•     "My ardent horse, why are you neighing?

    Why are you hanging your neck?

    Why do you not shake you mane,

    Not nibble your bit?

    Do I not care for you?

    Or don't you eat enough oats?

    Is your harness not beautiful?

    Is your rein made not of silk?

    Are your shoes not of...

  • They are all gone away,

    The House is shut and still,

    There is nothing more to say.


    Through broken walls and gray

    The winds blow bleak and shrill:

    They are all gone away.


    Nor is there one to-day

    To speak them good or ill:

    There is nothing...

  • How brittle are the Piers

    On which our Faith doth tread —

    No Bridge below doth totter so —

    Yet none hath such a Crowd.


    It is as old as God —

    Indeed — 'twas built by him —

    He sent his Son to test the Plank,

    And he pronounced it firm.

  • How dare the robins sing,

    When men and women hear

    Who since they went to their account

    Have settled with the year! —

    Paid all that life had earned

    In one consummate bill,

    And now, what life or death can do

    Is immaterial.

    Insulting is the sun

    To him whose mortal light...

  • How destitute is he

    Whose Gold is firm

    Who finds it every time

    The small stale Sum —

    When Love with but a Pence

    Will so display

    As is a disrespect

    To India.

  • How far is it to Heaven?

    As far as Death this way —

    Of River or of Ridge beyond

    Was no discovery.


    How far is it to Hell?

    As far as Death this way —

    How far left hand the Sepulchre

    Defies Topography.

  • How firm Eternity must look

    To crumbling men like me

    The only Adamant Estate

    In all Identity —


    How mighty to the insecure

    Thy Physiognomy

    To whom not any Face cohere —

    Unless concealed in thee

  • My little devices to live till Monday would woo your sad attention - Full of work and plots and little happinesses the Thought of you protracts them all and makes them sham and cold -

          How fleet - how indiscreet an one -

          how always wrong is Love -

          The joyful little Deity

          We are not scourged to serve -...

  • How fortunate the Grave —

    All Prizes to obtain —

    Successful certain, if at last,

    First Suitor not in vain.