The boat cast loose her moorings;
"Good-by" was all we said.
"Good-by, Old World," we said with a smile,
And never looked back as we sped,
A shining wake of foam behind,
To the heart of the sunset red.

Heavily drove our plunging keel
The warring waves between;
Heavily strove we night and day,
Against the west-wind keen,
Bent, like a foe, to bar our path,--
A foe with an awful mien.

Never a token met our eyes
From the dear land far away;
No storm-swept bird, no drifting branch,
To tell us where it lay.
Wearily searched we, hour by hour,
Through the mist and the driving spray,

Till, all in a flashing moment,
The fog-veils rent and flew,
And a blithesome south-wind caught the sails
And whistled the cordage through,
...

When he, who adores thee, has left but the name
    Of his fault and his sorrows behind,
Oh! say wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame
    Of a life that for thee was resigned?
Yes, weep, and however my foes may condemn,
    Thy tears shall efface their decree;
For Heaven can witness, tho' guilty to them,
    I have been but too faithful to thee.

With thee were the dreams of my earliest love;
    Every thought of my reason was thine;
In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above,
    Thy name shall be mingled with mine.
Oh! blest are the lovers and friend who shall live
    The days of thy glory to see;
But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give
    Is the pride of thus dying for thee.

"Come unto me!" Ah, gentlest word
E'er breathed in human ear!
"I am thy Savior and thy Lord;
Dear child, thou need'st not fear.

"Come unto me in sorrow's hour
When life seems dark and drear;
I'll shield thee from the tempter's power;
Dear child, thou need'st not fear.

"Come unto me when hopes have flown
Like leaves wind-swept and sere,
When every joy thou may'st bemoan;
Dear child, thou need'st not fear.

"Come unto me. I'll give thee rest,
Will wipe away each tear;
Come lean thy head upon my breast;
Dear child, thou need'st not fear."

I give God thanks that I, a lean old man,
Wrinkled, infirm, and crippled with keen pains
By austere penance and continuous toil,
Now rest in spirit, and possess "the peace
Which passeth understanding." Th' end draws nigh,
Though the beginning is yesterday,
And a broad lifetime spreads 'twixt this and that -
A favored life, though outwardly the butt
Of ignominy, malice, and affront,
Yet lighted from within by the clear star
Of a high aim, and graciously prolonged
To see at last its utmost goal attained.
I speak not of mine Order and my House,
Here founded by my hands and filled with saints -
A white society of snowy souls,
Swayed by my voice, by mine example led;
For this is but the natural harvest reaped
From labors such as mine when blessed by God.
...

Love is indeed a glorious prize!
What fairer guerdon meets our eyes?
Though neither wealth nor power are thine,
A very hero thou dost shine.
As of the prophet, they will tell,
Wamik and Asia's tale as well.
They'll tell not of them, they'll but give
Their names, which now are all that live.
The deeds they did, the toils they proved
No mortal knows! But that they loved
This know we. Here's the story true
Of Wamik and of Asia too.

What though upon a wintry sea our life bark sails,
What though we tremble 'neath its cruel gales,
    Its icy blast;
We see a happy port lie far before,
We see its shining waves, its sunny shore,
Where we shall wander, and forget the troubled past,
    At last.

No storms approach that quiet shore, no night
Falls on its silver streams, and valleys bright,
    And gardens vast;
Within that pleasant land of perfect peace
Our toil-worn feet shall stay, our wanderings cease;
There shall we, resting, all forget the past,
    At last.

The sorrows we have hid in silent weariness,
As birds above a wounded, bleeding breast,
    Their bright plumes cast;
The griefs like mourners in a dark array,
That haunt our footsteps here, will flee away,
An...

Winter on the mountains
Summer on the shore,
The robes of sun-gleams woven,
The lake's blue wavelets wore.

Cold, white, against the heavens,
Flashed winter's crown of snow,
And the blossoms of the spring-tide
Waved brightly far below.

The mountain's head was dreary,
The cold and cloud were there,
But the mountain's feet were sandaled
With flowers of beauty rare.

And winding thro' the mountains
The lake's calm wavelets rolled,
And a cloudless sun was gilding
Their ripples with its gold.

Adown the lake we glided
Thro' all the sunlit day;
The cold snows gleamed above us,
But fair flowers fringed our way

The snows crept down the mountain,
The flowers crept up the slope,
Till they seemed to meet and mingle...

Deep languor overcometh mind and frame:
A listless, drowsy, utter weariness,
A trance wherein no thought finds speech or name,


The overstrained spirit doth possess.
She sinks with drooping wing - poor unfledged bird,
That fain had flown! - in fluttering breathlessness.


To what end those high hopes that wildly stirred
The beating heart with aspirations vain?
Why proffer prayers unanswered and unheard


To blank, deaf heavens that will not heed her pain?
Where lead these lofty, soaring tendencies,
That leap and fly and poise, to fall again,


Yet seem to link her with the utmost skies?
What mean these clinging loves that bind to earth,
And claim her with beseeching, wistful eyes?


This little resting-place 'twixt...

Sleep, gentle, mysterious healer,
    Come down with thy balm-cup to me!
Come down, O thou mystic revealer
    Of glories the day may not see!
For dark is the cloud that is o'er me,
    And heavy the shadows that fall,
And lone is the pathway before me,
    And far-off the voice that doth call -
        Faintly, yet tenderly ever,
            From over the dark river, call.

