#Americans
If I could put my woods in song And tell what’s there enjoyed, All men would to my gardens throng… And leave the cities void. In my plot no tulips blow,—
Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy… With sudden passion languishing, Maketh all things softly smile, Painteth pictures mile on mile, Holds a cup with cowslip—wreaths,
Thousand minstrels woke within me, “Our music’s in the hills; ”— Gayest pictures rose to win me, Leopard—colored rills. Up!—If thou knew’st who calls
THOUGH love repine, and reason… There came a voice without reply,— “'T is man’s perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die…
Higher far, Upward, into the pure realm, Over sun or star, Over the flickering Dæmon film, Thou must mount for love,—
Virtue runs before the muse And defies her skill, She is rapt, and doth refuse To wait a painter’s will. Star—adoring, occupied,
They brought me rubies from the mi… And held them to the sun; I said, they are drops of frozen w… From Eden’s vats that run. I looked again,—I thought them he…
Though loath to grieve The evil time’s sole patriot, I cannot leave My honied thought For the priest’s cant,
Seek not the Spirit, if it hide, Inexorable to thy zeal: Baby, do not whine and chide; Art thou not also real? Why should’st thou stoop to poor e…
Thy trivial harp will never please Or fill my craving ear; Its chords should ring as blows th… Free, peremptory, clear. No jingling serenader’s art,
SOME of the hurts you have cured… And the sharpest you still have su… But what torments of grief you end… From evils which never arrived!
The water understands Civilization well; It wets my foot, but prettily, It chills my life, but wittily, It is not disconcerted,
The lords of life, the lords of li… I saw them pass, In their own guise, Like and unlike, Portly and grim,—
Deep in the man sits fast his fate To mould his fortunes, mean or gre… Unknown to Cromwell as to me Was Cromwell’s measure or degree; Unknown to him as to his horse,
Give me truths, For I am weary of the surfaces, And die of inanition. If I knew Only the herbs and simples of the… Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain, an…
