The Home Book of Verse; American and English, 1580-1912

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SUNSET WINGS To-night this sunset spreads two golden wings Cleaving the western sky; Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings Of birds; as if the day's last hour in rings Of strenuous flight must die. Sun-steeped in fire, the homeward pinions sway Above the dovecote-tops; And clouds of starlings, ere they rest with day, Sink, clamorous like mill-waters, at wild play, By turns in every copse: Each tree heart-deep the wrangling rout receives, ? Save for the whirr within, You could not tell the starlings from the leaves; Then one great puff of wings, and the swarm heaves Away with all its din. Even thus Hope's hours, in ever-eddying flight, To many a refuge tend; With the first light she laughed, and the last light Glows round her still; who natheless in the night At length must make an end. And now the mustering rooks innumerable Together sail and soar, While for the day's death, like a tolling knell, Unto the heart they seem to cry, Farewell, No more, farewell, no more! Is Hope not plumed, as 'twere a fiery dart? And oh! thou dying day, Even as thou goest must she too depart, And Sorrow fold such pinions on the heart As will not fly away? Dante Gabriel Rossetti [1828-1882] MORALITY We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides; The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides. But tasks in hours of insight willed Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled. With aching hands and bleeding feet We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; We bear the burden and the heat Of the long day, and wish 'twere done. Not till the hours of light return All we have built do we discern. Then, when the clouds are off the soul, When thou dost bask in Nature's eye, Ask, how she viewed thy sel..