Thou art my morning, twilight, noon, and eve,
My summer and my winter, spring and fall;
For Nature left on thee a touch of all
The moods that come to gladden or to grieve
The heart of Time, with purpose to relieve
From lagging sameness. So do these forestall
In thee such o'erheaped sweetnesses as pall
Too swiftly, and the taster tasteless leave.

Scenes that I love to me always remain
Beautiful, whether under summer sun
Beheld, or, storm-dark, stricken across with rain.
So, through all humors, thou 'rt the same sweet one:
Doubt not I love thee well in each, who see
Thy constant change is changeful constancy.

I that speak unto thee am he. John 4:26.


She left her home that morn
In fair Samaria's land,
All heedless of her state forlorn,
Sin-bound, both heart and hand.
With prejudicial pride
She scorned the meek request
Of One who sat the well beside,
With heat and thirst opprest.
"Thou art a Jew," she said,
"And asketh drink of me?
Samaria's daughter was not bred
To deal with such as thee."
She would not yield a sip
E'en if its maker sued,
While he from love, with thirsting lip,
Sought and her heart renewed.
He made her ask for life,
Eternal life through him,
And "living water" was the type
To her perception dim.
O yes! She fain would taste
And never thirst again,
And never cross the burning waste
In wearines...

Helen of Troy has sprung from Hell
To claim her ancient throne,
So we have bidden friends farewell
To follow her alone.

The Lady of the laurelled brow,
The Queen of pride and power,
Looks rather like a phantom now,
And rather like a flower.

Deep in her eyes the lamp of night
Burns with a secret flame,
Where shadows pass that have no sight,
And ghosts that have no name.

For mute is battle's brazen horn
That rang for Priest and King,
And she who drank of that brave morn
Is pale with evening.

An hour there is when bright words flow,
A little hour for sleep,
An hour between, when lights are low,
And then she seems to weep,

But no less lovely than of old
She shines, and almost hears
The horns that blew in ...

Sing--sing--Music was given,
    To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving;
Souls here, like planets in Heaven,
    By harmony's laws alone are kept moving.
Beauty may boast of her eyes and her cheeks,
    But Love from the lips his true archery wings;
And she, who but feathers the dart when she speaks,
    At once sends it home to the heart when she sings.
    Then sing--sing--Music was given,
        To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving;
    Souls here, like planets in Heaven,
        By harmony's laws alone are kept moving.

When Love, rocked by his mother,
    Lay sleeping as calm as slumber could make him,
"Hush, hush," said Venus, "no other
    "Sweet voice but his own is worthy to wake him."
Dreaming of music he slumbered the while
    ...

I.

Pessimist

There is never a thing we dream or do
But was dreamed and done in the ages gone;
Everything's old; there is nothing that's new,
And so it will be while the world goes on.

The thoughts we think have been thought before;
The deeds we do have long been done;
We pride ourselves on our love and lore
And both are as old as the moon and sun.

We strive and struggle and swink and sweat,
And the end for each is one and the same;
Time and the sun and the frost and wet
Will wear from its pillar the greatest name.

No answer comes for our prayer or curse,
No word replies though we shriek in air;
Ever the taciturn universe
Stretches unchanged for our curse or prayer.

With our mind's small light in the dark we crawl,<...

Soft and holy Vesper Hour -
    Precursor of the night -
How I love thy soothing power,
    The hush, the fading light;
Raising those vain thoughts of ours
    To higher, holier things -
Mingling gleams from Eden's bowers
    With earth's imaginings!

How thrilling in some grand old fane
    To hear the Vesper prayer
Rise, with the organ's solemn strain,
    On incense-laden air;
While the last dying smiles of day
    Athwart the stained glass pour -
Flooding with red and golden ray
    The shrine and chancel floor.

Who, at such moment, has not felt
    Those yearnings, vague, yet sweet,
For Heaven's joys at last to melt,
    Into fruition meet;
And wished, as with rapt soul he viewed
    That glorious Home above,
That ...

