• Beyond the low marsh-meadows and the beach,
    Seen through the hoary trunks of windy pines,
    The long blue level of the ocean shines.
    The distant surf, with hoarse, complaining speech,
    Out from its sandy barrier seems to reach;
    And while the sun behind the woods declines,
    The moaning sea with sighing boughs combines,
    And waves and pines make...

  • Softer than silence, stiller than still air
    Float down from high pine-boughs the slender leaves.
    The forest floor its annual boon receives
    That comes like snowfall, tireless, tranquil, fair.
    Gently they glide, gently they clothe the bare
    Old rocks with grace. Their fall a mantle weaves
    Of paler yellow than autumnal sheaves
    Or those...

  • Tall, sombre, grim, against the morning sky
      They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs,
    Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully,
      As if from realms of mystical despairs.

    Tall, sombre, grim, they stand with dusky gleams
      Brightening to gold within the woodland’s core,
    Beneath the gracious noontide’s tranquil beams,—
      But the...

  • So that soldierly legend is still on its journey,—
      That story of Kearny who knew not to yield!
    ’T was the day when with Jameson, fierce Berry, and Birney,
      Against twenty thousand he rallied the field.
    Where the red volleys poured, where the clamor rose highest,
      Where the dead lay in clumps through the dwarf oak and pine,
    Where the aim from...

  • Couldst thou, Great Fairy, give to me
    The instant’s wish, that I might see
    Of all the earth’s that one dear sight
    Known only in a dream’s delight,
    I would, beneath some island steep,
    In some remote and sun-bright deep,
    See high in heaven above me now
    A palm-tree wave its rhythmic bough!

    And yet this old pine’s haughty crown,...

  • Oh, band in the pine-wood, cease!
      Cease with your splendid call;
    The living are brave and noble,
      But the dead are bravest of all!

    They throng to the martial summons,
      To the loud triumphant strain,
    And the dear bright eyes of long-dead friends
      Come to the heart again!

    They come with the ringing bugle,
      And the...

  • It was a still autumnal day—
      So sadly still and strangely bright—
    The hectic glow of quick decay
      Tinged everything with lovely light.
    It warmly touched the fragrant air
      And fields of corn and crumbling vines
    Along the golden Yadkin, where
      We walked among the whispering pines

    Alas, that tender hectic glow
      Shone...

  • Throughout the soft and sunlit day
    The pennoned pines, in strict array,
    Stand grim and silent, gaunt and gray.

    But when the blasts of winter keen,
    They whisper each to each, and lean
    Like comrades with a bond between.

    And seeing them deport them so,
    One almost thinks they seek to show
    How mortal-like mere trees may grow.

    ...
  • Softer than silence, stiller than still air
    Float down from high pine-boughs the slender leaves.
    The forest floor its annual boon receives
    That comes like snowfall, tireless, tranquil, fair.
    Gently they glide, gently they clothe the bare
    Old rocks with grace. Their fall a mantle weaves
    Of paler yellow than autumnal sheaves
    Or those...

  • SO 1 that soldierly legend is still on its journey,—
      That story of Kearny who knew not to yield!
    ’T was the day when with Jameson, fierce Berry, and Birney,
      Against twenty thousand he rallied the field.
    Where the red volleys poured, where the clamor rose highest,
      Where the dead lay in clumps through the dwarf oak and pine,
    Where the aim...