•   thy cruise is over now,
        Thou art anchored by the shore,
      And never more shalt thou
        Hear the storm around thee roar;
    Death has shaken out the sands of thy glass.
      Now around thee sports the whale,
      And the porpoise snuffs the gale,
      And the night-winds wake their wail,
          As they pass.

      The sea-grass...

  • It was but yesterday, my love, thy little heart beat high,
    And I had scorned the warning voice that told me thou must die;
    I saw thee move with active bound, with spirits light and free,
    And infant grace and beauty gave their glorious charm to thee.

    Upon the dewy field I saw thine early footsteps fly,
    Unfettered as the matin bird that cleaves the...

  • Silence instead of thy sweet song, my bird,
      Which through the darkness of my winter days
    Warbling of summer sunshine still was heard;
      Mute is thy song, and vacant is thy place.

    The spring comes back again, the fields rejoice,
      Carols of gladness ring from every tree;
    But I shall hear thy wild triumphant voice
      No more: my summer...

  • A Scottish Song
    BALOW, my babe, ly stil and sleipe!
    It grieves me sair to see thee weipe;
    If thoust be silent, Ise be glad,
    Thy maining maks my heart ful sad.
    Balow, my boy, thy mither’s joy!
    Thy father breides me great annoy.
        Balow, my ’babe, ly stil and sleipe!
        It grieves me sair to see thee weipe.

    When he began...

  • O, Wad that my time were owre but,
      Wi’ this wintry sleet and snaw,
    That I might see our house again,
      I’ the bonnie birken shaw!
    For this is no my ain life,
      And I peak and pine away
    Wi’ the thochts o’ hame and the young flowers,
      In the glad green month of May.

    I used to wauk in the morning
      Wi’ the loud sang o’...

  • O World! O Life! O Time!
    On whose last steps I climb,
      Trembling at that where I had stood before;
    When will return the glory of your prime?
        No more,—O nevermore!

    Out of the day and night
    A joy has taken flight:
      Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar
    Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
        No more...

  • From the Greek by Andrew Lang

    TEARS for my lady dead—
        Heliodore!
    Salt tears, and strange to shed,
        Over and o’er;
    Tears to my lady dead,
        Love do we send,
    Longed for, rememberèd,
        Lover and friend!
    Sad are the songs we sing,
        Tears that we shed,
    Empty the gifts we bring
        Gifts to...

  • I ’m sittin’ on the stile, Mary,
      Where we sat side by side
    On a bright May mornin’ long ago,
      When first you were my bride;
    The corn was springin’ fresh and green,
      And the lark sang loud and high—
    And the red was on your lip, Mary,
      And the love-light in your eye.

    The place is little changed, Mary;
      The day is...

  • From “Paradise Lost,” Book XI.
      O UNEXPECTED stroke, worse than of death!
    Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
    Thee, native soil! these happy walks and shades,
    Fit haunt of gods; where I had hope to spend,
    Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
    That must be mortal to us both? O flowers,
    That never will in other climate grow,...

  • [March 25, 1861, South Carolina having adopted the Ordinance of Secession]

    SHE has gone,—she has left us in passion and pride—
    Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side!
    She has torn her own star from our firmament’s glow,
    And turned on her brother the face of a foe!

    O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,
    We can never forget that our...