Minor Poems

by Unknown

(DORSET DIALECT.)

Ah! Jeane, my maid, I stood to you,
When you wer' christen'd, small an' light,
Wi' tiny earms o' red an' blue,
A-hangen in your robe o' white.
We brought ye to the hallow'd stwone,
Vor Christ to teake ye vor his own,
When harvest-work wer' all a-done,
An' time brought round October zun,—
The slanten light o' Fall.

An' I can mind the wind wer' rough,
An' gather'd clouds, but brought noo storms,
An' you wer' nessled warm enough,
'Ithin your smilen mother's earms.
The whindlen grass did quiver light,
Among the stubble, feaded white,
An' if at times the zunlight broke
Upon the groun', or on the vo'k,
'Twer' slanten light o' Fall.

An' when we brought ye droo the door
O' Knapton church, a child o' greace,
There cluster'd roun' a'most a score
O' vo'k to zee your tiny feace.
An' there we all did veel so proud,
To zee an op'nen in the cloud,
An' then a stream o' light break droo,
A-sheenen brightly down on you,—
The slanten light o' Fall.

But now your time's a-come to stan'
In church a-blushen at my zide,
The while a bridegroom vrom my han'
Ha' took ye vor his faithvul bride.
Your christen neame we gi'd ye here,
When Fall did cool the weasten year;
An' now, agean, we brought ye droo
The doorway, wi' your surneame new,
In slanten light o' Fall.

An' zoo vur, Jeane, your life is feair,
An' God ha' been your steadvast friend,
An' mid ye have mwore jay than ceare,
Vor ever, till your journey's end.
An' I've a-watch'd ye on wi' pride,
But now I soon mus' leave your zide,
Vor you ha' still life's springtide zun,
But my life, Jeane, is now a-run
To slanten light o' Fall.

William Barnes.

---

A HEALTH.

I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair, that, like the air,
'Tis less of earth than heaven.

Her every tone is music's own,
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burdened bee
Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears
The image of themselves by turns,—
The idol of past years!

Of her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,
And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,
When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's, but hers.

I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon,—
Her health! and would on earth there stood
Some more of such a frame,
That life might be all poetry,
And weariness a name.

Edward Coate Pinkney.

---

ON A GIRDLE.

That which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind;
No monarch but would give his crown,
His arms might do what this hath done.

It was my heaven's extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer:
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move.

A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair.
Give me but what this ribbon bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round!

Edmund Waller.

---

A NICE CORRESPONDENT!

The glow and the glory are plighted
To darkness, for evening is come;
The lamp in Glebe Cottage is lighted;
The birds and the sheep-bells are dumb.
I'm alone at my casement, for Pappy
Is summoned to dinner at Kew:
I'm alone, my dear Fred, but I'm happy,—
I'm thinking of you.

I wish you were here. Were I duller
Than dull, you'd be dearer than dear;
I am dressed in your favorite color,—
Dear Fred, how I wish you were here!
I am wearing my lazuli necklace,
The necklace you fastened askew!
Was there ever so rude or so reckless
A darling as you?

I want you to come and pass sentence
On two or three books with a plot;
Of course you know "Janet's Repentance"?
I'm reading Sir Waverley Scott,
The story of Edgar and Lucy,
How thrilling, romantic, and true;
The master (his bride was a goosey!)
Reminds me of you.

To-day, in my ride, I've been crowning
The beacon; its magic still lures,
For up there you discoursed about Browning,
That stupid old Browning of yours.
His vogue and his verve are alarming,
I'm anxious to give him his due;
But, Fred, he's not nearly so charming
A poet as you.

I heard how you shot at The Beeches,
I saw how you rode Chanticleer,
I have read the report of your speeches,
And echoed the echoing cheer.
There's a whisper of hearts you are breaking,—
I envy their owners, I do!
Small marvel that Fortune is making
Her idol of you.

Alas for the world, and its dearly
Bought triumph, and fugitive bliss!
Sometimes I half wish I were merely
A plain or a penniless miss;
But perhaps one is best with a measure
Of pelf, and I'm not sorry, too,
That I'm pretty, because it's a pleasure,
My dearest, to you.

Your whim is for frolic and fashion,
Your taste is for letters and art;
This rhyme is the commonplace passion
That glows in a fond woman's heart.
Lay it by in a dainty deposit
For relics,—we all have a few!—
Love, some day they'll print it, because it
Was written to you.

Frederick Locker.

---

THE COURTIN'.

God makes sech nights, all white an' still
Fur'z you can look or listen.
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'Ith no one nigh to hender.

A fireplace filled the room's one side
With half a cord o' wood in,—
There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her!
An' leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted
The ole queen's arm thet Gran'ther Young
Fetched back from Concord busted.

The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm from floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez the apples she was peelin'.

'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blesséd cretur.
A dog-rose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.

He was six foot o' man, Al,
Clean grit an' human natur';
None couldn't quicker pitch a ton
Nor dror a furrer straighter.

He'd sparked it with full twenty gals,
He'd squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,
Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells,—
All is, he couldn't love 'em.

But long o' her his veins 'ould run
All crinkly like curled maple,
The side she breshed felt full o' sun
Ez a south slope in Ap'il.

She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;
My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,
She knowed the Lord was nigher.

An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet
Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair
O' blue eyes sot upon it.

Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some!
She seemed to 've gut a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.

She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,
A-raspin' on the scraper,—
All ways to once her feelin's flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.

He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle;
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.

An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk
Ez though she wished him furder,
An' on her apples kep' to work,
Parin' away like murder.

"You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?"
"Wal ... no ... I come dasignin'"—
"To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es
Agin to-morrer's i'nin'."

To say why gals acts so or so,
Or don't, 'ould be presumin';
Mebby to mean yes an' say no
Comes nateral to women.

He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on t' other,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He couldn't ha' told ye nuther.

Says he, "I'd better call agin";
Says she, "Think likely, Mister";
Thet last word pricked him like a pin,
An' ... Wal, he up an' kist her.

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,
Huldy sot pale ez ashes,
All kin' o' smily roun' the lips
An' teary roun' the lashes.

For she was jes' the quiet kind
Whose naturs never vary,
Like streams that keep a summer mind
Snowhid in Jenooary.

The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued
Too tight for all expressin',
Tell mother see how metters stood,
And gin 'em both her blessin'.

Then her red come back like the tide
Down to the Bay o' Fundy,
An' all I know is they was cried
In meetin' come nex' Sunday.

James Russell Lowell.

---

WHEN THE KYE COME HAME.

Come, all ye jolly shepherds,
That whistle through the glen!
I'll tell ye o' a secret
That courtiers dinna ken:
What is the greatest bliss
That the tongue o' man can name?
'Tis to woo a bonnie lassie
When the kye come hame.
When the kye come hame,
When the kye come hame,—
'Tween the gloamin' an' the mirk,
When the kye come hame.

