Drab habitation of whom?    Tabernacle or tomb,    Or dome of worm,    Or porch of gnome,    Or some elf’s catacomb?

The spider as an artist    Has never been employed    Though his surpassing merit    Is freely certified     By every broom and Bridget    Throughout a Christian land.    Neglected son of genius,    I take…

Of all the souls that stand create    I have elected one.    When sense from spirit files away,    And subterfuge is done;     When that which is and that which…

 Softened by Time’s consummate plush,    How sleek the woe appears    That threatened childhood’s citadel    And undermined the years!     Bisected now by bleaker griefs,    We envy the despair    That devastated childhood’s…

  All overgrown by cunning moss,    All interspersed with weed,    The little cage of ‘Currer Bell,’    In quiet Haworth laid.     This bird, observing others,    When frosts too sharp became,    Retire to…

Just lost when I was saved!    Just felt the world go by!    Just girt me for the onset with eternity,    When breath blew back,    And on the other side    I…

 I started early, took my dog,    And visited the sea;    The mermaids in the basement    Came out to look at me,     And frigates in the upper floor    Extended hempen…

 Bless God, he went as soldiers,    His musket on his breast;    Grant, God, he charge the bravest    Of all the martial blest.     Please God, might I behold him    In…

You left me, sweet, two legacies, —    A legacy of love    A Heavenly Father would content,    Had He the offer of;     You left me boundaries of pain    Capacious as…

Before the ice is in the pools,    Before the skaters go,    Or any cheek at nightfall    Is tarnished by the snow,     Before the fields have finished,    Before the Christmas…