O Little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.
For Christ is born of Mary,
And, gathered all above,
While mortals sleep...
Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea,
Why takest thou its melancholy voice?
Why with that brooding cry
O’er the waves dost thou fly?
O, rather, bird, with me
Through the fair land rejoice!
Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale,
As driven by a beating storm at sea;
Thy cry is weak and scared,...
’t Is but a little faded flower,
But oh, how fondly dear!
’T will bring me back one golden hour,
Through many a weary year.
I may not to the world impart
The secret of its power,
But treasured in my inmost heart,
I keep my faded flower.
Where is the heart that doth not keep,
Within its inmost core,
Some...
HALLO!—what?—where, what can it be
That strikes up so deliciously?
I never in my life—what? no!
That little tin box playing so?
It really seemed as if a sprite
Had struck among us swift and light,
And come from some minuter star
To treat us with his pearl guitar.
Hark! It scarcely ends the strain,
But it gives it o’er...
[1853]
AS 1 when, on Carmel’s sterile steep,
The ancient prophet bowed the knee,
And seven times sent his servant forth
To look toward the distant sea;
There came at last a little cloud,
Scarce larger than the human hand,
Spreading and swelling till it broke
In showers on all the herbless land;
And hearts were...
Daddy Neptune, one day, to Freedom did say,
If ever I lived upon dry land,
The spot I should hit on would be little Britain!
Says Freedom, “Why, that ’s my own island!”
O, it ’s a snug little island!
A right little, tight little island!
Search the globe round, none can be found
So happy as this little island....
There were three sailors of Bristol City
Who took a boat and went to sea,
But first with beef and captain’s biscuits
And pickled pork they loaded she.
There was gorging Jack, and guzzling Jimmy,
And the youngster he was little Billee;
Now when they ’d got as far as the Equator,
They ’d nothing left but one split pea.
...
A Pike County View of Special Providence
I DON’T go much on religion,
I never ain’t had no show;
But I ’ve got a middlin’ tight grip, sir,
On the handful o’ things I know.
I don’t pan out on the prophets
And free-will, and that sort o’ thing,—
But believe in God and the angels,
Ever sence one night last spring.
I...
As if some little Arctic flower
Upon the polar hem —
Went wandering down the Latitudes
Until it puzzled came
To continents of summer —
To firmaments of sun —
To strange, bright crowds of flowers —
And birds, of foreign tongue!
I say, As if this little flower
To Eden,...
But little Carmine hath her face —
Of Emerald scant — her Gown —
Her Beauty — is the love she doth —
Itself — exhibit — Mine —