'Tis not beneath the burgonet,
Nor yet beneath the crown;
'Tis not on couch o' velvet,
Nor yet in bed o' down:
'Tis beneath the spreading birk,
In the glen without the name,
Wi' a bonnie bonnie lassie,
When the kye come hame.

There the blackbird bigs his nest
For the mate he lo'es to see,
And on the tapmost bough
O, a happy bird is he!
There he pours his melting ditty,
And love is a' the theme;
And he'll woo his bonnie lassie,
When the kye come hame.

When the blewart bears a pearl,
And the daisy turns a pea,
And the bonnie lucken gowan
Has fauldit up his ee,
Then the laverock, frae the blue lift,
Draps down and thinks nae shame
To woo his bonnie lassie,
When the kye come hame.

See yonder pawky shepherd,
That lingers on the hill:
His yowes are in the fauld,
And his lambs are lying still;
Yet he downa gang to bed,
For his heart is in a flame,
To meet his bonnie lassie
When the kye come hame.

When the little wee bit heart
Rises high in the breast,
And the little wee bit starn
Rises red in the east,
O, there's a joy sae dear
That the heart can hardly frame!
Wi' a bonnie bonnie lassie,
When the kye come hame.

Then since all nature joins
In this love without alloy,
O, wha wad prove a traitor
To nature's dearest joy?
Or wha wad choose a crown,
Wi' its perils an' its fame,
And miss his bonnie lassie,
When the kye come hame?

James Hogg.

---

THE SPINNING-WHEEL SONG.

Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning;
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning;
Bent o'er the fire, her blind grandmother, sitting,
Is croaning, and moaning, and drowsily knitting,—
"Eileen, achora, I hear some one tapping."
"'Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping."
"Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing."
"'Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind dying."
Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,
Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring;
Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,
Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.

"What's that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?"
"'Tis the little birds chirping the holly-bush under."
"What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on,
And singing all wrong that old song of 'The Coolun'?"
There's a form at the casement,—the form of her true-love,—
And he whispers, with face bent, "I'm waiting for you, love;
Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly,
We'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly."
Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,
Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring;
Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,
Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.

The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fingers,
Steals up from her seat,—longs to go, and yet lingers;
A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother,
Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the other.
Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round;
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound;
Noiseless and light to the lattice above her
The maid steps,—then leaps to the arms of her lover.
Slower—and slower—and slower the wheel swings;
Lower—and lower—and lower the reel rings;
Ere the reel and the wheel stop their ringing and moving,
Through the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving.

John Francis Waller.

---

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.

She walks in beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

Lord Byron.

---

THE WELCOME.

Come in the evening, or come in the morning;
Come when you're looked for, or come without warning;
Kisses and welcome you'll find here before you,
And the oftener you come here the more I'll adore you!
Light is my heart since the day we were plighted;
Red is my cheek that they told me was blighted;
The green of the trees looks far greener than ever,
And the linnets are singing, "True lovers don't sever!"

I'll pull you sweet flowers, to wear if you choose them!
Or, after you've kissed them, they'll lie on my bosom;
I'll fetch from the mountain its breeze to inspire you;
I'll fetch from my fancy a tale that won't tire you.
O, your step's like the rain to the summer-vexed farmer,
Or sabre and shield to a knight without armor;
I'll sing you sweet songs till the stars rise above me,
Then, wandering, I'll wish you, in silence, to love me.

We'll look through the trees at the cliff and the eyry;
We'll tread round the rath on the track of the fairy;
We'll look on the stars, and we'll list to the river,
Till you ask of your darling what gift you can give her,—
O, she'll whisper you, "Love, as unchangeably beaming,
And trust, when in secret, most tunefully streaming;
Till the starlight of heaven above us shall quiver,
As our souls flow in one down eternity's river."

So come in the evening, or come in the morning:
Come when you're looked for, or come without warning;
Kisses and welcome you'll find here before you,
And the oftener you come here the more I'll adore you!
Light is my heart since the day we were plighted;
Red is my cheek that they told me was blighted;
The green of the trees looks far greener than ever,
And the linnets are singing, "True lovers don't sever!"

Thomas Davis.

---

THE BROOKSIDE.

I wandered by the brookside,
I wandered by the mill;
I could not hear the brook flow,—
The noisy wheel was still.
There was no burr of grasshopper,
No chirp of any bird,
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.

I sat beneath the elm-tree:
I watched the long, long shade,
And, as it grew still longer,
I did not feel afraid;
For I listened for a footfall,
I listened for a word,—
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.

He came not,—no, he came not,—
The night came on alone,—
The little stars sat one by one,
Each on his golden throne;
The evening wind passed by my cheek,
The leaves above were stirred,—
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.

Fast, silent tears were flowing,
When something stood behind:
A hand was on my shoulder,—
I knew its touch was kind:
It drew me nearer—nearer—
We did not speak one word,
For the beating of our own hearts
Was all the sound we heard.

Richard Monckton Milnes.

---

MARIANA.

"Mariana in the moated grange."—Measure for Measure.

With blackest moss the flower-pots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the peach to the garden-wall.
The broken sheds looked sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch:
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The cock sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seemed to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "The day is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blackened waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
The clustered marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarléd bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away,
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low,
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creaked;
The blue-fly sung i' the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked,
Or from the crevice peered about.
Old faces glimmered through the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then said she, "I am very dreary,
He will not come," she said;
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
O God, that I were dead!"

Alfred Tennyson.

---

BUGLE-SONG.

The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

Alfred Tennyson.

---

SERENADE.

Stars of the summer night!
Far in yon azure deeps,
Hide, hide your golden light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!

Moon of the summer night!
Far down yon western steeps,
Sink, sink in silver light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!

Wind of the summer night!
Where yonder woodbine creeps,
Fold, fold thy pinions light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!

Dreams of the summer night!
Tell her, her lover keeps
Watch, while in slumbers light
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

---

LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR.

I arise from dreams of thee,
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright;
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me,—who knows how?
To thy chamber-window, sweet!

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream,—
The champak odors fail,
Like sweet thoughts in a dream.
The nightingale's complaint
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O beloved as thou art!

O lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail.
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast.
Oh! press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

---

NOT FAR TO GO.

As upland fields were sunburnt brown,
And heat-dried brooks were running small,
And sheep were gathered, panting all,
Below the hawthorn on the down,—
The while my mare, with dipping head,
Pulled on my cart above the bridge,—
I saw come on, beside the ridge,
A maiden white in skin and thread,
And walking, with an elbow-load,
The way I drove along my road.

As there with comely steps up hill
She rose by elm-trees all in ranks,
From shade to shade, by flowery banks,
Where flew the bird with whistling bill,
I kindly said, "Now won't you ride,
This burning weather, up the knap?
I have a seat that fits the trap,
And now is swung from side to side."
"O no," she cried, "I thank you, no.
I've little farther now to go."

