Relationships and Family

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome.

Blessings on thee, little man, Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!

So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn Which once he wore! The glory from his gray hairs gone Forevermore!

There was a little girl Who had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead; And when she was good She was very, very good, But when she was bad she was horrid.

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, 2 Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence.

I hear in the chamber above me The patter of little feet.

Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, And Edith with golden hair.

Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day’s occupations, That is known as the Children’s Hour.

If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning.

From the waterfall he named her, Minnehaha, Laughing Water.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

“Guess now who holds thee?”—“Death,” I said. But there The silver answer rang—“Not Death, but Love.”

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years?

Give all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good fame, Plans, credit and the Muse, Nothing refuse.

Child, you are like a flower, So sweet and pure and fair. I look at you, and sadness Touches me with a prayer.

I will not mourn, although my heart is torn, Oh, love forever lost! I will not mourn.

She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan.

A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm Love in!

Beyond a mortal man impassion’d far At these voluptuous accents, he arose, Ethereal, flush’d, and like a throbbing star Seen mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose; Into her dream he melted, as the rose, Blendeth its odour with the violet,— Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows Like Love’s alarum pattering the sharp sleet Against the window-panes; St. Agnes’ moon hath set.

Love in a hut, with water and a crust, Is—Love, forgive us!—cinders, ashes, dust.

A virgin purest lipp’d, yet in the lore Of love deep learned to the red heart’s core.

When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead— When the cloud is scattered The rainbow’s glory is shed.

One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it.