i cannot make him dead!
    His fair sunshiny head
Is ever bounding round my study-chair;
    Yet, when my eyes, now dim
    With tears, I turn to him,
The vision vanishes—he is not there!

    I walk my parlor floor,
    And through...

Her ways were gentle while a babe,
  With calm and tranquil eye,
That turned instinctively to seek
  The blueness of the sky.
A holy smile was on her lip
  Whenever sleep was there;
She slept, as sleeps the blossom, hushed
  Amid the silent...

As doth his heart who travels far from home
Leap up whenever he by chance doth see
One from his mother-country lately come,
Friend from my home—thus do I welcome thee.
Thou art so late arrived that I the tale
Of thy high lineage on thy brow can trace,...

Even as tender parents lovingly
Send a dear child in some true servant’s care
Forth in the street, for larger light and air,
Feeling the sun her guardian will be,
And dreaming with a blushful pride that she
Will earn sweet smiles and glances every-where,...

I wish I were the little key
  That locks Love’s Captive in,
And lets Him out to go and free
  A sinful heart from sin.

I wish I were the little bell
  That tinkles for the Host,
When God comes down each day to dwell
  With hearts He...

Her voice was like the song of birds;
    Her eyes were like the stars;
Her little waving hands were like
    Birds’ wings that beat the bars.

And when those waving hands were still,—
    Her soul had fled away,—
The music faded from the air,...

I
long, long before the Babe could speak,
When he would kiss his mother’s cheek
    And to her bosom press,
The brightest angels standing near
Would turn away to hide a tear—
    For they are motherless.

II
WHERE were ye, Birds,...

About her head or floating feet
  No halo’s starry gleam,
Still dark and swift uprising, like
  A bubble in a stream,—

A soul, from whose rejoicing heart
  The bonds of earth were riven,
Sped upward through the silent night
  To the...

What, are you hurt, Sweet? So am I;
    Cut to the heart;
Though I may neither moan nor cry,
    To ease the smart.

Where was it, Love? Just here! So wide
    Upon your cheek!
Oh happy pain that needs no pride,
    And may dare speak....

Do you remember, my sweet, absent son,
How in the soft June days forever done
You loved the heavens so warm and clear and high;
And, when I lifted you, soft came your cry,—
“Put me ’way up,—’way, ’way up in blue sky”?
I laughed and said I could not,—set...