O Thou who lovest not alone
The swift success, the instant goal,
But hast a lenient eye to mark
The failures of th’ inconstant soul,
Consider not my little worth,—
The mean achievement, scamped in act,
The high resolve and low result,
The dream that durst not face the fact.
But count the reach of my desire.
Let this be...
O Thou who hast beneath Thy hand
The dark foundations of the land,—
The motion of whose ordered thought
An instant universe hath wrought,—
Who hast within Thine equal heed
The rolling sun, the ripening seed,
The azure of the speedwell’s eye,
The vast solemnities of sky,—
Who hear’st no less the feeble note
Of one small...
In the wide awe and wisdom of the night
I saw the round world rolling on its way,
Beyond significance of depth or height,
Beyond the interchange of dark and day.
I marked the march to which is set no pause,
And that stupendous orbit, round whose rim
The great sphere sweeps, obedient unto laws
That utter the eternal thought...
When the gray lake-water rushes
Past the dripping alder-bushes,
And the bodeful autumn wind
In the fir-tree weeps and hushes,—
When the air is sharply damp
Round the solitary camp,
And the moose-bush in the thicket
Glimmers like a scarlet lamp,—
When the birches twinkle yellow,
And the cornel bunches mellow,...
I Hear the low wind wash the softening snow,
The low tide loiter down the shore. The night,
Full filled with April forecast hath no light.
The salt wave on the sedge-flat pulses slow.
Through the hid furrows lisp in murmurous flow
The thaw’s shy ministers; and hark! The height
Of heaven grows weird and loud with unseen flight
Of strong...
From “Ariadne”
HUNG like a rich pomegranate o’er the sea
The ripened moon; along the trancèd sand
The feather-shadowed ferns drooped dreamfully;
The solitude’s evading harmony
Mingled remotely over sea and land;
A light wind woke and whispered warily,
And myriad ripples tinkled on the strand.
O Child of Nations, giant-limbed,
Who stand’st among the nations now,
Unheeded, unadored, unhymned,
With unanointed brow:
How long the ignoble sloth, how long
The trust in greatness not thine own?
Surely the lion’s brood is strong
To front the world alone!
How long the indolence, ere thou dare
Achieve thy...
