Memory
My mind lets go a thousand things
Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,
And yet recalls the very hour--
'T was noon by yonder village tower,
And on the last blue noon in May--
The wind came briskly up this way,
Crisping the brook beside the road;
Then, pausing here, set down its load
Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly
Two petals from that wild-rose tree.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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A Mood
A blight, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness--
Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness;
A fear that is not fear, a pain that has not pain's insistence;
A sense of longing, or of loss, in some foregone exsistence;
A subtle hurt that never pen has writ nor tongue has spoken--
Such hurt perchance as Nature feels wen a blossomed bough is broken.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Like Crusoe, Walking by the Lonely Strand
Like Crusoe, walking by the lonely strand
And seeing a human footprint on the sand,
Have I this day been startled, finding here,
Set in brown mould, and delicately clear,
Spring's footprint--the first crocus of the year!
O sweet invasion! Farewell solitude!
Soon shall wild creatures of the field and wood
Flock from all sides with much ado and stir,
And make of me most willing prisoner!
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Destiny
Three roses, wan as moonlight, and weighed down
Each with its loveliness as with a crown,
Drooped in a florist's window in a town.
The first a lover bought. It lay at rest,
Like flower on flower, that night, on Beauty's breast.
The second rose, as virginal and fair,
Shrunk in the tangles of a harlot's hair.
The third, a widow, with new grief made wild,
Shut in the icy palm of her dead child.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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After the Rain
THE rain has ceased, and in my room
The sunshine pours an airy flood;
And on the church's dizzy vane
The ancient cross is bathed in blood.
From out the dripping ivy leaves,
Antiquely carven, gray and high,
A dormer, facing westward, looks
Upon the village like an eye.
And now it glimmers in the sun,
A globe of gold, a disk, a speck;
And in the belfry sits a dove
With purple ripples on her neck.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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No Songs in Winter
The sky is gray as gray may be,
There is no bird upon the bough,
There is no leaf on vine or tree.
In the Neponset marshes now
Willow-stems, rosy in the wind,
Shiver with hidden sense of snow.
So too 't is winter in my mind,
No light-winged fancy comes and stays:
A season churlish and unkind.
Slow creep the hours, slow creep the days,
The black ink crusts upon the pen--
Just wait till bluebirds, wrens, and jays
And golden orioles come again!
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Sweetheart, Sigh No More
It was with doubt and trembling
I whispered in her ear.
Go, take her answer, bird-on-bough,
That all the world may hear--
_Sweetheart, sigh no more_!
Sing it, sing it, tawny throat,
Upon the wayside tree,
How fair she is, how true she is,
How dear she is to me--
_Sweetheart, sigh no more_!
Sing it, sing it, and through the summer long
The winds among the clover-tops,
And brooks, for all their silvery stops,
Shall envy you the song--
_Sweetheart, sigh no more!_
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan
When the Sultan Shah-Zaman
Goes to the city Ispahan,
Even before he gets so far
As the place where the clustered palm-trees are,
At the last of the thirty palace-gates
The pet of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom,
Orders a feast in his favorite room--
Glittering square of colored ice,
Sweetened with syrup, tinctured with spice,
Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates,
Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces,
Limes and citrons and apricots,
And wines that are known to Eastern princes.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Before the Rain
E knew it would rain, for all the morn
A spirit on slender ropes of mist
Was lowering its golden buckets down
Into the vapory amethyst.
Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens--
Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers,
Dipping the jewels out of the sea,
To sprinkle them over the land in showers.
We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed
The white of their leaves, the amber grain
Shrunk in the wind--and the lightning now
Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain!
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Kriss Kringle
Just as the moon was fading
Amid her misty rings,
And every stocking was stuffed
With childhood’s precious things,
Old Kriss Kringle looked around,
And saw on the elm-tree bough,
High hung, an oriole’s nest,
Lonely and empty now.
“Quite a stocking,” he laughed,
“Hung up there on a tree!
I didn’t suppose the birds
Expected a present from me!”
Then old Kriss Kringle, who loves
A joke as well as the best,
Dropped a handful of snowflakes
Into the oriole’s empty nest.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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