Far, far away, beyond a hazy height,
The turquoise skies are hung in dreamy sleep;
Below, the fields of cotton, fleecy-white,
Are spreading like a mighty flock of sheep.
Now, like Aladdin of the days of old,
October robes the weeds in purple gowns;
He Sprinkles all the sterile fields with gold,
And all the rustic trees wear...
He who hath loved hath borne a vassal’s chain,
And worn the royal purple of a king;
Hath shrunk beneath the icy Winter’s sting,
Then revelled in the golden Summer’s reign;
He hath within the dust and ashes lain,
Then soared o’er mountains on an eagle’s wing;
A hut hath slept in, worn with wandering,
And hath been lord of castle-towers in...
Says stonewall Jackson to “Little Phil:” “Phil, have you heard the news?
Why, our ‘Joe’ Wheeler—‘Fighting Joe’—has gone and joined the blues.
“Ay, no mistake—I saw him come—I heard the oath he took—
And you ’ll find it duly entered up in yon great Record Book.
“Yes, ‘Phil,’ it is a change since then (we give the Lord due thanks)
When ‘Joe’ came...
Admiral, Admiral, sailing home—
Sailing home through the far, dim seas,
Know you the sound that over the foam
Rises and sinks in the sunset breeze?
Know you the thrill and know you the start
That pulses and runs through the wind and the spray,
Pulses and runs from a nation’s heart
To meet you and greet you over the way...
A Cheer and salute for the Admiral, and here ’s to the Captain bold,
And never forget the Commodore’s debt when the deeds of might are told!
They stand to the deck through the battle’s wreck when the great shells roar and screech—
And never they fear when the foe is near to practice what they preach:
But off with your hat and three times three for Columbia’s...
Where Helen comes, as falls the dew,
Where Helen comes Peace cometh too!
From out the golden, western lands,
White lilies blooming in her lands,
A light of beauty in her face,
She passeth on with nameless grace.
Before her fly the shades of life—
The darking, wheeling bats of strife—
They flee her very garments’ stir,
And...
Upon Nirwána’s brink the ráhat stood;
Beneath him rolled the Ocean of the All:
Responsive flowed the current of his blood
To meet the tidal call—
Save one red drop within his mortal veins
Wherein the image of Zuleika shone;
He gazed a moment on Nirwána’s gains—
And Earthward he was gone!
A Beam of light, from the infinite depths of the midnight sky,
Painted with infinite love a star in a convict’s eye;
When, lo! the ghosts of his sins were afraid and fled with a curse,
And the soul of the man walked free in the fields of the universe!
O Nightingale, the poet’s bird,
A kinsman dear thou art,
Who never sings so well as when
The rose-thorns bruise his heart.
But since thy agony can make
A listening world so blest,
Be sure it cares but little for
Thy wounded, bleeding breast!
Brown earth-line meets gray heaven,
And all the land looks sad;
But Love ’s the little leaven
That works the whole world glad.
Sigh, bitter win; lower, frore clouds of gray:
My Love and I are living now in May!
