LABORARE est orare: We, black-visaged sons of toil, From the coal-mine and the anvil And the delving of the soil,— From the loom, the wharf, the ware…

February 25th, 1851. YOU are to be married, Mary; This hour as I wakeful lie In the dreamy dawn of the morning, Your wedding hour draws nigh;

WILLIE, fold your little hands; Let it drop, that 'soldier’ toy: Look where father’s picture stands… Father, who here kissed his boy Not two months since,—father kind,

‘O HEART, my heart!’ she said,… His mate the blackbird calling, While through the sheen of the gar… May rain was softly falling,— Aye softly, softly falling.

THE thin white snow-streaks penci… That mountain’s shoulder gray, While in the west the pale green s… Smiled back the dawning day, Till from the misty east the sun

THE tide has ebbed away: No more wild dashings 'gainst the… Nor swayings amidst sea-weed false… The hues of gardens gay: No laugh of little wavelets at the…

REST—rest—four little letters, o… Enfolding an infinitude of bliss— Rest is upon the earth. The heavy… Hang poised in silent ether, motio… Seeking nor sun nor breeze. No re…

TAKE it, reader, idly passing, This, like other idle lines; Take it, critic, great at classing Subtle genius and its signs: But, O reader, be thou dumb;

YOU remember where in starlight We two wandered hand in hand, While the night-flowers poured the… And night-airs the still earth fan… There I, walking yester even,

O DEAREST my sister, my sister… With lids softly drooping, or lift… With household hands folded, or op… And lips, ripe and dewy, or ready… Thy life rises upwards to heaven e…

LOUD-VOICED night, with the w… Many a tune; Stormy night, with white rain-clou… Over the moon; Mystic night, that each minute cha…

AUTUMN to winter, winter into s… Spring into summer, summer into fa… So rolls the changing year, and so… Motion so swift, we know not that… Till at the gate of some memorial…

I NEVER lay me down to sleep at… But in my heart I sing that littl… The angels hear it as, a pitying t… They touch my burning lids with fi… As moonbeams, pale, impalpable, an…

TWO PORTRAITS. A PLEASANT picture, full of me… Old age, calm sitting in the July… On withered hands half-leaning—fee… That after their life-labors, ligh…

IT is the Christmas time: And up and down ‘twixt heaven and… In glorious grief and solemn mirth… The shining angels climb. And unto everything