June Dreams, In January
“So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills, In languid palpitation, half a-swoon With ardors and sun-loves and subtle thrills; “Throb, Beautiful! while the fervent hours exhale As
Struggle
My soul is like the oar that momently Dies in a desperate stress beneath the wave, Then glitters out again and sweeps the sea: Each second I’m new-born from some new grave.
A Sunrise Song
Young palmer sun, that to these shining sands Pourest thy pilgrim’s tale, discoursing still Thy silver passages of sacred lands, With news of Sepulchre and Dolorous Hill, Canst thou be he that, yester-sunset warm,
Marsh Hymns
Between Dawn and Sunrise. Were silver pink, and had a soul, Which soul were shy, which shyness might A visible influence be, and roll Through heaven and earth ’twere thou, O light! O rhapsody
Night
Fair is the wedded reign of Night and Day. Each rules a half of earth with different sway, Exchanging kingdoms, East and West, alway. Like the round pearl that Egypt drunk in wine, The
In Absence
I. The storm that snapped our fate’s one ship in twain Hath blown my half o’ the wreck from thine apart. O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main To thee-ward strain my eyes,
To Baynard Taylor
To range, deep-wrapt, along a heavenly height, O’erseeing all that man but undersees; To loiter down lone alleys of delight, And hear the beating of the hearts of trees, And think the thoughts that
Street Cries
Oft seems the Time a market-town Where many merchant-spirits meet Who up and down and up and down Cry out along the street Their needs, as wares; one THUS, one SO: Till all the
The Crystal
At midnight, death’s and truth’s unlocking time, When far within the spirit’s hearing rolls The great soft rumble of the course of things A bulk of silence in a mask of sound, When darkness
Martha Washington
Written for the “Martha Washington Court Journal”. Down cold snow-stretches of our bitter time, When windy shams and the rain-mocking sleet Of Trade have cased us in such icy rime That hearts are scarcely
Acknowledgment
I. O Age that half believ’st thou half believ’st, Half doubt’st the substance of thine own half doubt, And, half perceiving that thou half perceiv’st, Stand’st at thy temple door, heart in, head out!
The Waving Of The Corn
Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled Thy plough to ring this solitary tree With clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field, In cool green radius twice my length may be Scanting the corn thy
Control
O Hunger, Hunger, I will harness thee And make thee harrow all my spirit’s glebe. Of old the blind bard Herve sang so sweet He made a wolf to plow his land.
A Dedication. To Charlotte Cushman
As Love will carve dear names upon a tree, Symbol of gravure on his heart to be, So thought I thine with loving text to set In the growth and substance of my canzonet;
Resurrection
Sometimes in morning sunlights by the river Where in the early fall long grasses wave, Light winds from over the moorland sink and shiver And sigh as if just blown across a grave. And