Here i come creeping, creeping everywhere;
By the dusty roadside,
On the sunny hill-side,
Close by the noisy brook,
In every shady nook,
I come creeping, creeping everywhere.
Here I come creeping, smiling everywhere;
All around the open door,
Where sit the aged poor;
Here where the children...
Said the archangels, moving in their glory,
Seeing the suns bend out along their courses,
Seeing the earth swim up in vernal light,
Seeing the year renew her ancient story,—
Ask we here the Lord of all the finer forces
To make us now a poet whose song shall reach our height!
Fain would we know the impulse ever fleeing,
...
Come listen, O Love, to the voice of the dove,
Come, hearken and hear him say,
There are many To-morrows, my Love, my Love,—
There is only one To-day.
And all day long you can hear him say
This day in purple is rolled,
And the baby stars of the milky-way—
They are cradled in cradles of gold.
Now what is thy secret, serene gray...
I warn, like the one drop of rain
On your face, ere the storm;
Or tremble in whispered refrain
With your blood, beating warm.
I am the presence that ever
Baffles your touch’s endeavor,—
Gone like the glimmer of dust
Dispersed by a gust.
I am the absence that taunts you,
The fancy that haunts you;
The ever...
Silence was envious of the only voice
That mightier seemed than she. So, cloaked as Death,
With potion borrowed from Oblivion,
Yet with slow step and tear-averted look,
She sealed his lips, closed his extinguished eyes,
And, veiling him with darkness, deemed him dead.
But no!—There ’s something vital in the great
That blunts the edge of...
Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere;
By the dusty roadside,
On the sunny hillside,
Close by the noisy brook,
In every shady nook,
I come creeping, creeping everywhere.
Here I come creeping, smiling everywhere;
All round the open door,
Where sit the agèd poor;
...
From “Susan: A Poem of Degrees”
HER Master gave the signal, with a look:
Then, timidly as if afraid, she took
In her rough hands the Laureate’s dainty book,
And straight began. But when she did begin,
Her own mute sense of poesy within
Broke forth to hail the poet, and to greet
His graceful fancies and the accents sweet
In which...
His voice decrepit was with Joy —
Her words did totter so
How old the News of Love must be
To make Lips elderly
That purled a moment since with Glee —
Is it Delight or Woe —
Or Terror — that do decorate
This livid interview —
The Voice that stands for Floods to me
Is sterile borne to some —
The Face that makes the Morning mean
Glows impotent on them —
What difference in Substance lies
That what is Sum to me
By other Financiers be deemed
Exclusive Property!
I'm buried now; I've done with life;
I've done with hate, revenge and strife;
I've done with joy, and hope and love
And all the bustling world above.
Long have I dwelt forgotten here
In pining woe and dull despair;
This place of solitude and gloom
Must be my dungeon and my tomb.
...
