Children, do you ever,
In walks by land or sea,
Meet a little maiden
Long time lost to me!
She is gay and gladsome,
Has a laughing face,
And a heart as sunny;
And her name is Grace.
Naught she knows of sorrow,
Naught of doubt or blight;
Heaven is just above her—
All her thoughts are white....
With oaken staff and swinging lantern bright,
He strolls at midnight when the world is still
Through dismal lanes and plazas plumed with light,
Guarding the drowsy thousands in Seville.
Gazing upon his ever star-thronged sky,
With careless step he wanders to and fro;
The gloomy streets reëcho with his cry,
His slow, low, sad,...
Carved by a mighty race whose vanished hands
Formed empires more destructible than I,
In sultry silence I forever lie,
Wrapped in the shifting garment of the sands.
Below me, Pharaoh’s scintillating bands
With clashings of loud cymbals have passed by,
And the eternal reverence of the sky
Falls royally on me and all my lands.
The...
Near strange, weird temples, where the Ganges’ tide
Bathes domed Lahore, I watched, by spice-trees fanned,
Her agile form in some quaint saraband,
A marvel of passionate chastity and pride.
Nude to the loins, superb and leopard-eyed,
With fragrant roses in her jewelled hand,
Before some Kaât-drunk Rajah, mute and grand,
Her flexile body...
Among the priceless gems and treasures rare
Old Versailles shelters in its halls sublime,
I can recall one faded image fair,
A girl’s sad face, praised once in every clime.
Poets have sung, in rich and happy rhyme,
Her violet eyes, the wonder of her hair.
An art-bijou it was, but dimmed by time,
A dreamy pastel of La Valliere!
I,...
Toil on, poor muser, to attain that goal
Where Art conceals its grandest, noblest prize;
Count every tear that dims your aching eyes,
Count all the years that seem as days, and roll
The death-tides slowly on; count all your sighs;
Search the wide, wondrous earth from pole to pole,
Tear unbelief from out your martyred soul;
Succumb not,...
I died; they wrapped me in a shroud,
With hollow mourning, far too loud,
And sighs that were but empty sound,
And laid me low within the ground.
I felt her tears through all the rest;
Past sheet and shroud they reached my breast;
They warmed to life the frozen clay,
And I began to smile and say:
At last thou lov’st me,...
“and this is freedom!” cried the serf; “At last
I tread free soil, the free air blows on me;”
And, wild to learn the sweets of liberty,
With eager hope his bosom bounded fast.
But not for naught had the long years amassed
Habit of slavery; among the free
He still was servile, and, disheartened, he
Crept back to the old bondage of the past...
I bear an unseen burden constantly;
Waking or sleeping I can never thrust
The load aside; through summer’s heat and dust
And winter’s snows it still abides with me.
I cannot let it fall, though I should be
Never so weary; carry it I must.
Nor can the bands that bind it on me rust
Or break, nor ever shall I be set free.
Sometimes ’...
Two angels came through the gate of Heaven.
(White and soft is a mother’s breast!)
Stayed them both by the gate of Heaven;
Rested a little on folded wings,
Spake a little of holy things.
(In Heaven alone is perfect rest!)
Over them rose the golden steeps,
Heaven’s castled and golden steeps;
Under them, depth on depth of...
