This is the pathway where she walked,
The tender grass pressed by her feet.
The laurel boughs laced overhead,
Shut out the noonday heat.
The sunshine gladly stole between
The softly undulating limbs.
From every blade and leaf arose
The myriad insect hymns.
A brook ran murmuring beneath
The grateful...
A peasant stood before a king and said,
“My children starve, I come to thee for bread.”
On cushions soft and silken sat enthroned
The king, and looked on him that prayed and moaned,
Who cried again,—“For bread I come to thee.”
For grief, like wine, the tongue will render free.
Then said the prince with simple truth “Behold
I sit on...
Go bow thy head in gentle spite,
Thou lily white,
For she who spies thee waving here,
With thee in beauty can compare
As day with night.
Soft are thy leaves and white: her arms
Boast whiter charms.
Thy stem prone bent with loveliness
Of maiden grace possesseth less:
Therein she charms.
Thou in thy lake dost see...
Thou spark of life that wavest wings of gold,
Thou songless wanderer mid the songful birds,
With Nature’s secrets in thy tints unrolled
Through gorgeous cipher, past the reach of words,
Yet dear to every child
In glad pursuit beguiled,
Living his unspoiled days mid flowers and flocks and herds!
Thou winged blossom, liberated...
Light of dim mornings; shield from heat and cold;
Balm for all ailments; substitute for praise;
Comrade of those who plod in lonely ways
(Ways that grow lonelier as the years wax old);
Tonic for fears; check to the over-bold;
Nurse, whose calm hand as strong restriction lays,
Kind but resistless, on our wayward days;
Mart, where high...
Softer than silence, stiller than still air
Float down from high pine-boughs the slender leaves.
The forest floor its annual boon receives
That comes like snowfall, tireless, tranquil, fair.
Gently they glide, gently they clothe the bare
Old rocks with grace. Their fall a mantle weaves
Of paler yellow than autumnal sheaves
Or those...
Mid the flower-wreathed tombs I stand
Bearing lilies in my hand.
Comrades! in what soldier-grave
Sleeps the bravest of the brave?
Is it he who sank to rest
With his colors round his breast?
Friendship makes his tomb a shrine;
Garlands veil it: ask not mine.
One low grave, yon trees beneath,
Bears no roses, wears no...
“since cleopatra died!” Long years are past,
In Antony’s fancy, since the deed was done.
Love counts its epochs, not from sun to sun,
But by the heart-throb. Mercilessly fast
Time has swept onward since she looked her last
On life, a queen. For him the sands have run
Whole ages through their glass, and kings have won
And lost their...
Now all the cloudy shapes that float and lie
Within this magic globe we call the brain
Fold quite away, condense, withdraw, refrain,
And show it tenantless—an empty sky.
Return, O parting visions, pass not by;
Nor leave me vacant still, with strivings vain,
Longing to grasp at your dim garment’s train,
And be drawn on to sleep’s immunity...
There was a captain-general who ruled in Vera Cruz,
And what we used to hear of him was always evil news:
He was a pirate on the sea—a robber on the shore,
The Señor Don Alonzo Estabán San Salvador.
There was a Yankee skipper who round about did roam;
His name was Stephen Folger, and Nantucket was his home:
And having gone to Vera Cruz, he had...
