough if thou hast suffered,—...

  • I Went to dig a grave for Love,
      But the earth was so stiff and cold
    That, though I strove through the bitter night,
      I could not break the mould.

    And I said: “Must he lie in my house in state,
      And stay in his wonted place?
    Must I have him...

  • In thy coach of state
      Pass, O King, along:
    He no envy feels
      To whom God giveth song.

    Starving, still I smile,
      Laugh at want and wrong:
    He is fed and crowned
      To whom God giveth song.

    Better than all pomps
      That...

  • My body answers you, my blood
    Leaps at your maddening, piercing call
    The fierce notes startle, and the veil
    Of this dull present seems to fall.
      My soul responds to that long cry;
      It wants its country, Hungary!

    Not mine by birth. Yet have I...

  • Brown earth-line meets gray heaven,
      And all the land looks sad;
    But Love ’s the little leaven
      That works the whole world glad.
    Sigh, bitter win; lower, frore clouds of gray:
    My Love and I are living now in May!