If my best wines mislike thy taste, And my best service win thy frown, Then tarry not, I bid thee haste; There's many another Inn in town.
They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.
I like not lady-slippers, Not yet the sweet-pea blossoms, Not yet the flaky roses, Red or white as snow; I like the chaliced lilies, The heavy Eastern lilies, The gorgeous tiger-lilies, That in our garden grow.
Hebe's here, May is here! The air is fresh and sunny; And the miser-bees are busy Hoarding golden honey.
To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age.
Night is a stealthy, evil Raven, Wrapt to the eyes in his black wings.
October turned by maple's leaves to gold; The most are gone now; here and there one lingers; Soon these will slip from the twig's weak hold, Like coins between a dying miser's fingers.
No bird has ever uttered note That was not in some first bird's throat; Since Eden's freshness and man's fall No rose has been original.
Good night! I have to say good night, To such a host of peerless things!
Till then, good-night! You wish the time were now? And I. You do not blush to wish it so? You would have blush'd yourself to death To own so much a year ago. What! both these snowy hands? ah, then I'll have to say, Good-night again.
When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit, What life, what glorious eagerness it is, Then mark how full Possession falls from this, How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit,-- I am perplext, and often stricken mute. Wondering which attained the higher bliss, The wing'd insect, or the chrysalis It thrust aside with unreluctant foot.
We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed The white of their leaves, the amber grain Shrunk in the wind,--and the lightning now Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.
What probing deep Has ever solved the mystery of sleep?
But I, in the chilling twilight stand and wait At the portcullis, at thy castle gate, Longing to see the charmed door of dreams Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate sleep!
Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows In yonder West: the fair, frail palaces, The fading Alps and archipelagoes, And great cloud-continents of sunset-seas.
We weep when we are born, Not when we die!
Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay, And serve the Potter as he turn his wheel, I thank Thee for the gracious gift of tears!
Upon the cunning loom of thought We weave our fancies, so and so.
These Winter nights against my window-pane Nature with busy pencil draws designs Of ferns and blossoms and fine spray of pines, Oak-leaf and acorn and fantastic vines, Which she will make when summer comes again-- Quaint arabesques in argent, flat and cold, Like curious Chinese etchings.