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...
For sixty days and upwards,
A storm of shell and shot
Rained round us in a flaming shower,
But still we faltered not.
“If the noble city perish,”
Our grand young leader said,
“Let the only walls the foe shall scale
Be ramparts of the dead!”
For sixty days and upwards,
The eye of heaven waxed dim;
And...
Between the sunken sun and the new moon,
I stood in fields through which a rivulet ran
With scarce perceptible motion, not a span
Of its smooth surface trembling to the tune
Of sunset breezes: “O delicious boon,”
I cried, “of quiet! wise is Nature’s plan,
Who, in her realm, as in the soul of man,
Alternates storm with calm, and the loud...
I see the cloud-born squadrons of the gale,
Their lines of rain like glittering spears deprest,
While all the affrighted land grows darkly pale
In flashing charge on earth’s half-shielded breast.
Sounds like the rush of trampling columns float
From that fierce conflict; volleyed thunders peal,
Blent with the maddened wind’s wild buglenote...
She ’s loveliest of the festal throng
In delicate form and Grecian face,—
A beautiful, incarnate song,
A marvel of harmonious grace,
And yet I know the truth I speak:
From those gay groups she stands apart,
A rose upon her tender cheek,
A thorn within her heart.
Though bright her eyes’ bewildering gleams,
...
A little while (my life is almost set!)
I fain would pause along the downward way,
Musing an hour in this sad sunset-ray,
While, Sweet! our eyes with tender tears are wet:
A little hour I fain would linger yet.
A little while I fain would linger yet,
All for love’s sake, for love that cannot tire;
Though fervid youth be dead,...
I think it is over, over,
I think it is over at last:
Voices of foemen and lover,
The sweet and the bitter have passed:
Life, like a tempest of ocean
Hath outblown its ultimate blast:
There ’s but a faint sobbing seaward
While the calm of the tide deepens leeward,
And behold! like the welcoming quiver
Of heart-pulses...
From “The Mountain of the Lovers”
LOVE scorns degrees; the low he lifteth high,
The high he draweth down to that fair plain
Whereon, in his divine equality,
Two loving hearts may meet, nor meet in vain;
’Gainst such sweet levelling Custom cries amain,
But o’er its harshest utterance one bland sigh,
Breathed passion-wise, doth mount...
I Think it is over, over,
I think it is over at last:
Voices of foemen and lover,
The sweet and the bitter, have passed:
Life, like a tempest of ocean
Hath outblown its ultimate blast:
There ’s but a faint sobbing seaward
While the calm of the tide deepens leeward,
And behold! like the welcoming quiver
Of heart-pulses...
She hath no beauty in her face
Unless the chastened sweetness there,
And meek long-suffering, yield a grace
To make her mournful features fair:—
Shunned by the gay, the proud, the young,
She roams through dim, unsheltered ways;
Nor lover’s vow, nor flatterer’s tongue
Brings music to her sombre days:—
At best her skies...
