Dawn slips within my room to say good-by: 
Buffeted, bruised, by autumn rain 
All night, 
While I lay sleeping, held to dreams, again 
She comes from out the violated sky, 
Dragging her tarnished light.

With dim leaves drooping, hanging all about 
Her misty face, her eyes still wet, 
She stands 
Disconsolate beneath her veils—and yet 
Bravely she spills one last bird’s note from out 
Her summer-empty hands.

I have gone back in boyish wonderment

To things that I had foolishly put by . . . . 

Have found an alien and unknown content 

In seeing how some bits of cloud-filled sky 

Are framed in bracken pools; through chuckling hours 

Have watched the antic frogs, or curiously

Have numbered all the unnamed, vagrant flowers, 

That fleck the unkempt meadows, lavishly. 



Or where a headlong toppling stream has stayed

Its racing, lulled to quiet by the song 

Bursting from out the thickleaved oaken shade, 

There I have lain while hours sauntered past—

I have found peacefulness somewhere at last, 

Have found a quiet needed for so long. 

I am bound, I am bound, for a distant shore,
By a lonely isle, by a far Azore,
There it is, there it is, the treasure I seek,
On the barren sands of a desolate creek

You are an ice covered twig
with a quiet, smiling sap
The spring winds of life
have tested your steel-blade soul
and the harsh breath of men
covered you with a frigid shell.
But under the transparent ice
I have seen your warm hand
ready to tear the shell
and grasp the love-sun’s heat,
and your cool morning eyes
look clear and calm into the day.

With a ring of silver,

        And a ring of gold, 

    And a red, red rose

         Which illumines her face, 

The sun, like a lover

    Who glows and is bold, 

Wooes the lovely earth 

   To his strong embrace. 

O day—if I could cup my hands and drink of you, 
And make this shining wonder be 
A part of me! 
O day! O day!
You lift and sway your colors on the sky 
Till I am crushed with beauty. Why is there 
More of reeling sunlit air 
Than I can breathe? Why is there sound 
In silence? Why is a singing wound 
About each hour? 
And perfume when there is no flower? 
O day! O Day! How may I press 
Nearer to loveliness?

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Wave of sorrow,

Do not drown me now:

I see the island

Still ahead somehow.

I see the island

And its sands are fair:

Wave of sorrow,

Take me there.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Out of the night that covers me,   

  Black as the Pit from pole to pole,   

I thank whatever gods may be   

  For my unconquerable soul.   

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

  I have not winced nor cried aloud.   

Under the bludgeonings of chance   

  My head is bloody, but unbowed.   

Beyond this place of wrath and tears   

  Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years   

  Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.   

It matters not how strait the gate,   

  How charged with punishments the scroll,   

I am the master of my fate:

  I am the captain of my soul.

Prisoners are we,

American citizens imprisoned

For daring in the name of Democracy

To protest against the continued denial

Of the right of self-government

To twenty millions of the American people.

We lie in a dungeon

Long ago abandoned and condemned,

Just as politically we are held

Imprisoned in a subjection

Abandoned and condemned

By every other nation of English speech and spirit.

Painfully raising my head,

I look down the long row

Of gray-blanketed heaps.

Under every heap a woman,

Weak, sick, but determined,

Twenty gray fortresses of determination.

Come forth, you workers! 

Let the fires go cold—

Let the iron spill out, out of the troughs—

Let the iron run wild

Like a red bramble on the floors—

Leave the mill and the foundry and the mine 

And the shrapnel lying on the wharves—

Leave the desk and the shuttle and the loom—

Come, 

With your ashen lives, 

Your lives like dust in your hands. 

I call upon you, workers. 

It is not yet light 

But I beat upon your doors. 

You say you await the Dawn

But I say you are the Dawn. 

Come, in your irresistible unspent force 

And make new light upon the mountains. 

You have turned deaf ears to others—

Me you shall hear. 

Out of the mouths of turbines, 

Out of the turgid throats of engines,

Over the whisling steam, 

You shall hear me shrilly piping. 

Your mills I shall enter like the wind, 

And blow upon your hearts,

Kindling the slow fire. 

