Time cannot age thy sinews, nor the gale
Batter the network of thy feathered mail,
Lone sentry of the deep!
Among the crashing caverns of the storm,
With wing unfettered, lo! thy frigid form
Is whirled in dreamless sleep!
Where shall thy wing find rest for all its might?
Where shall thy lidless eye, that scours the night,...
Cast on the water by a careless hand,
Day after day the winds persuaded me:
Onward I drifted till a coral tree
Stayed me among its branches, where the sand
Gathered about me, and I slowly grew,
Fed by the constant sun and the inconstant dew.
The sea-birds build their nests against my root,
And eye my slender body’s horny case...
I
not by the ball or brand
Sped by a mortal hand,
Not by the lightning stroke
When fiery tempests broke,—
Not mid the ranks of War
Fell the great Conqueror.
II
Unmovëd, undismayed,
In the crash and carnage of the cannonade,—
Eye that dimmed not, hand that failed not,
Brain that swerved not, heart that...
The skies are low, the winds are slow,
The woods are filled with autumn glory;
The mists are still on field and hill,
The brooklet sings its dreamy story.
I careless rove through glen and grove;
I dream by hill and copse and river;
Or in the shade by aspen made
I watch the restless shadows quiver.
I lift my eyes to...
Between the mountains and the sea,
Walled by the rock, fringed by the foam,
A valley stretches fair and free
Beneath the blue of heaven’s dome.
At rest in that fair valley lies
Saint Barbara, the beauteous maid;
Above her head the cloudless skies
Smile down upon her charms displayed.
The sunlit mountains o’er her shed...
Faint, faint and clear,
Faint as the music that in dreams we hear
Shaking the curtain-fold of sleep,
That shuts away
The world’s hoarse voice, the sights and sounds of day,
Her sorry joys, her phantoms false and fleet,—
So softly, softly stirs
The wind’s low murmur in the rippled wheat.
From west to east
The warm breath...
I put thy hand aside, and turn away:
Why should I blame the slight and fickle heart
That cannot bravely go, nor boldly stay,
Too weak to cling, and yet too fond to part?
Dead Passion chains thee where her ashes lie.
Cold is the shrine, ah, cold for evermore!
Why linger, then, while golden moments fly
And sunshine waits beyond the open...
Were i a happy bird,
Building my little nest each early spring,
It might be easy then to keep God’s word,
His praise to sing;
Easy to live content,
Tending my little ones,—of love secure,
Knowing no agony for time misspent,
Or thought impure!
Were I a butterfly,
A bright-winged creature of the...
The spinner twisted her slender thread
As she sat and spun:
“The earth and the heavens are mine,” she said,
“And the moon and sun;
Into my web the sunlight goes,
And the breath of May,
And the crimson life of the new-blown rose
That was born to-day.”
The spinner sang in the hush of noon
And her song was low:
“Ah...
What ’s love, when the most is said? The flash of the lightning fleet,
Then, darkness that shrouds the soul,—but the earth is firm to my feet;
The rocks and the tides endure, the grasses and herbs return,
The path to my foot is sure, and the sods to my bosom yearn.
What ’s fame, when the truth is told? A shout to a distant hill,
The craigs may echo a...