The years are many since his hand
Was laid upon my head,
Too weak and young to understand
The serious words he said.

Yet often now the good man's look
Before me seems to swim,
As if some inward feeling took
The outward guise of him.

As if, in passion's heated war,
Or near temptation's charm,
Through him the low-voiced monitor
Forewarned me of the harm.

Stranger and pilgrim! from that day
Of meeting, first and last,
Wherever Duty's pathway lay,
His reverent steps have passed.

The poor to feed, the lost to seek,
To proffer life to death,
Hope to the erring, to the weak
The strength of his own faith.

To plead the captive's right; remove
The sting of hate from Law;
And soften in the fire of love
The ...

His glory, by whose might all things are mov'd,
Pierces the universe, and in one part
Sheds more resplendence, elsewhere less. In heav'n,
That largeliest of his light partakes, was I,
Witness of things, which to relate again
Surpasseth power of him who comes from thence;
For that, so near approaching its desire
Our intellect is to such depth absorb'd,
That memory cannot follow. Nathless all,
That in my thoughts I of that sacred realm
Could store, shall now be matter of my song.

Benign Apollo! this last labour aid,
And make me such a vessel of thy worth,
As thy own laurel claims of me belov'd.
Thus far hath one of steep Parnassus' brows
Suffic'd me; henceforth there is need of both
For my remaining enterprise Do thou
Enter into my bosom, and there br...

Last night for the first time, O Heart's Delight,
    I held your hand a moment in my own,
    The dearest moment which my soul has known,
Since I beheld and loved you at first sight.

I left you, and I wandered in the night,
    Under the rain, beside the ocean's moan.
    All was black dark, but in the north alone
There was a glimmer of the Northern Light.

My heart was singing like a happy bird,
    Glad of the present, and from forethought free,
Save for one note amid its music heard:
    God grant, whatever end of this may be,
That when the tale is told, the final word
    May be of peace and benison to thee.

CONCORD, 1838


I reached the middle of the mount
Up which the incarnate soul must climb,
And paused for them, and looked around,
With me who walked through space and time.

Five rosy boys with morning light
Had leaped from one fair mother's arms,
Fronted the sun with hope as bright,
And greeted God with childhood's psalms.

Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?

In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts;
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.

The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood
As when my brothers, long ago,
Came with me to the wood.

But they are gone,--the holy ...

"Although St. Franceses was unwearied in her devotions, yet if, during her prayers, she was called away by her husband or any domestic duty, she would close the book cheerfully, saying that a wife and a mother, when called upon, must quit her God at the alter to find Him in her domestic affairs."
- Legends of the Monastic Orders,


How infinite and sweet, Thou everywhere
And all abounding Love, Thy service is!
Thou liest an ocean round my world of care,
My petty every-day; and fresh and fair,
Pour Thy strong tides through all my crevices,
Until the silence ripples into prayer.

That Thy full glory may abound, increase,
And so Thy likeness shall be formed in me,
I pray; the answer is not rest or peace,
But charges, duties, wants, anxieties,
Till there seems room for...

A little crippled figure, two big pathetic eyes,
A face that looked unchildish, so wan it was and wise;
I watched her as the homesick tears came chasing down each cheek.
"I had to come," she whispered low, "I was so tired and weak.
My spine, you know! I used to be so strong, and tall, and straight!
I went to school and learned to read and write upon a slate,
And add up figures - such a lot, and play with all my might,
Until I hurt my back - since then I just ache day and night.
'Tis most a year since I could stand, or walk around at all;
All I am good for now, you see, is just to cry and crawl."
Poor, pale-faced thing! there came to us the laughter gay and sweet
Of little ones let out from school, the sound of flying feet.
She listened for a moment, then turned her to the wall

Thou wert once the purest wave
Where the tempests roar;
Thou art now a golden wave
On the golden shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Thou wert once the bluest wave
Shadows e'er hung o'er;
Thou art now the brightest wave
On the brightest shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Thou wert once the gentlest wave
Ocean ever bore;
Thou art now the fairest wave
On the fairest shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Whiter foam than thine, O wave,
Wavelet never wore,
Stainless wave; and now you lave
The far and stormless shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Who bade thee go, O bluest wave,
Beyond the tempest's roar?
Who bade thee flow, O fairest wave,
Unto the golden shore,
Ever -- ever -- evermore?