Then, up the timbered slope, I found
The prettiest house a good day's ride
Would bring you by, with porch and side
By rose and jessamine well bound;
And near at hand a spring and pool,
With lawn well sunned and bower cool;
And while the wicket fell behind
Her steps, I thought, "If I would find
A wife I need not blush to show,
I've little farther now to go."

William Barnes.

---

MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART.

Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, O give me back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Ζώη μοϋ σάς αγαπώ.

By those tresses unconfined,
Wooed by each Ægean wind;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Ζώη μοϋ σάς αγαπώ.

By that lip I long to taste;
By that zone-encircled waist;
By all the token-flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well;
By love's alternate joy and woe,
Ζώη μοϋ σάς αγαπώ.

Maid of Athens! I am gone.
Think of me, sweet! when alone.
Though I fly to Istambol,
Athens holds my heart and soul:
Can I cease to love thee? No!
Ζώη μοϋ σάς αγαπώ.

Lord Byron.

---

COME, REST IN THIS BOSOM.

Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer:
Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;
Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast,
And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.

Oh! what was love made for, if 't is not the same
Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?
I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,
I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.

Thou hast called me thy Angel in moments of bliss,
And thy Angel I 'll be, 'mid the horrors of this,
Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,
And shield thee, and save thee,—or perish there too!

Thomas Moore.

---

A WOMAN'S QUESTION.

Before I trust my fate to thee,
Or place my hand in thine,
Before I let thy future give
Color and form to mine,
Before I peril all for thee,
Question thy soul to-night for me.

I break all slighter bonds, nor feel
A shadow of regret:
Is there one link within the past
That holds thy spirit yet?
Or is thy faith as clear and free
As that which I can pledge to thee?

Does there within thy dimmest dreams
A possible future shine,
Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe,
Untouched, unshared by mine?
If so, at any pain or cost,
O, tell me before all is lost!

Look deeper still: if thou canst feel,
Within thy inmost soul,
That thou hast kept a portion back,
While I have staked the whole,
Let no false pity spare the blow,
But in true mercy tell me so.

Is there within thy heart a need
That mine cannot fulfil?
One chord that any other hand
Could better wake or still?
Speak now, lest at some future day
My whole life wither and decay.

Lives there within thy nature hid
The demon-spirit, change,
Shedding a passing glory still
On all things new and strange?
It may not be thy fault alone,—
But shield my heart against thine own.

Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day
And answer to my claim,
That fate, and that to-day's mistake,—
Not thou,—had been to blame?
Some soothe their conscience thus; but thou
Wilt surely warn and save me now.

Nay, answer not,—I dare not hear,—
The words would come too late;
Yet I would spare thee all remorse,
So comfort thee, my fate:
Whatever on my heart may fall,
Remember, I would risk it all!

Adelaide Anne Procter.

---

SONNETS.

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held:
Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer,—"This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse—"
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new-made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

---

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard;
Then, of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence,
Save breed, to brave him, when he takes thee hence.

---

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee Time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me;
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O therefore, love, be of thyself so wary,
As I not for myself but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
Thou gav'st me thine, not to give back again.

---

As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might.
O let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast;
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.
O learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

---

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing coarse, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare.

---

LOVE NOT.

Love not, love not! ye hapless sons of clay!
Hope's gayest wreaths are made of earthly flowers,—
Things that are made to fade and fall away
Ere they have blossomed for a few short hours.
Love not!

Love not! the thing ye love may change;
The rosy lip may cease to smile on you,
The kindly-beaming eye grow cold and strange,
The heart still warmly beat, yet not be true.
Love not!

Love not! the thing you love may die,—
May perish from the gay and gladsome earth;
The silent stars, the blue and smiling sky,
Beam o'er its grave, as once upon its birth.
Love not!

Love not! O warning vainly said
In present hours as in years gone by!
Love flings a halo round the dear ones' head,
Faultless, immortal, till they change or die.
Love not!

Caroline Norton.

---

AE FOND KISS.

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas! forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee;
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,—
Naething could resist my Nancy:
But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love forever.
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met,—or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas! forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee;
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

Robert Burns.

---

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on,
To the haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

Alfred Tennyson.

---

ASTARTE.

When the latest strife is lost, and all is done with,
Ere we slumber in the spirit and the brain,
We drowse back, in dreams, to days that life begun with,
And their tender light returns to us again.

I have cast away the tangle and the torment
Of the cords that bound my life up in a mesh;
And the pulse begins to throb that long lay dormant
'Neath their pressure; and the old wounds bleed afresh.

I am touched again with shades of early sadness,
Like the summer-cloud's light shadow in my hair;
I am thrilled again with breaths of boyish gladness,
Like the scent of some last primrose on the air.

And again she comes, with all her silent graces,
The lost woman of my youth, yet unpossessed;
And her cold face so unlike the other faces
Of the women whose dead lips I since have pressed.

The motion and the fragrance of her garments
Seem about me, all the day long, in the room;
And her face, with its bewildering old endearments,
Comes at night, between the curtains, in the gloom.

When vain dreams are stirred with sighing, near the morning,
To my own her phantom lips I feel approach;
And her smile, at eve, breaks o'er me without warning
From its speechless, pale, perpetual reproach.

When life's dawning glimmer yet had all the tint there
Of the orient, in the freshness of the grass
(Ah, what feet since then have trodden out the print there!)
Did her soft, her silent footsteps fall, and pass.

They fell lightly, as the dew falls, 'mid ungathered
Meadow-flowers, and lightly lingered with the dew.
But the dew is gone, the grass is dried and withered,
And the traces of those steps have faded too.

Other footsteps fall about me,—faint, uncertain,
In the shadow of the world, as it recedes;
Other forms peer through the half-uplifted curtain
Of that mystery which hangs behind the creeds.

What is gone, is gone forever. And new fashions
May replace old forms which nothing can restore;
But I turn from sighing back departed passions,
With that pining at the bosom as of yore.

I remember to have murmured, morn and even,
"Though the Earth dispart these Earthlies, face from face,
Yet the Heavenlies shall surely join in Heaven,
For the spirit hath no bonds in time or space.

"Where it listeth, there it bloweth; all existence
Is its region; and it houseth where it will.
I shall feel her through immeasurable distance,
And grow nearer and be gathered to her still.

"If I fail to find her out by her gold tresses,
Brows, and breast, and lips, and language of sweet strains,
I shall know her by the traces of dead kisses,
And that portion of myself which she retains."

But my being is confused with new experience,
And changed to something other than it was;
And the Future with the Past is set at variance;
And Life falters with the burthens which it has.

