From “Night Thoughts,” Night I.
BE wise to-day; ’t is madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so...
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Farewell, my Youth! for now we needs must part,
For here the paths divide;
Here hand from hand must sever, heart from heart,—
Divergence deep and wide.You ’ll wear no withered roses for my sake,
Though I go mourning for you all day long,
Finding no magic more in bower or brake,
No melody in song.Gray Eld must travel in...
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From the French by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
TELL me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where ’s Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere,—
She whose beauty was more than human?
But where are the snows of yester-year?... -
Sonnet Xii.
when I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier... -
Last night at twelve, amid the knee-deep snows,
A child of Time accepted his repose,—
The eighteen hundred fifty-sixth of grace,
With sudden chance, fell forward on his face.Solemn and slow the winter sun had gone,
Sailing full early for the port of dawn;
Across broad zones of the ethereal sea,
With even rate he voyaged far and free,... -
Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.He lieth still: he...
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“De mémoires de Roses on n’a point vu mourir le Jardinier.”
THE ROSE in the garden slipped her bud,
And she laughed in the pride of her youthful blood,
As she thought of the Gardener standing by—
“He is old—so old! And he soon must die!”The full Rose waxed in the warm June air,
And she spread and spread till her heart lay bare;
And she... -
From “The Song of Myself”
A CHILD said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,... -
In a valley, centuries ago,
Grew a little fern-leaf, green and slender,
Veining delicate and fibres tender;
Waving when the wind crept down so low.
Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it,
Playful sunbeams darted in and found it,
Drops of dew stole in by night, and crowned it,
But no foot of man e’er trod that way;... -
As the insect from the rock
Takes the color of its wing;
As the boulder from the shock
Of the ocean’s rhythmic swing
Makes itself a perfect form,
Learns a calmer front to raise;
As the shell, enamelled warm
With the prism’s mystic rays,
Praises wind and wave that make
All its chambers fair and strong;
As...