Eyes like the violet⁠—in them I see All that is fair, that is holy to me! Eyes that shed fragrance, so constant, so true, Pure as a clear drop of morning dew. Eyes like the violet, gently along Lead m...

Through the land of tribulation, O’er the river of despair, When the taut heart snaps with tension, Fame awaits you, smiling there. After love has all been wasted, After every song is sung; Late⁠—too ...

I climbed the craggy hill of fame, Heart-sore and wearily, Stood on her gleaming goal at length, And sighed in ecstasy. “O God,” I cried, “what bliss”⁠—when lo! Came stealing like a pall, The strains ...

Happy youth in joyous laughter, Wafts me pensively alone O’er the winding way, where sorrow Claims the Mantled for her own. I can hear their voices ringing Down the corridor of years, As they lift the...

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn, As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on, Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home. The hea...

The dreams of the dreamer Are life-drops that pass The break in the heart To the soul’s hour-glass. The songs of the singer Are tones that repeat The cry of the heart ’Till it ceases to beat....

The peerless boon of innocence, The first in nature’s list, Is fading, ere the rising sun The world awake has kist. The early dew upon the grass, The purity of morn, The glint that lies in virgin chee...

My joy leaps with your ecstasy, In sympathy divine; The smiles that wreathe upon your lips. Find sentinels on mine: Your lightest sigh I’m echoing, I tremble with your pain, And all your tears are fal...

We stand mute! No words can paint such fragile imagery, Those prismic gossamers that roll Beyond the sky-line of the soul; We stand mute!...

The breaking dead leaves ’neath my feet A plaintive melody repeat, Recalling shattered hopes that lie As relics of a bygone sky. Again I thread the mazy past, Back where the mounds are scattered fast⁠...

Trailing night’s sand-sifted stars, Rainbows sweep, as day unbars, Fragrant essences of morn, Bathe humanity⁠—new-born!...

There are highways in the soul, Heights like pyramids that rise Far beyond earth-veilèd eyes, Sweeping through the barless skies O’er the line where daylight dies⁠— There are highways in the soul!...

I rest me deep within the wood, Drawn by its silent call, Far from the throbbing crowd of men On nature’s breast I fall. My couch is sweet with blossoms fair, A bed of fragrant dreams, And soft upon m...

Minutes swiftly throb and pass, Shadows cross the dial-glass, Speeding ever to some call, Weary world and shadows, all. Down the closing aisles of day, Tramping footsteps die away, But no tidings thre...

The phantom happiness I sought O’er every crag and moor; I paused at every postern gate, And knocked at every door; In vain I searched the land and sea, E’en to the inmost core, The curtains of eterna...

Our separate winding ways we trod, Along the highways, unto God, Unbonded by the clasp of hand, Without a vow⁠—we understand, Estranged for aye, the fusing kiss, Omnipotent, we bide in this⁠— They nee...

A wordless kiss, a stifled sigh, A trembling lip, a downcast eye, “Alas,” they say, “A-day, a-day,” The cruse has failed, the lamp must die!...

When lone and solitaire within your chamber, With lamp unlit, as evening shades unroll, If you reveal the trail your thoughts are taking, I then may read the riddle of your soul. For it is then, the t...

Nobody cares when I am glad, I beat upon their hearts in glee, “Drink, drink joy’s brimming cup with me,” All echoless, my ecstasy⁠— Nobody cares when I am glad. Nobody cares when I am sad, Whene’er I...

Is she the sage who will not sip The cup love presses to her lip? Or she who drinks the mad cup dry, And turns with smiling face⁠—to die?...

The rain is falling steadily Upon the thirsty earth, While dry-eyed, I remain, and calm Amid my own heart’s dearth. Break! break!! ye flood-gates of my tears All pent in agony, Rain, rain! upon my sco...

Not for your tender eyes that shine, Nor for your red lips pulsing wine, I love you, dear: your soul divine, In sweet captivity, holds mine! The tender eyes have lost their glow, The flagons of the li...

Winter⁠—aback sweeps the inward eye, Fleet o’er the trail to a rose-wreathed sky, Girt by a cordon of dreams I dwell Deep in the heart of the old-time spell. Almost, the tones of your whispered word, ...

Into the garden of sorrow, Some day we all must roam, If not to-day, then to-morrow, Bow ’neath its purple dome, Out from the musk-laden banqueting halls, Doffing our mirth-spangled vestments like thr...

Athwart the sky the great sun sails, Through aeons thus, the daylight trails, And man, living breath of the sod Beholding, in his heart knows God. Throughout the night’s long brooding deep, Earth’s tr...

The silence of the brooding night, Enfolds me with its eerie light; I lie upon its shadowed breast A pilgrim, wearying for rest. Nightfall! thy sable curtains steep My very soul in solace deep, God se...

