As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying
From some far orb I track our watery sphere,
Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying,
The silvered globule seems a glistening tear.
But Nature lends her mirror of illusion
To win from saddening scenes our age-dimmed eyes,
And misty day-dreams blend in sweet confusion
The wintry...
Silence instead of thy sweet song, my bird,
Which through the darkness of my winter days
Warbling of summer sunshine still was heard;
Mute is thy song, and vacant is thy place.
The spring comes back again, the fields rejoice,
Carols of gladness ring from every tree;
But I shall hear thy wild triumphant voice
No more: my summer...
Thou glorious mocker of the world! I hear
Thy many voices ringing through the glooms
Of these green solitudes; and all the clear,
Bright joyance of their song enthralls the ear,
And floods the heart. Over the spherëd tombs
Of vanished nations rolls thy music-tide:
No light from History’s starlit page illumes
The memory of these...
Thou art lost to me forever!—I have lost thee, Isadore!
Thy head will never rest upon my loyal bosom more;
Thy tender eyes will never more look fondly into mine,
Nor thine arms around me lovingly and trustingly entwine,—
Thou art lost to me forever, Isadore!
Thou art dead and gone, dear loving wife, thy heart is still and cold,
And mine,...
Southrons, hear your country call you!
Up, lest worse than death befall you!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Lo! all the beacon-fires are lighted,—
Let all hearts be now united!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Advance the flag of Dixie!
Hurrah! hurrah!
For Dixie’s land we take our stand,
And...
Father, i will not ask for wealth or fame,
Though once they would have joyed my carnal sense:
I shudder not to bear a hated name,
Wanting all wealth, myself my sole defence.
But give me, Lord, eyes to behold the truth;
A seeing sense that knows the eternal right;
A heart with pity filled, and gentlest ruth;
A manly faith that makes all...
Jesus, there is no dearer name than thine
Which Time has blazoned on his mighty scroll;
No wreaths nor garlands ever did entwine
So fair a temple of so vast a soul.
There every virtue set his triumph-seal;
Wisdom, conjoined with strength and radiant grace,
In a sweet copy Heaven to reveal,
And stamp perfection on a mortal face...
Thou happiest thing alive,
Anomaly of earth!
If sound thy lineage give,
Thou art the natural birth
Of affluent Joy—
Thy mother’s name was Mirth,
Thou little singing boy!
Thy star—it was a sun!
Thy time the month of May,
When streams to music run,
And birds sing all the day:
Nature...
No, not in the halls of the noble and proud,
Where Fashion assembles her glittering crowd,
Where all is in beauty and splendor arrayed,
Were the nuptials performed of the meek Quaker maid.
Nor yet in the temple those rites which she took,—
By the altar, the mitre-crowned bishop and book,
Where oft in her jewels stands proudly the bride,...
He sang the airs of olden times
In soft, low tones to sacred rhymes,
Devotional, but quaint;
His fingers touched the viol’s strings,
And at their gentle vibratings
The glory of an angel’s wings
Hung o’er that aged saint!
His thin, white locks, like silver threads
On which the sun its radiance sheds,
Or like the...