They think they have tamed you, workers—

Beaten you to a tool

To scoop up a hot honor 

Till it be cool—

But out of the passion of the red frontiers

A great flower trembles and burns and glows

And each of its petals is a people. 

Come forth, you workers—

Clinging to your stable

And your wisp of warm straw—

Let the fires grow cold,

Let the iron spill out of the troughs, 

Let the iron run wild

Like a red bramble on the floors . . . 

As our forefathers stood on the prairies 

So let us stand in a ring, 

Let us tear up their prisons like grass

And beat them to barricades—

Let us meet the fire of their guns

With a greater fire, 

Till the birds shall fly to the mountains

For one safe bough. 

Though I was dwelling in a prison house, 

My soul was wandering by the carefree stream

Through fields of green with gold eyed daisies strewn, 

And daffodils and sunflower cavaliers. 

And near me played a little browneyed child, 

A winsome creature God alone conceived, 

“Oh, little friend,” I begged. “Give me a flower

That I might bear it to my lonely cell.” 

He plucked a dandelion, an ugly bloom, 

But tenderly he placed it in my hand, 

And in his eyes I saw the sign of love. 

‘Twas then the dandelion became a rose. 

All that night I walked alone and wept.
I tore a rose and dropped it on the ground.
My heart was lead; all that night I kept
Listening to hear a dreadful sound.

A tree bent down and dew dripped from its hair.
The earth was warm; dawn came solemnly.
I stretched full-length upon the grass and there
I said your name but silence answered me.

Great wonder that my blood spurts ruby red
And not a green and slimy stream instead—
That all my tears are salt, not bitter gall,
That I still live, and love and laugh at all!
And that my teeth are lustrous, pearly white,
Instead of blue cold blades that clash at night.
Why do you stand aloof and bid me pray,
You who sow strife and pain upon my way?
How does my soul live on mauled by hate’s rod?
You cannot know ’twas made by One called God.

The saddest day will have an eve,
     The darkest night, a morn;
Think not, when clouds are thick and dark,
     Thy way is too forlorn.

For ev’ry cloud that e’er did rise,
     To shade thy life’s bright way,
And ev’ry restless night of pain,
     And ev’ry weary day,

Will bring thee gifts, thou’lt value more,
     Because they cost so dear;
The soul that faints not in the storm,
     Emerges bright and clear.

I return the bitterness,
   Which you gave to me;
When I wanted loveliness
   Tantalant and free.

I return the bitterness
   It is washed by tears;
Now it is a loveliness
   Garnished through the years.

I return it loveliness,
   Having made it so;
For I wore the bitterness
   From it long ago.

Where she steps a whir,
Like dust about her feet,
Follows after her
Down the dustless street.

Something struggles there:
The forces that contend
Violently as to where
Her pathway is to end.

Issues, like great hands, grip
And wrestle for her tread;
One would strive to trip,
And one would go ahead.

Conflicting strengths in her 
Grapple to guide her feet,
Raising an unclean whir,
Like dust, upon the street.

CHILD.
O Mother, lay your hand on my brow!
O mother, mother, where am I now?
Why is the room so gaunt and great? 
Why am I lying awake so late?

MOTHER.
Fear not at all: the night is still.
Nothing is here that means you ill -
Nothing but lamps the whole town through,
And never a child awake but you.

CHILD.
Mother, mother, speak low in my ear,
Some of the things are so great and near,
Some are so small and far away,
I have a fear that I cannot say,
What have I done, and what do I fear,
And why are you crying, mother dear?

MOTHER.
Out in the city, sounds begin
Thank the kind God, the carts come in!
An hour or two more, and God is so kind,
The day shall be blue in the window-blind,
Then shall my child go sweetly asleep,
And dream of the birds and the hills of sheep.

Ghosts of all my lovely sins,

     Who attend too well my pillow,

Gay the wanton rain begins;

     Hide the limp and tearful willow.

Turn aside your eyes and ears,

     Trail away your robes of sorrow,

You shall have my further years,—

     You shall walk with me tomorrow.

I am sister to the rain;

     Fey and sudden and unholy,

Petulant at the windowpane,

     Quickly lost, remembered slowly.

I have lived with shades, a shade;

     I am hung with graveyard flowers.

Let me be tonight arrayed

     In the silver of the showers.

