My worthiness is all my doubt, His merit all my fear,Contrasting which, my qualities Do lowlier appear; Lest I should insufficient prove For his beloved need,The chiefest apprehension Within my loving creed. So I, the undivine abode Of his elect content,Conform my soul as ‘t were a church Unto her sacrament. – LOVE’S HUMILITY – [...]

We sat under an old thorn-treeAnd talked away the night,Told all that had been said or doneSince first we saw the light,And when we talked of growing upKnew that we’d halved a soulAnd fell the one in t’other’s armsThat we might make it whole;Then peter had a murdering look,For it seemed that he and sheHad [...]

Of bronze and blaze The north, to-night! So adequate its forms,So preconcerted with itself, So distant to alarms, –An unconcern so sovereign To universe, or me,It paints my simple spirit With tints of majesty,Till I take vaster attitudes, And strut upon my stem,Disdaining men and oxygen, For arrogance of them. My splendors are menagerie; But [...]

There’s been a death in the opposite house As lately as to-day.I know it by the numb look Such houses have alway. The neighbors rustle in and out, The doctor drives away.A window opens like a pod, Abrupt, mechanically; Somebody flings a mattress out, – The children hurry by;They wonder if It died on that, [...]

I dreaded that first robin so,But he is mastered now,And I ‘m accustomed to him grown, –He hurts a little, though. I thought if I could only liveTill that first shout got by,Not all pianos in the woodsHad power to mangle me. I dared not meet the daffodils,For fear their yellow gownWould pierce me with [...]

SMASH down the cities.Knock the walls to pieces.Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homesInto loose piles of stone and lumber and black burnt wood: You are the soldiers and we command you. Build up the cities.Set up the walls again.Put together once more the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homesInto buildings for life and [...]

When I am old and worse for wearI want to buy a rocking-chair,And set it on a porch where shineThe stars of morning-glory vine;With just beyond, a gleam of grass,A shady street where people pass;And some who come with time to spare,To yarn beside my rocking-chair.Then I will light my corn-cob pipeAnd dose and dream [...]

Wars have been and wars will beTill the human race is run;Battles red by land and sea,Never peace beneath the sun.I am old and little care;I’ll be cold, my lips be dumb:Brother mine, beware, beware . . .Evil looms the wrath to come. Eastern skies are dark with strife,Western lands are stark with fear;Rumours of [...]

I WONDER by my troth, what thou and IDid, till we loved ? were we not wean’d till then ?But suck’d on country pleasures, childishly ?Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den ?‘Twas so ; but this, all pleasures fancies be ;If ever any beauty I did see,Which I desired, and got, ’twas but [...]

That is work of waste and ruin– Do as Charles and I are doing! Strawberry-blossoms, one and all, We must spare them–here are many: Look at it–the flower is small, Small and low, though fair as any: Do not touch it! summers two I am older, Anne, than you. Pull the primrose, sister Anne! Pull [...]