Laugh, and the world laughs with you:
Weep, and you weep alone;
    For the sad old earth
    Must borrow its mirth,
It has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
    The echoes bound
    To a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
    They want full measure
    Of all your pleasure,
But they do not want your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all;
    There are none to decline
    Your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by;
    Succeed and give,
    And it helps you live,
B...

                Discrowned and desolate,
And wandering with dim eyes and faded hair,
Singing sad songs to comfort her despair,
                Grey Autumn meets her fate.

                Forsaken and alone
She haunts the ruins of her queenly state,
Like banished Eve at Eden's flaming gate,
                Making perpetual moan.

                Crazed with her grief she moves
Along the banks of the frost-charmed rills,
And all the hollows of the wooded hills,
                Searching for her lost loves.

                From verdurous base to cope,
The sunny hill-sides, and sweet pasture lands,
Where bubbling brooks reach ever-dimpled hands
                Along the amber slope,--

                And valleys drowsed between,
In the ...

So Love is dead, the Love we knew of old!
And in the sorrow of our hearts' hushed halls
A lute lies broken and a flower falls;
Love's house stands empty and his hearth lies cold.
Lone in dim places, where sweet vows were told,
In walks grown desolate, by ruined walls
Beauty decays; and on their pedestals
Dreams crumble and th' immortal gods are mold.
Music is slain or sleeps; one voice alone,
One voice awakes, and like a wandering ghost
Haunts all the echoing chambers of the Past -
The voice of Memory, that stills to stone
The soul that hears; the mind, that, utterly lost,
Before its beautiful presence stands aghast.

Oh, deem not they are blest alone
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep;
The Power who pities man, has shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.

The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears;
And weary hours of woe and pain
Are promises of happier years.

There is a day of sunny rest
For every dark and troubled night;
And grief may bide an evening guest,
But joy shall come with early light.

And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier,
Sheddest the bitter drops like rain,
Hope that a brighter, happier sphere
Will give him to thy arms again.

Nor let the good man's trust depart,
Though life its common gifts deny,
Though with a pierced and broken heart,
And spurned of men, he goes to die.

For God h...

Mournfully, mournfully
    All around me are crying,
For my dark-eyed baby boy
    Is dying, dying

Tenderly, tenderly
    To him I am clinging,
But he slips from my fond arms,
    Death bells are ringing

Joyfully, joyfully
    Angels are receiving
My babe--by the empty cot
    I must sit grieving.

We never joy enjoy to that full point
Regret doth wish joy had enjoyèd been,
Nor have the strength regret to disappoint
Recalling not past joy's thought, but its mien.
Yet joy was joy when it enjoyèd was
And after-enjoyed when as joy recalled,
It must have been joy ere its joy did pass
And, recalled, joy still, since its being-past galled.
Alas! All this is useless, for joy's in
Enjoying, not in thinking of enjoying.
Its mere thought-mirroring gainst itself doth sin,
By mere reflecting solid life destroying,
    Yet the more thought we take to thought to prove
    It must not think, doth further from joy move.

Oh, who will hush that cry outside the doors,
    While we are glad within?
Go forth, go forth, all you my servitors;
    (And gather close, my kin.)
Go out to her. Tell her we keep a feast,--
    Lost Loveliness who will not sit her down
        Though we implore.
It is her silence binds me unreleased,
    It is her silence that no flute can drown,
        It is her moonlit silence at the door,
Wide as the whiteness, but a fire on high
    That frights my heart with an immortal Cry,
        Calling me evermore.

Louder, you viols;--louder, O my harp;
    Let me not hear her voice;
And drown her keener silence, silver-sharp,
    With waves of golden noise!
For she is wise as Eden, even mute,
    To search my spirit through the deep and height

Sorrow, my friend,
When shall you come again?
The wind is slow, and the bent willows send
Their silvery motions wearily down the plain.
The bird is dead
That sang this morning through the summer rain!

Sorrow, my friend,
I owe my soul to you.
And if my life with any glory end
Of tenderness for others, and the words are true,
Said, honoring, when I'm dead, -
Sorrow, to you, the mellow praise, the funeral
wreath, are due.

And yet, my friend,
When love and joy are strong,
Your terrible visage from my sight I rend
With glances to blue heaven. Hovering along,
By mine your shadow led,
"Away!" I shriek, "nor dare to work my new-sprung mercies wrong!"

Still, you are near:
Who can your care withstand?
When deep eternity shall l...

Air and sky are swathed in gold
    Fold on fold,
Light glows through the trees like wine.
Earth, sun-quickened, swoons for bliss
    'Neath his kiss,
Breathless in a trance divine.


Nature pauses from her task,
    Just to bask
In these lull'd transfigured hours.
The green leaf nor stays nor goes,
    But it grows
Royaler than mid-June's flowers.