Fragile, tiny, just a sprite, Holding me a thrall bedight, Stronger than a giant’s wand Serves the word of your command. Out from rushing worlds, though low Should you whisper, I would know, And would...

The dew is on the grasses, dear, The blush is on the rose, And swift across our dial-youth, A shifting shadow goes. The primrose moments, lush with bliss, Exhale and fade away, Life may renew the Autu...

There’s a soft rosy glow o’er the whole world to-day, There’s a freshness and fragrance that trembles in May, There’s a lilt in the music that vibrates and thrills From the uttermost glades to the top...

Of what avail the tardy showers, To the famished summer flowers? All in vain the rain-drops cry, Dead things never make reply. Life’s belated cup of bliss, Woo the weary lips to kiss, When the singing...

The fragile fabric of our dream Drifts as a feather down life’s stream⁠— The long defile of empty days Grim silhouetted, mock my gaze. Though oft escapes the stifled sigh, A desert ever broods my eye⁠...

There are tears sweet, refreshing like dewdrops that rise, There are tears far too deep for the lakes of the eyes. There are kisses like thistledown, fitfully sped, There are kisses that live in the h...

Alone! yes, evermore alone⁠—isolate each his way, Though hand is echoing to hand vain sophistries of clay, Within that veilèd, mystic place where bides the inmost soul, No twain shall pass while tides...

I called you through the silent night Across the brooding deep, I sought you in the shadowland From out the world⁠—asleep; No answer echoed to my call, And now my way I thread About the lowly mounds t...

I’m tired, days and nights to me Drag on in slow monotony, With not a single star in sight To lend a gleam of cheering light. I’m tired, there are none to care That I am drifting to despair: O shadows...

A woman with a burning flame Deep covered through the years With ashes. Ah! she hid it deep, And smothered it with tears. Sometimes a baleful light would rise From out the dusky bed, And then the woma...

Fierce is the conflict⁠—the battle of eyes, Sure and unerring, the wordless replies, Challenges flash from their ambushing caves⁠— Men, by their glances, are masters or slaves....

There’s nothing in the world that clings As does a memory that stings; While happy hours fade and pass, Like shadows in a looking-glass....

The petals of the faded rose Commingle silently, One with the atoms of the dust, One with the chaliced sea. The essence of my fleeting youth Caught in the web of time, Exhales within the springing flo...

Love’s roses I gathered, all dewy, in May, My heart holds the breath of their attar to-day; And now, while the blasts of the winter winds ring, I hear not the tempest, I’m dreaming of Spring....

Oh, my fancy teems with a world of dreams⁠— They revolve in a glittering fire, How they twirl and go with the tunes that flow On the breath of my soul-strung lyre....

Walk within thy own heart’s temple, child, and rest, What you seek abides forever in thy breast, Closer than thy folded arm Is the soul-renewing-balm, Walk within thy own heart’s temple, child, and re...

Her life was dwarfed, and wed to blight, Her very days were shades of night, Her every dream was born entombed, Her soul, a bud⁠—that never bloomed....

Whene’er I lift my eyes to bliss, I stagger blind with pain, Afar into the folding night The silence, and the rain. Whene’er I feel the urge of Spring, A throbbing, unknown woe Enfolds me; I am desola...

The curtains of twilight are drawn in the west And vespers are sweet on the air, While I, through my leafless, ungarlanded way But pause at the gates of despair. Good-bye to the hopes that were never ...

When I am dead, withhold, I pray, your blooming legacy; Beneath the willows did I bide, and they should cover me; I longed for light and fragrance, and I sought them far and near, O, it would grieve m...

The fairest lips are those we kiss, With greatest ecstasy and bliss; The brightest eyes, are those that shine, Unchangingly through changing time; The greatest love is that we know, When life is just ...

With the first blush of morning, my soul is awing, Away o’er the phantom lands free, wandering, I seek thee in hamlet, in woodland, and hall, Till night-shades, enfolding my tired heart, fall. Yet eve...

Roses after rain, Pleasure after pain, Happiness will soothe the sigh, Smiles await the tear-dimmed eye⁠— Bloom will follow blight, Daylight trails the night, Life is sweeter Love is deeper In the hea...

Behold! the living thrilling lines That course the blood like madd’ning wines, And leap with scintillating spray Across the guards of ecstasy. The flame that lights the lurid spell Springs from the so...

What need have I for memory, When not a single flower Has bloomed within life’s desert For me, one little hour. What need have I for memory Whose burning eyes have met The corse of unborn happiness Wi...

I breathe the lyric of my love Across the twilit way, The gentle echoes bear it on Beyond the edge of day: All vibrant is the melody The silences repeat, My song is but my longing heart Pulsated with ...