Every fragile thing shall rust;

     When another April passes

I may be a furry dust,

     Sifting through the brittle grasses.

All sweet sins shall be forgot;

     Who will live to tell their siring?

Hear me now, nor let me rot

     Wistful still, and still aspiring.

Ghosts of dear temptations, heed;

     I am frail, be you forgiving.

See you not that I have need

     To be living with the living?

Sail, tonight, the Styx’s breast;

     Glide among the dim processions

Of the exquisite unblest,

     Spirits of my shared transgressions. 

Roam with young Persephone,

     Plucking poppies for your slumber …

With the morrow, there shall be

     One more wraith among your number.

What wilt thou do when faith is fled
                And hope is dead
            And love's wing broken?
Wilt thou lie in the grave of the past and sleep,
                While the mourners weep
            And sad rites are spoken?

Nay, nay—fare forth, though the night be black
                And the storm's red rack
            In the sky is burning;
For the sun shines somewhere, from gloom released,
                And the heart of the east
            For the day is yearning.

Come, let us be friends, you and I,
     E’en though the world doth hate at this hour;
Let’s bask in the sunlight of a love so high 
     That war cannot dim it with all its armed power. 

Come, let us be friends, you and I,
     The world hath her surplus of hatred today; 
She needeth more love, see, she droops with a sigh,
     Where her axis doth slant in the sky far away. 

Come, let us be friends, you and I, 
     And love each other so deep and so well, 
That the world may grow steady and forward fly,
     Lest she wander towards chaos and drop into hell. 

^{The agonies of disillusionment are the growing-pains of Truth}

Now I am done with ineffectual dreams,

Kindly play-toys of the unsure years,

And unencumbered, proud and free and light,

With even pulses and a lifting heart,

I mount the future’s twisting stairs.

A week ago I thought that I must die,

Or hang forever, bitter as frost-killed fruit,

Scarred and broken from the Tree of Life —

Because I suddenly came into my sight

And men walked as trees; and dreams went mute.

’T is no small thing, to lose a dear, sure world,

To stumble, desolate, through hideous space,

Down unfamiliar and unfriendly roads

That bruise your feet. And then to suddenly feel

A great light newly shining in your face.

I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth, 
And laid them away in a box of gold;
Where long will cling the lips of the moth,
I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth; 
I hide no hate; I am not even wroth
Who found earth’s breath so keen and cold; 
I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth, 
And laid them away in a box of gold.

I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maitre de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines

Listen. The wind is still,

And far away in the night—

See!  The uplands fill 

With a running light. 

Open the doors.  It is warm;

And where the sky was clear —

Look!  The head of a storm

That marches here!

Come under the trembling hedge—

Fast, although you fumble. . . . 

There!  Did you hear the edge

Of winter crumble?

^{(written in her fifteenth year)}

Life is but a troubled ocean, 
     Hope a meteor, love a flower
Which blossoms in the morning beam, 
     And whithers with the evening hour. 

Ambition is a dizzy height, 
     And glory, but a lightning gleam; 
Fame is a bubble, dazzling bright, 
    Which fairest shines in fortune’s beam. 

When clouds and darkness veil the skies, 
    And sorrow’s blast blows loud and chill, 
Friendship shall like a rainbow rise, 
    And softly whisper—peace, be still.

Yesterday I held your hand,
Reverently I pressed it,
And its gentle yieldingness
From my soul I blessed it.

But to-day I sit alone,
Sad and sore repining;
Must our gold forever know
Flames for the refining?

Yesterday I walked with you,
Could a day be sweeter?
Life was all a lyric song
Set to tricksy meter.

Ah, to-day is like a dirge,—
Place my arms around you,
Let me feel the same dear joy
As when first I found you.

Let me once retrace my steps,
From these roads unpleasant,
Let my heart and mind and soul
All ignore the present.

Yesterday the iron seared
And to-day means sorrow.
Pause, my soul, arise, arise,
Look where gleams the morrow.

The Dawn’s awake!  
   A flash of smoldering flame and fire 
Ignites the East. Then, higher, higher,  
   O’er all the sky so gray, forlorn,  
The torch of gold is borne. 

