The Sunset stopped on Cottages

950

The Sunset stopped on Cottages
Where Sunset hence must be
For treason not of His, but Life's,
Gone Westerly, Today—

The Sunset stopped on Cottages
Where Morning just begun—
What difference, after all, Thou mak'st
Thou supercilious Sun?


The Telephone

'When I was just as far as I could walk From here today, There was an hour All still When leaning with my head again a flower I heard you talk. Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say-- You spoke from that flower on the window sill- Do you remember what it was you said?' 'First tell me what it was you thought you heard.' 'Having found the flower and driven a bee away, I leaned on my head And holding by the stalk, I listened and I thought I caught the word-- What was it? Did you call me by my name?


The Swan

I'll leave the mortal world behind,
Take wing in an flight fantastical,
With singing, my eternal soul
Will rise up swan-like in the air.

Possessing two immortal traits,
In Purgatory I won't not linger,
But rising over jealousy
I'll leave behind me kingdoms' shine.

'Tis so! Though not renowned by birth,
I am the muses favorite,
From other notables a world apart-
I'll be preferred by death itself.

The tomb will not confine me,
I will not turn to dust among the stars,


The Sun Was Slumbering in the West

The sun was slumbering in the West,
My daily labors past;
On Anna's soft and gentle breast
My head reclined at last;
The darkness closed around, so dear
To fond congenial souls,
And thus she murmur'd at my ear,
"My love, we're out of coals!

"That Mister Bond has call'd again,
Insisting on his rent;
And all the Todds are coming up
To see us, out of Kent --
I quite forgot to tell you John
Has had a tipsy fall --
I'm sure there's something going on
WIth that vile Mary Hall!


The Spoilsport

My familiar ghost again
Comes to see what he can see,
Critic, son of Conscious Brain,
Spying on our privacy.

Slam the window, bolt the door,
Yet he’ll enter in and stay;
In tomorrow’s book he’ll score
Indiscretions of today.

Whispered love and muttered fears,
How their echoes fly about!
None escape his watchful ears,
Every sigh might be a shout.

No kind words nor angry cries
Turn away this grim spoilsport;
No fine lady’s pleading eyes,


The Silver Jubilee

To James First Bishop of Shrewsbury on the 25th Year of his Episcopate July 28. 1876


1

Though no high-hung bells or din
Of braggart bugles cry it in—
What is sound? Nature’s round
Makes the Silver Jubilee.

2

Five and twenty years have run
Since sacred fountains to the sun
Sprang, that but now were shut,
Showering Silver Jubilee.

3

Feasts, when we shall fall asleep,
Shrewsbury may see others keep;
None but you this her true,


The Sentence

And the stone word fell
On my still-living breast.
Never mind, I was ready.
I will manage somehow.

Today I have so much to do:
I must kill memory once and for all,
I must turn my soul to stone,
I must learn to live again—

Unless . . . Summer's ardent rustling
Is like a festival outside my window.
For a long time I've foreseen this
Brilliant day, deserted house.


The Rock Cries Out to Us Today

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than


The Reaper

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird
Breaking the silence of the seas


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