Ellen Mackay Hutchinson Cortissoz

  • Sweet, sweet, sweet,
      Is the wind’s song,
    Astir in the rippled wheat
      All day long.
    It hath the brook’s wild gayety,
    The sorrowful cry of the sea.
      Oh hush and hear!
      Sweet, sweet and clear,
      Above the locust’s whirr
      ...

  • The tide slips up the silver sand,
      Dark night and rosy day;
    It brings sea-treasures to the land,
      Then bears them all away.
    On mighty shores from east to west
    It wails, and gropes, and cannot rest.

    O Tide, that still doth ebb and flow...

  • Come down, ye graybeard mariners,
      Unto the wasting shore!
    The morning winds are up,—the gods
      Bid me to dream no more.
    Come tell me whither I must sail,
      What peril there may be,
    Before I take my life in hand
      And venture out to sea!...

  • “dame, how the moments go—
      And the bride is not ready!
    Call all her tiring maids,
      Paul, Jean, and Thedie.
    Is this your robe, my dear?
      Faith, but she ’s steady!
    The bridegroom is blest who gets
      Such a brave lady.”

    “Pardi!...

  • More shy than the shy violet,
      Hiding when the wind doth pass,
      Nestled in the nodding grass,
    With morning mist all wet,
      In open woodland ways
      The Quaker Lady strays.
    Pale as noonday cloudlets are,
      Floating in the blue,
    This...

  • The fresh, bright bloom of the daffodils
      Makes gold in the garden bed,
    Gold that is like the sunbeams
      Loitering overhead.
          Bloom, bloom
    In the sun and the wind,—
    April hath a fickle mind.

    The budding twigs of the sweetbrier...

  •   the fair Pamela came to town,
        To London town, in early summer;
      And up and down and round about
        The beaux discussed the bright new-comer,
    With “Gadzooks, sir,” and “Ma’am, my duty,”
    And “Odds my life, but ’t is a Beauty!”

      To Ranelagh...

  • I and my cousin Wildair met
      And tossed a pot together;—
    Burnt sack it was that Molly brewed,
      For it was nipping weather.
    ’Fore George! To see Dick buss the wench
      Set all the inn folk laughing!
    They dubbed him pearl of cavaliers
      At...

  • Memory cannot linger long,
      Joy must die the death.
    Hope’s like a little silver song
      Fading in a breath.
    So wags the weary world away
      Forever and a day.

    But love, that sweetest madness,
    Leaps and grows in toil and sadness,
    ...

  • On kingston Bridge the starlight shone
      Through hurrying mists in shrouded glow;
    The boding night-wind made its moan,
      The mighty river crept below.
      ’T was All Souls’ night, and to and fro
    The quick and dead together walked,
    The quick and dead...