Earth's old sins press fast behind me, weakly wailing;
Faint before me fleets the good I have not done;
And my search for her may still be unavailing
'Mid the spirits that have passed beyond the sun.

Robert Bulwer Lytton.

---

MY HEID IS LIKE TO REND, WILLIE.

My heid is like to rend, Willie,
My heart is like to break;
I'm wearin' aff my feet, Willie,
I'm dyin' for your sake!
O, lay your cheek to mine, Willie,
Your hand on my briest-bane,—
O, say ye'll think on me, Willie,
When I am deid and gane!

It's vain to comfort me, Willie,
Sair grief maun ha'e its will;
But let me rest upon your briest
To sab and greet my fill.
Let me sit on your knee, Willie,
Let me shed by your hair,
And look into the face, Willie,
I never sall see mair!

I'm sittin' on your knee, Willie,
For the last time in my life,—
A puir heart-broken thing, Willie,
A mither, yet nae wife.
Ay, press your hand upon my heart,
And press it mair and mair,
Or it will burst the silken twine,
Sae strang is its despair.

O, wae's me for the hour, Willie,
When we thegither met,—
O, wae's me for the time, Willie,
That our first tryst was set!
O, wae's me for the loanin' green
Where we were wont to gae,—
And wae's me for the destinie
That gart me luve thee sae!

O, dinna mind my words, Willie,
I downa seek to blame;
But O, it's hard to live, Willie,
And dree a warld's shame!
Het tears are hailin' ower your cheek,
And hailin' ower your chin;
Why weep ye sae for worthlessness,
For sorrow, and for sin?

I'm weary o' this warld, Willie,
And sick wi' a' I see,
I canna live as I ha'e lived,
Or be as I should be.
But fauld unto your heart, Willie,
The heart that still is thine,
And kiss ance mair the white, white cheel
Ye said was red langsyne.

A stoun' gaes through my heid, Willie,
A sair stoun' through my heart;
O, haud me up and let me kiss
Thy brow ere we twa pairt.
Anither, and anither yet!—
How fast my life-strings break!—
Fareweel! fareweel! through yon kirk-yard
Step lichtly for my sake!

The laverock in the lift, Willie,
That lilts far ower our heid,
Will sing the morn as merrilie
Abune the clay-cauld deid;
And this green turf we're sittin' on,
Wi' dew-draps shimmerin' sheen,
Will hap the heart that luvit thee
As warld has seldom seen.

But O, remember me, Willie,
On land where'er ye be;
And O, think on the leal, leal heart,
That ne'er luvit ane but thee!
And O, think on the cauld, cauld mools
That file my yellow hair,
That kiss the cheek, and kiss the chin
Ye never sall kiss mair!

William Motherwell.

---

THE MANGO TREE.

He wiled me through the furzy croft;
He wiled me down the sandy lane;
He told his boy's love, soft and oft,
Until I told him mine again.

We married, and we sailed the main,—
A soldier, and a soldier's wife.
We marched through many a burning plain;
We sighed for many a gallant life.

But his—God keep it safe from harm.
He toiled, and dared, and earned command,
And those three stripes upon his arm
Were more to me than gold or land.

Sure he would win some great renown;
Our lives were strong, our hearts were high.
One night the fever struck him down.
I sat, and stared, and saw him die.

I had his children,—one, two, three.
One week I had them, blithe and sound.
The next—beneath this mango tree
By him in barrack burying-ground.

I sit beneath the mango shade;
I live my five years' life all o'er,—
Round yonder stems his children played;
He mounted guard at yonder door.

'Tis I, not they, am gone and dead.
They live, they know, they feel, they see.
Their spirits light the golden shade
Beneath the giant mango tree.

All things, save I, are full of life:
The minas, pluming velvet breasts;
The monkeys, in their foolish strife;
The swooping hawks, the swinging nests;

The lizards basking on the soil;
The butterflies who sun their wings;
The bees about their household toil;—
They live, they love, the blissful things!

Each tender purple mango shoot,
That folds and droops so bashful down,
It lives, it sucks some hidden root,
It rears at last a broad green crown.

It blossoms: and the children cry,
"Watch when the mango apples fall."
It lives; but rootless, fruitless, I,—
I breathe and dream,—and that is all.

Thus am I dead, yet cannot die;
But still within my foolish brain
There hangs a pale blue evening sky,
A furzy croft, a sandy lane.

Charles Kingsley.

---

TO MARY IN HEAVEN.

Thou lingering star, with lessening ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usherest in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn.
O Mary! dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

That sacred hour can I forget,
Can I forget the hallowed grove,
Where by the winding Ayr we met,
To live one day of parting love?
Eternity will not efface
Those records dear of transports past;
Thy image at our last embrace;
Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!

Ayr gurgling kissed his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green;
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twined amorous round the raptured scene;
The flowers sprang wanton to be pressed,
The birds sang love on every spray,—
Till too, too soon, the glowing west
Proclaimed the speed of wingéd day.

Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care!
Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary, dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

Robert Burns.

---

A SONG FOR SEPTEMBER.

September strews the woodland o'er
With many a brilliant color;
The world is brighter than before,—
Why should our hearts be duller?
Sorrow and the scarlet leaf,
Sad thoughts and sunny weather!
Ah me! this glory and this grief
Agree not well together.

This is the parting season,—this
The time when friends are flying;
And lovers now, with many a kiss,
Their long farewells are sighing.
Why is Earth so gayly dressed?
This pomp, that Autumn beareth,
A funeral seems where every guest
A bridal garment weareth.

Each one of us, perchance, may here,
On some blue morn hereafter,
Return to view the gaudy year,
But not with boyish laughter.
We shall then be wrinkled men,
Our brows with silver laden,
And thou this glen may'st seek again,
But nevermore a maiden!

Nature perhaps foresees that Spring
Will touch her teeming bosom,
And that a few brief months will bring
The bird, the bee, the blossom;
Ah! these forests do not know—
Or would less brightly wither—
The virgin that adorns them so
Will nevermore come hither!

Thomas William Parsons.

---

OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT.

Oft in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

When I remember all
The friends, so linked together,
I've seen around me fall,
Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

Thomas Moore.

---

THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail
That brings our friends up from the under world,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge,—
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square,—
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret,
O death in life! the days that are no more.

Alfred Tennyson.

---

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.

I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a love once, fairest among women;
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly,—
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood.
Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert thou not born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces,—

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed,
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces!

Charles Lamb.

---

TIME'S CHANGES.

I saw her once,—so freshly fair,
That, like a blossom just unfolding,
She opened to life's cloudless air,
And Nature joyed to view its moulding:
Her smile, it haunts my memory yet;
Her cheek's fine hue divinely glowing;
Her rosebud mouth, her eyes of jet,
Around on all their light bestowing.
O, who could look on such a form,
So nobly free, so softly tender,
And darkly dream that earthly storm
Should dim such sweet, delicious splendor?
For in her mien, and in her face,
And in her young step's fairy lightness,
Naught could the raptured gazer trace
But beauty's glow and pleasure's brightness.

