Oh, did you see him riding down,
And riding down, while all the town
Came out to see, came out to see,
And all the bells rang mad with glee?
Oh, did you hear those bells ring out,
The bells ring out, the people shout,
And did you hear that cheer on cheer
That over all the bells rang clear?
And did you see the waving flags,...
Who knows the thoughts of a child,
The angel unreconciled
To the new strange world that lies
Outstretched to its wondering eyes?
Who knows if a piteous fear,
Too deep for a sob or a tear,
Is beneath that breathless gaze
Of sudden and swift amaze,—
Some fear from the dim unknown,
Some shadow like black mist blown...
Come, silence, thou sweet reasoner,
Lay thy soft hand on all that stir—
On grass and shrub and tree and flower,
And let this be thine own dear hour.
No more across the neighbor rill
To that lone cottage on the hill
Shall wonder with her questions go,
Seeking if joy be there or no.
No longer shall the listening ear
Go...
brook, would thou couldst flow
With a music all thine own—
Thy babble of music alone—
Not a word of the Long Ago
In thy brawling down below,
Not a sigh of the wind by thee,
The wind in the willow tree!
Or, Brook, if thou couldst go,
As once, in the prime of May,
For a whole long holiday,
When the cowslips down...
The wild geese, flying in the night, behold
Our sunken towns lie underneath a sea,
Which buoys them on its billows. Liberty
They have, but such as those frail barques of old
That crossed unsounded mains to search our wold.
To them the night unspeakable is free;
They have the moon and stars for company;
To them no foe but the remorseless...
“now half a hundred years had I been born—
So many and so brief—when made aware,
By Time’s blunt looks, of hoar-frost in my hair.
I turned to one of twenty, in the corn,
At husking time, that blissful autumn morn,
And said, ‘What if the red ear fall to me?’
I would not for the world have any see
The look, half doubtful, mazeful, half in...
There are some quiet ways—
Ay, not a few—
Where the affections grow,
And noble days
Distil a gentle praise
That, as cool dew,
Or aromatic gums
Within a bower,
In after-times becomes
A calm, perennial dower.
There wayside bush and briar!
These lend a grace,
Flashing a glad assent...
Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: “Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?”
“Why, say, ‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’”
“My men grow mutinous day by day;...
He lies low in the levelled sand,
Unsheltered from the tropic sun,
And now of all he knew not one
Will speak him fair in that far land.
Perhaps ’twas this that made me seek,
Disguised, his grave one winter-tide;
A weakness for the weaker side,
A siding with the helpless weak.
A palm not far held out a hand,
Hard by a...
What strength! what strife! what rude unrest!
What shocks! what half-shaped armies met!
A mighty nation moving west,
With all its steely sinews set
Against the living forests. Hear
The shouts, the shots of pioneer,
The rended forests, rolling wheels,
As if some half-checked army reels,
Recoils, redoubles, comes again,
Loud...
