TO him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
...
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I Like that ancient Saxon phrase which calls
The burial-ground God’s-Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o’er the sleeping dust.God’s-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts
Comfort to those who in the grave have sown
The seed that they had garnered in their hearts,
Their bread of... -
A WIDOW—she had only one!
A puny and decrepit son;
But, day and night,
Though fretful oft, and weak and small,
A loving child, he was her all—
The Widow’s Mite.The Widow’s Mite—ay, so sustained,
She battled onward, nor complained,
Though friends were fewer:
And while she toiled for daily fare,
A little... -
Jim was a fisherman, up on the hill,
Over the beach lived he and his wife,
In a little house—you can see it still—
An’ their two fair boys; upon my life
You never seen two likelier kids,
In spite of their antics an’ tricks an’ noise,
Than them two boys!Jim would go out in his boat on the sea,
Just as the rest of us... -
The Wind blew keenly from the Western sea,
And drove the dead leaves slanting from the tree—
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith—
Heaping them up before her Father’s door
When I saw her whom I shall see no more—
We cannot bribe thee, Death.She went abroad the falling leaves among,
She saw the merry season fade, and sung—... -
We watched her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.So silently we seemed to speak,
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied—... -
Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew.
In quiet she reposes:
Ah! would that I did too.Her mirth the world required:
She bathed it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound.
But for... -
To a Friend Dying
THEY tell you that Death ’s at the turn of the road,
That under the shade of a cypress you ’ll find him,
And, struggling on wearily, lashed by the goad
Of pain, you will enter the black mist behind him.I can walk with you up to the ridge of the hill,
And we ’ll talk of the way we have come through the valley;
... -
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass.
Little has yet been changed, I think;
The shutters are shut,—no light may pass
Save two long rays through the hinge’s chink.Sixteen years...
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It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden lived, whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love, and be loved by me.I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love,...