She leaned her cheek upon her hand,
And looked across the glooming land;
She saw the wood from farm to farm
Touched by the twilight’s ghostly charm;
And heard the owl’s cry sound forlorn
Across the fields of waving corn,
And sighed with sad voice dreamily:
Oriskany! Oriskany!
The moonlight through the open door
...
Weary at heart with winter yesterday,
I sought the fields for something green to see,
Some budded turf or mossbank quietly
Uncovered in the sweet familiar way.
Crossing a pasture slope that sunward lay,
I suddenly surprised beneath a tree
A girlish creature who at sight of me
Sprang up all wild with daintiest dismay.
“Stay, pretty...
The grass of fifty Aprils hath waved green
Above the spent heart, the Olympian head,
The hands crost idly, the shut eyes unseen,
Unseeing, the locked lips whose song hath fled;
Yet mystic-lived, like some rich, tropic flower,
His fame puts forth fresh blossoms hour by hour;
Wide spread the laden branches dropping dew
On the low,...
Down the long hall she glistens like a star,
The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone,
Yet none the less immortal, breathing on.
Time’s brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar.
When first the enthralled enchantress from afar
Dazzled mine eyes, I saw not her alone,
Serenely poised on her world-worshipped throne,
As when she...
There was a man who watched the river flow
Past the huge town, one gray November day.
Round him in narrow high-piled streets at play
The boys made merry as they saw him go,
Murmuring half-loud, with eyes upon the stream,
The immortal screed he held within his hand.
For he was walking in an April land
With Faust and Helen. Shadowy as a...
Wake, israel, wake! Recall to-day
The glorious Maccabean rage,
The sire heroic, hoary-gray,
His five-fold lion-lineage:
The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God,
The Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod.
From Mizpeh’s mountain-ridge they saw
Jerusalem’s empty streets, her shrine
Laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law
...
Across the Eastern sky has glowed
The flicker of a blood-red dawn;
Once more the clarion cock has crowed,
Once more the sword of Christ is drawn.
A million burning roof-trees light
The world-wide path of Israel’s flight.
Where is the Hebrew’s fatherland?
The folk of Christ is sore bestead;
The Son of Man is bruised and...
What, can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried
By twenty scorching centuries of wrong?
Is this the House of Israel, whose pride
Is as a tale that ’s told, an ancient song?
Are these ignoble relics all that live
Of psalmist, priest, and prophet? Can the breath
Of very heaven bid these bones revive,
Open the graves and clothe the...
From far away, from far away,
It journeyed swiftly night and day,
It rested not. With cruel haste
It crossed the ocean’s trackless waste.
It swerved no moment in its flight
Through mist and storm and deepest night.
No mercy prompted it to stay,
No pity moved it to delay.
O’er seas that rose up to detain,
Silent as Death it...
What, are you hurt, Sweet? So am I;
Cut to the heart;
Though I may neither moan nor cry,
To ease the smart.
Where was it, Love? Just here! So wide
Upon your cheek!
Oh happy pain that needs no pride,
And may dare speak.
Lay here your pretty head. One touch
Will heal its worst,
While I, whose...