I saw her twice,—an altered charm,
But still of magic richest, rarest,
Than girlhood's talisman less warm,
Though yet of earthly sights the fairest;
Upon her breast she held a child,
The very image of its mother,
Which ever to her smiling smiled,—
They seemed to live but in each other.
But matron cares or lurking woe
Her thoughtless, sinless look had banished,
And from her cheeks the roseate glow
Of girlhood's balmy morn had vanished;
Within her eyes, upon her brow,
Lay something softer, fonder, deeper,
As if in dreams some visioned woe
Had broke the Elysium of the sleeper.

I saw her thrice,—Fate's dark decree
In widow's garments had arrayed her;
Yet beautiful she seemed to be
As even my reveries portrayed her;
The glow, the glance, had passed away,
The sunshine and the sparkling glitter,—
Still, though I noted pale decay,
The retrospect was scarcely bitter;
For in their place a calmness dwelt,
Serene, subduing, soothing, holy,—
In feeling which, the bosom felt
That every louder mirth is folly,—
A pensiveness which is not grief;
A stillness as of sunset streaming;
A fairy glow on flower and leaf,
Till earth looks like a landscape dreaming.

A last time,—and unmoved she lay,
Beyond life's dim, uncertain river,
A glorious mould of fading clay,
From whence the spark had fled forever!
I gazed—my heart was like to burst—
And, as I thought of years departed—
The years wherein I saw her first,
When she, a girl, was lightsome-hearted—
And as I mused on later days,
When moved she in her matron duty,
A happy mother, in the blaze
Of ripened hope and sunny beauty,—
I felt the chill—I turned aside—
Bleak Desolation's cloud came o'er me;
And Being seemed a troubled tide,
Whose wrecks in darkness swam before me!

David Macbeth Moir.

---

QUA CURSUM VENTUS.

As ships becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day
Are scarce, long leagues apart, descried;

When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,
And all the darkling hours they plied,
Nor dreamt but each the selfsame seas
By each was cleaving, side by side:

E'en so,—but why the tale reveal
Of those whom, year by year unchanged,
Brief absence joined anew to feel,
Astounded, soul from soul estranged?

At dead of night their sails were filled,
And onward each rejoicing steered;
Ah, neither blame, for neither willed,
Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!

To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,
Through winds and tides one compass guides,—
To that, and your own selves, be true.

But O blithe breeze, and O great seas,
Though ne'er, that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last!

One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare,—
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas,
At last, at last, unite them there!

Arthur Hugh Clough.

---

CHANGES.

Whom first we love, you know, we seldom wed.
Time rules us all. And life, indeed, is not
The thing we planned it out ere hope was dead.
And then, we women cannot choose our lot.

Much must be borne which it is hard to bear;
Much given away which it were sweet to keep.
God help us all! who need, indeed, his care.
And yet I know the Shepherd loves his sheep.

My little boy begins to babble now
Upon my knee his earliest infant prayer.
He has his father's eager eyes, I know;
And, they say, too, his mother's sunny hair.

But when he sleeps and smiles upon my knee,
And I can feel his light breath come and go,
I think of one (Heaven help and pity me!)
Who loved me, and whom I loved, long ago;

Who might have been ... ah, what I dare not think!
We are all changed. God judges for us best.
God help us do our duty, and not shrink,
And trust in Heaven humbly for the rest.

But blame us women not, if some appear
Too cold at times; and some too gay and light.
Some griefs gnaw deep. Some woes are hard to bear.
Who knows the past? and who can judge us right?

Ah, were we judged by what we might have been,
And not by what we are,—too apt to fall!
My little child,—he sleeps and smiles between
These thoughts and me. In heaven we shall know all!

Robert Bulwer Lytton.

---

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.

I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups,—
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,—
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pool could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky.
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.

Thomas Hood.

---

HAUNTED HOUSES.

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires!
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star,
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

---

THANATOPSIS.

To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice: Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,—
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world,—with kings,
The powerful of the earth,—the wise, the good,—
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between,—
The venerable woods,—rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning; traverse Barca's desert sands,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings,—yet the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep,—the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men—
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man—
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.

So live that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

William Cullen Bryant.

---

OVER THE RIVER.

Over the river they beckon to me,
Loved ones who've crossed to the farther side,
The gleam of their snowy robes I see,
But their voices are lost in the dashing tide.
There's one with ringlets of sunny gold,
And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue;
He crossed in the twilight gray and cold,
And the pale mist hid him from mortal view.
We saw not the angels who met him there,
The gates of the city we could not see:
Over the river, over the river,
My brother stands waiting to welcome me.

Over the river the boatman pale
Carried another, the household pet;
Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale,
Darling Minnie! I see her yet.
She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands,
And fearlessly entered the phantom bark;
We felt it glide from the silver sands,
And all our sunshine grew strangely dark;
We know she is safe on the farther side,
Where all the ransomed and angels be:
Over the river, the mystic river,
My childhood's idol is waiting for me.

For none return from those quiet shores,
Who cross with the boatman cold and pale;
We hear the dip of the golden oars,
And catch a gleam of the snowy sail;
And lo! they have passed from our yearning heart,
They cross the stream and are gone for aye;
We may not sunder the veil apart
That hides from our vision the gates of day;
We only know that their barks no more
May sail with us o'er life's stormy sea;
Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore,
They watch, and beckon, and wait for me.

And I sit and think, when the sunset's gold
Is flushing river and hill and shore,
I shall one day stand by the water cold,
And list for the sound of the boatman's oar;
I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail,
I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand,
I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale,
To the better shore of the spirit-land.
I shall know the loved who have gone before,
And joyfully sweet will the meeting be,
When over the river, the peaceful river,
The angel of death shall carry me.

Nancy Priest Wakefield.

---

THEY ARE ALL GONE.

They are all gone into the world of light,
And I alone sit lingering here!
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear;

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,—
Or those faint beams in which this hill is dressed
After the sun's remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days,—
My days which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmerings and decays.

O holy hope! and high humility,—
High as the heavens above!
These are your walks, and you have showed them me
To kindle my cold love.

Dear, beauteous death,—the jewel of the just,—
Shining nowhere but in the dark!
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!

He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know,
At first sight, if the bird be flown,
But what fair dell or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.

And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.

If a star were confined into a tomb,
Her captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that locked her up gives room,
She'll shine through all the sphere.

O Father of eternal life, and all
Created glories under Thee!
Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall
Into true liberty.

Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective still as they pass;
Or else remove me hence unto that hill
Where I shall need no glass.

Henry Vaughan.

---

THE RIVER PATH.

