The moon pursues her stealthy course,
The shades grow gray upon the hill,
Silence has fallen on the stream,
Fresh from the valley blows the wind;
The songster of spring days has hushed
His notes in waste of gloomy groves,
The herds are couched along the fields,
And calm the flight of midnight hour.

And night the peaceful ingle-nook
Has with her misty livery clad;
In stove the flames have ceased to dart,
And candle down to socket burned;
The saintly face of household gods
Now darkly gloom from modest shrine,

XCI

The knot which first my heart did strain
When that your servant I became
Doth bind me still for to remain
Always your own, as now I am;
And if ye find that I do feign,
With just judgement myself I damn
To have disdain.

If other thought in me do grow
But still to love you steadfastly,
If that the proof do not well show
That I am yours assuredly,
Let every wealth turn me to woe
And you to be continually
My chiefest foe.

If other love or new request
Do seize my heart but only this,
Or if within my wearied breast

As nurs'd by warmer suns, and milder showers
In fair Italia's vales the orange blows;
Heavy at once with fruit, and gay with flowers,
The richness of the year she all together shows;

Thus, e'er the blossom of her youth is o'er,
Two smiling infants grace Maria's side;
More lovely fruit than all Pomona's store,
Her ruddy orchards, or her golden pride!

Less fair, twin apples blushing on a bough,
On whose smooth cheek the ripening summer glows,
Or those which broke fleet Atalanta's vow,
Or that, from whence celestial strife arose.

Those there be who toil,
Treading the frozen midnight,
While at ease I sit
Warm through the long night-hours
Close to my braiser fire.

Queen of the golden bow, Dian, I sing,
The much-lov'd sister of the Archer-king,
Loosing the arrow from the twanging string;
The steepy rocks and woodland walks among,
Dealing destruction mid the sylvan throng:
And while the fatal arrows fly around,
The echoing shades with bestial cries resound.
The trembling earth and seas their fear avow,
Firm treads the goddess of the golden bow;
On every side a deadly shaft she speeds,
By every shaft a destin'd victim bleeds;
Till, sated with the sport, the Archer-maid,
Her bow unbent, seeks Delphi's sacred shade,

On my head-gear
Without plaint I bear
My snow load of care.

Each fickle art you try in vain
A constant breast to move;
For she who would be lov'd again,
Herself must learn to love.

The wayfarer
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
In a long time."
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,
"Doubtless there are other roads."

Ah, not this marble, dead and cold:
Far from its base and shaft expanding—the round zones circling, comprehending,
Thou, Washington, art all the world's, the continents' entire—not yours alone, America,
Europe's as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer's cot,
Or frozen North, or sultry South—the African's—the Arab's in his tent,
Old Asia's there with venerable smile, seated amid her ruins;
(Greets the antique the hero new? 'tis but the same—the heir legitimate, continued ever,
The indomitable heart and arm—proofs of the never-broken line,

To get thine ends, lay bashfulnesse aside;
Who feares to aske, doth teach to be deny'd.