I Gazed upon the glorious sky,
And the green mountains round,
And thought that when I came to lie
At rest within the ground,
’T were pleasant that in flowery June,
When brooks send up a cheerful tune,
And groves a cheerful sound,
The sexton’s hand, my grave to make,
The rich, green mountain turf should break.
A...
O Perfect Light, which shaid away
The darkness from the light,
And set a ruler o’er the day,
Another o’er the night—
Thy glory, when the day forth flies,
More vively doth appear,
Than at mid day unto our eyes
The shining sun is clear.
The shadow of the earth anon
Removes and drawis by,
While in the...
I.
tell you what I like the best—
’Long about knee-deep in June,
’Bout the time strawberries melts
On the vines—some afternoon
Like to jes’ git out and rest,
And not work at nothin’ else!
II.
Orchard’s where I’ ruther be—
Needn’t fence it in for me!
Jes’ the whole sky overhead
And the...
With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams
The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,
And the winds are one with the clouds and beams—
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze,
While the west from a rapture of sunset rights,
Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise—
Midsummer nights! O...
O Gentle, gentle summer rain,
Let not the silver lily pine,
The drooping lily pine in vain
To feel that dewy touch of thine,—
To drink thy freshness once again,
O gentle, gentle summer rain!
In heat the landscape quivering lies;
The cattle pant beneath the tree;
Through parching air and purple skies
The earth...
How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs!
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!
Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;...
We knew it would rain, for all the morn
A spirit on slender ropes of mist
Was lowering its golden buckets down
Into the vapory amethyst
Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens—
Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers,
Dipping the jewels out of the sea,
To scatter them over the land in showers.
We knew it would rain, for...
Forty Reasons for Not Accepting an Invitation of a Friend to Make an Excursion with Him 1
1 THE HOLLOW winds begin to blow;
2 The clouds look black, the glass is low,
3 The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep,
4 And spiders from their cobwebs peep.
5 Last night the sun went pale to bed,
6 The moon in halos hid her head;
7 The...
UNTREMULOUS in the river clear,
Toward the sky’s image, hangs the imaged bridge;
So still the air that I can hear
The slender clarion of the unseen midge;
Out of the stillness, with a gathering creep,
Like rising wind in leaves, which now decreases,
Now lulls, now swells, and all the while increases,
The huddling trample of a...
The Rain has ceased, and in my room
The sunshine pours an airy flood;
And on the church’s dizzy vane
The ancient Cross is bathed in blood.
From out the dripping ivy-leaves,
Antiquely carven, gray and high,
A dormer, facing westward, looks
Upon the village like an eye.
And now it glimmers in the sun,
A square of gold, a...
