• Oh, what a set of Vagabundos,
      Sons of Neptune, sons of Mars,
    Raked from todos otros mundos,
      Lascars, Gascons, Portsmouth tars,
    Prison mate and dock-yard fellow,
      Blades to Meg and Molly dear,
    Off to capture Porto Bello
      Sailed with Morgan the Buccaneer!

    Out they voyaged from Port Royal
    (Fathoms deep its ruins be,...

  • That sovereign thought obscured? That vision clear
      Dimmed in the shadow of the sable wing,
      And fainter grown the fine interpreting
    Which as an oracle was ours to hear!
    Nay, but the Gods reclaim not from the seer
      Their gift,—although he ceases here to sing,
      And, like the antique sage, a covering
    Draws round his head, knowing what...

  • When the veil from the eyes is lifted
      The seer’s head is gray;
    When the sailor to shore has drifted
      The sirens are far away.
    Why must the clearer vision,
      The wisdom of Life’s late hour,
    Come, as in Fate’s derision,
      When the hand has lost its power?
    Is there a rarer being,
      Is there a fairer sphere
    Where...

  • Give me to die unwitting of the day,
    And stricken in Life’s brave heat, with senses clear:
    Not swathed and couched until the lines appear
    Of Death’s wan mask upon this withering clay,
    But as that old man eloquent made way
    From Earth, a nation’s conclave hushed anear;
    Or as the chief whose fates, that he may hear
    The victory, one glorious...

  •     where broods the Absolute,
        Or shuns our long pursuit
    By fiery utmost pathways out of ken?
        Fleeter than sunbeams, lo,
        Our passionate spirits go,
    And traverse immemorial space, and then
      Look off, and look in vain, to find
    The master-clew to all they left behind.

        White orbs like angels pass
        Before...

  • Thou,—whose endearing hand once laid in sooth
    Upon thy follower, no want thenceforth,
    Nor toil, nor joy and pain, nor waste of years
    Filled with all cares that deaden and subdue,
    Can make thee less to him—can make thee less
    Than sovereign queen, his first liege, and his last
    Remembered to the unconscious dying hour,—
    Return and be thou...

  • When the veil from the eyes is lifted
      The seer’s head is gray;
    When the sailor to shore has drifted
      The sirens are far away.
    Why must the clearer vision,
      The wisdom of Life’s late hour,
    Come, as in Fate’s derision,
      When the hand has lost its power?
    Is there a rarer being,
      Is there a fairer sphere
    Where...

  •             COULD we but know
    The land that ends our dark, uncertain travel,
      Where lie those happier hills and meadows low;
    Ah! if beyond the spirit’s inmost cavil
      Aught of that country could we surely know,
                Who would not go?

                Might we but hear
    The hovering angels’ high imagined chorus,
      Or catch,...

  • The Sunlight fills the trembling air,
      And balmy days their guerdons bring;
    The Earth again is young and fair,
      And amorous with musky Spring.

    The golden nurslings of the May
      In splendor strew the spangled green,
    And hues of tender beauty play,
      Entangled where the willows lean.

    Mark how the rippled currents flow;...

  • Just where the Treasury’s marble front
      Looks over Wall Street’s mingled nations;
    Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont
      To throng for trade and last quotations;
    Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold
      Outrival, in the ears of people,
    The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled
      From Trinity’s undaunted steeple,—

    Even there I heard...