Guilty, or Not Guilty?

She stood at the bar of justice,
  A creature wan and wild,
In form too small for a woman,
  In feature too old for a child.
For a look so worn and pathetic
  Was stamped on her pale young face,
It seemed long years of suffering
  Must have...

Poet: Anonymous
The Saddest Fate

    TO touch a broken lute,
      To strike a jangled string,
    To strive with tones forever mute
      The dear old tunes to sing—
What sadder fate could any heart befall?
Alas! dear child, never to sing at all.

    To sigh for pleasures flown...

Poet: Anonymous
Inscription on Melrose Abbey

The Earth goes on the earth glittering in gold,
The earth goes to the earth sooner than it wold;
The earth builds on the earth castles and towers,
The earth says to the earth—All this is ours.
Poet: Anonymous
Fair Helen

I Wish I were where Helen lies;
Night and day on me she cries;
O that I were where Helen lies
    On fair Kirconnell lea!

Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
And curst the hand that fired the shot,
When in my arms burd Helen dropt,...

Poet: Anonymous
Lavender

How prone we are to hide and hoard
Each little treasure time has stored,
    To tell of happy hours!
We lay aside with tender care
A tattered book, a lock of hair,
    A bunch of faded flowers.

When death has led with silent hand
Our...

Poet: Anonymous
To Death

Anonymous Translation from the German

METHINKS it were no pain to die
On such an eve, when such a sky
    O’er-canopies the west;
To gaze my fill on yon calm deep,
And, like an infant, fall asleep
    On Earth, my mother’s breast.

There ’...

Poet: Anonymous
Grief for the Dead

O Hearts that never cease to yearn!
  O brimming tears that ne’er are dried!
The dead, though they depart, return
  As though they had not died!

The living are the only dead;
  The dead live,—nevermore to die;
And often, when we mourn them fled,...

Poet: Anonymous
Watching for Papa

She always stood upon the steps
  Just by the cottage door,
Waiting to kiss me when I came
  Each night home from the store.
Her eyes were like two glorious stars,
  Dancing in heaven’s own blue—
“Papa,” she ’d call like a wee bird,
  “I ’s...

Poet: Anonymous
Peace

There is the peace that cometh after sorrow,
  Of hope surrendered, not of hope fulfilled;
A peace that looketh not upon to-morrow,
  But calmly on a tempest that is stilled.

A peace which lives not now in joy’s excesses,
  Nor in the happy life of love...

Poet: Anonymous
What was his Creed?

   “Religion relates to life, and the life of religion is to do good.”—SWEDENBORG.

HE left a load of anthracite
  In front of a poor woman’s door,
When the deep snow, frozen and white,
  Wrapped street and square, mountain and moor.
      That was his deed...

Poet: Anonymous