A little hour of sunshine, A little while of joy, We winnow in our harvesting From all the world’s alloy. None, none, are so benighted, Who journey up life’s hill, But have some treasured memory, Whic...

Who hath not built his castles in the free and open air? Who hath not dreamed his rosy dreams, more fair than all the fair? Who hath not seen his castles fall, all scattered to the ground? Who bears h...

Smiles do not always echo cheer, Nor tear-drops measure grief, For sorrow seeks a gilded mask, And joy in tears, relief....

When life is young, without a care, Alone we walk, and free: The world, a splendid merry round Of rhythmic melody. Before the end, grim sorrow calls Into each mortal ear, When friendship fades to memo...

O love, you have shorn me, and rifled my heart, You have torn down the shrine from the innermost part, And through it now rushes a grief, sadly-wild, That breaks as the plaint of a sorrowing child....

All deep there stirs the throb of Spring, Its vital pulse I’m answering, Swift to its dominant I merge, One with its undulating surge; My heart awakes to virile tone And breaks⁠—unanswered, and alone....

The shades of the gloaming around me are stealing, The lure of the dusk through the silences call, While blossoming incense comes mutely appealing, And choiring wood-voices, vespering, fall. Immersed ...

I have swung to the uttermost reaches of pain, ’Mid the echo of sighs, and a deluge of rain, But ah! I rebound to the limits of bliss, On the rapturous swing of an infinite kiss....

A whisper at twilight, a sigh through the night, A strain of soft music, a perfume so light, Will sweep as a feather the bulwark of years, To surges of rapture, or rivers of tears....

Love’s kisses spurned so long ago, Dead as the years, that o’er them flow;⁠— And now, my gilded treasuries Would I might give⁠—for memories....

O come while youth’s bright rosy veil Beguiles your eyes and mine, Let’s tread the asphodel of bliss, And drink life’s magic wine: Soon time will rend the gossamer, To wisdom’s cruelty, While we are b...

Again we meet⁠—a flashing glance, And then, to scabbard, goes the lance, While thoughts troop on in cavalcade Adown the wide aisles time has made. Back in the glow of yesterday, With tender troth you ...

Sweeter far than lyric rune Is my baby’s cooing tune; Brighter than the butterflies Are the gleams within her eyes; Firmer than an iron band Serves the zephyr of her hand; Deeper than the ocean’s roll...

I’m folding up my little dreams Within my heart tonight, And praying I may soon forget The torture of their sight. For time’s deft fingers scroll my brow With fell relentless art⁠— I’m folding up my l...

And they shall rise and cast their mantles by, Erect and strong and visioned, in the day That rings the knell of Curfew o’er the sway Of prejudice⁠—who reels with mortal cry To lift no more her leprou...

Their gaze uplifting from shoals of despair Like phantoms groping enswathed from the light Up from miasmic depths, children of night, Surge to the piping of Hope’s dulcet lay, Souled like the lily, wh...

Come, brothers all! Shall we not wend The blind-way of our prison-world By sympathy entwined? Shall we not make The bleak way for each other’s sake Less rugged and unkind? O let each throbbing heart r...

Let me not lose my dream, e’en though I scan the veil with eyes unseeing through their glaze of tears, Let me not falter, though the rungs of fortune perish as I fare above the tumult, praying purer a...

Let me not hate, although the bruising world decries my peace, Gives me no quarter, hounds me while I sleep; Would snuff the candles of my soul and sear my inmost dreamings. Let me not hate, though gi...

The right to make my dreams come true I ask, nay, I demand of life, Nor shall fate’s deadly contraband Impede my steps, nor countermand. Too long my heart against the ground Has beat the dusty years a...

Ope! ye everlasting doors, unto my soul’s demand, I would go forward, fare beyond these dusty boulevards, Faint lights and fair allure me all insistently And I must stand within the halls resplendent,...

Hear their viol-voices ringing Down the corridor of years, As they lift their twilight faces Through a mist of falling tears!...

All day the world’s mad mocking strife, The venomed prick of probing knife, The baleful, subtle leer of scorn That rims the world from morn to morn, While reptile-visions writhe and creep Into the ver...

These fell miasmic rings of mist, with ghoulish menace bound, Like noose-horizons tightening my little world around, They still the soaring will to wing, to dance, to speed away, And fling the soul in...

This spirit-choking atmosphere With deadly serpent-coil Entwines my soaring-upwardness And chains me to the soil, Where’er I seek with eager stride To gain yon gleaming height, These noisesome fetters...

My heart is pregnant with a great despair With much beholding of my people’s care, ’Mid blinded prejudice and nurtured wrong, Exhaling wantonly the days along: I mark Faith’s fragile craft of cheering...

