I
as she FEARED IT WOULD BE
HERE in this room where first we met,
And where we said farewell with tears,
Here, where you swore “Though you forget,
My love shall deeper grow with years,”
Here, where the pictures on the wall,
The very rugs upon the floor,
The smallest objects you recall,—
I am awaiting you once more...
And doth not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I ’ve been wand’ring away—
To see thus around me my youth’s early friends,
As smiling and kind as in that happy day?
Though haply o’er some of your brows, as o’er mine,
The snow-fall of Time may be stealing—what then?
Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine,...
From “The Angel in the House”
I GREW assured, before I asked,
That she ’d be mine without reserve,
And in her unclaimed graces basked
At leisure, till the time should serve,—
With just enough of dread to thrill
The hope, and make it trebly dear:
Thus loath to speak the word, to kill
Either the hope or happy fear.
...
The Gray sea, and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startling little waves, that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed in the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm, sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross, till a farm appears:
A tap at...
The Elder folk shook hands at last,
Down seat by seat the signal passed.
To simple ways like ours unused,
Half solemnized and half amused,
With long-drawn breath and shrug, my guest
His sense of glad relief expressed.
Outside, the hills lay warm in sun;
The cattle in the meadow-run
Stood half-leg deep; a single bird
The...
If yon bright stars which gem the night
Be each a blissful dwelling-sphere
Where kindred spirits reunite
Whom death hath torn asunder here,—
How sweet it were at once to die,
To leave this blighted orb afar!
Mixt soul and soul to cleave the sky,
And soar away from star to star.
But oh, how dark, how drear, how lone,...
With Slight Alterations by a Teetotaller
COME! fill a fresh bumper,—for why should we go
While the [nectar vs. logwood] still reddens our cups as they flow?
Pour out the [rich juices vs. decoction] still bright with the sun,
Till o’er the brimmed crystal the [rubies vs. dye-stuff] shall run.
The [purple-globed clusters vs. half-ripened apples] their life-...
