Poems

A flood of glory hangs upon the world,
Summer’s bright wings shining ere they are furled.

TO –

Is it a sin to wish that I may meet thee
In that dim world whither our spirits stray,
When sleep and darkness follow life and day?
Is it a sin, that there my voice should greet thee
With all that love that I must die concealing?
Will my tear-laden eyes sin in revealing
The agony that preys upon my soul?
Is’t not enough through the long, loathsome day,
To hold each look, and word, in stern control?
May I not wish the staring sunlight gone,
Day and its thousand torturing moments done,
And prying sights and sounds of men away?
Oh, still and silent Night! when all things sleep,
Locked in thy swarthy breast my secret keep:
Come, with thy vision’d hopes and blessings now!
I dream the only happiness I know.

SONNET

Written at four o’clock in the morning, after a ball.
Oh, modest maiden morn! why dost thou blush,
Who thus betimes art walking in the sky?
’Tis I, whose cheek bears pleasure’s sleepless flush,
Who shame to meet thy gray, cloud-lidded eye,
Shadowy, yet clear: from the bright eastern door,
Where the sun’s shafts lie bound with thongs of fire,
Along the heaven’s amber-pavëd floor,
The glad hours move, hymning their early choir.
O, fair and fragrant morn! upon my brow
Press thy fresh lips, shake from thy dropping hair
Cold showers of balmy dew on me, and ere
Day’s chariot-wheels upon th’ horizon glow,
Wrap me within thy sober cloak of gray,
And bear me to thy twilight bowers away.

LINES,

In answer to a question

I’ll tell thee why this weary world meseemeth
But as the visions light of one who dreameth,
Which pass like clouds, leaving no trace behind;
Why this strange life, so full of sin and folly,
In me awakeneth no melancholy,
Nor leaveth shade, or sadness, on my mind.
’Tis not that with an undiscerning eye
I see the pageant wild go dancing by,
Mistaking that which falsest is, for true;
’Tis not that pleasure hath entwined me,
’Tis not that sorrow hath enshrined me;
I bear no badge of roses or of rue,
But in the inmost chambers of my soul
There is another world, a blessed home,
O’er which no living power holdeth control,
Anigh to which ill things do never come.
There shineth the glad sunlight of clear thought,
With hope, and faith, holding communion high,
Over a fragrant land with flowers wrought,
Where gush the living springs of poesy;
There speak the voices that I love to hear,
There smile the glances that I love to see,
There live the forms of those my soul holds dear,
For ever, in that secret world, with me.
They who have walked with me along life’s way,
And sever’d been by Fortune’s adverse tide,
Who ne’er again, through Time’s uncertain day,
In weal or woe, may wander by my side;
These all dwell here: nor these, whom life alone
Divideth from me, but the dead, the dead;
Those weary ones who to their rest are gone,
Whose footprints from the earth have vanishëd;
Here dwell they all: and here, within this world,
Like light within a summer sun cloud furled,
My spirit dwells.  Therefore, this evil life,
With all its gilded snares, and fair deceivings,
Its wealth, its want, its pleasures, and its grievings,
Nor frights, nor frets me, by its idle strife.
O thou! who readest, of thy courtesy,
Whoe’er thou art, I wish the same to thee!

A FAREWELL

I shall come no more to the Cedar Hall,
The fairies’ palace beside the stream;
Where the yellow sun-rays at morning fall
Through their tresses dark, with a mellow gleam.

I shall tread no more the thick dewy lawn,
When the young moon hangs on the brow of night,
Nor see the morning, at early dawn,
Shake the fading stars from her robes of light.

I shall fly no more on my fiery steed,
O’er the springing sward,—through the twilight wood;
Nor reign my courser, and check my speed,