If all the year was summer time,

And all the aim of life

Was just to lilt on like a rhyme,

Then I would be your wife.


If all the days were August days,

And crowned with golden weather,

How happy then...

Poet:

They drift down the hall together;

       He smiles in her lifted eyes;

Like waves of that mighty river,

       The strains of the "Danube" rise.


They float on its rhythmic measure

       Like leaves on a summer...

Poet:

Come, cuddle your head on my shoulder, dear,

Your head like the golden-rod,

And we will go sailing away from here

To the beautiful Land of Nod.

Away from life's hurry and flurry and worry,

Away from earth's shadows...

Poet:

It is a common fate—a woman's lot—

      To waste on one the riches of her soul,

Who takes the wealth she gives him, but cannot

      Repay the interest, and much less the whole.


As I look up into your eyes and wait
...

Poet:

Some cawing Crows, a hooting Owl,

A Hawk, a Canary, an old Marsh-Fowl,

One day all meet together

To hold a caucus and settle the fate

Of a certain bird (without a mate),

A bird of another feather.


"...

Poet:

I strolled last eve across the lonely down;

          One solitary picture struck my eye:

          A distant ploughboy stood against the sky—

How far he seemed above the noisy town!


Upon the bosom of a cloud the sod
...

Poet:

On the white throat of the' useless passion

That scorched my soul with its burning breath

I clutched my fingers in murderous fashion,

And gathered them close in a grip of death;

For why should I fan, or feed with fuel,
...

Poet:

Good-bye—yes, I am going.

        Sudden? Well, you are right;

But a startling truth came home to me

        With sudden force last night.

What is it? Shall I tell you?

        Nay, that is why I go.

I am...

Poet:

Though critics may bow to art, and I am its own true lover,

It is not art, but heart, which wins the wide world over.


Though smooth be the heartless prayer, no ear in Heaven will mind it,

And the finest phrase falls dead if there is no...

Poet:

Sometimes I feel so passionate a yearning

For spiritual perfection here below,

This vigorous frame, with healthful fervor burning,

Seems my determined foe,


So actively it makes a stern resistance,

So cruelly...

Poet: