The Slave Singing at Midnight

Loud he sang the psalm of David!

He, a Negro and enslaved,

Sang of Israel's victory,

Sang of Zion, bright and free.

In that hour, when night is calmest,

Sang he from the Hebrew Psalmist,

In a voice so sweet and clear

That I could not choose but hear,

Songs of triumph, and ascriptions,

Such as reached the swart Egyptians,

When upon the Red Sea coast

Perished Pharaoh and his host.

And

The Evening Star

Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,

Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,

Like a fair lady at her casement, shines

The evening star, the star of love and rest!

And then anon she doth herself divest

Of all her radiant garments, and reclines

Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,

With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.

O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!

My morning and my

A Fairy Tale, poem by Amy Lowell

On winter nights beside the nursery fire

We read the fairy tale, while glowing coals

Builded its pictures. There before our eyes

We saw the vaulted hall of traceried stone

Uprear itself, the distant ceiling hung

With pendent stalactites like frozen vines;

And all along the walls at intervals,

Curled upwards into pillars, roses climbed,

And ramped and were confined, and clustered leaves

And because Love battles, poem by Pablo Neruda

And because love battles
not only in its burning agricultures
but also in the mouth of men and women,
I will finish off by taking the path away
to those who between my chest and your fragrance
want to interpose their obscure plant.

About me, nothing worse
they will tell you, my love,
than what I told you.

I lived in the prairies
before I got to know you
and I did not wait love but I was

The Married Lover

WHY, having won her, do I woo?
Because her spirit's vestal grace
Provokes me always to pursue,
But, spirit-like, eludes embrace;
Because her womanhood is such
That, as on court-days subjects kiss
The Queen's hand, yet so near a touch
Affirms no mean familiarness,
Nay, rather marks more fair the height
Which can with safety so neglect
To dread, as lower ladies might,
That grace could meet with

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star-- when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

Alms

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

My heart is what it was before,
A house where people come and go
But it is winter with your love,
The sashes are beset with snow.

I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
I blow the coals to blaze again
But it is winter with your love
The frost is thick upon the pane

I know a winter when it comes
The leaves are listless on the boughs;
I watched your love a little while

I know of people in the Grave

I know of people in the Grave
Who would be very glad
To know the news I know tonight
If they the chance had had.

'Tis this expands the least event
And swells the scantest deed --
My right to walk upon the Earth
If they this moment had.

Barter

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.