The poet’s secret I must know,
If that will calm my restless mind.
I hail the seasons as they go,
I woo the sunshine, brave the wind.
I scan the lily and the rose,
I nod to every nodding tree,
I follow every stream that flows,
And wait beside the steadfast sea.
I question melancholy eyes,
I touch the lips of...
’t is the blithest, bonniest weather for a bird to flirt a feather,
For a bird to trill and warble, all his wee red breast a-swell.
I ’ve a secret. You may listen till your blue eyes dance and glisten,
Little maiden, but I ’ll never, never, never, never tell.
You ’ll find no more wary piper, till the strawberries wax riper
In December than in...
“she is dead!” they said to him; “come away;
Kiss her and leave her,—thy love is clay!”
They smoothed her tresses of dark brown hair;
On her forehead of stone they laid it fair;
Over her eyes that gazed too much
They drew the lids with a gentle touch;
With a tender touch they closed up well
The sweet thin lips that had secrets to...
Dust is the only Secret —
Death, the only One
You cannot find out all about
In his "native town."
Nobody know "his Father" —
Never was a Boy —
Hadn't any playmates,
Or "Early history" —
Industrious! Laconic!
Punctual! Sedate!
Bold as a Brigand!...
His mind of man, a secret makes
I meet him with a start
He carries a circumference
In which I have no part —
Or even if I deem I do
He otherwise may know
Impregnable to inquest
However neighborly —
Some things that fly there be, —
Birds, hours, the bumble-bee :
Of these no elegy.
Some things that stay there be, —
Grief, hills, eternity :
Nor this behooveth me.
There are, that resting, rise.
Can...
The Skies can't keep their secret!
They tell it to the Hills —
The Hills just tell the Orchards —
And they — the Daffodils!
A Bird — by chance — that goes that way —
Soft overhears the whole —
If I should bribe the little Bird —
Who knows but she would tell?
I think I...
The Suburbs of a Secret
A Strategist should keep,
Better than on a Dream intrude
To scrutinize the Sleep.
