And now, beset with many ills,
     A toilsome life I follow;
Compelled to carry from the hills
These logs to the impatient mills
     Below there in the hollow.

Yet something ever cheers and charms
     The rudeness of my labors;
Daily I water with these arms
The cattle of a hundred farms,
     And have the birds for neighbors.

Men call me Mad, and well they may,
     When, full of rage and trouble,
I burst my banks of sand and clay,
And sweep their wooden bridge away,
     Like withered reeds or stubble.

Now go and write thy little rhyme,
     As of thine own creating. 
Thou seest the day is past its prime;
I can no longer waste my time;
     The mills are tired of waiting.

POSSIBILITIES

Where are the Poets, unto whom belong
  The Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sent
  Straight to the mark, and not from bows half bent,
  But with the utmost tension of the thong? 
Where are the stately argosies of song,
  Whose rushing keels made music as they went
  Sailing in search of some new continent,
  With all sail set, and steady winds and strong? 
Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught
  In schools, some graduate of the field or street,
  Who shall become a master of the art,
An admiral sailing the high seas of thought,
  Fearless and first and steering with his fleet
  For lands not yet laid down in any chart.

DECORATION DAY

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest
  On this Field of the Grounded Arms,
Where foes no more molest,
  Nor sentry’s shot alarms!

Ye have slept on the ground before,
  And started to your feet
At the cannon’s sudden roar,
  Or the drum’s redoubling beat.

But in this camp of Death
  No sound your slumber breaks;
Here is no fevered breath,
  No wound that bleeds and aches.

All is repose and peace,
  Untrampled lies the sod;
The shouts of battle cease,
  It is the Truce of God!

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep! 
  The thoughts of men shall be
As sentinels to keep
  Your rest from danger free.

Your silent tents of green
  We deck with fragrant flowers;
Yours has the suffering been,
  The memory shall be ours.

A FRAGMENT

Awake! arise! the hour is late! 
  Angels are knocking at thy door! 
They are in haste and cannot wait,
  And once departed come no more.

Awake! arise! the athlete’s arm
  Loses its strength by too much rest;
The fallow land, the untilled farm
  Produces only weeds at best.

LOSS AND GAIN
     When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
  Little room do I find for pride.