No bird-song floated down the hill,
The tangled bank below was still;

No rustle from the birchen stem,
No ripple from the water's hem.

The dusk of twilight round us grew,
We felt the falling of the dew;

For from us, ere the day was done,
The wooded hills shut out the sun.

But on the river's farther side,
We saw the hill-tops glorified,—

A tender glow, exceeding fair,
A dream of day without its glare.

With us the damp, the chill, the gloom;
With them the sunset's rosy bloom;

While dark, through willowy vistas seen,
The river rolled in shade between.

From out the darkness where we trod,
We gazed upon those hills of God,

Whose light seemed not of morn or sun;
We spake not, but our thought was one.

We paused, as if from that bright shore
Beckoned our dear ones gone before;

And stilled our beating hearts to hear
The voices lost to mortal ear!

Sudden our pathway turned from night;
The hills swung open to the light;

Through their green gates the sunshine showed,
A long slant splendor downward flowed.

Down glade and glen and bank it rolled;
It bridged the shaded stream with gold;

And, borne on piers of mist, allied
The shadowy with the sunlit side!

"So," prayed we, "when our feet draw near
The river dark with mortal fear,

"And the night cometh, chill with dew,
O Father, let thy light break through!

"So let the hills of doubt divide,
To bridge with faith the sunless tide!

"So let the eyes that fail on earth
On thy eternal hills look forth,

"And in thy beckoning angels know
The dear ones whom we loved below!"

John Greenleaf Whittier.

---

AN OLD MAN'S IDYL.

By the waters of Life we sat together,
Hand in hand, in the golden days
Of the beautiful early summer weather,
When hours were anthems and speech was praise;
When the heart kept time to the carol of birds,
And the birds kept tune to the songs that ran
Through shimmer of flowers on grassy swards,
And trees with voices Æolian.

By the rivers of Life we walked together,
I and my darling, unafraid;
And lighter than any linnet's feather
The burdens of being on us weighed;
And Love's sweet miracles o'er us threw
Mantles of joy outlasting Time;
And up from the rosy morrows grew
A sound that seemed like a marriage-chime.

In the gardens of Life we roamed together;
And the luscious apples were ripe and red,
And the languid lilac and honeyed heather
Swooned with the fragrance which they shed.
And under the trees the Angels walked,
And up in the air a sense of wings
Awed us sacredly while we talked
Softly in tender communings.

In the meadows of life we strayed together,
Watching the waving harvests grow;
And under the benison of the Father
Our hearts like the lambs skipped to and fro.
And the cowslips, hearing our low replies,
Broidered fairer the emerald banks;
And glad tears shone in the daisies' eyes,
And the timid violet glistened thanks.

Who was with us, and what was round us,
Neither myself nor darling guessed;
Only we knew that something crowned us
Out from the heavens with crowns of rest.
Only we knew that something bright
Lingered lovingly where we stood,
Clothed with the incandescent light
Of something higher than humanhood.

O the riches Love doth inherit!
Ah the alchemy which doth change
Dross of body and dregs of spirit
Into sanctities rare and strange!
My flesh is feeble, and dry, and old,
My darling's beautiful hair is gray;
But our elixir and precious gold
Laugh at the footsteps of decay.

Harms of the world have come upon us,
Cups of sorrow we yet shall drain;
But we have a secret which doth show us
Wonderful rainbows through the rain;
And we hear the tread of the years go by,
And the sun is setting behind the hills;
But my darling does not fear to die,
And I am happy in what God wills.

So we sit by our household fires together,
Dreaming the dreams of long ago.
Then it was balmy summer weather,
And now the valleys are laid in snow,
Icicles hang from the slippery eaves,
The wind grows cold,—it is growing late.
Well, well,—we have garnered all our sheaves,
I and my darling,—and we wait.

Richard Realf.

---

BETROTHED ANEW.

The sunlight fills the trembling air,
And balmy days their guerdons bring;
The Earth again is young and fair,
And amorous with musky spring.

The golden nurslings of the May
In splendor strew the spangled green,
And hues of tender beauty play,
Entangled where the willows lean.

Mark how the rippled currents flow;
What lustres on the meadows lie!
And hark! the songsters come and go,
And trill between the earth and sky.

Who told us that the years had fled,
Or borne afar our blissful youth?
Such joys are all about us spread,
We know the whisper was not truth.

The birds that break from grass and grove
Sing every carol that they sung
When first our veins were rich with love,
And May her mantle round us flung.

O fresh-lit dawn! immortal life!
O Earth's betrothal, sweet and true,
With whose delights our souls are rife,
And aye their vernal vows renew!

Then, darling, walk with me this morn,
Let your brown tresses drink its sheen;
These violets, within them worn,
Of floral fays shall make you queen.

What though there comes a time of pain
When autumn winds forebode decay?
The days of love are born again;
That fabled time is far away!

And never seemed the land so fair
As now, nor birds such notes to sing,
Since first within your shining hair
I wove the blossoms of the spring.

Edmund Clarence Stedman.

---

THE LONG-AGO.

Eyes which can but ill define
Shapes that rise about and near,
Through the far horizon's line
Stretch a vision free and clear;
Memories feeble to retrace
Yesterday's immediate flow,
Find a dear familiar face
In each hour of Long-Ago.

Follow yon majestic train
Down the slopes of old renown;
Knightly forms without disdain,
Sainted heads without a frown,
Emperors of thought and hand,
Congregate, a glorious show,
Met from every age and land,
In the plains of Long-Ago.

As the heart of childhood brings
Something of eternal joy
From its own unsounded springs,
Such as life can scarce destroy,
So, remindful of the prime,
Spirits wandering to and fro
Rest upon the resting-time
In the peace of Long-Ago.

Youthful Hope's religious fire,
When it burns no longer, leaves
Ashes of impure desire
On the altars it bereaves;
But the light that fills the past
Sheds a still diviner glow,
Ever farther it is cast
O'er the scenes of Long-Ago.

Many a growth of pain and care,
Cumbering all the present hour,
Yields, when once transplanted there,
Healthy fruit or pleasant flower.
Thoughts that hardly flourish here,
Feelings long have ceased to blow,
Breathe a native atmosphere
In the world of Long-Ago.

On that deep-retiring shore
Frequent pearls of beauty lie,
Where the passion-waves of yore
Fiercely beat and mounted high;
Sorrows that are sorrows still,
Lose the bitter taste of woe;
Nothing's altogether ill
In the griefs of Long-Ago.

Tombs where lonely love repines,
Ghastly tenements of tears,
Wear the look of happy shrines
Through the golden mist of years;
Death, to those who trust in good,
Vindicates his hardest blow;
O, we would not, if we could,
Wake the sleep of Long-Ago!

Though the doom of swift decay
Shocks the soul where life is strong;
Though for frailer hearts the day
Lingers sad and over-long;
Still the weight will find a leaven,
Still the spoiler's hand is slow,
While the future has its Heaven,
And the past its Long-Ago.

