The grecian MUSE, to earth who bore
Her goblet filled with wine of gold,
Dispersed the frown that Ages wore
Upon their foreheads grim and cold,
What time the lyric thunders rolled.
O’er this new Eden of the West
The mightier Muse enkindles now:
Her joy-lyre fashions in my breast,
And wreathes the song-crown for my brow...
Why should we waste and weep?
The Summers weave
A nest of blossoms deep.
Sad hearts, why grieve?
We downy birdlings are
Unfledged for flight:
God’s love-wind woos afar;
Its name, Delight.
From arcades vast and dim
What songs disthrall?
Through Nature’s endless hymn,
Our kindred...
sleep, sleep, sleep
In thy folded waves, O Sea!
Till the quiet breathings creep,
With a low-voiced melody,
Out of the glimmering deep.
For sleep is the close of life;
’T is the end of love, and its birth;
’T is the quieting of strife,
And the silencing of mirth.
Hush and sleep!
Close...
O, whither sail you, Sir John Franklin?
Cried a whaler in Baffin’s Bay.
To know if between the land and the pole
I may find a broad sea-way.
I charge you back, Sir John Franklin,
As you would live and thrive;
For between the land and the frozen pole
No man may sail alive.
But lightly laughed the stout Sir John,...
There was a gay maiden lived down by the mill,—
Ferry me over the ferry,—
Her hair was as bright as the waves of a rill,
When the sun on the brink of his setting stands still,
Her lips were as full as a cherry.
A stranger came galloping over the hill,—
Ferry me over the ferry,—
He gave her broad silver and gold for his will:...
Lear and Cordelia! ’t was an ancient tale
Before thy Shakespeare gave it deathless fame:
The times have changed, the moral is the same.
So like an outcast, dowerless, and pale,
Thy daughter went; and in a foreign gale
Spread her young banner, till its sway became
A wonder to the nations. Days of shame
Are close upon thee: prophets raise...
I
i ’ll call thy frown a headsman, passing grim,
Walking before some wretch foredoomed to death,
Who counts the pantings of his own hard breath,
Wondering how heart can beat, or stead-fast limb
Bear its sad burden to life’s awful brim.
I ’ll call thy smile a priest, who slowly sayeth
Soft words of comfort, as the sinner strayeth
...
Close his eyes; his work is done!
What to him is friend or foeman,
Rise of moon, or set of sun,
Hand of man, or kiss of woman?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know:
Lay him low!
As man may, he fought his fight,
Proved his truth by his endeavor;...
Two armies covered hill and plain,
Where Rappahannock’s waters
Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain
Of battle’s recent slaughters.
The summer clouds lay pitched like tents
In meads of heavenly azure;
And each dread gun of the elements
Slept in its hid embrasure.
The breeze so softly blew it made
No forest leaf...
To the brave all homage render;
Weep, ye skies of June!
With a radiance pure and tender,
Shine, O saddened moon;
“Dead upon the field of glory,”
Hero fit for song and story,
Lies our bold dragoon.
Well they learned, whose hands have slain him,
Braver, knightlier foe
Never fought ’gainst Moor or Paynim—
...
