The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep;
  The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told!
  The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold
  To the red rising moon, and loud and deep
The nightingale is singing from the steep;
  It is midsummer, but the air is cold;
  Can it be death?  Alas, beside the fold
  A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep.
Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white,
  On which I read: "Here lieth one whose name
  Was writ in water."  And was this the meed
Of his sweet singing?  Rather let me write:
  "The smoking flax before it burst to flame
  Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed."

THE GALAXY

Torrent of light and river of the air,
  Along whose bed the glimmering stars are seen
  Like gold and silver sands in some ravine
  Where mountain streams have left their channels bare!
The Spaniard sees in thee the pathway, where
  His patron saint descended in the sheen
  Of his celestial armor, on serene
  And quiet nights, when all the heavens were fair.
Not this I see, nor yet the ancient fable
  Of Phaeton's wild course, that scorched the skies
  Where'er the hoofs of his hot coursers trod;
But the white drift of worlds o'er chasms of sable,
  The star-dust that is whirled aloft and flies
  From the invisible chariot-wheels of God.

THE SOUND OF THE SEA

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
  And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
  I heard the first wave of the rising tide
  Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;
A voice out of the silence of the deep,
  A sound mysteriously multiplied
  As of a cataract from the mountain's side,
  Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.
So comes to us at times, from the unknown
  And inaccessible solitudes of being,
  The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
And inspirations, that we deem our own,
  Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
  Of things beyond our reason or control.

A SUMMER DAY BY THE SEA

The sun is set; and in his latest beams
  Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold,
  Slowly upon the amber air unrolled,
  The falling mantle of the Prophet seems.
From the dim headlands many a lighthouse gleams,
  The street-lamps of the ocean; and behold,
  O'erhead the banners of the night unfold;
  The day hath passed into the land of dreams.
O summer day beside the joyous sea!
  O summer day so wonderful and white,
  So full of gladness and so full of pain!
Forever and forever shalt thou be
  To some the gravestone of a dead delight,
  To some the landmark of a new domain.

THE TIDES

I saw the long line of the vacant shore,
  The sea-weed and the shells upon the sand,
  And the brown rocks left bare on every hand,
  As if the ebbing tide would flow no more.
Then heard I, more distinctly than before,
  The ocean breathe and its great breast expand,
  And hurrying came on the defenceless land
  The insurgent waters with tumultuous roar.
All thought and feeling and desire, I said,
  Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of song
  Have ebbed from me forever!  Suddenly o'er me
They swept again from their deep ocean bed,
  And in a tumult of delight, and strong
  As youth, and beautiful as youth, upbore me.

A SHADOW

I said unto myself, if I were dead,
  What would befall these children?  What would be
  Their fate, who now are looking up to me
  For help and furtherance?  Their lives, I said,
Would be a volume wherein I have read
  But the first chapters, and no longer see
  To read the rest of their dear history,
  So full of beauty and so full of dread.
Be comforted; the world is very old,
  And generations pass, as they have passed,
  A troop of shadows moving with the sun;
Thousands of times has the old tale been told;
  The world belongs to those who come the last,
  They will find hope and strength as we have done.

A NAMELESS GRAVE

"A soldier of the Union mustered out,"
  Is the inscription on an unknown grave
  At Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave,
  Nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout
Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout
  Of battle, when the loud artillery drave
  Its iron wedges through the ranks of brave
  And doomed battalions, storming the redoubt.
Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea
  In thy forgotten grave! with secret shame
  I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn,
When I remember thou hast given for me
  All that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name,
  And I can give thee nothing in return.

SLEEP

Lull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound
  Seems from some faint Aeolian harp-string caught;
  Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought
  As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound
The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound;
  For I am weary, and am overwrought
  With too much toil, with too much care distraught,
  And with the iron crown of anguish crowned.
Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek,
  O peaceful Sleep! until from pain released
  I breathe again uninterrupted breath!
Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek
  Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast
  Whereof the greater mystery is death!

THE OLD BRIDGE AT FLORENCE

Taddeo Gaddi built me.  I am old,
  Five centuries old.  I plant my foot of stone
  Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own
  Was planted on the dragon.  Fold by fold
Beneath me as it struggles.  I behold
  Its glistening scales.  Twice hath it overthrown
  My kindred and companions.  Me alone
  It moveth not, but is by me controlled,
I can remember when the Medici
  Were driven from Florence; longer still ago
  The final wars of Ghibelline and Guelf.
Florence adorns me with her jewelry;
  And when I think that Michael Angelo
  Hath leaned on me, I glory in myself.