Richard Monckton Milnes.

---

THE IVY GREEN.

O, a dainty plant is the ivy green,
That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The walls must be crumbled, the stones decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim;
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.

Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,
And a stanch old heart has he!
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings
To his friend, the huge oak-tree!
And slyly he traileth along the ground,
And his leaves he gently waves,
And he joyously twines and hugs around
The rich mould of dead men's graves.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.

Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed,
And nations have scattered been;
But the stout old ivy shall never fade
From its hale and hearty green.
The brave old plant in its lonely days
Shall fatten upon the past;
For the stateliest building man can raise
Is the ivy's food at last.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.

Charles Dickens.

---

SUMMER LONGINGS.

Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May,—
Waiting for the pleasant rambles
Where the fragrant hawthorn-brambles,
With the woodbine alternating,
Scent the dewy way.
Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May.

Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May,—
Longing to escape from study,
To the young face fair and ruddy,
And the thousand charms belonging
To the summer's day.
Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May.

Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May,—
Sighing for their sure returning,
When the summer beams are burning,
Hopes and flowers that, dead or dying,
All the winter lay.
Ah! my heart is sore with sighing,
Sighing for the May.

Ah! my heart is pained with throbbing,
Throbbing for the May,—
Throbbing for the seaside billows,
Or the water-wooing willows;
Where, in laughing and in sobbing,
Glide the streams away.
Ah! my heart, my heart is throbbing,
Throbbing for the May.

Waiting sad, dejected, weary,
Waiting for the May:
Spring goes by with wasted warnings,—
Moonlit evenings, sunbright mornings,—
Summer comes, yet dark and dreary
Life still ebbs away;
Man is ever weary, weary,
Waiting for the May!

Denis Florence Mac-Carthy.

---

YARROW UNVISITED.

From Stirling castle we had seen
The mazy Forth unravelled;
Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay,
And with the Tweed had travelled;
And when we came to Clovenford,
Then said my "winsome Marrow,"
"Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside,
And see the braes of Yarrow."

"Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,
Who have been buying, selling,
Go back to Yarrow; 'tis their own,—
Each maiden to her dwelling!
On Yarrow's banks let herons feed,
Hares couch, and rabbits burrow!
But we will downward with the Tweed,
Nor turn aside to Yarrow.

"There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs,
Both lying right before us;
And Dryborough, where with chiming Tweed
The lintwhites sing in chorus;
There's pleasant Teviot-dale, a land
Made blithe with plough and harrow:
Why throw away a needful day
To go in search of Yarrow?

"What's Yarrow but a river bare,
That glides the dark hills under?
There are a thousand such elsewhere,
As worthy of your wonder."
Strange words they seemed, of slight and scorn;
My true-love sighed for sorrow,
And looked me in the face, to think
I thus could speak of Yarrow!

"O, green," said I, "are Yarrow's holms,
And sweet is Yarrow flowing!
Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,
But we will leave it growing.
O'er hilly path and open strath
We'll wander Scotland thorough;
But, though so near, we will not turn
Into the dale of Yarrow.

"Let beeves and homebred kine partake
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow;
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!
We will not see them; will not go
To-day, nor yet to-morrow;
Enough, if in our hearts we know
There's such a place as Yarrow.

"Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown!
It must, or we shall rue it:
We have a vision of our own;
Ah! why should we undo it?
The treasured dreams of times long past,
We'll keep them, winsome Marrow!
For when we're there, although 'tis fair,
'Twill be another Yarrow!

"If care with freezing years should come,
And wandering seem but folly,—
Should we be loath to stir from home,
And yet be melancholy,—
Should life be dull, and spirits low,
'Twill soothe us in our sorrow,
That earth has something yet to show,—
The bonny holms of Yarrow!"

William Wordsworth.

---

THE TIGER.

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burned the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thine heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake.

---

A SNOW-STORM.

I.

'Tis a fearful night in the winter time,
As cold as it ever can be;
The roar of the blast is heard like the chime
Of the waves on an angry sea.
The moon is full; but her silver light
The storm dashes out with its wings to-night;
And over the sky from south to north
Not a star is seen, as the wind comes forth
In the strength of a mighty glee.

II.

All day had the snow come down,—all day
As it never came down before;
And over the hills, at sunset, lay
Some two or three feet, or more;
The fence was lost, and the wall of stone;
The windows blocked and the well-curbs gone;
The haystack had grown to a mountain lift,
And the wood-pile looked like a monster drift,
As it lay by the farmer's door.

The night sets in on a world of snow,
While the air grows sharp and chill,
And the warning roar of a fearful blow
Is heard on the distant hill;
And the norther, see! on the mountain peak
In his breath how the old trees writhe and shriek!
He shouts on the plain, ho-ho! ho-ho!
He drives from his nostrils the blinding snow,
And growls with a savage will.

III.

Such a night as this to be found abroad,
In the drifts and the freezing air,
Sits a shivering dog, in the field, by the road,
With the snow in his shaggy hair.
He shuts his eyes to the wind and growls;
He lifts his head, and moans and howls;
Then crouching low, from the cutting sleet,
His nose is pressed on his quivering feet,—
Pray, what does the dog do there?

A farmer came from the village plain,—
But he lost the travelled way;
And for hours he trod with might and main
A path for his horse and sleigh;
But colder still the cold winds blew,
And deeper still the deep drifts grew,
And his mare, a beautiful Morgan brown,
At last in her struggles floundered down,
Where a log in a hollow lay.

In vain, with a neigh and a frenzied snort,
She plunged in the drifting snow,
While her master urged, till his breath grew short,
With a word and a gentle blow;
But the snow was deep, and the tugs were tight;
His hands were numb and had lost their might;
So he wallowed back to his half-filled sleigh,
And strove to shelter himself till day,
With his coat and the buffalo.

IV.

He has given the last faint jerk of the rein,
To rouse up his dying steed;
And the poor dog howls to the blast in vain
For help in his master's need.
For a while he strives with a wistful cry
To catch a glance from his drowsy eye,
And wags his tail if the rude winds flap
The skirt of the buffalo over his lap,
And whines when he takes no heed.

V.

The wind goes down and the storm is o'er,—
'Tis the hour of midnight, past;
The old trees writhe and bend no more
In the whirl of the rushing blast.
The silent moon with her peaceful light
Looks down on the hills with snow all white,
And the giant shadow of Camel's Hump,
The blasted pine and the ghostly stump,
Afar on the plain are cast.

But cold and dead by the hidden log
Are they who came from the town,—
The man in his sleigh, and his faithful dog,
And his beautiful Morgan brown,—
In the wide snow-desert, far and grand,
With his cap on his head and the reins in his hand,—
The dog with his nose on his master's feet,
And the mare half seen through the crusted sleet,
Where she lay when she floundered down.

