Elizabeth Stoddard

  • As one who follows a departing friend,
    Destined to cross the great, dividing sea,
    I watch and follow these departing days,
    That go so grandly, lifting up their crowns
    Still regal, though their victor Autumn comes.
    Gifts they bestow, which I accept, return...

  • I feel the breath of the summer night,
        Aromatic fire:
    The trees, the vines, the flowers are astir
        With tender desire.

    The white moths flutter about the lamp,
        Enamoured with light;
    And a thousand creatures softly sing
        A...

  • Stop on the Appian Way,
      In the Roman Campagna;
      Stop at my tomb,
    The tomb of Cecilia Metella.
        To-day as you see it
    Alaric saw it, ages ago,
    When he, with his pale-visaged Goths,
      Sat at the gates of Rome,
      Reading his Runic...

  • Under a sultry, yellow sky,
    On the yellow sand I lie;
    The crinkled vapors smite my brain,
    I smoulder in a fiery pain.

    Above the crags the condor flies;
    He knows where the red gold lies,
    He knows where the diamonds shine;—
    If I knew, would...

  •   in the still, star-lit night,
    By the full fountain and the willow-tree,
      I walked, and not alone—
    A spirit walked with me!

      A shade fell on the grass;
    Upon the water fell a deeper shade:
      Something the willow stirred,
    For to and fro...

  • Now all the flowers that ornament the grass,
    Wherever meadows are and placid brooks,
    Must fall—the “glory of the grass” must fall.
    Year after year I see them sprout and spread,—
    The golden, glossy, tossing buttercups,
    The tall, straight daisies and red...

  • Much have I spoken of the faded leaf;
      Long have I listened to the wailing wind,
    And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds,
      For autumn charms my melancholy mind.

    When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge:
      The year must perish; all the...

  • The poet’s secret I must know,
      If that will calm my restless mind.
    I hail the seasons as they go,
      I woo the sunshine, brave the wind.

    I scan the lily and the rose,
      I nod to every nodding tree,
    I follow every stream that flows,
      And...