• The Melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
    Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
    Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
    They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit’s tread.
    The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
    And from the wood-top calls the crow through all...

  • I Will not have the mad Clytie,
      Whose head is turned by the sun;
    The tulip is a courtly quean,
      Whom, therefore, I will shun:
    The cowslip is a country wench,
      The violet is a nun;—
    But I will woo the dainty rose,
      The queen of every one.

    The pea is but a wanton witch,
      In too much haste to wed,
    And clasps...

  • How many Flowers fail in Wood —

    Or perish from the Hill —

    Without the privilege to know

    That they are Beautiful —


    How many cast a nameless Pod

    Upon the nearest Breeze —

    Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight —

    It bear to Other Eyes —

  • I tend my flowers for thee —

    Bright Absentee!

    My Fuchsia's Coral Seams

    Rip — while the Sower — dreams


    Geraniums — tint — and spot —

    Low Daisies — dot —

    My Cactus — splits her Beard

    To show her throat —


    Carnations — tip their spice —

    And Bees — pick up —...

  • When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid
    Upon the spirit aching for the light

    And all the wide horizon’s line is hid
    By a black day sadder than...

  • In those old times wherein Theology

    Flourished with greater sap and energy,

    A celebrated doctor—so they say—

    Having stirred many careless hearts one day

    Down to their dullest depths, and having shown

    Strange pathways leading to the heavenly throne—

    Tracks he...

  • To pay his ransom man must toil
    With Reason's implement alone
    To plough and rake and free from stone

    Two plots of hard volcanic soil....