I cannot sing, because when a child, 

   My mother often hushed me. 

The others she allowed to sing, 

   No matter what their melody. 

And since I’ve grown to manhood

   All music I applaud, 

But have no voice for singing, 

   So I write my songs to God. 

I have ears and know the measures, 

   And I’ll write a song for you, 

But the world must do the singing 

   Of my sonnets old and new. 

Now tell me, world of music, 

   Why I cannot sing one song? 

Is it because my mother hushed me

   And laughed when I was wrong?

Although I can write music, 

   And tell when harmony’s right, 

I will never sing better than when 

   My song was hushed one night. 

Fond mothers, always be careful; 

   Let the songs be poorly sung. 

To hush the child is cruel; 

   Let it sing while it is young. 

One day is there of the series
Termed "Thanksgiving Day"
Celebrated part at table
Part in memory -
Neither Ancestor nor Urchin
I review the Play -
Seems it to my Hooded thinking
Reflex Holiday
Had There been no sharp subtraction
From the early Sum -
Not an acre or a Caption
Where was once a Room
Not a mention whose small Pebble
Wrinkled any Sea,
Unto such, were such Assembly,
'Twere "Thanksgiving day" -

How like a star you rose upon my life, 
   Shedding fair radiance o’er my darkened hour! 
At your uprise swift fled the turbid strife 
   Of grief and fear,—so mighty was your power! 
And I must weep that you now disappear, 
   Casting eclipse upon my cheerless night— 
My heaven deserting for another sphere, 
   Shedding elsewhere your aye-regretted light.

An Hesperus no more to gild my eve, 
   You glad the morning of another heart; 
And my fond soul must mutely learn to grieve, 
   While thus from every joy it swells apart. 
Yet I may worship still those gentle beams, 
   Though not on me they shed their silver rain; 
And thought of you may linger in my dreams, 
   And Memory pour balm upon my pain.

Borne on the low lake wind there floats to me,
Out of the distant hill, a sigh of bells,
Mystic, worshipful, almost unheard,
As tho’ the past should answer me,—and I
In pagan solitude bow down my head.

     Thank Heaven! the crisis—
         The danger is past,
     And the lingering illness
         Is over at last—
     And the fever called “Living”
          Is conquered at last.

     Sadly, I know
         I am shorn of my strength,
     And no muscle I move
         As I lie at full length—
     But no matter!—I feel
         I am better at length.

     And I rest so composedly,
         Now, in my bed,
     That any beholder
         Might fancy me dead—
     Might start at beholding me,
         Thinking me dead.

     The moaning and groaning,
         The sighing and sobbing,
     Are quieted now,
         With that horrible throbbing
     At heart:—ah, that horrible,
         Horrible throbbing!

     The sickness—the nausea—
         The pitiless pain—
     Have ceased, with the fever
         That maddened my brain—
     With the fever called “Living”
          That burned in my brain.

     And oh! of all tortures
         That torture the worst
     Has abated—the terrible
         Torture of thirst
     For the naphthaline river
         Of Passion accurst:—
     I have drank of a water
         That quenches all thirst:—

     Of a water that flows,
         With a lullaby sound,
     From a spring but a very few
         Feet under ground—
     From a cavern not very far
         Down under ground.

     And ah! let it never
         Be foolishly said
     That my room it is gloomy
         And narrow my bed;
     For man never slept
         In a different bed—
     And, to sleep, you must slumber
         In just such a bed.

     My tantalized spirit
         Here blandly reposes,
     Forgetting, or never
         Regretting its roses—
     Its old agitations
         Of myrtles and roses:

     For now, while so quietly
         Lying, it fancies
     A holier odor
         About it, of pansies—
     A rosemary odor,
         Commingled with pansies—
     With rue and the beautiful
         Puritan pansies.

     And so it lies happily,
         Bathing in many
     A dream of the truth
         And the beauty of Annie—
     Drowned in a bath
         Of the tresses of Annie.

     She tenderly kissed me,
         She fondly caressed,
     And then I fell gently
         To sleep on her breast—
     Deeply to sleep
         From the heaven of her breast.

     When the light was extinguished,
         She covered me warm,
     And she prayed to the angels
         To keep me from harm—
     To the queen of the angels
         To shield me from harm.

     And I lie so composedly,
         Now in my bed,
     (Knowing her love)
         That you fancy me dead—
     And I rest so contentedly,
         Now in my bed,
     (With her love at my breast)
         That you fancy me dead—
     That you shudder to look at me,
         Thinking me dead:—

     But my heart it is brighter
         Than all of the many
     Stars in the sky,
         For it sparkles with Annie—
     It glows with the light
         Of the love of my Annie—
     With the thought of the light
         Of the eyes of my Annie.

Only a dad with a tired face, 
Coming home from the daily race, 
Bringing little of gold or fame
To show how well he has played the game; 
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice 
To see him come and to hear his voice. 

Only a dad with a brood of four, 
One of ten million men or more 
Plodding along in the daily strife, 
Bearing the whips and the scorns of life, 
With never a whimper of pain or hate, 
For the sake of those who at home await. 

Only a dad, neither rich nor proud, 
Merely one of the surging crowd
Toiling, striving from day to day, 
Facing whatever may come his way, 
Silent whenever the harsh condemn, 
And bearing it all for the love of them. 

Only a dad but he gives his all
To smooth the way for his children small, 
Doing with courage stern and grim, 
The deeds that his father did for him. 
This is the line that for him I pen: 
Only a dad, but the best of men.

Here where the trees tremble with your flight
I sit and braid thin whips to beat you down.
How shall we ever find you who have gone
In little dresses, lisping through the town?

Great men on horses hunt you, and strong boys
Employ their arrows in the shallow air.
But I shall be heard whistling where I follow
Braiding long wisps of grass and stallion’s hair.

And in the night when thirty hawks are high
In pendent rhythm, and all the wayside loud;
When they are burning field and bush and hedge,
I’ll steal you like a penny from the crowd.

Fools, fools, fools,

Your blood is hot to-day.

       It cools

When you are clay.

It joins the very clod

Wherein you look at God,

Wherein at last you see

       The living God

       The loving God,

Which was your enemy.