Oh, black man, why do you northward roam, and leave all the farm lands bare? Is your house not warm, tightly thatched from storm, and a larder replete your share? And have you not schools, fit with bo...

Swift melting into yesterday, The tortured hordes of ebon-clay; No more is heard the plaintive strain, The rhythmic chaunting of their pain. Their mounded bodies dimly rise To fill the gulf of sacrifi...

One drop of midnight in the dawn of life’s pulsating stream Marks her an alien from her kind, a shade amid its gleam; Forevermore her step she bends insular, strange, apart⁠— And none can read the rid...

They seem to smile as others smile, the masquerader’s art Conceals them, while, in verity, they’re eating out their heart, Betwixt the two contending stones of crass humanity They lie, the fretted fab...

Nor shall I in sorrow repine, But offer a paean of praise To the infinite God of my days Who marshals the pivoting spheres Through the intricate maze of the years, Who loosens the luminous flood That ...

The mother soothes her mantled child With incantation sad and wild; A deep compassion brims her eye And stills upon her lips, the sigh. Her thoughts are leaping down the years, O’er branding bars, thr...

Proud? Perhaps⁠—and yet I cannot say with surety That I am happy thus to be Responsible for this young life’s embarking. Is he not thrall to prevalent conditions? Does not the day loom dark apace To w...

Don’t knock at my door, little child, I cannot let you in, You know not what a world this is Of cruelty and sin. Wait in the still eternity Until I come to you, The world is cruel, cruel, child, I can...

The infant eyes look out amazed upon the frowning earth, A stranger, in a land now strange, child of the mantled-birth; Waxing, he wonders more and more; the scowling grows apace; A world, behind its ...

Shall I say, “My son, you’re branded in this country’s pageantry, By strange subtleties you’re tethered, and no forum sets you free?” Shall I mark the young lights fading through your soul-enchannelle...

I hear you singing happily, My boy of tarnished mien, Lifting your limpid, trustful gaze In innocence serene. A thousand javelins of pain Assault my heaving breast When I behold the storm of years Tha...

That dusky child upon your knee Is breath of God’s eternity; Direct his vision to the height⁠— Let naught obscure his royal right. Although the highways to renown Are iron-barred by fortune’s frown, ’...

God grant you wider vision, clearer skies, my son, With morning’s rosy kisses on your brow; May your wild yearnings know repose, And storm-clouds break to smiles As you sweep on with spreading wings U...

The very acme of my woe, The pivot of my pride, My consolation, and my hope Deferred, but not denied. The substance of my every dream, The riddle of my plight, The very world epitomized In turmoil and...

Go forth, my son, Winged by my heart’s desire! Great reaches, yet unknown, Await For your possession. I may not, if I would, Retrace the way with you, My pilgrimage is through, But life is calling you...

I believe in the ultimate justice of Fate; That the races of men front the sun in their turn; That each soul holds the title to infinite wealth In fee to the will as it masters itself; That the heart ...

Through the moil and the gloom they have issued To the steps of the upwinding hill, Where the sweet, dulcet pipes of tomorrow In their preluding rhapsodies trill. With a thud comes a stir in the bosom...

Long have I beat with timid hands upon life’s leaden door, Praying the patient, futile prayer my fathers prayed before, Yet I remain without the close, unheeded and unheard, And never to my listening ...

Frail children of sorrow, dethroned by a hue, The shadows are flecked by the rose sifting through, The world has its motion, all things pass away, No night is omnipotent, there must be day. The oak ta...

Not wholly this or that, But wrought Of alien bloods am I, A product of the interplay Of traveled hearts. Estranged, yet not estranged, I stand All comprehending; From my estate I view earth’s frail d...

How deftly does the gardener blend This rose and that To bud a new creation, More gorgeous and more beautiful Than any parent portion, And so, I trace within my warring blood The tributary sources, Th...

Some day I shall be glad that it was mine to be A dark fore-runner of a race burgeoning; I then shall know The secret of life’s Calvary, And bless the thorns That wound me!...

When I rise above the earth, And look down on the things that fetter me, I beat my wings upon the air, Or tranquil lie, Surge after surge of potent strength Like incense comes to me When I rise up abo...

The faint lose faith When in the tomb their all is laid, And there returns No echoing of weal or woe. The strong hope on, They see the clods close over head, The grass grow green, No word is said, And...

The hour is big with sooth and sign, with errant men at war, While blood of alien, friend, and foe imbues the land afar, And we, with sable faces pent, move with the vanguard line, Shod with a faith t...

Though I should weep until the judgment, How would it serve⁠— Brave men are fighting, women speed them, ’Tis a day Of crucial conflict! My son, sometimes it seems I’d rather hold You safe beneath my h...

