O lonesome sea-gull, floating far
Over the ocean’s icy waste,
Aimless and wide thy wanderings are,
Forever vainly seeking rest:—
Where is thy mate, and where thy nest?
’Twixt wintry sea and wintry sky,
Cleaving the keen air with thy breast,
Thou sailest slowly, solemnly;
No fetter on thy wing is pressed:—
...
My dearling!—thus, in days long fled,
In spite of creed and court and queen,
King Henry wrote to Anne Boleyn,—
The dearest pet name ever said,
And dearly purchased, too, I ween!
Poor child! she played a losing game:
She won a heart,—so Henry said,—
But ah, the price she gave instead!
Men’s hearts, at best, are but a...
You who dread the cares and labors
Of the tenant’s annual quest,
You who long for peace and rest,
And the quietest of neighbors,
You may find them, if you will,
In the city on the hill.
One indulgent landlord leases
All the pleasant dwellings there;
He has tenants everywhere,—
Every day the throng increases;...
This realm is sacred to the silent past;
Within its drowsy shades are treasures rare
Of dust and dreams; the years are long since last
A stranger’s footfall pressed the creaking stair.
This room no housewife’s tidy hand disturbs;
And here, like some strange presence, ever clings
A homesick smell of dry forgotten herbs,—
A musty...
Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for to-night!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me to...
The dead SINGER
A POET’S soul has sung its way to God;
Has loosed its luminous wings from earthly thongs,
And soared to join the imperishable throngs
Whose feet the immaculate valleys long have trod.
For him, the recompense; for us, the rod;
And we to whom regretfulness belongs
Crown our dead singer with his own sweet songs,
And...
I feel a poem in my heart to-night,
A still thing growing,—
As if the darkness to the outer light
A song were owing:
A something strangely vague, and sweet, and sad,
Fair, fragile, slender;
Not tearful, yet not daring to be glad,
And oh, so tender!
It may not reach the outer world at all,...
Far up the lonely mountain-side
My wandering footsteps led;
The moss lay thick beneath my feet,
The pine sighed overhead.
The trace of a dismantled fort
Lay in the forest nave,
And in the shadow near my path
I saw a soldier’s grave.
The bramble wrestled with the weed
Upon the lowly mound;—
The simple...
Enchantress, touch no more that strain!
I know not what it may contain,
But in my breast such mood it wakes
My very spirit almost breaks.
Thoughts come from out some hidden realm
Whose dim memorials overwhelm,
Still bring not back the things I lost,—
Still bringing all the pain they cost.
Break not his sweet repose—
Thou whom chance brings to this sequestered ground,
The sacred yard his ashes close,
But go thy way in silence; here no sound
Is ever heard but from the murmuring pines,
Answering the sea’s near murmur;
Nor ever here comes rumor
Of anxious world or war’s foregathering signs.
The bleaching...
