My Country, right!
True to the laws of God and man,
Loyal to justice, fair to life,
Spurning the bigot's spiteful ban,
Holding the world in love's wide span,
Foe of fraternal strife.

My Country, wrong?
God grant that love may spare that fate;
But, if she errs, God make us wise,
Humbly her faults to contemplate;
Thus may our meekness make her great,
Worthy in Freedom's eyes.

——My Country, right!
True to the laws of God and man,
Loyal to justice, fair to life,
Spurning the bigot's spiteful ban,
Holding the world in love's wide span,

Through all the night I looked upon a face
Bent o'er me in a dream without a word;
Never a flutter nor a breath I heard,
But, ah, the steady eyes were full of grace

And not mere grace alone spoke from those eyes,
—Or else those eyes have done me grievous wrong—
A love was there, sweet, tempered like a song
That floods the soul with splendor and surprise

And all my soul arose, to meet upright
The joy that those can know who taste love's best;
And: “Shine,” I cried, “till all my soul is blest,—
Till all my being answers to such light!”

This earth Pythonax and his brother hides,
Who died before they reached youth's lovely prime.
The tomb their father built them; which abides
For ever, though they lived so short a time.

From Lebanon red morning glances
On billows that foam and toss sunwards;
From Cyprus with white sails advances
The Crusader ship ever onwards.
Rudél, the young prince of Blaye, lies on
The deck, and with fever doth wrestle;
His swimming eyes scan the horizon
For the turrets of Tripoli's castle.

When the far Asian coastline is sighted
His familiar canzone he singeth:
‘O fair foreign Love, to whom plighted
My troth is, I 'm heart-sick for thee.’
Its flight a grey halcyon wingeth,
And prolongs the sweet note of repining;

If I could speak thy gentle grace,
Which far surpasses word,
This rhyme were sweeter, now I trace,
Than ever yet was heard;
For here would blend the morning's glee,
And peace of evening's close,
With music of the summer sea,
And fragrance of the rose.

But since affection's tender strain,
And passion's fervid line,
Would seem but idle, weak, and vain
To goodness such as thine,
Let all my life avouch thy worth,
And all my love thy praise!
For never woman walked on earth
In more angelic ways!

I've seen life's golden prime depart,

I curse the time, wherein these lips of mine
Did pray or praise the dame that was unkind:
I curse my ink, my paper, and each line
My hand hath writ, in hope to move her mind:
I curse her hollow heart, and flattering eyes,
Whose sly deceits did cause my mourning cries.

I curse the sugared speech and Siren's song,
Wherewith so oft she hath bewitched mine ear:
I curse my foolish will that staid so long,
And took delight to 'bide twixt hope and fear:
I curse the hour, wherein I first began,
By loving looks, to prove a witless man.

The minstrel of the classic lay
Of love and wine who sings
Still found the fingers run astray
That touched the rebel strings.

Of Cadmus he would fain have sung,
Of Atreus and his line;
But all the jocund echoes rung
With songs of love and wine.

Ah, brothers! I would fain have caught
Some fresher fancy's gleam;
My truant accents find, unsought,
The old familiar theme.

Love, Love! but not the sportive child
With shaft and twanging bow,
Whose random arrows drove us wild
Some threescore years ago;

Not Eros, with his joyous laugh,

It seems a dream the infant love
That tamed my truant will,
But 'twas a dream of happiness,
And I regret it still!

Its images are part of me,
A very part of mind—
Feelings and fancies beautiful
In purity combined!

Time's sunset lends a tenderer tinge
To what those feelings were,
Like the cloud-mellow'd radiance
Which evening landscapes bear:

They wedded are unto my soul,
As light is blent with heat,
Or as the hallowed confluence
Of air with odours sweet.

Though she, the spirit of that dream,
Lacks of the loveliness

Cold blows the winter wind: 't is Love,
Whose sweet eyes swim with honeyed tears,
That bears me to thy doors, my love,
Tossed by the storm of hopes and fears.

Cold blows the blast of aching Love;
But be thou for my wandering sail,
Adrift upon these waves of love,
Safe harbor from the whistling gale!

In the meadow—what in the meadow?
Bluebells, buttercups, meadowsweet,
And fairy rings for the children's feet
In the meadow.

In the garden—what in the garden?
Jacob's-ladder and Solomon's-seal,
And Love-lies-bleeding beside All-heal
In the garden.