The beloved person must I think
Have entered
The summer mountain:
For the cuckoo is singing
With a louder note.

Because I loved someone
who didn't love back,
I wail till the
mountain echoes answer

Now that I've built my house
near the meadows,
morning after morning
I hear the sound
of the warbler singing

Autumn mists,
don't rise up this morning!
give me at least a far-off glimpse
of oak leaves reddening
on the Saho hills

Although it is not plainly visible to the eye
That autumn has come,
I am alarmed
By the noise of the wind!

Two figures fill this temple to my sight,
Who e'er shall speak, their forms behind him stand;
One has the beauty of our Northern blood,
And wields Jove's thunder in his lifted hand.

The other wears the solemn hue of night
Drawn darker in the blazonry of pain,
Blotting the gaslight's mimic day, he slings
A dangerous weapon too, a broken chain.

Oh! what a thing it was to sit and hear
Our Sumner pour the torrent of his soul;
The broken thread and parcel of the crowd
Knit to one web—one passion-colored whole.

I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fall in the Battle of Life,
The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife;
Not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the resounding acclaim
Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wear the chaplet of fame,
But the hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the broken in heart,
Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate part;
Whose youth bore no flower in its branches, whose hopes burned in ashes away,

The autumn leaves
Are too heavy with color.
The slender trees
On the Vulcan Road
Are dressed in scarlet and gold
Like young courtesans
Waiting for their lovers.
But soon
The winter winds
Will strip their bodies bare
And then
The sharp, sleet-stung
Caresses of the cold
Will be their only

I watched it oozing quietly
Out of the gaping gash.
The lads thrust on to victory
With lunge and curse and crash.

Half-dazed, that uproar seemed to me
Like some old battle-sound
Heard long ago, as quietly
His blood soaked in the ground.

The lads thrust on to victory
With lunge and crash and shout.
I lay and watched, as quietly
His life was running out.

In the dregs of the year, all steam and rain,
In the timid time of the heart again,
When indecision is bold and thorough,
And action dreams of a dawn in vain,

I saw high up over Bloxham vale
The ploughshare tilt to the next long trail,
And, spying a larder in every furrow,
The wagtails crowd like a dancing hail!

A second wonder there on the hill:
Beneath the hedge, I saw with a thrill
The budding primroses laugh good-morrow
From a deep cradle rocked by a rill!

Wagtail smart in his belted blue,
Primrose paying her gold ere due,—