• Roman and Jew upon one level lie;
    Great Herod’s palaces are ground to dust;
    Upon the synagogues are mould and rust;
    Night winds among the tottering columns sigh;
    Yet sparrows through the massive ruins fly,
    And o’er the sacred earth’s embroidered crust
    Still goes the sower forth to sow, still must
    The shepherd with his sheep sit listlessly...

  • It cannot be that He who made
      This wondrous world for our delight,
    Designed that all its charms should fade
      And pass forever from our sight;
    That all shall wither and decay,
      And know on earth no life but this,
    With only one finite survey
      Of all its beauty and its bliss.

    It cannot be that all the years
      Of toil...

  •     roll out, O song to God!
      Move on, ye throngs of men!
    Chances and changes come and go:
      God changeth not! Amen.
        And on the throngs of men,
      On worrying care and strife,
    Sinks down, as if from angel tongues,
      The word of hope and life.

        Down in the darksome ways
      And worrying whirl of life
    Sinks,...

  • I know not what will befall me: God hangs a mist o’er my eyes;
    And thus, each step of my onward path, He makes new scenes arise,
    And every joy He sends to me comes like a sweet surprise.

    I see not a step before me as I tread on another year;
    But I ’ve left the past in God’s keeping,—the future His mercy shall clear,
    And what looks dark in the distance...

  • Mid the white spouses of the Sacred Heart,
    After its queen, the nearest, dearest thou:
    Yet the aureola around thy brow
    Is not the virgins’—thine a throne apart.
    Nor yet, my Saint, does faith-illumined art
    Thy hand with palm of martyrdom endow:
    And when thy hair is all it will allow
    Of glory to thy head, we do not start.
    O more...

  • “now i lay me down to sleep:
    I pray the Lord my soul to keep,”
    Was my childhood’s early prayer
    Taught by my mother’s love and care.
    Many years since then have fled;
    Mother slumbers with the dead;
    Yet methinks I see her now,
    With love-lit eye and holy brow,
    As, kneeling by her side to pray,
    She gently taught me how to say,...

  • I never had a happier time,
      And I am forty-three,
    Than one midsummer afternoon,
      When it was May with me:
        Life’s fragrant May,
        And Saturday,
    And you came out with me to play;
    And up and down the garden walks,
      Among the flowering beans,
    We proudly walked and tossed our heads
      And played that we were...

  •   they are my laddie’s hounds
    That rin the wood at brak o’ day.
    Wha is it taks them hence? Can ony say
      Wha is it taks my laddie’s hounds
          At brak o’ day?

      They cleek aff thegither,
    An’ then fa’ back, wi’ room atween
    For ane to walk; sae aften, I hae seen
      The baith cleek aff thegither
          Wi’ ane atween!

    ...
  • When the lessons and tasks are all ended,
      And the school for the day is dismissed,
    The little ones gather around me,
      To bid me good night and be kissed:
    Oh, the little white arms that encircle
      My neck in their tender embrace!
    Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven,
      Shedding sunshine of love on my face!

    And when they are...

  • As the Transatlantic tourists
      Have been rowed on the Lagoon,
    They have mourned its ancient glories,
      They have watched the Germans spoon.

    As they ’ve sailed these famous highways,
      As they ’ve floated on these tides,
    The arts that most impressed them
      Were the artless German brides.

    As they ’ve listened to the music...