• To an Obscure Poet Who Lives on My Hearth

    Why shouldst thou cease thy plaintive song
        When I draw near?
    Has mankind done thee any wrong,
        That thou shouldst fear?

    To see thee scampering to thy den,
        So wild and shy,
    ’T would seem thou know’st the ways of men
        As well as I.

    ’T is true the palmy days are o’er
        When all thy kind—
    Poor...

    Charles Lotin Hildreth

  • For largest Woman's Hearth I knew —

    For largest Woman's Hearth I knew —

    'Tis little I can do —

    And yet the largest Woman's Heart

    Could hold an Arrow — too —

    And so, instructed by my own,

    I tenderer, turn Me to.

  • To my small Hearth His fire came —

    To my small Hearth His fire came —

    And all my House aglow

    Did fan and rock, with sudden light —

    'Twas Sunrise — 'twas the Sky —


    Impanelled from no Summer brief —

    With limit of Decay —

    'Twas Noon — without the News of Night —

    Nay, Nature, it was Day —