These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,
Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;
The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,
Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.
Fit rosary for a queen, in shape and hue,
When Contemplation tells her pensive beads
Of mortal thoughts, forever old and new.
Fit for a queen? Why, surely then...
The little gate was reached at last,
Half hid in lilacs down the lane;
She pushed it wide, and, as she past,
A wistful look she backward cast,
And said,—“Auf wiedersehen!”
With hand on latch, a vision white
Lingered reluctant, and again
Half doubting if she did aright,
Soft as the dews that fell that night,
She...
Still thirteen years: ’t is autumn now
On field and hill, in heart and brain;
The naked trees at evening sough;
The leaf to the forsaken bough
Sighs not,—“Auf wiedersehen!”
Two watched yon oriole’s pendent dome,
That now is void, and dank with rain,
And one,—oh, hope more frail than foam!
The bird to his deserted home...
Yes, faith is a goodly anchor;
When skies are sweet as a psalm,
At the bows it lolls so stalwart,
In its bluff, broad-shouldered calm.
And when over breakers to leeward
The tattered surges are hurled,
It may keep our head to the tempest,
With its grip on the base of the world.
But, after the shipwreck, tell me...
Men say the sullen instrument,
That, from the Master’s bow,
With pangs of joy or woe,
Feels music’s soul through every fibre sent,
Whispers the ravished strings
More than he knew or meant;
Old summers in its memory glow;
The secrets of the wind it sings;
It hears the April-loosened springs;
And mixes with...
O’er the wet sands an insect crept
Ages ere man on earth was known—
And patient Time, while Nature slept,
The slender tracing turned to stone.
’T was the first autograph: and ours?
Prithee, how much of prose or song,
In league with the creative powers,
Shall ’scape Oblivion’s broom so long.
24th June, 1886.
As a twig trembles, which a bird
Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred;—
I only know she came and went.
As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,
The blue dome’s measureless content,
So my soul held that moment’s heaven;—
I only know she came and went.
As, at one bound, our swift...
The Rich man’s son inherits lands,
And piles of brick, and stone, and gold,
And he inherits soft, white hands,
And tender flesh that fears the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old;
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
The rich man’s son inherits cares;
The bank may break, the factory burn,...
O Thou of home the guardian Lar,
And, when our earth hath wandered far
Into the cold, and deep snow covers
The walks of our New England lovers,
Their sweet secluded evening-star!
’T was with thy rays the English Muse
Ripened her mild domestic hues;
’T was by thy flicker that she conned
The fireside wisdom that enrings
With...
God makes sech nights, all white an’ still
Fur ’z you can look or listen;
Moonshine an’ snow on field an’ hill,
All silence an’ all glisten.
Zekle crep’ up quite unbeknown
An’ peeked in thru’ the winder,
An’ there sot Huldy all alone,
’Ith no one nigh to hender.
A fireplace filled the room’s one side,
With...
