Wandering late by morning seas
When my heart with pain was low--
Hate the censor pelted me--
Deject I saw my shadow go.
...
All dripping in tangles green,
Cast up by a lonely sea
If purer for that, O Weed,
Bitterer, too, are ye?
...
Children of my happier prime,
When One yet lived with me, and threw
Her rainbow over life and time,
Even Hope, my bride, and mother to you!
...
While now the Pole Star sinks from sight
The Southern Cross it climbs the sky;
But losing thee, my love, my light,
...
Unmoved by all the claims our times avow,
The ancient Sphinx still keeps the porch of
shade;
...
There is a coal-black Angel
With a thick Afric lip,
And he dwells (like the hunted and harried)
In a swamp where the green frogs dip.
...
Ye elms that wave on Malvern Hill
In prime of morn and May,
Recall ye how McClellan's men
Here stood at bay?
...
When tempest winnowed grain from bran;
And men were looking for a man,
Authority called you to the van,
McClellan:
...
The color-bearers facing death
White in the whirling sulphurous wreath,
Stand boldly out before the line;
...
The cavalry-camp lies on the slope
Of what was late a vernal hill,
But now like a pavement bare-
An outpost in the perilous wilds
...