Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on -
Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel's track:
Whilst above the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily,
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,

He is ever drifted on
O'er the unreposing wave
To the haven of the grave.
What, if there no friends will greet;
What, if there no heart will meet

That which we are and shall be is made up
Of what we have been. On the autumn leaf
The crimson stains bear witness of its spring;
And, on its perfect nodes, the ocean shell
Notches the slow, strange changes of its growth.
Ourselves are our own records; if we looked
Rightly into that blotted crimson page
Within our bosoms, then there were no need
To chronicle our stories; for the heart
Hath, like the earth, its strata, and contains
Its past within its present. Well for us,
And our most cherished secrets, that within

Yes! heaven protect thee, thou gem of the ocean;
Dear land of my sires, though distant thy shores;
Ere my heart cease to love thee, its latest emotion,
The last dying throbs of its pulse must be o'er.

And dark were the bosom, and cold and unfeeling,
That tamely could listen unmoved at the call,
When woman, the warm soul of melody stealing,
Laments for her country and sighs o'er its fall.

Sing on, gentle warbler, the tear-drop appearing
Shall fall for the woes of the queen of the sea;

BEAUTY, the attribute of Heaven!
In various forms to mortals given,
With magic skill enslaves mankind,
As sportive fancy sways the mind.
Search the wide world, go where you will,
VARIETY pursues you still;
Capricious Nature knows no bound,
Her unexhausted gifts are found
In ev'ry clime, in ev'ry face,
Each has its own peculiar grace.

To GALLIA's frolic scenes repair,
There reigns the tyny DEBONAIRE;
The mincing step­the slender waist,
The lip with bright vermilion grac'd:
The short pert nose­the pearly teeth,

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loviliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondance, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o`er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, inspite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.

I am riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains
of the nation.
Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air
go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men
and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall
pass to ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he
answers: "Omaha."

If you could crowd them into forty lines!
Yes; you can do it, once you get a start;
All that you want is waiting in your head,
For long-ago you’ve learnt it off by heart.

. . . .
Begin: your mind’s the room where you have slept,
(Don’t pause for rhymes), till twilight woke you early.
The window stands wide-open, as it stood
When tree-tops loomed enchanted for a child
Hearing the dawn’s first thrushes through the wood
Warbling (you know the words) serene and wild.

You’ve said it all before: you dreamed of Death,

There's no menagerie, I vow,

Excels my Lily's at this minute;

She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
And catches them, she knows not how.

Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,
And their clipp'd pinions wildly wave,--
Poor princes, who must all endure
The pangs of love that nought can cure.

What is the fairy's name?--Is't Lily?--Ask not me!
Give thanks to Heaven if she's unknown to thee.

Oh what a cackling, what a shrieking,

When near the door she takes her stand,

With her food-basket in her hand!

Thistledown in prison sings:

Bright shines the summer sun,
Soft is the summer air;
Gayly the wood-birds sing,
Flowers are blooming fair.
But, deep in the dark, cold rock,
Sadly I dwell,
Longing for thee, dear friend,
Lily-Bell! Lily-Bell!

Lily-Bell replies:

Through sunlight and summer air
I have sought for thee long,
Guided by birds and flowers,
And now by thy song.

Thistledown! Thistledown!
O'er hill and dell
Hither to comfort thee
Comes Lily-Bell.

She, then, like snow in a dark night,
Fell secretly. And the world waked
With dazzling of the drowsy eye,
So that some muttered 'Too much light',
And drew the curtains close.
Like snow, warmer than fingers feared,
And to soil friendly;
Holding the histories of the night
In yet unmelted tracks.