My life is like a stroll upon the beach,
As near the ocean’s edge as I can go;
My tardy steps its waves sometimes o’erreach,
Sometimes I stay to let them overflow.
My sole employment is, and scrupulous care,
To place my gains beyond the reach of tides,—
Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare,
Which Ocean kindly to my...
Light-winged smoke! Icarian bird,
Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight;
Lark without song, and messenger of dawn,
Circling above the hamlets as thy nest;
Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form
Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;
By night star-veiling, and by day
Darkening the light and blotting out the sun;
Go...
Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain-head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream-drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,—
Bear only...
Sleep, love, sleep!
The dusty day is done.
Lo! from afar the freshening breezes sweep
Wide over groves of balm,
Down from the towering palm,
In at the open casement cooling run,
And round thy lowly bed,
Thy bed of pain,
Bathing thy patient head,
Like grateful showers of rain,
They come;
While the white...
Ere last year’s moon had left the sky,
A birdling sought my Indian nest,
And folded, O, so lovingly,
Her tiny wings upon my breast.
From morn till evening’s purple tinge,
In winsome helplessness she lies,
Two rose-leaves, with a silken fringe,
Shut softly on her starry eyes.
There ’s not in Ind a lovelier bird;...
We gazed on Corryvrekin’s whirl,
We sailed by Jura’s shore,
Where sang of old the mermaid-girl,
Whose shell is heard no more;
We came to Fingal’s pillared cave,
That minster in the sea,
And sang—while clapped its hands the wave
And worshipped even as we.
But when, at fair Iona’s bound,
We leaped upon its soil,...
Lady, there is a hope that all men have,—
Some mercy for their faults, a grassy place
To rest in, and a flower-strown, gentle grave;
Another hope which purifies our race,
That, when that fearful bourne forever past,
They may find rest,—and rest so long to last.
I seek it not, I ask no rest for ever,
My path is onward to the farthest...
My highway is unfeatured air,
My consorts are the sleepless Stars,
And men my giant arms upbear,—
My arms unstained and free from scars.
I rest forever on my way,
Rolling around the happy Sun;
My children love the sunny day,
But noon and night to me are one.
My heart has pulses like their own,
I am their Mother, and my...
On your bare rocks, O barren moors,
On your bare rocks I love to lie!—
They stand like crags upon the shores,
Or clouds upon a placid sky.
Across those spaces desolate
The fox pursues his lonely way,
Those solitudes can fairly sate
The passage of my loneliest day.
Like desert islands far at sea
Where not a ship can...
The swallow is flying over,
But he will not come to me;
He flits, my daring rover,
From land to land, from sea to sea;
Where hot Bermuda’s reef
Its barrier lifts to fortify the shore,
Above the surf’s wild roar
He darts as swiftly o’er,—
But he who heard his cry of spring
Hears that no more, heeds not his wing.
...
