ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BORN FEB. 12, 1809

TO-DAY, from each and all, a breath of prayer —
     a pulse of thought,
To memory of Him — to birth of Him.

1888 1888-9

OUT OF MAY'S SHOWS SELECTED

APPLE orchards, the trees all cover'd with blossoms;
Wheat fields carpeted far and near in vital emerald green;
The eternal, exhaustless freshness of each early morning;
The yellow, golden, transparent haze of the warm afternoon
     sun;
The aspiring lilac bushes with profuse purple or white
     flowers.

1888 1888-9

HALCYON DAYS

NOT from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics
     or war;
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like fresher,
     balmier air,
As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at
     last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days!

1888 1888-9

FANCIES AT NAVESINK

THE PILOT IN THE MIST

Steaming the northern rapids — (an old St.
     Lawrence reminiscence,
A sudden memory-flash comes back, I know not why,
Here waiting for the sunrise, gazing from this hill;)¹
Again 'tis just at morning — a heavy haze
     contends with daybreak,
Again the trembling, laboring vessel veers me —
     I press through foam-dash'd rocks that almost touch me,
Again I mark where aft the small thin Indian helmsman
Looms in the mist, with brow elate and governing hand.

HAD I THE CHOICE

HAD I the choice to tally greatest bards,
To limn their portraits, stately, beautiful, and emulate
     at will,
Homer with all his wars and warriors — Hector,
     Achilles, Ajax,
Or Shakspere's woe-entangled Hamlet, Lear, Othello
     — Tennyson's fair ladies,
Metre or wit the best, or choice conceit to wield in
     perfect rhyme, delight of singers;
These, these, O sea, all these I'd gladly barter,
Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me
     transfer,
Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse,
And leave its odor there,

YOU TIDES WITH CEASELESS SWELL

YOU tides with ceaseless swell! you power that does
     this work!
You unseen force, centripetal, centrifugal, through
     space's spread,
Rapport of sun, moon, earth, and all the constellations,

What are the messages by you from distant stars to us?
     what Sirius? what Capella's?
What central heart — and you the pulse —
     vivifies all? what boundless aggregate of all?
What subtle indirection and significance in you? what clue
     to all in you? what fluid, vast identity,
Holding the universe with all its parts as one — as
     sailing in a ship?

LAST OF EBB, AND DAYLIGHT WANING

LAST of ebb, and daylight waning,
Scented sea-cool landward making, smells of sedge
     and salt incoming,
With many a half-caught voice sent up from the eddies,
Many a muffled confession — many a sob and
     whisper'd word,
As of speakers far or hid.