• Here i come creeping, creeping everywhere;
        By the dusty roadside,
        On the sunny hill-side,
        Close by the noisy brook,
        In every shady nook,
    I come creeping, creeping everywhere.

    Here I come creeping, smiling everywhere;
        All around the open door,
        Where sit the aged poor;
        Here where the children...

  • Said the archangels, moving in their glory,
      Seeing the suns bend out along their courses,
        Seeing the earth swim up in vernal light,
    Seeing the year renew her ancient story,—
      Ask we here the Lord of all the finer forces
        To make us now a poet whose song shall reach our height!

    Fain would we know the impulse ever fleeing,
      ...

  • Come listen, O Love, to the voice of the dove,
    Come, hearken and hear him say,
    There are many To-morrows, my Love, my Love,—
    There is only one To-day.

    And all day long you can hear him say
    This day in purple is rolled,
    And the baby stars of the milky-way—
    They are cradled in cradles of gold.

    Now what is thy secret, serene gray...

  • I warn, like the one drop of rain
    On your face, ere the storm;
    Or tremble in whispered refrain
      With your blood, beating warm.
    I am the presence that ever
    Baffles your touch’s endeavor,—
    Gone like the glimmer of dust
      Dispersed by a gust.
    I am the absence that taunts you,
    The fancy that haunts you;
    The ever...

  • Silence was envious of the only voice
    That mightier seemed than she. So, cloaked as Death,
    With potion borrowed from Oblivion,
    Yet with slow step and tear-averted look,
    She sealed his lips, closed his extinguished eyes,
    And, veiling him with darkness, deemed him dead.
    But no!—There ’s something vital in the great
    That blunts the edge of...

  • Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere;
            By the dusty roadside,
            On the sunny hillside,
            Close by the noisy brook,
            In every shady nook,
    I come creeping, creeping everywhere.

    Here I come creeping, smiling everywhere;
            All round the open door,
            Where sit the agèd poor;
            ...

  • From “Susan: A Poem of Degrees”
    HER Master gave the signal, with a look:
    Then, timidly as if afraid, she took
    In her rough hands the Laureate’s dainty book,
    And straight began. But when she did begin,
    Her own mute sense of poesy within
    Broke forth to hail the poet, and to greet
    His graceful fancies and the accents sweet
    In which...

  • The Voice that stands for Floods to me

    Is sterile borne to some —

    The Face that makes the Morning mean

    Glows impotent on them —


    What difference in Substance lies

    That what is Sum to me

    By other Financiers be deemed

    Exclusive Property!

  • I thought, in the days of the droving,

    Of steps I might hope to retrace,

    To be done with the bush and the roving

    And settle once more in my place.

    With a heart that was well nigh to breaking,

    In the long, lonely rides on the plain,

    I thought of the pleasure of taking

    The hand of a lady again...