When Wisdom tells me that the world’s a speck
Lost on the shoreless blue of God’s To-Day...
I smile, and think, ‘For every man his way:
The world’s my ship, and I’m alone on deck!’
And when he tells me that the world’s a spark
Lit in the whistling gloom of God’s To-Night...
I look within me to the edge of dark,
And dream, ‘The world’s my field, and I’m the lark,
Alone with upward song, alone with light!’
The day begins to droop,--
Its course is done:
But nothing tells the place
Of the setting sun.
The hazy darkness deepens,
And up the lane
You may hear, but cannot see,
The homing wain.
An engine pants and hums
In the farm hard by:
Its lowering smoke is lost
In the lowering sky.
The soaking branches drip,
And all night through
The dropping will not cease
In the avenue.
A tall man there in the house
Must keep his chair:
He knows he will never again
THE day begins to droop,--
Its course is done:
But nothing tells the place
Of the setting sun.
The hazy darkness deepens,
And up the lane
You may hear, but cannot see,
The homing wain.
An engine pants and hums
In the farm hard by:
Its lowering smoke is lost
In the lowering sky.
The soaking branches drip,
And all night through
The dropping will not cease
In the avenue.
A tall man there in the house
Like the vulture
Who on heavy morning clouds
With gentle wing reposing
Looks for his prey,--
Hover, my song!
For a God hath
Unto each prescribed
His destined path,
Which the happy one
Runs o'er swiftly
To his glad goal:
He whose heart cruel
Fate hath contracted,
Struggles but vainly
Against all the barriers
The brazen thread raises,
But which the harsh shears
Must one day sever.
Through gloomy thickets
Presseth the wild deer on,
And with the sparrows
Air -- "The Major's Only Son"
I
Come all good people, far and near,
Oh, come and see what you can hear,
It's of a young man, true and brave,
Who is now sleeping in his grave.
II
Now, William Upson was his name --
If it's not that it's all the same --
He did enlist in the cruel strife,
And it caused him to lose his life.
III
He was Jesse Upson's eldest son,
His father loved his noble son;
This son was nineteen years of age,
In the rebellion he engaged.
IV
Where shall the lover rest
Whom the fates sever
From the true maiden's breast,
Parted for ever?--
Where, through groves deep and high,
Sounds the fair billow,
Where early violets die,
Under the willow.
Chorus.
Soft shall be his pillow.
There, through the summer day,
Cool streams are laving;
There, while the tempests sway,
Scarce are boughs waving;
There, thy rest shall thou take,
Parted for ever,
Never again to wake,
Never, O never!
Chorus.
Ever, ever
Stir and shiver
The reeds and rushes
By the river:
Ever, ever,
As if in dream,
The lone moon's silver
Sleeks the stream.
What old sorrow,
What lost love,
Moon, reeds, rushes,
Dream you of?
from Memories of President Lincoln
1
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.
2
O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night -- O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear'd -- O the black murk that hides the star!
Wherefore in dreams are sorrows born anew,
A healed wound opened, or the past revived?
Last night in my deep sleep I dreamed of you –
Again the old love woke in me, and thrived
On looks of fire, and kisses, and sweet words
Like silver waters purling in a stream,
Or like the amorous melodies of birds:
A dream – a dream.
Again upon the glory of the scene
There settled that dread shadow of the cross
That, when hearts love too well, falls in between –
That warns them of impending woe and loss.
When you go away, my friend,
When you say your last good-bye,
Then the summer time will end,
And the winter will be nigh.
Though the green grass decks the heather,
And the birds sing all the day,
There will be no summer weather
After you have gone away.
When I look into your eyes,
I shall thrill with deepest pain,
Thinking that beneath the skies
I may never look again.
You will feel a moment's sorrow,
I shall feel a lasting grief;
You forgetting on the morrow,