The Dawn’s awake!  
  The dawn of a thousand dreams and thrills.  
And music singing in the hills  
   A pæen of eternal spring  
Voices the new awakening. 

The Dawn’s awake!  
     Whispers of pent-up harmonies,  
With the mingled fragrance of the trees;  
     Faint snaches of half-forgotten song— 
Fathers! Torn and numb,— 
   The boon of light we craved, awaited long,  
Has come, has come! 

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,

     But he with a chuckle replied

That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one

     Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

     On his face. If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

     That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;

     At least no one ever has done it”;

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,

     And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

     Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

     That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

     There are thousands to prophesy failure;

There are thousands to point out to you one by one,

     The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

     Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing

     That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

Let me make the songs for the people,
   Songs for the old and young;
Songs to stir like a battle-cry
   Wherever they are sung.

Not for the clashing of sabres,
   For carnage nor for strife;
But songs to thrill the hearts of men
   With more abundant life.

Let me make the songs for the weary,
   Amid life's fever and fret,
Till hearts shall relax their tension,
   And careworn brows forget.

Let me sing for little children,
   Before their footsteps stray,
Sweet anthems of love and duty,
   To float o'er life's highway.

I would sing for the poor and aged,
   When shadows dim their sight;
Of the bright and restful mansions,
   Where there shall be no night.

Our world, so worn and weary,
   Needs music, pure and strong,
To hush the jangle and discords
   Of sorrow, pain, and wrong.

Music to soothe all its sorrow,
   Till war and crime shall cease; 
And the hearts of men grown tender
   Girdle the world with peace.

This is the spot:—how mildly does the sun
Shine in between the fading leaves! the air
In the habitual silence of this wood
Is more than silent: and this bed of heath,
Where shall we find so sweet a resting-place?
Come!—let me see thee sink into a dream
Of quiet thoughts,—protracted till thine eye
Be calm as water when the winds are gone
And no one can tell whither.—my sweet friend!
We two have had such happy hours together
That my heart melts in me to think of it.

That was a spring of storms. They prowled the night;
Low level lightning flickered in the east
Continuous. The white pear-blossom gleamed
Motionless in the flashes; birds were still;
Darkness and silence knotted to suspense,
Riven by the premonitory glint
Of skulking storm, a giant that whirled a sword
Over the low horizon, and with tread
Earth-shaking ever threatened his approach,
But to delay his terror kept afar,
And held earth stayed in waiting like a beast
Bowed to receive a blow. But when he strode
Down from his throne of hills upon the plain,
And broke his anger to a thousand shards
Over the prostrate fields, then leapt the earth
Proud to accept his challenge; drank his rain;
Under his sudden wind tossed wild her trees;
Opened her secret bosom to his shafts;
The great drops spattered; then above the house
Crashed thunder, and the little wainscot shook
And the green garden in the lightning lay.

We were never ones to avoid pain 
even if we found him in another person.

And when we do (find him again)—
let him have not been born in the rain 

and grown up to become a storm. 
His kisses lightning that scorches the earth. 

As young girls, our grandmothers warned us 
When there is lightning, cover all the mirrors. 

But, one night thunder snapped; 
its rumble shattering the vanity.

We’ve chased cloudbursts ever since. 
Committed ourselves to flood and flight.

For girls like us who pray to the Sky Beings—  
Protect us whenever we go 
                                          where we were never meant to be. 
Put tobacco down 
for the ones

with Creator-shaped holes in our hearts. 
We spend lifetimes trying to fill,

to feel. What is the medicine for this?

Our mothers tell us (as they taught) 
Send them love. Send them love. Send [say it] love—

So, praise our fathers who left in the night,
mapping us into unlovable.

They made us tough as nails. Now we know 
how to hold ourselves together.

Praise the ones who listened 
when girls like us asked them to leave.

Praise the lovers who never returned.
You helped us no longer be afraid of ghosts.

For girls like us, 
the wound never fully heals.

The gentle rhythm of its pulse, a reminder to
praise our mothers for teaching us words are seeds.

We plant, bloom ourselves anew.
Praise the lightning. Praise the storms

we run through
because girls like us know—

this is where 
our medicine comes from.

