Her suffering ended with the day,
Yet lived she at its close,
And breathed the long; long night away
In statue-like repose.
But when the sun in all his state
Illumed the eastern skies,
She passed through Glory’s morning gate
And walked in Paradise!
Softly!
she is lying
With her lips apart;
Softly!
She is dying
Of a broken heart.
Whisper!
Life is growing
Dim within her breast;
Whisper!
She is going
To her final rest.
Gently!
She is sleeping,
She has breathed her last!
Gently!
...
I loved thee long and dearly,
Florence Vane;
My life’s bright dream and early
Hath come again;
I renew in my fond vision
My heart’s dear pain,
My hope, and thy derision,
Florence Vane.
The ruin lone and hoary,
The ruin old,
Where thou didst mark my story,
At even told,—
...
I could have stemmed misfortune’s tide,
And borne the rich one’s sneer,—
Have braved the haughty glance of pride,
Nor shed a single tear;
I could have smiled on every blow
From life’s full quiver thrown,
While I might gaze on thee, and know
I should not be alone.
I could—I think I could—have brooked,
E’en for a...
She knew that she was growing blind,—
Foresaw the dreary night
That soon would fall, without a star,
Upon her fading sight;
Yet never did she make complaint,
But prayed each day might bring
A beauty to her waning eyes,—
The loveliness of spring!
She dreaded that eclipse which might
Perpetually...
Under the violets, blue and sweet,
Where low the willow droops and weeps,
Where children tread with timid feet,
When twilight o’er the forest creeps,
She sleeps,—my little darling sleeps.
Breathe low and soft, O wind! breathe low
Where so much loveliness is laid!
Pour out thy heart in strains of woe,
O bird! that in...
Here i come creeping, creeping everywhere;
By the dusty roadside,
On the sunny hill-side,
Close by the noisy brook,
In every shady nook,
I come creeping, creeping everywhere.
Here I come creeping, smiling everywhere;
All around the open door,
Where sit the aged poor;
Here where the children...
old wine to drink!
Ay, give the slippery juice
That drippeth from the grape thrown loose
Within the tun;
Plucked from beneath the cliff
Of sunny-sided Teneriffe,
And ripened ’neath the blink
Of India’s sun!
Peat whiskey hot,
Tempered with well-boiled water!
These make the long night shorter,—...
When in my walks I meet some ruddy lad—
Or swarthy man—with tray-beladen head,
Whose smile entreats me, or his visage sad,
To buy the images he moulds for bread,
I think that,—though his poor Greek Slave in chains,
His Venus and her Boy with plaster dart,
Be, like the Organ-Grinder’s quavering strains,
But farthings in the...
He who would echo Horace’ lays
Aspires to an Icarian fame;
And borne on waxen wings essays
A flight—may give some sea a name.
My fate perchance! But as I write
I see through Time’s reverted glass,
In fleckered mists of shade and light,
The phantoms of the ages pass.
I see an infant, tired with play,
Sleep...
