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Have you not heard the poets tell
How came the dainty Baby Bell
Into this world of ours?
Topic: Babyhood
Source: Baby Bell
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What is lovely never dies,
But passes into other loveliness,
Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or winged air.
Topic: Beauty
Source: A Shadow of the Night
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Gracious to all, to none subservient, Without offense he spoke the word he meant.
Topic: Candor
Source: None
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Or light or dark, or short or tall,
She sets a springe to snare them all:
All's one to her--above her fan
She'd make sweet eyes at Caliban.
Topic: Coquetry
Source: Quatrains--Coquette
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Day is a snow-white Dove of heaven
That from the East glad message brings.
Topic: Day
Source: Day and Night
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But when the sun in all his state,
Illumed the eastern skies,
She passed through glory's morning gate,
And walked in Paradise.
Topic: Death
Source: A Death Bed
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Somewhere, in desolate, wind-swept space,
In twilight land, in no man's land,
Two hurrying shapes met face to face
And bade each other stand.
"And who are you?" cried one, a-gape,
Shuddering in the glimmering light.
"I know not," said the second shape,
"I only died last night."
Topic: Death
Source: Identity
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Only the sea intoning,
Only the wainscot-mouse,
Only the wild wind moaning
Over the lonely house.
Topic: December
Source: December
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When to soft Sleep we give ourselves away,
And in a dream as in a fairy bark
Drift on and on through the enchanted dark
To purple daybreak--little thought we pay
To that sweet bitter world we know by day.
Topic: Dreams
Source: Sonnet--Sleep
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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.
Topic: Eating
Source: When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan
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In her eyes a thought
Grew sweeter and sweeter, deepening like the dawn,
A mystical forewarning.
Topic: Eyes
Source: Pythagoras
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The happy bells shall ring Marguerite;
The summer birds shall sing Marguerite;
You smile but you shall wear
Orange blossoms in your hair, Marguerite.
Topic: Flowers
Source: Wedded
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To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent-- that is to triumph over old age.
Topic: Hope
Source: None
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When friends are at your hearthside met,
Sweet courtesy has done its most
If you have made each guest forget
That he himself is not the host.
Topic: Hospitality
Source: Hospitality
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If my best wines mislike thy taste,
And my best service win thy frown,
Then tarry not, I bid thee haste;
There's many another Inn in town.
Topic: Hospitality
Source: Quits
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I like not lady-slippers,
Not yet the sweet-pea blossoms,
Not yet the flaky roses,
Red or white as snow;
I like the chaliced lilies,
The heavy Eastern lilies,
The gorgeous tiger-lilies,
That in our garden grow.
Topic: Lilies
Source: Tiger Lilies (st. 1)
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Hebe's here, May is here!
The air is fresh and sunny;
And the miser-bees are busy
Hoarding golden honey.
Topic: May
Source: May
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Night is a stealthy, evil Raven,
Wrapt to the eyes in his black wings.
Topic: Night
Source: Day and Night
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October turned by maple's leaves to gold;
The most are gone now; here and there one lingers;
Soon these will slip from the twig's weak hold,
Like coins between a dying miser's fingers.
Topic: October
Source: Maple Leaves
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No bird has ever uttered note That was not in some first bird's throat; Since Eden's freshness and man's fall No rose has been original.
Topic: Originality
Source: None
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Good night! I have to say good night,
To such a host of peerless things!
Topic: Parting
Source: Palabras Carinosas
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Till then, good-night!
You wish the time were now? And I.
You do not blush to wish it so?
You would have blush'd yourself to death
To own so much a year ago.
What! both these snowy hands? ah, then
I'll have to say, Good-night again.
Topic: Parting
Source: Palabras Carinosas
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When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit,
What life, what glorious eagerness it is,
Then mark how full Possession falls from this,
How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit,--
I am perplext, and often stricken mute.
Wondering which attained the higher bliss,
The wing'd insect, or the chrysalis
It thrust aside with unreluctant foot.
Topic: Possession
Source: Sonnet--Pursuit and Possession
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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.
Topic: Rain
Source: Before the Rain
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What probing deep
Has ever solved the mystery of sleep?
Topic: Sleep
Source: Human Ignorance
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But I, in the chilling twilight stand and wait
At the portcullis, at thy castle gate,
Longing to see the charmed door of dreams
Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate sleep!
Topic: Sleep
Source: Invocation to Sleep
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Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows
In yonder West: the fair, frail palaces,
The fading Alps and archipelagoes,
And great cloud-continents of sunset-seas.
Topic: Sunset
Source: Sonnet--Miracles
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We weep when we are born,
Not when we die!
Topic: Tears
Source: Metempsychosis
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Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay,
And serve the Potter as he turn his wheel,
I thank Thee for the gracious gift of tears!
Topic: Tears
Source: Two Moods
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Upon the cunning loom of thought
We weave our fancies, so and so.
Topic: Thought
Source: Cloth of Gold--Prelude
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These Winter nights against my window-pane
Nature with busy pencil draws designs
Of ferns and blossoms and fine spray of pines,
Oak-leaf and acorn and fantastic vines,
Which she will make when summer comes again--
Quaint arabesques in argent, flat and cold,
Like curious Chinese etchings.
Topic: Winter
Source: Frost-Work
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