Who wav...

        In the midnight of darkness and terror,
    When I would grope nearer to God,
        With my back to a record of error
    And the highway of sin I have trod,
        There come to me shapes I would banish -
    The shapes of the deeds I have done;
        And I pray and I plead till they vanish -
    All vanish and leave me, save one.

        That one with a smile like the splendor
    Of the sun in the middle-day skies -
        That one with a spell that is tender -
    That one with a dream in her eyes -
        Cometh close, in her rare Southern beauty,
    Her languor, her indolent grace;
        And my soul turns its back on its duty,
    To live in the light of her face.

        She touches my cheek, and I quiver -
    I tremb...

"What is life?" I asked a lad,
As on with joyful bound,
He went to join the merry troop,
Upon the cricket ground.

He paus'd at once with pleasant look,
This bright-ey'd, laughing boy,
"Why, life," said he, "is sport and mirth;
With me 'tis mostly joy.

"The tasks which I receive at school,
I feel to be unkind;
But when I get my ball and bat,
I drive them from my mind.

"With other boys I run and shout,
I throw and catch the ball,
Oh, life is a right jolly thing,
To take it all in all."

"And what is life?" I asked a maid,
Who trod, as if on air,
So lightly she did trip along,
So bright she look'd, and fair.

The maiden stopp'd her graceful steps,
And to my words replied,
"Oh, life's a lovely dream," she s...

"Here we dwell, in holiest bowers,
    "Where angels of light o'er our orisons bend;
"Where sighs of devotion and breathings of flowers
    "To heaven in mingled odor ascend.
        "Do not disturb our calm, oh Love!
        "So like is thy form to the cherubs above,
"It well might deceive such hearts as ours."

Love stood near the Novice and listened,
    And Love is no novice in taking a hint;
His laughing blue eyes soon with piety glistened;
    His rosy wing turned to heaven's own tint.
        "Who would have thought," the urchin cries,
        "That Love could so well, so gravely disguise
"His wandering wings and wounding eyes?"

Love now warms thee, waking and sleeping,
    Young Novice, to him all thy orisons rise.
He tinges the heave...

    Laughing and singing
With rhythmical flow,
Leaping and springing,
O light-hearted Sault! -
Tossing up snowy hands
In thy glad play,
Shaking out dewy locks
Bright with the spray, -
Joyously ever
Thy bright waters go,
Yet wearying never,
O beautiful Sault!

    Kingly Superior
Leaps to thy arms,
And all his broad waters
Are bright with thy charms;
They sparkle, and glitter,
And flash in their play,
Chasing ripple and rainbow
Away and away!
Weary, I ween,
Of his solemn repose,
Gaily the mighty Flood
Flashes and glows;
And, buoyantly, brightly,
Fleet-footed or slow,
Doth dance with thee lightly,
Unwearying Sault!

    If I were a fairy
I'd dance with thee too,
Daily and nightly,

The moon from solemn azure sky
    Looked down on earth below,
And coldly her wan light fell alike
    On scenes of joy and woe:
A stately palace reared its dome,
    Within reigned warmth and light
And festive mirth - the moon's faint rays
    Soft kissed its marble white.

A little farther was the home
    Of toil, alas! and want,
That spectre grim that countless hearths
    Seems ceaselessly to haunt;
And yet, as if in mocking mirth,
    She smiled on that drear spot,
Silvering brightly the ruined eaves
    And roof of that poor cot.

And then, with curious gaze, she looked
    Within a curtained loom,
Where sat a girl of gentle mien
    In young life's early bloom;
Her glitt'ring light made still more bright
    The veil ...