From “Sonnets in Shadow”
THERE is such power even in smallest things
To bring the dear past back; a flower’s tint,
A snatch of some old song, the fleeting glint
Of sunbeams on the wave—each vivid brings
The lost days up, as from the idle strings...
Three horsemen galloped the dusty way
While sun and moon were both in the sky;
An old crone crouched in the cactus’ shade,
And craved an alms as they rode by.
A friendless hag she seemed to be,
But the queen of a bandit crew was she.
...
Pale beryl sky, with clouds
Hued like dove’s wing,
O’ershadowing
The dying day,
And whose edge half enshrouds
The first fair evening star,
Most crystalline by far
Of all the stars that night enring,
...
Three horsemen galloped the dusty way
While sun and moon were both in the sky;
An old crone crouched in the cactus’ shade,
And craved an alms as they rode by.
A friendless hag she seemed to be,
But the queen of a bandit crew was she.
...
We must be nobler for our dead, be sure,
Than for the quick. We might their living eyes
Deceive with gloss of seeming; but all lies
Were vain to cheat a prescience spirit-pure.
Our soul’s true worth and aim, however poor,
They see who watch us from some...
Like to a coin, passing from hand to hand,
Are common memories, and day by day
The sharpness of their impress wears away.
But love’s remembrances unspoiled with-stand
The touch of time, as in an antique land
Where some proud town old centuries did slay,...
I
kitty’s laugh
thy laugh’s a song an oriole trilled,
Romping in glee the sky,—
Sunshine in lucent drops distilled,
And showered from on high.
So perfect in his song thou art,
That when thy laughter rings
I long to clasp thee...
Over the plains where Persian hosts
Laid down their lives for glory
Flutter the cyclamens, like ghosts
That witness to their story.
Oh, fair! Oh, white! Oh, pure as snow!
On countless graves how sweet they grow!
Or crimson, like the cruel...
“o pitying angel, pause, and say
To me, new come to Paradise,
How I may drive one pain away
By penitence or sacrifice.
From deeps below of nether Hell
I hear a lost soul’s bitter cry:
Alas! It was through me she fell,—
What price...
For, o America, our country!—land
Hid in the west through centuries, till men
Through countless tyrannies could understand
The priceless worth of freedom,—once again
The world was new-created when thy shore
First knew the Pilgrim keels, that one last...
