Henry Cuyler Bunner

WHAT does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants a friend of sun and sky;
He plants the flag of breezes free;
...

It was an old, old, old, old lady,
And a boy that was half-past three;
And the way that they played together
Was beautiful to see.
...

I have let the world go.
That’s the door that closed
Behind the holy father. I am shrived.
...

OH, what's the way to Arcady,
To Arcady, To Arcady;
Oh, what's the way to Arcady,
Where all the leaves are merry?
...

I would not have you so kindly,
Thus early in friendship’s year—
A little too gently, blindly,
...

'I know what you are going to say,' she said,
And she stood up, looking uncommonly tall:
...

Tell me what within her eyes
Makes the forgotten Spring arise,
And all the day, if kind she looks,
Flow to a tune like tinkling brooks;
...

No longer, 0 scholars, shall Plautus
Be taught us.
No more shall professors be partial
To Martial.
...

NEW YORK, July 20, 1883.
DEAR GIRL:
The town goes on as though
It thought you still were in it;
...

Oh, for You that I never knew ! —
Now that the Spring is swelling,
And over the way is a whitening may,
In the yard of my neighbor’s dwelling
...

Love must kiss that mortal’s eyes
Who hopes to see fair Arcady.
No gold can buy you entrance there;
But beggared Love may go all bare—
...

She was a beauty in the days
When Madison was President;
And quite coquettish in her ways—
On cardiac conquests much intent.
...

I would that all men my hard case would know,
How grievously I suffer for no sin:
I, Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, for lo
...

Not a kiss in life; but one kiss, at life’s end,
I have set on the face of Death in trust for thee.
...

A pitcher of mignonette
In a tenement's highest casement,—
Queer sort of flower-pot—yet
That pitcher of mignonette
...

As to a bird’s song she were listening,
Her beautiful head is ever sidewise bent;
Her questioning eyes lift up their depths intent—
...

Although a curtain of the salt sea-mist
May fall between the actor and our eyes —
Although he change, for dear and softer skies,
...

She might have known it in the earlier Spring,-
That all my heart with vague desire was stirred;
And, ere the Summer winds had taken wing,
...

When he is old and past all singing,
Grant, kindly Time, that he may hear
The rhythm through joyous Nature ringing,
...

They sent him round the circle fair,
To bow before the prettiest there.
I’m bound to say the choice he made
...