O The DAYS gone by! O the days gone by!
The apples in the orchard, and the pathway through the rye;
The chirrup of the robin, and the whistle of the quail
As he piped across the meadows sweet as any nightingale;
When the bloom was on the clover, and the blue was in the sky,
And my happy heart brimmed over, in the days gone by.
In the days gone...
Romance
YOU bells in the steeple, ring out your changes,
How many soever they be,
And let the brown meadow-lark’s note as he ranges
Come over, come over to me.
Yet birds’ clearest carol by fall or by swelling
No magical sense conveys,
And bells have forgotten their old art of telling
The fortune of future days.
My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray;
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you
For every day.
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:
And so make life, death, and that vast forever
One grand,...
Oh, did you see him riding down,
And riding down, while all the town
Came out to see, came out to see,
And all the bells rang mad with glee?
Oh, did you hear those bells ring out,
The bells ring out, the people shout,
And did you hear that cheer on cheer
That over all the bells rang clear?
And did you see the waving flags,...
A Public haunt they found her in:
She lay asleep, a lovely child;
The only thing left undefiled
Where all things else bore taint of sin.
Her charming contours fixed in clay
The universal law suspend,
And turn Time’s chariot back, and blend
A thousand years with yesterday.
A sinless touch, austere yet warm,...
It is the season now to go
About the country high and low,
Among the lilacs hand in hand,
And two by two in fairy land.
The brooding boy, the sighing maid,
Wholly fain and half afraid,
Now meet along the hazelled brook
To pass and linger, pause and look.
A year ago, and blithely paired,
Their rough-and-tumble play they...
Sweet stream, that winds through yonder glade,
Apt emblem of a virtuous maid,—
Silent and chaste she steals along,
Far from the world’s gay, busy throng;
With gentle yet prevailing force,
Intent upon her destined course;
Graceful and useful all she does,
Blessing and blest where’er she goes;
Pure-bosomed as that watery glass,...
Suggested by a Picture by Mr. Romney
THIS relative of mine,
Was she seventy-and-nine
When she died?
By the canvas may be seen
How she looked at seventeen,
As a bride.
Beneath a summer tree,
Her maiden reverie
Has a charm;
Her ringlets are in taste;
What an arm!… what a waist
For an arm!...
From “Saga of the Oaks and other Poems”
FROM some sweet home, the morning train
Brings to the city,
Five days a week, in sun or rain,
Returning like a song’s refrain,
A school girl pretty.
A wild flower’s unaffected grace
Is dainty miss’s;
Yet in her shy, expressive face
The touch of urban arts I...
Maiden! with the meek brown eyes,
In whose orbs a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!
Thou whose locks outshine the sun,-
Golden tresses wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!
Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
Gazing, with a timid glance,...