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ‘round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—

I like grey skies,
At least they tell the truth;
Grey skies,
Reflective skies
That do not laugh at all
Nor weep vain tears.
Unpromising,
Unhoping,
Cold.

Grey skies,
No fear in them
Nor any joy,
No tragedy,
All grey.
I like grey skies,
Unweeping, smileless skies.
They do not lie.

On a night of whirling snow 
When every twig and star is dead 
There is a house where I can go  
And knock and enter and be fed

With fire and wine; and as we grumble  
Winter ceases on the panes.  
The outer heights of darkness tumble  
Down and in upon our brains,

And sitting there so bitter-bright 
We build a season of our own— 
Of cynic ice and sudden white 
Blasts of understanding blown.

Because this ground is mine it presses firmer

And softer up against my morning feet.

The grass ever is whispering as I walk. 

The trees lean a little, and the spring,

There at the head of the road, leaps out to meet me.

Some afternoons I think these hundred acres,

Knowing I lie on the mountainside in the sun,

Curl over as if to fold me in; then, rising, 

I smile and go, and they are level again.

But all of this is nothing to the night

I climbed that path and came into my own. 

The darkness—my own darkness—was a warm

Still wind upon my face, until I reached

The topmost meadow, open to the sky.

One step, and I stood naked among stars—

White stars, that clustered closer and larger down;

Closer, until they entered my two eyes. . . . 

When, deep inside, they burst without a sound. 

Ours is the ancient story:
    Delicate flowers of sin,
Lilies, arrayed in glory,
    That would not toil nor spin.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

I lied, trusting you knew
I could not lie to you.
Beloved friend, I lied and am forgiven; but I
Cannot forgive that you believed my lie.

^{(“In their generation wiser than the children of Light.”)}

We spurred our parents to the kiss,
Though doubtfully they shrank from this—
Day had no courage to review 
What lusty dark alone might do—
Then were we joined from their caress 
In heat of midnight, one from two.

This night-seed knew no discontent,
In certitude his changings went;
Though there were veils about his face,
With forethought, even in that pent place,
Down towards the light his way he bent 
To kingdoms of more ample space.

Was Day prime error, that regret 
For darkness roars unstifled yet?
That in this freedom, by faith won,
Only acts of doubt are done?
That unveiled eyes with tears are wet,
They loathe to gaze upon the sun?

Like crawling black monsters

the big clouds tap at my window,

their shooting liquid fingers slide

over the staring panes

and merge on the red wall.

Some of the fingers pull at the hinges

and whisper insistently: “Let us come in,

the cruel wind whips and drives us

till we are sore and in despair.”

But I cannot harbor the big crawling black clouds,

I cannot save them from the angry wind.

In a tiny crevice of my aching heart

there is a big storm brewing

and loud clamour and constant prayer

for the reflection of snow-capped mountains

on a distant lake.

Tires and dazed I sit on a bear skin

and timidly listen to the concert of storms.

Sunlight was something more than that to him. 
It was a halo when it formed a rim 
Around some far-off mountain peak. He called 
It thin-beat leaf of gold, and stood enthralled 
When it lay still on some half-sheltered spot 
In gilt mosaics where the trees forgot 
To hide the grasses carpeting the spot.

The sky to him was not just the blue sky, 
But a deep, painted bowl with clouds piled high; 
And when these clouds were tinted burning red,  
Or gold and bacchic purple, then he said: 
“The too-full goblets of the gods had over-run, 
Nor give the credit to the disappearing sun 
Who flames before he leaves the world in dun.”

Between his eyes and life fate seemed to hold 
A magic tissue of transparent gold, 
That freed his vision from the dull, drab, hopeless part, 
And kept alive a fresh, unsaddened heart. 
And all unselfishly he tried to share 
His gift with us who see the harsh and bare;  
But we refused. We did not know nor care.

Being walkers with the dawn and morning
Walkers with the sun and morning, 
We are not afraid of night, 
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness, 
Being walkers with the sun and morning. 

The Soul selects her own Society —
Then — shuts the Door —
To her divine Majority —
Present no more —

Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —
At her low Gate —
Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat —

I've known her — from an ample nation —
Choose One —
Then — close the Valves of her attention —
Like Stone —

c. 1862