Across the gardens of Life they go,
A strange, ill-mated pair;
By paths where naught but blossoms blow,
But paths neglected where gaunt weeds grow,
But hand in hand, through joy, through care,
Across the gardens of Life they go.
The one is old, and grim, and gray:
His eyes stare off, like one in dreams;
Across his breast his...
In each green leaf a memory let lie:
The pain that follows on the heels of bliss
In every thorn; each waft of incense be a sign
For love: each petal of each rose a kiss!
Like some great pearl from out the Orient,
Upheld by unseen hands,—in its rich weight
An offering to adorn a queen’s proud state
That offering to adorn a queen’s proud state
That some dependent princeling did present,—
The moon slow rises into night’s dark tent.
The pulseless air, with longings vague befreight,
Now quickens ’neath her...
Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A flash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!
Blue and crimson and white it shines,
Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines.
Hats off!
The colors before us fly;
But more than the flag is passing by.
Sea-...
OVERLOADED, undermanned,
Trusting to a lee,
Playing I-spy with the land,
Jockeying the sea—
That ’s the way the Coaster goes,
Through calm and hurricane:
Everywhere the tide flows,
Everywhere the wind blows,
From Mexico to Maine.
O East and West! O North and South!
we ply along the...
What has become of the good ship Kite?
Where is her hull of chosen oak?
Who were the Victors, what the Fight?
The old Wives—whom did they invoke,
That should tell them so uncannily:
“Fell through a crack in the Floor of the Sea”?
“Trafficked with death in a cruise fore-done,”
The Preachers drone to the Salem Folk,
When...
Now Camilla’s fair fingers are plucking in rapture the pulsating strings,
And her far-away eyes are intent on the scene and the story she sings—
Singing her song of Felipe, her hero intrepid and true;
Singing his praise, and recounting what deeds for her love he would do.
See the wild race after cattle, the broncho’s wide nostrils blood red;
Hear the...
Ye smooth-faced sons of Jacob, hug close your ingleside;
Guard well the market in its wealth, the palace in its pride!
Oh, blithe it is to wander, and the world is wide!
Hard straining at their cables, the captive vessels ride:
Haul up the prisoning anchor, swing out upon the tide!
Oh, grandly fills the canvas, and the sea is wide!
...
Thou art my very own,
A part of me,
Bone of my bone
And flesh of my flesh.
And thou shalt be
Heart of my heart
And brain of brain—
In years that are to come to me and thee.
Before thou wast a being, made
Of spirit, as of flesh,
Thou didst sleep beneath the beats
Of my tumultuous heart, and drink,
...
Death could not come between us two:
What fear of death could be,
If thou, its shadow passing through,
But turned and looked at me?
Nor yet could pain the vision dim
With misty blur of tears:
The cup now clouded to the brim,
For him who drinketh, clears.
Deep waters could not quench the light,
The tender light...
