Brief while they last,     Long when they are gone;    They catch from the past     A light to still live on.     Brief! yet I ween     A day…

    Your past is past and never to return,    The long bright yesterday of life’s first years,    Its days are dead — cold ashes in an urn.    Some held…

    Just when the gentle hand of spring     Came fringing the trees with bud and leaf,    And when the blades the warm suns bring     Were given glad…

    By sound of name, and touch of hand,     Thro’ ears that hear, and eyes that see,    We know each other in this land,     How little must…

   Two little children played among the flowers,    Their mothers were of kin, tho’ far apart;    The children’s ages were the very same    E’en to an hour — and…

   Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright,         Flashed the sword of Lee!    Far in the front of the deadly fight,    High o’er the brave in the cause…

   Flower! Flower, why repine?     God knows each creature’s place;    He hides within me when I shine,     And your leaves hide His face.     And you are near…

    Nature is but the outward vestibule    Which God has placed before an unseen shrine,    The Visible is but a fair, bright vale    That winds around the great Invisible;    The…

    Some reckon their age by years,     Some measure their life by art;    But some tell their days by the flow of their tears,     And their lives…

    My brow is bent beneath a heavy rod!     My face is wan and white with many woes!    But I will lift my poor chained hands to…