You that bring to a brighter birth
Dust and earth,
Rapt to glory on your wings,
All transfigured in the white
Living light
Shed from out the soul of things;
Heralds of the soul of things,
You whose wings
Carry heaven through every glade;
Thus transfigured from the petals
Death unsettles,
Little souls of leaf and blade;
You that mimic bud and blade,
Light and shade;
Tinted souls of leaf and stone,
Flower and sunny bank of sand,
Fairyland
Calls her children to their own; Calls them back into their own
Great unknown;
Where the harmonies they cull
On their wings are made complete
As they beat
Through the Gate called Beautiful.
SONG OF THE WOODEN-LEGGED FIDDLER
(PORTSMOUTH 1805)
I lived in a cottage adown in the West
When I was a boy, a boy;
But I knew no peace and I took no rest
Though the roses nigh smothered my snug little nest;
For the smell of the sea
Was much rarer to me,
And the life of a sailor was all my joy.
Chorus.—The life of a sailor was all my joy!
My mother she wept, and she begged me to stay
Anchored for life to her apron-string,
And soon she would want me to help with the hay;
So I bided her time, then I flitted away
On a night of delight in the following spring,
With a pair of stout shoon
And a seafaring tune
And a bundle and stick in the light of the moon,
Down the long road
To Portsmouth I strode,
To fight like a sailor for country and king.
Chorus.—To fight like a sailor for country and king.