• She dwelt among the untrodden ways
    Beside the springs of Dove,
    Maid whom there were none to praise
    And very few to love:

    A violet by a mosy tone
    Half hidden from the eye!
    ---Fair as a star, when only one
    Is shining in the sky.

    She lived unknown, and few could know
    When Lucy ceased to be;
    But she is in her grave, and, oh,
    The difference...

  • It was a still autumnal day—
      So sadly still and strangely bright—
    The hectic glow of quick decay
      Tinged everything with lovely light.
    It warmly touched the fragrant air
      And fields of corn and crumbling vines
    Along the golden Yadkin, where
      We walked among the whispering pines

    Alas, that tender hectic glow
      Shone...

  • One evening walking out, I o’ertook a modest colleen,
    When the wind was blowing cool, and the harvest leaves were falling:
    “Is our way by chance the same? might we travel on together?”
    “Oh, I keep the mountain side,” she replied, “among the heather.”

    “Your mountain air is sweet when the days are long and sunny,
    When the grass grows round the rocks, and...

  • My days among the dead are passed;
      Around me I behold,
    Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
      The mighty minds of old;
    My never-failing friends are they,
    With whom I converse day by day.

    With them I take delight in weal,
      And seek relief in woe;
    And while I understand and feel
      How much to them I owe,
    My...

  • Farewell to such a world! Too long I press
      The crowded pavement with unwilling feet.
    Pity makes pride, and hate breeds hatefulness,
      And both are poisons. In the forest sweet
    The shade, the peace! Immensity, that seems
    To drown the human life of doubts and dreams.

    Far off the massive portals of the wood,
      Buttressed with shadow,...

  • Oh, good gigantic smile o’ the brown old earth,
      This autumn morning! How he sets his bones
    To bask i’ the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet
    For the ripple to run over in its mirth;
      Listening the while, where on the heap of stones
    The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.

    That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;
      Such...

  •             [A SCHOOL COMPOSITION.]

     

                On what sweet shore the blue AEgean laves,

                Where loveliness is wedded to decay, --

                Beauty to desolation, -- 'mid the graves

                Of an immortal race, and ruins, gray

                With the dim veil of years, a sleeper lay; --...