There’s music in the measured tread Of those returning from the dead Like scattered flowers from a plain So lately crimson, with the slain. No more the sound of shuffled feet Shall mark the poltroon o...

They are embosomed in the sod, In still and tranquil leisure, Their lives they’ve cast like trifles down, To serve their country’s pleasure. Nor bugle call, nor mother’s voice, Nor moody mob’s unreaso...

Peace on a thousand hills and dales, Peace in the hearts of men While kindliness reclaims the soil Where bitterness has been. The night of strife is drifting past, The storm of shell has ceased, Disru...

Where are the brave men, where are the strong men? Pygmies rise And spawn the earth. Weak-kneed, weak-hearted, and afraid, Afraid to face the counsel of their timid hearts, Afraid to look men squarely...

The woes of flesh are naught To one who knows The agony of soul! ’Twere but the thud of wind and rain Upon the roof. The woes of flesh are naught To one who knows!...

Many cages round me, Bar on bar Stand grim, forbidding! Ghostly pressures Clutch my heart. I gaze with eyes unseeing⁠— Whereunto may I wander free? Alas, alas! My garden walks lie inwardly!...

With but one life full certified, And that of every gleam denied My portion, Close to the unrelenting sod, E’en as my fathers dumbly trod, I’ve slumbered; But now a surging, wild unrest Uproots the po...

Aflounder the uncompassed darkness of doubt In search of the path to the goal That lies at the end of our transient day, The ultimate bourne of the soul; I grasp into nothingness, feebly essay To clas...

The verdure sleeps in winter, Awakes with April rain, The sun swings low⁠—’tis night⁠—ascends, And lo! ’tis morn again: The world spins on triumphant Across a trackless sky, And man seeks evermore in ...

Forever and forevermore, Across the heights, the deeps, Spurred by an ever-flaming zeal That slumbers not, nor sleeps⁠— We chase the furtive form of fame Beyond the edge of dusk, To bear within our ar...

The long, grim years with iron tread Move down the shuttered isle Of time’s unrecking labyrinth Paved with forgotten dead. And I, a feather in their wake, Gaze long and tremblingly Into these sunless ...

We’re wending the trail of the vanishing road, With a song and a shout, just to lighten the load, That lies in the heart, filled with queries and cares, For never a traveler knows where he fares. But ...

When we count out our gold at the end of the day, And have filtered the dross that has cumbered the way, Oh, what were the hold of our treasury then Save the love we have shown to the children of men?...

O sacrificial throng whose lives Build up the yawning deeps O’er which we pass reflectively To broader lights and sweeps. Know, that we hold with reverence The signal price you paid, And all our troph...

We lift a song to you across the day Which bears through travailing the seed you spread In terror’s morning, flung with fingers red In blood of tyrants, who debarred the way To Freedom’s dawning. Hear...

Within the temple of our heart Your sacred memory dwells apart, Where ceaselessly a censor swings Alight with fragrant offerings; Nor time, nor tide, nor circumstance Can dim this grand remembrance, A...

When time has rocked the present age to sleep, And lighter hearts are lilting to the sway Of rhythmic poesy’s enhanced lay, Recurring sequences shall fitly keep Your fame eternal, as they lightly swee...

Grandly isolate as the god of day⁠— Blazing an orbit through the dank and gloom Of misty morning, far and fair you loom, Flooding the dimness with your golden ray⁠— Cheering the mantled on the thorn-s...

All hail! fair vistas break upon the view, The gates swing wide and free with clanging sound, Rejoice! a mighty champion is found, Son of the morning, prescient and true. Upon the threshold of a cycle...

Son of a race, whose dusky visage shows The heel of fortune, those who walk unfree Though cradled in the hold of liberty, Whose shackled spirit every gamut knows Of Hate’s cadenza, through whose warm ...

Strange to a sensing motherhood, Loved as a toy⁠—not understood, Child of a dusky father, bold; Frail little captive, exiled, cold. Oft when the brooding planets sleep, You through their drowsy empire...

Far from the seried ranks you sway, Firm in your own believing In that frail brotherhood, who stray Sore anguishing, sore grieving. Such hands as yours, adown the years Enchain a faith unbroken, They ...

Quite firmly did you stand, and unafraid Before that haughty bar that sought to hold You fettered, lest you strengthen and grow bold To break a clearing through that fetid glade Which their benighted ...

A pioneer, she blazed a trail of light Through murky shadows, with a lithesome tread Unto those forums, where Hope’s beams are shed: Straight through the mighty cordon of the night, Rapt with a vision...

You saw the vision in the face of clay, And fixed it through the magic of a hand Obedient unto the will’s command, In forms impervious to Time’s decay: Historian of bloods that interplay Confusedly wi...