Such impassioned silence fills
    All the hills
Burning with unflickering fire -
Such a blood-red splendor stains
    The leaves' veins,
Life seems one fulfilled desire.


While earth, sea, and heavens shine,
    Heart of mine,
Say, what art thou waiting for?
Shall the cup ne'er reach the lip,
    But still slip
Till the life-long thirst give o'er?<...

Dawn, midnight, noonday? What are times to thee
Man's Grief art thou, that moanest with the light,
And starest dumb at evening, and at night
Dost wake and dream and slumber fitfully!
Thou art Distress, that cannot cry aloud.
That cannot weep, that cannot stoop to tear
One fold of all her garment, but with air
Supremely brooding waits the final shroud!

Dust, long ago, the princes of this place;
Forgot the civic losses which in thee
Great Angelo lamented; but thy face
Proclaims the master's immortality!
So sit thee, marble Grief! this very day
How burns the art when long the hand is clay!

Seven long years has the desert rain
Dropped on the clods that hide thy face;
Seven long years of sorrow and pain
I have thought of thy burial-place.

Thought of thy fate in the distant west,
Dying with none that loved thee near;
They who flung the earth on thy breast
Turned from the spot williout a tear.

There, I think, on that lonely grave,
Violets spring in the soft May shower;
There, in the summer breezes, wave
Crimson phlox and moccasin flower.

There the turtles alight, and there
Feeds with her fawn the timid doe;
There, when the winter woods are bare,
Walks the wolf on the crackling snow.

Soon wilt thou wipe my tears away;
All my task upon earth is done;
My poor father, old and gray,
Slumbers beneath the churchyard s...

Hush! She is dead! Tread gently as the light
Foots dim the weary room. Thou shalt behold.
Look: - In death's ermine pomp of awful white,
Pale passion of pulseless slumber virgin cold:
Bold, beautiful youth proud as heroic Might -
Death! and how death hath made it vastly old.

Old earth she is now: energy of birth
Glad wings hath fledged and tried them suddenly;
The eyes that held have freed their narrow mirth;
Their sparks of spirit, which made this to be,
Shine fixed in rarer jewels not of earth,
Far Fairylands beyond some silent sea.

A sod is this whence what were once those eyes
Will grow blue wild-flowers in what happy air;
Some weed with flossy blossoms will surprise,
Haply, what summer with her affluent hair;
Blush roses bask those cheeks; and...

So Love is dead, the Love we knew of old!
And in the sorrow of our hearts' hushed halls
A lute lies broken and a flower falls;
Love's house stands empty and his hearth lies cold.
Lone in dim places, where sweet vows were told,
In walks grown desolate, by ruined walls
Beauty decays; and on their pedestals
Dreams crumble and th' immortal gods are mold.
Music is slain or sleeps; one voice alone,
One voice awakes, and like a wandering ghost
Haunts all the echoing chambers of the Past
The voice of Memory, that stills to stone
The soul that hears; the mind, that, utterly lost,
Before its beautiful presence stands aghast.

I measure every grief I meet
With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier size.

I wonder if they bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
They would not rather die.

I wonder if when years have piled --
Some thousands -- on the cause
Of early hurt, if such a lapse
Could give them any pause;

Or would they go on aching still
Through centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger pain
By contrast with the love.

The grieved are many, I am told;
The reason deeper lies, --
Death is but one and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.

Not the slow Hearse, where nod the sable plumes,
    The Parian Statue, bending o'er the Urn,
    The dark robe floating, the dejection worn
    On the dropt eye, and lip no smile illumes;
Not all this pomp of sorrow, that presumes
    It pays Affection's debt, is due concern
    To the FOR EVER ABSENT, tho' it mourn
    Fashion's allotted time. If Time consumes,
While Life is ours, the precious vestal-flame
    Memory shou'd hourly feed; - if, thro' each day,
    She with whate'er we see, hear, think, or say,
Blend not the image of the vanish'd Frame,
    O! can the alien Heart expect to prove,
    In worlds of light and life, a reunited love!

God hath laid his hand on me:
He hath taken all my glee,
And my spirit's emptied cup
Soon must give its life-blood up.

If the sun doth wake and rise,
If it sink in gilded skies,
All alike my heart doth ache,
Comfort it can never take.

From my eyelids there do flow
Tears, and I must weep e'en so
Ever, ever. Lord of Light,
Who can hide him from thy sight!

Though we shun the stormy sea,
Though from war's affray we flee,
Yet misfortune shows her face
Howsoe'er concealed our place.

Mine a life so far from fame
Few there were could know my name;
Evil hap and jealousy
Had no way of harming me.

But the Lord, who doth disdain
Flimsy safeguards raised by man,
Struck a blow more swift and sure
In that I was...