• Not drowsihood and dreams and mere idless,
    Nor yet the blessedness of strength regained,
    Alone are in what men call sleep. The past,
    My unsuspected soul, my parents’ voice,
    The generations of my forbears, yea,
    The very will of God himself are there
    And potent-working: so that many a doubt
    Is wiped away at daylight, many a soil
    ...

  • ’t is the blithest, bonniest weather for a bird to flirt a feather,
      For a bird to trill and warble, all his wee red breast a-swell.
    I ’ve a secret. You may listen till your blue eyes dance and glisten,
      Little maiden, but I ’ll never, never, never, never tell.

    You ’ll find no more wary piper, till the strawberries wax riper
      In December than in...

  • What will you give to a barefoot lass,
      Morning with breath like wine?
    Wade, bare feet! In my wide morass
      Starry marigolds shine.

    Alms, sweet Noon, for a barefoot lass,
      With her laughing looks aglow!
    Run, bare feet! In my fragrant grass
      Golden buttercups blow.

    Gift, a gift for a barefoot lass,
      O twilight hour...

  • What fragrant-footed comer
      Is stepping o’er my head?
    Behold, my queen! the Summer!
      Who deems her warriors dead.
    Now rise, ye knights of many fights,
      From out your sleep profound!
    Make sharp your spears, my gallant peers,
      And prick the frozen ground.

    Before the White Host harm her,
      We ’ll hurry to her aid;...

  • Headless, without an arm, a figure leans
    By something vaguely Greek,—a fount, an urn;
    Dim stairs climb past her where one’s thoughts discern
    A temple or a palace. Some great queen’s
    Daughter art thou? or humbly one of those
    Who serve a queen? Is this the sacred thing
    That holds thy child, thy husband, or thy king?
    Or lightly-laughing...

  • Calm death, God of crossed hands and passionless eyes,
    Thou God that never heedest gift nor prayer,
    Men blindly call thee cruel, unaware
    That everything is dearer since it dies.
    Worn by the chain of years, without surprise,
    The wise man welcomes thee, and leaves the glare
    Of noisy sunshine gladly, and his share
    He chose not in mad life...

  • In the coiled shell sounds Ocean’s distant roar,
    Oft to our listening hearts come heavenly strains;—
    Men say, “That was the blood in our own veins,
    And this,—but the echo of our hope; no more.”
    And yet, the murmuring sea exists, which bore
    That frail creation o’er its watery plains;
    And on Time’s sands full many a shell remains
    Tossed by...

  • In the groined alcoves of an ancient tower
    Amid a wealth of treasured tomes I found
    A little book, in choicest vellum bound:
    Therein a romance of such magic power
    It held me rapt through many a trancëd hour;
    And then, the threads of interest all unwound,
    Abruptly closed. I searched that palace round,
    And for its mate still earth’s...

  • Divinely shapen cup, thy lip
      Unto me seemeth thus to speak:
    “Behold in me the workmanship,
      The grace and cunning of a Greek!

    “Long ages since he mixed the clay,
      Whose sense of symmetry was such,
    The labor of a single day
      Immortal grew beneath his touch.

    “For dreaming while his fingers went
      Around this slender...

  • Go, rose, and in her golden hair
      You shall forget the garden soon;
    The sunshine is a captive there
      And crowns her with a constant noon.

    And when your spicy odor goes,
      And fades the beauty of your bloom,
    Think what a lovely hand, O Rose,
      Shall place your body in the tomb!