such is the death the soldier dies:
He falls,—the column speeds away;
Upon the dabbled grass he lies,
His brave heart following, still, the fray.
The smoke-wraiths drift among the trees,
The battle storms along the hill;
The glint of distant arms he sees;
He hears his comrades shouting still.
A glimpse of far-borne...
Broad bars of sunset-slanted gold
Are laid along the field, and here
The silence sings, as if some old
Refrain, that once rang long and clear,
Came softly, stealing to the ear
Without the aid of sound. The rill
Is voiceless, and the grass is sere,
But beauty’s soul abideth still.
Trance-like, the mellow air doth hold...
For, o America, our country!—land
Hid in the west through centuries, till men
Through countless tyrannies could understand
The priceless worth of freedom,—once again
The world was new-created when thy shore
First knew the Pilgrim keels, that one last test
The race might make of manhood, nor give o’er
The strife with evil till it...
“o pitying angel, pause, and say
To me, new come to Paradise,
How I may drive one pain away
By penitence or sacrifice.
From deeps below of nether Hell
I hear a lost soul’s bitter cry:
Alas! It was through me she fell,—
What price forgetfulness may buy?”
The passing angel paused in flight,
Poised like fair stars...
Over the plains where Persian hosts
Laid down their lives for glory
Flutter the cyclamens, like ghosts
That witness to their story.
Oh, fair! Oh, white! Oh, pure as snow!
On countless graves how sweet they grow!
Or crimson, like the cruel wounds
From which the life-blood, flowing,
Poured out where now on grassy mounds...
I
kitty’s laugh
thy laugh’s a song an oriole trilled,
Romping in glee the sky,—
Sunshine in lucent drops distilled,
And showered from on high.
So perfect in his song thou art,
That when thy laughter rings
I long to clasp thee to my heart,
Lest, too, thou have his wings!
II
KITTY’S “NO”
Kit,...
Like to a coin, passing from hand to hand,
Are common memories, and day by day
The sharpness of their impress wears away.
But love’s remembrances unspoiled with-stand
The touch of time, as in an antique land
Where some proud town old centuries did slay,
Intaglios buried lie, still in decay
Perfect and precious spite of grinding sand....
We must be nobler for our dead, be sure,
Than for the quick. We might their living eyes
Deceive with gloss of seeming; but all lies
Were vain to cheat a prescience spirit-pure.
Our soul’s true worth and aim, however poor,
They see who watch us from some deathless skies
With glance death-quickened. That no sad surprise
Sting them in seeing...
Three horsemen galloped the dusty way
While sun and moon were both in the sky;
An old crone crouched in the cactus’ shade,
And craved an alms as they rode by.
A friendless hag she seemed to be,
But the queen of a bandit crew was she.
One horseman tossed her a scanty dole,
A scoffing couplet the second trolled;
But...
Pale beryl sky, with clouds
Hued like dove’s wing,
O’ershadowing
The dying day,
And whose edge half enshrouds
The first fair evening star,
Most crystalline by far
Of all the stars that night enring,
Half human in its ray,—
What blessed, soothing sense of calm
Comes with this twilight,—...