Folded in silent veils of sleep, You calmly rest, For God hath spoken, should we weep? He knoweth best. But rather let us garner still While yet we may, And meet you in His Holy Hill On that Great Day...

Pass down the aisle of buried years to-night, And stand uncovered in that holy place Where noble structures lift their hallowed height Beneath a bending Heaven’s chaste embrace, The fruit of those who...

Life’s little hour is fleet, so fleet But love’s is fleeter still, So let us lift the chalice dear And drink, and drink until The shadows lengthen to repose And fierce desires still, Then may our soul...

O what a privilege to be⁠— Breath of The Breath Eternal; To have the life, To have the strife Of that dark mystery A son of Africa, whose blood Holds nations all in fee, Commanding by one sultry drop ...

I’ve learned of life this bitter truth: Hope not between the crumbling walls Of mankind’s gratitude to find repose, But rather, Build within thy own soul Fortresses!...

Lend me a candle by whose light I may discern the road Which winds into that magic path That leads to love’s abode....

In your deep autumnal eyes Mystery’s dark shadow lies, None may pass unchallenged there, Something vestal, Something rare Stays the plunging, pagan tread⁠— One hesitates, One bows the head....

Stronger than man-made bars, the chain, That rounds your life’s arena, Deeper than hell the anchor sweeps That stills your young desires; Darker than night the inward look That meditation offers, Redd...

Ho: my brother, Pass me not by so scornfully I’m doing this living of being black, Perhaps I bear your own life-pack, And heavy, heavy is the load That bends my body to the road. But I have kept a smi...

Shadows, shadows, Hug me round So that I shall not be found By sorrow: She pursues me Everywhere, I can’t lose her Anywhere. Fold me in your black Abyss, She will never look In this⁠— Shadows, shadows...

White men’s children spread over the earth⁠— A rainbow suspending the drawn swords of birth, Uniting and blending the races in one The world man⁠—cosmopolite⁠—everyman’s son! He channels the stream of...

Something has died when the lily lifts The shaft of its God-turned head, Something has faded and perished that now Lies under the lily’s door dead. Something has died when the heart exhales Its attar ...

Last night you lost the rarest thing Life ever gave to you. It was a friendship that was deep, Unvarying and true. I’m sorry that you have it not Because you need it so; When one has killed the flower...

You deck my doby lavishly, I’m sleek and overfed; And yet my soul is perishing, Denied of daily bread. You make a plaything of my life, My every trust betray, And when I would be penitent, You kiss my...

If you can laugh along the road, Although you bend beneath a load Of sorrow, Your hope-lit eyes shall surely see A rainbow sweep eternity Tomorrow....

The world is dark, I cannot see my way! Eternal clouds Obscure the light of day⁠— I seek a break, a rift, a little space, There to behold One God-illumined place!...

No, never quite alone am I. Of ill why should I borrow? No matter where my footsteps bend There also follows sorrow. And she has taught my lips to sing A rapt and dauntless measure While all the world...

I do not ask for love⁠—ah! no, Nor friendship’s happiness, These were relinquished long ago I search for something less. I seek a little, tranquil bark In which to drift at ease Awhile, and then quite...

Swift-footed Time, how eagerly you go Across the swaying summer grasses bed As on in breathless haste you hurry me To Winter with its chilling winds and snow. The noontide hour is fading⁠—in my hair T...

America, here is your son, born of your iron heel, Black blood and red and white contend along this frame of steel. The thorns deep in his brow are set and yet he does not cower, He goes with neither ...

I’m tired of pacing the petty round of the ring of the thing I know⁠— I want to stand on the daylight’s edge and see where the sunsets go. I want to sail on a swallow’s tail and peep through the sky’s...

Too late to roll the tangled skein The knot is taut, what might have been Passed with the pangs of yesterday⁠— The secret page of history. Red blood and white and black combine⁠— Can you dissever your...

I closed my shutters fast last night, Reluctantly and slow, So pleading was the purple sky With all the lights hung low; I left my lagging heart outside Within the dark alone, I heard it singing throu...

Passing ever, early, late, No fond footsteps seek my gate, But down the winding road they wend To some other journey’s end. Yet⁠—I would not have them wait Here within my guarded gate, Certain footste...

Oh night of love, your rapt ecstatic hours Were mine, the languor of their pale perfume Pervades me, kisses in a fountain-fire, Surround me⁠—fetter and consume. Oh night of love, your groves of strang...

Believe me⁠–⁠when I say That love like yours, at this belated hour, Overwhelms me⁠— Stills the fount of thought! I move as one new-born⁠— And strange to swift transitions As from my prison door I gaze...

