I know thou art true, and I know thou art fair
As the rose-bud that blooms in thy beautiful hair;
Thou art far, but I feel the warm throb of thy heart;
Thou art far, but I love thee wherever thou art.

Wherever at noontide my spirit may be,
At evening it silently wanders to thee;
It seeks thee, my dear one, for comfort and rest,
As the weary-winged dove seeks at night-fall her nest.

Through the battle of life through its sorrow and care
Till the mortal sink down with its load of despair,
Till we meet at the feet of the Father and Son,
I'll love thee and cherish thee, beautiful one.

I and my Soul are alone to-day,
    All in the shining weather;
We were sick of the world, and we put it away,
    So we could rejoice together.

Our host, the Sun, in the blue, blue sky
    Is mixing a rare, sweet wine,
In the burnished gold of his cup on high,
    For me, and this Soul of mine.

We find it a safe and royal drink,
    And a cure for every pain;
It helps us to love, and helps us to think,
    And strengthens body and brain.

And sitting here, with my Soul alone,
    Where the yellow sun-rays fall,
Of all the friends I have ever known
    I find it the best of all.

We rarely meet when the World is near,
    For the World hath a pleasing art
And brings me so much that is bright and dear
    That my Soul...

I.
Why wail you, pretty plover? and what is it that you fear?
Is he sick your mate like mine? have you lost him, is he fled?
And there—the heron rises from his watch beside the mere,
And flies above the leper’s hut, where lives the living-dead.

II.
Come back, nor let me know it! would he live and die alone?
And has he not forgiven me yet, his over-jealous bride,
Who am, and was, and will be his, his own and only own,
To share his living death with him, die with him side by side?

III.
Is that the leper’s hut on the solitary moor,
Where noble Ulric dwells forlorn, and wears the leper’s weed?
The door is open. He! is he standing at the door,
My soldier of the Cross? it is he and he indeed!

IV.
My roses—will he take them now—mine, his—from off th...

To the heart, to the heart the white petals
Quietly fall.
Memory is a little wind, and magical
The dreaming hours.
As a breath they fall, as a sigh;
Green garden hours too langorous to waken,
White leaves of blossomy tree wind-shaken:
As a breath, a sigh,
As the slow white drift
Of a butterfly.
Flower-wings falling, wings of branches
One after one at wind's droop dipping;
Then with the lift
Of the air's soft breath, in sudden avalanches
Slipping.
Quietly, quietly the June wind flings
White wings,
White petals, past the footpath flowers
Adown my dreaming hours.
At the heart, at the heart the butterfly settles.
As a breath, a sigh
Fall the petals of hours, of the white-leafed flowers,
Fall the petalled wings of the butterfly.
T...

HORACE

When you were mine in auld lang syne,
And when none else your charms might ogle,
I'll not deny,
Fair nymph, that I
Was happier than a Persian mogul.

LYDIA

Before she came--that rival flame!--
(Was ever female creature sillier?)
In those good times,
Bepraised in rhymes,
I was more famed than Mother Ilia!

HORACE

Chloe of Thrace! With what a grace
Does she at song or harp employ her!
I'd gladly die
If only I
Might live forever to enjoy her!

LYDIA

My Sybaris so noble is
That, by the gods! I love him madly--
That I might save
Him from the grave
I'd give my life, and give it gladly!

HORACE

What if ma belle from favor fell,
And I made up my mind to sh...

I.

Nor did we lack our own right royal king,
The glory of our peaceful realm and race.
By no long years of restless travailing,
By no fierce wars or intrigues bland and base,
Did he attain his superlofty place;
But one fair day he lounging to the throne
Reclined thereon with such possessing grace
That all could see it was in sooth his own,
That it for him was fit and he for it alone.



II.

He there reclined as lilies on a river,
All cool in sunfire, float in buoyant rest;
He stirred as flowers that in the sweet south quiver;
He moved as swans move on a lake’s calm breast,
Or clouds slow gliding in the golden west;
He thought as birds may think when ’mid the trees
Their joy showers music o’er the brood-filled nest;
He swaye...

The daisy follows soft the sun,
And when his golden walk is done,
    Sits shyly at his feet.
He, waking, finds the flower near.
"Wherefore, marauder, art thou here?"
    "Because, sir, love is sweet!"

We are the flower, Thou the sun!
Forgive us, if as days decline,
    We nearer steal to Thee, --
Enamoured of the parting west,
The peace, the flight, the amethyst,
    Night's possibility!

Soleano i miei pensier soavemente.

HE COMFORTS HIMSELF WITH THE HOPE THAT SHE HEARS HIM.


    My thoughts in fair alliance and array
Hold converse on the theme which most endears:
Pity approaches and repents delay:
E'en now she speaks of us, or hopes, or fears.
Since the last day, the terrible hour when Fate
This present life of her fair being reft,
From heaven she sees, and hears, and feels our state:
No other hope than this to me is left.
O fairest miracle! most fortunate mind!
O unexampled beauty, stately, rare!
Whence lent too late, too soon, alas! rejoin'd.
Hers is the crown and palm of good deeds there,
Who to the world so eminent and clear
Made her great virtue and my passion here.

MACGREGOR.


    My thought...

Among the dwellers in the silent fields
The natural heart is touched, and public way
And crowded street resound with ballad strains,
Inspired by one whose very name bespeaks
Favour divine, exalting human love;
Whom, since her birth on bleak Northumbria's coast,
Known unto few but prized as far as known,
A single Act endears to high and low
Through the whole land to Manhood, moved in spite
Of the world's freezing cares, to generous Youth,
To Infancy, that lisps her praise to Age
Whose eye reflects it, glistening through a tear
Of tremulous admiration. Such true fame
Awaits her 'now'; but, verily, good deeds
Do not imperishable record find
Save in the rolls of heaven, where hers may live
A theme for angels, when they celebrate
The high-souled virtues which ...

