Selected Poems

The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.

the breeze in her castle of sunshine;
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;

For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years,
Bitter contested farthings
And coffers heaped with tears.

For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

The proudest trees.

It’s like the morning,—

Best when it’s done,—

The everlasting clocks

Chime noon.

The Wind.
It’s like the light,—

A fashionless delight

It’s like the bee,—

A dateless melody.

It’s like the woods,

Private like breeze,

Phraseless, yet it stirs

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Put me in on the firmest side,

So I shall never fall;

For we must ride to the Judgment,

And it’s partly down hill.

But never I mind the bridges,

And never I mind the sea;

Held fast in everlasting race

By my own choice and thee.

Good-by to the life I used to live,

And the world I used to know;

And kiss the hills for me, just once;

Now I am ready to go!

shady friend for torrid days
Is easier to find
Than one of higher temperature
For frigid hour of mind.