Speed on, speed on, good Master!
The camp lies far away;
We must cross the haunted valley
Before the close of day.
How the snow-blight came upon me
I will tell you as I go,—
The blight of the Shadow-hunter
Who walks the midnight snow.
To the cold December heaven
Came the pale moon and the stars,
As...
HAMELIN Town ’s in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover City;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin was a pity.
Rats!
They fought the...
Moonlight Song OF THE MOCKING-BIRD
EACH golden note of music greets
The listening leaves, divinely stirred,
As if the vanished soul of Keats
Had found its new birth in a bird.
NIGHT MISTS
SOMETIMES, when Nature falls asleep,
Around her woods and streams
The mists of night serenely creep—
For they are Nature’s dreams....
To the wall of the old green garden
A butterfly quivering came;
His wings on the sombre lichens
Played like a yellow flame.
He looked at the gray geraniums,
And the sleepy four-o’-clocks,
He looked at the low lanes bordered
With the glossy growing box.
He longed for the peace and the silence
And the shadows...
IN 1 eddying course when leaves began to fly,
And Autumn in her lap the store to strew,
As mid wild scenes I chanced the Muse to woo,
Through glens untrod, and woods that frowned on high,
Two sleeping nymphs with wonder mute I spy!
And, lo, she ’s gone!—In robe of dark-green hue,
’T was Echo from her sister Silence flew,
For quick the...
Sherwood in the twilight, is Robin Hood awake?
Gray and ghostly shadows are gliding thro’ the brake;
Shadows of the dappled deer, dreaming of the morn,
Dreaming of a shadowy man that winds a shadowy horn.
Robin Hood is here again; all his merry thieves
Hear a ghostly bugle-note shivering thro’ the leaves,
Calling as he used to call, faint and...
As chimes that flow o’er shining seas
When Morn alights on meads of May,
Faint voices fill the western breeze
With whisp’ring songs from Far-Away.
Oh, dear the dells of Dunamore,
A home is odorous Ossory;
But sweet as honey, running o’er,
The Golden Shore of Far-Away!
There grows the Tree whose summer...
From “Night Thoughts,” Night I.
THE BELL strikes one: we take no note of time,
But from its loss. To give it, then, a tongue,
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours:
Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.
It is the signal that demands despatch;...
From “Irene”
TO-MORROW’S action! can that hoary wisdom,
Borne down with years, still doat upon to-morrow!
The fatal mistress of the young, the lazy,
The coward and the fool, condemned to lose
An useless life in waiting for to-morrow,
To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow,
Till interposing death destroys the prospect.
Strange...
So much to do: so little done!
Ah! yesternight I saw the sun
Sink beamless down the vaulted gray,—
The ghastly ghost of YESTERDAY.
So little done: so much to do!
Each morning breaks on conflicts new;
But eager, brave, I ’ll join the fray,
And fight the battle of TO-DAY.
So much to do: so little done!
But when it ’s o’...