Your voice keeps ringing down the day In accents soft and mild, With which you have beguiled And wooed me as a child. Your presence bounds my every way And thrills me in its fold With phantom hands th...

Within your pulsing day There must be little space For visions of my face To lure your thoughts away. Yet, I would have it so, To bear alone the pain That saddens love’s refrain. Pray God you never kn...

So like a boundless, soundless sea The miracle of love to me, With all the world a rosy dream Sailing upon a silver stream, While I, a fairy in mid-air, Am dancing, dancing everywhere. Hark! do you he...

Were you a leper bathed in wounds And by the world denied, I’d share your fatal exile As a privilege, with pride. You are the very sun, the moon, The starlight of my soul, The sounding motif of my hea...

The days lie dark between our jeweled meetings Like wintry burials. My heart bows low before the cheerless hearth Until your voice rings through the gloom And bids me Wake! And live!...

Let’s say “Good-bye” Nor wait Love’s latest breath Poised now so lightly on the wing of Death, While yet within our eyes one fervent gleam Remains to hallow this, a passing dream: Yes, yes “Good-bye,”...

I know you love me better cold Strange as the pyramids of old Responselessly. But I am frail, and spent and weak With surging torrents that bespeak A living fire. So, like a veil, my poor disguise Is ...

How my heart sinks when I behold the sad reflection of my face, A wan and wistful wound, with oh, such meagre grace; How can you hold me dear withal and conjure charms withdrawn. Or does the Autumn tw...

Day by day the threads of white Muliply, Oh! hour-glass! How passing swift your bright sands pass, Fain would I hold you, Linger, bide Until these surges shall subside, That sweep me forward unto blis...

Would I might mend the fabric of my youth Which daily flaunts its tatters to my eyes, Would I might compromise awhile with truth Until love’s moon, now waxing, wanes and dies. For I would go a further...

I fear my power impotent To hold you leal and full content, Some hapless look or word perchance Dispels the glamour of romance; I tremble lest some stranger fair Arrest you⁠—cause you to compare The m...

Oh! for the veils of my far-away youth, Shielding my heart from the blaze of the truth; Why did I stray from their foldings and grow Into the sadness that follows⁠—to know. Impotent atom with desolate...

You came, The tapestries of love Were shining in the sun, My wishes settled down content About you as you stood. I looked into your cryptic eyes And thought I understood; But no⁠— The splendor of your...

You gave me your hand, I held it to be The last word, the dear word, The soul’s entity; I cherished it, treasured it, Only to find I held but a gauntlet⁠— That I had been blind!...

And now⁠— As one who closes up the house and goes uncaring where He may forget the scenes of home ’mid foreign climes and air, I bar the chamber of my heart and seal the past within To wander down the...

I looked death calmly in the face And placed my hand within his hand And said: “Come, come, let us away For I have lost the magic key Opening the portals of desire⁠— My wishes cumber in the dust, And ...

I am a woman Which means I am insufficient I need⁠— Something to hold me Or perhaps uphold. I am a woman....

There’s nothing certain, nothing sure Save sorrow. Fragile happiness Was never fashioned to endure; For joy repels the perfect claim And answers to no certain name; How furtively we scan the mist Perc...

Good-bye dear day of sunshine, rain In flooding torrents pours Its liquid footsteps on my roof, Its fingers on my doors. While I sit tranquilly within And tell my beads of joy, Holding a peace within ...

Fire⁠—tears⁠— And the torture-chamber, With the last maddening turn of the screw⁠— Only thus Is one precious drop distilled Of the attar of rose Of the heart....

Oh the sad little dreams of the dim yesteryear Lying cold, still and stark in the dust of their bier, How the heart hurries back, all the long weary way, Just to bid them good-night at the close of th...

I wonder⁠— as I see them pass unheeded down the way, (The women who were once beloved, imperious and gay) Holding with frail, pale hands the cup Of Life’s discarded wine If memories Are bliss enough T...

All the pretty baubles spread Are not the answer to my need, These tinseled trappings but beguile This journeying, while deep within A want unspeakable resides, That throbs and throbs unceasingly⁠— So...

In the silence and the dark I fought with dragons; I was battered, beaten sore But rose again; On my knees I fought still rising In my pain: In the dark I fought with dragons. Weary tears Cease your f...

Mute-lipped⁠— unquestioning grim-visaged Fate, I cleave the shadows toward the Western Gate; And yet⁠— my lagging heart still holds Mute-arms outstretched Unto earth’s gleaming folds. Who knows? perha...

What matters though love’s dream shall pass, Since from the throbbing hour-glass One golden-throated moment prest Its attared incense to my breast. Since I have known the purple gleam That lifts above...

After all⁠— mine is the joy Which naught can lessen or destroy. For love has led my flying feet Where immortelles are springing sweet, And everlasting skies of gold Are memories, when earth is cold An...

