There was a land where lived no violets.
A traveller at once demanded: “Why?”
The people told him:
“Once the violets of this place spoke thus:
‘Until some woman freely gives her lover
To another woman
We will fight in bloody scuffle.’”
Sadly the people added:
“There are no violets here.”
-
-
I Explain the silvered passing of a ship at night,
The sweep of each sad lost wave,
The dwindling boom of the steel thing’s striving,
The little cry of a man to a man,
A shadow falling across the grayer night,
And the sinking of the small star;Then the waste, the far waste of waters,
And the soft lashing of black waves
For long... -
These lands are clothed in burning weather,
These parched lands pant for God’s cool rain;
I look away where strike together
The burnished sky and barren plain.I look away; no green thing gladdens
My weary eye—no flower, no tree,
Naught save the earth, the sage-brush saddens
The scorched, gray earth that sickens me.Oh...
-
From this quaint cabin window I can see
The strange, vague line of ghostly drift-wood, though
No ray of silver moon or soft star-glow
Steals through the summer night’s solemnity.
Pale forms drive landward and wild figures flee
Like spectres up the shore; I hear the slow,
Firm tread of marching billows which I know
Will walk beside the... -
Fierce burns our fire of driftwood; overhead
Gaunt maples lift arms against the night;
The stars are sobbing,—sorrow-shaken, white,
And high they hang, or show sad eyes grown red
With weeping for their queen,—the moon, just dead.
Black shadows backward reel when tall and bright
The broad flames stand and fling a golden light
On mats of... -
A Bed of ashes and a half-burned brand
Now mark the spot where last night’s campfire sprung
And licked the dark with slender, scarlet tongue;
The sea draws back from shores of yellow sand,
Nor speaks lest he awake the sleeping land.
Tall trees grow out of shadows; high among
Their sombre boughs one clear, sweet song is sung,
In deep... -
Mount Rainier
long hours we toiled up through the solemn wood
Beneath moss-banners stretched from tree to tree;
At last upon a barren hill we stood
And, lo, above loomed Majesty!ALONG SHORE
WHAT wondrous sermons these seas preach to men!
What lofty pinnacles they seek to climb!
How old and bent they are, yet strong as when... -
I
1861–1865
but do we truly mourn our soldier dead,
Or understand at all their precious fame—
We that were born too late to feel the flame
That leapt from lowly hearths, and grew, dispread,
And, like a pillar of fire, our armies led?
Or you that knew them—do the long years tame
The memory-anguish? Are they more than name?
Oh... -
On the wide veranda white,
In the purple failing light,
Sits the master while the sun is lowly burning;
And his dreamy thoughts are drowned
In the softly flowing sound
Of the corn-songs of the field-hands slow returning.Oh, we hoe de co’n
Since de ehly mo’n;
Now de sinkin’ sun
Says de day... -
She told the story, and the whole world wept
At wrongs and cruelties it had not known
But for this fearless woman’s voice alone.
She spoke to consciences that long had slept:
Her message, Freedom’s clear reveille, swept
From heedless hovel to complacent throne.
Command and prophecy were in the tone,
And from its sheath the sword of...