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Sunshine and shadow play amid the trees
In bosky groves, while from the vivid sky
The sun’s gold arrows fleck the fields at noon,
Where weary cattle to their slumber hie.
How sweet the music of the purling rill,
Trickling adown the grassy hill!
While dreamy fancies come to give repose
When the first star of evening glows.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on July 3, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
There came a dove, an Easter dove,
When morning stars grew dim;
It fluttered round my lattice bars,
To chant a matin hymn.
O peerless marble marvel! what of grace,
Or matchless symmetry is not enshrined
In thy rare contours! Could we hope to find
The regal dignity of that fair face
In aught less beautiful? We would retrace,
At sight of thee, our willing steps where wind
The paths great Homer trod. Within whose mind
O mother-heart! when fast the arrows flew, Like blinding lightning, smiting as they fell, One after one, one after one, what knell Could fitly voice thy anguish! Sorrow grew To throes intensest, when thy sad soul knew Thy youngest, too, must go. Was it not well, Avengers wroth, just one to spare? Ay, tell The ages of soul-struggle sterner? Through The flinty stone, O image of despair, Sad Niobe, thy maddened grief did flow In bitt’rest tears, when all thy wailing prayer Was so denied. Alas!