The swallow is come! The swallow is come! O, fair are the seasons, and light Are the days that she brings, With her dusky wings, And her bosom snowy white!
Think of your woods and orchards without birds! Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams As in an idiot's brain remembered words Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!
Love makes its record in deeper colors as we grow out of childhood into manhood; as the Emperors signed their names in green ink when under age, but when of age, in purple.
The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath, While underneath such leafy tents they keep The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.
Nothing that is can pause or stay; / The moon will wax, the moon will wane, / The mist and cloud will turn to rain, / The rain to mist and cloud again, / Tomorrow be today.
In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.