Who comes to England not to learn
The love for her his fathers bore,
Breathing her air, can still return
No kindlier than he was before.
In vain, for him, from shore to shore
Those fathers strewed an alien strand
With the loved names that evermore
Are native to our ear and land.
Who sees the English elm-trees fling...
The Great Republic goes to war,
But spring still comes as spring has done,
And all the summer months will run
Their summer sequence as before;
And every bird will build its nest,
The sun sink daily in the west,
And rising eastward bring new day
In the old way.
But ah, those dawns will have a light,
Those...
A Dead soul lay in the light of day,
Desperate, wan, it had passed;
Oft foiled, it had toiled on its upward way,
Till it perished, spent, aghast,
After a thousand defeats the prey
Of its conquering sin at last.
Said a stranger:—“Lo, how in shame and woe
Is Satan’s seal ever set!”
Laughed a foe:—“Doth the carrion lie so...
It is the hour when Arno turns
Her gold to chrysoprase;
When each low-hanging star outburns
Its faint, mysterious rays,
As from the prison of faery urns
Which faery hands upraise.
It is the hour when life’s constraint
A moment’s ease is given;
When Earth is like a holy saint,
Stilled, sanctified, and shriven,...
To eastward ringing, to westward winging, o’er mapless miles of sea,
On winds and tides the gospel rides that the furthermost isles are free,
And the furthermost isles make answer, harbor, and height, and hill,
Breaker and beach cry each to each, “’T is the Mother who calls! Be still!”
Mother! new-found, beloved, and strong to hold from harm,
Stretching...
A Raven sat upon a tree,
And not a word he spoke, for
His beak contained a piece of Brie,
Or, maybe, it was Roquefort:
We ’ll make it any kind you please—
At all events, it was a cheese.
Beneath the tree’s umbrageous limb
A hungry fox sat smiling;
He saw the raven watching him,
And spoke in words...
Down from a sunken doorstep to the road,
Through a warm garden full of old-time flowers,
Stretches a pathway, where the wrinkled toad
Sits lost in sunlight through long summer hours.
Ah, little dream the passers in the street
That there, a few yards from the old house door,
Just where the apple and the pear trees meet,
The noble...
Upon my mantel-piece they stand,
While all its length between them lies;
He throws a kiss with graceful hand,
She glances back with bashful eyes.
The china Shepherdess is fair,
The Shepherd’s face denotes a heart
Burning with ardor and despair.
Alas, they stand so far apart!
And yet, perhaps, if they were moved,...
As I was strolling down a woodland way,
I met fair Spring, a garland on her arm;
She stood a moment gazing in dismay,
Then turned and fled away in swift alarm.
And as I strove to follow her swift flight
Along the way that I had seen her pass,
No trace of her remained to meet my sight
Save three wild violets among the grass.
This is the song of the wave! The mighty one!
Child of the soul of silence, beating the air to sound.
White as a live terror, as a drawn sword,
This is the wave!
This is the song of the wave, the white-maned steed of the Tempest,
Whose veins are swollen with life,
In whose flanks abide the four winds,
This is the...
