Passion and pain, the outcry of despair,
The pang of the unattainable desire,
And youth’s delight in pleasures that expire,
And sweet high dreamings of the good and fair
Clashing in swift soul-storm, through which no prayer
Uplifted stays the destined death-stroke dire.
Then through a mighty sorrowing, as through fire,
The soul...
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Just where the Treasury’s marble front
Looks over Wall Street’s mingled nations;
Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont
To throng for trade and last quotations;
Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold
Outrival, in the ears of people,
The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled
From Trinity’s undaunted steeple,—Even there I heard...
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Beneath the warrior’s helm, behold
The flowing tresses of the woman!
Minerva, Pallas, what you will—
A winsome creature, Greek or Roman.Minerva? No! ’t is some sly minx
In cousin’s helmet masquerading;
If not—then Wisdom was a dame
For sonnets and for serenading!I thought the goddess cold, austere,
Not made... -
He wrought with patience long and weary years
Upon his masterpiece, entitled “Fate,”
And dreamed sweet dreams, the while his crust he ate,
And gave his work his soul, his strength, and tears.
His task complete at last, he had no fears
The world would not pronounce his genius great,
But poor, unknown—pray, what could he create?
The mad... -
Roses and butterflies snared on a fan,
All that is left of summer gone by;
Of swift, bright wings that flashed in the sun,
And loveliest blossoms that bloomed to die!By what subtle spell did you lure them here,
Fixing a beauty that will not change,—
Roses whose petals never will fall,
Bright, swift wings that never will range... -
That Belonged to the Marquise de Pompadour
(Ballade)CHICKEN-SKIN, delicate, white,
Painted by Carlo Vanloo,
Loves in a riot of light,
Roses and vaporous blue;
Hark to the dainty frou-frou!
Picture above, if you can,
Eyes that could melt as the dew,—
This was the Pompadour’s fan!See how they rise at the...
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Hack and Hew were the sons of God
In the earlier earth than now:
One at his right hand, one at his left,
To obey as he taught them how.And Hack was blind, and Hew was dumb,
But both had the wild, wild heart;
And God’s calm will was their burning will,
And the gist of their toil was art.They made the moon and the...
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From “Malcolm’s Katie”
HIGH grew the snow beneath the low-hung sky,
And all was silent in the wilderness;
In trance of stillness Nature heard her God
Rebuilding her spent fires, and veiled her face
While the Great Worker brooded o’er His work.“Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree!
What doth thy bold voice promise me?”“I...
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Pause not to dream of the future before us;
Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o’er us;
Hark! how Creation’s deep, musical chorus,
Unintermitting, goes up into Heaven!
Never the ocean-wave falters in flowing;
Never the little seed stops in its growing;
More and more richly the rose-heart keeps glowing,
Till from its nourishing... -
We plough and sow—we ’re so very, very low
That we delve in the dirty clay,
Till we bless the plain with the golden grain,
And the vale with the fragrant hay.
Our place we know—we ’re so very low,
’T is down at the landlord’s feet:
We ’re not too low the bread to grow,
But too low the bread to eat.Down, down we go—we ’...