Let me bask for an hour in the sun-ray
    That wraps him forever in light;
Awhile tread his flowery pathway
    Through bowers of unfailing delight; -
Again clasp the hands I lost sight of
    In the chill mist that hung o'er the tide,
What time, with the pale, silent boatman,
    I saw him away from me glide -
        Out into the fathomless myst'ry,
            All s...

        On the white throat of the' useless passion
    That scorched my soul with its burning breath
        I clutched my fingers in murderous fashion,
    And gathered them close in a grip of death;
        For why should I fan, or feed with fuel,
    A love that showed me but blank despair?
        So my hold was firm, and my grasp was cruel -
    I meant to strangle it then and there!

        I thought it was dead. But with no warning,
    It rose from its grave last night, and came
        And stood by my bed till the early morning,
    And over and over it spoke your name.
        Its throat was red where my hands had held it;
    It burned my brow with its scorching breath;
        And I said, the moment my eyes beheld it,
    "A love like this can kn...

        Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
The sun is set; the day is dead:
        Thy Feast has fled;
My eyes are wet with tears unshed;
        I bow my head;
Where the star-fringed shadows softly sway
        I bend my knee,
And, like a homesick child, I pray,
        Mary, to thee.

        Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
And, all the day -- since white-robed priest
        In farthest East,
In dawn's first ray -- began the Feast,
        I -- I the least --
Thy least, and last, and lowest child,
        I called on thee!
Virgin! didst hear? my words were wild;
        Didst think of me?

        Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
Alas! and no!    The angels bright,
        With wings as white
As a dream of snow in love and light,
        Flashe...

Now as even's warning bell
Rings the day's departing knell,
Leaving me from labour free,
Solitude, I'll walk with thee:
Whether 'side the woods we rove,
Or sweep beneath the willow grove;
Whether sauntering we proceed
Cross the green, or down the mead;
Whether, sitting down, we look
On the bubbles of the brook;
Whether, curious, waste an hour,
Pausing o'er each tasty flower;
Or, expounding nature's spells,
From the sand pick out the shells;
Or, while lingering by the streams,
Where more sweet the music seems,
Listen to the soft'ning swells
Of some distant chiming bells
Mellowing sweetly on the breeze,
Rising, falling by degrees,
Dying now, then wak'd again
In full many a 'witching strain,
Sounding, as the gale flits by,
Flats...

I.

    Oh, give me light, to-day, or let me die, -
    The light of love, the love-light of the sky, -
    That I, at length, may see my darling's face
                            One minute's space.


II.

    Have I not wept to know myself so weak
    That I can feel, not see, the dimpled cheek,
    The lips, the eyes, the sunbeams that enfold
                            Her locks of gold?


III.

    Have I not sworn that I will not be wed,
    But mate my soul with hers on my death-bed?
    The soul can see, - for souls are seraphim, -
                            When eyes are dim.


IV.

    Oh, hush! she comes. I know her. She is nigh.
    She brings me death, true heart, and I will die.
    Sh...

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year;
Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

There’s many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;
There’s Margaret and Mary, there’s Kate and Caroline;
But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say,
So I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,
If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break;
But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

As I came up the vall...

Oh you are coming, coming, coming,
How will hungry Time put by the hours till then?,
But why does it anger my heart to long so
For one man out of the world of men?

Oh I would live in myself only
And build my life lightly and still as a dream,
Are not my thoughts clearer than your thoughts
And colored like stones in a running stream?

Now the slow moon brightens in heaven,
The stars are ready, the night is here,
Oh why must I lose myself to love you,
My dear?

Above the city hung the moon,
Right o'er a plot of ground
Where flowers and orchard-trees were fenced
With lofty walls around:
'Twas Gilbert's garden, there to-night
Awhile he walked alone;
And, tired with sedentary toil,
Mused where the moonlight shone.

This garden, in a city-heart,
Lay still as houseless wild,
Though many-windowed mansion fronts
Were round it; closely piled;
But thick their walls, and those within
Lived lives by noise unstirred;
Like wafting of an angel's wing,
Time's flight by them was heard.

Some soft piano-notes alone
Were sweet as faintly given,
Where ladies, doubtless, cheered the hearth
With song that winter-even.
The city's many-mingled sounds
Rose like the hum of ocean;
They rather lulled the...

Take all the love that e'er was told
    Since first the world began,
Increase it twenty thousand-fold
    (If mathematics can),
Add all the love the world shall see
    Till Gabriel's final call,
And when compared with mine 'twill be
    Infinitesimal.

I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers,
Full of sweet trees and colour of glad grass,
In midst whereof there was
A lady clothed like summer with sweet hours.
Her beauty, fervent as a fiery moon,
Made my blood burn and swoon
Like a flame rained upon.
Sorrow had filled her shaken eyelids’ blue,
And her mouth’s sad red heavy rose all through
Seemed sad with glad things gone.

She held a little cithern by the strings,
Shaped heartwise, strung with subtle-coloured hair
Of some dead lute-player
That in dead years had done delicious things.
The seven strings were named accordingly;
The first string charity,
The second tenderness,
The rest were pleasure, sorrow, sleep, and sin,
And loving-kindness, that is pity’s kin
And is most pitiless.