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Poems in Lyrics of the Hearthside

Love's Apotheosis

The Paradox

Over the Hills

With the Lark

In Summer

The Mystic Sea

A Sailor's Song

The Bohemian

Absence

Her Thought and His

The Right to Die

Behind the Arras

When the Old Man Smokes

The Garret

To E.H.K.

A Bridal Measure

Vengeance is Sweet

A Hynm

Just Whistle a Bit

The Barrier

Dreams

The Dreamer

Waiting

The End of the Chapter

Sympathy

Love and Grief

Mortality

Love

She Gave Me a Rose

Dream Song. I.

Dream Song. II.

Christmas in the Heart

The King is Dead

Theology

Resignation

Love's Humility

Precedent

She Told Her Beads

Little Lucy Landman

The Gourd

The Knight

Thou Art My Lute

The Phantom Kiss

Communion

Mare Rubrum

In an English Garden

The Crisis

The Conquerors

Alexander Crummell - Dead

When All is Done

The Poet and the Baby

Distinction

The Sum

Sonnet

On the Sea Wall

To a Lady Playing the Harp

Confessional

Misapprehension

Prometheus

Love's Phases

For the Man Who Fails

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Vagrants

A Winter's Day

My Little March Girl

Remembered

Love Despoiled

The Lapse

The Warrior's Prayer

Farewell to Arcady

The Voice of the Banjo

The Stirrup Cup

A Choice

Then and Now

At Cheshire Cheese

My Corn-Cob Pipe

In August

The Disturber

Expectation

Lover's Lane

Protest

Hymn

Little Brown Baby

Time to Tinker' Roun'!

The Real Question

Jilted

The News

Chrismus on the Plantation

Angelina

Foolin' Wid de Seasons

My Sort 'o Man

Possum

On the Road

A Death Song

A Back-Log Song

Lullaby

The Photograph

Jealous

Parted

Temptation

Possum Trot

Dely

Breaking the Charm

Hunting Song

A Letter

Chrismus is A-Comin'

A Cabin Tale

At Candle-Lightin' Time

Whistling Sam

How Lucy Backslid

The Phantom Kiss

One night in my room, still and beamless,
With will and with thought in eclipse,
I rested in sleep that was dreamless;
When softly there fell on my lips

A touch, as of lips that were pressing
Mine own with the message of bliss—
A sudden, soft, fleeting caressing,
A breath like a maiden’s first kiss.

I woke—and the scoffer may doubt me—
I peered in surprise through the gloom;
But nothing and none were about me,
And I was alone in my room.

Perhaps ‘t was the wind that caressed me
And touched me with dew-laden breath;
Or, maybe, close-sweeping, there passed me
The low-winging Angel of Death.

Some sceptic may choose to disdain it,
Or one feign to read it aright,
Or wisdom may seek to explain it—
This mystical kiss in the night.

But rather let fancy thus clear it:
That, thinking of me here alone,
The miles were made naught, and, in spirit,
Thy lips, love, were laid on mine own.

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Last updated Wed. Aug-20-08