Do you ever think of me? you who died
    Ere our Youth's first fervour chilled,
With your soft eyes and your pulses stilled
    Lying alone, aside,
Do you ever think of me, left in the light,
From the endless calm of your dawnless night?

I am faithful always: I do not say
    That the lips which thrilled to your lips of old
To lesser kisses are always cold;
    Had you wished for this in its narrow sense
    Our love perhaps had been less intense;
But as we held faithfulness, you and I,
    I am faithful always, as you who lie,
    Asleep for ever, beneath the grass,
    While the days and nights and the seasons pass, -
    Pass away.

I keep your memory near my heart,
    My brilliant, beautiful guiding Star,
Till long live over, I too d...

        1.

        I TO myself have neither power nor worth,
        Patience nor love, nor anything right good;
        My soul is a poor land, plenteous in dearth--
        Here blades of grass, there a small herb for food--
        A nothing that would be something if it could;
        But if obedience, Lord, in me do grow,
        I shall one day be better than I know.

        2.

        The worst power of an evil mood is this--
        It makes the bastard self seem in the right,
        Self, self the end, the goal of human bliss.
        But if the Christ-self in us be the might
        Of saving God, why should I spend my force
        With a dark thing to reason of the light--
        Not push it rough aside, and hold obedient course?

LINES WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR'S BROTHER, EDWARD BLISS EMERSON, WHILST SAILING OUT OF BOSTON HARBOR, BOUND FOR THE ISLAND OF PORTO RICO, IN 1832

Farewell, ye lofty spires
That cheered the holy light!
Farewell, domestic fires
That broke the gloom of night!
Too soon those spires are lost,
Too fast we leave the bay,
Too soon by ocean tost
From hearth and home away,
Far away, far away.

Farewell the busy town,
The wealthy and the wise,
Kind smile and honest frown
From bright, familiar eyes.
All these are fading now;
Our brig hastes on her way,
Her unremembering prow
Is leaping o'er the sea,
Far away, far away.

Farewell, my mother fond,
Too kind, too good to me;
Nor pearl nor diamond
Would pay my debt to thee.
But ev...

"The heart knoweth its own bitterness"


The heart hath its moments of hopeless gloom,
As rayless as is the dark night of the tomb;
When the past has no spell, the future no ray,
To chase the sad cloud from the spirit away;
When earth, though in all her rich beauty arrayed,
Hath a gloom o'er her flowers - o'er her skies a dark shade,
And we turn from all pleasure with loathing away,
Too downcast, too spirit sick, even to pray!

Oh! where may the heart seek, in moments like this,
A whisper of hope, or a faint gleam of bliss?
When friendship seems naught but a cold, cheerless flame,
And love a still falser and emptier name;
When honors and wealth are a wearisome chain,
Each link interwoven with grief and with pain,
And each solace or joy that the spiri...

That you might happier be than all the rest,
Than I who have been happy loving you,
Of all the innocent even the happiest--
This I beseeched for you.

Until I thought of those unending skies--
Of stagnant cloud, or fleckless dull blue air,
Of days and nights delightless, no surprise,
No threat, no sting, no fear;

And of the stirless waters of the mind,
Waveless, unfurrowed, of no living hue,
With dead eaves dropping slowly in no wind,
And nothing flowering new.

And then no more I wished you happiness,
But that whatever fell of joy or woe
I would not dare, O Sweet, to wish it less,
Or wish you less than you.

Oh tell me not of the lands so old
Where the Orient treasures its hills of gold,
And the rivers lie in the sun's bright rays
Forever singing the old world's praise.
Nor proudly boast of the gardens grand
That spring to earth at a king's command;
There are treasures here in the far great West
That rival the hills on the Orient's crest.

Far from the sight of the dusty town
Like a perfect gem in a golden crown,
Lies a beautiful garden vast and fair,
Where the wild birds sing in the evening air,
And the dews fall down in a silent shower
On the fragrant head of each beaming flower;
While far and near o'er the land sun-kissed,
Hangs the roseate veil of the sunset mist.

Under the shade of the western wall
There's a glimmer of roses fair and tall,

Surely Lucy love returns,
Though her meaning's not reveal'd;
Surely love her bosom burns,
Which her coyness keeps conceal'd:
Else what means that flushing cheek,
When with her I chance to be?
And those looks, that almost speak
A secret warmth of love for me?

Would she, where she valued not,
Give such proofs of sweet esteem?
Think what flowers for me she's got--
What can this but fondness seem?
When, to try their pleasing powers,
Swains for her cull every grove,--
When she takes my meaner flowers,
What can guide the choice but love?

Was not love seen yesternight,
When two sheep had rambled out?
Who but Lucy set them right?
The token told, without a doubt.
When others stare, she turns and frowns;
When I but glance, a smile I ...

This moment yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone,
It seems to me there are other men in other lands, yearning and thoughtful;
It seems to me I can look over and behold them, in Germany, Italy,
France, Spain or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or
India talking other dialects;
And it seems to me if I could know those men, I should become attached to them, as I do to men in my own lands;
O I know we should be brethren and lovers,
I know I should be happy with them.

To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that noble pair,
Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison


It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures, life may perfect be.

Call, noble Lucius, then for wine,
And let thy looks with gladness shine:
Accept this garland, plant it on thy head,
And think—nay, know—thy Morison ’s not dead.
He leap’d the present age,
Possest with holy rage
To see that bright eternal Day
Of which we Priests and Poets say
Such trut...