I Saw him once before,
As he passed by the door;
And again
The pavement-stones resound
As he totters o’er the ground
With his cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the crier on his round
Through the town.
But...
Not in the world of light alone,
Where God has built his blazing throne,
Nor yet alone in earth below,
With belted seas that come and go,
And endless isles of sunlit green,
Is all thy Maker’s glory seen:
Look in upon thy wondrous frame,—
Eternal wisdom still the same!
The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves
Flows...
Clear the brown path to meet his coulter’s gleam!
Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team,
With toil’s bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow,
The lord of earth, the hero of the plough!
First in the field before the reddening sun,
Last in the shadows when the day is done,
Line after line, along the bursting sod,
Marks the broad acres...
I Love to hear thine earnest voice,
Wherever thou art hid,
Thou testy little dogmatist,
Thou pretty Katydid!
Thou mindest me of gentlefolks,—
Old gentlefolks are they,—
Thou say’st an undisputed thing
In such a solemn way.
Thou art a female, Katydid!
I know it by the trill
That quivers through thy...
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;...
“Man wants but little here below.”
LITTLE I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brown stone will do,)
That I may call my own;
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.
Plain food is quite enough for me;
Three courses are as good as ten;—
If nature can...
[On the proposed breaking up of the United States frigate “Constitution”]
AY, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle-shout,
And burst the cannon’s roar:
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more!...
[March 25, 1861, South Carolina having adopted the Ordinance of Secession]
SHE has gone,—she has left us in passion and pride—
Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side!
She has torn her own star from our firmament’s glow,
And turned on her brother the face of a foe!
O Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,
We can never forget that our...
When, stricken by the freezing blast,
A nation’s living pillars fall,
How rich the storied page, how vast,
A word, a whisper, can recall!
No medal lifts its fretted face,
Nor speaking marble cheats your eye;
Yet, while these pictured lines I trace,
A living image passes by:
A roof beneath the mountain pines;
...
From “This Is It”
RUDOLPH, professor of the headsman’s trade,
Alike was famous for his arm and blade.
One day a prisoner Justice had to kill
Knelt at the block to test the artist’s skill.
Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed,
Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd.
His falchion lightened with a sudden gleam,
As...