Again it is the vibrant May, The bursting buds, the leafing trees, The fragrant, undulating breeze, Call to my heart in subtlest way: Come! Come! it is a holiday. The streamlet with unending song, Ben...

I know my love is seeing me As restless rivers seek the sea, Across the night, across the days That snare the intervening ways. I know my love is seeking me As Time must seek Eternity, When nights are...

Love calls me tonight In the beat of the rain Through the cold little drops On my bare window-pane; Calls and calls through the dark Like a whispered refrain Tapping soft on my heart Through the bare ...

I want to die while you love me, While yet you hold me fair, While laughter lies upon my lips And lights are in my hair. I want to die while you love me And bear to that still bed Your kisses⁠—turbule...

Not less than this, beloved, This beaming, highmost ray That sweeps in royal splendor Across our perfect day. Not less than this⁠—far rather That we should say “adieu,” With every rose in Eden Abloom ...

With kisses I’ll awake you love So tenderly at morn, The pledges of my fealty Diunally reborn. We’ll thread life’s way together love, And when the fading light Dips softly over western hills I’ll kiss...

Your eyes⁠— Dark pools, so calm and deep, A thousand ages in them sleep, A dreaming world within them lies, And all my hopes Of paradise!...

Kiss me! And let the hours bloom triumphantly Before life’s little sun has set And I am old. Love me! The day is fleet And I⁠ ⁠… Am far too passionate To die!...

When love’s triumphant day is done, Go forward! leave me to the night Beneath the coldly staring stars, The waiting winter and its blight. For I would never hold the heart That mutely quivers to be fr...

I lived in Hell the other day Its fires wrapt me angrily, But now their horrors fall and fade Like ghosts that memory has made. I lived in Hell even today, How swift the fierce flames die away⁠— Subme...

Ah! love! I shall not seek to penetrate Your webbed gauze Nor tease my heart By queries deep, But hold you tenderly; The day is evening, And I must cull my flowers ’Ere dark....

Dead days of rapture and despair I would your hours exhume, Renew their wildness once again Their rigors and perfume....

Break, break my heart For love is done, The pale light trails the dying sun⁠— And night awaits⁠—no hope⁠—no stars Darkness Hide my scars!...

From worshipping I now arise Stunned and aghast, with open eyes I see the real, the little you I thought so gallant, brave and true. A pity yet is mine, I fear, Since wherefore comes this falling tear...

When I was young I used to say: Romance will come riding by And I shall surely smile And play with him awhile. When I grew older then I said: Romance may come riding by I wonder shall I smile And play...

Confusion, desuetude and gloom, The travailing of sound, Fell desolation in my soul, And agony profound; The gods are falling heavily And for all time to be, And never more my heart shall know A shrin...

You cannot hurt me any more For I am armored now And I can look into your face With cool, unfevered brow. The tranquil river meets the sea, My life flows on at rest, Unurged, untorn, but oh, my God! I...

Your lightest breath may fan my cheek Your whisper stir me when you speak, And yet⁠— The teeming planets play Between your heart⁠—and mine Today....

Now, Like the pines intoning Though some solitary gloom, My errant throughts go pattering About love’s ancient tomb, And though no breath of incense rare Lies round the shattered cup, A banquet weird,...

Just a bit of ashes Grey, grey ashes⁠—spent⁠— God! how fierce the fires burned Down to this content. Just a bit of ashes, Not a single spark Lives in this residuum Crumbling cold and dark. Just a bit ...

Where is the love that might have been Flung to the far ends of Earth? In my body stamping around, In my body like a hound Leashed and restless⁠— Biding time!...

I seek no tokens of you dear I only ask to give The purple flower of my heart And you will let it live. I ask no fealty or plight, I only pray that you May find earth’s barren places bright Perhaps, b...

Some day I shall be dead, and pride Which kept me from your feet, Shall be the burden of the song My cold lips shall repeat. And some day when you too shall find A pillow in the sod, Would you then sp...

Consider me a memory⁠—a dream That passed away, Or yet, a flower that has blown and shattered⁠— In a day; For passion sleeps, alas, and keeps no vigil With the years, And wakens to no conjuring Of ori...

I have mounded the corpse of my sorrow And wreathed it with roses fair That none who may pass on the morrow May know what lies buried there....

When one has lived ’Tis not so hard To fold the hands, To say, “Good-night,” And creep away Behind the dark; But ’tis not strange The heart rebels When sounds of night Ring down the day That was a wea...

Through you I entered heaven and hell, Knew rapture and despair, I flitted o’er the plains of earth And scaled each shining stair: Drank deep the waters of content, And drained the cup of gall, Was re...