Charles Gamage Eastman.

---

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south-wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side.
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

William Cullen Bryant.

---

THE SANDS OF DEE.

"O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands of Dee."
The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,
And o'er and o'er the sand,
And round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land:
And never home came she.

"Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair,—
A tress of golden hair,
A drownéd maiden's hair,
Above the nets at sea?
Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes on Dee."

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel crawling foam,
The cruel hungry foam,
To her grave beside the sea.
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home,
Across the sands of Dee.

Charles Kingsley.

---

HYMN TO THE NIGHT.

I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold, soft chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—
From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
Descend with broad-winged flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,
The best-belovéd Night!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

---

NIGHT AND DEATH.

Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath the curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came;
And lo! creation widened in man's view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find,
While fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind?
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife?—
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?

Joseph Blanco White.

---

THE SKYLARK.

Bird of the wilderness,
Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place,—
O, to abide in the desert with thee!
Wild is thy lay and loud
Far in the downy cloud,
Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
Where, on thy dewy wing,
Where art thou journeying?
Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.
O'er fell and fountain sheen,
O'er moor and mountain green,
O'er the red streamer that heralds the day,
Over the cloudlet dim,
Over the rainbow's rim,
Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!
Then, when the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms
Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place,
O, to abide in the desert with thee!

James Hogg.

---

THE EAGLE.

He clasps the crag with hookéd hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Alfred Tennyson.

---

TO THE SKYLARK.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,—
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
Of the setting sun,
O'er which clouds are brightening,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not;

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower;

Like a glow-worm golden,
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view;

Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingéd thieves.

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous and fresh and clear thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine;
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,
Or triumphant chant,
Matched with thine, would be all
But an empty vaunt,—
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee;
Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught:
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever could come near.

Better than all measures
Of delight and sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground.

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

---

TO THOMAS MOORE.

My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea;
But, before I go, Tom Moore,
Here's a double health to thee!

Here's a sigh for those that love me,
And a smile for those who hate;
And, whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate.

Though the ocean roar around me,
Yet it still shall bear me on;
Though a desert should surround me,
It hath springs that may be won.

Were 't the last drop in the well,
As I gasped upon the brink,
Ere my fainting spirit fell
'Tis to thee that I would drink.

With that water, as this wine,
The libation I would pour
Should be,—Peace with thine and mine,
And a health to thee, Tom Moore!

Lord Byron.

---

THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER.

'Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh!

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them;
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o'er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from love's shining circle
The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,
O, who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?

Thomas Moore.

---

A FAREWELL.

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver;
No more by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet, then a river;
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

But here will sigh thine alder-tree,
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
Forever and forever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

Alfred Tennyson.

---

STANZAS.

My life is like the summer rose
That opens to the morning sky,
But, ere the shades of evening close,
Is scattered on the ground—to die!
Yet on the rose's humble bed
The sweetest dews of night are shed,
As if she wept the waste to see,—
But none shall weep a tear for me!

My life is like the autumn leaf
That trembles in the moon's pale ray;
Its hold is frail—its date is brief,
Restless—and soon to pass away!
Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade,
The parent tree will mourn its shade,
The winds bewail the leafless tree,—
But none shall breathe a sigh for me!

My life is like the prints which feet
Have left on Tampa's desert strand;
Soon as the rising tide shall beat,
All trace will vanish from the sand;
Yet, as if grieving to efface
All vestige of the human race,
On that lone shore loud moans the sea,—
But none, alas! shall mourn for me!

Richard Henry Wilde.

---

THE LITTLE YEARS.

These years! these years! these naughty years!
Once they were pretty things:
Their fairy footfalls met our ears,
Our eyes their glancing wings.
They flitted by our school-boy way;
We chased the little imps at play.

We knew them, soon, for tricksy elves:
They brought the college gown,
With thoughtful books filled up our shelves,
Darkened our lips with down,
Played with our throat, and lo! the tone
Of manhood had become our own.

They smiling stretched our childish size;
Their soft hands trimmed our hair;
Cast the deep thought within our eyes,
And left it glowing there;
Sang songs of hope in college halls,
Bright fancies drew upon the walls.

They flashed upon us love's bright gem;
They showed us gleams of fame;
Stout-hearted work we learned from them,
And honor more than name:
And so they came, and went away;
We said not go, we said not stay.

But one sweet day, when quiet skies
And still leaves brought me thought,
When hazy hills drew forth my eyes,
And woods with deep shade fraught,
That day I carelessly found out
What work these elves had been about.

Alas! those little rogues, the years,
Had fooled me many a day,
Plucked half the locks above my ears,
And tinged the rest all gray.
They'd left me wrinkles great and small.
I fear that they have tricked us all.

Well,—give the little years their way;
Think, speak, and act the while;
Lift up the bare front to the day,
And make their wrinkles smile.
They mould the noblest living head;
They carve the best tomb for the dead.

Robert T. S. Lowell.

---

THE AGE OF WISDOM.

Ho! pretty page with the dimpled chin,
That never has known the barber's shear,
All your wish is woman to win;
This is the way that boys begin,—
Wait till you come to forty year.

Curly gold locks cover foolish brains;
Billing and cooing is all your cheer,—
Sighing, and singing of midnight strains,
Under Bonnybell's window-panes,—
Wait till you come to forty year.

Forty times over let Michaelmas pass;
Grizzling hair the brain doth clear;
Then you know a boy is an ass,
Then you know the worth of a lass,—
Once you have come to forty year.

Pledge me round; I bid ye declare,
All good fellows whose beards are gray,—
Did not the fairest of the fair
Common grow and wearisome ere
Ever a month was passed away?

The reddest lips that ever have kissed,
The brightest eyes that ever have shone,
May pray and whisper and we not list,
Or look away and never be missed,—
Ere yet ever a month is gone.

Gillian's dead! God rest her bier,—
How I loved her twenty years syne!
Marian's married; but I sit here,
Alone and merry at forty year,
Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine.

William Makepeace Thackeray.

---

THE LAST LEAF.

I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door;
And again
The pavement-stones resound
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.

They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the crier on his round
Through the town.

But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan;
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
"They are gone."

The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has pressed
In their bloom;
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said—
Poor old lady! she is dead
Long ago—
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow.

But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff;
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.

I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here,
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches,—and all that,
Are so queer!

And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

---

THE LOST LEADER.

Just for a handful of silver he left us:
Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat,—
Found the one gift of which Fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote.
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags,—were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us,—they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering,—not through his presence;
Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre:
Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.
Blot out his name then,—record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more triumph for devils, and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life's night begins; let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain;
Forced praise on our part,—the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad, confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him,—strike gallantly,
Aim at our heart, ere we pierce through his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

Robert Browning.

---

TOO LATE.