Puslapio vaizdai
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Of pea-green paroquets 'twixt neighbor trees,

Like missives and sweet morning inquiries

From green to green, in green-live oaks' round heads,
Busy with jays for thoughts-grays, whites and reds.
Of pranked woodpeckers that ne'er gossip out,

But alway tap at doors and gad about-
Robins and mocking birds that all day long

Athwart straight sunshine weave cross-threads of song,
Shuttles of music-clouds of mosses gray
That rain me rains of pleasant thoughts alway
From a low sky of leaves-faint yearning psalms
Of endless metre breathing through the palms
That crowd and lean and gaze from off the shore
Ever for one that cometh nevermore-
Palmettos ranked, with childish spear-points set
Against no enemy-rich cones that fret

High roofs of temples shafted tall with pines

Green, grateful mangroves where the sand-beach shines-
Long lissome coast that in and outward swerves,
The grace of God made manifest in curves—

All riches, goods and braveries never told

Of earth, sun, air and heaven—now I hold
Your being in my being; I am ye,

And ye myself; yea, lastly, Thee,

God, whom my roads all reach, howe'er they run,
My Father, Friend, Belovèd, dear All-One,

Thee in my soul, my soul in Thee, I feel,

Self of my self. Lo, through my sense doth steal
Clear cognizance of all selves and qualities,

Of all existence that hath been or is,

Of all strange haps that men miscall of chance,
And all the works of tireless circumstance:
Each borders each, like mutual sea and shore,
Nor aught misfits his neighbor that's before,

Nor him that's after-nay, through this still air,
Out of the North come quarrels, and keen blare
Of challenge by the hot-breath'd parties blown ;
Yet break they not this peace with alien tone,
Fray not my heart, nor fright me for my land,
-I hear from all-wards, allwise understand,
The great bird Purpose bears me twixt her wings,
And I am one with all the kinsmen things

That e'er my Father fathered.

Oh, to me

All questions solve in this tranquillity:

E'en this dark matter, once so dim, so drear,
Now shines upon my spirit heavenly-clear:
Thou, Father, without logic, tellest me
How this divine denial true may be,
-How All's in each, yet every one of all
Maintains his Self complete and several.

TAMPA, FLORIDA, 1877.

TO MY CLASS:

ON CERTAIN FRUITS AND FLOWERS SENT ME IN SICKNESS.

IF spicy-fringéd pinks that blush and pale

With passions of perfume,-if violets blue
That hint of heaven with odor more than hue,—
If perfect roses, each a holy Grail

Wherefrom the blood of beauty doth exhale

Grave raptures round,—if leaves of green as new
As those fresh chaplets wove in dawn and dew
By Emily when down the Athenian vale
She paced, to do observance to the May,

Nor dreamed of Arcite nor of Palamon,—

If fruits that riped in some more riotous play

Of wind and beam than stirs our temperate sun,—

If these the products be of love and pain,

Oft may I suffer, and you love, again.

BALTIMORE, Christmas, 1880.

ON VIOLET'S WAFERS,

SENT ME WHEN I WAS ILL.

FINE-TISSUED as her finger-tips, and white

As all her thoughts; in shape like shields of prize,
As if before young Violet's dreaming eyes

Still blazed the two great Theban bucklers bright
That swayed the random of that furious fight
Where Palamon and Arcite made assize
For Emily; fresh, crisp as her replies,
That, not with sting, but pith, do oft invite
More trial of the tongue; simple, like her,
Well fitting lowlihood, yet fine as well,

-The queen's no finer; rich (though gossamer)
In help to him they came to, which may tell

How rich that him she'll come to; thus men see,
Like Violet's self e'en Violet's wafers be.

BALTIMORE, 1881.

IRELAND.

WRITTEN FOR THE ART AUTOGRAPH DURING THE IRISH

FAMINE, 1880.

HEARTSOME Ireland, winsome Ireland,

Charmer of the sun and sea,

Bright beguiler of old anguish,

How could Famine frown on thee?

As our Gulf-Stream, drawn to thee-ward,
Turns him from his northward flow,

And our wintry western headlands
Send thee summer from their snow,

Thus the main and cordial current
Of our love sets over sea,-
Tender, comely, valiant Ireland,
Songful, soulful, sorrowful Ireland,—
Streaming warm to comfort thee.

BALTIMORE, 1880.

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