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.
...
Edith, the silent stars are coldly gleaming,
The night wind moans, the leafless trees are still.
Edith, there is a life beyond this seeming,
So sleeps the ice-clad lake beneath thy hill.
So silent beats the pulse of thy pure heart,
So shines the thought of thy unquestioned eyes.
O life! why wert thou helpless in thy art?
O...
No abbey’s gloom, nor dark cathedral stoops,
No winding torches paint the midnight air;
Here the green pines delight, the aspen droops
Along the modest pathways, and those fair
Pale asters of the season spread their plumes
Around this field, fit garden for our tombs.
And shalt thou pause to hear some funeral bell
Slow stealing o...
Our boat to the waves go free,
By the bending tide, where the curled wave breaks,
Like the track of the wind on the white snowflakes:
Away, away! ’T is a path o’er the sea.
Blasts may rave,—spread the sail,
For our spirits can wrest the power from the wind,
And the gray clouds yield to the sunny mind,
Fear not we the whirl of...
