The rose aloft in sunny air,
Beloved alike by bird and bee,
Takes for the dark Root little care
That toils below it ceaselessly.
I put my question to the flower:
“Pride of the Summer, garden queen,
Why livest thou thy little hour?”
And the Rose answered, “I am seen.”
I put my question to the Root.
“I mine the...
Stern be the pilot in the dreadful hour
When a great nation, like a ship at sea
With the wroth breakers whitening at her lee,
Feels her last shudder if her helmsman cower;
A godlike manhood be his mighty dower!
Such and so gifted, Lincoln, mayst thou be,
With thy high wisdom’s low simplicity
And awful tenderness of voted power.
...
Far-off a young State rises, full of might:
I paint its brave escutcheon. Near at hand
See the log-cabin in the rough clearing stand;
A woman by its door, with steadfast sight,
Trustful, looks Westward, where, uplifted bright,
Some city’s Apparition, weird and grand,
In dazzling quiet fronts the lonely land,
With vast and marvellous...
Even as tender parents lovingly
Send a dear child in some true servant’s care
Forth in the street, for larger light and air,
Feeling the sun her guardian will be,
And dreaming with a blushful pride that she
Will earn sweet smiles and glances every-where,
From loving faces; and that passers fair
Will bend, and bless, and kiss her, when...
You ask a verse, to sing (ah, laughing face!)
Your happy art of growing old with grace?
O Muse, begin, and let the truth—but hold!
First let me see that you are growing old.
To the quick brow Fame grudges her best wreath
While the quick heart to enjoy it throbs beneath:
On the dead forehead’s sculptured marble shown,
Lo, her choice crown—its flowers are also stone.
I lift this sumach-bough with crimson flare,
And, touched with subtle pangs of dreamy pain,
Through the dark wood a torch I seem to bear
In Autumn’s funeral train.
A great, still Shape, alone,
She sits (her harp has fallen) on the sand,
And sees her children, one by one, depart:—
Her cloak (that hides what sins beside her own!)
Wrapped fold on fold about her. Lo,
She comforts her fierce heart,
As wailing some, and some gay-singing go,
With the far vision of that Greater Land
...
I watch the leaves that flutter in the wind,
Bathing my eyes with coolness and my heart
Filling with springs of grateful sense anew,
Before my window—in wind and rain and sun.
And now the wind is gone and now the rain,
And all a motionless moment breathe; and now
Playful the wind comes back—again the shower,
Again the sunshine! Like a...
A giant came to me when I was young,
My instant will to ask—
My earthly Servant, from the earth he sprung
Eager for any task!
“What wilt thou, O my Master?” he began,
“Whatever can be,” I.
“Say thy first wish—whate’er thou wilt I can,”
The Strong Slave made reply.
“Enter the earth and bring its riches forth,
...
