Vain
I O foolish tears, go back! Learn to cover your jealous pride far down in the nerveless heart that ye are voices for. Your sobbings mar the unfinished picture that my trembling life would fill up to greet its dawn. I know, poor heart, that you are reaching up to a Love that finds […]
Myself
“La patience est amère; mais le fruit en est doux!” I Away down into the shadowy depths of the Real I once lived. I thought that to seem was to be. But the waters of Marah were beautiful, yet they were bitter. I waited, and hoped, and prayed; Counting the heart-throbs and the tears […]
My Heritage
“My heritage!” It is to live within The marts of Pleasure and of Gain, yet be No willing worshiper at either shrine; To think, and speak, and act, not for my pleasure, But others’. The veriest slave of time And circumstances. Fortune’s toy! To hear of fraud, injustice, and oppression, And feel who is […]
Miserimus
“Sounding through the silent dimness Where I faint and weary lay, Spake a poet: ‘I will lead thee To the land of song to-day.’” I O bards! weak heritors of passion and of pain! Dwellers in the shadowy Palace of Dreams! With your unmated souls flying insanely at the stars! Why have you led […]
Memory
I see her yet, that dark-eyed one, Whose bounding heart God folded up In His, as shuts when day is done, Upon the elf the blossom’s cup. On many an hour like this we met, And as my lips did fondly greet her, I blessed her as love’s amulet: Earth hath no treasure, dearer, […]
Karazah Karl
Come back to me! my life is young, My soul is scarcely on her way, And all the starry songs she’s sung, Are prelude to a grander lay. Come back to me! Let this song-born soul receive thee, Glowing its fondest truth to prove; Why so early did’st thou leave me, Are our heaven-grand […]
Judith
“Repent, or I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight thee with the sword of my mouth.” -Revelation ii. 16. I Ashkelon is not cut off with the remnant of a valley. Baldness dwells not upon Gaza. The field of the valley is mine, and it is clothed in verdure. The steepness of […]
Infelix
Where is the promise of my years; Once written on my brow? Ere errors, agonies and fears Brought with them all that speaks in tears, Ere I had sunk beneath my peers; Where sleeps that promise now? Naught lingers to redeem those hours, Still, still to memory sweet! The flowers that bloomed in sunny […]
Hemlock Furrows
I O crownless soul of Ishmael! Uplifting and unfolding the white tent of dreams against the sunless base of eternity! Looking up through thy dumb desolation for white hands to reach out over the shadows, downward, from the golden bastions of God’s eternal Citadel! Praying for Love to unloose the blushing bindings of his […]
Genius
“Where’er there’s a life to be kindled by love, Wherever a soul to inspire, Strike this key-note of God that trembles above Night’s silver-tongued voices of fire.” Genius is power. The power that grasps in the universe, that dives out beyond space, and grapples with the starry worlds of heaven. If genius achieves nothing, […]
Fragment
“Oh! I am sick of what I am. Of all Which I in life can ever hope to be. Angels of light be pitiful to me.” The cold chain of life presseth heavily on me tonight. The thundering pace of thought is curbed, and, like a fiery steed, dasheth against the gloomy walls of […]
Dying
I Leave me; oh! leave me, Lest I find this low earth sweeter than the skies. Leave me lest I deem Faith’s white bosom bared to the betraying arms of Death. Hush your fond voice, lest it shut out the angel trumpet-call! See my o’erwearied feet bleed for rest. Loose the clinging and the […]
Dreams Beauty
Visions of Beauty, of Light, and of Love, Born in the soul of a Dream, Lost, like the phantom-bird under the dove, When she flies over a stream- Come ye through portals where angel wings droop, Moved by the heaven of sleep? Or, are ye mockeries, crazing a soul, Doomed with its waking to […]
Depths
I Lost-lost-lost! To me, for ever, the seat near the blood of the feast. To me, for ever, the station near the Throne of Love! To me, for ever, the Kingdom of Heaven-and I the least. Oh, the least in love- The least in joy- The least in life- The least in death- The […]
Battle Stars
Alone on the hill of storms The voice of the wind shrieks through the mountain. The torrent rushes down the rocks. Red are hundred streams of the light-covered paths of the dead. Shield me in from the storm, I that am a daughter of the stars, and wear the purple and gold of bards, […]
Aspiration
Poor, impious Soul! that fixes its high hopes In the dim distance, on a throne of clouds, And from the morning’s mist would make the ropes To draw it up amid acclaim of crowds- Beware! That soaring path is lined with shrouds; And he who braves it, though of sturdy breath, May meet, half […]
Answer Me
I In from the night. The storm is lifting his black arms up to the sky. Friend of my heart, who so gently marks out the lifetrack for me, draw near to-night; Forget the wailing of the low-voiced wind: Shut out the moanings of the freezing, and the starving, and the dying, and bend […]
Adelina Patti
Thou Pleiad of the lyric world Where Pasta, Garcia shone, Come back with thy sweet voice again, And gem the starry zone. Though faded, still the vision sees The loveliest child of night, The fairest of the Pleiades, Its glory and its light. How fell with music from thy tongue The picture which it […]